Gone, Gone, Gone(38)

But I would be the thing to break him. I would say the wrong thing or pull at the wrong seams or kiss him at the wrong times or let him get sick and he would fall apart. He would become completely f*cked up. I would ruin him. And I cannot do this again I won’t I won’t I won’t.

And we say all the things we both already knew. We still don’t know each other very well, what have we shared, a few awkward kisses, a few fantastic kisses, some secrets that we gave up keeping secret from anyone a long time ago? A few arguments and a few funny conversations? A long-buried passion for Bananas in Pyjamas?

And so we get it all out, or I get it all out, and he sits and he listens. And I’m saying it all. I’m still in love with Cody, and it’s very possible that the only reason I’m interested in Lio is because he is small and in pain and a little f*cked up, and we both know it, but we didn’t need to say it out loud, and here we are having this conversation. And I can barely hear myself think or hear him be so quiet because there are way too many f*cking other people in this room with us, screaming that they’re angry or they’re thirsty or that they do or don’t love me anymore, shaking at the bars on their cages and threatening to break out or in. They’re all I can hear. And Lio won’t say anything.

I think I will be taking Cody out on everyone around me for the rest of my life.

And every part of me wants this to work but knows I’ll hurt him more if I try. I don’t think we can date because I don’t think either of us could handle a breakup right now, and maybe that is enough reason to stand around with my hands in my sleeves forever and ever.

And so now I’ve said it all. It’s out there in the open. We’re not anything. We’re barely even friends. We’re two boys in one house, back in our own clothes, about to retreat to our own rooms. Except mine isn’t even a room, more like a fortress.

But I touch him because I can’t help it. And he lets me. And he moans, so quietly, in the back of his throat, and it is so good to hear him make noise, and I want to touch him, and I do, and I’m not talking anymore, and for a second I’ve stopped hurting him, but every time I pause to breathe or move my hand or look at him my brain starts spinning again and won’t stop. And the footsteps upstairs are making me realize that in a minute we’re going to have to stop and get separated because my parents are not going to let us sleep in the same room, even if we want to, which we don’tdowant, and I don’t want to start something and be interrupted. I don’t want him to leave in the middle of something, because I think I would honestly break into pieces, and this is why I cannot do this.

And he starts to go, and then I’m saying, “Lio, please. Lio, let’s do this. Let’s not do the bad parts and do the good parts. Lio, please, we need to cling right now.” Forget that I’m not ready, forget that I’m waiting for some revelation or some epiphany or something to snap in my brain, kiss me, kiss me, kiss me.

He looks at me. “Everything’s f*cked now.”

It doesn’t have to be f*cked, we just have to never stop kissing. I say, “I really, honestly, know. Everything in the whole world is f*cked and I really want to give it a try.”

He takes a breath. “You just want to fix me.” I don’t think that I said that bit out loud, but it sounds so true that it makes my stomach curl up, and I feel humiliated for everything I am.

But he didn’t say it mean.

I say, “I want to love you.” I don’t love him. But this is so true. I really, really want to.

“We’re fifteen,” he whispers.

I say something Cody used to say to me whenever I’d say we were too young and that this couldn’t be real: “So, we still have our hearts.”

But I don’t know what that means. My heart doesn’t feel like it’s going anywhere. It’s trapped in place. I just don’t know where that place is.

Lio lies down next to me and rests his head on my chest for a minute.

My heart is here with Lio for a few seconds. Then it’s beating funny again. Too slowly.

He whispers, “Go to sleep.”

But I don’t sleep, I never sleep, and now I’m crying a little from thinking about sleeping, and I’m so sore and so entirely exhausted, and we kiss a little, but I still want to cry, and he says, “Do you want me to sing you a lullaby?”

And it’s so beautiful, and afterward he whispers in my ear, “You’re going to have to push harder than that to get rid of me.”

He squeezes my hand.

He says, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

But now he’s gone.

C—

I hope you know how badly you’ve f*cked up my life.

Can you just email me back? Like, I know it’s three in the morning and you’re probably asleep, but what the f*ck, why did you stop emailing? Fuck you, Cody. Fuck you.

You know maybe someday I want to have a real relationship, did you ever consider that? That at some point I might want something in my life that doesn’t revolve around this never ending cycling f*cking fear that the guy is going to die any second, of a gunshot wound or a f*cking self-inflicted gunshot wound or of grief or of cancer. Maybe I actually want to move on from our little f*cking eighth-grade whatever and actually because Jesus how f*cking lame is it but no matter what I still want you. I’m not moving on because I want you. And I’m not getting over you because I don’t know what the f*ck happens after I get over you and I don’t want to be left here alone again, okay? Maybe maybe I want someone to stick around, because being the one left behind f*cking blows, and I get that it’s not like you’re having an easy time either, but you should at least have the decency to answer my emails, because it’s thanks to me that you’re even at that school and not dead right now, did you even think of that? Did you ever thank me for taking care of you all that time?