I stop talking. The silence between us stretches.
“And?” he says.
“I was standing right there. Right next to the wheelchair. Holding a bag of candy. Jim looked directly at me. He saw me. And then he looked back at Mickey and they kept talking. Mickey never once said my name or acknowledged me.”
Dante doesn’t move. But his eyes go hard. I’ve seen that look exactly three times in seven years and it’s never ended well for the person who caused it.
“Earlier at his parents’ house,” Dante says slowly. “He introduced you as his boyfriend to his mother.”
“Yes.”
“And the same day, in public, in front of a neighbor, he didn’t introduce you.”
“No, he didn’t acknowledge me at all. I was standing right there beside him holding the handle of the wheelchair.”
Dante goes still. His hands fold together on the table. I’ve learned the hand folding is the Dante version of loading a weapon.
“Private is easy, Benji,” he says. “Public is the test.”
“Maybe he forgot,” I say. “The conversation moved fast. Jim surprised him. It’s not like he planned to run into someone.”
“Benji, stop defending him. You’re pretending this didn’t hurt and I’m not going to watch you build him an excuse he didn’t earn. He didn’t forget. He’s a cop. He clocked every person who walked into that store and he knew exactly who was standing behind his chair and he chose not to say your name. That’s not an oversight. That’s a decision he made.”
“It was only one time,” I say.
“Was it? Because your face is saying it wasn’t.”
“No,” I say quietly. “Maybe it wasn’t only one time.”
“Tell me.”
“It was at the bar. I was sitting on the stool next to Mickey arguing with Sheila about the lighting. A regular came in. He said hello to Mickey, the whole glad you’re back thing. And out of the corner of my eye, I watched Mickey move his hand off the bar top. It had been next to mine all morning.Close. Almost touching. The second the man looked at us, Mickey’s hand moved to his armrest. Quick. Like a reflex.”
“Did he put it back?”
“Later he squeezed my hand and quickly let go. When we’re alone or around Tex and Stormy, he holds my hand tight like letting go hurts. In the bar, everything gets more distant. Less touching. Less looking. In private, he’s all the way in. Hands, mouth, words, everything. He told me I’m in every version of his future life. He asked me to stay in Panama City. And then when we’re downstairs, something pulls him back. It’s not cold. Or cruel. Just less open.”
Dante leans back on the couch and lets out a long sigh. “I’m going to say something and you’re not going to like it.”
“When has that ever stopped you?”
“You need to talk to him before this goes on any longer. You need to tell him what you told me. About what you saw him do at the bar and the candy store. All of it. Because here’s what I know about you. You don’t fight back. You absorb. You take the hit and you smile through it. You adjust the flowers and you make everything around you perfect and you never once say this is hurting me. You never say it because your father taught you that saying it doesn’t change anything. Your mother taught you to make things beautiful no matter what, and somewhere between those two lessons you decided that being hurt in silence is better than being hurt out loud.”
My eyes are burning.
“Silence is how you lose people,” Dante says. His voice is gentler now, the edge is gone and what’s left is the friend who always catches me. “Silence is how the inch becomes a mile. Ifyou don’t tell him, he won’t know. And if he doesn’t know, he’ll keep doing it. And if he keeps doing it, you’ll leave him. Not all at once. Gradually. How you leave every man who makes you smaller. You’ll start pulling away in pieces so small he won’t see them until you’re already out the door.”
“I’m not leaving him.”
“Not yet. But you’re hurt. He put it there and you’re aware of it. You need to handle this now while you still can.”
I set the pad Thai on the coffee table. I pull my knees up and wrap my arms around them. Dante reaches over and puts his hand on my shoulder. His hand is always there. Seven years of this. Me on the couch, Dante beside me, his hand on my shoulder while I figure out how to say what I’m afraid to say.
“Am I too much for him, Dante? Be honest with me.”
“No, not the way you’re thinking,” he says.
“I don’t want to be the person who gives him an ultimatum,” I say. “He’s in a wheelchair. He got shot protecting me. He lost his legs because he jumped in front of a bullet that was headed for me. How do I look at him and say you’re hurting me by not saying my name?”
