No Sex with Max. How Hard Can It Be?
LEO
My phone buzzes as I'm heading down the hall. It’s Isaac, so I stare at it for a second.
Isaac
You figure anything out yet?
I put my phone in my pocket without answering and keep walking. The hallway to Del and Luca's room feels longer than usual. Or maybe I'm dragging my feet because I know what I have to say out loud, and saying it makes it real.
Luca opens the door, takes one look at my face, and steps aside without a word. Del's sprawled across Luca's bed, I guess it'll be their bed any day now, sketching, but he sits up when he sees me.
"Hey." My voice comes out weird, and my ribs feel tight. "Can I… I need advice."
"Always." Luca gestures to his desk chair, but I shake my head. Sitting feels too formal. Too much like I'm about to give a presentation on why my life is falling apart.
There's a 73% chance I'll cry during this conversation. Maybe higher. "I, um." I take a deep breath. "I actually wanted to ask Del, if that's okay?" I look at Luca, wincing. "Not that your advice isn't… I mean, you're great, but Del's more…"
"Emotionally intelligent?" Luca offers, completely unbothered. "No, that's fair. I'd ask Del over me too."
Del snorts. "Sexy."
"What? It's true. I'd tell him to make a spreadsheet of pros and cons. That's not what he needs right now." Luca settles onto the bed next to Del, close enough that their shoulders touch. "I'll sit here for moral support. And hugs, if needed."
The tightness in my ribs releases, just a little.
Del pats the space in front of him on the bed, and I sit cross-legged, feeling like a kid at a sleepover about to confess which boy I like.
Which… isn't far off, actually. "It's about Max," I say, and Del nods like he already knew.
He probably did. There's a non-zero chance everyone knows except Max himself.
"I can't—" The words stick. I try again. "We've been… I mean, you know we’re…”
"Having sex," Del supplies helpfully. "Yeah, buddy. Thin walls."
My shoulders rise up to my ears, and I hunch down. "Right. That. Um. Twice now."
"And you're in love with him," Del says. Not a question.
My mouth opens automatically to deny it; the reflex is that fast, that practiced. Then I just... stop. Sit with it for a second. The words I've been not-saying for months hang in the air between us.
"Yeah." My hands are doing some weird finger twisting in my lap. "I am. I think I have been for a while, and I just kept calling it something else. He's my best friend. I think about him all the time. Of course, I want him to be happy. Of course I—" I stop. "It's easier not to name it.”
Del's watching me quietly with his head tilted to the side. "Yeah, Leo. That's what it is."
"Shit." I hunch forward, elbows on my knees. "So yeah, I'm in love with my best friend, and he's not in love with me."
"How long?" Luca asks quietly.
"I don't know. Maybe always?" The probability calculations won't come. My brain's static. "Since he decided we were going to be friends, maybe. He walked up during orientation and said, 'You look interesting, we're hanging out now,' and I just… followed him. I've been following him ever since."
Freshman year, when someone asked if Max and I were dating. I laughed it off so convincingly I almost believed myself.
Del exchanges a look with Luca that I can't read.
"The thing is," I continue, because if I stop talking, I might fall apart, "he doesn't feel the same way.
The first time we had sex, it was because he wanted his first time to be safe.
With someone he trusted. And I—" My voice cracks.
"I was so happy he chose me. How pathetic is that?
He wanted practice, and I was grateful to be picked. "
"That's not pathetic," Del says firmly.
"And then right after, he started dating. Actively looking for someone. Because he'd gotten the virginity thing out of the way, and now he could find a real relationship." I laugh, and it sounds awful. "And this time, with Jaren not working out, he was… horny. And I was there. And I can't—"
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes.
"I can't keep doing this." The words come out rough.
"Last night, when he showed up at my door…
I knew. I knew exactly what was going to happen and why, and I said yes anyway.
" I press the heels of my hands into my eyes.
"And it was, it was good. It's always good with him.
That's the problem. He was happy, and warm, and he wanted me, and for about an hour I got to pretend that meant something it doesn't, and I just—" I drop my hands. "I let myself have it. Even knowing."
The anger isn't at Max. Max is figuring himself out, finding his edges, and I'm the obvious safe choice, someone he trusts, someone who won't hurt him, someone who will always say yes.
That's not his fault. That's on me. I'm the one who keeps opening the door.
I'm the one who can't seem to say no to him even when I know exactly how it's going to feel at 3 am when he's asleep, and I’m staring at the ceiling, and he’s not mine, and he's never going to be.
