Where We Left Off
I wrote about Will. Things I noticed about him, questions I had. Stuff I wanted to do to him.
I found myself writing a lot about yoga too. I wrote down things Tonya said that resonated with me, feeling ridiculous at first, like I was in some kind of self-help class or something. But I figured if it was a practice that had been around for like five thousand years, they’d probably figured some shit out. And I wrote down the ways that those things changed my perspective. Tonya always said that only ten percent of yoga happens on the mat; the rest of the time you’re out in the world, so the trick is to apply the principles more broadly so we get the benefit of them in the world as much as we do on the mat.
Sometimes I’d wander around Will’s neighborhood, getting food from La Fonda Boricua or Taqueria Guadalupe and walking through the Vanderbilt Gate and the Conservatory Garden into Central Park to sit by the Untermeyer Fountain or the Burnett Fountain. Sometimes I’d stop at the bodega a few blocks down and get groceries to make simple dinners, so aware always of how different this neighborhood felt than the West Village.
The smell of spilled coffee and the churros for sale on the subway platforms. Tiny old ladies making their way to the bodegas with wheeled carts to do their weekly shopping. How the snow was only shoveled in a thin, perilous strip in the center of the sidewalk so you had to pick your way around people, puddles, and menacing dark patches.
The whole city seemed that way. Each neighborhood—sometimes even just a several block radius—felt unique, and yet there was some essential quality, some… New Yorkness that asserted itself at every turn.
Now it was the last weekend of break and I had talked Will into staying in with me, ordering food, and having a Lord of the Rings marathon. We couldn’t watch the extras because he didn’t own the DVDs. (“I hate clutter,” he’d said when I’d asked why. “And DVD packaging is terribly designed. Everything from the shape of the box to the art is an aesthetic abomination.”)
We ordered Thai, eating ourselves into a stupor and getting tipsy on Singha beer as we watched. I was coming around to beer. A little.
“You look like Legolas,” I told him seriously, knowing it would piss him off because he thought Legolas was prissy and self-satisfied.
“Well, you look like Pippin,” he shot back, opening another beer and arranging me on the couch so he could lean into my shoulder, grumbling about how I didn’t have enough padding to be comfortable, as usual, but settling in against me nonetheless.
All in all, it was probably one of the best days I’ve ever had. Of course, when I told Will that, he snarked about how pathetic my life must have been up to this point. He was worse at taking compliments than anyone I’d ever met.
THE NEXT night was my last night at Will’s before second semester began, and I was moping around the apartment as I gathered my stuff to go back to the dorms. Finally, I plopped down on the couch next to Will, in a full-on sulk. It was the Sunday night to end all Sunday nights, not just the end of break but the end of my time in the fantasy that Will and I lived here together.
Will had been moody all day, and more irritable than usual, less open to being touched, so I should have known better.
It was the desperate desire to shore up the fantasy that made me stupid enough to say something to Will about it. I wanted some assurance that this month had meant something to him too. That, in the end, it had turned out to be more than just him doing me a favor after I fucked up. That it portended something real.
That things were different now.
We’d had sex the night before, languid and ponderous from our movie marathon, and I’d fallen asleep all tangled up in Will and the covers, his chest against my back, his legs threaded lazily through mine. I must’ve turned over in my sleep because I woke up facing him, our bent knees touching, our faces close together on the same pillow, my hand on his wrist, resting like twins in the cocoon of blankets as if we’d woken up that way a thousand times.
In that moment, winter sun streaming through the window, the bed warm and smelling of sex and us, the possibility stretched before me, luminous and full of hope, that maybe we’d wake up that way a thousand times more.
That tantalizing hope held before me, as gleaming and as fragile as a soap bubble, made me utter precisely the words that would point a needle at it: “We can still be together, right?” I gestured between us. “Once I go back to the dorms?”
And Will, with more kindness than I might’ve expected, given his mood, said, “Leo. We’re not together. You know that.”
