Chapter 5 Birthright #2
I’d hate myself, but she had to have realized at some point, in the two years we were hanging out together, I never promised a future, and I certainly never told her I loved her.
I know better than to do attachments like that.
They’ll burn you up and hollow you out as soon as you let yourself start hoping.
I learned my lesson on that a long time ago while standing in front of a real fire watching my most precious thing go up in flames.
I also realized a long time ago that this thing other people have that keeps them connected to people—I’m missing that part.
Sometimes I think my own mother suffocated it out of me, but most of the time I wonder if she only hurt me because she already knew that part of me was missing.
Maybe the assembly line was going too fast the day God made me.
Maybe he didn’t see me. Or maybe he just thought I wasn’t worth the effort.
And I resent Him for that among other things on the days I bother to believe in him at all.
On July 15th, I move into the Mountain View house my father intended for himself.
I have plenty of things I need to do there to make it more liveable, but my main priority when I get back to town is clearing out the other house.
I want this to be a hugely cathartic exercise, but it isn’t.
At all. Mainly because Tristan is with me when I do it.
Here’s how that happens. My intention is to offer Connor a chance to pack up his own room and decide what to do with his stuff, but he won’t respond to my texts or calls. Determined to do the right thing, I text Tristan.
I need Connor to call me. Time to pack up the old place.
He responds almost instantly.
Tristan
He’s learning how to walk right now. Maybe this isn’t the best time. I can come help you later if you want.
I get a mad endorphin rush when I read that.
I haven’t seen him in weeks. Not since that day on Mountain View, so I want this.
And maybe I shouldn’t, but he’s the one person I know in Austin who doesn’t look at me like I’m some cold-hearted bastard who doesn’t give a shit about anyone or anything.
Call me selfish, but I need that after Carrie told me that’s exactly what I am.
Thanks.
The problem with inviting him to join me for this catharsis is immediately apparent when he arrives.
Tristan shows up at the Pecos house around four in the afternoon looking insanely hot. He’s wearing skinny, knee-length gray joggers and a white tank top. Every muscle in his body is visible one way or another.
His hair is up again, revealing every inch of his face, and he has on flip-flops which he immediately slips off in the entry hall.
Absence must truly make the heart grow fonder, because I can’t lie, I don’t think I’ve ever been this attracted to anyone physically.
It’s a total body experience. Almost unbearable.
I wonder if he had any idea how much seeing him like this would fuck with me.
My bisexuality isn’t a secret. Not exactly.
Or not on purpose. It’s one of those things I’ve known about myself since I was a teenager, but I’ve never talked about it with anyone in my regular life before.
Not Carrie. Not even West. I’ve had a serious crush on exactly one guy before, and that was in eighth grade at boarding school.
That was a secret, and it ended poorly, but the memories are strong, and I think about the stolen moments I spent with him often.
More often, though, I think about the handful of times I hooked up with men in college. I’ve never had intercourse with another man, but I’ve made out with and exchanged hand jobs and blow jobs with a few. Mostly when I was drunk. Always with strangers.
When I’m seeing to my own needs, as I’ve been required to for over a month now, it’s rarely a woman I picture, but I’m not sure if that means anything.
I’ve never been in a relationship with a man, and I don’t know if that’s because I never hooked up with one who was interested in more, or if I prefer being with women.
There’s still a lot I’m figuring out, but my attraction to Tristan is the least confusing thing in my life.
It was more or less instant, and it’s unrelenting.
Hands on his hips he asks me, “Want me to start on Connor’s room?”
Maybe it is better if we’re in different rooms. “That’d be great. I’m doing the kitchen.”
He doesn’t go straight to Connor’s room, though. He follows me as I walk toward the kitchen. “It’s been a few weeks,” he says. “We thought you disappeared again.”
Unwilling to look at him, I walk and talk. “I did, kind of. I needed to go back to Seattle to get some things squared away. Pack.”
“I’m sorry. You did what?”
I turn and give him a questioning look. My mistake. He’s standing in the middle of the chintzy living room, bright-eyed, staring at me in disbelief. “You went to Seattle to pack?”
“Yeah.”
“Seriously?”
“What can I say, Tristan? You changed my mind about some things.”
He gawks at me for another adorable moment, but then rolls his eyes dismissively. “Where are you gonna live?”
