Greatest

7: fair is too foul an epithet for thee

My roommate is Bradley Thomas. Not really, recall I changed all names to protect the innocent. But we'll call him Bradley.
Bradley is six foot one, with warm blond hair and very light blue eyes. He's broad shouldered with that nice sort of wedge shape. He's got thick arms and short fingers with well groomed nails. His beautiful hair is long with soft bangs and just sort of fuzzy all over, it's that perfect nearly curly somewhat wavy texture to wrap fingers in. His smiles are like the sunlight, his hair smells like cologne, and I instantly fall in love with him.
I know what you're thinking.
You're thinking, but Cyrus, you didn't tell us you were gay. No, I did not. I did not know I was gay until this very moment when I walked in and he turned and smiled at me. And however surprising this may be for you, let me assure it's much worse for me. I had no idea how gay I was. Somebody should have told me. Why didn't anyone tell me? Never mind, they probably thought I already knew.
But back to falling in love with Bradley and his perfect hair and his pretty smile and the way muscles move in his shoulders when he tosses a soccer ball and catches it.
It's going very well for me. I did not know falling love happened this quickly or hurt this much. But it's good to find out. I'm glad I'm getting to experience falling in love with him, before I die. He is definitely someone I want to love before I die.
This is weird for me. I didn't think I'd ever love again after the tragic and sudden death of my beloved dog (please don't ask me about it it's a very emotional subject). I figured that would be the only sentient being I would ever care about. But no. Oh no. Here Bradley is needing to be loved by me in the time that I have left. And I will gladly do it.
"Hey roomie," and Bradley smiles his perfect toothpaste commercial, cover of a sexy romance novel smile and I am more undone than I was previously. I always thought the phrase 'too gay to function' was ridiculous and homophobic however, reader, I am sad to report that I am currently too gay to function.
Thank the gods, Bradley, because he is perfect in every single way, goes on talking and gives me the chance to recover:
"Finally get out of that welcome lecture? I swear Dean Alleyn's fire safety lecture gets longer every year. It's not like any students have died. Well—students have died here, but not to do with fire safety. We still have a lower student mortality rate than Globe Prep, so that's what counts right?" Bradley laughs a perfect, musical laugh like—okay like a rich straight white guy, but that doesn't make him any less beautiful to me.
"Hopefully I won't ruin that—Cyrus Laine," it occurs to me shaking hands would be a great excuse to touch his beautiful gold glowing skin. So I hold out a hand.
"Bradley Thomas, nice to meet you, and pleased to be your roommate, if only because I'm the only person in the school who could pass a background check. Don't worry, I don't mind the g-men," he nods to Shane who is just leaving me to my gay crisis.  "I had a few myself, couple of years ago. Pain in the ass, but hey it's better than dying."
"I mean, I'll find out," I shrug. Before we go any further reader, you should know. Do you remember how I previously said that Bradley's father's life was threatened a while back and so he had to have secret service, and then Bradley just referred to that incident again? Well. I need you to know that there is exactly a .4% chance that my father did not actually pose the threat to Senator Thomas' life and his family, unless he complied with some demands of my father's. As in, I actually was there and witnessed my father order it. That rogue .4% chance is because of two equally unlikely things 1) I hallucinated the whole thing, 2) someone else threatened them at the exact same time and that was the actual reason for the security.
"I was on this side last year if that's good—,"
"Whatever you want is fine, always," don't look at me like that. I am also disappointed me. No one is more disappointed in me than me.
"Cool um, I was just getting settled I brought way too much stuff—is that all you've got?" He notices my duffel, rolling bag, fencing bag, and backpack. By comparison he has like eight boxes. I don't know. I didn't count. We already established I don't do math unless absolutely necessary. It's a lot of boxes, all right?
"Yeah, I travel light," very, Cyrus shut the fuck up Cyrus god I wish my own internal monologue were less sarcastic. Now I know where they got the inspiration for greek chorus's in tragedies. Just an internal sarcastic bitchy voice pointing out everything that's wrong with you mostly due to how fucking gay you are.
"What brings you to Rose and Swan for senior year?" Bradley asks.
I'm dying. "I wanted to have a change of pace, for my last year—-of school, last year of school, and Coach Marlowe has been trying to get me to fence here since I was a freshman," I say.
"Oh, yeah, I'm on his hockey team, he's cool, don't tell him I said that though we have to act like he's annoying, it's a bit of a rule. He's one of Dover's house fathers apparently he lets you get away with anything and he has a dog—-not that we'll be having fun here with Tom and Jerry outside," he nods at the door, rolling his eyes a little.
"What?" I laugh.
