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 choice, 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.”