3
CHARLIE
Ten and a half years ago…
Is it dramatic to say that every mile Dad puts between us and the tree-lined lane that leads away from the house I’ve called home for the last four years is literally breaking my heart? Probably, but I really couldn’t care less.
From the first day we met, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve gone more than twenty-four hours without seeing Myles. Now, I’ll be lucky if I get to see my best friend once a month.
Not just your best friend, that familiar, brutally honest voice in my head that I just can’t seem to get to shut up whispers. The love of your life.
See? Dramatic, just like I said. But what else can I expect, given the fact that, if it wasn’t for that teeny tiny issue with how I trip over my own feet and break out in a sweat at just the thought of standing up in front of a dozen kids for a class presentation, I’d be devoting myself to a future on Broadway?
Cyril lets out another yowling meow from his carrier in the backseat beside me.
His reasons may be different, but at the moment, he’s just as miserable as I am.
At least he’s easily distracted from his problems though, because when I stick my fingers through the bars of the carrier door, he instantly starts purring, rubbing the side of his cheek against as much of my hand as he can make contact with.
My hand that, if I really concentrate, I can imagine can still feel the warm, bony outline of Myles’s shoulder blade under his t-shirt when I’d hugged him goodbye.
If it hadn’t been for that hug, I’d be freaking out more than a little right now.
Not once in the years I’ve known him have things been the way they were between Myles and me this morning when he’d come to say goodbye.
For the first time ever, things had been awkward between us.
And not just a little. Full blown, clammy hands, can’t make eye contact, can’t think of what to say kind of awkward.
And I’d spent the whole ten minutes he’d stayed holding back panic over why that was.
Even though we’d agreed yesterday that Myles was coming over at nine, I’d already been at my window, watching the break in the forest that marked the trail that led between our houses when, at just past eight forty, I’d seen his tall, thin figure step out from between the trees.
It’s been a good two years since I’ve given up wishing away the almost painful thrill of adrenaline that shivers through me every time I see his close-cropped brown curls and square-jawed, sun-tanned face, but the free-falling, hollow ache in the pit of my stomach I felt this morning was new.
New, and it sucked. So totally and completely that, for a moment, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it through seeing him without giving away the secret I’ve spent nearly our entire friendship trying to keep from him.
When he’d looked up to see me standing at my window, Myles had lifted his lips in a smile so fake and stiff, I barely recognized it. I’d had to turn away and breathe in deep, slow breaths, just to be able to pull myself together enough to run down the stairs to let him in.
Never, no matter how crappy things were for him at home or how heavily his dad’s expectations hung on him, had Myles not actually smiled at me before.
Even with that weird, fake smile he’d given me, I’d been so sure he was going to stay until my parents and I left the house.
I’d needed him to stay. Those hours were the last I was going to have with him until my parents were able to drive me back across the ferry and back to Riverside to see him again, which they’d promised about a thousand times they’d do as often as they could.
No one had even mentioned the possibility of Myles’s dad doing any of that. There wasn’t any point.
From the moment I’d opened the door though, Myles had been quiet.
Even quieter than usual, and there’d been something strained and uncomfortable in that silence.
It was when I’d realized that he wouldn’t even look at me properly—just these little flicks of his eyes in my direction and then away again—that I’d really started to panic, certain that somehow, he’d finally guessed my biggest secret. The only secret I’ve ever had from him.
That I am, and always have been, totally in love with him.
He could only stay a few minutes he’d said, and my heart had sunk right down to my toes at the same moment as my pulse spiked; a sick, terrified sort of leap that had sweat breaking out across my palms. It made me decide then and there not to give him the present I’d tucked under my coat on the chair in the living room by the front door.
What I’d written inside was too much. Too obvious.
We’d stumble through a few agonizing minutes like that before, out of nowhere, he’d grabbed me and pulled me into that hug.
It was hard and fierce and so tight that his long, wiry arms around me had almost hurt.
And I swear he’d been shaking when I’d squeezed him back.
Like his breathing was every bit as ragged and close to breaking as mine.
