Colton is 17, gay, and thinks he's normal even though he's pretending to be an alcoholic. Noah is 18, likes to lie, and appointed himself to be Colton's sponsor in AA. They both stare at each other too much. I'm Danielle. This story is best read while eating snacks, like Cheetos.
I slammed the bathroom door, wished the wood were thick enough that it would block out Evan’s yelling.
I locked the door, then stepped in front of the sink, looked up slowly at the mirror above it.
Nothing I hadn’t seen before. I reached up anyway, touched my cheek gently, then let my hair out from its French braid, pulling it to cover the sides of my face. I almost couldn’t see the redness, when I had my hair like that.
My phone buzzed in my back pocket, but it couldn’t be Evan apologizing because I could still hear him yelling at me from outside the door, and he never apologized until after he went to a bar and got wasted and came home at some hour of the morning to wake me up with some stupid slur about how he was sorry, I was his baby, he wouldn’t do it again.
I exhaled hard to blow my bangs from up over my forehead. Reached into my back pocket to fish out my phone and saw a text notification from Colton.
I looked at Colton’s name for a moment. Sometimes I forgot I even had a brother. Sometimes I forgot I had a family at all, that I wasn’t an orphan, completely alone and abandoned with no one but myself.
That’s how it was down in Miami, anyway. I couldn’t remember why I’d wanted to get away from my family so much. Something about the loneliness of that big house, I remembered. Something about how it always felt cold there, and I’d had to go somewhere warm, why not Florida, why ever go back?
My phone had gone black again, so I unlocked it, opened up Colton’s text, read it and read it again, no longer hearing Evan’s shouting, no longer feeling the sting on my cheek.
hey sis guess what? noah and I are engaged :)
I smiled through my exhale, not even wincing at the pain in my cheek from smiling.
My big brother was getting married to that alcoholic he’d been head over heels with since high school.
But no, I didn’t think of Noah that way. He’d been really nice. And he’d gotten sober, he’d gotten sober for Colton. If that wasn’t love, I didn’t know what was.
I wasn’t sure if I did know what love was. At least, what I knew was definitely not the kind of love Colton felt for Noah. But I didn’t think most people got that kind of love anyway.
I’d liked Noah too, but who wouldn’t? He was so cute and sexy and nice. And I knew he and Colton were living fairy tale lives up in Chicago with little Shyla. I was happy for Colton, that he got out of that house, that he got out of that life we were both trapped in, that cold and that loneliness and that insufferable silence and he had Noah now, they were like their own little family.
I was happy for him because he was my brother, and I did want him to be happy, I did. But sometimes I thought I hated him too.
Colton had a new family now. Which meant it was just me and dad left, and dad didn’t count.
Just me then.
My phone had locked again, so I unlocked it, typed in a reply.
That’s awesome! Congrats bro
I placed my phone gently on the edge of the sink, looked at my reflection again before closing my eyes, pressing my palms over-top of my eyelids.
I was going to be happy too. Colton had just beat me too it. But I’d figure it out, and I’d get it too.
I had to.
*
I shoved the photograph under my pillow when Bella bounced into my room, not even knocking.
She never knocked, it was so annoying.
“Can you believe it? I still can’t believe it!” Bella sang, jumping onto my bed so that I pulled my legs up and crossed them, not wanting her to jump on my knees and crush them or something.
“You should learn to knock,” I said.
“Why are you grumpy? Noah and Colton are getting married,” Bella said, frowning at me and tossing her hair over her shoulder.
She’d started doing that. It was so stupid, she looked like an idiot. She was only fourteen but kept trying to be older, not that I knew why. Fourteen year olds had no problems, not like I did, anyway.
Sixteen was when life got really complicated, in my opinion. I would have explained this to Bella, but I didn’t think she’d understand.
“Obviously they’re getting married, we always knew that anyway,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
“I already called dibs on maid of honor,” Bella said, and I rolled my eyes.
“They’re men, they won’t have maids of honor or bridesmaids, they’ll both have a best man and groomsmen,” I explained.
“Noah said he’d have a maid of honor.”
“He was lying so you wouldn’t make a fuss,” I said, and Bella glared at me for a second, then flounced off my bed.
“I don’t know what your problem is, you don’t have to be so mean all the time!” she said, then stormed out of my room, slamming the door behind her.
“Bella!” I snapped, because sure enough, our mother was shouting up the stairs two seconds later demanding to know who was slamming doors in her house.
I groaned as I heard Bella shouting back and sank into my pillow as they argued, then finally quieted.
I waited until I could hear the click of Bella’s door closing much more gently beside mine, then reached back and fished out my photograph again.
I ignored everyone else in the soccer team but Abigail, touching her face with my fingertip.
She was my best friend, but Noah and Colton had been best friends first, hadn’t they? Maybe that was how it was supposed to be.
I glanced at my door, then hauled myself off my bed and locked it before returning to my bed, settling under my blankets before lifting the photograph again.
I took a breath, then lifted the photo to my lips, keeping my eyes open so I’d know I was kissing the right girl.
I left my lips on the smooth photograph for another moment, liking the cool feeling of the shiny photograph paper but not really feeling the things I thought I was supposed to feel, then dropped the picture onto my blanket, sagging back into the pillow I’d propped against my headboard.
Maybe I was just being brainwashed by the stupid guys at school who’d said all the girl soccer players were lesbian. Like their words had gone into my head and were affecting my unconscious or something.
I thought it was supposed to be obvious, who you were supposed to like. I thought I would just know if I liked boys or if I liked girls, I thought that’s how it worked, so why didn’t I just know? Why wasn’t it that simple?
Maybe it wasn’t, maybe all that stuff on television where gay people would insist to their homophobic parents that they knew they were gay since they were seven years old was just all lies, and really no one knew, really everyone was as confused as I was.
I wished people would just be honest about their confusion, then. I wouldn’t have to feel so stupid, if at least I knew other people were like me.
Maybe they weren’t though. Maybe I was the only one who couldn’t even tell who I was meant to fall in love with.
I could have asked Noah. But I didn’t want him to think I was copying him, because people always thought I just wanted to copy Noah, but that wasn’t true at all. But he might think I was copying him, being maybe a lesbian when he was gay or whatever he was. I didn’t really know if he was gay, he’d never told me. I guessed he had to be, but he could have been bi or something else, there were so many things people could be, and I wished there weren’t.
I wished it was just simple, like there were only two things a person could be, and then I could narrow it down by making a list or something, and it would be easier to figure it out.
I didn’t think it was normal for two siblings to both be gay anyway. So if Noah was the gay one, then that meant I probably was straight. And I felt weird asking him anyway because he obviously knew what he wanted, he wanted Colton and he always had and that had never been a question for him, and he might have thought I was stupid for not knowing if I even wanted to be with Abigail or not.
I didn’t know. I liked her, I liked her a lot. I always wanted to hang out with her, and I wanted her to like me more than all the other girls on the team, and I didn’t like when she talked about boys, but I thought maybe I was just selfish and scared that she’d get a boyfriend and hang out with him and forget about me, so maybe I didn’t have a crush on her, maybe I was just a bad friend.
I huffed and scooched down so that I was lying down, but I couldn’t go to sleep because I hadn’t brushed my teeth or gone to the bathroom and my light was still on, so I just looked up at the ceiling.
If they were going to have a maid of honor in their wedding, it should be me. I was older, anyway, and Noah would want me over Bella, obviously, we were always closest, we had always looked out for each other and watched over Bella because she was littler and didn’t understand stuff as much as we did.
Bella hadn’t even known Ally, she’d been just a baby, but Noah and I had helped each other get through it. At least I could remember Ally, and I doubted Bella could.
I deserved to be maid of honor.
I sat up, looked for my phone, found it under the blanket by my thigh and fished it out, texted Noah quickly.
If you have a maid of honor it has to be me not Bella! It wouldn’t be fair!
I stared at my screen, waiting for his reply, and instead it lit up with a call from Noah, so I took it.
“Noah, Bella said you said you’d let her be maid of honor, but that’s not – ”
“Heath, hey, calm down,” Noah said, laughing, and I felt better on hearing his voice, then just like that my eyes and nose were burning and I felt my lips wobbling.
I pulled my knees to my chest, pressed my forehead to them.
“You there?” Noah asked.
“I miss you, when are you going to visit?” I mumbled, my voice shaking.
“Heather, are you crying?” Noah asked, and I shook my head against my knees.
I knew he couldn’t see me, but it didn’t matter because I was lying anyway.
“Hey, what’s going on? I just saw you guys a week ago when you came down to help with the move,” Noah said, like I’d forgotten or something, and I knew that, but he used to live in our house and I used to see him every day so I didn’t know why it was a big deal that I could miss him after a week.
A week was a long time.
I still didn’t say anything because I was trying to stop crying so I could properly deny that I was.
“Heath, is this about the maid of honor thing? Listen to me, Colton and I haven’t even thought that far, but there are two of us, so both of you can be maids of honor, right? And you can be mine, I promise, all right?”
“It’s not about that!” I shouted, forgetting that I was trying to stop crying before speaking again.
“What’s wrong?” Noah asked, and I could hear how serious he was, and it only made me miss him more because everyone else treated me like I was just some kid, but Noah never had.
“Nothing,” I mumbled.
Noah didn’t say anything for a little, and I didn’t mind because it gave me time to compose myself.
I looked around for a tissue but couldn’t find any and swiped my forearm over my nose, looking at the shine of snot plastering down my arm hair.
“Heath. You know that even when Colton and I get married, you’re still my family. You’re always going to be my sister, and I’m always going to come home, and you’re always going to be welcome at our home. That will never change, no matter what else does. You know that, right?”
I did know that, and that wasn’t the issue either, although I couldn’t remember what the issue was, why I was even crying in the first place, and I felt better on hearing his words anyway, even though I had already known this, it’s not like I was relieved or anything.
“Yeah, I know,” I said, my voice sounding thick but at least it wasn’t wobbly or cracking.
“And I’ll always be here for you. You can tell me anything, always.”
I exhaled, nodded. “I know.”
“Is there anything you want to talk about?” Noah asked, and I closed my eyes.
I knew I could tell Noah anything. Ask him anything, even about Abigail, and how I was confused, and how I felt stupid for that because I was sixteen and some people in my grade were having sex probably but I couldn’t even figure out who I wanted to have sex with or if I even wanted to have it.
But Noah had just gotten engaged yesterday. He was probably still so happy about it, and I didn’t want to ruin that with my stupid problems.
I just wanted Noah to be happy. I had always protected him, and just because he was old now and getting married didn’t mean he didn’t need protecting.
I’d heard Mom once, one night when we were really little, telling Dad that she worried about Noah because he was like something fragile. And everyone was always telling me I was tough, so I had to protect him, it just made sense.
“No, I’m okay,” I told Noah, keeping my voice strong.
Noah didn’t say anything, and then I could hear his exhale. “Okay, Heath. Call me if you want to, okay? Or we could Skype. I miss you too, a lot, even though it’s only been a week. I miss you everyday.”
I nodded, biting my lip hard until I knew it was safe to speak again. “Miss you too. I’m gonna go now. Bye, Noah, love you.”
“Love you, crazy person,” Noah said, and then I hung up.
I slipped my phone under my pillow next to the photograph of my soccer team from last year’s tournament, then laid back down, pulling my blankets up to my chin.
I hadn’t brushed my teeth or peed and my lights were still on, but I didn’t care. And if I closed my eyes, it was like the lights were off anyway.
Hello! Can i ask when you'll be updating the next chapter? (No pressure though! Just curious 😊)
hey mate! so uhhh i literally forgot this story existed until i got that cool message on this blog a few days ago which sounds terrible ahaha but anyway now that i remember it again, probably soon! i’m writing something else right now that is literally killing me, but i really haven’t got anything important to do at the moment so i’m being sort of bombarded with free time. prob whenever i finish what i’m writing (not sure when that’ll be, but hopefully soon because it’s gone on long enough). so i mean, none of this seems very helpful now that i read over it, let me give you a timeframe…like within the next two weeks maybe?? yeah, sure, let’s go with that, take a cat and have a great day, homeslice!
I'm extremely behind but thats good because i can just binge read and u kind person are a goddess and a mastermind and i dont know if i hate u or are deeply in love with you
let’s go with the deeply in love option and there is no greater joy than binging that is a fact!
uh so i’ve got like half of the next chapter done but i kinda put it on the back burner cause i got totally distracted with something else so um next chapter won’t be out for a few more days just to let ya’ll know!
I leaned my elbows against the handle of the cart and pressed Colton’s name, lifting my phone to my ear to hear it ring.
It rang for a while, and I figured Colton wasn’t around, glanced at the watch Addy had bought for me.
8:17.
He was definitely home from work. Maybe in the shower, but he usually took morning showers. It was too late for dinner, maybe he was –
“PJ. Hi.”
My elbows slipped from the handle of the cart, and I stopped myself from pitching forward, grabbed onto the handle with my free hand instead and squeezed for a beat before relaxing.
“Wasn’t expecting your sexy voice, Noah,” I said, smiling even though I didn’t have to, there was no one else in the pasta aisle but some middle-aged man at the opposite end from me.
I scrutinized him. He looked like a dad. A little scruff, not quite at a potbelly but working his way there. Tall enough, but I was taller.
He was pretty good looking. I would do him, if he propositioned me. And if I wasn’t taken, of course.
I listened to Noah’s silence. I knew I made him feel awkward. It was amusing.
“Colton took Shyla out and forgot his phone. He should be back in fifteen minutes at most,” Noah said, and I nodded, turning my head from the cute dad to look at some boxes of rigatoni.
Addy was going through a cooking phase and had sent me to shop for ingredients he’d forgotten the first time he came to the store after his first cooking class.
I glanced down at my list. He wanted pasta for stuffed shells. Noah was a decent cook, I remembered. I could ask him for some pointers about picking out the ideal stuffed shell pasta. The best brand or something. Just to keep the conversation going.
I didn’t know why Noah had picked up in the first place. I would have expected him to let the voicemail get it to avoid talking to me.
“Is that right? I guess I should call him back then,” I said, inching my cart forward, scanning the types of pasta for the stuffed shell variety.
“It’s amazing, how many types of pasta there are,” I said, forgetting I was on the phone, and I almost laughed remembering Noah was on the other line.
“Um, yeah, I guess. Hey, look, PJ… Mind if I ask you something?” Noah said, and I stopped looking at the millions of types of pasta.
I straightened up, glanced towards the cute dad, but he was missing from the end of the aisle, and I felt a little lonely without his reassuring fatherly presence.
“Sure thing, Noah, you can ask me anything your heart desires,” I said, hearing my voice come out slowly.
I couldn’t think of a thing Noah could possibly want to ask me. It was even more intriguing than why there were a trillion shapes of pasta.
“You know what, never mind, that was stupid of me, forget about it, I shouldn’t have said that,” Noah said, his words a strange and awkward rush – even more so than usual – and my intrigue quadrupled.
“I’m not very good at forgetting things,” I said cheerfully. “Now you’ve just got to tell me, or I’ll be left wondering forever.”
“Forget it, PJ, seriously, it was stupid of me to even – just forget it.”
I tilted my head as another man walked into the pasta aisle. Not cute, this one. Just old. He was holding a jar of Skippy peanut butter, I could tell from the blue lid. Addy liked the same brand, but I liked Jif.
“Honestly, it’s fine. Look, I’ll let you go, Colton will be home soon and I’ll tell him to call you back, all right?”
“What did you want to ask me, Noah?” I asked, lowering my voice, hoping he wouldn’t hang up on me but half-certain he would.
“It’s nothing,” Noah said, and his voice was a little strained, which was the most interesting thing thus far.
“Is everything okay?” I asked, thinking back to my last conversation with Colton.
He’d texted me just the night before, letting me know they unpacked the very last box in their new apartment. Colton had texted the message in all caps – a rare thing, for Colton – and I’d tried to be excited for him.
It was exciting. His second apartment with Noah. This one bigger, and thank god for that. Their old apartment had been a shoebox, they needed something bigger, I still wasn’t sure how I’d stayed with them for a full week and a half in that tiny place.
Along with his text, Colton had sent a set of new pictures of his new apartment. It was nice. I’d told him I’d visit soon. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Nothing that would make me think anything was wrong, that could give me a clue as to why on earth Noah was talking to me on Colton’s phone with a strained voice.
“Yeah, yeah,” Noah was saying, rushed again.
I sighed. “Look, kiddo. You should really just tell me what’s going on or I’ll worry, and I’ll have to tell Colton because as you know he’s the best person out there to vent to, and then he’ll – ”
“All right, jeez, PJ, nothing is going on. I was just going to ask you, well, you know, you know him, so I thought you might, I don’t know, it’s so stupid, but I’ve been trying to come up with how to, uh, propose,” Noah said, his voice dropping on the last word, and I felt my shoulders drop as well.
Colton had bought a ring too. He’d gotten one months ago, in the summer when he and Noah had visited Noah’s family and Colton’s father.
A simple gold band. I’d forced him to send me a picture of it. Nothing fancy, but he’d told me that was the point. He didn’t like fancy, which I knew, of course.
I also knew he was waiting for Noah to propose first because he thought that was what Noah wanted. I knew as well that while he was waiting, he wasn’t going to wait for long. If not by the end of the year, he’d told me, he was definitely just going to do it himself.
It was the end of the first week of November. I hadn’t told Colton, of course, but I had been betting Noah wouldn’t ask before the new year.
Guess I was wrong.
“I just thought – you know, you’re his friend, so you’d know what he’d want. Not that I don’t, but I’ve been thinking about it for a while and I can’t think of the right way to do it, and I know he’d probably want me to just ask him without any fuss, something lame and boring, but I do want to make it special, but in a way he’d like too,” Noah rambled, while I looked at the pastas again.
Elbow macaroni, ravioli, spaghetti, tagliatelle, tortellini. I said them all in my head with what I imagined was an Italian accent.
I knew Noah knew I used to be in love with Colton. Of course he did. It had been obvious to everyone but Colton himself.
“Hmmm…” I hummed, to fill the silence.
It occurred to me that perhaps Noah was wondering if I’d ever planned how I might propose to Colton, as if in some wild fantasy. I wanted to laugh at the thought.
My fantasies were much less PG than marriage proposals. And I wasn’t that daft. Whatever romantic domesticity I’d let myself imagine for Colton and I during the weak moments, I’d never have let myself get that far.
Even I had known, hopeful as I might have let myself become when I got a little too drunk back in college, that Colton would never have married me. What a ridiculous idea.
“You don’t really have to think about it or anything, it was a stupid thing to ask you, sorry,” Noah mumbled, and this time, I did laugh.
“Worried you’ve been insensitive and gone and made me jealous?” I teased, just to make Noah uncomfortable, just because it was amusing.
Noah was quiet for a second, then – “I shouldn’t have asked. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Oh, lighten up, I’m kidding,” I said, waving my hand at the absurd display of pastas.
“PJ,” Noah started, his voice all serious, and I inhaled, waited for him to make some grand statement, or worse, an apology.
He had nothing to apologize for. I was over Colton, it wasn’t just something I said. It was true. He had never been mine anyway. He had always been Noah’s, and I’d been an idiot to fall for him.
No one to blame but myself. Not Noah. And certainly not Colton.
When Noah didn’t say anything else, I let out my breath in a slow stream. I shook my head, intending to change the subject, to pretend we weren’t having this conversation, but instead I found myself continuing it. “It was years ago, Noah. I’m in love with Addy now, as you should recall, seeing as I spent quite a few nights sobbing over him on your couch. Just make sure I’m Colton’s best man at the wedding, and I’ll be happy as a clam. Sound good?”
I could hear Noah’s exhale. I closed my eyes, could picture him in their new living room, spacious from the photos Colton had texted me. In my head, the lock was clicking open on the front door, and Shyla was barreling into Noah’s legs, colliding with them the way she had to my own legs when I’d stayed with them, freed from her leash by Colton who was walking through the front door more slowly, stopping to toe off those sexy Timberlands before making his way to Noah.
In my head, this is what made sense. This little romantic domesticity scene, more realistic than any fantasy I’d ever conjured up back when I wasted my time torturing myself like that.
If I tried to replace Noah with myself, it just didn’t work. The whole scene blurred. Colton’s smile on walking through the door wasn’t quite the same, wasn’t quite as wide.
“Yeah, sounds good, PJ,” Noah said quietly, and I wondered if he pitied me.
Was that why he was so awkward around me?
The thought disgusted me. I was not a pitiful person. Everyone had unrequited loves. It was a part of life. I didn’t deserve pity, and a part of me wanted to tell Noah right then and there to shove it up his ass, but I refrained.
That might be a little hostile, and I was trying to get in good graces with the guy. I wanted him to like me, after all. I liked him well enough, and he was the one who got what we’d both wanted. It really didn’t seem fair to me that he didn’t seem to like me all that much.
