callum
TWENTY-ONE
NOW
My feet were glued to the floor of my childhood bedroom.
I was supposed to leave soon, but I hadn’t wanted to go without doing a proper walkthrough of the place.
There were so many memories tied up in this house, both good and bad.
I hadn’t wanted to come upstairs at first, but I got the strange feeling like maybe I should. Because what if I never came back here?
It seemed unreal to think about. But in a lot of ways it felt like I’d lost my family all those years ago too.
Like Sam had not only taken Damien from me, but he’d also driven a wedge between me and our parents.
They still wanted me to come home for holidays and stuff, and they were always happy to see me, but there was a distance there too. Like they didn’t want to get too close.
Even now with Sam gone, they were being…
off. They’d asked about the envelope with trembling voices.
They’d tried to play it cool, but the relief was palpable when I said I didn’t open the envelope and wasn’t sure that I wanted to.
And being here, in this house, it felt strange now.
It had felt strange then too. All the years I came home for holidays and visits that got shorter and shorter, I felt less and less like this was home.
Mom was still asleep when I crept downstairs again, but Dad was awake and in the kitchen. He stood at the window with a coffee in hand and stared blankly outside. He didn’t move a muscle. It was as if living took too much of his energy now, and he was trying to conserve what little he had.
“Having a pool seems stupid now,” Dad said as he continued staring out into the dim morning light. “Thought we’d have a pack of grandkids coming over to use it by now.”
“Well, sorry to disappoint you. But I’m still super gay.”
Dad turned to face me, worry and horror etched into his face. “Is that… that’s not… I didn’t mean.” He paused and took a breath. “You’re not a disappointment.”
He looked like he might want to say something else, but he clamped his mouth shut and turned back to the window.
I helped myself to a cup of coffee, stirred in a couple sugars, and joined him in looking out into the back yard.
Though I bet my memories of the space were different than his.
His were family barbeques and the occasional party.
Mine were stolen kisses, secret swimming lessons, and the summer I fell in love.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Dad said. The cup in his hand shook and he set it on the counter, then braced himself against it.
“I know, Dad. I’ll miss him too.” I wasn’t sure I did. Or that I ever would. But it was the appropriate thing to say.
Dad’s gaze finally left the back yard, and he focused on me. “He was awful to you. I’m sorry I didn’t do more to stop it.”
“It’s fine. Sam was… Sam was Sam. There was little you could’ve done.
” Sam was horrible, but I’d chosen to stay away.
I’d let him manipulate me for years. And so had they.
They must have known that something happened between us, but they acted oblivious to it.
Like everything was normal, and fine, and not at all fucked up that one of their kids barely came home.
“I could’ve—”
“I was hoping you were still here.”
I turned as Mom shuffled into the room. She was in pajamas and had a housecoat on over top. She looked smaller and more frail than I’d ever seen her, and my heart clenched as she came closer.
“I wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye, Mom.”
She patted my arm like she was making sure I was real. “You’ve done it before.”
Yes, I had. Because sometimes being around Sam was insufferable. He made everything into a fight. It was like one day he woke up and decided that I was his enemy and he’d give me no quarter. He’d show me no mercy. No reprieve. And as long as I was in the house, I was behind enemy lines.
“Not this time, Mom.” I shot her a look I hoped leaned more toward sympathy and less toward the exasperation that swelled up in me.
She and Dad had watched the dynamic between Sam and me devolve over the years, and they’d done nothing.
They said nothing. They stood idly by and turned a blind eye to it.
Sometimes they reined him in, but only when he clearly went too far.
Only when they couldn’t get away with not saying anything.
“You’ll come and visit again, right, sweetheart? Won’t you?”
“Of course I will,” I told her, not sure it was the truth, but I wasn’t interested in breaking the heart of a fragile old woman.
“Maybe you could bring your partner next time,” Mom said, her voice shaky. She went and stood next to Dad, who put his arm around her. She sagged against him like he was the only thing holding her together.
“Maybe, if there is a partner next time.” I’d never been comfortable bringing any of my past boyfriends home because I refused to subject any of them to Sam and his toxic bullshit.
Although now he was gone, it felt like that ship had sailed.
Even if I did have a boyfriend, which I didn’t, I wouldn’t want to bring him here to meet my sad, worn parents who did little to fight to make me comfortable before Sam’s death.
It was almost ironic that now they seemed to remember they had another kid.
My hand clenched around the coffee mug in my hand, and I put it in the sink before I did something stupid like throw it against a wall.
“I should go.” I just wanted to get home. I wanted out of this house and as wrong as it should have been to admit to myself, away from my parents. I wanted to go home and call Damien and make sure I hadn’t dreamed everything that happened between us.
“I’ll give you a ride to the airport,” Dad offered, kissing Mom on the top of the head.
“I’ll get a cab or something. You should stay with Mom.
” They were forty-five minutes from the airport, and I had no interest in sitting in a vehicle alone with either of them for that long.
The silence would be too big, too heavy and awkward to stand, but I didn’t want to have to fill it either.
