Chapter Thirty-Nine Starting Over
I did some pretty stupid things trying to get closure.
I reminded myself of all the annoying things he used to do.
He was a slob. He dropped things on the floor and didn’t pick them up.
He had to have his hair the way whichever director he was working for wanted it.
He sucked at cooking. He was too lazy to shave every day, so I’d get stubble burn from making out with him.
It didn’t help me get over him. One morning, I was cleaning the toaster for the first time in a year.
I shook it out, and a handful of black crumbs fell onto the counter, and I just fell apart.
I would have given anything to trip over a pile of his stuff first thing in the morning or smell the toast he was burning in the kitchen.
I spent way too much time trying to figure out what his kink was.
I did a lot of reading and looking stuff up online and losing my appetite and freaking out, and then, based on what he’d told me, I thought I’d figured out what it was.
On the one hand, I felt relieved that I’d never have to do that.
On the other, I felt disappointed I’d never get the chance to do it for him.
A month after I went to Pride, I was walking through the transit hub on my way home, and I stopped and stood against the wall by the top of the escalator and watched people walk past. I didn’t know why.
I wasn’t tired, and I wasn’t dreading getting home any more than usual.
After waiting half an hour, I went home.
The next day, I did the same thing. I kept doing it every day for a week, just standing there, watching people walk past, looking at their faces.
I mentioned it to my therapist, and with his help, I figured out that the place where I was waiting was where I’d found Eddie after we’d lost touch for the first time.
What I was looking for at the transit hub was him.
I was trying to recreate our reunion. It felt like if I found him again, we could get back together, only I wouldn’t fuck up this time, and he’d forgive me, and he’d come home with me, and we’d get married.
But I never saw him at the transit hub again, and once I realized what I was doing, the urge to stop and wait for him disappeared.
Then, one day at the end of August, I got an official envelope in the departmental mail. I’d won my scholarship to grad school. And I was happy. I was. But it was bittersweet, because grad school was the plan I’d made before I met him. I was moving on with my life, without him.