I shook my head, refrained from sighing again. “You have to do something simple, but romantic. Just make him dinner, his favorite food, and surprise him with it when he gets home from work. Light your new kitchen up with candles and the works. Throw some rose petals on the floor. It’s stupid, and he’ll probably say so, but he’ll like it, especially if it’s not in a public place, just your apartment with the two of you. And Shyla too, maybe tie a rose on her collar or something, not the ring though, and definitely don’t hide the ring in his mashed potatoes, for the love of god. Just keep the thing in its box until you give it to him, capiche? Oh, and you absolutely must get down on one knee, that’s not outdated, it’s classy and necessary in any scenario.”
I didn’t add that Colton’s favorite dish was mashed potatoes and steak, or that Noah should use vanilla candles, or that the rose petals should definitely be classic red and not pink or white or any other out-of-the-ordinary rose color. Noah obviously knew all of these things, as Colton’s soon-to-be husband, sooner-to-be fiancé.
And I didn’t really want to come off as a stalker. I wasn’t. I was just Colton’s friend, and I knew that well.
Just his friend. And content to be. Not in any way pitiful.
Noah cleared his throat. “Oh. Yeah, that does sound like something he’d like. The candles might be too much for him.”
“Of course they’re too much for him, but if Colton had his way you’d chuck the ring at him while he was brushing his teeth and not even say the word marriage until you were fifty. Embarrass the man a little, what’s the worst that could happen?”
Noah laughed a sheepish laugh, and I closed my eyes, found my hand on the handle of the cart again, squeezing.
“He could say no,” Noah said, and I wondered why he hadn’t hung up on me already, didn’t he hate talking to me?
“Don’t be stupid,” I said, my voice sounding quieter than I’d intended.
I opened my eyes. Stared hard at the pastas.
Conchiglioni. There it was, right in front of me. I had no idea why they didn’t just call it stuffed shell pasta. That’s what it was. They should have just called it what it was.
I unclenched my hand and reached out, grabbed a box. Turned it around as if I was reading the ingredients, but I wasn’t really looking at it.
“Right. Well, I’ll let you go. Thanks, PJ, that was helpful,” Noah was saying.
“Anytime, partner in crime,” I said, making sure my voice was at a normal volume this time.
“I’ll have Colton call you.”
“You do that,” I agreed, throwing the shells into my cart, grabbing another box, throwing it in as well.
I didn’t know how many Addy wanted. He hadn’t specified, and I checked my list again as if I might have missed a number he’d scrawled somewhere, but there was nothing.
“See you, PJ,” Noah said.
I was amazed he still hadn’t hung up yet.
“Lovely chatting with you,” I said, then took the phone from my ear, hung up first before grabbing another box of shells.
I threw it in my cart, watched it hit a fellow box of shells before rolling onto its side.
Three boxes seemed like enough to me. I switched my phone to silent, shoved it into my pocket, and wheeled out of the pasta aisle, checking Addy’s list to see what was next.
*
There wasn’t any reason for it, but my hands were shaking, so I rummaged around the kitchen drawers before finding the box of nicotine patches.
I looked at it for a moment, then pulled it out, opened it, fished out a patch. I lifted my sleeve, stuck the patch on, the movements natural even though it was the first time I’d worn one in years.
It was just to calm my nerves.
I didn’t want to smoke. I didn’t want anything. I was twenty-five years old and just over five and a half years sober. I thought about alcohol, of course, but not every moment, sometimes I could even go a day or two without even remembering I was an alcoholic, that I wanted alcohol, that I missed it.
I hadn’t known that was possible. To go even a second without wondering where I could get a drink.
I hadn’t known this was possible. Cooking in a new apartment with my dog sitting on my feet the way she did, the way that made it impossible to do anything without feeling guilty for disturbing her sleep even though it was her fault for sleeping in such a place.
I hadn’t known it was possible to have a little black box in my pocket with a ring inside of it that I was going to give to someone I was so incredibly excited to spend the rest of my life with.
I hadn’t known any of it was possible, not for me, not for an alcoholic. It shouldn’t have been possible. Sometimes, I still waited for the illusion to shatter. My life to shatter. Everything to go wrong the way it always had, the way that could only be fixed – or at least, blurred a little at the edges – with enough swigs out of the right bottle.
I poked the packet of steak to see if it was defrosting, then gently moved my feet out from under Shyla, who bounced up all the same and walked around my legs as I went to the kitchen counter. I’d gone to the store earlier that day, bought five vanilla candles and one that smelled like chocolate chip cookies, just because that sounded amazing.
I took them out of the bag, looked around the kitchen for the right places to put them all.
It was going to be so corny, and I knew Colton hated corny. But he wouldn’t hate this.
He would love it, and then he would agree to marry me.
*
Noah’s hand was warm over my mouth, and I listened to my laughs muffle against the lines of his palm.
“Are you done?” he asked, and I nodded before Noah took his palm away from my lips, returned it to the black box he was holding, opened the lid of that black box.
It was a little gold ring – but of course it was. I had a box just like that hidden inside the container of oatmeal in our cupboard where I knew Noah would never look. I had a little gold ring just like that inside that hidden box.
“If you laugh at me again, I won’t ask,” Noah warned, and I bit the inside of my cheek hard to stop myself from laughing again.
When I felt calmer, I spoke. “I promise I won’t laugh at you again,” I said, but I hadn’t been laughing at him at all.
The dinner, the roses, the candles, Shyla with a ribbon tied around her neck like she was a part of the whole thing as well – it was all corny, it would have made me laugh on any other day, in any other situation.
But now, it wasn’t funny. It was incredible, and I’d only laughed because something had been whirring inside my chest, bubbled out of my lips before I could stop it, and I didn’t know if it was nerves or giddiness or what, but I figured that was all too much to explain to Noah, and I didn’t want him to be down on one knee for too long because the floors were hardwood, albeit fake.
Fake or not, I figured it must be pretty hard.
Noah took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said, and I looked from the ring to his face, then back again.
He was so beautiful. Noah, my Noah. I could hardly stand it. I could hardly breathe for it.
“Colton Alexander Voss – ”
“Oh, the middle name and everything, that’s fancy,” I blurted out, and Noah glared at me.
“Can you not interrupt?”
“Sorry,” I mumbled, biting my lip this time.
“As I was saying, Colton Alexander Voss,” Noah smiled, then took another breath, no longer smiling, looking at me very seriously as if he was choosing each word carefully even though he’d already did the little touching speech part and there was only one thing left to say and both of us already knew what that one thing was. He looked at me as if he was worried about my answer even though of course I would say yes, I’d been waiting to say yes to this man for weeks, for months, for the seven years since the first day I’d seen him standing against that brick wall of Emmanuel Episcopal Church.
“– will you marry me?”
I already knew what I was going to say because I’d pictured this a million times, and I was going to say it coyly, wittily, sexy-like and sweep him off his feet the way he swept me off my feet every time I heard this word from his lips, but I was accidentally smiling too wide and I couldn’t stop myself, so maybe it wasn’t as flirtatious as I’d imagined, as suave as I’d planned.
“Sure,” I managed, around my smile, and Noah laughed and reached up with one hand and wiped hard at his eyes, and I was amazed at this because it wasn’t what I’d imagined in any of the million times I’d imagined it.
I hadn’t considered Noah might cry. I’d seen him cry countless times, but never like this, never on one knee with a box in his hands and a ring in that box and a smile so wide across his face I was absolutely certain it must hurt, because my own smile was just that wide and it was starting to hurt my own face.
I held out my left hand, and Noah took it, slipped the ring over my finger and it went on seamlessly, and I wondered if he’d measured my finger in the middle of the night with the tape measure from the top kitchen drawer the way I had his.
“You have to spend the rest of your life with me now, you know,” Noah said, and I had been looking at this ring on my finger and how much I liked the way it looked there, but on Noah’s words I looked back up at him.
I reached out, touched his face, then leaned down to kiss him, a deep, long kiss that I let myself feel all the way down to the pit of my stomach because I wanted to remember it forever.
“There’s always divorce,” I whispered, when I leaned away.
“Don’t joke about that,” Noah warned, and I laughed, still close to him so that I could be certain my laugh was bouncing off his lips.
I leaned back, then stood up from my chair at the kitchen table and went to the pantry.
“What are you doing?”
I glanced back at Noah to see that he was still on one knee. “Hold on,” I said, reaching to the back of the pantry to grab the oatmeal container.
I took it out, opened the lid.
“Is that oatmeal? Colton, what – ”
I had pulled out my own little black box, and I covered the oatmeal container and returned it to the pantry before allowing myself to look at Noah’s expression.
He was staring at the box in my hands with his lips slightly parted.
I returned to him, sat cross-legged on the floor in front of him rather than sitting back in my chair.
I reached out for Noah’s left hand, opened my own box, and slid the ring on his finger, relieved when it fit even though I’d known it would.
“Now you have to spend the rest of your life with me too,” I said, and Noah lifted his hand, stared at his ring.
I could see his chest rising with his inhale.
He dropped his hand a few inches, only so that he could look at me, and the way he looked at me was the way he had always looked at me – like there was nothing else at all to look at.
“I can’t wait,” he said, completely seriously. It was such an incredibly dumb thing to say, but I didn’t really mind because even though I knew it was medically improbable – maybe even impossible – I was certain, in that moment, that my heart stopped completely.
*
I noticed the rings immediately, but decided not to say anything, curious as to how one of the girls would react when they realized.
Internally, I guessed that if it was Bella who noticed first, she would start screaming.
“Noah, hon, when are you starting your online PhD classes?” Jacqueline asked.
I looked at my wife, guessed that if she noticed first, she would lose her voice completely, wave her hands about and maybe point to her own finger to gesture the words she couldn’t get out.
Of course, both Jac and I had known for quite some time that they’d be getting married. It was something different altogether to see the rings on their fingers, though.
I looked back at the Skype screen. Examined my oldest child, my only son. He still looked like a kid to me. I didn’t know if he always would. I thought maybe I’d ask my father if I still looked like a child to him. If that was just the way of things.
“We just finished setting up the office, I’m going to start on Monday,” Noah said happily.
He was absolutely giddy, smiles slipping between every other word. I took a breath, glanced away from him.
All I’d ever wanted since I’d taken my very first baby boy into my arms from the hospital nurse was for him to be happy. All I’d ever wanted was for these smiles I could tell he was trying to suppress now to come easily to him, to be natural for him. All I’d ever wanted was for Noah to have everything he wanted, to let himself be happy, to forgive himself for his mistakes and realize he deserved everything, he deserved the entire world.
I blinked quickly. If Heather noticed first, I could imagine she might start crying. She was sixteen, so old now, it was remarkable, but sometimes I worried she was the one in this family who loved Noah the hardest, with every ounce of her heart, and to see him this happy might break her.
I reached out, tucked a few strands of Heather’s hair behind her ear, and she looked at me in a startled way before smiling faintly and glancing back at the Skype screen.
The kitchen timer went off, and Jac glanced over her shoulder, shifting so that her arm brushed closer to mine where we sat squashed together on the sofa.
“Oh, that’ll be the apple pie, let me get that,” Jac said, and I looked back at Noah and Colton, wondering what they’d do, how they’d stop her so that they could make their announcement.
Colton appeared less giddy than Noah, but not everyone showed their emotions on their sleeves the way Noah did. Colton was more reserved. I liked that about him. Being around him was calming. It was a rare trait for someone so young, I’d always thought.
“Wait, uh,” Noah said, glancing at Colton, who glanced back, his eyebrows raised.
I could tell it had been Noah’s idea to not just announce their engagement, to rather wait until one of us noticed. I considered just pointing out the rings before Bella beat me to it as Noah lifted his hand to run his fingers through his hair in a way that seemed to me just a little too deliberate.
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Bella shouted, pointing at the laptop so quickly her hand hit the screen, and it almost fell off Heather’s lap.
“Bella, what the hell?” Heather demanded.
“Language!” Jac warned.
I laughed quietly, watching Noah’s exasperated expression on the screen.
“Oh my God!” Bella shouted again, louder than before.
“Bells, there’s no need to disturb the neighbors,” I said gently, but my daughter did not even look at me.
“Rings! They have rings! They have rings! They have rings!” Bella shouted, and Heather stopped trying to push her sister in order to bend too close to the laptop so that the screen was blocked completely by back her head.
“Oh!” Heather said, almost a gasp, her hand cupping her lips.
“What? What is she talking about? Heather, move back a little,” Jac was saying, pulling on Heather’s shoulder.
“I told you Bella would notice first,” Noah was saying. “Now you owe me five bucks.”
“We didn’t bet!” Colton said, laughing, and Jac managed to pull Heather away from the laptop.
“Are – Is that – Are those – Did you – No-Noah?” Jac stammered, shaking her hands in front of her in a sort of frantic helplessness, and I wanted to lean in, to kiss my wife, noticing how terribly beautiful she was the way that sometimes occurred to me in small, unexpected moments.
Like when she chopped garlic in the kitchen and the sunlight would pour in from the window to catch in between the strands of hair that would slip out from behind her ear, fall over her face.
Or when she clutched my hand tight whenever Heather got possession of the ball near the goal during a game, the way her nails would dig into my skin and I’d turn to her to remind her that this was not life or death, just a soccer game, only to forget what I’d been about to say on sight of the look of concentration on my wife’s face, on the way her lips would be moving and I could tell she was mouthing, That’s my girl, that’s my girl, that’s my girl…
Or when she talked on the phone with Noah and he would tell her some funny story about one of his students from the trade school, the way she’d laugh so loud it would fill the entire house, and I’d know the story could not possibly be that funny, that it was only because it was Noah telling it that my wife could be that happy.
Or now, when she could not speak at all, when she could only look at the laptop screen and wave her hands helplessly, and then she was looking at me, catching me looking at her, and she smiled.
“Andy,” she said, and that was all she said, and that was all I needed her to say.
“I saw,” I reassured her, and her smile grew.
“Our baby is going to get married,” Jac whispered, and I nodded.
“It took you long enough!” Heather shouted, and I looked back at the screen, at Noah who was smiling giddily and Colton who was biting his lip but smiling around his teeth anyway.
“Can I be the maid of honor?” Bella demanded, having calmed herself down, but leaning close to the screen now the way her sister just had been.
“Bella, move, I can’t see them!” Heather yelled, pulling Bella back.
“You’re going to have a maid of honor, right? Even though you’re both guys? You have to have a maid of honor, it won’t be fair otherwise,” Bella was saying.
“Who asked who?” Heather was interrupting.
They were both wearing rings, I’d noticed that as well.
“Guess,” Noah teased.
Colton asked you, I thought, but I didn’t say it. I could imagine Noah wanting to ask first, but being too nervous, psyching himself out of it, convincing himself not to.
“You asked,” Heather said.
“Wait! Don’t tell us yet, I have to think!” Bella insisted.
“Oh, honey, Noah, Colton,” Jac said, still unable to form a full sentence, and I leaned a little against her just to feel her beside me.
“Okay, Colton asked,” Bella finally said, and Noah shook his head.
“Nope,” he said.
“I knew it!” Heather shouted.
I couldn’t look away from Noah. I was trying to picture him as a teenager. As a boy. I knew that at one point he’d shouted at me until his voice broke, then curled his hand into a fist and hit me in the face with knuckles that seemed to me as soft as the little fingers and toes I’d counted when he was a baby, even though they’d left a bruise that lingered a week.
I knew at one point I’d walked outside to get the mail and found instead my teenage son wasted and crying and vomiting into the grass.
I knew at one point I’d held him close to me as he sobbed into my work shirt with hands that gripped the fabric so hard I was certain on letting him go that I’d find holes in it, that I’d have to throw it away.
I knew at one point I’d laid awake every night waiting to hear the shouts from his room that would signify his nightmares I’d rush to wake him from, even though he could never really wake from them, even though being awake was a nightmare on its own.
I knew at one point I’d followed an ambulance that held my son in it all the way to the hospital certain I would crash my car, certain I would veer off the road completely and slam into a tree and not even notice because I could not see the road, I could not see anything but my little boy unconscious on the carpet of his room with too many empty bottles around him and a small bit of vomit trickling off his chin.
I knew, absolutely, that my son had not always been like this, the way he was in this laptop screen. He had not always smiled so wide, had not always been this happy, had not always looked this careless.
I knew it, but I could not really remember it, I could not really picture it, those memories of my son in pain that I’d thought would haunt me, that I’d thought I’d never be able to shake.
Now, they were all gone. They were things I could describe, events I knew had happened, but it was as if I had read them rather than experienced them. I could not picture them. I could not fathom that they had been a part of my life, that I had ever looked at this same boy and felt that terrified, that hollowed out, that agonized.
“Dad?” Noah was saying, and I lifted my hand quickly, rubbed it hard over my eyes.
“Yeah, son?” I said, and Noah tilted his head.
He was a grown person. That little baby from the hospital room with ten fingers and ten toes that I counted out two times just to be certain, that little baby was this man in front of me, looking at me with such hope from the screen.
“What do you think?” Noah asked, and I laughed – a little breathily – at the question.
“Noah. I have never in my life been more proud of you, more proud of anyone,” I said, slowly so that he would understand what I was trying to say to him, and Noah stared at me for a moment, then looked quickly away from the screen, to the side though I could see from his profile that he was blinking quickly.
I hoped he would know that I was not only proud of him for his engagement. It was everything. I was proud of him for letting himself make a friend again. I was proud of him for allowing himself to fall in love. I was proud of him for pursuing this love. I was proud of him for going to AA. I was proud of him for getting sober, for every time he tried, for every time he failed and didn’t give up for it. I was proud of him for quitting smoking. I was proud of him for having the courage to be happy again. I was proud of him for forgiving himself. I was proud of him for being able to continue living even though there had been times after Ally’s death when even I wasn’t sure that I could, even I wasn’t sure that I wanted to, only knew that I had to, for my family, for my children, for Noah, I had to. I was proud of him for growing up, for surviving, for living the life Ally would have wanted for him – one of happiness, of love, of second and third and fourth and countless chances to make mistakes and to learn from them, to become better because of them.
“Are you crying?” Bella accused, and at first I thought she was talking to me before I saw that she was looking at the screen still, at Noah, who shook his head.
“No,” Noah mumbled, but his hand was over his eyes now, and I watched Colton nudge his shoulder gently, then slip his hand into Noah’s.
Colton glanced at me then, and I nodded at him, unable to tell him how grateful I was for him, how much I loved and cared for him, how happy I was that he had come into Noah’s life, into all of our lives, how proud of him I was as well because I knew his past had been just as hard, harder, maybe, with his family as distant as it was, as isolated as he must have felt, as lonely and alone.
I wanted to reach out, to hug this boy, but I could not, and I could not speak because I didn’t trust myself to say anything else, so I only nodded, and Colton nodded back, and I knew he understood me.
He had a way of understanding, Colton did. I often wondered if he saw in himself all of the incredible qualities that were so obvious to me, how he had come into my family and changed it completely simply by being himself.
I often wondered if he knew how much I felt I owed him, for saving us.
I hoped he did.
*
The microwave beeped, but I didn’t open it immediately.
I listened to it beep until it silenced, and then I reached out, opened it, twisted my mug of tea so that I could grab the handle of it.
I took the tea to my office, sat at my laptop, glanced at the manual I was proofreading.
My cell phone lit up, the light of the screen in my peripherals distracting me from my laptop. I turned and reached out for my phone, saw that it was just an email alert, some spam.
I held my phone. Watched the screen until it dimmed, then turned black again. Colton would have been a full week at his new apartment now. I thought to call him, see that everything was all right with the new place, that no repairs needed to be made, that they had everything they needed.
I couldn’t remember when it had gotten that I needed an excuse to talk to my own son. I thought it might have been a very long time ago. I couldn’t just call Colton out of the blue. I had to have a reason for it.
But that wasn’t his fault. I didn’t know if it was mine. I thought maybe it was.
I placed down my phone. Sighed, reached out for my tea and took a sip, but it was too hot and burned my lips.
“Ah.” I sucked air quickly between my teeth, replaced my mug on the desk beside my phone.
I looked at the screen again. I could call Colton now, for no reason at all. I didn’t have to ask about the new apartment. I could just ask about him. How he was doing. And Noah too. And that puppy of theirs, Shyla was her name.
I unlocked my phone. Saw that it was almost ten at night. No, he might be getting ready for bed. It was a weekend, though, and I didn’t know what Colton did on the weekends. Maybe he and Noah went out. Not to bars, of course. Maybe to the movies. I didn’t want to disturb him.
I took my hand away from my phone. Looked back at my laptop screen. Tried to put my son out of my mind, thought maybe I’d call him tomorrow, and if not, that was normal, anyway. It might have been awkward to call him. I didn’t know if he liked it on the rare occasions that I did. Maybe he would rather I didn’t call at all, maybe he preferred it that way.
