Chapter 7 #2
She lets go of one of my hands and waves hers a little.
“Doesn’t matter. I could tell something was wrong; we both knew something was wrong, and we ignored it. We tried to think of it as something else,” she mumbles.
“I still…I don’t know what it is,” I admit in a whisper.
“I think you do,” she replies. “You’re just scared to admit it.”
I sniff and swallow hard again. “Maybe.”
It’s quiet for a long moment. “I’m so sorry, Lena,” I tell her again. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
“I know,” she replies.
“I kind of wish you were yelling at me,” I admit. “Telling me how terrible I am. That I should go to hell.”
She snorts. “Sweetheart, I’ve had exes do way worse than break up with me because they realized they’re not into women.
There’s a part of me that wants to storm out of here and bitch to every single girlfriend I’ve got about every little thing about you that ever bothered me, but…
” She shakes her head. “Five months with you, and you were the best boyfriend I’ve ever had.
At least…mentally and emotionally. You always support me, cheer me up, watch my favorite cheesy movies, and cook me dinner.
You understand when I have to disappear for seventy-two hours to study, and you never complained when I fell asleep when we hung out after that seventy-two hours. ” She smiles, but it’s bittersweet.
“Lena, I think those are just things a good partner does,” I tell her, and rub at my neck with my free hand.
“Exactly. Okay, you weren’t completely honest with yourself, and therefore me, but…strange sexual tension aside, we were a pretty good couple.”
I smile softly. There are still tears in my eyes, and my chest hurts.
“I guess we were,” I agree. “You know, you haven’t lost me. I’m still here. We can still watch your favorite movies, and I’ll still cook you dinner.”
Lena lets go of my other hand. “That’s true. Right now, though…I think I need some time to myself,” she admits as she stands up from the couch.
“Should I wait for you to text me?” I ask.
She nods. “That would be best. I need time to think and eat entire pints of Ben and Jerry’s.”
“And bitch with your friends?” I ask her, standing up as well. My knees feel a bit weak, but I don’t feel as anxious as before.
“Yeah,” she says with a very soft and short-lived chuckle.
We look at each other—her up at me, me down at her—for what feels like forever. Then I step closer and lean down to wrap my arms around her.
Lena wraps her arms around me as well, and we squeeze each other tightly. She presses her face into my shoulder, and I hold her even more closely.
“I love you,” I whisper.
She sniffles and pulls back just enough to kiss my cheek softly. “I love you, too.”
In this moment there’s no pressure, no anxiety about saying those three words, because they mean something entirely differently than they did just a few days ago.
Perhaps there’s more romantic notion in Lena’s words than mine, but it doesn’t matter because now we both know what the other means.
It’s the afternoon of Halloween when I go over to Nathan’s.
Everyone in the dorms—well, almost everyone—is already dressed up for the occasion.
We might have classes tomorrow, but that isn’t going to stop most of them from being up until four in the morning drinking orange-and-green colored drinks and eating way too much candy.
There are usually Halloween parties all throughout the weekend, but the one on Halloween night is always the most intense, even if it falls on a Monday, like this year.
Normally, I might go to one of these parties, put on a good face, and try to let off a little steam, even if I think it’s silly to get so messed up when you have class the next day.
But right now, I can’t think of anything more exhausting.
“Hey dude, come in.” Nathan waves me in before I can even knock on the door. He’s already partially dressed up as a zombie, with tattered clothing and messy hair, but no body paint or fake blood yet.
“Zombie again?” I ask him, though my voice lacks any and all enthusiasm.
He closes the door behind us and grins. “Yeah man, ain’t no better pickup line than ‘brainssss ,” he teases me as he plops down in a seat.
I shake my head and sit down near him. “I think ‘ I want to suck your blood ’ would work better,” I mumble. I’m not feeling excited about the day, not even remotely.
“Too many people show up as vamps,” he insists, and then shrugs.
He looks at me for a moment, and I just sit here looking back at him, not saying or doing anything.
“Are we gonna talk about Lena, or do you just wanna sit here?” he asks. I can tell it’s genuine. If I want to just sit with him, he’ll let me.
“No, I came over to talk,” I tell him, and then take a deep breath.
“Alright, what’s going on?” he asks me, sitting up a bit more.
I rub at the back of my neck, avoiding eye contact with him for a moment, and then look at him again. “I broke up with her,” I whisper.
He blinks at me. “Oh, damn,” he replies in an equally quiet tone. “What the fuck happened?”
My eyes sting, but I sniff and do my best to brush the feeling off as quickly as possible. My heart is beating harder every second. However, I don’t feel as anxious as I did with Lena. Of course, I’m not breaking up with Nathan .
I fiddle with my own hands, picking at the skin on the side of one fingernail until it starts to flake off.
“Hey, whatever it is…I get it. But you look rough. Did you sleep last night?” he asks as he opens the nearby mini fridge.
I shrug. “Maybe. I’m not sure.”
Nathan hands me an energy drink and I take it, because I have a class in an hour and need to be able to focus.
“I haven’t heard anything from Lena or about her. I thought you were really into her,” he comments.
I roll the drink can around in my hands, feeling the sloshing of the liquid inside it. The metal can is cold, and its temperature in the palms of my hands starts to ease some of my anxiety.