For one second that set my stomach and heart flipping in such crazy cartwheels, I couldn’t tell which way was up or down or what was even real anymore, he’d ducked down and buried his face against my neck.
Time stretched out so that I could feel the slow-motion exhale of his breath against my skin, could make out the brush and soft tickle of each of his curls against the side of my cheek.
One long, drawn out beat of my heart that felt like it had suddenly doubled in size as it leapt and thrilled in my chest, and then he’d let go.
Pushed away. Turned his back so fast, I’d never gotten a look at his face.
Next moment, he was striding out, slamming the door behind him and taking away all his warmth and foresty, slightly sweaty Myles smell with him before I’d even had a chance to process the fact that he was gone.
The emptiness of that moment has been playing out over and over with every breath I’ve taken since. Weighing me down as I coaxed Cyril into his carrier and loaded him into the car. Aching in my throat and prickling the corners of my eyes as we pulled out onto the highway.
Five minutes down the road, and I can’t take another second.
“Turn around.” My voice cracks on the words, and both Mom and Dad jump at the way I pretty much shouted at them, but I don’t care. “I didn’t give Myles his present.”
The look Mom casts me over her shoulder before nodding to Dad is heavy with sympathy.
And I don’t even have to glance at Dad’s reflection in the rearview mirror to know he’s already scanning for a spot to turn around.
The two of them haven’t made a secret of the fact that they’re worried about how hard leaving Riverside—leaving Myles—is on me.
I haven’t exactly come out to them, but, given the fact that I’m every sort of cliché gay boy, from my love of musicals and all-things sparkly to the slight lisp that I seriously don’t try to put on, I don’t think I really need to.
It’s not like I’m worried what they’ll think if I actually tell them—I have an older cousin who’s been out for a few years now, and of course they were amazing about it.
The thing that’s kept me from saying anything is that I don’t think I can bring myself to say out loud, even to them, how I feel about Myles.
Because if I did actually come out and tell them I’m gay, I know the first thing they’d ask would be about my feelings for him. I’ve caught enough curious looks from them over the years as they’ve watched the two of us to know they’ve wondered.
Right now though, I really couldn’t care less what they guess or even what they ask me. All I know is that I have to give Myles his gift before I leave. That, and see him one last time.
That hollow ache in my stomach throbs worse than ever at those words. One last time. But it won’t be—not really. We’ve promised each other that I’ll come see him as often as I can. We’ll talk on the phone—all the time. It’s not like me leaving Riverside is going to be the end of our friendship.
And much as I know that our friendship is all he can ever want from me, at least I also know that Myles can’t live without it any more than I can.
Seven agonizingly long minutes later, Dad slows the car to a crawl as the tires crunch and bounce over the rough, potholey surface of Myles’s driveway.
It takes us a full minute of bumping and zigzagging to avoid the worst of the ruts and holes before Myles’s house comes into view, and the moment it does, a sick, guilty kick of worry rocks me, because maybe this was a terrible idea.
The trail he’d worn between his house and the property we’d rented meant Myles could get to my house in less than a five-minute walk, but never once in our four years of friendship have I been here.
He’d never actually told me I couldn’t come to his house, but I’d always known he didn’t want me to, even when his dad wasn’t home.
Somehow, though I’d wondered what the reason was, I’d always known it wasn’t anything to do with me.
There’s stuff piled everywhere in the yard. Car parts, heaps of mismatched lumber, rusted metal mixed up with faucets and hoses and who knows what else. A mini-junkyard’s worth of randomness.
The house itself is a worn-looking two story that could be beautiful with a fresh coat of paint, except the front porch is every bit as bad as the scrap-strewn yard.
It’s piled with broken looking appliances and boxes in every stage of coming apart so their contents of more broken household items seems to be falling out of them in slow motion.
In one of the windows, there’s a curtain rod sagging at an angle that makes it look like it’s about to fall at any moment.
And now I understand why Myles never wanted me here. Unlike me, Myles definitely isn’t what anyone would call fussy, but he’s organized. Purposeful. Nothing like this place.