The Art of Hero Worship (13 page)

“Here.” He hands me another shot. “Down the
hatch, dude.”

And this is how I end up getting drunk. Just
talking nonsense with BJ, sucking down shots in between lines of
meaningless dialogue. Within an hour I’m following BJ out the
doorway of our dorm room, on our way to the first of three keg
parties.

***

By the time we hit the third party all I
want is to be is asleep in my bed. And for the room not to be
spinning. Maybe not in that order.

“Dude—I found myself a pretty friend to keep
me company tonight!” BJ is all over this cute little red-haired
girl. He already has the top button of her jeans undone from what I
can see. “Listen, Tripp, me and Dacia need the room… so you gotta
find yourself another place to crash tonight.” He looks down at his
tiny, carrot-haired conquest. “We’re gonna be real busy….”

“Hey… wait up, BJ! I… I got nowhere to go….”
I’m drunk and exhausted and about to vomit into the plant pot.

“Hit up those freshman girls in the
basement. They’ll let yah sleep on their floor… B-12. It’s room
B-12….” BJ is every bit as drunk as I am but he’s motivated by
what’s lurking beneath Dacia’s tight jeans. “Good luck with it,
dude!”

I vomit in the plant pot. This is going to
be a long night.

***

It’s two in the morning, and for all intents
and purposes, I’m homeless.

“Hey, kid, you’ve gotta vacate the premises,
in other words—take a hike. My room ain’t a bed and breakfast.” I
recognize the voice. It’s the same hipster senior who told me
sarcastically, if I remember correctly, that he had no clue where
Liam is living this year.

All I can do is moan. I’m literally sick and
tired.

“Hey, Liam, do you know this kid? He was
here looking for you last week but I had no frigging idea where you
lived… in fact, I still don’t, so send me an email with your
addie.” Hipster-guy laughs. “It’s late and I want the kid to get
the hell outta here. He already barfed in my plant pot.”

“
Liam?”
It’s the only word he said
that made sense. “Liam….”

And then Liam is beside me, lifting me,
holding me beneath my shoulders. “Jason… which dorm room is
yours?”

I don’t answer. I can’t. But I can barf….
I’ve had to face that I’m the kind of guy who barfs too easily.
Always have been. Whatever…. I try desperately to avoid hurling on
his cool brown boots. I’m reasonably successful.

“Get him the hell out of here before he
hurls again!” Hipster-guy yells and Liam leads me down the hall and
toward the stairs.

“
Your dorm room,
Jason? What room is
yours?” Liam is impatient. I get the sense he wants to cut and run
but is too honorable to dump me in a stairwell.

“Can’t go to my room. BJ is getting a B.J.”
This hits me as inexplicably funny and I start to giggle.

“Your roommate has a girl in there?”

“He sure does.”

“Lucky me.” He doesn’t sound too happy about
it.

“Nope. Wrong! Lucky
him!”

“Well, I guess you’re gonna have to come
home with me.” I wish he sounded more enthusiastic. “No barfing in
my car tonight.” But on a positive note, he doesn’t sound as mad as
I expect, just kind of resigned to saving my ass for the fourth or
the fifth—I lost track—time.

***

“You can sleep in my bed. I’ll take the
futon.” Liam’s bed is actually made up, all nice and neat and
inviting. I wonder if he was hoping to get lucky tonight with some
cute girl like tiny orange-haired Dacia, and instead all he got is
me.

“Nah… I’ll take the futon. I actually
love
futons. You can call me ‘Futon Jase’. I don’t mind… in
fact, I kind of like it.” I don’t think my joke made sense but I’m
nervous and if I can make Liam laugh I’ll know he doesn’t hate me.
Even though he should.

He leads me past the futon lying flat on the
floor in the corner. “You’re gonna sleep in my bed. If you feel
sick,” he’s giving me direct orders so I pay attention, “you can
use this trash barrel.” He hoists me onto the bed and pulls off my
sneakers. Then he proceeds to less than gently remove my T-shirt
and jeans.

