Chapter 30
CHAPTER
THIRTY
I didn’t sleep again. I spent most of the night freaking out about bumping into Hank today, worried about what, if anything, he would say to me. After I got down from the high of my righteous indignation that is.
Amanda told me not to drink any of the cold brew in the fridge, but I promptly ignored the advice, pouring glass after glass as I told her how much my worth is so much more than being some old man’s fucktoy, even if he could get me a much sought after gig at one of the biggest publishers of comics in the world. Eventually tiring of my one man play of self-worth and ownership of power, she took the glass from my hand and sent me to my room.
“I’m not a child, and you are not my mother,” I declared.
She stared at me with that icy glare of hers that lets me know she is not playing, and I scurried off to my bed, where I lay down. And then the energy drained out of me and instead I started panicking.
With me being up most of the night, it meant I could continue to monitor the reaction to the Excelsior Pride news, and I don’t know what I was expecting but the way attitude seemed to change caught me by surprise.
Initially, all the posts I was seeing were really positive but as the night wore on, I started seeing more and more posts from people not just angry but absolutely livid that we were making an LGBTQ+ focused book with Excelsior’s stable of characters.
It got to the point that it felt like every post was negative: about how we were ‘turning’ characters gay, how we were pushing some sort of “agenda”, or worse. I noticed that some of the creators we announced on it were getting abuse too, Rebecca even had a number of people telling her she should kill herself.
And when I tried to jump in and call them out, some of that hate turned towards me, even though they didn’t know who I was. When some worked out I might be involved in the book in some way, I was briefly the focus of this anger, and I had to put my account on private for a while.
I checked out Arran’s mentions, and he was getting some really gross shit, some wild accusations. I reported every one I came across, but this morning, all those posts were still out there.
I’ll talk to him about it and see how he’s dealing. As we missed each other after the panel yesterday, we arranged to meet up in the morning just before the show opened doors to grab some breakfast and talk. He still wants to hear what happened with Cal.
I make my way to a small coffee house a few blocks away from the Javits, it’s not far from his hotel and far enough away from the most popular transport links so that when we head in after coffee and food, we should be able to get in pretty quickly and easily.
I head in, and find Arran already sat at a table, waving me over.
“Hey man, sorry I missed you after the panel, but it looked like Hank wanted you. I just wound up heading back to my table, and then left early to try and get a break,” I say as I sit down.
“No worries, mate. Yeah, he wanted to talk about the book and maybe getting some more pitches from me in the future,” Arran smiles as I sit down.
My face tightens, my mouth a thin line. “Really? And it was just…it was just pitching?”
“Yeah,” Arran tilts his head. “What else would it be?”
“Never mind. So, did you order yet?”
He hasn’t, so we go up to the counter and place our orders. Thankfully, the place is still quiet enough that they tell us to take our seats again and they’ll bring it over.
“So, I’m gonna guess you didn’t get much rest in the end anyway. No offense, mate, but you look awful,” Arran looks concerned as he says it.
I run my hand through my hair, as if that will fix anything. “Ugh, yeah, I really didn’t get much sleep again. Honestly, this whole thing has been kind of a stress.”
“Is it just the con? Or is there something else going on?”
I look at him, biting my lip as I consider telling him everything. Not just the Cal of it all, but why I’m so keen to find my ride or die for life, the person who will stand by and support me even when the worst comes to light. As I do, our order comes over, and we start tucking into our bagels and coffee.
Instead, I decide to focus on something else. “Ugh, just seeing some of the reactions to the Excelsior Pride announcement. I spent most of the night trying to correct a bunch of trolls and assholes online. It turned really gross, and some of the shit they’re saying about you and the other creators involved. I don’t know how you put up with it, I mean, did you see?—”
Arran raises his hand in a stop sign. “Please stop. Honestly, I don’t need to hear about any of that stuff, and honestly, you shouldn’t let it get to you. I know it’s easier said than done, but it really is just a path to needless upset.”
“Sorry, I didn’t want to upset you,” I pick at the seeds on my bagel.
Arran relaxes his shoulders. “You didn’t. But there was a time when I paid a lot more attention to those social media posts, and they took me to a really dark place. It took someone I cared a whole lot about to get me to realize that those posts are nothing to do with me, and entirely about the poster. The hate and vitriol they post is them dealing with their own messed up, internalized problems, and it’s not my job to take those on.