We didn’t talk that much, and maybe that was just how it had to be.
i finally made progress on the next chapter that i’m satisfied with woooo! i’m going to read over the pages i have to make sure it’s good to go and then post so it should be out in a half hour or so depending on if i get distracted ahaha
also happy new year everyone, hope day 1 has been spiffing!
hey guys mild announcement! so as of chapter 80 there’s no more chapters in my drafts!! i do have i think five more chapters written up and ready to go BUT there’s something that happens that i haven’t written yet that has to take place before the chapters that are already written if you see what i mean so i can’t really post the ones i’ve got ready till i write the thing that has to happen first
i actually haven’t written anything for this story in like months actually but i am planning on writing the scene that needs to take place before the other stuff soon, it’s just that it’s currently holiday break and also i’m flying to tampa with the fam tomorrow so it’s a hectic time overall so i really have no idea when the next chapter will be out. but i mean, hopefully soon! as in like in a week or two! i haven’t written about these boys in a while so i’m excited to get back on the horse or whatever people are getting on these days
sweet that’s all gotta pack for my flight now but thanks as always for reading and messaging and being cool cats in general, stay jazzy homeslices!
a little update: i’ve been attempting to write the scene i need to write but for some reason i’m struggling with it i think it’s been so long since i’ve written about these cats that i kind of forgot their characters, but hopefully i’ll be able to get it right! thanks for the patience :)
hey guys mild announcement! so as of chapter 80 there’s no more chapters in my drafts!! i do have i think five more chapters written up and ready to go BUT there’s something that happens that i haven’t written yet that has to take place before the chapters that are already written if you see what i mean so i can’t really post the ones i’ve got ready till i write the thing that has to happen first
i actually haven’t written anything for this story in like months actually but i am planning on writing the scene that needs to take place before the other stuff soon, it’s just that it’s currently holiday break and also i’m flying to tampa with the fam tomorrow so it’s a hectic time overall so i really have no idea when the next chapter will be out. but i mean, hopefully soon! as in like in a week or two! i haven’t written about these boys in a while so i’m excited to get back on the horse or whatever people are getting on these days
sweet that’s all gotta pack for my flight now but thanks as always for reading and messaging and being cool cats in general, stay jazzy homeslices!
I was rereading a few chapters and i came upon the christmas one where bella gave colton dog origamis and how colton always wanted a dog named charlie and now he's got shyla and he's spoiling and caring for her like crazy and i think that's sooo cute
heyoo!! aw yeah colton always wanted a lil’ puppo and NOW HE HAS ONE AND HE’S SO IN LOVE i’m so happy for him ahaha everyone deserves a doggeroo they’re just so great and fluffy and amazing i love dogs oh boy take a cat and have a grand one anon!
I must have fallen asleep, because then I was waking, feeling rested and better, my head no longer throbbing.
I sat up slowly, disappointed that Noah was not beside me, and looked at my watch that I’d never taken from my wrist to see that it was four in the afternoon.
I groaned and rolled over, then shoved myself off the bed, going to the bathroom to pee and brush my teeth and wash my face, and then I stumbled into the living area, where PJ was on the couch with Shyla, doing a crossword in the newspaper.
“Hi,” I said, and PJ looked up at me.
He stared at my cheek for a solid moment before glancing back down at the newspaper.
“Noah’s in the kitchen,” he said, which I could see because the kitchen was not really a separate room from the living space, and Noah was at the counter chopping something.
I sat on the couch, and Shyla climbed onto my lap and stuck her face under my t-shirt.
“How are you?” I asked, feeling stupid to be asking it.
“Noah won’t let me leave your apartment,” PJ said to the newspaper.
“You want to leave?”
“I think it’s time I went home.”
“Are you mad at me?” I asked.
“I want to go home,” PJ said, looking at me again, and I swallowed.
“Addy isn’t your home.”
“Oh? Then are you my home, Colton, is that what you’re saying?” PJ asked, leaning towards me, and I blinked, leaned back.
This wasn’t PJ’s normal flirting, when I knew he was joking and careless.
There was something different now, in the way PJ was looking at me, and I looked away from him, down at Shyla’s back as I ran my fingers through her fur.
“I think you should stay here a little longer while you figure out what to do with Addy,” I said, slowly, choosing my words carefully, and PJ sighed loudly.
“What to do with him? What do you propose, poisoning him?”
“Leaving him, PJ,” I said, looking up at him again.
“Guess what, darling, my love life isn’t up to you.”
“I know that.”
“Really? You seem to think you can tell me what to do,” PJ said, watching me carefully, and I leaned away from him.
“Don’t be a jerk.”
“You’ve got your sexy boyfriend on patrol to beat me up if I try to leave your apartment, how am I the one being a jerk?”
I stood up so abruptly Shyla had to jump off my lap. “Noah’s not going to beat you up. Fine, leave if you want!” I said, throwing my hands up and going to the kitchen area, tired of everyone being so dramatic.
If PJ wanted to fuck up his life, fine. I hated the way he was looking at me and speaking to me. It wasn’t the PJ I cared about, it wasn’t my friend.
I knew, on some level, that he was hurt and sad and that was why he was acting this way. But I didn’t care. He’d punched me in the face and possibly given me a concussion – why should I be nice to him?
I stood next to Noah, who was throwing chopped onions into a pan.
“What are you making?” I asked him.
“You’re letting PJ leave after all that crap you gave me about him being your friend?” Noah asked casually, like he was asking how I’d slept.
“Don’t start with me!”
“He’s your friend, do what you want,” Noah said, shrugging, and his response annoyed me because this wasn’t what I wanted, I didn’t want to fight with PJ, I didn’t want him to leave if that meant he was just going to go back to live with Addy.
I glared at Noah’s sizzling onions, then turned back to the living space just in time to see the front door close on Shyla, whom I could guess had been trying to follow PJ out the door.
“Shit, I’ll be back,” I said to Noah, running to the door and shoving on my boots, and I didn’t wait for his response as I pushed Shyla gently from the door so she couldn’t follow me out and closed it behind me.
I turned around just as the elevator doors were closing on PJ, so I ran to the stairway and down the two flights to the ground floor, catching PJ just as he was leaving the apartment building.
I grabbed his arm as he was halfway out the door. My head was pounding and my face hurt, but I ignored that.
“Wait, PJ, wait.”
“Why?” PJ asked, sounding tired.
“Because – Because – Because I don’t want you to get hurt, please wait and think about this a little. I know you love Addy, I know that. I’m so sorry, PJ, I just don’t think you should go back to him, just stay here a little more,” I said, and to my surprise, PJ didn’t try to pull away from me.
“I ruined our friendship,” he said, and I blinked at him.
“What? No, you didn’t. My face is fine, it’s just a punch, all friends punch each other in the movies anyway,” I said, touching my cheek gently.
“That crap I said to you yesterday. About when I used to be in love with you,” PJ said slowly, and I let go of his wrist.
Someone was trying to leave the apartment building, so we got out of the way, both of us stepping out of the building since it was easier than going back in when someone was trying to come out.
“That’s – That’s okay,” I said, hating my skin for heating up.
“That wasn’t fair of me.”
“PJ, I don’t care, we don’t have to talk about it.”
“I don’t want you to think that I hate you for that. I don’t. I really, honestly, Colton, don’t hate you in any way for the way I felt about you. It was a stupid thing, and I got over it, it just took longer than I thought it would, and maybe sometimes I thought, back then, you know, why didn’t you feel the same way about me, but – It was stupid, it was all stupid, and I never wanted to put it on you, I never even wanted you to know, and then I just brought it up yesterday like I still care about it, like I still feel that way or hold some grudge against you or Noah, and I really don’t, please don’t think I do,” PJ said, a rush, and I stared at him.
“It’s – It’s fine. You don’t have to – It’s fine, I would tell you if it wasn’t fine. It never made a difference to me, I don’t want you to think I ever felt weird about it, you were always good with that, not letting me feel bad or anything, it’s fine,” I mumbled, and PJ ran a hand over his face.
“I shouted at you about it yesterday.”
“PJ, that was different, you were feeling like crap, and I was saying things that made you feel more like crap.”
“I just…” PJ shook his head, looked down at the ground, and I watched him tap the toe of one of his Keds against the sidewalk once, twice, a third time. “I think maybe you have the wrong idea,” PJ said slowly.
“I really don’t think you still like me, PJ,” I mumbled, embarrassed that we were even talking about this, and PJ quickly looked up at me.
“Not about that. You and Noah have that fairytale romance, you know? It’s great, I’m not resentful about that, I’m really happy for you, I love that you get to have that. I like seeing how happy Noah makes you. I met you when you were broken up, and there was such a huge change when Noah came back, it was sort of amazing, and I was really happy for you,” PJ said, and I stared at him.
I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything, and PJ kept going.
“You never believed in romance like that, I know you didn’t. Knowing you, you probably still don’t even though you’re living it. But I believed in it. Always have. And then I met you and – I don’t want to make you feel awkward, okay, don’t get all on guard and red-faced like you do, but I was pretty into you. And obviously, we aren’t meant to be. And it kind of made me realize that maybe it doesn’t work that way, fairytale romance and all, for everyone,” PJ said slowly, and I tried not to get red-faced, but I couldn’t help it when my face was burning, and I hoped maybe the bruise was at least covering it on the one side.
“But I mean, you weren’t that – You shouldn’t let that convince you about anything, it’s not like you were that into me, you told me yourself, you said you’d get over me, it wasn’t a big deal, it was a silly crush or something, I don’t remember exactly,” I mumbled.
PJ smiled his dimpled smile at me. “You’re such a fool, Colton Alexander. People do lie, you know. You think I was going to tell you I was head over heels? How embarrassing for me, you’re cute, but not that cute, I had to keep up some sort of appearance of being hard-to-get,” PJ said, and I couldn’t really appreciate him being his jokey flirtatious self again, because of the words he was saying, which were altogether shocking, honestly.
“PJ – ”
“Calm down, you look like you’re going to pass out,” PJ said, reaching out to pinch my nose. “Like I said, I’m over you. But when I wasn’t, I got a little jaded. It’s cliché, I know, I hate it too,” PJ sighed.
I touched my nose gingerly after PJ let go, not saying anything.
“You still look like you’re going to pass out,” PJ pointed out.
“No, I don’t,” I argued, and PJ laughed.
“Again, not a big deal. It’s been years, I’ve matured like fine wine and learned the error of my silly Colton-loving ways. The point, Colton, if you’ll kindly pay attention and stop trying to make everything about you, is that I’m not wide-eyed and stupid anymore. I know Addy did a shitty thing. I do know that it sucks that he cheated, I get that, the whole ‘good people don’t cheat’ thing. I’m not disillusioned, I don’t have my head in the sand or dirt or whatever people put their heads in nowadays.”
“So you’re just fine with this? Letting yourself settle because one time you had an unrequited crush?” I demanded, and PJ raised his eyebrows.
“More than a crush, Colton, don’t make me tell you again how much I liked you, it’s embarrassing. And I’m not settling, I love Addy.”
“You just said you know that good people don’t cheat or whatever!” I objected, ignoring the part about me.
PJ shrugged. “You can’t get the whole package. I mean, you apparently can and did, congrats. Most people don’t. Addy is perfect in every other way. He cheated on me. That sucks. I feel like shit about it, you don’t have to tell me it sucks, I feel that, Colton, it hurts, I’m not denying that. That’s my compromise. Most relationships take compromise, you wouldn’t know.”
“Noah was an alcoholic,” I reminded him.
“He’s recovered,” PJ said, waving his hand.
“We’re not perfect!”
“Colton! This isn’t about you! It’s about me! Addy is the whole package, okay? He’s everything I want. He fucked another guy, and if that’s going to be his one flaw, fine, I can deal with it, I can make myself deal with it. I love him. I know he loves me. Not enough in your standards, maybe, but we can’t all afford to have your standards, or we’d all be alone. I’m not settling, Colton. I want to be with him. You don’t understand, and no matter what I say to you, you won’t understand, there’s nothing I can do about that. I just want you to be my friend. I want you to still respect me, and care about me, and not have to remind me that Addy fucked some other guy every time we talk from now on. Can you do that?” PJ demanded, and it was so much that I didn’t know how to interrupt, to tell him he was wrong.
He didn’t want to hear it. I couldn’t change his mind, the same way he’d said he couldn’t change mine, but it was different because I was right, I was right.
“PJ, but – ”
“No, listen, this is really important to me. You’re really important to me. I have a lot of friends, Colton. You know that, I know that, let’s not pretend you’re my only friend cause that’s stupid. But you are my best friend. Whenever something happens in my life, even if you’ll say it’s stupid and mundane like that time they had that new kiwi pizza topping and I called you at three in the morning, I want to tell you, not my other friends. The same goes for anything that happens with Addy. You know that, I want to tell you all about Addy, and I will still want to do that, and I have to know that I can do that and you won’t be an asshole about him, because that’ll hurt, being reminded that he cheated on me every time I talk to you will really hurt me, Colton,” PJ said.
I stared at him. “So – So you want to be in denial?”
PJ smiled lightly. “Yeah, sure, why not? It’s easier than thinking about it all the time. I don’t think he’ll do it again. It’ll just be over, and we can move on.”
“But – PJ! What if it does happen again?”
“I don’t think it will,” PJ said. “Addy loves me.”
“He loved you before, and still cheated on you.”
PJ pointed at me. “This is what I’m talking about, Colton, you can’t do that. You can’t keep bringing it up.”
“What do you mean? We’re already talking about it, I didn’t bring it up! This is the topic of our conversation!”
“Well, let’s change the topic, then. I don’t want to talk about it. Ever, I really don’t. I don’t like thinking about it. I don’t care that I’m in denial. I know I am. I know you probably think I’m stupid and self-loathing. But this isn’t your life, it’s mine. I want to be your friend, I want you to be my friend, and I don’t want that to change. Can you do that, Colton? Can you do that for me? Can you let me talk about Addy without bringing this up, can we do that from now on?”
“How can you ask me that? He hurt you, he’s hurting you right now, you want me to pretend to like him when he cheated on you?”
“Yes, that’s what I want,” PJ said, looking at me searchingly like it was up to me, whether he was hurt again by the fact that Addy cheated on him, and it had nothing to do with me.
It was Addy. Addy had done this. If I brought it up, it was because of Addy, it was because I was being a good friend and trying to protect him from Addy.
It wasn’t fair, that PJ was putting this on me. That he was making me the bad guy for trying to show him that Addy was the bad guy. That he was acting like I didn’t care about our friendship if I tried to do what a good friend would do.
It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right, and I didn’t want to agree. I didn’t want to sit back and listen to PJ tell me about some cute thing Addy did a week from now, or help PJ plan some romantic surprise for Addy a month from now.
How could I do any of that?
How did that make sense?
“I don’t like this, PJ,” I said slowly.
“Colton. Addy is my second chance. I can’t give up on him.”
“He isn’t your second chance! And you don’t only get two chances!”
“What do you know? The first guy you ever loved loved you right back.”
“PJ, you’re twenty-four, you don’t have to settle down with someone just because I have. You have so much time. I read online that most people fall in love eleven times on average,” I said, recounting a fact that I had actually read, and it’d seemed crazy to me, I couldn’t even imagine falling in love twice.
Did people actually do that? Eleven times?
Just falling in love with Noah was exhausting enough.
“Where did you read that? That’s bullshit,” PJ said.
“I mean, it sounds crazy, but people do fall in love more than once. They have break-ups, PJ, that’s a normal thing.”
PJ squinted at me. “Look at you, telling me about normal things when you’ve never had a break up.”
“Noah and I broke up,” I reminded him. “Twice, actually.”
“Don’t be stupid,” PJ said, as if the two years and five months that Noah and I hadn’t been together didn’t even count, which I didn’t think was fair.
Just because things were perfect with Noah now didn’t mean it hadn’t been hard. Didn’t mean I didn’t know what it was like to feel lonely and heartbroken and miserable and like I would never be with anyone I could be happy with ever again.
I had felt all of those things, when I first broke up with Noah. For two years and five months, I had felt all of that, constantly, but I hadn’t called Noah, I hadn’t gone back to him, because he wasn’t sober, and I knew he would hurt me, and I wasn’t going to let him hurt me again.
How could PJ let Addy hurt him again? How could he take that risk?
I supposed it was different. There was no sobriety for cheating. I didn’t think I’d like Addy any more than I did now even if he went two years without cheating on PJ.
But cheating wasn’t like drinking. It was different. I couldn’t figure out why in my head at that moment, but I knew it was different.
Without wanting to, I was thinking about my parents again, and I blamed Noah for bringing them up that morning.
I wondered if it would have hurt my dad any less, had my mother cheated on him instead of being an alcoholic, but then I made myself stop wondering that, because it was hypothetical and stupid and she was dead anyway, and cheating didn’t kill you, so the two things weren’t even comparable.
Things had stopped making sense inside my head, so I focused on what PJ was saying, as he was talking again.
“Look. I don’t want to go home to Addy yet. I want to take some time. But I will go back to him. I know I will. I’m not taking time to reconsider, I’m just taking time because – because – because I need to, I don’t know. I would like to stay with you, Colton, if you’ll have me. But if not, if you’re going to try to convince me to change my mind about Addy, if you’re going to keep talking about Addy cheating on me, then I can’t stay here, and I can’t call you because that’ll just hurt, to have to keep hearing about it. Do you understand?”
I understood. PJ was willing to give up our friendship, if it meant he didn’t have to think about Addy cheating on him anymore.
I didn’t see how they were related. I had nothing to do with Addy’s cheating. None of this was fair, but if I was forced to pick between having PJ never talk to me and having to stay quiet about Addy, the choice was obvious, there wasn’t really a choice at all.
“You can stay, PJ,” I said, and I knew he knew what I meant was that I wouldn’t talk about Addy again, at least, not about how I really felt about him.
PJ looked at me. “Are you sure?”
I nodded. “Yes. Yes, PJ, I’m not going to lose your friendship because Addy is a – ” I cut myself off, closed my eyes, and I felt PJ hugging me.
“Thank you,” he said, and his hug was different from Noah’s because PJ was a little taller, more filled out, muscular and strong, so even though he didn’t squeeze me tight, I felt the force of him around me, undeniable.
He let go of me, and I led him back inside, where Noah asked if we were hungry because he’d made pork chops.
When PJ went to use the bathroom before dinner, I went over to Noah, who was taking plates from the cupboard.
“Can you get water for us?” he asked me.
“We can’t talk about Addy, okay? PJ’s going to stay here a little, and then he’s going back to live with Addy, and we’re not allowed to say anything about it,” I said, and Noah looked at me.
“What does that even mean?”
“It means you can’t call Addy an asshole again.”
“I thought you weren’t going to let PJ get hurt again? Wasn’t that what the whole point was?” Noah asked.
“I can’t change his mind, and he won’t talk to me anymore if I say anything else about Addy.”
“That seems stupid,” Noah said.
“I’m not going to lose PJ’s friendship over this.”
“Not much of a friendship if you can’t be honest with him.”
“Shut up, Noah,” I snapped, taking a plate from him because he was trying to hold three at once.
“What? It’s my fault?” Noah asked, staring at me, and I looked away from him to place the plate on the counter and get glasses from the cupboard beside him.
I chose not to reply to Noah as I got water for the three of us and took our glasses to the living room, then got my plate while PJ came out from the bathroom and got his own.
We ate in the living room, and when PJ complimented Noah’s cooking again, Noah just looked at him and said Sure and didn’t say anything else, so I changed the topic to Shyla and how cute she was, which I figured was always a safe topic since she was always so incredibly cute.
For the next four days, PJ picked up every time Addy called, and when I was around I could hear that they only talked about stuff that didn’t matter, like how PJ would tell Addy about how great Chicago was, and Addy would tell PJ that his sister was no longer selling pot to underage kids.
They talked about everything that was not Addy’s cheating, and I realized that they were never going to talk about it, of course they weren’t, it was just not going to exist as if it had never happened even though it had.
And then on Monday, a week and a half after PJ came to Chicago, he bought his ticket back home, and I drove him to the airport because Noah was being a bit stoic around PJ since I’d told him we weren’t allowed to talk about Addy around him.
I knew Noah didn’t approve, and I didn’t approve either. I was hiding how I truly felt, but PJ knew that too. It wasn’t like lying. It was like acting, more than anything. Like pretending, and I remembered that I used to pretend too, and I didn’t really think I could blame PJ for that, even though I didn’t like it.
On the drive to the airport, for the first time I remembered that since PJ had been in Chicago, he had not been at his job, and I was startled that I had even forgotten about that.
“What about the ad agency?” I asked, glancing away from the road to see PJ look at me.
“What about it?”
“I mean, did you have so many days off?”
PJ laughed. “Of course not. They fired me for leaving without notice,” PJ said, while I turned to gape at him before he pointed to the road. “You should look at that, it’s called a road, and other people are driving on it and will hit you if you go in their lane.”
I turned back to the road. “PJ, what? You’re fired?”
“Yeah, you can’t just leave a job for a week and a half with no notice and not be fired. I was only working there a little over a year, I’m not that valued.”
“But – But – Don’t you care?”
“Of course I care, it was a good job.”
“You don’t seem to care,” I said, glancing at PJ again before looking at the road.
“Not much I can do. They called last Friday when I didn’t show up asking where I was, I told them I was in Chicago, they asked if I was coming back or had some excuse, but I was a bit of a wreck and couldn’t think of a good lie on the spot, and I was fired. I can’t really change that.”