I wasn’t sure what, if anything, I wanted to say to them.
I wasn’t even sure what I wanted them to say to me.
Did I want them to prostrate themselves at my feet? Did I want them to beg for my forgiveness, or at least explain what had shifted between us that made me not worth as much to them as Sam clearly had been. Was it because I was gay? Was it something else?
I wasn’t sure I wanted the answers to any of my questions.
“I’ll go get my things and call an Uber.
” I left the kitchen, being careful not to rush.
I didn’t want them to catch on to just how badly I wanted to be away from them.
I should be a good son and want to stay around and comfort them in their time of need, but I’d felt superfluous since coming back.
Like my presence was just another burden they had to bear.
I took my time getting my things, even though I’d barely unpacked. And it wasn’t until my Uber was almost there that I felt safe enough to leave the room. Mom and Dad hovered near the front door, waiting to send me off.
“You’ll call us when you get home? Let us know you arrived okay?
” Dad said. It was the same thing he always asked of me whenever I left.
Usually, it made me feel good to think that they cared enough to want me to check in with them to make sure I got home okay.
But now everything felt hollow and cheap, like it was a performance they’d perfected over time.
I delivered my lines flawlessly. Yes, I’d call.
Yes, I’d miss them. Yes, I’d come home for a visit.
I also invited them to come see me, something I never did before.
But I doubted they’d show up. Sam might not be here anymore, but he still ran the show.
I could see that Mom didn’t want to visit.
It was written in the guilt that crossed her features when I suggested it.
Unlike other visits, Dad walked me to my car when it arrived and he helped me with my bag, even though I didn’t need the assistance. And before I left, he pulled me into a bone-crushing hug.
“Don’t be a stranger.” His voice cracked when he spoke.
“I won’t.” But I’d always felt like a stranger. Like an interloper. An intruder. An unwanted guest star on the Sam Weeks Show. But maybe now things could be different for us.
I climbed into an Uber that smelled of air fresheners and waved at my dad out the window. And after, when I couldn’t see him anymore, when my street disappeared from the rearview mirror, I exhaled for the first time since arriving.
I’d come back, but next time I’d stay in a hotel, or I’d stay with Ginny. I even entertained the idea of coming just to see Ginny and my other friends and not letting my parents know that I was in town at all.
The airport wasn’t busy, which was nice because I got breakfast and a coffee and sat in relative peace until it was time to board my flight.
By the time I finally arrived back home and unlocked the door to my apartment, I was done.
Fatigue made every bone in my body feel like cement.
Crudinski, my so-ugly-he-was-cute rescue cat, greeted me at the front door with bossy meows to show me just how displeased he was that I’d left him.
I dropped my suitcase by the front door, toed out of my shoes, and scooped Crudinski off the floor and into my arms. “I missed you too.” I kissed the top of his furry head.
Crudinski was already purring, his front paws making little biscuits, poking me in the chest with his needle-sharp claws.
“I saw him, Crudinski,” I said. Crudinski had been with me for a few years now.
He’d lived through a few failed relationships and had always been there for me when I needed to vent about stuff.
Including Damien. He was the only one who knew the whole story.
“I saw him and it was like no time had gone by. According to my heart, anyway.”
Crudinski purred and I pretended it was because he was happy for me, when in reality it was because Crudinski always purred when he was the center of attention.
I carried him over to the couch and I lay down, letting Crud stand on my chest. He stared down at me, purring aggressively as I continued to pet him.
“I can’t call him yet. That would seem desperate. Wouldn’t it?”
Crudinski never answered, of course, but he did give me a slow blink and that felt like a yes. Or maybe I just wanted any excuse to reach out to Damien again.
Crudinski looked into my soul with his yellow cat eyes.
His black fur was a little on the long side, and he had bottom fangs that stuck out of his jaw.
His nose was a little pushed in. He was clearly some kind of Persian mix and I would die for him, knowing that if I did, he would definitely wait at least a full thirty minutes before snacking on my corpse.
He blinked again, long and slow, and it was all the pretend permission that I needed to fish my phone out of my pocket and send a text, first to my parents to let them know I arrived.
And then to Damien, whom I couldn’t decide if I already missed or if I never stopped missing him at all.
Our time together had been short and it felt like a fever dream now. Part of me didn’t expect him to answer.
But he did.
He answered like he’d been sitting there, staring at his phone, waiting for me to reach out.
And if he wasn’t going to waste time pretending he was aloof and cool and could wait to talk to me, then I wasn’t going to pretend that I didn’t want to see him.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
I not only wanted to see him, I wanted to drown in him.
I wanted to cling to him like a life raft.
He was the only thing in my life that made sense.
“Callum,” Damien answered, exhaling like he’d been holding his breath waiting for me and could finally breathe now that I’d called.
“When can I see you?” I blurted, not caring if I sounded needy or desperate or too eager. Even if I played it cool, Damien would’ve seen right through me. He always had.
His answer came quiet and confident, and if I closed my eyes, I could pretend he was there, whispering in my ear.
“Whenever you want,” he said.