Page 125 of The Librarians
Ryan’s gaze is on his own hand. “Davoud thought we were in arelationship. I objected strongly to the idea because he had cleidocranial dysplasia.”
“What?”
“Genetic condition—basically he had no teeth.” Ryan still doesn’t look up. “He’d made peace with it, but I was mortified. I never even let him say hi to me at school.”
Jonathan tries hard to recall Davoud’s features, so that he doesn’t have to think about what Ryan is saying. “I…don’t remember anything about his teeth.”
“He wore dentures. Sometimes he took them out when we were together. I was probably the only man alive who wished the person blowing him had more teeth.”
Jonathan coughs.
Ryan lifts his head—and stares at a tall hotel downstream. “It might have been funny if I wasn’t beside myself. I didn’t mind being gay but I was convinced I’d die if anyone ever found out I was doing it with Davoud Asadi.
“I couldn’t wait to graduate and break up with him. And when I did, I made sure not to mention his teeth, but he was devastated all the same—he thought he’d meant something to me. And maybe he did. Because I’ve never been able to forget the pain I caused him. And I felt rotten, far more horrible than any real or imagined humiliation at his naked gums.”
Ryan grips one hand with the other, the beautifully trimmed nail of his right thumb digging into the edge of his other palm.
Hey, Davoud Asadi isn’t coming. So you can be straight now.
Jonathan at last remembers what Ryan said to Conrad on the night of the reunion. “You took Conrad to the reunion because you were afraid Davoud might be there?”
“Very mature, right?” Ryan looks at Jonathan, but only for an instant. “He has an Instagram. For years it was vacation pics plus an occasional quote. Then he locked down with someone just as the pandemic began. They make a good-looking couple. The other guy is clearly smitten—as he should be. Davoud is a good person. He deserves someone who loves him.”
Jonathan looks down at his own hands. Is Ryan trying to tell him that heonly got together with Jonathan because he was trying to forget what he did to Davoud?
“Where was I?” Ryan sounds puzzled. “Right. The pool party. The pool party was a week after I broke up with Davoud. That evening Maryam told me that you and she never went beyond first base and I thought, what the hell, let me give it a try. I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. I, who was a complete shit to Davoud, got together with the perfect blond, blue-eyed all-American boy of my dreams.”
Jonathan’s head snaps up. What? What did Ryan call him?
Ryan is again leaning back against the throw pillows, but this time, with his arms around one knee. “It’s not that I didn’t hear what you said afterward, it’s that it didn’t matter. Of course you were upset—we cracked your hetero facade. And of course you would disappear from my life—I had already committed the original sin of unkindness and didn’t deserve a prize like you.”
“A prize,” Jonathan says slowly.
“Back then I fixated on you because of a combination of my own shallowness and the cultural hegemony of Middle America. Now at least I see that your character has caught up to your physical appeal, that you are as good a person to know as you are to look at.”
Ryan smiles, not the brilliant, glamorous smiles Jonathan has come to expect but a smile so wistful it’s very nearly forlorn.
Jonathan’s heart pinches. “Wh-what are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying that I’ve been trying to stay away from you because I don’t deserve you any more than I did twenty years ago.” Ryan is once again looking down, his index finger drawing figure eights on his knee. “But my willpower might fail at some point. I might show up at your house one of these days and not leave. Then you will need to remember what I told you today, that everything I’ve ever felt for you and will ever feel for you is fucked-up, and my desire to settle down is always deeply suspect.”
Silence. A pair of children laugh and chase each other past the lounger, their parents in hot pursuit. Beyond a screen of trees, kayakers glide by, orange streaks on the lake. The wind picks up, carrying with it the scent of water and fallen leaves.
Jonathan feels as if he’s floating above the lounger and being melted into it at the same time.
Maya Angelou said,When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
But what about when someonetellsyou who they are? What about when they decant all their self-loathing and defensiveness together, believing it to be the world’s most repellent mixture, not realizing that they’ve also poured in a gallon of hope and longing and fearful anticipation?
Ryan shoves his hands into the pockets of his varsity jacket. The next moment, he withdraws his left hand and frowns at a clementine in his palm, as if he has no idea how the fruit came to be on his person.
Sophomore year in high school, toward the end of football season, one day, after practice, Jonathan was waiting in front of the school to be picked up by his mom. After a minute or two, Ryan sauntered into view. Jonathan was instantly a tangle of nerves, trying not to look at Ryan and trying not to flee.
“Hey, you want one?” Ryan asked.
Jonathan glanced up. Ryan lobbed over something, his motion that of someone at a free throw.
Jonathan caught it, a clementine almost as tiny as a marble. “Thanks,” he mumbled.
