14. Orion
Orion
Please, please God, tell me that didn’t happen.
Tell me it was a fever dream. A nightmare. My brain’s way of taking the trash out after having a bad virus. Please, for the love of all that’s holy, tell me I didn’t actually blurt out something of that magnitude without even fucking meaning to.
I lie as still as I can and listen for signs of life in my room. I find none. Thankfully, I’m alone in bed, and based on the light streaming in through my curtains, it’s midmorning or later.
The relief of being alone lasts for less than a second.
The anguish that hits me when I realize Jordan isn’t here slams into me and reverberates.
It’s crushing. A wave made of something other than water.
Something heavier. Darker and murkier. Something so painful I have to close my eyes as it washes over me.
I don’t think it was a dream.
I think I said what I said. Aloud.
I don’t think I said it. I know I did. I can still taste the words in my mouth. Dry and heavy on my tongue. I was half asleep when I said them, but I heard them. Jordan heard them too. There’s no way he didn’t.
He heard them, and now he isn’t here.
He’s in the apartment. I can hear him in the kitchen, clanking pots and pans as he unloads the dishwasher, but he isn’t here, in my room. For the first time in days, I’m awake, and he isn’t here.
I keep my eyes closed and don’t move until every muscle in my body is on the verge of cramping.
Then I don’t move some more.
I don’t move as the arc of sunlight travels across my bedroom floor, and I don’t move other than to squeeze my eyes shut a little tighter when I hear Jordan’s footsteps in the hallway.
He comes into my room wordlessly, puts something down next to me, and leaves.
I wait until I’m positive he’s gone, and for good measure, I wait a few more minutes after that. When I open my eyes, I see a bowl of oatmeal and a steaming mug of coffee on my bedside table.
I sit up, eyeing the door the whole time and scarf the oatmeal down. I have a few sips of coffee and take my meds. I lose my nerve when I hear a noise coming from Jordan’s room and throw myself down again, pulling the covers over my head.
Am I proud of my performance? Not even a little.
Am I going to pull myself together and face Jordan anytime soon? Also no.
I pretend to be in a coma-level sleep for the rest of the day, eating the food he leaves for me like it’s a top-secret covert mission. Every time Jordan comes in, he stands next to my bed for ages, as if he’s waiting for me to open my eyes.
I don’t.
And I’m not going to.
I think the best thing to do in this situation is to pretend to be asleep for a few weeks. When Jordan gets bored and realizes he has to start attending class again or risk being kicked out of college, I can get up, pack my shit, move out, and never see him again.
It’s not a perfect plan, but it’s the best I have.
It works for the whole of the first day and most of the second, but by evening, I can tell Jordan has had enough of me.
“I know you’re awake, Orion.” It’s not the first time he’s said it, more like the third.
I keep my eyes closed and pray for an earthquake or some other deadly natural disaster to strike the apartment.
“Orion! Open your eyes right now!”
I blink weakly, narrowing my eyes as if the light from the table lamp he turned on is an assault on my retina. I sit up, wiping the back of my hand across my mouth and swallow a couple of times, doing my best to affect a man who has been in a dead sleep and has woken with amnesia.
Jordan doesn’t speak again, and after a very long time, I force my gaze across the floor to his bare feet.
I stop there for a beat before forcing them upward.
I’m so overwrought that I don’t even pause when I get to his bulge or his pecs.
I let my gaze skid up as high as it can.
My eyes slam to a halt when they meet his.
I hold eye contact for less than a second before dropping my head and looking away.
Jordan is standing with one knee bent slightly and his arms hanging at his sides. His head is cocked to the side, and he’s looking at me as though I’m someone he’s never met.
“Did you mean it?” he asks when enough time has passed to leave me absolutely positive this is, without doubt, the most horrific experience of my life.
My eyes meet his again, though I’m not sure how it happened.
I don’t think I meant to look directly at him, but now that it’s happened, I can’t look away.
His expression is neutral, though his jaw is clenched a little harder than usual.
His mouth is a line with a fractional amount of tension visible in his top lip.
His eyes are my biggest problem though. They’re the same as always. Blue with a light ring of yellow around the pupil, but they’re laced with a question. A big question. A question and something else. Something so small most people would miss it.
A tiny, microscopic shadow of disappointment.
It’s small. So close to being insignificant that I’m positive no one else would notice it. I do notice it because it’s the exact expression I’ve spent most of my life dreading.
I want to lie badly. More than anything, I want to laugh and say, “Mean what?” and for that to be the end of this nightmare.
I can’t, though, because the truth has legs and it stands beside me.
In front of me and behind me. It’s not going away.
It’s part of me. It’s going to be with me every day for the rest of my life. Lying about it won’t change that.
Despite that, I’m such a coward, and I’m so fucking terrified right now that I might still be tempted to lie if not for the fact that I know Jordan better than anyone. I know him, and it’s too late to lie. He already knows it’s true. It’s written all over his eyes.
He knew it was true the second I said it.
Despite that, he keeps me locked in his gaze, without smiling, without taking mercy on me, until I let out a dry, cracked, “Yeah, I meant it.”
The tension in his lips pulls sharply, and he takes a breath that’s more of a gasp than a typical breath. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Why didn’t I tell him?
I didn’t tell Jordan for one simple reason.
One reason only. Because I’m hopelessly, helplessly in love with him.
No matter how much I try to deny it or wish it were different, the way I feel about him is static.
Unchanging. Set in stone. Written into my DNA as surely as any other aspect of my personality.
I didn’t tell him because I don’t know how to tell Jordan I’m gay without telling him I’m in love with him. For me, those two things are linked, and I can’t imagine a time they won’t be.
I don’t tell him that, but I tell him a truth that’s as close to the whole truth as I can possibly get it.
“I wasn’t ready,” I croak, blinking hard and fast to fight the threatening tears.
He sits beside me on the bed and puts his arms around me. My heart is beating so hard I can hear it, and every tear I’ve ever held back is threatening to flow. Burning, stinging my eyes so hard that when Jordan tightens his grip on me, they all pour out of me at once.
“Please tell me you didn’t think I’d mind, Orion,” he whispers over and over. “Please tell me you didn’t think I’d mind.”
I can’t talk. I can’t breathe. But I do shake my head as I cling to him because that much is true. No matter what the internal voices have conjured in the past, they’ve never managed to convince me that Jordan would mind that I’m queer. I know him well enough to know that for a fact.
“No,” I say when I can. I suck in a spluttery breath and let it out shakily. “Didn’t think you’d mind…never thought that.”
He pushes me away, holding my face in his hands, and studies my eyes. “Do you swear?”
I nod and sniff, and another sheet of tears spills down my cheeks. “I swear.”