Marie Sexton - Promises

“Matt?”

He sat down on one of the bar stools with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. “Oh my God. What just happened? What the hell just happened?” He made a sound that might have been a laugh… or a sob. “I don’t know what’s happening to me. I think I’m losing my fucking mind.”

I took a step toward him and reached out my hand.

“Don’t touch me!” It came out as a snarl.

He might as well have punched me, it hurt so much.

“Matt, it’s okay.”

“It is most definitely not okay! Oh my God, this is not okay. I wanted to…. How could I want that? How can I want you like this?”

“Matt, I want you too. I have for a long time. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

His only response was to shake his head in his hands.

“Matt, I know what you’ve told me. But be honest with me. This can’t be the first time you’ve been attracted to another guy.”

He was silent so long I was starting to think I had taken a serious misstep. But then, very quietly, he said, “You’re right. I’ve been attracted to other men before. Not many, but a few. But not like this. Nothing ever like this.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “It was always just a physical reaction, and I was able to just ignore it. Just tell myself no. Tell myself that it was wrong.”

He looked up at me, and the pain and confusion in his eyes was enough to break my heart. “Whatever this is with me and you, it’s so much more, and I can’t make it go away.”

How could those words make me so happy while hurting so much at the same time? “Matt, why does it have to go away?”

“I’m so confused, Jared. Even now, all I can think about is how much I want to touch you. And I just have no idea what to do about it.”

I went to him. Sitting on the stool, he was actually a little shorter than me. His eyes were wary as I approached, but he didn’t stop me. I stepped between his knees, took his face in my hands, and looked into his eyes.

“I do, Matt. I know exactly what to do about it. Come in the bedroom with me and let me show you what we can do about it.” I leaned in and kissed him, just barely brushing my lips against his. “Please, Matt? Trust me. Please don’t turn away from this.”

There were tears on his cheeks. “But it’s wrong.”

“You know I don’t believe that. I don’t see how it can be wrong.” His eyes were closed, and when I kissed the corner of his mouth, I heard his breath catch in his throat. “Does this feel wrong to you?” I kissed the tears from one cheek. “Because it doesn’t feel wrong to me.” The other cheek. “Nothing in my life has ever felt so right.” I pulled back and waited until he opened his eyes and looked into mine. “I love you, Matt. How can that be wrong? How can love be wrong?”

But it was too much. When I said that word, the doors slammed shut. He reached up and took my wrists, carefully pulled my hands from his face, shaking his head. He stood up, gently pushing me back away from him as he did.

“I have to go.”

“Matt. Please don’t. Please don’t walk away from this.”

But he didn’t even look back.

I WAS sitting in the shop, contemplating a crack in the countertop. To be honest, I had been contemplating that crack for over an hour. A couple of people had come in, but I let Ringo deal with them. I did make sure I kept my hand over the marks on my neck while they were in the store. No need to give the town gossips something else to talk about. I couldn’t remember ever being so depressed over hickeys before.

I heard Lizzy come in the back door and walk up to me. Then she laughed. “Oh my God, look at your neck! Looks like somebody had one hell of a birthday.”

But when I looked up at her, she must have seen the pain in my eyes right away. Her face fell and she dropped onto the stool next to me. “What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Oh Jared. After yesterday, the way he was watching you and touching you, I was just sure….”

“Still don’t want to talk about it.”

“Did the two of you have a fight?”

“Not exactly.”

“Did you break up?”

“Lizzy, we would have had to be together in order for us to break up.”

“Then what?”

So I told her. And the sympathy in her blue eyes was almost the worst part of it.

She hugged me despite her bulging belly. “I’m sure he’ll come around. He’s obviously as crazy about you as you are about him. Just give him some time.”

But I couldn’t believe her.

I CALLED him a few times over the next week or two, but he never answered. I left messages.

The first time, three days after my birthday, I tried to sound casual. “Matt, it’s okay. We both had a lot to drink.” I didn’t think that had anything to do with what had happened, but I was willing to give him that as an excuse if it would help. “It doesn’t matter. Call me.”

Three days after that, I was starting to feel desperately lost. “Matt, you don’t have to avoid me. Nothing happened. Let’s just forget it. See you on Sunday, okay?”

And when he didn’t show up to watch football on Sunday, I called again. I had carefully thought out what I was going to say after the beep—something glib about his Chiefs losing to the Raiders. But for some reason, the words died on my tongue. All I managed to say was, “Matt, I miss you.”

I didn’t call again after that.

The next few weeks were miserable. Matt continued to avoid me. And worst of all, he started dating Cherie. Not just sleeping with her, like he had over the summer, but actually dating.

I knew what he was doing. He was trying to convince himself that he could be happy with a woman. He was telling himself that his feelings for me were nothing more than the result of having spent too much time together and that if he just spent more time with Cherie, he could transfer those feelings to her. I didn’t think it would work, and yet I was terrified that it would.

I couldn’t believe how lonely I was. I tried to comfort myself with the thought that my life was now just as it had been for years before he arrived. It hadn’t seemed that bad back then. But now I felt crushed. My house felt like a graveyard. Every time the door opened in the shop, I hoped it was him, but it never was. Every evening, I hoped he would knock on the door. Even football wasn’t as much fun. The few Sundays we had spent together watching it, our perfect companionship, taunted me as I sat by myself, watching the games. Lizzy and Brian invited me over, of course, and I went once or twice, but instead of cheering me up, it only served to depress Lizzy, so I quit going.