I had no idea what to say to this. PJ had always been a bit laid back, but he had been a good student, had worked hard to get a good internship at this company followed by a promise of a job there after he graduated.
It was not at all like him to not give a shit that he’d been fired, but I guessed, in his world, it wasn’t the worst thing that had happened in the past two weeks.
Even so, I couldn’t help but wonder if my friend had changed since we’d graduated college. Since Addy.
“Are you going to get a new one?” I asked.
“I guess so,” PJ said, smiling at me, and it was a relief to see his dimples, proof that he was somewhere in there, even if it was getting hard to recognize him, to remember him as he used to be, my happy-go-lucky PJ.
Time changed people, I knew that. It was just a fact. But I didn’t know if I could blame just time completely for this, and I wanted to blame Addy, but PJ had only just told me that it was because of me that he had become jaded.
I shook my head at the road, tightened my hand on the steering wheel.
That was just stupid. I had nothing to do with this, with any of it.
We got to the airport, and I drove up to the dropping zone, pulled up to the curb, and watched PJ unbuckle his seatbelt.
“Thanks for having me, Colton,” he said, smiling at me.
“Of course.”
“I’ll call you, okay?” he asked, and I nodded, and then he left, closed the passenger door behind him, and went into the airport with no luggage because he hadn’t brought any.
He was still going back to Addy. He had not changed his mind in the four days since he’d picked up that call, since he’d punched me, since we’d argued.
I wanted to run after him. I wanted to stop him. I wanted to do something for him, because he was my friend, and he had done so much for me after I had broken up with Noah, after I had felt so alone.
But I didn’t do anything. I watched him disappear, and then I pulled away from the dropping zone, and I drove back to Noah’s and my apartment that soon we would be moving out of, in just two weeks, moving forwards in our lives when I was worried that PJ was moving backwards – but then, what did I know?
When I woke, I felt groggy and my head was pounding, and I groaned and wished I was still asleep.
I rolled over and saw a glass of water and two Advil on the nightstand, so I took the Advil, downed the water, then read the note that was under the glass.
Go back to sleep if you’re still tired, call out for me if the pain is really bad or if you want company, I’m working on a lesson plan in the living space
It took more effort than I felt that it should have to read the note, which ended with a little heart that I rubbed with my thumb. After I read it twice, I remembered Noah didn’t work today, and I called out to him.
He was in the bedroom immediately, which I liked. It was like having him on command.
“Hi,” I said, as he walked around the bed to me, his reading glasses perched on top of his head.
“Hi, sexy face. How you feeling?” Noah asked, his fingers light on my cheek, his other hand in my hair.
“Nurse Noah,” I said, and Noah smiled and leaned down and kissed me.
“I forgot how much I missed this part of actual nursing. The making out with the patients part,” Noah said, and I smiled, which hurt my face, so I cringed and stopped. “Pain on a scale of 1 to 10?”
“I don’t know. It hurts. My head feels like it’s going to come off,” I moaned, reaching up and grabbing Noah’s t-shirt. “Lie down with me. Distract me.”
“Maybe we should go to a doctor, they can prescribe you some better meds.”
“You are a doctor,” I complained.
“I was a nurse, and I can’t prescribe you anything. If it’s a concussion, the best thing is rest, but meds can help with the pain if it’s bad.”
I shook my head, which made it throb, so I stopped that and pulled on Noah’s shirt again. “Lie down,” I told him again.
Noah unraveled my hand from his shirt, then came around the other side of the bed and laid down after taking his glasses from the top of his head and putting them on his nightstand.
I rolled over, which hurt. “Ow.”
“Your face is purple,” Noah said, touching my cheek.
“Where’s PJ?” I asked, remembering that he was here, surprised that I’d forgotten.
“He took Shyla to the Thursday blues concert at the corner,” Noah said, reaching out to hold my hand between our bodies.
Shyla loved the blues, which was unfortunate, because I hated it. She always tried to drag me to a blues concert whenever one was playing in one of the parks or festival spots when we went out walking.
There was always a Thursday blues concert, and usually Noah took her because he didn’t work on Thursdays.
“You weren’t mean to him last night, right?”
“He left, I had to go find him. I just caught him as he was about to get in an Uber to the airport,” Noah said.
“Really?”
“Sure. I dragged him back here for you, you should be happy.”
“Did you beat him up?” I asked.
“No, I didn’t beat him up. Just for you,” Noah said, and I smiled before I remembered that was not a good idea what with the bruise stretched across my cheek.
“He wants to get back with Addy,” I said.
“I don’t give a shit what he wants.”
“Noah. He’s heartbroken.”
“He punched you in the face,” Noah said.
“You punched me in the face. Remember?” I asked, squeezing Noah’s hand in mine, and Noah crinkled his nose at me.
“Someone should have beat me up,” Noah said.
“Why am I always the one getting punched in the face?” I asked, disgruntled now that I was thinking about it.
“Why did he punch you, Colton? I asked him, you know.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he didn’t think it was a good idea to talk about it because I looked like I wanted to beat him up, and if we talked about it I probably would beat him up.”
I raised an eyebrow. “He said that?”
“Sure.”
“You couldn’t beat him up. I’m sorry, Noah, you’re my boyfriend, and I’m on your side and all, but PJ is very strong,” I said, while Noah unraveled his hand from mine to trace the bruise on my cheek lightly.
His touch felt nice, and I wanted it all over my skin.
“Believe it or not, I do know that, and I told him that.”
“You did not.”
“When he said he didn’t want to talk about it because I’d probably beat him up, I said I doubted I’d be able to beat him up,” Noah said simply, while I stared at him, amazed at how dramatic my life had gotten since the night before.
It was weird, but kind of exciting.
“What did he say?” I asked.
Noah didn’t say anything for a few seconds, kept tracing my face, then said slowly, “He said he wouldn’t touch me, or you’d probably never talk to him again, and he didn’t want that. So he’d let me beat him up. Which he didn’t really want to do, so it was better not to talk about you at all. And I didn’t press the point, because just talking to him was pissing me off, so I dropped it, then told him to take Shyla to the blues concert so I wouldn’t have to deal with him.”
“Wow. Quite a conversation you two had. I’m surprised there wasn’t some sort of duel at sundown,” I said, and Noah blew a stream of air on my face.
“I’m not a fan of having some guy who punched my boyfriend sleep on my couch.”
“It’s a pretty shabby couch, if that makes you feel better.”
“Colton, I’m not kidding,” Noah said.
“He’s my friend, and he’s really really hurt, and I don’t care if he punched me. He feels like shit right now, and that doesn’t give him the right to hit me, but I’m not kicking him out or letting him get hurt again just because he did something stupid. Addy called yesterday, and PJ picked up, and I heard their whole conversation, Noah, and it’s so shitty, it’s so terrible,” I said, and Noah leaned closer to me, kissed me gently.
“Hey, calm down, you’re getting worked up, and you’re supposed to be resting.”
“I felt bad for Addy, hearing him on the phone. After everything he did, I felt bad for him. How terrible is that? And PJ, PJ’s so in love with him. He’ll let Addy hurt him again and again, he doesn’t think he’s worth anything. I know you don’t like him, but I do. I like PJ a lot, I know he’s a really great person, and he doesn’t deserve a shitty relationship, but he thinks he does, and that makes me so upset, Noah, I’m so upset about it,” I said, while Noah ran his fingers through my hair.
“I can see that,” Noah said softly.
“PJ is a really good guy, and this sucks,” I insisted.
Noah nodded against the pillow. “It sucks,” he agreed.
I let Noah weave his fingers through my hair for a few more minutes, and then I asked him to undress me and have sex with me, and he did so gently, slowly, rode me with such care it was like this was just another nursing duty, and the idea of that sort of turned me on, and I had him get off me and put on his scrubs that he kept just because I thought they were sexy, and then he rode me again and I came so hard the pain in my head subsided for a good ten minute afterwards.
Noah laid next to me afterwards, traced words onto my bare stomach while I tried to guess what he wrote on my skin, and then that was too hard and required too much effort, so he just traced random designs and kissed me, and we made out until I was too tired, until my head hurt too much for me to concentrate on kissing him, and I laid still while Noah kissed different places on my skin.
“Hey,” I said, while Noah was kissing the inside of my elbow, and he leaned up and looked at me.
“Hm?”
“Do you think, if someone cheats on someone else, is it possible that they can still love the other person?” I asked, thinking about Addy’s desperation on the phone, unable to get it out of my head, his sobs, his sadness, the pain he clearly felt on having hurt PJ.
I did not forgive Addy. I did not want PJ to ever go near Addy again.
But I was not sure that Addy had been lying, when he’d said he was still in love with PJ, that he still wanted a future with PJ.
Maybe he did. Maybe it wasn’t black and white, maybe it wasn’t that easy.
“So you’re really asking if it’s possible that Addy still loves PJ, right?”
“Maybe.”
“Colton. I don’t know. I don’t know Addy,” Noah said, propped on his elbow, his cheek in his palm.
“He sounded like he still loved PJ on the phone. But that doesn’t make sense. He cheated on PJ for three weeks.”
“You can still love somebody and hurt them at the same time,” Noah said, after a minute.
“So what Addy did is okay? He should be forgiven?” I asked, immediately bristling, and Noah squinted at me.
“No. I didn’t say that. I think what he did was rotten and wrong, and he’s an asshole. But he might still love PJ.”
“But not enough.”
“Enough for what, Colton?” Noah asked.
“Enough – Enough! Just enough, I don’t know. As much as PJ loves him.”
“I don’t know how much PJ loves him.”
“A lot. Like how much we love each other,” I said, and Noah crinkled his nose.
“Doubtful.”
“Why is that doubtful?”
“Nobody loves anybody the way I love you,” Noah said simply, and I rolled my eyes at him even though I sort of liked his stupid words.
“Don’t be corny. So if Addy cheated on PJ, then that means he can’t love PJ as much as PJ loves him, right?”
Noah laid back down, and I rolled on my side so I could look at him because he was so beautiful I just liked to look at him sometimes.
“I don’t know,” Noah said.
“The answer is no. You can’t love someone that much and then cheat on them,” I corrected.
“If you have your mind made up, then why did you ask?”
“I don’t have my mind made up! But that’s what’s supposed to be true!” I shouted, and Noah ruffled his hand in his hair.
“Why are you getting worked up about this? I don’t know, Colton, I don’t know how Addy feels. What I know is everyone is different. Look, think about it this way. Your dad was crazy for your mom, right?” Noah asked, and I was abruptly taken aback by the sudden mention of my parents.
I nodded slowly, wary at my mom being brought up. “Right.”
“You said he loved her more than anyone ever loved anyone else,” Noah said, and I had said this, but it had been years ago, back when Noah and I had first started dating.
I nodded again against the pillow. “Yes. That’s true.”
“Okay. And I don’t want to upset you. But, Colton, your dad never forced your mom into AA. He never made her get help. He wanted her to quit, but he never forced her to. And I’m not saying you can force an alcoholic to quit, because I don’t think it works that way. But there were things your father could have tried that he didn’t.”
“He wanted her to go to AA. He emptied out her bottles. He wanted her to quit,” I argued, defending my father because I knew he tried, I’d watched him line up AA pamphlets on our kitchen table over and over again.
“Colton. I know. I know that. What I mean is…Look, if you ever started drinking, if you ever became an alcoholic, I would stop you. I swear, I would lock you in a room until you got sober, keep you there until you had some sort of control,” Noah said, looking at me very intently, like he thought for some reason I was going to become an alcoholic, and he was warning me of the consequences.
“I’m not going to be an alcoholic,” I reassured him, slightly worried at his expression, and his face softened.
“No. I know that. What I mean is, I just think love is different for everyone. It makes you do different things. It gives you different priorities. Your dad, he didn’t force your mom to stop because he couldn’t stand to make her unhappy, right? He didn’t want to torture her, because that’s what sobriety is. It’s torture, at first, Colton,” Noah said, and it was so strange to hear him talk about sobriety this way.
Oftentimes, I forgot Noah had ever been an alcoholic at all. He made it easy to forget. He was so good now. He was so stable and safe, so recovered that whenever I came home to hear him on a call with Karl’s AA group, it took me by surprised, I would momentarily wonder why he was even in an AA group to begin with.
“My priority would be sobriety. I wouldn’t care if I was torturing you. I would make you be sober.”
“Noah, this has nothing to do with PJ and Addy,” I said slowly, wanting to get away from talking about sobriety and alcohol, because it felt strange, I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to talk about how Noah felt like sobriety was torture anymore, how my mom had felt that way too.
“I just think that love isn’t that easily defined, Colton, and you’re trying to define it. You want me to say that Addy can’t love PJ and cheat on him at the same time, but maybe he can. I think it’s a terrible, selfish kind of love, but maybe that’s the only love Addy knows. I don’t know him, I can’t say. I don’t think it’s excusable. I think he should have known he was hurting PJ, and he shouldn’t have done it. But I also don’t think I can say – oh, he doesn’t love PJ. Maybe he does.”
I thought about it for a second, tried to wrap my head around it, but my head hurt, and I just couldn’t accept it. “I don’t think that makes sense,” I said, and Noah gave me a small smile.
“Okay. That’s fine. We can have different opinions.”
“Yours is dumb,” I argued, and Noah laughed.
“Rude.”
“You can’t love someone as much as I love you and cheat on them. That doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe not,” Noah said, shrugging against the mattress.
“But you just said it did!”
“I said I don’t know, I said love is different. This is complicated, Colton, and it’s getting you worked up for some insane reason, and you should really be resting, so if you’re going to insist on talking about it I’ll have to leave,” Noah said sternly, and I sighed.
“Fine, I’ll drop it. I’m just confused, and you’re not helping.”
“Why would you think I’m some sort of love guru, what do I know?” Noah asked, a little incredulously.
“Clearly it’s the concussion making me delusional. You’re right, what do you know?” I agreed, and Noah grinned at me.
“I know you should shut up and rest,” Noah said, so I shut up and rested, and Noah resumed kissing everywhere on my skin, even the secret places – the insides of my thighs, the underside of my chin, behind my ears, the thin skin of my wrists, the bony knobs of my ankles.
I didn’t fall asleep, and didn’t want to. I wanted to feel him shift my body in his gentle way, like he was giving me a medical examination, only to reveal another unexpected part of me that he would press his lips against.
And I started to think – maybe Noah was right. Maybe nobody had ever loved anyone as much as he loved me.
But I couldn’t think about it for too long, because then my heart began to race, and I was supposed to be resting.
As the week went by, PJ explored Chicago using the list of recommendations I left him while I was at work. When I got home, we’d go out together, and PJ would talk about Addy, and I would listen and hand him tissues if he started crying.
Addy kept calling PJ, and PJ didn’t pick up until the sixth afternoon that he was at our apartment, while he and I were sitting on the couch, and PJ had been telling me what they did on their one-year anniversary, even though he had already relayed that day in detail to me over Skype on the actual day after the anniversary.
I watched PJ look at his phone as it rang.
“It’s Addy,” he said, even though obviously I already knew it was Addy, since Addy called him at least once every hour.
I waited for PJ to send the call to voicemail, but instead, he picked up his phone from the couch between us.
“I’m going to pick up,” he said.
“PJ,” I said.
“Stay here with me,” PJ said, and I didn’t argue because he didn’t give me time to, as he was sliding his finger across phone screen to pick up the call and then turning on speaker. “Hey,” he said, and then, “You’re on speaker, and Colton is here.”
I bit the inside of my cheek, then stopped. “Hi, Addy,” I managed.
“PJ,” Addy said, apparently ignoring me, which I was completely fine with. “You picked up, I miss your voice, don’t hang up, okay? Where are you, I have no idea where you are, are you okay?”
“I’m at Colton’s in Chicago. What do you want?” PJ asked. “You broke my heart.”
“You’re in Chicago? You went to Chicago? I want you to come home,” Addy said, while I tried to make eye-contact with PJ so I could somehow tell him silently that I didn’t want to be a part of this call in any way.
“You cheated on me!” PJ shouted, and then he pressed his hands to his eyes. “Fuck.”
“PJ. I’m sorry. Babe, I love you, okay? I want to make us work, I want to be with you.”
“Why did do this?” PJ asked, his voice breaking, reaching out for more tissues from the third tissue box he had gone through since being here.
“I was so stupid, I don’t know. He had been flirting with me, and then it just – It just happened,” Addy said, his voice strained and breaking, and I could tell he was starting to cry too.
“Fuck, Addy! Who was it?” PJ asked, while I wrapped my arms around my waist and squeezed.
PJ was staring at his phone, and possibly wouldn’t notice if I got up and left, but he had said he wanted me there, and I wanted to be there for him.
This felt private, though. I didn’t know how he could want me here for this, to hear this.
“Mark,” Addy said weakly, and I watched PJ grab more tissues.
“Who is – ? Wait. The – the piano teacher? Fuck, Addy, fuck,” he cursed, while I dug my fingers into my sides.
“I’m sorry! It was just physical, I swear, PJ, I don’t give a damn about him, I love you so much, you know I do, come home, I love you.”
“For three fucking weeks, Addy! You fucked your fucking piano teacher for three fucking weeks! That’s why you wouldn’t have sex with me, not because you were too tired, not because you were stressed about your sister, how could you – how could you?”
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Addy insisted desperately, and then he was crying loudly over the phone while I stared down at it, unable to look at PJ anymore, who was crying too.
I wasn’t supposed to be in this conversation. I had to leave, but I still didn’t know if PJ wanted me to be here or not.
“I love you, I love you, PJ,” Addy said, after he’d stopped crying so hard, but he was still crying a little, his voice just a breath over the phone.
“Why did you do this?” PJ asked, and he’d stopped crying completely, was breathing deeply, so I peeked up at him, saw him pressing hard on his temples with his thumb and forefinger.
“It didn’t mean anything!”
“Am I not – satisfying, or – ”
“No, babe, that’s not – That has nothing to do with – It wasn’t you, okay? It was me, I was an idiot, I’m so so sorry,” Addy cried.
He sounded completely miserable, and I knew I had to hate him, but I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.
He sounded in more pain than PJ was, or at least the same amount.
PJ had calmed himself down to the point where he sounded angry, now, his voice hard and unfeeling instead of wavering and broken.
“Tell me how it happened. Addy, fuck, tell me how it fucking happened.”
“PJ…”
“Tell me!” PJ shouted, and I’d never seen PJ angry, stared at him in some degree of fascination, not recognizing the hard lines of his face, his narrowed eyes, his clenched jaw.
I listened to Addy’s deep breath.
“I – It was in class, and his hands were over mine because he was positioning my fingers on the keys. And then he just, he leaned forward, and – PJ, don’t make me do this, it doesn’t matter, none of that matters,” Addy said weakly.
“It matters,” PJ said shortly, and Addy was silent for a couple seconds before speaking again.
“He leaned close to me, and I knew he wanted to kiss me. He’d asked me to drinks a few weeks before, but I told him I had a boyfriend. And then, and then on that day, when he leaned in, I just – I just kissed him, I don’t know why, PJ, I swear, I don’t know why.”
I watched the rise of PJ’s chest, and then he was looking at me, and I felt a flash of heat whip through my entire body at the lack of feeling in his gaze, so unfamiliar on PJ that it scared me a little.
I mouthed, I can go, and pointing with my thumb in the direction of the front door to indicate I could give him privacy, but PJ shook his head.
Stay with me, he mouthed, and he stared at me hard until I nodded, and then he looked back at the phone as though our silent conversation had not transpired at all.
“And then you fucked him,” PJ said, and I closed my eyes.
“PJ. PJ, I’m sorry – ”
“Was it just during lessons, or did you meet him outside of that?” PJ interrupted.
“We met outside of lessons,” Addy said slowly, his voice a whisper.
He sounded absolutely terrified, and I couldn’t figure out why he’d done it.
Why would he do this? If he was so upset, if he regretted it so much, why had he even done it?
“Where?” PJ asked, like he was asking where Addy had gone for lunch.
“PJ…”
“Answer me.”
“His place. And – And ours – ”
“Fuck! Fuck, Addy, did you fuck him in our bed?”
“Babe, please, please listen to me – ”
“Fuck you, Addy!” PJ snapped, his hands in fists over his knees, and he looked up at the ceiling, breathed hard.
“Don’t hang up! PJ, babe, listen, I didn’t know what I was doing. It was a physical thing – ”
“That doesn’t make it fucking better,” PJ said.
“I know! I know that. I love you, I love – ”
“Fuck. I thought our sex life was good,” PJ said, and I stared down at my lap, wanting to disappear.
PJ told me about his sex life with Addy in detail frequently, even though I’d told him several times it wasn’t necessary to be as descriptive as he tended to be.
Two weeks before PJ came to Chicago, he’d told me he and Addy hadn’t had sex for a week, and he didn’t know why. A week before, he’d told me he’d planned this romantic dinner and bought new lingerie to help get Addy in the mood, but Addy had been too tired still.
