Chapter Four
For one split second, David was afraid he’d overstepped the mark. Jason’s face… froze.
Then the shadow passed, and his expression became more neutral.
“Yeah, I think we know each other well by now enough for me to share a little more.” He took a long drink of wine before speaking.
“Travis was sixteen when he ran away from home. At first we had no clue as to why. I thought he was a happy kid. Seems I didn’t know everything.
” His face tightened, and David fought the urge to reach for Jason’s hand.
“I’m pretty sure every parent in the land has had that particular thought at one time or another,” David suggested softly. “Did you ever find out why?”
Jason nodded. “He got in with a bad crowd at school, which in turn led to him taking drugs. We only found this out when we finally got him home.”
“But he did come home, right? Surely that’s what matters.” David was doing his best to be positive. When Jason didn’t respond, he knew there was more to come, but he sat it out, waiting for Jason to talk.
“It seems the reason he started taking drugs was a means to escape what was going on in his own home.” Jason swallowed.
“We—my wife and me—we were arguing all the time, sniping at each other. Of course, the more he took, the more the drugs did his thinking for him, and when he’d finally had enough of the constant rows, he… ” Jason took a drink of wine.
“You don’t have to tell me,” David said quietly. “Not if it hurts to talk about it.” Inwardly he was cursing himself. He’d taken a fantastic day and ruined it with one ill-timed question.
“It’s okay, really,” Jason protested. “It’s just that I haven’t spoken of this to anyone.
Anyway, he was gone three months. We had the police looking for him, posters printed and stuck around the neighborhood…
When we got a call from the police to say he’d been arrested for begging and stealing, we were so relieved he was still alive, I think we’d have forgiven him for just about anything by that point. ”
David could understand that.
“So when we got him home, and he finally let it all spill out of him, how unhappy he’d been, how much the atmosphere at home was hurting him, that was when I realized things had to change, and everything was my fault.
I was unhappy and taking it out on my wife, and in turn I was hurting both of them.
It was in everyone’s best interests for me to end that situation there and then, so…
I moved out and started divorce proceedings.
” He shivered. “They were better off without me.”
“Divorce?” To David’s ears, it sounded kind of drastic.
Jason leaned back on the seat cushion and closed his eyes.
“She didn’t protest, especially when I told her honestly…
that I should never have married her in the first place.
” He shook his head. “It didn’t matter if that was what I really felt.
I shouldn’t have said it, shouldn’t have taken it out on her.
So I moved out, and when the divorce was finally a done deal, she got the house and I got the business.
Travis lived with his mom until he went to college.
He’s studying for his master’s here in New York.
I don’t get to see him as much as I’d like, but what can I do? I take what I can get.”
David’s heart went out to him. He could hear the pain in Jason’s voice, in every word that tumbled from his lips.
Jason suddenly opened his eyes, leaned forward and emptied the rest of the wine into their glasses. He rose and went into the kitchen, returning with another bottle, already opened. “The way this day is going, I’m going to need this, and if I’m drinking, then so are you.”
It was on the tip of David’s tongue. There’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there? Whatever it was, Jason plainly felt he needed liquid courage to bring it out into the open. David wasn’t about to stop him. He had a feeling this day had been a long time coming.
Jason settled back on the couch, glass in hand.
“Where were we? Oh yes—I’d moved out, we were divorced, they got on with their lives and I got on with mine.
” He snorted. “Only, I didn’t. I changed my life, sure.
I worked hard to build up the business. I started volunteering at the shelter.
But that wasn’t living, that was… avoidance.
That was me being too fucking scared of making a move. ” His voice rose, cracking slightly.
David couldn’t let him go on like this. “Do… do you want me to go?”
Jason opened his eyes wide. “Why would you do a thing like that?”
“Because maybe if I left, you’d be less stressed out.”
Jason took a deep breath. When he was calmer, he took a drink of wine, just a few sips this time. “Believe it or not, you’re probably the one person I know who can understand what I’m going through.”
David wasn’t too sure of that.
Jason kicked off his shoes and pulled his long legs up onto the couch, bent at the knee.
