20. Maxwell
Maxwell
Four weeks later
“There’s only two weeks left before we go off into the real world,” Mav says. He isn’t one to be nervous, but I can hear the fear in his voice.
“Is it crazy to say I don’t want this to end? That I’m kind of scared to… I don’t know, continue to the next steps?” I ponder out loud.
“I don’t think so. I’m feeling the same way, man,” Dax agrees.
“You all are a bunch of wimps,” Mav’s sister, Mae, comments.
“You’ll be here one day, scared of the future, too,” Mav says. “All we have is the summer and then it’s over. We work for the rest of our lives until we die. Alone.”
“Speak for yourself, Mav. I’m not alone,” I correct. As if on cue, Clayton walks up behind me.
“Why aren’t you alone?” He asks, coming around to sit on the couch beside me. We’re in the woods, as usual.
“Mav said we are all going to die alone,” I explained. “Clearly, I am not alone.”
“If I die first, you’d die alone.”
“Aw, you think we’re going to be forever?” I tease.
“I don’t know, anything can happen,” he smirks.
“Get a room,” Mav interjects before sticking his tongue out and a finger in his mouth with a gagging noise.
“You’re just jealous,” Dax chips in.
Everyone goes on, talking among themselves about mundane things. Wishes for the summer, last hoorahs. Plans for the last couple of weeks.
“My parents are renting an Airbnb down here. They’ll get here tomorrow morning. I was thinking we could have dinner with them? I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable having to meet them for the first time at camp.” Clayton says to me, more quiet so the others can’t hear.
“Oh, thank god,” I murmur.
The last few weeks the thought of meeting his parents has been driving me insane. I’m scared to meet them because what if they see right through the nice guy act and can read into me?
What if they realize I’ve never been with a guy before and they judge me for taking my first and only shot on their son? What if they hate me? What if they think I’m privileged like he did?
“Hey,” Clayton snaps his fingers in my face.
“What?” I shake my head, waking up.
“You just spiraled.”
“No,” I lie.
“You did. What’s the matter?”
“What if they don’t like me? What if they notice that I had this gay-awakening and that I’m a whore and-”
“Okay, relax, Max,” Clayton laughs.
“This isn’t funny.”
“Yeah, it is,” Mav chimes in.
“Fuck off, peanut gallery,” I grumble.
“It’s going to be fine. They are more than excited to meet you and they already said yes to dinner.”
“You already asked them!?”
“Yeah, so, you’re going anyway,” Clayton confirms.
“Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Oh my god,” I say to myself. “I guess this is happening.”
“Awwww, they grow up so fast!” Mav chants.
“Fuck you.”
I’m borderline going to shit my pants with fear.
Clayton had to talk me off of a ledge at least five times since he told me about the dinner. The dinner that is tonight. With his parents. I’ve never got to the point of having to meet someone’s parents. Every person I’ve been with, it was always casual. Nothing serious.
Clayton is my one and only real. My constant besides my friends. I never imagined we’d be here.
When he forgave me, life picked right back up where it had stopped. Studying, dinners, bike rides, beach trips, and everything else in between with sprinkled in sex and head.
He’s given me head and I’ve fucked him. We’re working toward me giving him head and him fucking me, but I’m…
terrified, if I’m being honest. Every time he puts a body part even remotely close to my ass, I clench up.
It’s foreign to me and the problem is that I can’t stop thinking about it.
I want it so bad, but my head keeps getting in the way.
“Hey, are you ready to go?” Clayton asks, knocking on my bathroom door. I’ve been in here for almost thirty minutes. Half getting ready, half pacing around the small space.
I take one last look in the mirror. I’m wearing a pair of dark, straight cut jeans, a black leather belt, and a black button down with the sleeves rolled to my elbows.
My hair is down in my face, but I’ve put on and taken off my head band at least five times; unsure of how to do my hair.
I’m wearing my all black vans to complete the look.
Thinking that I look good enough to show up to his parents, I open the door with a sigh.
“Max, baby, you’re working yourself up too much,” Clayton says when he sees my expression.
“I’ve never done this before.”
“You’ve never met someone's parents?”
“Just friends and stuff, but not like this,” I reveal.
Clayton runs his hands up my arms, over my shoulder, until he reaches my face and cups my cheeks in his hands. “They will love you. They are beyond excited to meet you. Just be yourself, okay? Nothing to be afraid of, baby.”
He kisses me. Not hard, not deep, but slow and soft. Pulling back, he leans his forehead against mine. I look down him, taking in how he looks.
His hair is slicked back and I’ve never seen it that way before, but it shows his face. The green of his eye popping against his long, dark lashes. He’s wearing a white crewneck t-shirt beneath a brown blazer, light jeans with a belt that matches his jacket, and brown shoes too.
“Is my outfit okay? Should I wear more color? Ugh, I don’t even own color,” I ramble.
“You look perfect, Max. Let’s go,” he says, gripping my wrist and pulling me. I let him lead the way because I’m not sure my feet will work on their own. We are silent on the way down to student parking. My head spinning with thoughts that won’t slow down.
“I’m going to drive us, okay?”
“We aren’t taking the bike?”