“It’s a lesson I wish I’d taken to heart a lot sooner, as if I had, maybe I wouldn’t have lost something very important to me. Like my sanity. Honestly, it took a lot of time for me to find my peace again and remember that social media, as useful as it once was, is optimized to highlight hate, anger and anything that will more likely provoke a reaction. Feeding into it will just lead to more. Honestly, you need to step back from it.”
“Easier said than done, Arran,” I say, trying not to sound petulant. “It’s kinda a big part of my job.”
“Maybe as an editorial intern, but I daresay that’s not entirely true either. But as a creator, it is definitely not your job. A creatives job isn’t to please anyone, it’s to be true to themselves alone. The audience will come after.”
“But if we’re not making something people will like, won’t they just leave us? Like, we need them to buy our books so we can keep making them.” I tilt my head, genuinely needing elaboration. How can we not think about how people will receive our stories?
“No, we don’t,” Arran takes a sip of his coffee and broadens his shoulders, pulling them back and his chest out. He looks every bit the teacher in this moment. “I don’t need to know what Billy Bob Fuckwit in Milwaukee thinks about me writing about a gay character in my books to make the story I want to tell. End of the day, all I need is me, something to write on or in, and the ideas, wherever they come from. I research, I listen, I process, I write. That’s what we do.
“And if it’s not, the audience, from the haters who spend all day online hounding people they don’t like, to the actual reasonable and sensible people, will be able to tell. And they won’t like it, and they won’t come back for it.
“The stories that are most loved are always the ones that the creators behind them threw themselves into and thought only about what was right for the story that they wanted to tell. What felt true to their heart. That’s who you need to put first, Jesse. You, the creator. So you can tell your stories, put your heart and mind on the page, and people will love that because you will love it.”
Arran takes a deep breath and then takes a large bite out of his bagel. I sit there in stunned silence.
“Oof, it is too early to be getting that real,” he mumbles through his food. He swallows hard and points his bagel at me. “Now, talking about heart: you and Callum. What happened? Spare me nothing, as I’m starting to get to know you pretty well I think, and I daresay you’ve misconstrued something about it all, because you’re just like me not that long ago, butt, and I’m sure you have other people to kick you up the arse when you need it, but right now I’m the one that’s here,” he looks thoughtful for a second. “If that’s cool, of course?”
I nod vigorously. How can I not be cool with it? I feel like I’m learning so much from him, not just creatively but in how to balance my life as a creator, which clearly I sorely need.
I fill him in on what happened when I left to meet up with Cal, and how that may have awoken feelings in me for him I didn’t know I had. I hasten to add it isn’t just because of his smoke show of a body reveal, so I don’t come across as a total ass.
“It’s funny what an unexpected reveal brings out in us, don’t worry. Carry on,” Arran grins, looking like he’s reliving something in his own memories.
I tell him how I then struggled with if I should tell him how I was feeling, and that Amanda thinks he has feelings for me too, but I’m not so sure. Then I get to yesterday’s awkwardness at first, and when Cal told me he didn’t want anything to come between our friendship and I realized that was all we would be to each other: friends.
“Ah, it’s as I thought,” Arran says, cradling his coffee. “You can’t see the wood for the trees.”
“Come again?”
“Look, it’s clear that Cal cares about you a great deal, and sure, maybe that is just as a very close friendship, but he’s stuck by you at your most boneheaded moments…that takes a lot of care to want to stick around.”
“Well, sure,” I take a sip of my coffee, processing what to say next. “But he said it himself, he doesn’t want our friendship to change or be lost. I don’t either. I love having him in my life, and if that’s just as a friend, then so be it. Why try and force it to change? I don’t want to make the wrong choice…”
“Wrong choice?”
“Yeah,” I drag it out slowly, not wanting to tell him everything that’s been going on, especially with him being on my list of options to look at. “I guess, there’s plenty of guys out there I could choose, and my feelings for Cal aside, I don’t want to make the mistake of choosing badly and ruining one of the best things in my life and winding up alone, y’know.”
Arran finishes his bagel and wipes off his lips with a napkin. Outside the large plate glass windows, I can see more and more cosplayers walking past, a few stopping into the coffee shop. It’s getting close to time for us to go.
“Wow, that’s…a lot…” he says finally.
“Here’s the thing, Jesse: of course your friendship will change. It’s not some static thing, that relationship between you is alive. Whether you want it to or not, it is going to change. But if you try to hold it back, if you try to keep secrets around it, it might not change in ways you like. And sure, if you’re honest and he doesn’t feel the same, the relationship will change then too. But at least you’ll not be keeping something from each other. He clearly cares about you enough to not let it ruin the friendship…but not telling him how you really feel? That definitely can.