“Are we gonna fool around now, Liam?”
Hopefulness rings out in my voice. “I want to… I want to so much….”
Last time we fooled around had been odd, in that everything but the
happy ending had seemed so unfamiliar because Liam is what anybody
would call
all man
… and that was a first for me… but it had
also been strangely magical.
Unforgettable
is the best way
to describe it. Unforgettable, even as I’d tried so hard all summer
to push it from my mind… but it wouldn’t leave.

I want to worship my hero, as he so
deserves. I want to show him with my body the tangle of feelings
inside me. Because my emotions are all caught up like a fish in a
net… and the more I struggle to escape them, the more they entrap
me
.

“No, Jason. We’re not gonna
fool
around
. You’re gonna get into this bed and sleep off your buzz,
and I’m gonna sleep alone on the futon. And in the morning I’m
gonna drive you back to school and you’re gonna suffer all day with
one hell of a hangover.” Liam’s voice is cool and apathetic. He
walks to the little kitchenette and pours a glass of water. Then he
carries it to me and presses it into my hand. “Drink this entire
glass. In the morning, you’ll be glad you did.”

I follow his directions and then look for
approval, but his face is like cold, heartless,
pissed-off-at-Jase-for-being-the-world’s-biggest-dickhead stone.
“Thanks, Liam.”

“Now do me a favor and go to sleep.” Without
a glance at my face or my eyes, he turns and heads for the
futon.

“Come back here and look at me!” I don’t
know why I shout this as he steps away. Sometimes words just spill
out of my mouth. Especially when I’m plastered.

“Go to sleep, Jason.”

“No… not until I see your eyes.”

I hear the sigh. Liam’s frustrated because
he wants something he can’t have
. I wonder what it is.
He
turns back toward the bed but doesn’t step any closer. “Why are you
doing this to me?”

I can see his eyes from across the room.
They aren’t hard and cold like his voice sounds anymore. They’re
injured. “I made your eyes look like this—all sad and hurt.”

“What are you talking about?” Liam is trying
his hardest to keep his distance from me. But I can tell he’s
having difficulty with it.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call you. I… I wanted
to.”

“No worries, Jase. It’s okay, and all
forgotten. It’s over now.”

He called me
Jase
and the hard edge
to his voice softened. I think I’m making progress. “But I don’t
want you to forget about me. And I don’t want it to be over.”

Another sigh, and it’s louder than the last
one. “I think it has to be over. It’s for the best… for both of
us.”

“I disagree strongly.” My remark makes him
laugh, which I find irritating. “And I think I know what it
is….”

“I have no clue what you’re talking about…
you’re drunk. But go ahead and tell me what
it
is if you
must. And then we can both go to sleep.”

I know when someone’s humoring me, even when
I’m wasted. Nonetheless I explain myself. “
This
is what
it
is: I don’t really know if I could feel this way about
any other guy. There’s just something about
you
, Liam.”

He steps to the bed and looks down at me
with those piercing dark eyes I missed so much. “You’re drunk and
you don’t know what you’re saying.”

I yawn. “Okay, then. I guess I’ll have to
tell you the same damned thing again in the morning.” I turn on my
side. “Night, Liam.”

***

I’m incredibly thankful for the trash bucket
beside the bed when I wake up in the morning. I lean to the side
and make good use of it.

“You okay, man?” The question comes from
across the room.

“Been better.”

Liam makes this chuckling sound like he’s
enjoying my misery. “I’ll get you something for your headache.”
From my spot on the bed I can see him walk across the room to the
bathroom. He brings me some Advil and then grabs my glass. “Let me
fill this up for you. And when I do I want you to drink it
all.”

I like it when he tells me what to do. Maybe
I like it because I know he’s right in everything he suggests. Or
maybe it’s for reasons I’d rather not analyze. “Thank you, Liam.” I
seem to say this a lot.

“No problem.” He hasn’t yet put his T-shirt
on, as he’d rushed to get my pain meds upon waking up. And I admit
to myself that he looks incredibly good. Liam’s a tall guy, and
rugged, too, but the overall effect isn’t so much like a tank, but
more like a grizzly bear. His chest is covered in a blanket of
light brown curls; his arms and legs are the same. Liam is the
picture of masculinity, and I wouldn’t want him to look any
different. “Time for you to get up so I can take you back to your
dorm. It’s almost ten, so your roommate should be finished with his
nocturnal activities by now.”