A few days before, PJ had asked me if I thought he should talk to Addy about talking to a doctor, maybe it was a physical thing, maybe they could get help so Addy would know he didn’t have to be ashamed if he was having a hard time getting turned on or anything like that.
I had told PJ that he should talk to Addy if he felt like it was necessary. I didn’t know if PJ had ever talked to Addy about going to a doctor to help their sex life. Maybe he had. Maybe that was why Addy had finally decided to come clean.
“It was! It is!” Addy was shouting, in response to PJ. “I love having sex with you, PJ, I do, I swear I do, you’re crazy sexy and satisfying, I love our sex life. I made a mistake, I just made a mistake, I wanted to fix it, that’s why I told you, I wanted to be honest with you, I love you, I’m sorry, you have to come home, please come home,” Addy said between sobs.
Noah was taking Shyla on another walk. He kept away, mostly, while PJ talked to me about Addy, and I wasn’t sure if it was to give PJ privacy when he broke down or because he felt uncomfortable around PJ.
“I feel worthless and stupid,” PJ said quietly, sounding hollowed out, and Addy cried harder.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, PJ.”
“I had no idea. I thought we were happy. I thought we had a future together. I was so insanely in love with you, I thought you were too,” PJ said, and I took a breath, squeezed my waist hard.
“Don’t – Don’t give up on us, okay? I love you too, I do, we do have a future, please don’t think I don’t love you. I love you so much, I’m so sorry, I hate myself for hurting you, I shouldn’t have – It was a mistake, it was just a mistake, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, PJ, I love you, I love you,” Addy insisted, and I bit hard on the inside of my cheek.
I hated Addy for his breaking voice, for his desperation, for his hard sobs.
How dare he be sad? This was his fault, he had fucked around on PJ for three weeks, how could he be miserable when he had done this, consciously, on his own, he had done this?
PJ didn’t say anything, and Addy kept crying, occasionally telling PJ he loved him, sobbing more, and then when I thought I was going to lose my mind, PJ finally spoke.
“I love you too, Addy,” he said quietly, and Addy cried harder, and I stared up at PJ, who was looking at his phone.
“Come home, okay?” Addy said, when he’d calmed himself down enough to speak again.
“I don’t know,” PJ said.
“PJ, PJ…”
“I need some time, okay?” PJ said, his voice level and even, but no longer hard, no longer unfeeling.
Addy sniffed loudly. “Okay,” he said, exhaling hard. “Okay, you can – you can have time, I understand. But – But can I call you again tomorrow? PJ, please?”
“Yes, you can call me tomorrow,” PJ said.
“And – And you’ll come home, right? You will, soon, right? You’ll come back, PJ, right? Because I love you, I want to make us work, you’ll let me try, won’t you?”
PJ sighed. “Addy…”
“Okay, you don’t have to answer now. I love you, though. You know that. I love you.”
“I know that,” PJ repeated, while my hands fell from around my waist, and I kept staring at PJ in shock.
“I miss you,” Addy said.
“I miss you too,” PJ said.
“Okay, okay,” Addy said.
“I’m going to hang up now,” PJ said.
“I’ll call you, PJ. I love you.”
“I love you too,” PJ said, and then he reached out and hung up, and he stared at the phone for a second before looking at me.
“What was that?” I asked, unable to stop myself, and PJ just kept looking at me.
“I’m still mad at him,” he said.
“PJ, he had sex with another guy for three weeks.”
“Come on, stop,” PJ said, standing up and walking out of the living space, and I followed him even when he went into the bathroom.
“You’re going to get back together with him?” I asked, slamming my hand against the door when PJ tried to close it on me.
“I have to pee.”
“Fine, pee,” I snapped, and PJ stared at me, then went to stand in front of the toilet and lowered his sweats and boxers.
I stared at the bathroom wall, and then there was the trickle of PJ’s pee, but I still didn’t move.
“You can’t forgive him for this,” I insisted.
“Colton, please don’t.”
“Don’t what? I didn’t do anything, Addy did. He did this, how can you forgive him? Because he cried over the phone? That’s all it takes?” I demanded, looking back at PJ, who’d stopped peeing and pulled his sweats back on.
He flushed and stepped to the sink. “You have to be my friend,” he said to the faucet.
“I am!”
“I love him, Colton, what the hell do you want me to do?” PJ asked, drying his hands on the towel I’d given him.
“He cheated on you.”
“Colton, stop. Stop, just – ” PJ looked at me sadly, and I felt bad for him, but it wasn’t my fault.
It was Addy’s fault, he had done this, and he wasn’t allowed to get away with it, that wasn’t fair, that wasn’t right. I felt so angry at this guy for hurting PJ, for hurting my friend, and I felt so angry at PJ for forgiving him, for telling Addy he loved him back.
“Don’t you have any self-respect?” I asked, and PJ looked like I’d hit him.
“Don’t do that,” PJ said sadly, and he slipped around me to leave the bathroom, his shoulder brushing mine.
I followed him into the kitchen area, where he poured himself a glass of water, but didn’t drink it.
“PJ. I know it hurts. I know you love him. But he slept with someone else for weeks. He doesn’t love you, he doesn’t care about you, and if he does, it’s not as much as he should, it’s not as much as you care about him,” I insisted, and PJ pressed his hands over his eyes.
“Please stop, Colton, you’re my friend, don’t say these things to me, okay?” PJ mumbled, his voice shaking and small.
I felt my insides squeezing. I reminded myself that it wasn’t me hurting PJ.
It was Addy. This was Addy’s fault, and I couldn’t let him hurt PJ again, I couldn’t let that happen, I owed it to PJ not to let that happen.
“I don’t want to say these things, PJ, I just – I can’t let him hurt you again,” I said weakly.
PJ dropped his hands, stared at me with hurt all over his face, as if I was the one who’d put it there, and I felt sick.
“I’m in love with him, I want to spend my life with him. Don’t do this, okay?”
“That doesn’t give him permission to treat you like shit! PJ, listen to what you’re saying! What if Noah cheated on me, would you be okay with that? Would you tell me it was okay for us to be together?”
“Maybe! I don’t know, Colton, maybe I would, maybe I’d support you because you’re my best friend and I care about you!” PJ shouted.
“I do care about you! More than Addy does, he had sex with another guy – ”
“Stop saying that!”
“No!” I shouted, even though I hated saying it, my voice was nearly shaking and my heart was beating too fast, I wanted to stop, I wanted so much to stop. “You can’t just deny it! You can’t ignore it, PJ, it happened, he cheated on you for three weeks, if it was a mistake it wouldn’t have gone on for three weeks, it wouldn’t have happened at all!”
“Stop it, Colton! Please stop, just stop, you’re supposed to be there for me, you’re supposed to be my friend,” PJ said, and he was crying again, his hands over his face again, and I clenched my fingernails into my palms and made myself keep going.
“I am your friend. Listen, I hate this so much, I don’t want to make you upset, but how can I let you do this? Just because you love him? He doesn’t love you, or he wouldn’t have done this to you. He can’t care about you as much as you care about him, or he would never have wanted to have sex with anyone else, he wouldn’t have wanted to, PJ, I’m so sorry – ”
“So what?” PJ shouted, dropping his hands from his face, and I was so startled by his question that I stopped talking. “Maybe he doesn’t care about me as much as I care about him. Maybe he doesn’t love me as much as I love him. But he still cares, and he still loves me, and you know what? That’s enough. I don’t need more,” PJ said, and I stared at him, shocked.
“But, that doesn’t – ”
“No, shut up, just shut the fuck up. We’re not all you with your perfect fucking relationship, okay? You know, I loved you for ages, I cared about you and took care of you when Noah fucked you up for ages, and I’m not saying I’m pissed at you for not loving me back, whatever, I don’t care, I’m over it, I’m over you, that’s not the point,” PJ said roughly, while I gaped at him, my skin burning.
I thought maybe my jaw had dropped, but I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t really sure of anything. I could hardly breathe, definitely could not respond, but that didn’t matter because PJ wasn’t done and didn’t give me a chance to respond even if I could have.
“The point is – Maybe this is just it, for me. I don’t get to have what you have, some perfect guy who’s so fucking head over heels for you he’d probably kill himself if it made you happy. Maybe I don’t get people who care about me as much as I care about them. Maybe that’s just my lot in life, right? Fine, I’m fine with it, I’ve got to be fine with it, or I’ll end up fucking alone, Colton, so shut the fuck up because you don’t know a thing about loving someone who doesn’t love you the same way, you don’t know what that’s like, you don’t know how hard that is,” PJ finished, out of breath, and he stared at me while I tried not to breathe too hard.
“PJ,” I managed, reaching out, not knowing why, not knowing what to do after I reached out, but luckily, PJ moved away from me before I had to figure it out.
“I’ll go,” he said, walking out of the kitchen area to the front door where he shoved his feet in his shoes, and I stared after him for a second before making myself follow.
He hadn’t brought anything with him, had been wearing Noah’s clothes while he stayed here because mine were too small, so there was no suitcase for him to take, nothing for him to collect before he left. But I couldn’t let him leave.
“Wait, PJ, wait,” I said, my hand on the front door before he managed to open it.
“I can’t be here,” PJ said.
“Yes, you can. You’re my friend, and I want you to stay here with me.”
“Shut up, Colton, and let me out,” PJ snapped.
“PJ, listen to me. You deserve to be loved as much as you – ”
“Fuck you!” PJ shouted, and he shoved me with both hands on my chest, hard so that I fell back, staggered over my feet and fell onto the ground.
PJ was strong. He worked out regularly, had defined muscles, but I was still surprised at the force of him, at the fact that I was on the ground.
PJ had swung open the door, but I stood up quickly, slammed it back shut before he could leave.
“PJ, stop.”
“Don’t make me hit you, Colton.”
“You’re not going to hit me.”
“You don’t fucking know that.”
“I know you, PJ, I know you won’t hit me,” I said, and PJ looked at me with narrowed eyes, and it wasn’t the PJ I knew because the PJ I knew was goofy and cheerful, had a dimpled smile and always laughed, always made everyone around him happier.
“Move, Colton, I’m not going to warn you again,” PJ snapped, and I stared hard at him, tried to find the PJ I knew in him, the silly, flirty PJ who joked around and made me laugh even when I was upset, who cared so much about everyone around him, who never hurt anyone.
“You’re right, you took care of me when I was sad about Noah. I want to take care of you too, PJ, and this is how I have to do it, it has to hurt. I’m sorry, but you’re my friend, and I care about you, and I can’t just let you go back to this guy who doesn’t love you the way you deserve,” I said, and when I stopped to take a breath, PJ hit me.
He hit me so hard my head snapped back and the back of it hit the door behind me, and the pain erupted first in the back of my head, which didn’t make much sense to me, but I didn’t really stop to think about it because then the pain was bursting sharp and sudden across my left cheek.
I’d been hit in the face before. Noah had hit me in his kitchen when we were teenagers, but I’d let myself forget the pain, and it came back so abruptly and terribly in this moment that my eyes were burning immediately.
“Fuck,” I hissed, bringing my hand up to my cheek, the pain throbbing in piercing pulses from both the back of my head as well as my face.
“Move,” PJ said, and I realized I was still standing in front of the door, even though I sort of felt like I was lying down, for some reason.
“No,” I whispered, reaching my other hand up to the back of my head, pressing on my skull and trying to make the pulsing stop, it was making me dizzy.
“Colton,” PJ said, and I felt my eyes closing, and then I felt PJ reaching out, holding me up. “Fuck.”
“’M okay,” I mumbled, forcing my eyes open.
I wasn’t going to let myself pass out because the idea of that was ridiculous, and I blinked, trying to keep my head from spinning.
I wondered, vaguely, if I’d gotten a concussion when my head slammed back against the door, and I sincerely hoped I had not because I was pretty sure I wasn’t allowed to sleep if I had a concussion, and I was feeling very tired.
“Shit, Colton,” PJ said, and I let him help me to the couch, where he sat me down and held my chin up. “Look at me,” he said, so I looked at him, making my eyes focus on his.
They were wide and concerned, and there was the PJ I knew and loved.
“Hi,” I said.
“I think you have a concussion. And your nose is bleeding, but probably from the punch,” PJ said, reaching out and touching my nose, his fingers pinching up along it.
“What’re you doing?”
“Feeling if it’s broken. It’s not.”
“My head feels heavy,” I told him. It was hard to keep my eyes open.
“Fuck. Give me a second, I’m getting you ice,” PJ said, and then he was gone, and I concentrated on sitting up straight and not having a concussion, as if I could will myself not to.
I managed to stay awake until PJ returned, and he cursed and grabbed my shoulders, and I realized I’d almost fallen off the couch, which made me laugh.
“Stop being creepy, hold this to your face while I google concussions. I heard once that not being allowed to sleep is a myth, but let me confirm it. And wipe your nose,” PJ said, and I blinked wearily at him.
“I don’ have a concussion,” I told him, wiping my nose with the tissue he offered.
“What the hell do you know?”
I held the ice to my face and the back of my head, and the cool of it was refreshing, woke me thoroughly so that I felt myself sitting up, becoming more alert.
I watched PJ reading on his phone, and then he looked up at me, moved my hand from my cheek to inspect my face.
“The swelling went down a little. I think. I don’t know. It might be worse, actually.”
“Do I have a concussion?” I asked, when he replaced the ice and let go of my hand.
“Don’t know. Apparently they can be really bad or just mild. How does yours feel?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Not that bad. Sort of throbby.”
“Hm. It says to rest.”
“I can do that.”
“Good, okay, do that,” PJ said, reaching around my head, and I dropped my hand so he could feel the back of my head. “Does that hurt?” he said, applying pressure, and I winced.
“Yeah, kind of. Why? Does that mean it’s a concussion?”
“No idea,” PJ said. “There was a scarily loud smack when your head hit the door though, it sounded concussion-y.”
PJ sighed and looked at me, and I kept pressing the ice to the back of my head and my cheek.
“I’m sorry I hit you, Colton. I really am. I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t think I was really thinking at all, actually.”
I shrugged.
“I’ve never hit anyone in my life,” he said.
“How did it feel?” I asked.
PJ smiled weakly. “A little exciting. Also my knuckles hurt. Was it a good hit?”
“Pretty good,” I confirmed, and PJ’s smile stretched enough that his dimples showed.
“Colton, I – ”
The sound of the door opening cut PJ off, and we both turned to watch Noah walking in with Shyla, who had been loosened from her leash and ran to us.
“Hey, Shy,” I said, unable to pet her since I was holding two ice packs to my head.
“What happened?” Noah said, suddenly next to me, crouched in front of the couch, and I glanced back to see that he hadn’t even closed the door.
“Nothing,” I said. “You didn’t close the front door.”
Noah didn’t seem to be listening to me, and was moving my hand and the ice I held in it from my cheek.
“What the hell?” he whispered, his eyes lifting from my cheek to my own eyes, and I blinked at him.
“Nothing,” I repeated.
“Someone hit you?”
I didn’t say anything, and then Noah was looking away from me, at PJ.
“What happened?” Noah asked.
“Noah. I – I don’t know what to say,” PJ said warily, and then Noah reached out, grabbed PJ’s hand, which was weird until I realized he was looking at PJ’s knuckles, which were red.
“You hit him?”
The whole thing was so sudden and dramatic that I was starting to think that maybe it was the product of the possible concussion, giving me weird illusions.
“Did you hit Colton?” Noah demanded, shockingly loudly, and I stared at him, wondering whether my volume perception was off or if he had actually just shouted.
“Noah. Noah, it – I – I was – ” PJ stopped, and I looked at him, saw him staring at Noah with wide eyes, so I looked at Noah again, and he was looking incredibly livid.
I had seen Noah mad before. But I had rarely seen him so scary looking.
“Noah, maybe you should calm down,” I offered, still unsure if this was actually happening because it all felt rather melodramatic.
“Fuck, PJ, answer me! Did you hit Colton?” Noah shouted, not even looking at me, and he was standing now, reached down and pulled PJ up from the collar of his t-shirt, which was actually Noah’s t-shirt, and I stood up too, dropped both ice packs and reached out, grabbed Noah’s wrist.
“Let go of him,” I said, alarmed, certain I was hallucinating now, and my head throbbed with each word.
“Ah, shit, Noah, Noah, wait,” PJ said, both his hands up like he was being held up at gunpoint.
“Hey, what the hell are you doing?” I demanded, and Noah looked at me then, his eyes skating over my cheek.
“He punched you in the face. Am I right?” Noah asked, and I tightened my fingers around Noah’s wrist, digging my fingernails into his skin, because he still hadn’t let go of PJ’s shirt.
“Let go of him. What are you going to do, beat him up in my honor? Are you kidding me?” I asked, incredulous, and Noah let go of PJ’s shirt, so I let go of Noah’s wrist and pressed my hand to the back of my head again, because it was throbbing in a way that made me feel like my head was going to burst open.
“What are you doing?” Noah asked.
“Me? What are you doing?” I asked back, but I was feeling tired, so I sat back down, and Noah crouched in front of me again.
“What’s wrong with the back of your head?”
“Nothing,” I mumbled, but I was breathing quickly, the pain searing and achy at the same time.
“Colton?” Noah asked, looking alarmed and too concerned when it wasn’t even that big a deal.
“When I hit him, his head slammed back and smacked the door,” PJ said quietly, and Noah didn’t even look at him, sat up from his crouch enough to sit on the couch cushions beside me, and he turned my head, moved my hand and touched my skull as if he was examining it.
“How hard did it hit the door?” he asked, and I didn’t know if he was talking to me or PJ, so I decided not to answer.
“I don’t know. There was a loud smacking noise. He might have a concussion, maybe, I don’t know,” PJ said.
“How do you feel?” Noah asked, looking at me, and his hand cupped my face now, his voice was nothing but gentle and soft now.
I leaned into his palm.
“Dizzy? Tired? Nauseous?” Noah asked, peering at my eyes, and then his hand moved from my cheek and he tilted my face towards him, looked closely at me.
“What’re you doing?”
“Looking at your pupils,” Noah said, and it was a second before I remembered Noah had been a nurse, he knew about concussions, diagnosing them, treating them.
“How do they look?” I asked.
“Can you count to ten out loud for me?” Noah asked, instead of answering.
“Why?”
“I want to see if your speech is slurred.”
I counted to ten, and Noah didn’t tell me if my speech was slurred or not, if I passed his little test, but my speech had sounded fine to me.
“You didn’t answer me. How do you feel, Colton?” Noah asked softly, and I smiled at him, wanted to tell him he was great at bedside manner.
Instead, I answered him. “Okay. Fine.”
“Be specific, please.”
“My head is throbbing.”
“Anything else?”
“I’m a little tired,” I admitted, and Noah nodded as if this was the correct answer.
“Okay, that’s okay. Come, I want you to lie down, you need to take it easy, you’ll be perfectly fine,” he said, which I had known, but it was nice to hear him say it, since he was certified to tell people if they’d be fine and whatnot.
Noah stood up, then reached down and helped me up, and I wasn’t sure if I needed help to stand up, but I liked when he touched me, so I let him help me.
He turned before we walked to the bedroom.
“You stay here,” he said, but not to me, and I remembered PJ was here.
“Hey. Don’t beat him up, I’m not a damsel in distress, and you’re not my knight in shining armor, don’t kid yourself,” I warned, while Noah started leading me out of the living space.
“Colton, don’t worry about it, you need to rest.”
“I’m serious, Noah. Don’t get all dramatic and macho, it’ll really annoy me if you do that,” I said, staring at Noah until he looked at me and sighed.
We were in the bedroom, and I allowed Noah to steer me to the bed.
“I don’t like that he hit you.”
“I don’t really care what you like. PJ is my friend, what happened is between me and him and has nothing to do with you.”
“Oh yeah? And what if someone hit me?” Noah demanded, as I got onto the bed, and I let Noah unzip my jeans and slip them from my legs.
“Um, I wouldn’t beat them up to defend your honor. This isn’t some cheesy 80’s flick, it’s real life, don’t be so stupid,” I said, and Noah ran his hand through my hair, leaned down and kissed my forehead.
“You wouldn’t defend my honor? Rude,” he said, kissing my bruised cheek next, so softly it didn’t hurt.
“Leave PJ alone. Promise me you will, Noah. And make sure he stays here. Don’t be an asshole,” I said, as Noah’s lips trickled to the corner of my own.
“If he wants to leave, I’ll let him leave,” Noah said, words soft against my skin.
“No, Noah, don’t do that. His boyfriend just cheated on him. Be nice,” I warned.
“Colton,” Noah complained, straightening up a few inches.
“Noah. Promise me. You’ll make sure he stays, and you won’t be mean to him or mad at him.”
“You can’t stop me from being mad at him. He punched you in the face. Why did he punch you?”
“Noah, go make sure he’s still here. And leave me alone to rest, I thought I needed rest, what kind of nurse are you? Don’t kiss your patients,” I said, pushing him by his chest, and Noah laughed.
“Okay, okay, fine. Call me if you need me, okay?” Noah asked, and I nodded, and then Shyla was scampering into the room, and she snuggled next to me while I reached out and ruffled her big ears.
