Chapter Twenty-Eight
“The flight doesn’t leave until two,” Charlie says. “Don’t rush me.”
Charlie’s suitcase is open on his bed, a truly random assortment of unrelated clothes strewn on top of it. Simon doubts he
could assemble a single coherent outfit from the entire pile, not that coherent outfits are much of a priority for Charlie
even at the best of times.
“Okay,” Simon says, instead of pointing out that there very much is a rush: it’s noon, and you can always count on there being
some kind of traffic disaster on the way to the airport.
“I visit twice a year,” Charlie told him a few days ago. “Summer and Christmas.” He said it like he was talking about mandatory
community service hours, not visiting his family. Although, it’s exactly how Simon talks about visiting his family.
“She wasn’t a bad mom,” Charlie says now. It’s the fifth or sixth time he’s said this since they woke up. It isn’t Simon he’s
trying to convince.
“Bring this sweater in case you go somewhere nice.” Simon folds the cashmere sweater they got in New York and puts it in the
suitcase, next to about seventeen USB cords, a full-size bottle of shampoo, and a pair of flip-flops. “How about you untangle
these wires,” Simon suggests.
While Charlie’s distracted, Simon packs one pair of jeans, two of the less seedy pairs of cargo shorts, three T-shirts, gym clothes, running shoes, underwear, and socks.
Then, from the bathroom, a beard trimmer, a toothbrush, and some deodorant.
That’s enough—Charlie can buy whatever else he needs. They have drugstores in Utah.
“What are you doing?” Charlie asks when Simon’s zipping the suitcase. He sounds pissed.
It’s perfectly obvious that Simon’s packing Charlie’s things because Charlie isn’t going to do it himself. “Come on. There’s
probably some room for protein bars if you want to get some from the kitchen.”
“I can pack my own suitcase.”
“Good for you. Now get those protein bars. They aren’t going to pack themselves.”
Charlie looks like he wants to have a fight about it, but he leaves the room, and when he comes back, he’s carrying a Costco-size
box of protein bars. Simon opens the suitcase just enough to slide in six bars, unwraps one for Charlie to eat now, then zips
the suitcase back up.
Simon doesn’t usually think of himself as patient. Part of him wants to tell Charlie he’s being a big baby. If he doesn’t
want to see his mom, he shouldn’t go, and bitching at Simon won’t get him anywhere.
But none of it’s that simple, and honestly Simon doesn’t give a shit if Charlie has fifteen cranky minutes every now and then.
Simon is no stranger to being mean when he’s upset. Simon’s no stranger to Charlie being mean when he’s upset. He’s spent seven years in training for this.
Simon rolls the suitcase out to his car—Charlie was going to drive himself, but Simon has no faith in that ending with Charlie
at the airport. Charlie follows, his jaw set and his fists clenched. But he gets into the passenger side of the car when Simon
opens the door.
They’re nearly at the airport before Charlie says anything.
“I probably won’t be very nice when I call. If you don’t want me to call, I’ll see you next week.”
“You’d better call,” Simon snaps. It’s probably the first time all morning he’s let himself sound annoyed. “Also, you don’t
need to be nice. Give me some credit. You think you’ll scare me off? I’d like to see you try.”
Charlie’s quiet for too long. “I don’t want to be mean to you,” he says, like he really does think he’s going to scare Simon
off. For fuck’s sake.
“This is barely even rude. You aren’t as scary as you think you are. Text me or I’m getting on the next flight to Utah, are
we clear?”
Charlie texts when he lands, but there’s nothing else until Simon’s getting ready for bed. Charlie’s sent a picture of one
of those doodle-type dogs wearing the kind of bandanna dogs get at the groomer. No comment, not even an emoji. Just a dog.
Simon asks the dog’s name, and in return gets a FaceTime request.
“I’m flossing my teeth,” he says after accepting the call, the phone on the counter, its camera pointing at the bathroom ceiling.
“Yeah, whatever, your teeth will wait,” Charlie says. So, still in a shitty mood, then.
Simon takes the phone into bed and props it up on his knees. “Well, you’re in a state.”
It looks like Charlie’s also sitting in bed, but that’s all Simon can make out. “I can hang up,” Charlie says.
Simon has a moment of emotional double vision, where he can see perfectly clearly the other version of himself that takes
the out, that seizes the excuse. We’ll talk later, that other, worse Simon says, effectively creating a nice, safe barricade between himself and other people’s feelings. Between
himself and other people, period.
But he hasn’t done that with Charlie since New York, maybe not since puttering around Dave’s living room.
