Page 8 of Something Good
“I would if you’d tell me. If you’d let me in. But you’re so fucking angry, and I don’t even know why.” This was the sticking point. The thing that bothered me the most and the thing I couldn’t let go of. If I really mattered so little to him, then he wouldn’t be so angry, right? “Just tell me. If you really want me to leave you alone, I will. But just tell me what the fuck I did.”
“God, you’re infuriating. You really want to know?”
“I think I’ve made it pretty damn clear that I do.”
We were leaning across the console, just inches from each other, chests heaving as we flung words at each other like arrows. The sound of the rain beat steadily against the roof of the car, adding its own soundtrack to what felt like maybe the most important argument of my life.
“You fucking left!” he spat out. “You were the only person who gave a damn about me, and you left me in this hellhole without a backward glance.”
“We wereeleven!” I shouted right back. “I didn’t want to leave, but I didn’t have a fucking choice in the matter. What would you have had me do?”
“I don’t know!” he exploded, anger and frustration oozing from his pores. He raked his good hand through his hair, leaving the damp strands wild in its wake. “Do you remember the day you told me you were leaving?Youwere the one who suggested we write letters. It wasyouridea.”
I nearly drowned as a tsunami of guilt washed over me. I knew where this was going. But I couldn’t go back and change it. I couldn’t go back and fix it. We’d beeneleven,for fuck’s sake.Kids. Just kids feeling big emotions we weren’t ready for. How was I supposed to know it would matter that much to him?
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, all the fight draining out of me.
“Why, Will? You wrote one letter and then nothing.Nothing.” His voice shook with emotion, and even in the darkened interior of the car, I could see the shine of the tears he refused to let fall. “I checked the mail every day that summer and never received another letter. Not one more word from you. Did I really matter so little?”
“I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to tell you… I didn’t know how to maintain a friendship from over a hundred miles away. We were just kids.”
“Just kids.” He snorted, his disgust written all over his face. “Yeah. Just keep telling yourself that. Keep using ‘I didn’t know any better’ as an excuse for the way you cut me out of your life. I may not have known I was gay at the time, but Ilovedyou.” His eyes widened in shock. Apparently, he hadn’t planned to say that, but I knew his words to be true. I felt them in the depth of his anger at how I’d so callously treated him. I felt them because they were a mirror image of my feelings for him.
He recovered quickly from the bomb he’d just dropped, fumbling to unbuckle his seatbelt with his good hand and flinging the door wide, rain blowing in sideways through the opening.
“Go to hell, Will. I didn’t ask you to come back into my life, so you can just fuck right off,” he spat before taking off into the pouring rain and running inside without a backward glance.
I didn’t know how long I sat there, shellshocked, cheeks wet as tears fell unchecked down my face.
5
WILL
Over the nextweek and a half, I tried to move on from the argument I’d had with Sammy after the party, and most days, I was successful. I got a job lifeguarding with Jason at the city pool. My days were spent fucking around with the other lifeguards when I wasn’t on duty or hanging out with Jason and a few other guys, most of whom I’d played sports with back in the day.
A couple of girls had tried to catch my attention at the pool, but I’d managed to sidestep those landmines without too much drama. I knew it probably looked suspect that I hadn’t dated since I’d returned to Astaire, but I couldn’t bring myself to lead someone on. I wasn’t ready to come out, so avoidance and deflection became the name of the game.
It was at night, though, when I was alone in my bedroom, that I couldn’t run from the image of the way Sammy had looked at me when he’d laid it all out there that night in my Jeep. The raw pain in his eyes, the hurt and anger he’d flung at me as he confessed how my calloused actions, or inaction as it was in this case, had affected him. It tore at me, ripping me apart from the inside out.
I’d never meant to hurt him. I’d honestly thought he’d feel sad for a bit, then forget about me and move on.Iwas the one who would suffer at the loss of the best friend I’d ever had, or so I’d thought. Yeah, I’d always made friends pretty easily, whether in Astaire or at my school in Grand Island, but no one had ever known the whole of me the way Sammy had.
Even worse still was the way he crept into my dreams when my defenses were down and I had no way to stop it. I hadn’t allowed my thoughts to go there during the day, but in my dreams were visions of the way he’d looked riding that guy’s lap at the party.
I hadn’t gone down to that basement looking for him—hadn’t even realized he was at the party—but the moment I’d laid eyes on them both, I’d been transfixed, unable to move from the spot as they’d rutted against each other, tongues tangling and teeth clashing. And the aggressive way that guy had grabbed Sammy’s ass, as if he couldn’t get him close enough… It was maybe the most erotic thing I’d ever seen.
In my dreams, though, it wasmylap Sammy was riding, andIwas the one squeezing his ass and fucking his mouth with my tongue. I’d woken up multiple times mid-climax, rutting against the sheets of my bed, sweaty and panting, boxers soaked through with my cum.
I’d never reacted to anyone this way. From the moment I’d realized I was into guys, I’d ruthlessly averted my eyes anytime there seemed like there was a chance of an accidental hard-on. All those years I’d played sports, I’d kept my eyes up in the locker room, often changing in the showers and exiting as quickly as I could without drawing suspicion.
But this was out of my control. And there was a part of me that didn’t care. Even as I felt dirty thinking about my former friend this way, it also felt good to let go andfeel. To experiencelust and desire for someone in a way I’d never allowed myself to before.
On a Wednesday in the middle of June, I was walking to my car after my shift, laughing at something one of the other lifeguards had said, when I came upon someone sitting on the curb between my Jeep and another car parked in the back of the lot. I waved off the other lifeguard before kneeling to get a closer look.
He was sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest and his forehead resting on them, so I couldn’t see his face, but there were only two kids I knew with blond curls like that. Too small to be Sammy, I was pretty sure this was Jimmy.
“Hey, man,” I said, crouching in front of him. “You okay?”
He lifted his head and tried to speak but couldn’t seem to get his breathing under control enough to do so. Instead, he shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut as tears streamed down his face.