“But what do I know? I’m just some old git who wasn’t honest with the best guy in his life and wound up single forever because of it.” He laughs, but I sense the tinge of pain in there. This guy he told me about must have been someone really special to him. He must have been like Cal.
“You’re not old,” I protest. “You’re just…mature.”
He feigns a mock gasp. “Quit while you’re ahead, mate. Right, come on. Comic Con waits for no man, emotional drama or no emotional drama. Let’s head in.”
I get up, grabbing my messenger bag, and follow Arran out of the shop, and see the Javits rise into view in the distance. As we walk in, falling into step with the crowds, my stomach twists with trepidation and I can’t tell which I’m more nervous about: seeing Hank, or seeing Cal.
“So, Jesse, I gotta ask. What’s all this about making the ‘wrong’ choice, exactly?”
I swing my head frantically, wondering if talking about this now while trying to get into the convention center, surrounded by hundreds of eager and happy geeks, is a good idea.
“Umm, well, I just know that sometimes…sometimes, making a wrong choice can lead to the absolute worst outcome, you know?”
“Yeah, sure, I get that, mate. But not making a choice at all can be just as bad,” Arran says, tilting his head towards me as he waves at a fan who recognized him.
“Look, maybe I’m pushing too hard, but it seems like there’s more to this than just having the enviable task of trying to choose between a bunch of guys…”
“What?!” I almost shout, causing several heads to turn my way. How could he know?
“Jesse, I’m not dense. I was even there when one guy asked you out, remember?”
My thoughts turn to Will, and the incredible night we had at the Condor, and how at ease he made me feel even when I was out of my element. And how hot our time together was, even if I had cut it short. I really should send him a text, I hate leaving him high and dry like that.
Maybe. Maybe it’s worth telling Arran why I’m so determined to get this right, why I can’t risk making a bad choice and ruining this.
“Look, you don’t have anything first thing, right? Want to grab another coffee real quick, and I’ll tell you exactly where my head’s at.”
Arran nods, and we move out of the crowd, pushing our way through the excited fans. We cross the street and find another coffee shop, this one is pretty busy, but with plenty of seating, as most everyone coming in is grabbing a cup to go.
Once we get our orders and find a place to sit among some comfy couches, Arran sinking into the sumptuous furnishings while I sit on the edge, my hands clasped together, thinking about where to start.
“Okay…so there was this time…”
I was in ninth grade when it happened. I didn’t have many friends, we moved around a bit and I switched schools a few times, so it was really hard to get to know anyone. I guess I made it hard.
I spent so much time on my own, I didn’t really know how to be around other people. And I realized I was different than most of the kids in my classes, because I didn’t like the girls the way the other boys did.
And then there was Benjie. Benjie was in my English class, and he caught sight of the comic books in my backpack one time, and he started talking to me. The weird loner who didn’t talk to anyone.
He was a nerd too, but he was so stylish and fun and fabulous, and honestly, I couldn’t believe this cool guy with the warm skin and effortless smile and crazy good faded, fuzzy black hair would have the time of day for me. How could he, I was just me.
But he did. We started hanging out at school, and then he’d hang out at my home after we hit the comic shop each week, and we’d read our comics and talk about them for hours.
We were inseparable. For the first time in what felt like my whole life, I didn’t feel so alone all the time. Heck, I wasn’t. I had someone in my life and he liked me. He really liked me.
After a year of spending almost all our time together, I knew that I felt so much more for him. I didn’t want to lose him as a friend, but I knew I loved him. I could either ignore it, keep things as they were and just be happy I had this great friend finally, that I had someone who saw me. Or I could tell him how I felt and maybe…
I chose wrong.
“Jesse, I don— I’m not into dudes like that, I’m sorry,” he said as I pulled away, the taste of his strawberry chapstick still on my lips.
“Oh,” it was all I could say.
“It’s cool, dude, seriously. This doesn’t have to change anything, honestly. But I just…”
I waved it off, and laughed and said it was all good. But when he left that night, I spent hours stewing in the thought of how embarrassing it was going to be; how impossibly difficult. I had another choice to make: I could suck it up, and act like nothing happened, my heart breaking apart inside. Or I could rip of the bandaid, go back to how my life was before, and just…
I avoided him at school. I didn’t respond to his texts. After a while, they got fewer and fewer. Then they stopped.