Which hurt. Because of course I knew that. But he was choosing to split hairs about my terminology and ignore the feelings it described.
“Okay, sorry, sure, I mean, I know we’re not, like, boyfriends, but….” I bit my lip and looked up at Will. “But we’re… something, right?”
Will didn’t say anything.
I looked down at where my hands rested on my thighs. They’d gotten so much stronger since I’d started yoga. Now sometimes I pressed into the muscles as I walked or bent to sit down, feeling the tautness there, feeling the way my own body was pulling itself together to support me.
There were some things that no amount of effort could bring into being. Some poses that no gains of strength or flexibility could realize. But you made the effort anyway.
“I want us to be,” I said simply, moving my attention to my hands, looking at each bony knuckle, the folds in the skin that let them bend, the bitten nails with deep white moons.
Will sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face.
“I already told you. I’m not interested in monogamy. I’m not interested in playing house. It’s just not how this is gonna go.”
“I’m not saying I want to marry you. I just don’t understand why we can’t… date.” Saying it out loud, the word sounded petty and superficial.
“Man, come on! We talked about this.” He was pissed, but then his tone changed as he said, “You promised.”
And that got me. Because he was right. I had promised. I had made a promise that, if I were totally honest, I really hadn’t thought I would have to keep. God, that was terrible. I had promised Will that things were fine the way they were because I’d really believed that he just needed a… like a transition period. An excuse. A low-pressure way to give it a shot.
Wow, I was a complete and total asshole. My stomach turned with guilt and shame, but Will must have read it as hurt.
“Leo, you’re in college. You’re nineteen years old. It’s normal to date a lot of people, sleep with a lot of people—experiment. I know that you think you want me, but there are so many people you’re going to like or love or want. So many things you’re gonna want to do.”
Which was so completely beside that point that I got mad at him all over again.
“Is that what you do? Experiment?” My fingertips dug into the muscles of my thighs in an effort to keep my voice even.
“No, not really. I already know what I like.”
At that I totally lost my calm. Lost my pride. Lost even the fiery hook of guilt at secretly, internally breaking my promise. I couldn’t help it.
“But if you already know what you like, couldn’t I give it to you? I mean, couldn’t I be the one to—”
“No!” Will grabbed my forearms and pulled me closer to him on the couch. “No. You do not offer to turn yourself into what someone else wants. Ever. Do you hear me?”
“But I want to be with you. I don’t understand what you get from them—those men that you—like, the sex stuff…. I can do better. I just haven’t had much time, but….”
Will shook his head.
“It’s not that I don’t like sex with you.”
“Then—okay, well, that’s good. So then why do you have to—?”
“I don’t have to. I choose to. It’s not… pathological, okay, not some manifestation of whateverthefuck. It’s my choice to have the option to do whatever I want with whoever I want, whenever.”
“Well, something can be a choic
e, and there are still reasons behind it.”
“God save me from anyone who just took Intro Psych,” Will muttered. “I just told you the reason. Because I fucking want to.”
“And you don’t want me! That’s what you’re saying!”
Will put his head in his hands like I was the most exasperating thing that had ever happened to him.
“Look, I’m sorry that what I want isn’t the same as what you want. Wouldn’t it be so convenient if we all agreed about everything and wanted the same things?”
“Don’t! Don’t make it sound ridiculous that it hurts my fucking feelings to sit here on this couch with you after a month of basically living together and sleeping together and hanging out together and say that I like you and wish it could continue.”
“Well then stop acting like I’m deliberately harming you by telling the truth when you ask for it. I’m not a monster! I’m not a terrible person or a mean person because I don’t want what you want. And I’m not a sad person or a cold person just because I don’t feel everything that you do!”
I was close enough to him to feel the breath of his exclamation on my face. I didn’t think he was a monster. I didn’t think he was terrible or mean. I just didn’t understand how it was possible to act the way he acted toward me and not have it mean something.
