I’m struggling to keep my thoughts from drifting back into the tug of war of nerves and completely distracting fantasies sufficiently to be able to stay functional enough to make sure we really are on the same page (at least in the short term) when I push through the door. Only belatedly do I wonder if I should knock, which might have been weird, considering it’s my apartment, so maybe it’s best I—
There’s no sign of him.
A few lights are on, the heater’s humming softly in the background, but the space is empty. And because I’m me, my first thought is naturally dismal. He’s left after all. Realized there’s no way in hell someone like him should give a second though to someone like me when he could have any man he wants with just a twitch of that damn one-dimpled smile of his. He’s changed his mind, plain and simple.
So much for optimism, apparently…
And then I catch sight of a folded piece of paper resting on my surprisingly clear looking counter. The wordSunshineis scrawled across it in handwriting so perky and smooth andTristanthat I can’t help thinking I’d know it was his even if that weren’t the only possibility.
Just reading that word in Tristan’s half-cursive script is enough to send a warm flicker of excitement through my chest. And not just because I’m guessing he wouldn’t call me that if the note were about how he’s come to his senses and won’t be coming back.
Goddammit, Alex is right. There’s something about this man that’s gone straight to my heart.
The quick once-over my eyes can’t help making of the note as I unfold it gives me enough to calm my stubbornly persistent pessimistic thoughts so that I can slow down and actually read what he’s said.
For such a short note, the grin it sends spreading across my face is probably ridiculous, and yet, I can’t help it. Like the idiot I am, I brush my finger over the pair of x’s, not even trying to dampen down the absurd delight I’m feeling or the slightly nervous rush of heated anticipation that pulls tight in mymiddle at his reminder of our morning in my bed.
IfI want to pick back up with him where we left off is definitely not the question. But am I ready?
In the light of day, after talking with Alex and my attempt at thinking things through on my walks to and from his house, I’ve somewhat come to terms with the fact that a majority of my reluctance to jump into anything physical with Tristan has less to do with my (still very real) need to be sure that he’ll be open about communicating his needs and boundaries, and more to do with my own complicated feelings about what it would mean for me to start something new with someone.
Since Stephen died, without anyone to make me want to break out of my reluctance to try a new relationship, I haven’t felt any motivation to do anything about it.
Hadn’tfelt.
Because, in one short week, Tristan’s changed everything.
Motivation is now decidedly not the problem.
Apprehension and a panicked impulse to protect myself from heartbreak? Most definitely.
Guilt? In overwhelming measure. Worse than I’d ever imagined it would be.
Because I can’t hide from the glaring reality that I’ve never wanted anyone as badly as I want Tristan. And, probably the worst contributor to the sick knot in my stomach, I can’t deny to myself that that includes Stephen.
Alex and Stephen were roommates the year the three of us were freshman. I met Alex in a psych class where the two of us were assigned to be partners on a project, and he introduced me to Stephen.
For the rest of that year and the next, the three of us were inseparable. In a completely platonic way. At least, I thoughtso.
Alex was straight, there was no question about that, and, though Stephen and I were both out and unattached, I never thought about him any differently than I did about Alex. At least not until the night at the end of our sophomore year that Alex talked us both into sneaking up onto the roof of our dorm building and getting obscenely drunk.
My memories of that night are extremely fuzzy. One thing I do vividly recall is, around midnight, Alex, wrapped in not one but two of the three blankets we’d carried up to the rooftop, stumbling off toward the door to the maintenance stairs togo get some sleep. That and the way he’d shot us a grinning thumbs up just before letting the door fall shut, leaving Stephen and me alone under the starry May sky.
As far as I remember, nothing more than some fumbling, sloppy kisses happened that night. The next morning, after I was able to get my head to stop spinning long enough to string two semi-coherent thoughts together, I was ready to chalk those kisses up as the result of the quarter of a bottle of rum each of us had consumed and hopefully laugh the whole thing off. The look on Stephen’s face though when I’d literally crashed into him later that afternoon on my way out of my dorm room made it instantly clear that laughing the event off was most definitely not an option.
He had these enormous brown eyes that always seemed to announce exactly what he was thinking, and when he looked up at me, there’d been no way not to tell that, whether it had started out as the result of too much cheap rum or not, whatever had happened between us the night before hadnotjust been some drunk one-off for him.
I feel like an absolute asshole for admitting it, even in myown head, but it was far more the fact that no one had ever looked at me like that—with all that nervous hope and cautious excitement—than any true feelings I had for him that made me lean in and kiss him there in that dingy hallway. That and the fact that I just absolutely could not stand to disappoint him.
He was Stephen though. He was my best friend, and that made everything so comfortable and sweet and easy that it didn’t matter that things between us always felt like just that to me. Comfortable and sweet and easy.
The familiar surge of guilt rises in my chest, strong and strangling and, for a moment, nearly unbearable. Because if I had only just done what I should have and told him from the beginning that he deserved someone who returned his feelings fully, wouldn’t he still be alive today? If I’d just had the courage to tell him that we weren’t right together, no matter how much it hurt us both, he would never have been in the car with me that night.
I never could though, because I was too selfish. And Ididlove him. I loved him so much that, for four years, it had made up for the fact that I think I always knew I was neverin lovewith him. Made up for it enough that together, we’d laid out plans. A future and a family that I knew I wanted and could gladly share with him.
When I lost him, I never thought I could want those things again.
Now though?