“Hey, Shy,” I said, as she burrowed into my side.
“Keep him company, okay, Shy?” Noah asked, and I closed my eyes.
I felt Noah’s fingers briefly on my cheek, knew he was touching my bruise, and then his touch was gone, and so was he.
I listened to him close the bedroom door, and I wanted to strain to hear if he was saying anything to PJ, but exhaustion overtook me suddenly and abruptly, and I was knocked out.
I was at an outdoor music festival with Abigail, Kat, and Eli, which we’d stumbled upon after getting Thai food after work, and I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket. I took it out to see a call from Noah.
I knew he was probably wondering where I was, and I squeezed Abigail’s arm to let her know I was walking away to take a call before slipping out from the front of the stage where Kat had pulled all of us up to. At the corner of the loose crowd, I picked up.
“Hey, sorry, I’ll be home late, we ran into an Arkells concert on the way to the metro. Actually, come join us, it’s at the – ”
“Colton, it’s PJ,” Noah interrupted, and I stopped talking, pressed my cell harder to my ear, certain I’d heard wrong.
“What?”
“PJ’s here,” Noah said.
“PJ? Where?” I asked, looking around, as if Noah meant he was right beside me.
“On our couch. He’s okay, but – Can you come home?” Noah asked, and I nodded, then remembered I was talking on the phone.
“Yeah, I’ll come now, I’ll be there in a half hour. Noah, is he okay?” I asked, even though Noah had said he was.
“You should just come,” Noah said, and I nodded again, then said bye and hung up before struggling back through the crowd, unsure how Kat had managed to get us up to the front so quickly.
By the time I was back next to my coworkers, I realized I could have just texted them, but it was too late for that now.
“Hey!” I shouted above the music, and Abigail grabbed my arm and twirled me before I could say anything to her.
She stopped twirling me, and I grabbed her hand so she would look at me.
“I gotta go!” I shouted.
“Everything okay?” she shouted back.
“What?” Eli shouted, sticking his head between Abigail and I.
“I have to go, everything’s fine, I’ll see you tomorrow!” I shouted, and Eli nodded and resumed dancing, and Abigail kissed me on the cheek and squeezed my hand, and I detached from my friends and the rest of the crowd and headed to the nearest metro station.
It was early October, and Noah and I had been in Chicago for nearly a year and a half. I knew my way around the public transportation system as naturally as if I’d lived in the city my entire life, and soon I was entering Noah’s and my apartment building.
By the end of the month, our lease would be up, and we would be moving into the new apartment we’d signed a lease on two months before. It was ten minutes farther from my job, but ten minutes closer to Noah’s.
More importantly, it wasn’t the size of a shoebox the way our current apartment basically was. Shyla would have more space, and there was also a spare room, which we discussed into making Noah’s office for when he started his online classes for his PhD in January, although I had secret bigger plans for it to possibly be turned into a nursery, even though Noah and I had yet to even be engaged.
I was still waiting for him to propose, even though I’d bought him a ring just in case I had to do it. But from the conversations we’d had about proposing, he’d made it seem like he was going to do it, so I had yet to pop the question and was getting impatient waiting for him.
I let myself into our apartment of one year and five months, and there was PJ on our living space floor, squeezing Shyla’s stuffed frog while she ran around him, thrilled at the company.
“Hey,” I said, and PJ looked up at me, smiled immediately.
“This dog is so damn cute,” he said, and he stood up and came over to me, and I hugged him back, happy to see him while Shyla ran around our legs.
I had seen PJ for the first time since we graduated in the summer, when Noah and I had made a trip home to visit his family. I’d made sure to see all of my friends from home, which I hadn’t been doing enough, and knew I had to make it monicere of a priority.
The exception was Tyler, who’d gotten his girlfriend Kyle pregnant right after graduation, and they’d moved in with Kyle’s parents in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
They’d had a baby girl named Annalise, and Tyler still sent constant pictures of her in the group chat with our high school friends even though she was almost eight months old by now.
“What are you doing here?” I asked PJ, when he stepped away from me after hugging me surprisingly tightly – almost as tight as Noah’s hugs.
I wondered where Noah was, vaguely, but was distracted by PJ’s bloodshot eyes, which I noticed for the first time as I stepped away to really look at him.
“It’s stupid, I jumped on a plane, I don’t know, I had to see you,” PJ said, giving me a weak smile that wasn’t quite right, not wide enough to reveal his dimples.
“Did something happen?” I asked.
“Hi,” Noah said, appearing in the living space, and I glanced at him as he came over and leaned in to kiss me quickly.
“Where were you?” I asked.
“Peeing,” Noah said, as the kitchen timer went off. “I made lasagna,” he added.
“I already ate.”
“Believe it or not, my stomach is not connected to yours,” Noah said, then glanced at PJ. “Come eat something.”
I looked from Noah to PJ, wondering how long PJ had been here with Noah, knowing they’d never really hung out too much.
“How long have you been here?” I asked PJ, examining him as we followed Noah to the kitchen area.
PJ reached out for my hand, and he turned my wrist so he could look at my watch. “Three hours,” he said, letting go of me.
“What have you guys been doing?” I asked, glancing at Noah, who had taken the lasagna out of the oven.
He’d never made lasagna before, but I could guess it had been Marina’s latest recipe for him to try out.
It looked good, and I regretted eating so much Pad Thai.
“Making lasagna,” Noah said, at the same time PJ said –
“Talking.”
I stared at them both, still confused as to what was happening, how PJ was suddenly in our apartment, accepting a plate of Noah’s lasagna.
I stooped down to pick up Shyla out of instinct, then led PJ out of the kitchen area to the living room so he could sit and eat. I couldn’t wait until we moved to our new apartment and would actually have a kitchen table like real people.
“Hey, give me Shy, I’ll take her on a walk,” Noah said, reaching his hands out for Shyla, who I cradled as I sat on the couch next to PJ, pivoted to face him.
“Aren’t you going to eat?”
“I’ll eat later, you guys talk. Give me our dog,” Noah said, so I handed him Shyla, who licked Noah’s neck as he took her to the door and put her down to fix a leash on her.
“Noah, don’t take her to that bakery and buy her anything, she gets sick,” I called out, as Noah shrugged on his cargo jacket and opened the door.
“I won’t!” Noah called back, but I knew he would anyway.
There was nothing I could do, as he closed the door behind him, and I shook my head as I faced PJ again.
“He’s going to buy her a cheese scone, he does it all the time,” I complained, and I watched PJ pick apart his lasagna with his fork.
“This is good, Noah’s a good cook,” he said quietly, and I looked at him carefully.
“What’s going on, PJ? You didn’t call or text me to say you were coming or anything. Not that I’m upset, I’m glad you’re here, but what – ”
“I wish you had vodka in this place,” PJ said, dropping his fork and looking at me, and I stared back, not knowing what to say to that.
I opened my mouth, closed it.
“Sorry,” PJ said, shaking his head. “That was a stupid thing to say.”
“Are you okay?” I asked, crossing my legs on the couch in front of me, and PJ shook his head again, ate a forkful of lasagna.
“This is really good,” he said again, and then he looked up at me, and tears slipped from the corners of his eyes, which shocked me completely.
“What – What’s going on?” I asked, my entire body flooding with heat, and I immediately began to think of the worst things – Did something happen to one of his triplets? Did something happen to him? Was he sick? Did he have cancer?
“Addy cheated on me,” PJ said, not wiping at his eyes, and I exhaled in relief that he wasn’t dying, then realized I was having the wrong reaction.
PJ and Addy had started dating right after graduation, which meant they’d been dating for around the same amount of time that Noah and I had been living in Chicago – almost a year and a half.
I knew PJ was obsessed with Addy, but he’d been obsessed with Addy even before they started dating. He had a tendency to be obsessed with things.
I’d met Addy officially for the first time when I visited PJ in the summer. I’d seen him once before when PJ forced me to get ice cream at the place he worked so I could confirm how dreamy he was long before they actually started dating.
Addy’s full name was Aditya. He was Indian, incredibly short, and two years older than PJ and I, which made him twenty-six. I did think he was very good looking, but I thought PJ was better looking, and when I’d informed PJ of this, he’d told me I was crazy and batshit blind and asked me to write it down and sign it with a notary present.
When I’d actually met Addy, he had surprised me by being nothing like PJ. He was quiet and shy, more like me, and the moment I’d had that thought I’d forced it out of my mind.
It didn’t bother me that PJ used to have a crush on me, but I thought it’d bother PJ if he knew I had thought about it when meeting Addy.
“We were supposed to get married and have ethnic babies, half Indian, half Egyptian, do you know how obsessed white people would be with our kids?” PJ demanded, and I chose not to remind him he couldn’t actually reproduce with another guy.
“Wait, PJ, back up. How do you know Addy cheated on you? He wouldn’t do that, he loves you,” I said, even though I didn’t really know Addy well enough to say what he would or would not do, but I knew what PJ said about him.
And that was that Addy was kind, and compassionate, and caring, and PJ had told me he’d never felt more cared for than he did around Addy.
And I knew PJ was crazy in love with Addy, and that kind of feeling couldn’t just exist one-way, could it?
“I know because he told me, Colton. I came home from work and Addy told me to sit down on the couch so I did because I thought we were going to finally fuck since we’d been having that dry spell, but instead he told me he loved me, but was fucking another guy,” PJ said, and he sniffed loudly, but still didn’t wipe his face, so I got up and got a stack of napkins from the kitchen area, and came back to the couch and handed them to him.
I waited for PJ to finish wiping his face and blowing his nose. He’d placed his partially eaten lasagna on the floor next to the couch.
“It was last night,” PJ said, when he’d cleaned himself up a little, “and I came home and sat on the couch like he’d asked, and he sat next to me and held my hand, and he said, ‘PJ, you know I love you,’ and I’d said, ‘Addy, I know you do,’ and he’d said, ‘I have something really hard to tell you, but I want you to listen to me,’ and I’d said, ‘Okay, what’s up?’ and he’d said, ‘I’ve been sleeping with someone else for three weeks, but I don’t love him, I love you, and I want to – ’”
I didn’t know what else Addy said, what he wanted to do, because PJ had started crying again, and ducked his face into his hands where he had his used napkins balled in his fists.
I reached out and squeezed PJ’s wrist, letting him cry, not knowing what to do.
I wanted to hit Addy. I wanted to book a flight to Philly and show up at Addy’s house, where PJ lived with him. Addy had won the lottery when he was eighteen years old, and invested most of the money, but he’d bought a house first. He worked at the ice cream place because he liked working at the ice cream place. He hadn’t gone to college but was always signing up for different local art classes and music lessons. He had learned to play the saxophone and guitar, and was currently learning piano.
He also liked to write, and was working on several novels, and the only person he ever let read them was his father, and since they’d been dating, PJ.
They were horror novels. PJ loved them and told me the plots in detail over the phone and our Skype calls even though horror scared me.
I wanted to burn Addy’s novels. I wanted to ruin all of the bowls and vases he’d made in his ceramics class, I wanted to rip the drawings that he’d made in his pastels class. I wanted to throw his guitar in a lake and pour syrup on his piano and inside his saxophone so that they were no longer usable.
I had never seen PJ cry before. PJ was not a crier. He was happy and cheerful and always smiling, always laughing, always joking.
I didn’t know how anyone could want to hurt him, especially the guy who allegedly loved him.
“PJ, I’m sorry,” I managed.
PJ composed himself again, took deep breaths and shoved the napkins I’d brought him against his eyes.
“He said, he said, he said he wanted to stop fucking this other guy, he said he wanted us to move past this, he said he had to tell me so we could be honest with each other, and he still wanted to be with me, and he asked me to forgive – to forgive him,” PJ said, and then he was sobbing again, and I had to let go of his wrist to get up as he’d run out of napkins.
I went to the bedroom this time and brought a tissue box, and PJ used the rest of the tissues, so I got up again and found a new one in a cupboard in the kitchen.
Again, I watched PJ compose himself, and I still didn’t know what to say to him, so I just reached out and squeezed his shoulder this time, then rubbed his arm a little and hoped this was okay and helping in some way.
“And then,” PJ said as though he’d never paused, after he’d stopped crying enough to talk again, “we ate dinner, and he asked me if I wanted him to sleep on the couch, and I said he didn’t have to, but then in the middle of the night I got out of bed and slept on the couch, and I left the house before he got up, and I went to the airport, but there wasn’t a flight to get here until one, so I had to wait for that at the airport all day, and then I got here and took a taxi to your apartment, and Noah answered the door and said he was home because he said he doesn’t work on Thursdays and that you were getting dinner with your coworkers, and he made me lasagna, and I told him about Addy, and that’s it,” PJ finished, crying again by the end of it, but not as hard as before, so he could still talk around his sobs.
He stared at me and breathed loudly, and I stared back.
“PJ. I’m so sorry. This sucks,” I said, because it was all I could think to say, and PJ grabbed more tissues from the tissue box and pressed them to his face.
“I know,” he sobbed into them, and he shifted on the couch and leaned forward, and I let him fall into my lap, and I ran my fingers through his hair and rubbed his back and didn’t tell him everything would be okay as he kept crying.
I didn’t say anything. I just let him cry.
I was never good at talking, but I had realized I was a good listener. And when I didn’t know what to say, I would just listen, and so I listened to PJ cry, and then he stopped crying and just breathed against me, and I waited until his breaths matched mine.
“You can stay here however long you want,” I told him.
“Your apartment is ridiculously small,” PJ said, after a few seconds, his voice thick, and I smiled wanly.
“I know. I told you this. That’s why we’re moving.”
“What about Noah?” PJ asked.
“What about him?”
“He’ll be okay with me staying here?”
“Why wouldn’t he be okay with it?” I asked, and PJ shrugged, his shoulders moving up and down on my thighs.
“When I told him about Addy, he said Addy was an asshole,” PJ said, even though that didn’t answer my question.
I didn’t say anything. I was trying to imagine how this conversation had gone with Noah.
“He’s not an asshole,” PJ whispered, and I kept rubbing PJ’s back and still didn’t say anything.
A few minutes later, Noah came back with Shyla, and Shyla ran to the couch and jumped up and started licking PJ’s face, and PJ sat up and smiled weakly and told Shyla how beautiful she was, and I got up and went to Noah in the kitchen area, bringing PJ’s plate of half-eaten lasagna with me.
“He’s going to stay with us,” I told Noah, and Noah nodded.
“Sure,” he said, hugging me quickly to him and kissing my forehead before letting me go.
“He said he told you about Addy,” I said, while Noah put a plate of lasagna for himself in the microwave.
We listened to PJ laughing at Shyla before Noah spoke.
“He did,” Noah said.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“I said Addy was an asshole.”
“That’s all you said?”
“Sure. After that, he said he didn’t want to talk about it anymore, and asked if I could call you to come home because his phone was dead.”
The microwave beeped, and Noah opened it, and I opened the silverware drawer and handed him a fork.
“What do I do, how do I fix this?” I asked, and Noah looked at me.
“You can’t fix this, Colton.”
“PJ’s heartbroken,” I argued.
“I know he is, and you can’t fix it. You just have to be there for him,” Noah said gently, and I crossed my arms over my chest.
“I have to fix it. You don’t get it, PJ isn’t like this, he’s happy, I’ve never met anyone happier than PJ,” I said, and Noah sighed, his eyes flickering around my face in that way they did.
“I’m sorry, Colton,” he said, and he didn’t say anything else, which was completely useless, so I left the kitchen and went back on the couch next to PJ, who was laughing because Shyla had burrowed under his sweater.
“Want to watch a movie?” I asked, and PJ looked at me.
“Don’t you have work in the morning?”
“We can marathon all of the Sandra Bullock movies on Netflix and eat ice cream,” I offered, because PJ loved Sandra Bullock, and PJ smiled wanly at me.
“Really?”
I nodded, and PJ grabbed another tissue from the box still next to him and wiped at his eyes again.
“Can I have more lasagna?” he asked, and I laughed and agreed, and we put on Netflix, and I brought PJ more lasagna and blankets for us, and I didn’t push PJ away when he leaned against me.
Noah joined us on the floor, sitting in front of the couch against my legs, but after Hope Floats, he stood up and kissed me goodnight and told me he was going to bed, and I nodded and said I’d come later.
“Goodnight, PJ,” Noah said, as he left he living room, and PJ leaned up from my shoulder.
“Thanks for letting me stay here, Noah,” he said, and Noah nodded and disappeared, and PJ leaned back against my shoulder.
Ten minutes into Two Weeks Notice, PJ spoke again.
“Remember when stuff got fucked up with you and Noah? But it got better. So things can get better again, they can,” he said, and I didn’t say anything to this because I thought maybe PJ wasn’t even talking to me, he was just talking to himself.
I didn’t agree with him. Cheating was different, I thought, but I didn’t say this.
I must have fallen asleep at some point in Miss Congeniality, because then I was waking, disgruntled, to find myself lying on the couch with PJ halfway strewn over me, also asleep.
The Netflix screen was up but not playing anything, and I turned off the television and extracted myself out from underneath PJ, careful not to wake him as I rearranged him more comfortably on the couch.
I went to brush my teeth and pee, looking at my watch in the bathroom to see that it was a little after three in the morning, and then I undressed and went to bed, where Shyla was sleeping on top of Noah’s back.
I slid next to Noah, who stirred but didn’t wake, and I set my phone alarm for four and a half hours from then and settled into bed, falling asleep again almost immediately.
*
While Noah poured us coffee the next morning in our kitchen area, I leaned against the sink and looked out at the couch, the back of which blocked PJ’s sleeping body, though his feet stuck out from the end of it.
I’d already written out a note for him letting him know Noah and I would be gone until the afternoon at work, to make himself at home, and I gave him the wifi password for his phone and told him the good restaurants around the area in case he didn’t feel like having leftovers from the fridge.
“Maybe I should stay home,” I said, taking my mug from Noah.
I took my coffee black, and turned to watch Noah pour four packets of Splenda into his.
Since he’d started drinking coffee a year before, he’d added in a ridiculous amount of sugar and flavored Coffee-Mate creamer and Hershey’s chocolate syrup, but I’d weaned him off the chocolate syrup and Coffee-Mate completely, and managed to convince him to use light cream and Splenda instead of sugar.
Four packets of Splenda seemed excessive, but I knew I had to take baby steps with making Noah healthier, and tried not to complain too much.
“If you want,” Noah said, about my suggestion to stay home.
“That’s not helpful.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Tell me what to do. I don’t know what to do, and PJ always knew what to say to me whenever I was upset,” I said, hearing my voice rise and worrying I’d wake PJ.
Noah looked at me. “You’ve comforted me a million times, Colton. Just be there for him, he doesn’t want you to do anything but be his friend.”
“I want to kill Addy,” I muttered.
“Well, you can’t do that.”
“How could he hurt PJ? Who would hurt PJ?”
Noah downed his coffee and placed his mug in the sink, then took my mug from my hands and emptied it down the drain even though I hadn’t drunk any.
He washed our mugs, then tilted my face up by my chin with fingers that were still wet from the faucet.
I let him kiss me, and he tasted of sickly sweet coffee.
“If you’re going to work, you better get going,” Noah said, when he stopped kissing me, so I followed him to the front door and we put on our shoes together.
I glanced over my shoulder at the couch as Noah opened the front door. Shyla had joined PJ on the couch after I’d taken her out to pee when we’d woken up. I was glad she would be here to keep PJ company, and turned around and let Noah lead me out the door.
We walked to the metro together, though we had to get on different trains, and Noah’s came first, so I stood on the platform and watched him walk away from me.
I couldn’t imagine what I’d do if Noah cheated on me. I couldn’t even fathom the idea of him cheating on me, and I wondered if the idea had felt as impossible to PJ as it felt to me, how blindsided he must have felt right now.
I almost wanted to turn back around and go home, spend the day distracting PJ, but then my train was coming in, and I boarded it, thinking I’d call PJ at lunch, and if he didn’t sound okay, I’d go home then.
The only mirror in our apartment was the one above the sink in the bathroom, so when Noah and I were walking Shyla around the city one Saturday afternoon, and we came upon a full-body mirror at someone’s apartment sale for only three dollars, we both agreed to buy it.
It was a door-hanging mirror, so we hooked it over the top of the bedroom door facing into the bedroom so that we could see ourselves when we dressed.
I’d lifted Shyla so she could see herself in the bathroom mirror, but she had never seemed very interested in her reflection.
With the full-body mirror, however, Shyla found a newfound interest in herself, and because I knew she didn’t like being left alone, I sat next to her while she sniffed at her reflection in the mirror for hours on Sunday morning, when Noah had gone out for a late breakfast with his coworker Antonio, who taught dental assistantship at the trade school after realizing he didn’t like working inside of real human mouths, and preferred the academic side of his profession.
At first, I sat in front of the mirror with my laptop on my lap, getting some work done, but then I started watching Shyla examine herself tirelessly in the mirror, and soon my laptop was closed beside me and I was looking at myself.