Maybe Charlie’s right and, on some level, Simon already was thinking of Charlie as an ally. Maybe he already trusted Charlie
enough that he could pass out as soon as he got into the passenger seat of Charlie’s car, and so he trusted Charlie enough
to let himself care.
All that matters is that he does care and that he wants Charlie to know it. He never wants Charlie to doubt it. Maybe that’s
the trick to relationships—with friends or lovers or colleagues who become something like family. Simon just needs to occasionally
do the opposite of what all his defense mechanisms want him to do.
And so Simon fills the air with nothing: what he had for dinner, a meme Nora sent, a movie he wants to watch.
“This kid,” Charlie says when Simon winds down, “isn’t fucked up at all.”
Simon assumes “this kid” is Charlie’s half sister, and that if Charlie sounds pissed about her being well-adjusted, it’s a
lot more complicated than that. “How old is she?”
“Seven. They have a pool. Brad—his real name, swear to God—is a chiropractor. I just—what the fuck. Every time I come here it’s something else—Haley
goes to ballet class. Brad has opinions about lawn care. My mom volunteers at Haley’s school.”
And Charlie didn’t have any of that. Charlie’s mentioned sleeping in his mother’s car.
“When did she get sober?” Simon asks, because he thinks that might be the real issue here.
“When she turned thirty. I was in eighth grade.” He scrubs a hand over his beard. “I lived with her the last two years of
high school, then she moved back to Utah and I stayed in Phoenix. She met Brad.”
And Charlie started Out There the same year his sister was born. Simon can only imagine what it was like for Charlie to see his mother settle down and
raise a baby in a house with a pool and a lawn and what appears to be a tastefully appointed guest bedroom, when Charlie had
just come out of a very different kind of childhood.
“I’m happy for them,” Charlie says. He sounds painfully honest. “But, like.”
“I know.”
“Sorry, I’m not fun tonight.”
“Well, I’m never fun, so.”
“Being here makes me remember the shitty things. And I think that when I’m around, my mom remembers the shitty things too.
But what are we supposed to do? I like my mom. I like seeing her. I like seeing Haley. Fuck’s sake, Simon, I even like Brad.”
Maybe this is why Simon is able to let his guard down around Charlie. They’re both coming from a place of unbelonging. Simon’s
dealt with that feeling of being perpetually outside by turning everything inward and protecting it with the only armor he
could find. Charlie learned how to make everyone like him, how to make sure he always belongs.
“I think you’re doing great,” Simon says.
“Thanks,” Charlie mumbles. He’s slumped low enough on the bed that he’s basically talking into his shirt. “They all want to
meet you.”
Simon offered to come this time, when he realized how Charlie felt about this trip. “Anytime,” he says. Maybe he’ll convince
Charlie to stay at a hotel. Maybe he’ll stay in the guest room of a suburban house with what seems to be inspirational text
art on the nightstand.
“I can’t be this shitty to anyone else,” Charlie says. “Everyone else needs to think I’m fine or they’ll worry I’m off the
wagon, or, like, hate me.”
Simon gets a greedy little thrill at the idea that he has this part of Charlie all to himself, but he reins it in.
“First, you aren’t being shitty to me. You’re upset. That’s not the same thing. Second, it hasn’t really occurred to me to
worry that you’re going to start drinking,” he says, because he doesn’t think Charlie would have thrown in that sentence if
he didn’t want to talk about it. “You’ve handled it for six years. That doesn’t mean I think it’s easy for you. I just—” He
doesn’t know how to communicate that he thinks this is Charlie’s business, without implying that he’s washing his hands of
it. “So, if you told me that you trust me to manage my anxiety, I’d change the locks. But—something like that? I . . . believe
in you?” He manages not to make any air quotes whatsoever.
“Wow. Gross,” Charlie says, but he looks pleased, so Simon hopes he got that right enough.
For the rest of the week, they talk every night, their conversations steadily decreasing in grumpiness and unprocessed feelings. At one point, a little girl with light brown hair appears on the screen, only long enough to wave and run.
When Simon picks Charlie up at the airport, he brings Edie because obviously she’ll improve anyone’s mental state. Charlie
gets into the car and goes quiet and fidgety right away.
Simon drives them to Charlie’s house, entering the code on the keypad himself and turning on the lights. The house somehow
feels emptier than it ever has, abandoned, like Charlie’s been away for months. Charlie sprawls on the sofa, taking up enough
space that Simon has to pretty much plant himself on top of him.
“Sorry,” Charlie says, his eyes shut. Simon doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for. Charlie probably doesn’t know either.
One of his hands is on Simon’s back, heavy enough to hold him in place.