“I didn’t say you were deliberately doing anything,” I said, choked. “But it still hurts. Sorry.”
Will’s sigh was huge.
“Man, don’t apologize,” he said, tugging me a little closer.
I resisted, not wanting to accept comfort from the person who made me need it in the first place. Finally, though, I couldn’t resist Will’s hands on my shoulders. I slouched down against his chest with a sigh of my own, pathetically aware that I would take whatever he was offering as long as I wasn’t being banished from his presence entirely.
“Look.” I could feel the vibration of the word through his breastbone. “Leo, you’re my…. You’re great, okay? But I… the last thing I need is to be responsible for another person’s feelings right now. You’ve got your life, and I’ve got mine. We’ll still see each other, okay? Because we want to. If you still want to?”
I bit my lip against the bolt of hurt and frustration that tore through me. I had promised. I nodded. “Course I do.”
I knew I wasn’t imagining what was between us. That the way we were with each other, the way we touched each other had changed. Where once there was a clear divide between times when we were being sexual and every other moment, now the wall between the categories had eroded.
A hand on my hip as he moved around me in the kitchen to pour his coffee, fingers in my hair when he walked behind me. He touched my freckles sometimes, tracing them across my cheeks and nose with his fingertip. He’d lean his weight against me or drop his chin onto my shoulder to look at what I was doing. And every now and then he’d shove me against the wall and kiss me until I couldn’t breathe.
But if we weren’t dating, if we weren’t in a relationship, I had no context for understanding what those touches meant. Will didn’t seem to need containers for things like that, but I did.
When I’d gathered all my stuff, Will walked me to the door. I felt more like I was leaving home than I had when I left Michigan in the bus’ rearview mirror. Every atom in me was agitated toward Will, every muscle tensed to meet his. It was an actual physical wrench to make myself leave.
At the last minute, even though I felt raw and humiliated, I threw my arms around him.
“Thanks for having me,” I said.
He ran a hand up and down my back, under my backpack, and squeezed me, almost like he might, just the tiniest bit, miss me too.
“Later,” he said when I finally let go.
I turned back to look at his closed door as I waited for the elevator, then turned and took the stairs, bereft of the strength to stop myself from walking toward it again and knocking if it took the elevator more than five seconds to come.
I slouched down the fifteen flights slowly, biting the insides of my cheeks to keep from crying. Shoving my fists into my pockets, I traced the sharp ridges of the key Will had given me when I first arrived a month ago. I hadn’t given it back because it felt so final, and now I took a tiny bit of comfort in the fact that, at least, I knew I could come back. The flop of my busted shoes echoed in the stairwell, a reminder that I still needed to get new ones since the soles were coming off.
Chapter 10
February
“YOU SHOULD come out,” I told Charles as I tugged on the clothes I’d borrowed from Milton. The tight jeans hugged my legs and the artful layers of shirt, sweater, and jacket were nothing I’d ever have chosen, but I had to admit it all kind of worked. “We’re going to see Into the Woods at this high school—which, right, sounds like it’d be terrible because high school play, but Milton says it’ll be good?”
Milton came in without knocking and tossed a pair of pointy-toed shoes on the bed with a flourish, Thomas trailing in behind him.
“Here. You absolutely cannot wear those scrofulous Vans with my outfit.”
I thought about protesting, but the truth was, my shoe situation was actually reaching critical. I’d duct taped the soles back on when they started flapping when I walked, but in the cold the duct tape lost its stickiness and kind of sloughed off, leaving the rubber parts of my shoes gummy so that dirt and hair and dust stuck and crusted in the new layer of duct tape I’d added.
It was pathetic, I knew, but I hadn’t bought new ones yet because I’d kind of hoped Will would be so horrified by them that he’d insist on another shopping expedition. The more fool me, since Will was basically immune to manipulation tactics. So I just put on Milton’s shoes. They scrunched my toes.
