Riding With Brighton(72)
I flinch at his words that immediately send a surge of anger through me. I’ve heard those words before. They’re the words that are muttered before stepping back in the closet and closing the door. “What did you take too far?” I ask.
He stutters a laugh. “Everything. I went too far with everything. How am I supposed to undo all the shit I did?”
I have to close my eyes as I try with everything I have to get my anger under control. “So you regret it? Everything you did yesterday… it’s just a bunch of regrets?” I manage to mutter.
He shakes his head. “Yeah. I guess it is.”
I stare at him. I stare at him and try not to punch him in his stupid, beautiful face. How the hell can he say that? It’s me who’s shaking my head now. God, he is unbelievable. And not who I thought he was. I swear to God, my character judgment skills are seriously flawed. I stand and tell him, “I’m gonna go. I guess I’ll see you around.”
“What?” he asks, lunging forward and grabbing my hand. “You’re leaving me? Now?”
I laugh at that; I can’t help it. He can’t seriously expect me to stick around.
He stands and grabs ahold of both of my hands. “That’s not what I meant. My head is so messed-up right now. That’s not what I meant.”
“No? What the hell did you mean, then? How else am I supposed to interpret you regretting everything about yesterday?”
“Fuck,” he says through a long breath. “If I had just told my parents, or the entire world for that matter, that I was gay—that’s something I could get out of. If I had just broken up with Sadie—that’s something I could fix. If I had just admitted to myself that I was gay and stopped denying it—that’s something I could easily turn around. But you… the way I feel about you… that’s not something I can reverse. That’s not something I can just forget about. What happened between us yesterday… it changed me. And there’s nothing I can do about that. I want to go back to the way things were for the sake of my dad. For the sake of my entire family. And if it wasn’t for you, that might be possible. But now it’s not.”
His words ease my worries, but still, he regrets that he changed; he regrets that I’m part of him now. “I don’t know what to say to that…. ‘I’m sorry that I had the best day of my life with you? I’m sorry that we went through that together? I’m sorry that we are weirdly connected now and you can’t get out of it?’”
He drops my hands so he can run his through his hair. “God, that’s so fucking stupid. How the hell could I even think about regretting any second of yesterday? How could I consider regretting anything that’s happened between us? Or anything about you? Honest to God, Brighton, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I can’t regret that. I guess I just regret the fact that I did this to them and that there’s no way to fix it. I don’t want to give this up. I can’t give you up. Which means there’s no backing out of this. There is no way to put my family back together.”
I reach my arms around his shoulders and pull him to me, holding him tight. “Things with your family were already broken whether you realized it or not. Your mom decided a long time ago that her love for you was gonna be conditional. You were already broken. It’s not your fault. All you can do is hope that you guys get put back together and that this time, it’s the right way.”
He sobs into my shoulder, and it breaks my heart. His body is limp in my arms like he doesn’t have any fight left in him. “This isn’t your fault, Jay. I’m not letting you carry this. You didn’t do anything wrong. You have nothing to feel bad about. You can be sad. You can be angry. But I don’t want you to have regrets. Not about this. And I won’t let you hate yourself or beat yourself up. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
He stands upright, then turns and collapses onto his bed. He lies on his back, his arms folded over his eyes. I lay down next to him on my back. I don’t know what else I can say to him.
“How can something make me feel so damn good and then, a day later, make me feel so fucking awful?”
“The same thing that made you feel good yesterday is not the same thing that’s making you feel awful today, Jay. What’s making you feel bad today is the same thing that’s been making you feel bad your whole life—you’re considering going back to your life of lies. Your mom is making you feel the same way you’ve always felt about being gay—ashamed. Yesterday you were happy because you were free—from the lies, from the pretend you—from the guilt and shame.”
He takes his arms off his eyes. I can feel him looking at me, so I turn and look at him. “Huh.” He stutters a laugh. “Holy shit… you’re right. This feeling has nothing to do with me being gay and everything to do with being that miserable kid who hated life. This pain isn’t because I’m gay. It’s because I feel like I have no other choice but to go back to that kid’s life. I mean, hell, maybe I don’t even give a shit if my mom walks. Maybe I don’t give a shit if my family falls apart. Turns out it wasn’t much of a family anyway. Who cares if it’s over? God, Brighton, you’re a genius.”
His frantic tone concerns me. I don’t think he’s being sarcastic. “You care, Jay.”