I get that just-slapped feeling again, and I
don’t like the sting. “Liam….”

He sits down on the edge of the bed. “Jason,
there’s no use trying to force something between us that isn’t
there.”

I sit up and try to ignore a blinding rush
of pain in my temples. “Who’s forcing anything? I thought you liked
me.” I sound like a child.

Liam picks up my hand from my lap. “Of
course, I
like
you. And I’ll always
like
you. But I
was getting carried away with… with my feelings for you. I took it
too far.”

“You took it only as far as I wanted it to
go.”

“You were unstable emotionally and I think I
took advantage of that.”

“That’s not what happened and you know
it.”

We’re staring at each other now, really
staring, as if this will somehow help us figure things out.
“Listen, Jason. There’s a lot of shit that’s happened in my life
you don’t know. Shit about me and my family… that might lead me to
be… Forget it. I can’t explain this to you.”

“I think you just were. Keep talking.”

“Look, it comes down to this: something in
me wants to help you, and needs to protect you…. See where I’m
going with this?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“You aren’t sure if you’re gay, and guess
what? Neither am I—how’s that? But there’s just something about how
I feel when I’m with you… about how it feels when I take care of
you. You bring out certain instincts in me.”

And then there’s silence while we both
digest what he just said. After a minute or two passes, I say, “I
think I told you this last night, but I’m going to say it again. I
couldn’t feel the way I do for anyone but you—male or female. I
feel so much… I think I could fall in love with you.” I’m in shock
that I revealed this truth, a truth I haven’t even fully
grasped.

His eyes widen measurably upon hearing my
claim. “You didn’t exactly say
that
last night.” His
expression tells me that he wants to believe me. He starts
rambling. “I was hurt when you didn’t call. I let myself… I let
myself worry about you and really care for you… and then…you never
returned my calls and….”

“Climb in bed with me?” I lift up the sheets
and pat the spot on the bed beside me.

Liam appears to be assessing the benefits
and drawbacks to joining me between his sheets. “I… uh… I don’t
know, man.” But even as he says this, he does it… he climbs in. We
stretch out beside each other on the bed, our shoulders
touching.

“Will you hold me?” I ask.

He doesn’t reply but he pulls me onto his
chest and sighs. I press my ear to his skin and listen for the
sound I love. When I hear the steady pounding, I sigh, too.

“How about we just
try
to be
together? Like, we don’t think about whether we’re gay or straight
or bi or whatever it is. How about we leave those labels for other
people?”

“You think that’s realistic?” He’s clearly
skeptical and maybe so am I, but this is my life and I’m not going
to live by rules I didn’t make. I learned that much from loving
Ginny, who was honestly everything I wasn’t in the very best of
ways, and I’m going to put the lesson to action in my life. It’s
the least I can do in honor of her memory.

“I think that I’m a human being and you’re a
human being, and if we want, we can be two human beings who fall in
love. It’s that simple.” I’m again reminded of Ginny, but not in a
painful, gut-wrenching way, as it usually is. “Labels are for
suckers” was the first thing she ever said to me. I think she knew
what she was talking about.

Gay, straight, bi, pan… all labels, and I
want nothing to do with them.
I immediately realize that my
thought rings with bravado, but it’s not false bravado; I really
think we can live this way.

Liam allows the loudest sigh I’ve heard
since I’ve known him, and then he shrugs. “That isn’t in any way
simple, you know.”

I decide to ignore his remark because it
really doesn’t matter that what I’m proposing is complicated. “And
I’m sorry for what I did last summer. I was scared of the wrong
thing—of being gay—of living a life I’d never before considered.
But now I’m scared of the right thing—of losing you.”

Liam is quiet for so long I wonder if he’s
fallen asleep or, worse, chosen to ignore my request that we give
us
a try. Finally he takes in a deep breath and says very
softly, “’Kay.”

With the utterance of that single syllable,
that half of a word, I have a boyfriend.

***

When Liam and I get back to campus and he
walks with me to RetroHouse, we don’t hold hands. I don’t think it
seems like the natural thing to do to either of us, and I vowed,
just this morning, in fact, that I’m not going to do what’s
expected of me, but rather what feels right.