I hadn’t spent much time paying attention to my reflection other than when I shaved. I had a stable job where I was valuable, and I had Noah, and I knew we’d end up getting married if one of us ever managed to propose despite the fact that it’d been months since we agreed one of us was going to. My appearance didn’t really matter anymore, I figured. I’d never been someone particularly concerned with looks, so now that I had a job and a future-husband, I didn’t see why my looks should even really matter, as long as they didn’t change too drastically.
Now, I looked at myself carefully. I recognized what I had always known – I was very average looking, not particularly good looking, nor bad looking. I looked older than I’d remembered, more like an adult, and this was both satisfying and surprising, even though it shouldn’t have been the latter.
I was an adult. Just over twenty-four years old. I was living on my own, owned my own puppy, had a real job with a yearly salary, knew it was only a matter of time before I was engaged. These were the things that, to me, made an adult.
I examined my light brown eyes, my eyebrows that looked bushier than maybe they were supposed to, and I wondered if I should trim or pluck them. I’d just let Noah cut my hair a week before, and it’d grown out past the too-short stage to the length I liked, but even so, it was plain, parted along the right side, flat and brown and nothing special. My face was less round than it had been when I was a teenager, more hollowed out, and I thought it gave me a sort of unsightly starved look, and wondered if that was why Mrs. Garner and Noah were always insisting I eat more. My arms looked gangly and thin and undefined. There was a gym across the street from our apartment building, but I’d never even considered going.
I stood up, looked at my entire body. I was taller than I’d remembered being. I peeled off my t-shirt, looked at the flat of my chest and stomach. I was so undefined, and cringed at myself. At least my skin was not sallow, was healthy-looking from walking around the city all summer, but I still did not find myself all that appealing.
I regretted refusing when PJ tried to make me go to the gym with him back at Temple. Even Noah, who ate complete crap all the time, looked better than me. I knew it was his weirdly fast metabolism, and that it’d all catch up with him, give him a beer gut no doubt even despite the irony of him being a recovering alcoholic, and when I’d informed him of this fate he’d laughed as though the idea of calories adding fat was ridiculous.
To him, I guessed it was. But he had started running without any sort of routine, and there was a gym at his trade school that I knew he went to some days, and even before that, he’d been more defined than me, though I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why, since he hadn’t worked out regularly since I’d known him.
He was better looking than me. I had known this since the first time I saw him, back when I was just seventeen and he was just eighteen. Age suited both of us, but him more so than me, and he’d already had an advantage over me to begin with.
I knew he was the kind of good-looking that wasn’t just good-looking. It was the kind that people looked at when we walked around the city. It was the kind that I knew probably had most of his students crushing on him. It was the kind I noticed in a sort of constant way that made me always want to touch him, feel that he was mine underneath my fingertips.
I had never really considered the downside of being the lesser looking one of the two of us. I had never really considered myself at all, really, when thinking about how Noah looked. I had only been infatuated with him, happy that I could do with him what I pleased, when I pleased.
It seemed rather stupid of me now, not to have thought about myself in comparison to him at least once. He could do better than me. There were both men and women who were much more attractive than I was, more on Noah’s level.
Of course, I knew our relationship was not based on looks. We had been friends first, and if that had been based on attraction at least in part for me at first, it had not been for Noah, who I knew had fallen in love with me based on his trust in me, his ability to open up to me, my ability to listen.
A small part of me felt annoyed by this, suddenly, as I examined my half-naked reflection in the mirror. It was great that he loved me for my personality, for what was inside, but who didn’t want to be wanted for their looks? Maybe I felt stupid thinking it, but that didn’t make it untrue that I wanted Noah to lust after me, to look at me and feel heat on his skin the way I used to feel for him even before I’d ever spoken to him.
I looked down when Shyla plodded onto my feet, and I watched her lie down on my socks, apparently tired from looking at herself in the mirror.
I leaned down, picked her up, and she was used to this, settled easily in the cradle of my arms and made her deep sighing sound that she did before she fell asleep.
I looked at myself holding Shyla and smiled reflexively, because she was so cute, soft against the bare of my torso.
I looked better when I smiled, I noted. This was a good thing. I could use this. Smile more.
I buried my face in Shyla’s body, annoyed with myself for thinking about how I looked, as if that mattered. I made myself stop thinking about it, and instead thought about Shyla, which was easy, because I thought about Shyla all the time.
She was no longer tiny as she had been as a puppy, but still small at three and a half months old, and her breed didn’t get very big at full-grown size anyway. Even though she was heavier than she had been as a puppy, holding her was natural because I’d done so nearly every day, had gotten used to her weight gain so gradually I hadn’t noticed it, and she still felt incredibly light to me.
I stooped down, picked up my laptop, and carried her and the laptop to the living space, where I settled on the couch with Shyla in my lap and my laptop on the cushion in front of my crossed legs. I intended to do work, but ended up on Netflix, watching Parks and Rec on low volume so as not to wake Shyla until Noah came home.
At the sound of his key in the door, I looked up, and Shyla perked up on my lap, instantly awake, and then Noah came in, and she scampered off me to greet him, and he smiled and laughed at her excited greeting, stooping down to pick her up and spin her around while I watched the both of them, noted again how good-looking Noah was, and for the first time, felt an odd pang of emptiness as I noted it.
I ignored this pang resolutely, and smiled at Noah when he turned to me, holding Shyla in his arms, and he came over and kissed me and asked me what I was watching, and I didn’t answer because he could see my screen, and instead I asked how Antonio was.
I listened as Noah talked, but couldn’t help myself from examining his features the way I had my own in the mirror, finding that everything about him was so incredibly perfect and trying my hardest not to feel jealous because that would be stupid, there was no point to that.
*
I couldn’t stop thinking about my looks.
I felt self-conscious and annoyed, and intended to keep this idiocy to myself, but four days after we’d gotten the mirror and I’d started examining myself incessantly in it alongside Shyla, I found myself bringing it up without meaning to.
“Do you think I’m good looking?’ I asked, while I sat on top of the kitchen counter beside the stove with my laptop in my lap, and Noah stirred brownie mix in a bowl on the side of the counter opposite the stove from me.
He looked at me. “What?” he asked, blinking and raising the spoon to his lips to lick off raw batter.
“Never mind,” I mumbled, staring down at my laptop and wanting to leave the room.
“I mean, I think I heard what you said, but at the same time, I can’t have heard right,” Noah said slowly.
“You probably heard wrong,” I agreed, knowing he was staring at me.
“Did you ask if I thought you were good looking?”
“No,” I lied.
“Yes, I think you’re good looking,” Noah said.
“Great, thanks, let’s drop it,” I said, closing out of the tab I was on without looking at what tab it was, and I couldn’t remember if it had been important or not, I couldn’t remember what I had even been doing at all.
I clicked the history tab at the top of the screen, stared at the drop down menu without actually reading any of the words.
“Why would you ask that?” Noah asked, and I sighed and looked up at him.
He had brownie mix on his bottom lip, and I pointed at my bottom lip to indicate it, and his tongue stuck out, licked his lip clean.
“Forget it,” I said.
“Did I get it?” Noah asked, rubbing the back of his hand over his lips now.
“Yeah.”
“Do you not think you’re good looking?” Noah asked.
I groaned and shut my laptop. “Can we drop it?”
“You’re the one who asked,” Noah reminded me.
“Mix your brownies,” I told him, sliding off the counter.
I left the kitchen area, placing my laptop in the bedroom and standing in the middle of the room without knowing what to do, unwilling to go back into the kitchen and have to talk about this.
I went to the door, closed it so I could see in the mirror, looked at myself again. Maybe a six on a scale of one to ten, I thought. Noah was probably a nine point something. I figured I couldn’t give him a ten, that ten had to be reserved for someone famous or something, I didn’t really know.
I sighed loudly, and opened the door again to see Noah standing outside the doorway, and I jumped back, startled.
“Shit, Noah, you scared the shit out of me,” I snapped, my hand on my heart.
“Were you looking at yourself in the mirror?”
“Give me a break,” I muttered, shoving him out of the way as I left the room even though technically he wasn’t fully in my way, and I could have walked by just fine around him.
I knew Noah was following me as I went back into the living space and sat on the couch, wishing Shyla was awake instead of napping in her crate so that I could play with her.
Noah sat beside me on the couch.
“Shouldn’t you put your brownies in the oven?” I demanded.
“I already did,” Noah said, and it annoyed me that he was still wearing his apron, because he looked ridiculously sexy in it, and he was already sexy enough without it. “You are good looking,” he said, and I groaned again and brought my legs to my chest so I could hide my face in my knees.
“Drop it, Noah, seriously!” I said, to the space between my chest and my thighs.
“You really don’t think so?” Noah asked, and I didn’t reply, as I’d decided to just pretend the conversation wasn’t happening.
I felt Noah’s hand over my ankle, and tried to tug my leg away, but he didn’t let go.
“You’re sexy,” he said, and I felt my skin heat up, “and you’re hot, and you’re cute, and you’re handsome, and you’re – ”
“Will you shut up?” I snapped, forgetting that I was pretending the conversation wasn’t happening and lifting my head from my knees to glare at him.
“What?” Noah asked, right in front of me now, on his knees on the sofa.
I looked at him hard for a second, knowing he wouldn’t drop the conversation, and deciding I might as well participate. “Be honest, Noah, don’t give me bullshit so I feel good. What do you think I am on a scale of one to ten?”
“Eleven, I already told you that, I believe,” Noah said, grinning his dirty grin, and I vaguely remembered him saying that years before, though I couldn’t remember how this topic had come up.
I shook my head. “Didn’t I say to be honest?” I asked, dropping my legs from my chest so I was sitting cross legged.
Noah sat back on his legs instead of leaning forward. “I am being honest.”
“I’m not an eleven.”
“Fine, a ten,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“You’re not being honest, I want you to be honest,” I demanded, and Noah’s smile slipped, and he looked at me carefully.
“You’re good looking,” he said, finally, and I felt irrationally pissed that he hadn’t given me a serious number.
“I’m a six,” I said, and a crease appeared between Noah’s eyes.
“Who told you that?”
“No one, I can tell on my own,” I said.
“You’re not a six,” Noah said.
“Why, what’s wrong with being a six?” I demanded, and Noah ruffled a hand through his hair.
“Nothing! I didn’t say anything was! But you’re higher than a six!”
“What am I then?” I asked, leaning forwards, and Noah rubbed the back of his neck with his hand.
“What’s going on? Are you feeling bad about yourself? Why would you feel like that, did I do something? Colton, I think you’re so sexy, I’m so attracted to you – ”
“Because of who I am, and because you love me, not because of what I look like. I’m talking about looks, Noah, on the outside only, as shallow as it gets. I know you love me, you’re attracted to me, I get all that, I’m not going to get upset, I just want you to be honest with me, when it comes to looks, do you really think I’m good looking?” I asked.
I didn’t know why, but I suddenly really needed Noah to be honest with me about this, to tell me that I was average-looking, to admit it because I knew it was true, which meant he knew it was true, and he was lying to me.
“It’s not a trick question,” I said, when Noah looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “I just want the truth, I just want you to say it.”
“You want me to say you’re not good looking,” Noah said slowly.
“Yes,” I confirmed, waiting, nervous even though it didn’t matter, I knew it didn’t, it wouldn’t change anything because it wasn’t like what I’d looked like had changed, I just wanted Noah to acknowledge it – he was out of my league. When it came to looks, he was incredible, and I was average, and that was just how it was.
“Well, I can’t do that,” Noah said, simply, raising his hands in a sort of hopeless way, and I sighed.
“Come on, I won’t get upset, I already know it.”
“I don’t. I think you’re good looking,” Noah said.
“No, you don’t,” I argued.
“Actually, I do.”
“I’m not saying I’m bad looking!” I said, exasperated with him. “I’m just saying I’m average, there’s nothing wrong with that!”
“I agree, there’s nothing wrong with that, but I don’t think you’re average,” Noah said, and then Shyla was jumping onto my lap, and I realized I’d probably woken her with my near shouts.
I pet her instinctively, but didn’t lose focus from Noah.
“Just admit it. I’ll only get mad if you keep lying to me,” I said.
“I’m not lying to you, Colton,” Noah sighed. “What do you want me to do, sign a document? I think you’re above averagely handsome and sexy, and that’s what I see, and that’s the truth. You can keep asking, and that’ll still be my answer.”
“I’m talking about just looks! Not my personality!”
“Colton! I know what you’re talking about, why is it so impossible for you to believe me? Look, you think I’m bias, I get that. What about PJ, then, he used to like you, ask him what he thinks,” Noah said, and I was so startled by the mention of PJ that I forgot to be annoyed that Noah was still lying.
Of course, I knew PJ had liked me, and Noah had guessed it without me ever confirming anything to him, but the idea was still stupid.
“PJ is my friend, it wasn’t just looks in that case either,” I argued.
“Ask him and find out,” Noah said, shrugging, and then the timer went off, and he got off the couch to check the brownies, Shyla jumping off me to follow him.
I was not going to ask PJ something that dumb, but I found myself getting up in search of my phone anyway, and Noah called my name as I looked around the living space.
I went into the kitchen area, and Noah leaned against the sink and held my phone out to me while Shyla, who’d been standing between Noah’s legs, came to sit on my feet.
I took my phone and glared at Noah. “You’re so stupid, you should just admit it.”
“I have nothing to admit,” Noah said, watching me as I texted PJ, feeling stupid but knowing PJ was more likely to be honest with me, and at least I’d be able to shove that in Noah’s face.
if you had to rate my looks on a scale of 1-10, what would you give me?
I sent the text and waited, and as usual, PJ replied immediately.
is this your sly way of asking me to have an affair with you? cause I’m in but you can’t tell Addy <3
I shook my head and exhaled. “So stupid,” I muttered.
“What’d he say? No, let me guess, he’s flirting with you,” Noah said, checking on his brownies again.
“He flirts with everyone.”
“Sure,” Noah said.
stop being an idiot and answer the question
I tapped my fingers on the counter, and then PJ’s text slid in.
7, when you smile 8, when you laugh 9. very fucking cute. why? feeling insecure cause your bf’s a hottie mchottie? I was waiting for this to happen, you know, get over it, you’re cute too, and you get to fuck a wildly sexy cat on the daily so I’d say any insecurity is worth it, wouldn’t you?
I read the text once, then again, biting the inside of my cheek as I replied.
okay. thanks
what am i?
annoying
I sent the text, then felt a little bad, because PJ had been honest with me.
and ur an 8.5
I rolled my eyes when PJ sent the pointer finger emoji and the okay finger emoji in sequence in the classic “let’s have sex” hand signal followed by a bunch of question marks, and I exited out of the conversation.
“Well?” Noah asked.
“He said a seven,” I said, and Noah held out his hand.
“I don’t believe you, let me see,” he said, and I handed him my phone, watching him type in my password and read the text.
“He said nine!” Noah protested, still looking at my phone.
“Under a condition!” I protested back.
“Wait – Is that true?” Noah asked, looking up at me now, and I grabbed my phone from him and stared back.
“What?” I asked, looking back at the conversation. “You really think I want to have an affair with PJ?”
“The part about you feeling insecure because of me,” Noah said, looking at me seriously, and I leaned against the counter, placed my phone down on it, looked down at my feet where Shyla was lying down now.
“Check your brownies,” I reminded Noah, looking up again, and he looked at me for a second more before stooping and checking his brownies, shouting so that Shyla perked up and taking them out of the oven. “Did they burn?”
“Almost, I think they’re okay though,” Noah said, examining them, then straightening out to look at me again.
I reached out to turn off the oven.
“What did PJ mean? You think – You think you’re not good enough for me?” Noah asked.
I shook my head, because the conversation was pointless, seeing as we both had eyes.
“You’re out of my league, Noah. I’m talking in terms of looks, here, that’s just a fact, I know you know it. I’m not upset or anything, I just want you to admit it.”
Noah stared at me, then took of his apron and stepped right in front of me, took my face in both his hands, and I wanted to swat his wrists away, but didn’t.
“Noah,” I complained, stretching out his name, knowing he was going to make a big deal out of this and wanting to stop him before he got started.
“When I first saw you back at that AA meeting when we were stupid teenagers, I thought you were cute. I was attracted to you, physically, before I spoke a word to you. When I came back to you after you broke up with me, at Temple, when you walked towards me while I waited at your dorm building after those two years and five months? I thought you were sexy. That was my very first thought. I think you’re sexy, I think you’re good looking, I think you’re handsome, and your personality makes you hotter, sure, of course it does, but if you were a stranger I met on the street, I’d flirt the hell out of you. I don’t know how you see yourself, but that’s what I see,” Noah said slowly, and I looked away from him, embarrassed but happy, feeling warmer and better even though it was a shallow thing, it shouldn’t have mattered.
It did, though. I wanted him to be attracted to me for my looks, too, and I believed him even though I knew there was a significant chance he was just saying this to make me feel better – I believed him anyway.
“Okay?” Noah asked, while I looked at his chest.
“Okay,” I said, reaching up to grab his wrist, pulling it gently from my face, and he dropped his other hand too.
“Do you feel insecure?” Noah asked, and I shrugged, looking down at Shyla still lying on my feet before stooping and picking her up, cradling her.
“No. You are better looking though,” I told him.
“That’s an opinion,” Noah said.
“You know you’re better looking.”
“I know I’m a type,” Noah said, crinkling his nose at me. “Your type, evidently.”
“Obviously,” I said, pressing my face down into Shyla’s soft fur.
I breathed her in, the soapy smell of her puppy shampoo. She often came into the tub when Noah or I showered, so we just had her shampoo with ours in there to give her a quick scrub if she decided to join one of us.
“You shouldn’t feel insecure,” Noah said.
“I’m not insecure,” I said, into Shyla’s back.
“I never tell you how good looking you are, but I can if you want me to, all the time, every time I think about it,” Noah offered, and I laughed into Shyla, then looked up at him.
“Give it a rest, and don’t do that. I’m fine, I’m not insecure, the mirror psyched me out a little the other day, that’s all, calm down, let’s not make this a big thing,” I said, and Noah frowned.
“I’m not making it a big thing.”
“You are. You make everything a big thing. You burned your brownies over it.”
“I’d burn them anyway, according to Heather,” Noah said, sighing and looking down at them. “You can never tell her about this, she’ll never let it go,” he warned me.
“I won’t tell her,” I said, leaning against him as he tried to cut a corner of the brownie, but it was too hot still, and crumbled with the knife. “You have to let it cool.”
“I’m hungry,” Noah whined, and Shyla stirred in my arms, her little nose cold in the inside of my arm as she pushed her face into me.
“Oh, hey, Shy,” I said.
“Think she can have some?” Noah asked.
“Dogs can’t have chocolate.”
“Poor Shyla,” Noah said, and Shyla tried to stand in my arms to go to him, so I held her out to him, and Noah took her. “You got her used to being carried.”
“Good, I like carrying her.”
“You’re lazy,” Noah told Shyla, bending his head down, and she touched her nose to his.
“Don’t be mean to her.”
“Lazy, lazy,” Noah said, and Shyla licked his lips.
“Give her back, you bully,” I said, taking Shyla back, and she licked my neck and under my chin.
Noah took a fork from our silverware drawer, and ate a piece of brownie, his mouth open as he chewed because it was hot, and I shook my head at him, but took the fork when he offered it to me and stole my own piece of brownie too.
*
That night, after we had sex, I propped myself on my elbow and looked down at Noah, who laid on his back, catching his breath while I traced his skin.
I leaned down, kissed his little cat tattoo, then his collarbone, then up his neck and onto his chin and along his jawline and up to his ear, then back down, across to his nose, and Noah tilted his face up to catch my lips in his.
I broke away from him after a second, and he smiled lazily at me.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked me.
“Nothing. You.”
I watched Noah’s dark eyes flicker around my face. “I still think you’re an eleven,” Noah said, and it took me a second to remember what he was talking about.
I pressed my hand over his face.
“Shut up, Noah.”
He licked my hand, so I moved it.
“I’m serious,” he said, and when he looked at me, I could see that he was.
I reached out again, touched his lips with my fingertips.
“I believe you,” I said.
“Marry me,” he said, and I stared at him for several seconds, then smiled and shook my head.
“No,” I replied, leaving my fingers on his lips.
“What? Why not?”
“You can’t ask me after sex! It could be the endorphins talking. And it’s so cliché, I hate it,” I said, laughing, and Noah sighed against my fingertips.
“Fine, you’re so annoying.”
“I thought you were planning something extravagant.”
“It seemed like a romantic moment.”
“You’re so stupid,” I said, lying down beside him now, and Noah rolled over, curled on top of me. “Are you done fondling me? I’m going to call Shyla over.”
“Sure,” Noah said, pressing his lips to my shoulder, and I called Shyla, heard her run to the room and scamper up the stairs to our bed.
She crawled on top of me, settled against Noah’s arm slung over me and curled into a ball.
“I can’t believe you just proposed,” I said, laughing again, and Noah bit my shoulder.
“Shut up, it was fake anyway.”