“He’s not even happy,” she told me one day. “Brian and I saw them when we went out to dinner, and he looked miserable.”

And the worst part was that I thought she was right. The times I had seen him, he did look miserable. Even his pseudo-smile hadn’t been there.

“Why are you telling me this, Lizzy?”

“I think he misses you as much as you miss him. Why don’t you call him?”

“No.”

“Jared—”

“No!” I stopped short. Lizzy didn’t deserve for me to snap at her. She just wanted me to be happy. But if there was one thing I knew, it was that I couldn’t be the one to make the next move. He was the one who couldn’t face his feelings or what they meant. The only thing I could do was wait and hope.

“HEY, Jared? Can I ask a favor?” Ringo said one day in early October as we were unpacking cases of motor oil.

“What’s up?”

“Do you think that you could tutor me again?”

“With math?”

“Yes. I’m taking calculus now, and it’s kicking my ass.”

“Of course.” It was depressing how much I was suddenly looking forward to spending time with Ringo. Talk about a lame social life.

“And you know physics too?”

“That’s what my degree’s in. You need help with that too?”

“If it’s okay. Can I come by your house to do it? I feel bad taking up time here at the shop.”

“What about your dad?”

“I think it will be okay. I mean, he was really glad that you helped me last spring. And I told him that he needs to trust people. And he needs to trust me. I’ll be eighteen soon. I’m not a kid, and I’m not stupid.” He stopped and looked embarrassed. “Except at math and physics, I guess.”

“You’re not stupid. My house is fine.”

We arranged for him to come by the house on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.

The first week, Ringo came alone. The second week, he showed up with a girl.

“This is my girlfriend, Julie.” She was cute, a little heavy set, with dark hair and freckles she tried to cover with makeup. “Do you think you can tutor us both?”

And so I had two students that week. I ordered pizza and was glad to have the company, even if it was just two teenagers who couldn’t figure out integration.

I was surprised to find that Julie had the same bad habit that Ringo had started out with.

“Why do you want to replace the variable with numbers already?”

“That’s how you simplify.”

“Variables are easy. Numbers complicate things. Wait until the end. Here,” I pointed to the physics problem she was working on. “Look at this one. What do you know about F?”

“Force equals mass times acceleration.”

“Right. So what if we put ‘M times A’ in place of F in this equation?”

“But we’re supposed to be solving for F!”

“Yes, but what do you see on the other side of the equation?”

She was looking, and I saw the light start to come on. “M and A.” I watched her process that. And then she was furiously scratching away with her pencil, talking as she went. “I can eliminate M, and then, I have 2A, but then….” scratch, scratch, scratch “Now I have A!”

“Right. And you already had M—”

“So now I just multiply them, and I get F!”

“Exactly.”

“It’s like a puzzle!” Her eyes were bright with excitement.

“That’s one way of viewing it, yes.”

And the look of understanding and accomplishment on her face was a remarkable balm for the ache in my heart.

It didn’t stop there. The next week, they brought another girl. And then she brought her boyfriend. By the end of the month, I had ten different students who would drop by for help in math or physics on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They didn’t all come each time, but there was always at least one and usually as many as four or five. My house was turning into some kind of brainiac high school hangout.

It was only a matter of time before that caused trouble.

ANYBODY who’s grown up in Colorado can tell you that there’s one day of the year when we’re guaranteed to have bad weather: Halloween. It looked like this year would be no exception. It was damp outside and had just dropped below freezing when Brian called me the evening of October thirtieth.

“Jared!” He sounded frantic. “Lizzy’s water broke. Get to the hospital! Now!”

Once I found my way to the maternity section, I paced outside the door of her room for a few minutes. I wasn’t sure if I should knock or just go in. I didn’t know if things were just starting, or if she was actually pushing. Would she have her feet up in stirrups? Would there be blood everywhere? I had exactly zero experience with childbirth and had no idea what to expect.

I eventually caught one of the nurses as she went into the room and asked her to tell Brian that I was waiting outside. It must have been all of half a second later when he came flying out of the room.

“What the hell are you doing out here? Get in there!” He was obviously freaking out. I had never seen him look so frazzled. His hair was sticking every which way, and his eyes were huge.

“Has she had the baby?”

“No! But she’s going to start pushing soon, and she wants you in there!”

“What?” I was having horrific mental images of Lizzy in stirrups, parts of her body neither of us wanted me to see, and lots of blood. “No! I can’t be in there while she’s having the baby!”

Brian grabbed the front of my shirt and got in my face like he hadn’t done since we were both teenagers. He was really shaken up. “Lizzy wants you in there. And if that’s what she wants, then that’s what she gets, even if I have to kick your ass and drag you in there by the hair to get it! Understand?”

“Okay! Brian, settle down. I’m coming.”

So Brian stood on one side and I stood on the other, holding Lizzy’s hand while she pushed. It went on for more than an hour, and poor Lizzy was a mess by the end. I had never been so happy to be male.