A few weeks later, I realized I hadn’t seen him around school at all. No one else knew much about him. We were the loner kids, they just assumed I’d know what was going on, so why the hell was I asking them.
After another week, I decided I needed to know what was going on with Benjie, no matter how much it would hurt to see him.
I knocked on his front door. His mom answered it. She’d been crying, her cheeks swollen, her eyes red with how much she’d been rubbing her eyes. She saw me and burst into tears again.
Benjie’s dad came to see what was going on, and when he saw me his face fell.
They invited me inside and told me: Benjie had had a heart condition. No one had known, not even them. Then one day, after he’d been idly playing basketball out in the yard, he just dropped to the ground. They…they didn’t find him for a while.
A hole in his heart. It’d never been caught before, his family didn’t have a history of it, and it just…he just…
They asked if I wanted to see him in the hospital. He’d been taken in and was on life support, but the doctors…the doctors weren’t hopeful.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t face him, even in that hospital bed, knowing that the weeks of not seeing him were my fault. That I missed out on what could have been a happy few weeks more with him if I hadn’t made a bunch of dumb choices. If I hadn’t picked wrong, I could have been there when…and maybe…
His mom called me two weeks after that. They had taken him off life support, and his body didn’t take over. He passed. She thought I’d want to know.
I spent the whole weekend crying in my room. My folks were away at a conference, so no one was there. It was just me. Just me on my own once again. And it was all my fault.
Arran moves over from the couch he’s on and sits next to me, throwing an arm around me as I sob silently.
I hadn’t thought about Benjie in years, not really. Not deeply, but he’s always been there, in the back of my mind.
Arran finally breaks the silence. “You know, that’s awful, and I’m sorry you went through that, Jesse, really I am. But…”
I look at him, wiping at my eye with the heel of my hand, “But what?”
“Your choices didn’t make any of that happen. It was a terrible thing that happened, but sometimes that’s just life. You doing anything else wouldn’t have changed that.”
“Wouldn’t it?” I ask him, earnestly, because honestly I’ve never been sure. “If I hadn’t decided to throw away our friendship for a silly crush, or to run away when things got a bit awkward, maybe I’d have been there when?—”
“Maybe you would have been, and maybe it wouldn’t have changed anything. You can’t dwell on that, mate. You can’t let that inform your ability to make decisions for the rest of your life.”
I sit there, watching the steam rise from my coffee, twisting and vanishing into the air like it was nothing.
“I just—what if it happens again, Arran? What if I make a choice and it means I lose something important to me, or someone…”
Arran slaps his hand on my knee, and pulls his lips into a thin line.
“As awful as it is to think, sometimes that is just the way it is. Sometimes, making a choice might not go the way you wanted it to go. But at least you made it, and perhaps then it’s better to know.”
“Was it better to know when you made your choice about this Cam guy?” I ask sullenly, and I immediately regret it.
Arran is silent for a moment, and I panic that I may have crossed the line. In a second, a thousand possibilities flash before my eyes, like Arran walking from the book. Instead, he breathes out slowly, shaking his head.
“No, in some ways. Yes, in others. I made the wrong choice too…I didn’t choose him when I should have. And when I realized it was too late, well…”
He reaches over the small coffee table to grab his cup, and takes a sip. “The thing is, Jesse, the choices in your life have got to be made, because not making them is a choice in and of itself. If anything, by not making them, the outcome will likely be just as bad or even worse than if you commit.”
We sit there, thinking about our pasts, the paths not taken and those we’re scared to step onto.
“It’s a hard lesson, mate, but we never really know how long anyone is going to be in our lives. We owe it to them and to ourselves to let them know how we really feel.”
“What if—” I start.
“Ah, the most damaging and hated phrase in the English language. ‘What if’. ‘What if’ is a poison, Jesse. We can spend our whole lives wondering that, but in the end all it does is freeze us in place and stops us from actually finding out.” Arran rises, holding out his hand to me, “End of the day, you surround yourself with a whole multiverse of what ifs, or you can just take a leap of faith on a path you want to happen. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out, but you’re not a dumb teenager making stupid, melodramatic choices now.
“So what will it be? Sit here wondering about your what ifs until all the possibilities pass you by forever? Or don’t you think it’s time you took a chance at living for yourself?”
I look up at the man, in more ways than one. I feel like I learn so much from him, not just from reading his work, but he’s fast become a good friend who gives me sage advice without being condescending or tired of my shit.
I take his hand and stand.