"Oh, sorry, that's what I used to call mine. They give us names so, you know, why not? Saved me bantering about their real names that's not anyone's business," he says.
"That's true. What was yours?" I ask, rubbing the back of my head where the alien goop which is going to bury this gay is busy eating away the part of my brain that thought I was straight.
"My what?" He frowns.
"Call sign, what did they call you?"
"Oh, I was Dasher," he says, smiling, "It was kind of cool really."
"Oh good," so the part where I was complicit in almost killing you, the love of my fucking life, wasn't too painful, cool cool.
"What's yours? Or are you not allowed to say as it's on going?" He asks.
"Oh, no um, it's mostly traditional at this point, since communication waves are so encrypted. I'm Searcher," I say, "We're all S's um, my brother's are Storm and Serpent."
"That's cool, yeah they gave us all Ds. All right then, Searcher," he tosses the ball at me. I catch it, almost smiling.  "Got any big plans for senior year?"
"You could say I want to go out with a bang," I say, smiling fully now.
"Same, let's make this a great year right? Only seventeen once?"
"Yeah there are tons of songs about it actually, I have a playlist—um I have a playlist for everything, in fact. If you ever don't like it small projectiles can induce me to change the music," I say, showing him my phone as I thumb through the playlists, "In fact, let me drop these to you so you can delete whatever you hate before I start playing it." Smooth way to get his number you fucking idiot you live together.
"Sure here," he takes my phone and programs a number in. When I get it back I see he's put himself in as Dasher. I smile, before starting to drop him the playlists.
"You really do have a playlist for everything—why?" He laughs.
"Because my spectacular life deserves an awesome soundtrack," I say, before thinking about it.
But Bradley just laughs his intoxicating, school boy laugh and says, "Good enough reason. All right. Total disclosure, dinner tonight is not mandatory so I was thinking about driving into town with a friend, one more night of freedom, yeah? You're welcome to come if that's okay with Tom and Jerry out there? I know spontaneous trips aren't very cool."
"I'll ask, they're usually okay since we're not in the metroplex, let me ask," I say, shifting out of the room slowly. So technically, no spontaneous trips are not cool, but we're in such a remote area it's easier to guard me AND local PD can be alerted within a couple of hours, we won't leave right away, so it's mostly okay. They try to accommodate for stuff like this and I try not to do stuff like this but this is an emergency because I'm gay and dying.
"Can I talk to you two for a minute?" I ask Shane, who is leaning by the door reading his book, which is No Country for Old Men. I choose not to tell him it's not really a country for young men either. And that it's really not a country for young women, or women of any age, or people of different ethnic backgrounds, and that if you wanted to get picky old white men probably did have the country best. I don't know what the book's about. Maybe there's more to it than the title.
"Sure," Shane says, unlocking the opposite room and coming in. Jonesy is unpacking his garment bag, he has one headphone in. He takes it out at our approach.
"Two things," I say, closing the door and locking it, "First thing: why didn't either of you tell me I'm gay?"
"We thought you knew?" Jonesy says, very confused, "Did you not?"
Shane looks like he's doing a great job of not laughing.
"Don't you dare laugh. I don't know how much time I have left and my homosexuality is complicating it," I say, folding my arms.
"Sorry. Genuinely thought you knew," Jonesy says.
"But to be clear, everybody else but me knows, right?" I ask.
"I have no idea," Shane laughs.
"You're the intelligence community! You're supposed to have this information for me!" I cry.
"Sorry to disappoint," Shane is still laughing at my indigence.
"No, everybody does know, everybody but you, apparently," Jonesy says, Shane throws him a look.
"How do you know they know?" I ask, "Maybe you're wrong like you thought I knew."
"Last three schools our instructions were to not bother to vet approved girlfriends just stick to boys," Jonesy says, flatly.
"Oh, that's true," Shane nods.
"Goddamn it—does my mother know?"
"I assume," Shane says.
"Do we think my father knows?" I ask.
"No," they say, in unison.
"Are you sure?" I ask.
"Yes," they say.
"Okay, but in the event of my death you personally, I'm asking you to tell him. As a little special treat to yourselves, at my funeral," I say.
"You dying is not in my job description," Shane says, still amused, "Now. What was your second thing?"
"My roommate who has nothing to do with our previous discussion about my apparently very well known sexuality is driving into town to dinner, says it's okay if I come if you're both good coming."
"I'm fine not having dining hall food," Jonesy scoffs.
"Yeah, let me make a few calls, shouldn't be an issue," Shane says, "He got a car that can fit everyone or do I need to call a car?"
"I don't know. I'll find out," I say, happy now. I am going to dinner. Being seventeen. The clock is ticking down. Every moment must count.