"Having him, and then watching him look for someone else. It's—" Destroying me feels too dramatic, but it's accurate. "I need to stop. If I want to stay his friend, I have to stop sleeping with him."
Del nods slowly. "Yeah. I think you're right." Part of me wanted him to argue. To say 'maybe Max does feel the same way, or you should tell him'. But he doesn't, and I know why.
"Max is figuring himself out," Del says carefully. "What he wants, what he likes, all of it. And that's… that's his journey, you know? No one should mess with that. Not even you."
"Especially not me." I drop my hands. "Because if I told him how I felt, he'd… he'd try to make it work. Because he's Max, and he'd feel guilty, and he'd convince himself he felt the same way to make me happy. And then one day he'd realize he doesn't, and I'd lose him completely."
There's a 94% chance of that outcome. I've run the numbers. Repeatedly. At 3 AM. Multiple nights in a row. "So I won't tell him," I say, and it feels like swallowing glass. "And I won't sleep with him again. And we'll… be friends. Like before."
Del and Luca exchange another look.
"What?" I ask.
"Nothing," Luca says. "Just… that's really mature of you."
It doesn't feel mature. It feels like I'm choosing to slowly bleed out instead of ripping the bandage off. But at least this way, I get to keep him. In some form.
"Can I ask something?" Del leans forward. "Your family. What are they like?"
The topic change throws me. "My family?"
"You never really talk about them. And the way you said Max 'decided' you were friends, like no one had ever done that before…"
I lean back, shoulder blades hitting the wall behind me. "They're fine. Normal, I guess. My older brother Harold has finished med school now and is in his residency. My younger sister Everly is pre-med. They're all in Washington."
"But you're here," Luca says.
"Yeah." I pick at a thread on my jeans. "I'm here."
"Are you close with them?"
The laugh that escapes is hollow. "No. Not really. They do things together, holidays, trips, whatever… but I'm not usually…" I trail off. "I never figured out why they don't seem to want me around."
Luca frowns. "Is it because you're gay?"
I consider it. Really think about it, the way I've tried not to for years. "When I came out," I say slowly, "there was no reaction. I don't know what I was expecting, but there was… nothing."
I tell them all of it. The fancy placemats no one's allowed to spill on.
Harold's rotations, Everly's phone, the overhead light that buzzes.
The way they were all smiling at each other with this easy warmth I've never been part of.
How I said I have something to tell you twice before anyone properly looked at me.
How my heart was hammering so hard I could hear it, and I gave myself a 67% chance of passing out before I got the words out.
I tell them about saying I'm gay and the silence that wasn't silence, Everly's phone buzzing, Dad scrolling, the light buzzing, and my mom blinking and asking about condoms and then turning to ask about the Rubens boy down the block.
I'm seventeen, and my palms are sweating so badly I have to keep wiping them on my jeans under the table.
Senior year. The dining room looks the same as always, Mom's fancy placemats that no one's allowed to spill on, the overhead light that buzzes slightly, family photos on the wall where I always look slightly out of place. Like someone photoshopped me in.
I've had this fantasy for years. The one where it turns out I'm adopted, or maybe I'm actually the son of Mom's flighty older sister, who got pregnant too young and couldn't handle it.
Like in books. Like, there's a reason I don't fit here, and one day someone will explain it to me, and everything will make sense.
It never happens.
Mom and Dad are talking about Harold. Again. How his rotations are going, how proud they are, how he's going to be such a wonderful doctor.
"He goes by Harry now, you know," Everly says, grinning. She's fifteen and already has her whole life planned out. Pre-med track, like Harold. The favorite daughter. "All his friends call him Harry."
Mom laughs, actually laughs, warm and genuine. "I named him Harold, so Harold he will be. He can be Harry to his friends, but he's my Harold."
Dad chuckles, too. "Can you imagine? Two doctors in the family. We'll never have to wait for an appointment again."
They're all smiling at each other. This is an easy, comfortable dynamic that I've never been part of. I'm sitting right here, and I might as well be invisible.
Why don't they care about me?
I've gone over the possibilities a thousand times. There's nothing obviously wrong with me. My grades are good. I don't cause trouble. I'm quiet, maybe too quiet, but that shouldn't make your own parents look through you like you're not even there.
"I have something I want to tell you," I say.
Everly's phone buzzes. She glances at it.