19. NINETEEN
NINETEEN
I feel sick .
It’s the only descriptor I have currently.
Just fucking sick.
I still don't feel any better after getting Gray added to my cellphone account and his smartphone.
This is really happening. He’s going to leave.
He’s going back to that ugly world instead of risking anything with me.
Isn’t that ironic? How many men have done the same thing over the years?
No one wants to be my dirty secret, and I don’t blame them.
Ultimately, that’s what Gray is. In ways, it’s worse than the men I sleep with because it goes beyond my closeted sexuality. He’s homeless —the scum under my dad’s imported heels. I could be ruined with a single phone call. That’s how easily it would all crumble if anyone found out.
Yet, I’m parading him around a heavily populated area, buying him a fucking cellphone, and taking him to my personal physician.
God, maybe he’s right.
Maybe I can’t do this even though all I want is the chance to try.
While he fiddles with the new electronic in his hands, my stomach churns and gurgles with unease.
A nausea like I’ve never felt in all my life is crawling up my esophagus, slapping my uvula, and demanding to purge from my body.
And as if to make matters worse, my phone rings, the shrill tone echoing through the Bluetooth connection.
I glance at the touch screen, cringing when I see the name. I hurry to ignore the call when Gray looks from the screen to my face.
“Shitty ex?” he asks innocently.
I’m going to fucking puke. “No.”
“Then why are you green?”
I roll down the window, take a deep breath, and swallow hard. This is just fucking perfect. After all that Gray has told me, after everything I’ve said to try and prove him wrong, one of my many secrets calls.
And he’s calling again.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I growl and reject it again.
“Brent is persistent,” he muses, returning to poke at his phone. “Maybe something is wrong?”
“I’m not the person he should be calling then,” I snap—Gray jerks in his seat.
“Seriously?” His scowl reflects my inner self-hatred perfectly.
Raking a hand through my hair and abandoning all care about my car's interior, I light up a cigarette. I offer him the pack, but he shakes his head. Clearly, my addiction is worse than his. The laugh bubbles out of me, bitter and low. “Not that it should matter, but you can’t tell anyone about this.”
“About what? That you have some dude calling you that might need help, and you aren’t willing to provide it?”
“The kind of help he’s looking for isn’t something I want to provide,” I say pointedly.
“Oh.”
“It’s casual,” I admit. “Only when I can make it work, and only when I’m sure I won’t get caught.”
“Oh.”
That seems to be the only word he can make, so I shut up.
Brent isn’t exactly needy, but I did say I would call, and I haven’t yet.
Since he and I have agreed to the stipulations of our occasional trysts, I don’t worry about his feelings getting hurt.
For all he knows, I’m in a meeting. The first rejection should’ve been his hint that I’m busy.
Maybe I’ve set too high of expectations, though.
I usually answer whenever he calls. Out of all the men I’ve been with, he’s easily my favorite.
There’s that nausea again.
“So y’all are fucking, and no one knows about it,” Gray blurts. “Seems to be a running theme with you.”
“Excuse me?” The cigarette dangling out the window returns to my mouth with speed.
He twists to face me while I try to keep my eyes on the road, but they end up landing on his anyway. “Hiding shit,” he deadpans. “Which is exactly why I’m not sticking around.”
“This is hardly the same,” I defend myself.
“Just because you haven’t seen my dick doesn’t mean it’s all that different. I’m a stranger that you yanked into your orbit, made to think I’m something special, only to be an inevitable secret that’ll be discovered and blow up in your face. How the hell are you hiding this? Why?”
“This?” I instigate. “You?”
“I was meaning Brent, but—”
“The way people use the word hiding insinuates something nefarious. If someone did find out that I’m helping you, it could be explained away.
My dad might disapprove, but he would see it as taking a step towards understanding my community,” I recite the excuse that’s been in my head since this all started.
“I’m not doing anything wrong,” I mutter, taking another drag.
“Yeah. Tell that to Brent.”
I keep my eyes firmly planted on the road after that comment.
The familiar exit on the highway is coming up, and I’m grasping at mental straws in an attempt to eradicate the hostile energy stinking up my car.
Gray challenges my reasonings at every damn turn, always poking the bear I keep locked away. He’s shining a light on things I don’t want to acknowledge because I know I’m weak. Anyone else would’ve given their dad the finger and walked the hell away.
And I did try once.
In college, I almost came out to my parents, sick of hiding it. It was eating me alive .
Until then, I hadn’t heard anything too bad come from my dad’s lips other than a general misunderstanding—ignorance, even.
His Christian beliefs didn’t help, nor the All-American attitude, but I figured it was worth a shot.
He loved me, which meant he would love this part of me.
That was until my cousin Fiona announced her wedding to a woman, and my dad lost his shit.
In the public eye, he’s all for equality, LBGTQ+ rights, etc. But behind closed doors, he’s actively making moves to turn our blue state red. And once he becomes senator, those odds of doing it go up. Significantly up.
Every horrible slur, every declaration of wishing hellfire and damnation, and the way my cousin was cut out of our lives proved to me that I could never confess.
I’d never be able to take off the mask.
I like having that independence from my dad. I do.
Sure, I’m not a pilot, but I get to deal with planes to some extent.
The money I make is safely tucked away in an account he can never touch, and if I wanted to, I could give it all away and live just like Gray does.
Not that I want that life; I’m too used to conveniences.
But sometimes, I dream of a day when I can be everything I told myself I couldn’t and live authentically as the man beside me does.
Which is why I start speaking.
“Brent isn’t one of many. I need to make that very clear. Yes, he’s a secret, but one that we’ve both agreed to. I didn’t lord my power over him—nothing like that.”
Gray’s eyes are on the highway sign, thumb in between his teeth.
“I do what I have to because I’m a coward.
I’ve known that since I was fourteen. It’s easier to placate than it is to piss everyone off.
And now, I’m so deep into my lies that I can’t ever face them.
So, no, I don’t abandon anyone. I don’t purposefully make someone feel special and then leave. That’s not what I do, Gray.”
He’s pretending my words don’t affect him, but I can see they do. His shoulders draw up a little higher, and his breathing is uneven.
“You asked me before why you. The easiest answer is that when I saw you, I saw myself.”
This time, he faces me. I glance at him quickly before changing lanes to exit the highway. “How? We are nothing alike.”
“That might be true, but it was symbolic, at least, to me. You were all alone, cold, dirty, and weighed down by life. That’s what I feel every day, no matter how many people are around me or how clean, warm, and happy I appear.
” I laugh at my admittance, feeling like the most pathetic asshole on planet earth.
“Honestly? I’m fucking miserable, Gray. And I admire your strength to keep going even though you feel the same. ”
Biting the corner of his lip and considering my response, Gray's eyes bounce from my face to my arm. He gently touches my shoulder when I hit the bottom of the offramp, stopping at a red light. “Don’t be miserable. You’re too young to be miserable.
” And the most genuine smile crosses his face, spearing me right through the heart.