Tips on Having a Gay (ex) Boyfriend (33 page)

He is so warm against me. He is so warm my shaking stops. My words come out solid, whole, plump like blueberries in August. “I love you.”

He kisses my hair and he doesn’t hesitate. He just says it right back, “I love you, too.”

And I know we both mean it. And I know we don’t need to say it for it to be true, but it’s still nice to hear. And I know it’s not the kind of love we both thought it was once, but that doesn’t make it any less good or any less true.

He starts to sing, softly, an old Van Morrison song about beautiful, magical places and people being forever friends. It’s not one of Dylan’s opera songs, or one of my girl folk songs, but it is our song, our friendship song. His lullaby voice pushes me toward sleep, but before I shut my eyes, I notice Gabriel, my blue guitar, leaning against the wall. Tomorrow I will stand her up. Tomorrow I will buy new strings and play something good and sweet and in tune. And maybe I will buy some duct tape and make little people who will always be friends and I will stick them onto Em’s dashboard and I will give one to Dylan and another one to Tom.

But that is for tomorrow.

For today, Dylan and I will fall asleep there on my love bed, lengthened out next to each other. We will hold each other throughout the night, the way we’ve always promised to, the way friends are supposed to when things go bad. Together, we will hold each other safe.

But this is no fairy tale and the Harvest King and Queen do not get to sleep together happily ever after throughout the night. Dylan is not suddenly ungay and I am not suddenly un-in-lust with Tom.

Everything is not suddenly better.

My mom does not even let him stay the night, of course. She lets him stay two hours and then hustles him away. He looks embarrassed that he’s been in my bed and my mom’s caught him, which is ridiculous because this is the first time he’s been in my bed fully clothed and where nothing’s happened.

I am groggy and tired but I wave goodbye.

After she lets him out, my mom comes and sits beside me, holding my hand.

“I want to go to school tomorrow,” I tell her.

“We’ll see.”

“I’m going.”

“We’ll see.”

I swallow and squeeze her hand. “I can’t hide forever.”

“You have a concussion, sweetie.”

“I have to go to school,” I say. “If I don’t go tomorrow I’ll never be brave enough to go back.”

She kisses my forehead. “We’ll see.”

She starts humming a lullaby song, “Go to sleep, little whirl, close your pretense, blue skies.”

I squeeze her hand and ask her. “Mom, do you mess up the words on purpose?”

She waits a second. She waits another one and sighs out, “Yes.”

“Why do you do that?” I sit up straight and she gently puts her hands on my shoulders to push me back down.

She tucks the covers around me again and says, “Sometimes it’s good to give people something they’re not expecting. You get what I mean?”

I shake my head.

“Plus, it makes people laugh.”

The overcast sunlight shifts through my windows and wakes me up. I stay there in my bed, and pull my pillow over my head. It’s cool against my forehead. The memory of yesterday smacks itself back into my soul, like a sucker punch to the belly. And I jump up.

My hands do not jerk.

My head aches but does not spin.

I shoot a glance at the clock. It’s ten o’clock, my mother didn’t wake me up. I sigh, but can’t be mad. Gabriel rests against the wall and I pick her up and imagine strumming a shuffling blues rhythm; strumming an E-chord down and up, down and up. But I just can’t do it. Instead, I run my fingertips softly along the edge of her fret board.

My mom comes and leans against the door frame, arms crossed in front of her chest, smiling. “You going to play her soon?”

“Yep.”

“Good.”

We compromise. My mom had me sleep late and then lets me go to school late. I’m not happy about it, but it works.

Dropping me off, she hands me my gig case and her eyes go worried. “Stay safe, sweetie.”

I nod and act all brave. “Don’t worry. All’s good.”

Then I exit the car. The cold blasts me, whips through Tom’s jacket and my shirt. My hair lashes out behind me, but I fight against the frigid wind and the muted cloudy sky and I walk forward into school.

The first person I see is Bob. He glares at me.

“Hey,” I say and raise my hand to wave, but he just scurries through the empty corridor, feet slapping on the dirty linoleum, like I don’t exist.

Then the bell for the period rings. I get there in time for lunch, but despite all my brave talk, I don’t go. Instead, I walk through the halls, as everyone rushes out of their classes. I pass by Kara.

