Page 145 of Rhymes with Metaphor
Chapter 34: Breakdown
It was the first nightReg and Joel had spent apart in the nearly seven months they’d been together.Reg couldn’t sleep.Below his bedroom, the light from the study lit the loft in a dull yellow sheen.Periodically, Reg heard rustling and other sounds of movement, but he didn’t call out to Joel, as he suspected any attempt to communicate would not be welcomed.
Reg eventually fell into a fitful sleep and woke up, exhausted, to the pink light of dawn.He heard Joel downstairs, the click of the bathroom door, the sounds of cupboards opening and closing.Reg went downstairs.
Joel was showered and dressed.He looked exhausted but determined.The suitcase Reg had bought him stood by the door next to his backpack.
“Hello, Joel.”
Joel gave him a long look.“I found it.”
“Found what?”
Joel tapped an envelope on the kitchen table with his index finger.“That.”
The envelope was blank.It contained thick, yellow pages ripped from an old notebook.The handwriting was bad, even by Reg’s standards.Because he’d been smashed at the time he’d written it.He knew what it was, though he’d only looked at it once since he’d written it in his father’s study, at his father’s desk, the night he’d kissed Martin.
“Don’t say you didn’t write it,” said Joel.“I know your handwriting.”
“I wrote this years before I met you.I was younger than you are now.And I didn’t send it to him.”
“But youkeptit.”
“You saw my study when you moved in.I never throw anything away.”
“You’ve never said anything like that to me.”A tiny sliver of pain seeped through the crack in Joel’s measured façade.“You said he’s the love of your life.”
“It’s not a competition, Joel.”
“No, there’s no competition.He wins hands down.I found the poems you wrote for him, too.You never tried to publish those, did you?Because you wrote them just for him.”
“I didn’t quit smoking for Martin.”
“Did he ask you to?”
Reg said nothing, because he couldn’t lie to Joel, not even to spare his feelings.
“What Martin said at the Old Mill,” said Joel, “when he was angry that you bought a bed for me, but you never bought one for him.The reason you didn’t buy one for him was because you wanted him to sleep in your bed.”
“He never did, Joel.”
“Only becausehedidn’t want to, not because you didn’t want him.You’re still in love with him.You’re only with me because he’s with my sister, and you’re jealous, and you thought being with me might make him jealous.And you’re not coming to New York with me, because he’s here, and you don’t want to leave him.”
Reg felt cold all over.
“It was him you loved all along,” said Joel.“Him.I was your second choice.”
Reg couldn’t speak.
Joel put on his coat.“I’m moving out.”For a moment, Reg had an inkling of what Joel would have been like as a doctor, breaking bad news to a patient.“You can keep the car.”
“No,” said Reg.“That was a gift.Do what you like—sell it if you want—but I won’t take it back.”
“Fine,” said Joel.So resigned, he didn’t argue.
“I won’t change the passcode to the loft.You can come back any time you need to.You’re always welcome here, Joel.”
Joel paused, as though waiting for Reg to say something else, but Reg had nothing to say.