“Do you want to know the reason why I was so unhappy in my marriage? Do you? It was because as time went on, I grew more and more conscious of the fact that I was living a lie. Because I’d always had this idea, lurking in the back of my mind, that I might be… gay.”
Okay. That came right out of left field. David tried his damnedest not to react, but hell… He took a mouthful of wine and went for the practical approach. “Okay, tell me why you thought that. Because lots of guys go through a phase of thinking they might be, but in a lot of cases, it—”
“Giving and receiving blow jobs while I was in high school was a pretty big red flag,” Jason said bluntly. “Not to mention the fact that it was always the guys that made me look twice.”
David stared at him. “Yeah, that does kinda sound like you’re gay. But you still got married.” His mind was still reeling from those four little words: I might be gay.
“Yes.” Jason gave a tiny shrug. “I figured I’d just forget it.
” He forced out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, that’s right.
I thought I could take all those emotions, throw them back in that goddamn closet and lock the door.
I didn’t want to be gay. I’d seen the lives of some of my friends who’d come out at high school.
Why in hell would I want to subject myself to that sort of misery? Surely it was easier to be straight.”
“But it wasn’t, was it?” David couldn’t imagine trying to live as a straight man, to deny who he really was, but then, he’d never been in the position where he’d had to do that.
“Hell, no.” Jason shuddered. “I tried. God help me, I really tried. But those feelings wouldn’t stay locked up, much as I wanted them to.
And when I finally told my wife what was really going on, she…
. She was very bitter. I knew it was over when she told me I was right, I should never have married her. ”
There had to be something David was missing.
“But… you came out, right? You started a new life. What happened?”
“Yeah, sure, I came out,” Jason agreed. “But a whole lot of shit came out with me. Guilt, for one thing. And that doesn’t go away so easily.
” He stared morosely into his wine for a moment, and then abruptly raised his head to look David in the eye.
“Okay, so now you know. I’m gay. And you know what else?
I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to discuss this anymore.
So the pair of us are going to finish this bottle, watch the recording of the parade, then maybe find some football to watch after that, until we’re both feeling comfortably numb.
” His eyes lit up. “Hey. We’ve got pumpkin pie!
I’d almost forgotten.” He lurched to his feet and left the room.
David stared after him, his heart heavy. He didn’t believe for one second that they’d gotten anywhere close to exactly what was troubling Jason, but he had a feeling that coming out to David had been a huge step. And that’s probably a big enough step for one night.
Jason came back into the room, carrying two plates. “Dessert time. No more deep conversations allowed for the rest of the night. You got that?” He focused on David’s face.
“I got it.” David was already feeling numb, either as a consequence of the wine or the realization that he’d caused this.
The least he could do would be to shut his big mouth for what was left of Thanksgiving.
“Okay, parade first, then bring on the sports,” he announced with more enthusiasm than he felt.
Jason nodded and reached for the TV remote. “Yeah, because watching men in tight pants—what’s not to love?”
Funnily enough, David usually felt the same way, but right then his heart wasn’t in it.
* * * * * *
Getting out of bed the day after Thanksgiving was wrong. Just plain wrong.
Okay, David didn’t usually mind it so much, but that morning he’d awoken with an aching head, the result of drinking way too much alcohol the previous night.
His tongue felt like a suede tie, a thousand hammers were at work inside his skull, and he craved caffeine.
After sluggishly pulling on his jeans, a sweater and his jacket, he shoved his socked feet into his boots and crawled out of his apartment and along the street toward the coffee shop.
Apart from the sculptors feverishly carving out a new Mount Rushmore inside his skull, he couldn’t stop thinking about Jason.
The wine had only been the start. Once that had finished, Jason had suggested a small glass of whiskey while they watched the football.
David had been fine with that, only Jason’s idea of a small glass had nothing in common with David’s.
Four fingers of whiskey and some exuberant commentating on the tight derrieres of football players later, David had called it a night.
Thank God they were neighbors—David hadn’t that far to stumble until he reached the blessed welcome of his bed.