Here's the thing: Thomas doesn't look angry anymore. He looks scared. I want to tell him his dad will get over it, but the truth is, I'm not sure he will. I know even less about the guy's inner workings than Thomas does, which is to say, very little. I calm down, at least to the point that I'm not raising my voice anymore. I say, "We have to accept the reality of people finding out about us. We took that on the second we told the girls."
"I don't know what I took on," he says. "I just know I couldn't keep lying to Madison. Every day with her, every fucking second...it all turned into one big lie." He pauses. He's got this occupied look on his face, like he's trying to rationalize through the whole goddamn thing all over again. His dark eyes land back on me. "I couldn't stop this shit with you. I couldn't. No matter how hard I tried."
"Don't call it 'this shit'."
He looks down. "Sorry. You know that's not what I mean. I just don't understand why we have to be out in open about it all of a sudden. I only wanted the girls to know. No one else."
"Oh come on," I say. "How many people do you think they're going to tell?"
"I don't know," he says. He looks up at me accusingly. "Maybe it's not them I should be worried about."
"Will you fucking get over it? I told one other person. You start living your life a certain way, and guess what? People end up finding out sooner or later. There's just no getting around it."
"I think you misunderstood what's going on here, Niko," he says. He's getting worked up. "You and I can't seem to stop touching each other's dicks. That's all we know. I guess to you that means we're both standing in the closet, just waiting for the right moment to come out. Well maybe that's who you are, but it's not me."
I can't remember the last time something he said filled me with so much anger. Something about it gets me so upset, I can't handle another minute in his bedroom. I stand up and take a few steps toward the door, just to make it crystal-clear to him that I'm on my way out. "You're out of your fucking mind, you know that? A completely different person called me from San Francisco last week. I don't know who the hell he was, but he's definitely not in this room right now."
"Come on—don't leave," he says.
I pause with my hand on the doorknob. I look right at him and say, "The night of the party, when you pulled me into your dad's room—remember that? You told me to say the word. Tell me you remember."
"I remember," he says. He's got the blanket pulled halfway up his face.
"Well I'm saying it now: I'm gay. And man, you lucked out, because if I wasn't, that shit you pulled on me at the beginning would have backfired so bad on you. Pinning me down...shoving your hand down my pants—"
"Stop it," he says. "Fucking shut your mouth." He's starting to cry.
"That night at the party, you told me who you were."
"Fuck you," he says through his tears. "I never said the word."
"It's doesn't matter if you say it. It's just a word. You're not into girls, the same way I'm not." I've been trying to put up a tough front, but I can feel the edges starting to fray now. There are tears in my eyes, too. My voice gets soft and low. "I can't believe you're fucking backing down now. After all this bullshit we put ourselves through."
He disappears completely beneath the blanket.
"Oh, nice," I say. "You're going to keep hiding your face from me, just because you don't like the conversation. You're such a fucking coward." I'm pretty sure that will fish him out again, but it doesn't work. "You're better than this, Thomas," I say. "We've known each other too long for me to accept that this is the real you." And with that, I walk out the door. I hear the garage door opening, so I hurry out the front before I run into anyone. I set out for home again.
Thomas calls me three times before I pick up.
"I don't want to be your boyfriend," is the first thing out of his mouth. I'm telling you, he's completely forgotten how to start a phone call.
"No one said anything about that."
There's nothing but silence on his end for a good ten seconds. I sit down in the grass. Don't ask me whose lawn I'm sitting on. I don't know.
He clears his throat. "I guess I'm saying it now."
"Okay."
"You want me to be your boyfriend."
"No I don't."
"Yes you do."
I swear, I'm inches away from ending the call. But you know what I do? I rein it in. I take a breath, and I ask him to explain himself.
"You'd say yes, if I asked you."
"So?"
"I don't want to be in a relationship when I go to college. Not with anybody, and that includes you." He pauses. "Maybe you most of all."
"What does that mean?"
"If I lose you, then I lose everything we have. All those years. Getting stuck in the bathroom together, singing along to JT, crying over my mom being gone—all of it, dude."
We both get quiet after he says that. Slowly, I'm starting to see his side of things. In true Thomas fashion, he's taken his sweet time arriving at what he meant to say all along. "You won't lose me," I say.
"I might," he says. "Us getting together right before college—is that really want you want?"
"I don't know," I say slowly. I decide I'd better make things clear. "But I do know I'm in love with you."
"I'm in love with you, too, Niko. When Driggs found us the other night...remember what I did?"
I remember that moment and the feeling of his hand grabbing hold of mine so clearly, it's almost like he never let go. I tell him of course I do. He's quiet on the other end. That fucking silence between us keeps creeping back in. I don't normally mind it, but today it's freaking me out a little. "So what are we supposed to do?" I say.
"I wish I knew." He sighs. "I'm not ready to tell the whole world. I'm not ready to take that official step with you—the one that everybody just loves to latch onto and call the fucking greatest thing on earth." He pauses. "I don't know man...don't you ever feel like we already have each other?"
Believe me, there is such a thing as smoke-and-mirrors Thomas. I know that version of him well. But that's not who I'm talking to right now. He's saying these things because it's what he really feels. I know now that even if I do have a different way of looking at all this, it won't do either of us any good for me to try and get my way. So I say the only thing left to say: "Yeah...I do."
"I keep trying to do everything, all at once," he says. "I keep treating everything in my life like there's no time left, and I better just jump in headfirst. I've been doing that shit since my mom died. But you know what she would say. Come on, man, you know. She'd tell me there's all the time in the world."
"It's true," I tell him. "She would say that."
"I've got school coming up—and fuck, man, two-a-days start Wednesday, so I'll have to work evenings."
"I know."
"There's a lot going on in both our lives. A lot of changes about to happen."
"Yeah."
"Listen," he says. "I need to get my dad off my back. I think he knows I skipped work, so I better come up with a good excuse."
I doubt he's bullshitting me, since his dad gets cranky about those things. "Tell him you were hungover as fuck."
He laughs. "I'm sure that would go over well."
I tell him goodbye. After we hang up, I'm just sitting in the grass for a while. I lie back and look up at the sky. I think it's time to swallow my pride. Thomas is showing more maturity than I want to admit. He certainly didn't start things off that way, earlier in his room. But he got there eventually. There's nothing I can say to argue, to show him the right way of looking at things. It's clear his mind is already made up, and besides, I'm not too sure I'm the one who's right anymore.
But I keep getting this feeling in the pit of my stomach, and after thinking on it a while, I realize what's causing it. He's definitely right about one thing: I would have been his boyfriend. In a second. Maybe that shows I'm less mature than him, or maybe I'm just willing to trust that things will work out in the end. I trust him. Maybe I'm taking this as a sign that he doesn't trust me back.
People have a hard time trusting others. I've known that shit for a long time. You can hardly blame them. There's so much deceit going on in this world, it'll make you crazy if you let yourself think about it too much. A great example is this lady who's yelling at me to get off her grass right now. She doesn't trust that I'm only here to lie down and rest. So I employ the one decent option left at my disposal in situations like this. I say sorry for bothering her, and I get up and leave. Because sometimes, that's all you can do.