Page 115 of Rhymes with Metaphor
Chapter 27: A Reckoning
One morning, Reg woketo find the bed empty beside him.He had slept in, as usual; he and Joel had kept their tradition of sleeping in since returning to Canada.Joel wasn’t in the shower, but Reg found a sticky note on the bathroom mirror:
Gone out.Back later.
—J.
Joel had passcodes to the building and Reg’s loft and could come and go as he pleased, but the loft felt unsettlingly empty without him, and Reg was paranoid with worry.Joel was a creature of habit, and a break in his routine usually signalled something was wrong.Reg resisted the urge to text him, as that would be a show of mistrust, the way a parent treated a child who wasn’t old enough to be independent.
But he was worried.Joel had been unusually reserved and detached the night before.
Reg had an informal meeting planned that afternoon with the editor of a poetry journal, and he suspected the man might offer him work.However today, Reg cancelled his meeting and stayed home.He drank some Scotch, which was much less enjoyable when Joel wasn’t there to share it with.
It was dark when Joel returned, but Reg had left the blinds open and the lights off.
Joel came in, flicked the lights on, and came into the living room.He looked unusually subdued.
“Hello, Joel,” said Reg.
“Hi.”Joel looked neither shocked nor guilty.He shrugged off his backpack and sat on the settee beside Reg.“I went to Juliet’s to get my stuff.”He unzipped his backpack and pulled out some textbooks.“I told her I dropped out.”
“How did she react?”
“She didn’t get it.When I told her I never wanted to be a doctor, she said I’ve always wanted to be one.But I never told her that.When she looks at me, she sees this person she wants me to be, and it isn’t me.She thinks I’m just taking a year off to do nothing.She says I’m running away from my obligations.”
“What obligations?”
“Since I’m academically gifted, I have a duty to become a doctor.She says it’s selfish not to.But how can I be a good doctor if I don’t want to be one?And I don’t want to take a spot in medical school from someone who really does.Thatwould be selfish.”
“And what did Juliet say?”
“She said she didn’t want to watch me mess up my life.I told her I’m not her kid, and I’m not her patient.I’m her brother, and I’m eighteen, and it’s my life.Then she asked me what I was going to do—that I couldn’t just expect you to house me indefinitely.That’s when I told her about us.”
“What happened?”
“She said all kinds of shit—psychoanalyzing me.She does that whenever she’s losing an argument.She said the only reason I’m attracted to you is because I’m looking for a father figure because my dad died.”Joel lapsed into silence and looked at the floor.
Reg put his arm around him gently.“Are you having second thoughts about us?”
“No.That’s the one thing I do know I want.”Joel looked at him.“Why—are you?”
Reg laughed.“If it weren’t for you, I’d be getting drunk every day, smoking my lungs out, and on my way to getting kicked out of my MFA for not producing any poetry, cariad.”
Joel seized Reg in a hug.
Reg didn’t often acknowledge how lucky he was, but this occasion was an exception.
“Have you eaten yet?”said Reg.
“I wasn’t hungry.”
“I’m ordering sushi.Join me?”
“You waited for me,” said Joel.“Like you did that first time, in England.”
“I wasn’t hungry until you were here.”
Joel didn’t speak much as they ate.Periodically, his gaze would steal to Reg, and he would smile, then he would look back at his food and continue eating.
