Chapter Seven #2
“Kinda like that. It’s a hard time, but me, Macy, and the kids, we’ll get through it. We’ve done some family therapy sessions since our separation and my coming out. Husbands don’t come out every day, but couples do get divorced pretty regularly. I’m trying not to hurt my family.”
“Like you hurt me all those years ago,” I said. Then I wished I could take it back. True, there was an elephant in the room about the way he ended things with me, but this wasn’t the time. Brent was going through his own hurt. No need to conflate our issues.
“I’m a different man now. I have wanted to say the words ‘I’m sorry’ to you for so long. Just didn’t imagine it would happen today, of all days, with this Black Alumni event.”
“No apology needed, Brent.”
He squeezed my hand and gave me a closed mouth smile.
“No, let me get this off my chest right now. In case we never see each other again. I apologize for just disappearing from your life and for calling you desperate and disgusting. Obviously, I left Missouri when Macy got pregnant and wanted to keep the baby. Her dad insisted she stay in California and I move there so we could get married. He also thought I was going to make the NBA one day, and I’d be their gravy train.
You remember I’ve never had a real family, so the prospect of having my own was inviting.
To someone like me in my early twenties and having been in foster care most of my life, it offered me some stability. ”
I took in what Brent said. Hard as it was to accept or believe, his choices suited him well.
“I get it, I guess. I mean, we’ve both gone on with our lives, obviously. It was the ‘desperate and disgusting’ part that always sat in my head. Because I’m far from—” I stopped, as my bad and broken relationships over the years flashed through my mind.
“You’re not desperate or disgusting,” Brent said.
“I was out of pocket texting you that, and I apologize. I look back at my life then, and I don’t want to blame it solely on homophobia, because I made a choice to suppress who I was, but I low-key hated myself and the life I’d resigned myself to.
That text was really about me, and not you.
I’ve always wanted to tell you that. I’m glad I finally got a chance to. ”
“I accept that,” I said. “I may not forget, but I can accept that. I may rehash it again. I don’t know.”
“As long as you’re ever in my orbit, I’ll never stop apologizing to you and wanting to make up for ghosting you for all these years. I knew we had a plan, a time frame, and I didn’t follow it. I was a shitty-ass YN back then for doing that. I don’t even know why you liked me.”
“Because I just liked you, Brent. Who can explain chemistry and why we like who we like? But that’s all ancient history, like them George W. Bush days when we were in college. Except I’m the child who got left behind. I’ll stop the pity party.”
“I think you’ve made your point. Thank you. Now, can we change the subject real quick? Back to tonight’s Black Alumni dinner. I knew you were going places, Lar…Renny. I just never knew all you accomplished with your life until hearing about it tonight.”
“You never googled me? Peeped at my socials? Over the years?”
“Did you ?”
I had, every now and then. But I wasn’t going to let Brent know that.
Besides, it was always random. Whenever something reminded me of him or I had a fleeting “I wonder what B.D. is doing these days” moment and put his name in a search engine.
Or after watching a basketball game. Sometimes, I’d see his name in one of the alumni newsletters or online groups.
I knew he’d married our mutual classmate Macy, raised a family with her, was living in the Bay Area, and had a career leading a college athletics division.
I’d peep around now and then more for general knowledge, but not for anything tied to emotion or feeling.
I’d closed the Missouri years and being Brent’s guy decades ago. Or so I thought, up until that day.
“Never mind,” Brent said. “I know the answer by you not having an answer.”
“You don’t know anything, Brent.”
He squeezed my hand yet again.
“You look good, Larenz. I mean, damn, you look really good.”
I smiled inside, hoping I wasn’t blushing on the outside, because I had to show some resistance and restraint.
After all, compliments and kind words had become a quick and easy way to get me on all fours or kneeling between a man’s thighs—validation seeking dot com.
But spinning the block sexually or romantically with Brent?
Not a chance in hell. Too much time had passed.
Some quick small talk and clearing the air was all we needed.
“Thanks,” I said. “I have to admit, when I saw you staring at me from a distance, I thought you looked good, too. Like a grown-up version of you. Time has done you well, Brent. But please stop with the compliments.”
“I’ll stop.”
“Because it makes me uncomfortable. We’re not—”
“Look, Lar—Renny, the way my life is now, I’m nowhere close to trying to get back or with you. Or anyone else, for that matter.”
Oh no, he was not preemptively rejecting me, I thought. Not rejecting Renny Ross. So I said, “Good to know we have boundaries.”
He breathed in a beat before speaking.
“Recently, since I’ve been in therapy, I’ve been thinking about how I…what’s the term they use today, F-A-F-O, where you’re concerned.”
“Fucked around and found out,” I said. “Fumbled the bag like everyone did Kamala Harris when we all knew she was the best thing this country had in the election that year.”
“So I know F-A-F-O’d you, I admit,” he said. “And you were probably the best thing I had going back in college. But here we are. And I’m glad. Being back on campus again is bringing back a lot of memories.”
“Same.”
“I’ve dreamed of this day a lot recently. Again, I owe you the biggest apology ever.”
“Brent, please, you don’t have to keep saying you’re sorry, okay? I said I’m fine.”
Brent picked up my hand, pulled it to his mouth, and planted a dry kiss on it.
“That was no way to deal with my internalized homophobia back then or for feeling angry at myself for not being man enough to deal with what I tried to deny about myself, or for feeling resentful because of the choices I made.”
“It hurt. It sucked. I got over it and moved on. That was more than twenty years ago. I don’t know why we need to talk about that now.”
“Doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt any less,” he said. “If we—meaning I—don’t deal with our issues, we’re bound to repeat them and hurt those around us because of the work we need to do on ourselves.”
“Sounds like therapy’s been good to you.”
“Radical honesty. I take responsibility for how my actions had to make you feel. Then and now. That was foul, unsportsmanlike, and wrong. I apologize, Renny. You don’t have to accept or say anything.”
All this rehashing twenty years ago and college life memories with Brent was starting to tire me out.
After a beat, I said, “Thanks. Now can we talk about something else in whatever remaining time we have together here?”
A waiter came over and asked if I wanted a refresh on my margarita and if Brent wanted to order something.
They’d be closing up soon and wanted to finalize all food and drink orders.
Brent declined both. He still held my hand in his.
Made me wonder why and how he was so chill about holding another man’s hand in public, in the middle of Missouri of all places.
“And I’m sorry if I keep saying it, Larenz, but you look so good. Damn.” He sucked air in between his teeth and smacked his lips.
“I appreciate that, Brent. You look good, too. We don’t have to keep saying it.” I blushed.
“I’m not saying it in a ‘I’m trying to fuck you again’ kinda way or anything, because that’s not what I’m trying to do. Looks like life is treating you well. That makes me happy.”
I chuckled. “I’m such a mess,” I said, lowering my shoulders and letting my guard down, as I thought about my canceled book contract, losing my university job, Antoine sitting in my condo collecting dust, maxed-out credit cards, and unpaid tax bills I needed to figure out how to pay.
With my empty hand, I grabbed the margarita I’d ordered and held it up, “Cheers. We wear the mask.”
“I remember you introduced me to that poem,” he said. “Paul Laurence Dunbar, right?”
“Right.”
“Thank you.”
Ever the gentle giant, now and then.