“Wow,” said Thomas. “You look really great.”
“Thanks,” I said, considering my reflection. Was this how Will would want me to dress? Put together and a little bit edgy? I ran a hand through my hair but it just looked sloppy.
“Here, can I…?” Thomas gestured at my hair.
“Yeah, sure.”
He and Milton exchanged a look, and Thomas took a small container out of his bag and rubbed a dollop of some product that smelled warm, like a bakery or something, between his hands. He nudged me onto the bed and stood in front of me, touching me tentatively at first and then massaging the stuff into my hair and doing… some kind of arranging. It felt nice, and I leaned into his touch. His hands softened, just touching my scalp.
“Um, o-okay,” Thomas said, stepping away.
My hair was still its usual wavy brown mop, but now it looked like I wore it that way on purpose. It made me look older.
“Hey, thanks!”
“You look great,” Thomas said, ducking his head and looking at the floor where my poor cast-off Vans sat in a puddle of duct tape and melted slush. “I mean, you always look—I didn’t mean, um.”
“Ooh, do you mind taking a picture of me?” I asked him, tossing him my phone. “I wanna prove to Will that I’m not always a total wreck.”
Thomas didn’t say anything as he took the picture.
I texted Will, Outfit approval? Wish you were coming! xoxox
“I’ll, uh, meet you guys out front,” Thomas said, then left.
My phone pinged with a text from Will: Not bad, cowboy. Bet you *could* make me come if you put your mind to it… ;)
Heat flushed through me, and I immediately wondered if I should skip the play and go over to Will’s instead.
Milton thwacked me with the back of his hand.
“What is wrong with you?!”
“What’d I do?” I looked away from my phone and forced the smile off my face.
“Come on, Leo, you cannot be this oblivious. Thomas? Likes you. Obviously.”
“No way. Wait, did he tell you that?”
“He didn’t have to tell me, you idiot, it’s completely obvious. He hangs on every word you say, he stares at you, he invites you to do things.” Milton was
looking at me with raised eyebrows. “Did you seriously not know?”
I shook my head. I seriously didn’t. It hadn’t even occurred to me that someone might feel that way about me. I was a radio, and the only station I was tuned to was Will’s.
THE PLAY turned out to be great. I’d dragged Charles with us at the last minute after all, and he, Milton, Thomas, Gretchen, and I sat in the very back row, sipping vodka from one of Milton’s ever-present flasks mixed with hot chocolate we bought at the concession table.
I was warm and tipsy and full of joy, snuggled in my seat between Milton, who kept up a running stream of funny commentary, and Gretchen, who began adding her own commentary after about half of one of Milton’s flasks and enough hot chocolate to send me into a sugar coma. I licked whipped cream off her nose and spent intermission with my head on her shoulder, watching the audience through half-closed eyes.
After the curtain call, we spilled out into the streets with the rest of the audience, everyone talking excitedly, the stress of the parents somewhat dissipated now that the show had finished, people bragging about the lighting effect their son had come up with or the way their daughter had covered for another actor who forgot his lines.
I had one arm linked with Gretchen’s and the other with Milton’s, and the snap of cold air made us half run and half skip the three blocks to the diner. We ate plates of fries and hummus with olives and pita triangles, and we drank coffee doctored with more vodka from another flask that Milton produced from some mysterious inner pocket that hadn’t even disturbed the line of his perfectly cut overcoat, and we talked and laughed in a cloud of fizzy excitement. Charles was explaining the paper he was writing, called “On the Tyranny of Time,” to Gretchen, and Milton was telling us his own theatrical greatest hits and misses.
On our way out, I was so tipsy and high on my friends’ energy that I tripped going down the narrow, slush-slicked staircase that led to the bathrooms, and Thomas caught my arm to keep me from falling. Did he hold on a little longer than was necessary? I wasn’t sure, so I just smiled at him. The smile he gave me back was luminous.