“The Mountain View house.”
His expression changes, smile wavering. “Really?”
“Is that not okay?”
His voice softens. “It’s fine. I could tell how much you liked it.”
I’m not sure how to interpret that. “I’m gonna ask Connor to live with me until he finishes school. Then we’ll figure something out.”
“So, you’ve just gone and done a complete one-eighty.”
“It’s the right thing to do,” I say, finally entering the kitchen.
Tristan follows. “He’ll be glad you’re staying.”
“I’m not sure about that.” I take a stack of bowls out of an upper cabinet. I haven’t recognized a single thing in this house besides the eucalyptus so far, and I’m glad. The bowls are plain white and good quality, but I don’t want them. I don’t want anything my mother touched.
“Well, he might not be glad right this second, but ultimately…”
I turn to see he’s leaning a hip on the counter a few feet away. “Would you rather help me in here?”
He shrugs a shoulder. “Sure.”
“Grab some newspaper.”
He takes a pile from the opposite counter and comes to stand next to me. I move the bowls toward him, and I start on the coffee mugs. We pack in silence for a minute. I want to say something, but grabbing a conversation topic from my head is like trying to catch a bubble.
“Archer, can I ask you something?”
Thank God. “Anything.” That was a stupid thing to say, but I brace myself for whatever his question is, determined to be as honest as possible.
“Why’d you stay gone for so long?”
Oh. That one’s not that hard. “It’s kind of a long story.”
“Luckily, I’ve got time for a long story,” he says.
“The truth is, I wasn’t planning to leave forever. I just wanted to get away for a while, but the longer I was gone, the less I wanted to come back. And I liked Seattle. I started school there, so I ended up staying. It started to feel like home.”
“Austin didn’t?”
“It never has. I lived in New England from the time I was ten. I didn’t come back to Austin until senior year.”
“Oh…right. I forgot about the boarding school thing.”
Most of the kids I went to boarding school with resented being sent away, but not me.
It was one of the best things that ever happened to me, but I don’t tell very many people about it.
It’s strange talking to someone who knows that kind of thing about me.
Part of me likes it. It makes opening up feel almost easy.
“How’d you end up in Seattle?”
“I liked how far away it was, and I got into the University of Washington.”
“You went there for school? Specifically?”
I stop packing for a second and turn to face him. “Why’s everyone so shocked I went to college?”
Without missing a beat, he says, “First of all, that wasn’t shock. It was a normal question. But also, you didn’t seem like the type of person who was poring over admissions essays back then.”
“What did I seem like?” Because this could be interesting.
He wraps a bowl in the sports page. “You just seemed angry. Like you were gonna go join a death metal band and overdose in L.A.”
His candor catches me off guard, and I laugh. “I was angry, but I actually wasn’t that angry.”
“No?”
“No. Senior year, my friend West’s mom made West and me go through all these college flyers and make lists of what we needed to do to get in.
During dinner she’d read us SAT questions.
West wanted to get all the applications out of the way before baseball season started, so we both applied early to a few places. ”
“What was your SAT score?” Tristan asks.
“That’s pretty personal. You want to know my social security number too?”
“Oh, come on, it’s just a number.”
“I did fine on it.”
He makes a pouting noise. “Archer…”
The pout hits my oh shit, I want him button, but I manage to laugh it off. “I’m not telling you.”
“Fine. So, was it hard to leave everything behind?” he asks.
That’s a much harder question. And a different conversation. “Will this be your first year of college?”
He doesn’t say anything, but from the corner of my eye, I see him nod.
“And it’s in Houston?”
“Yeah.”
A weight pulls through me, dragging itself through my chest to the ground. It’s not a long way from Austin to Houston, but it’s long enough, and it’s also a sign that Tristan wasn’t put on this earth for me to find. If he were, the timing would be better. The circumstances less shitty.
I place another wrapped coffee mug into the box on the floor. When I rise, he hands me a perfectly wrapped bowl. I take it. “You nervous?”
“The timing’s terrible,” he says like he’s reading my mind.
I’m sure what he means is for my brother, but I do wish I had more time. I wish I had a chance to know him better. I wish I weren’t his best friend’s brother. “Some things are hard to leave, but fresh starts can be a good thing,” I tell him.
“It was for you?”
“It was for me,” I say, my voice quieter. “But I came back.”