“You’re definitely not driving and I don’t know how to,” Clayton says.
“I’ll teach you one day,” I respond as he leads me to his beat up Toyota Corolla.
He opens the passenger door for me and I get in, buckling up as he rounds the car to slip into the driver's seat. I watch him as he readies himself. Connecting his phone to his little Bluetooth device, buckling, starting up the car. I focus on his every move so I don’t have to worry about the thoughts going through my head.
“What are they like?” I ask.
“My parents?”
“Yeah.”
“They’re kind, caring, understanding. They see the good in everyone, even those who don’t deserve it. You know those movies that have those happy-go-lucky families with a white picket fence who like to grill and invite neighbors because they’re friendly? That’s my parents.”
I smile at the thought because I don’t think Clayton realizes that he’s also describing himself.
“They sound fantastic.”
“They are. What are your parents like?”
Every time he has tried to ask me about this, I shut down and change the subject. I vowed that I wouldn’t think about Randall Levine and I want to keep that promise to myself, but how long can I keep avoiding this?
“My mom would move mountains for me if she could. She’s there for me whenever I need her, no matter the time of day.
Her love is so fierce that sometimes it’s a little terrifying.
She always goes in head first with everything despite the consequences,” I explain, feeling a smile reach my face. I love my mother.
“Sounds familiar,” Clayton concurred.
“You think I get that from her?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“I’m glad, then.”
“What about your dad?”
“Randall Levine,” I scoff. “Do you remember the party when we kissed?”
“How could I forget?”
“After you left and I went to leave, he was about to come in. He’s told me so many times not to have parties in the dining hall, but if I do anything, it’s to piss that man off.
On purpose. He brought me to his office and this was before he was leaving the school,” I say the words, telling him about that night while staring out the window.
The further I get into the topic, the closer his hand gets to mine.
Our fingers lock and I squeeze his hand tight.
“He hit you?” Clayton questions, somehow knowing exactly how this story ends.
“He hit me. I was pissed off, he was pissed off. I left him there, looking like an idiot. Come morning, he wanted to take me out for breakfast. I was hungover, so I let it slide.”
“Did he apologize?"
“No.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see Clayton turn his head to see me before turning his attention back to the road.
“He told me how he never wanted kids and how he didn’t love me.
” I suck in a sharp breath, finding the courage to tell him.
“As I got older and got angry, lashed out, and did whatever I did to try and fix myself, I apparently turned into every kid he hated. It’s why he was always so hard on me and never saw me no matter the good I did. ”
“Your own father admitted that he didn’t love you?”
“Yes.”
“Why did he stay?”
“He loves my mother enough to put up with me, I suppose.”
“That’s fucked up. I don’t know how someone couldn’t love you. I do,” Clayton says, matter of fact.
“What?”
“Oh. I mean. Just, you’re great. How couldn’t someone-”
“You love me?” I finally turn to him.
“I don’t think I should express my feelings,” he says, quiet.
“Why?”
“Last time I did you broke my heart.”
As he says that, he pulls into the driveway of a tiny home. It looks like a shed. I’ve seen pictures of these kinds of homes online. I’ve always wanted to see one in person and now that I’m here and seeing one, I can’t seem to be bothered to care.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Clayton. Do you want to know why?” I say, looking right at him. His green eyes bore into mine.
“Why?”
“Because I love you. Do you still not trust me?”
“I trust you a little bit more each day,” he confirms.
“I trust you. I trust you with my life, my heart, my everything. This is it for me, pretty boy. This is everything to me,” I proclaim.
“You’re here!” I hear a woman yell, interrupting our conversation. All that fear I had about meeting his parents was gone on the way here, distracted by us talking about my parents.
It’s back.
Clayton and I both get out of the car. The woman, who I assume is his mother, goes to him and gives him a hug.
She’s swallowed beneath his arms. She’s several inches shorter than him.
Her hair is just as blonde as his. When she turns to me, I see that their eyes match too. He is such a spitting image of her.
“Oh! You must be Maxwell!” She cheers, rushing over to me.
“Hi, Mrs. Reeves,” I smile, offering my hand. She bypasses it and goes in for a hug. I hesitate for a moment before wrapping my arms around her small body.
“Please, call me Amy,” she smiles. Pulling away from my hug, she clasps her hands together in front of her chest. “Oh, this is going to be so good! I’m so happy you guys are here!”
“Leave the poor kid alone, Ames,” a man says coming up behind her. “Bill,” he says, reaching his hand out to me.
I take it, shaking it with a firm grip. God, I hope it’s a firm grip.
He’s a balding man, but tall and lean. The same type of body build that Clayton has. Their nose and mouths look similar and it makes me want to smile that I pay close enough attention to someone that I can notice what their nose looks like.
Clayton really is the perfect combination of the two of them. You can see him in both of his parents.
“Max,” I respond.
“Let’s get you boys inside. Dinner is done,” he announces.
Amy and Bill walk side by side as they go toward the tiny home. His hand on the small of her back.
I pause, watching the scene before me, and I hope that one day, Clayton and I can get past my wrongs and have a love like that.
“Yes, I love you,” he says before pushing on my back, forcing me to walk inside.