“It was real.”
“A little real,” he conceded. “You know, no matter how I do it, it’ll be cliché,” he warned.
“Then I’ll do it first.”
“Don’t make me plan something and then do it first, I’m serious, I’ll be pissed off,” Noah said.
“Then do it better next time!” I said, and Noah shifted against me, settled again.
“I don’t want to overwhelm you,” he mumbled, and I laughed so hard Shyla stood up, wagged her tail, walked over to my face and pressed her nose into my cheek.
“Sorry, Shy,” I breathed, calming myself down.
“Well, I’m not marrying you now,” Noah grumbled.
“I get the dog in our separation then,” I told him, when Shyla settled back on my stomach.
“Bastard,” Noah said, and I laughed again, controlling myself so as not to startle Shyla again.
I turned my head to look at him, and his eyes were closed, his eyelashes dark and soft-looking, his face relaxed.
He was so incredibly beautiful I could hardly stand it, but I was so happy that he was mine.
Woah i dreamt about the boys last night! I don't remember everything but they got another purple betta fish and named him ziggy stardust? but they just called him stardust for short i'm not sure why idek if they like david bowie? there was more but the dream is fading so thats all i remember.. just thought i should tell you! ALSO! I love shyla ohmygosh she's so cute! and that line in the newest chapter? "i don't want money. i want time" I'm DEAD i loved it. ;--;
oh wow that’s wild!!! hm i don’t know if they like david bowie in like a severe enough way to name a fish after one of his albums, but what do i know maybe colton is a closet fan. but that’s so cool that you had such a dream about them i’m so happy you shared with me!
and i’m so glad you like shyla! she is so cute i love puppies ahhhhh
thanks for the lovely message, hope your weekend is spiffing!!!
Crate-training was harder on Noah and I than it was on Shyla, not that I knew the extent of Shyla’s grief, but I could hear it nightly, in her small whimpers that spread out through the entire apartment, keeping Noah and I awake.
I didn’t care about being kept awake. I hated not going to her and comforting her.
I was halfway out of bed when Noah grabbed my arm. This was the second night, and the fourth time I’d tried to sneak out to free her from her crate.
“She’s just a baby,” I insisted, aching for our little puppy who still trailed us every moment she was not locked in her crate or asleep.
“Colton, don’t do this,” Noah mumbled, a hand over his face.
He was exhausted. We both were. It was three in the morning, and neither of us had slept at all the night before because of Shyla.
In the mornings, Shyla would pass out the moment we let her out of her crate and she followed us happily the first five minutes of our morning routines. At least there was this comfort that when we left in the mornings, she was asleep and didn’t notice us leaving her, though Noah had told me when he came back during his lunch break, she was up and whimpering until he came through the door, and then whimpering again when he left.
“How long is this supposed to take?” I demanded, aching for her, my chest squeezing at each tiny whimper.
We were following crate-training instructions from several websites, and knew to take her out every couple hours in the night to pee, and we’d just taken her out at one.
“What did the website say? A week?” Noah mumbled into his pillow.
“Let me bring the crate in here,” I said.
“We won’t sleep.”
“We’re not sleeping anyway!”
“Fine,” Noah said, letting go of my arm, and I went to Shyla, who stopped whimpering when she saw me, clamoring against the plastic of her crate.
I waved her and stuck my fingers through the slats, then told her we were going to the bedroom, and carried the crate and her in it.
In the bedroom, I deposited the crate next to her doggie bed where she was in full view of the bed.
“Hi, Shyla,” Noah said sleepily from the bed, waving at her lazily.
She wagged her tail.
I stepped away from the crate and got on the bed, and the instant I laid down she was whimpering again.
“Colton,” Noah groaned.
“It’s okay, Shyla, we’re right here,” I called out to her, and she stopped whimpering while I talked, then started up again when I stopped.
I looked helplessly at Noah, who watched me sleepily.
“Don’t sleep next to her,” he said, right as I was about to suggest it. “You’ll make the whole process pointless. She needs to learn that it’s okay to be away from us.”
“She’s scared!”
“And she’ll always be scared if every time she’s alone you rescue her. Let her learn that it’s safe to be away from us,” he mumbled, and then he closed his eyes, and I tried closing my eyes too, but I couldn’t fall asleep.
I doubted Noah was asleep either. Shyla kept whimpering, and I resigned myself to another sleepless night.
*
Five nights later, Noah and I were zombies, but Shyla no longer peed in her crate nor anywhere in the house, even when we left for work, and we decided we could try a night with her out of the crate.
Noah was cranky from not having slept, but Shyla softened him when she laid on his feet as he sat on the couch, a cue for Noah to pick her up and put her on his lap, since she was too small and couldn’t jump on the couch yet.
I was tired too, but was so in love with Shyla I hardly noticed the way my head pounded and how unfocused things were.
“Come, Shyla, come eat,” I called to her, when she was lying on Noah while he worked on a lesson plan, and she ran to me to have dinner, and I sat with her while she ate and told her about my day.
Afterwards, Noah and I took her on her nighttime walk, and then we returned home, and did our bedtime routines while Shyla walked around our legs in the cramped bathroom, then followed us as we changed in the bedroom.
She stood by the crate, knowing our usual process of coaxing her into it, but we told her goodnight and gave her bedtime kisses and climbed in bed without asking her to get in the crate.
“What’s she doing?” I asked Noah, when we were in bed.
“Standing at the crate looking at us,” Noah said. “Leave her, she’ll decide where she wants to sleep. She might like the crate now.”
“She doesn’t like the crate,” I muttered, our sleepless nights proving it.
We laid still for five minutes before Noah laughed, and I looked up to see that Shyla had run up the little stairs we had by the bed for her and was clamoring over Noah’s legs. I watched her scamper between our bodies over the blanket, and she came over to my face and licked it.
“Hi, Shyla. Are you sleeping here tonight?”
“Don’t roll on her,” Noah said.
“You don’t roll on her,” I said back, and Shyla went over to lick Noah, her tail wagging in my face.
“Time to sleep, Shyla,” Noah said, and Shyla came back to me, pressed her nose to my chin, then settled against my neck, and I laughed.
“Hello,” I said, and she made her deep exhaling noise that she did when she was tired.
I closed my eyes too, and almost instantly, I fell asleep.
*
I woke to Shyla’s whimpering, blinked at her face in mine.
“Take her out,” Noah mumbled, and I leaned up on my elbows, looked at the time.
One fifteen in the morning, just fifteen minutes off from when we used to take her out of her crate to use the bathroom when we’d been crate-training her.
“Good girl,” I told her, heaving myself up from the bed, and I shoved my feet in my boots, not bothering with socks or a jacket as I left the apartment.
I didn’t bother with a leash because we only used them on walks, since Shyla stayed close to us wherever we went. Outside, she peed quickly, and I led her back inside, praising her and offering a treat that I’d grabbed before leaving the apartment for this purpose.
Inside the apartment, I shed my boots, locked the door behind both of us, and Shyla raced me to the bed, snuggled against Noah’s chest by the time I slipped in bed beside her.
Noah’s breaths whistled as he exhaled, so I knew he had already fallen back asleep, and I closed my eyes and fell back asleep as well.
*
Shyla had joined our family for two weeks. We’d long since moved the crate to the kitchen, where sometimes Shyla explored for a few seconds before coming back out and running to one of our sides.
She was getting better with separation, though, as Noah had reported that he could no longer hear her whimpers through the door when he came home at lunch and then left her again, and he said maybe he’d try just coming home every other day, see how well that would go before he stopped coming home in the middle of the day completely.
Since Noah was a teacher at a trade school, he only had to go into work three days a week, and taught three classes on each of those days. He was looking up classes online to get a PhD degree so he could be a professor at a university, but thought he might wait to apply for the Spring semester of the next year, since it was too late to apply for this Fall.
We had Skyped Noah’s family with Shyla, and she had walked over the keys to press her nose to the screen while Noah’s sisters shrieked at how cute she was. They wanted to visit to meet her, and I was glad for that, knew Noah was excited too.
At nights, Shyla slept in bed with us, and I’d begun waking automatically around one, and Shyla had begun noticing this, so she no longer whimpered, but waited for me to wake, unless I woke before her, and then I waited for her to stir and open her big dark eyes at me, and then I would take her to pee.
At one in the morning, the city was calm but not dark, and I didn’t mind the cool air, though I knew it would get rough in the winter. But Shyla’s bladder might be big enough by then that we wouldn’t have to take her out in the middle of the night at all.
She peed quickly anyway, never stalled, like she didn’t want to inconvenience me, but I knew it was more because she wanted to be back between Noah and I, as she would always run past me to the apartment building and then to our door and then to our bed, scampering up her little stairs to snuggle against Noah, and I would join her.
Sex was tricky. At first, Noah and I tried closing the door on her, but she would whimper at the separation, and I could never concentrate or get in the mood when I heard her right outside the door, calling for us.
Then we just had sex when she napped, but that made it scheduled, on her time over ours, and Noah said that wasn’t going to work.
Today, Noah and I were making out in the kitchen, and he pulled me to the bedroom, and Shyla followed.
“No, Shyla,” Noah said, while I got on the bed and pulled him by the shirt.
Shyla ran onto the bed using her stairs after me.
“Don’t yell at her,” I said.
“I’m not yelling,” Noah said. He picked her up off the bed and put her on the floor, then moved the stairs from the side of the bed so she couldn’t climb up before he got on the bed after me.
I laid down, and he laid on top of me and slipped his hand under the waistband of my boxers.
Shyla started whimpering from the foot of the bed, and Noah groaned, but didn’t take his hand from my skin.
“Don’t,” I said, pulling his wrist. “I can’t do it like this.”
“Ignore her.”
“I can’t!”
“Colton,” Noah complained, but he took his hand from my boxers and sat up on my legs, and I propped myself up on my elbows and looked down at Shyla, who looked up at me and stopped whimpering.
“Didn’t I tell you the very first day that you couldn’t be here when we had sex?” I asked her, and she cocked her head. “She doesn’t remember,” I told Noah.
“Colton,” he said.
“What? What do you want me to do? I can’t get hard when she whimpers like that, how are we supposed to fuck?”
Noah sighed at me, then looked down at Shyla. “I really want to have sex, Shyla, can you scram just for like, five minutes?”
“Five minutes? Speak for yourself,” I mumbled, and Noah shot me a look.
“We haven’t had sex in three days.”
“How is it my fault that she only naps when we’re not home! Oh, I have an idea, we can have sex in your car!” I said, proud of myself, but Noah just kept looking at me flatly.
“We’re not doing that.”
“Why not?”
“For the rest of our lives?” Noah asked, while Shyla kept whimpering from the floor.
I freed my legs from under Noah and slipped off the bed, and Shyla stopped whimpering and ran into my legs until I stooped down and picked her up and held her against my chest.
“We’ll figure it out,” I said, and Noah slumped onto the bed on his stomach. “Look how cute she is,” I said, holding Shyla out to Noah to cheer him up, and I placed her on the bed, where she padded over to Noah and stuck her nose against his cheek.
He reached up, ruffled her ears. “She’s annoyingly cute,” he conceded, and she climbed onto Noah’s back and sat on top of him. “I’m still horny,” he said, and I got on the bed and laid on my stomach beside him, feeling as Shyla walked from Noah’s back to mine, her tiny weight settling up between my shoulders.
“Me too,” I said, and he leaned over and kissed me, and I kissed him back because that was all we could do.
*
By the time a week passed of not being able to have sex in our own apartment, Noah and I fucked in the back of his car after he drove us to a parking garage, on a level with no other cars in it.
We’d had to pay five dollars to park our car for the hour, but neither of us really cared at that point.
It was cramped and not ideal, and afterward, I was much more exhausted from the effort of fucking Noah in such an inconvenient space than I ever had been.
“Fuck,” Noah breathed, after I pulled out and laid on top of him. “Ow, your knee is in my thigh.”
“Sorry,” I said, shifting and falling off of him into the space between the back of the front seats and the cushion of the back seats. “Ow, shit.”
Noah laughed as I sat up, and I pushed his legs off one of the back seats so I could sit on it.
“You okay?” he asked me, sounding amused.
“Shut up,” I muttered, rubbing my knee.
We had thought about fucking in the shower, but Shyla started whimpering the moment both of us went into the shower and closed the shower curtain on her, so that hadn’t worked out either.
“We can’t do this every time,” Noah said.
“Never again,” I grumbled, leaning up to the front seat to grab my boxers and pull them on.
“It was kind of fun. In a sexy, secret parking garage forbidden way,” Noah suggested, as I yanked on my shirt.
“Yeah, okay,” I said, handing Noah his boxers, and he took them from me.
“Come on, it wasn’t that bad.”
“It wasn’t that good, either,” I said.
“Thanks.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Look, Shyla is probably whimpering up a storm right now, it’s the same as if we had sex at home, you just need to tune it out.”
“I can’t tune it out! And you said she doesn’t whimper anymore when we’re not home, that you can’t hear it through the door before you come in. It’s only when she sees us and can’t get to us,” I corrected.
“So what, you want to do car sex every time?” Noah asked, and I leaned back against the seat.
“I don’t know,” I said.
Noah was quiet for a moment, and then – “What if Shyla was on the bed with us?” he suggested, and I turned to stare at him.
“While we have sex? Noah, she’s just a puppy!”
“We could blindfold her with a little piece of cloth or something,” Noah suggested.
“She’ll still hear us,” I objected.
“She won’t know what the hell she’s hearing.”
“I’m not scarring our puppy for life because you’re horny,” I snapped, and Noah shook his head against the seat but said nothing.
He got out of the car after pulling on his boxers, and opened the driver’s side, putting on the rest of his clothes before getting in the car in the front seat.
I got out of the backseat while he dressed, got into the passenger side, buckled up and waited for Noah, who drove us out of the parking garage, paying our five dollars on the way out.
“You owe me two-fifty,” he said, leaning over the wheel to see if he was safe to turn out of the garage.
“You’re paying,” I said.
“That makes you a sex worker,” Noah said, and I raised my eyebrows. “And a cheap one at that.”
“That makes you a person who’d hire a sex worker,” I replied, and Noah glanced at me before looking back at the road.
“Kid who looks like you for five bucks? Sure,” Noah said, and I laughed, liking that he’d called me ‘Kid’ without knowing why.
Back at our apartment, Shyla greeted us happily, and I picked her up and took her with me to the kitchen to eat some baby carrots.
“If you never let her walk, she’ll forget how,” Noah commented, as I took her to the bedroom with me to get my laptop and bring it back to the living space.
I didn’t say anything, because Noah had said this before, and I didn’t care.
If Shyla forgot how to walk, which was a ridiculous idea and he knew it, then I’d be happy to carry her everywhere anyway.
Shyla stuck her head under my t-shirt while I caught up on the email thread of my coworkers, replying back when necessary.
I peeked through the collar of my shirt when Shyla started licking my stomach.
“Hey, Shy, what are you doing?” I asked her, and she stopped mid-lick to look up at me.
“She likes the salt on you from your sweat,” Noah said, sitting next to us and pulling on my shirt collar so that he could peek down at Shyla too. “Right, Shy?”
“You’re stretching my shirt,” I complained, moving away from him.
“She better have to pay five bucks too,” Noah said, and I hit his arm, and he laughed.
When Shyla finished licking me, she emerged from my t-shirt and tottered to my thigh to stretch herself out between Noah and I, her back legs and haunches on my thigh and her front legs and head resting on Noah’s.
“She might be the cutest puppy in the world,” I told Noah, who looked down at her.
“Might be,” he said, and then she did her tired exhale, and Noah noted that she was napping, so we carefully placed our laptops on the floor and lifted her off of our legs onto the cushions of the sofa, surrounding her with her stuffed bear and stuffed frog that we’d slept with on our bed for three nights so we knew they smelled like us. And then we went to our bedroom to have sex, figuring we had to take our chances where we could get them, as if we were storing up food for the winter.
*
One month after taking in Shyla, Noah and I had perfected having sex in the house when we wanted and where we wanted.
We had done this through training, around the same time that we’d taught Shyla to Sit, Lay Down, Roll Over, and Shake.
She was incredibly receptive, and so we had decided to teach her an extra command, and that was Hide.
We threw a blanket over Shyla’s crate, and stuffed her big blue doggie bed that she never slept on inside of the crate so it was super comfy. We also put her stuffed bear and stuffed frog in there so she would have company that smelled like us.
One of us would say, in our commanding but friendly order voice, Hide, Shy! and then the other would run to the crate with Shyla inevitably running behind us, and we’d stick our hand in the crate with a treat, and Shyla would follow it.
Slowly, we left out the hand in the crate part, but Shyla still knew to run into the crate after following the person who ran to it.
And then we stopped running to the crate, and Shyla was confused at first, but after two days of full training, she perfected the trick.
The trick then was making sure she didn’t come out of the crate until we gave her the okay, but we’d already taught her Stay and Come, so we used these until Shyla knew that Hide meant to stay in the crate until we called Come!
The entire process of training took a little less than a week, and then we were worried that even though she knew the commands and would follow them, that might change if she heard one of us moaning or shouting the other’s name as we had sex, so we had to practice that too, telling Shyla to hide and then going into the bedroom and making sex noises, which started out embarrassing but progressed into a competition between Noah and I to see who could be the most convincing.
As we guessed, Shyla ran out of the crate at our sounds, and we could hear her whimpering and scratching at our bedroom door until we opened it, and Noah scolded her for coming out of the crate before we said to come.
I wasn’t good at scolding her, and even tried to stop Noah a few times, even though I knew it was necessary.
By the time a month had passed that we’d adopted Shyla, however, the trick seemed perfected, and in the meantime while we’d been working on it, we’d had car sex in the parking garage, Noah paying five dollars each time to park his car for an hour.
The night that we’d finally put the trick to the real test, Noah and I had spent two full hours in the bedroom before emerging, exhausted, and calling for Shyla to come, and she hadn’t, so we’d gone to the crate and found her asleep.
That was last night, and tonight, Noah had started kissing me on the couch, and when Shyla tried to shove her tiny body between ours, he’d told her to Hide, and she’d scampered happily to her crate while I led Noah to the bedroom.
Noah told me he wanted me to make love to him, so we went slowly, and when he kissed me it was long and deep in a melting way, and I guessed the reason we didn’t always kiss like that was because I thought maybe it would kill me.
We sixty-nined, which we hadn’t done since we were at Temple, and then I’d made love to him, moving slow and deep inside him, lying close to him and watching his heavy eyelids, his dark eyelashes, his almost-black eyes as they flickered between mine.
We were breathing hard and sweating and had been touching each other for over an hour, but we wanted to try coming at the same time, so I kept having to slow myself down, and then Noah would have to slow himself down, and twice I got soft as I forced myself to relax, so then we had to get me hard again, but not to the point of climaxing, and I thought this was probably some type of torture even though it felt incredible at the same time.
Noah ended up climaxing first, which was what usually happened, but I was hardly three seconds behind him, so we pretended it counted and we were in unison, and I pulled out of him and laid beside him, feeling wrung out and loosened from my bones.
“Can’t do that in a car,” Noah said, and I laughed.
“That’s cause it’s worth more than five dollars.”
“Oh yeah? That’s the special?”
“The Gold Package,” I told him, and he rolled onto his side, traced invisible lines over my stomach and chest.
“How much?” he asked me, leaning in to kiss me.
“Instead of money, I want time,” I told him, and Noah leaned up on his elbow, rested his chin on his palm.
I reached out, touched his lips with my fingertips. “How much time?” he asked.
“All of it,” I told him, and his lips lifted under my fingertips, spread into a smile.
“Sure. Deal,” he said, and he laid back down, resting his cheek on my shoulder, and I lifted my hand to wring my fingers through his hair.
I think I fell asleep, because then I was waking, somewhat panicked.
“Noah, Shy, we didn’t tell Shy to stop hiding,” I said, sitting up, and he fell from my shoulder, then leaned up on his elbows groggily.
“What?”
“Shy! Shyla! Come!” I called, and we heard Shyla scampering, through the door that I’d left open a crack, running onto the bed with her stairs and licking my face. “Hi, hey, sorry about that Shy,” I told her.
“Hey, girl,” Noah mumbled, reaching out to ruffle her big ears, and Shyla went to him, licked his chin and under it, then his neck.
“Good girl, Shyla, you’re so good,” I told her. “She waited in her crate,” I said to Noah, who nodded.
“She did, I know. What time is it, should I take her out?”
I leaned up, looked at the clock.
“Nah, she’s okay for now,” I said, lying back down, pulling Noah’s arm so it laid over my torso, and he shifted closer to me, curled his fingers into my side.
“Stop licking me, Shy. Let me sleep,” he mumbled, his lips against my bare shoulder.
“Lie down, Shy,” I told her, and she walked onto my stomach, laid down and rested her chin on Noah’s arm that was across my chest.
She looked at me, and I looked back, smiled at her.
“Good girl,” I told her, and her tail wagged lazily, tickling my skin, before stilling again.
I watched her close her eyes slowly, and then I closed my eyes as well.
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