“Belle?” Her eyes wide. “You okay? I heard about . . .”

I cut her off, but smile. “I’m good.”

She stares at me and nods and it’s like there’s a computer processor stuck behind her eyes, computing all sorts of information. “You going to lunch?”

I shake my head. “Nah.”

I lift up Gabriel in my gig bag and say, “I’m going to study hall and play. Tell Em if you see her, okay?”

“Okay,” Kara nods really emphatically like I’ve just told her the secret to stopping illegal detention of potential political insurgents’ wives and children.

I pretty much ignore the other people I see, Andrew, Anna, Shawn, and just book it into the study hall room, pull out Gabriel in all her shiny blue glory, and then I begin to think about playing, but I don’t. I just hold her in the position.

I sit in silence for a long time, just holding my guitar. It belonged to my dad once, this guitar. So, I sit there and imagine him playing it, but it isn’t real. It’s just silence. Nothing.

I close my eyes.

The sound of a pair of slow, loud clapping hands breaks me out of it.

Tom sits on top of a desk by the door. I’m in the middle of the room, Gabriel on my lap and my eyes are closed and I’m not even playing her. I bite my lip and look away, worried that he’ll think of me as the freak seizure girl.

I clear my throat. “Do you want your jacket back?”

“What?” Tom stands up and starts toward me. I fiddle with the strings, pretending like I’m tuning them.

“I said, ‘Do you want your coat back?’”

“You said, ‘jacket,’” he says, standing just a foot away from me.

“Whatever.” My heart beats too fast, ready for the pain. “Do you want it?”

I balance Gabriel on a nearby desk and start pulling my arms out of Tom’s jacket. I feel like I’ve lost another layer of myself, like I’m part naked without it. I hold it out to him.

“I don’t want my jacket, Belle.” He shakes his head like I’ve failed him, which I guess I have. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I nod and shrug. Then I pull the jacket back to me and clutch it against my chest.

“Dylan told me he went to your house last night,” Tom says, leaning back against a desk and crossing his arms in front of him. “He said you were doing okay, that Eddie didn’t hurt you too much.”

“Yeah.” I look away. I look back. I don’t know where to look. I decide to focus on my Snoopy shoes. Good ole Snoopy, clutching those balloons, hoping to fly away.

Tom touches my arm and I jump. He stares into my eyes, forcing me to look, seeming startled himself, but serious, really serious. “Do you still love him?”

I tilt my head. “What?”

“You heard me. Don’t make me say it again,” he says, pleading now, but steady, strong.

“Of course, I love him,” I say. “I’ll always love him, but I don’t love him love him like in a sexual romantic way. Does that make sense?”

He nods and turns, paces away a few steps, runs his hand through his hair. That place in his cheek spasms. He looks up in the air and then back at me. “It just about killed me when he said he slept with you.”

“He didn’t sleep with me! He hugged me!” I yell and I toss Tom’s jacket onto a desk, angry and stomp closer to him. The light above our heads buzzes and flickers out. “That’s not the same thing.”

He lifts an eyebrow. “It isn’t?”

“You know it isn’t.”

He pauses and says slowly like every word matters, “How would you feel if you found out I was on a bed hugging Mimi Cote for hours?”

It is so quiet I can hear the clock on the wall tick away the seconds as my heart breaks. “Fully clothed?”

He nods. “Fully clothed.”

“I’d tear her heart out.”

He smiles, but it’s just a little, sad smile and my heart, my own heart flip flops in my chest and aches for him. I swallow hard. “I’m so sorry. He came and I was so sad, but nothing happened. I’m sorry.”

I bite my lip and the words come out before I can stop them. “I wish it was you. I wish it was you holding me.”

He scratches at his hair and then holds open his arms, and I don’t think. I rush into them.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

And he leans in and kisses me, so much harder, so much deeper than our other two kisses. It’s long and full of comforter cover dreams and bathtubs and singing on grassy lawns holding hands and it’s full of want and need and love.

I sigh against him. I lean against him and he leans against me. Our hands hold each other up and our lips talk and talk and tell each other’s soul secrets, all without words.