“She’s great,” I agree, and look down at my hands.
“But?” he asks.
“I think that I…am interested in guys.” The words come out slow and uncertain, but they actually leave my mouth for the first time. I look up at him, not sure what reaction to expect.
He blinks at me. “Oh. Is that why you two never fucked?”
My ears heat and I glare at him for a second before looking back down at my hands. “Apparently,” I grumble.
“Wow. I mean, I can’t say I’m surprised,” he admits.
I practically crick my neck with how fast I look back up at him. “What do you mean?”
He chuckles and clears his throat. “Ah, well. You do have a certain…vibe. Not a bad thing, just…I wondered about it after the last convo we had about Lena and Dante,” he says, putting his hands up to show he’s not being combative.
My throat is tight, and I swallow hard before responding. “I kissed Dante,” I admit.
Nathan chokes, and I look up at him quickly. He hits his chest a few times. “What?!”
“He’s been…bothering me, I don’t know. He’s interested in me. We got into an argument and something came over me and I fucking kissed him. I ran away afterward. That was right before I broke up with Lena,” I say, the words all coming out faster than I intended.
Nathan takes a deep breath. “Fuck, dude. You sure picked a sketchy guy to blow your first load over.”
Now I’m the one nearly choking. I blush so hot it hurts, but keep my mouth closed. He cannot know how real what he said is.
“I didn’t pick him,” I insist. “It just…happened.”
“Alright, alright,” he says. “So you’re saying you actually want to fuck Dante? Feels totally different than with Lena?”
With a reluctant sigh, I nod. “God…yes,” I mumble, then gasp as I realize what I’ve said. I lean forward and put my head in my hands, groaning. The unopened drink falls into my lap and rolls to the side.
“What am I supposed to do?” I ask, the words muffled by my hands. “I can’t do this…I can’t.”
“Woah, woah. It’s okay, Ethan,” Nathan insists. He sits down beside me and I feel his hand on my back.
“No, it’s not,” I huff. “None of this shit is okay. This isn’t me. I’m supposed to be with Lena. My mom wants me to bring her home for Christmas.” My breath feels heavy and achy in my chest.
“You’re not supposed to be anything,” he objects. “So what if you’re into dudes? At least you figured it out now, and not after marrying Lena or something.”
I groan again and tilt my head back down. “I broke her heart.”
“Lots of guys have broken her heart,” he tells me.
“That doesn’t help,” I hiss at him. “I was supposed to be the one who didn’t. I wanted to be good for her, not another fuck-up.”
“Man, that’s a lot of pressure,” Nathan mumbles. “You don’t have to be perfect at everything. You know that, right?”
I swallow around the tightness in my throat again. “We could have been something real.”
“Sure, but it’s okay that it didn’t work out,” Nathan insists.
“What do you know? All you care about is sex,” I snap at him, my head feeling like it’s full of cotton and my eyes like they’re buzzing from how tired I am.
Nathan scoffs. “Fuck you,” he snaps back at me. “I can fuck and still care and know relationships are hard.”
I’m quiet, my face burning.
“I’m just having fun. And it sure doesn’t look like you are, so don’t pull that shit with me.”
“Yeah,” I mumble. “I’m sorry. I’m just exhausted, and I care about Lena.”
“Whatever. I know you do. She’ll be fine. One thing you said you liked about her was that she didn’t need you,” he reminds me.
I roll my eyes. “I said that she stands all on her own. She’s independent,” I clarify.
“Same thing, but sure. She stands on her own. She’ll keep doin’ that. Did she cut off the idea of the two of you being friends?”
I shake my head. “No, I don’t think so. She just needs some time apart.”
“This is less about Lena and more about Dante, isn’t it?” Nathan asks.
My stomach tightens. I grab the energy drink and finally crack it open, taking a long drink as an excuse to delay my answer.
“Well, it’s not not about him,” I finally admit.
Nathan exhales and shakes his head. “That’s a bad fucking idea, man,” he tells me. “At least…it could be.”
“I know he’s trouble. Believe me, I know.” I take another drink.
He eyes me for a second. “If you really wanted to just fuck around for a bit with him and have some fun, I wouldn’t blame you,” he says. “Just don’t let yourself get caught up with his bullshit.”
I nearly choke on my drink. “I’m not going to ‘fuck around’ with him. I…I don’t even know what any of this really means.”
Nathan rolls his eyes at me. “Yeah, you do. You’re just scared. The only time you don’t know something is when you’re afraid to admit it or afraid to ask for help. You’re literally the most know-it-all smartass I know.”
I glare at him. “Okay, then you tell me what I want.”
“I think you’re horny over Dante and you realized you’re gay, but the whole small-town-raised perfect golden boy thing has gotten to your head.
Believe me, it gets to me sometimes, too, but not nearly as much as you being an only child and all that.
” He points at me. “Hell, if I didn’t have three siblings I’d probably be spending all my time studying, panicking about my every move, and getting absolutely no pussy, too. ”
“Oh, fuck you.” I grab a nearby pillow and toss it at his face.
He laughs right as it hits him. “You know it’s true.”
I can’t help but chuckle, even though his words are swirling around my head.
Am I truly interested in Dante?
Am I gay?
Why can’t all of this be easier?