A Royal Christmas Cruise (Stonewall Investigations Miami 2.50)

No. The answer, right then and there, was no.

I mulled over my thoughts, warding away the fears that nipped at my heels like hungry wolves.

“What happened, Nick? Everything was fine this morning. We had a beautiful breakfast and a great chat over coffee. You seemed so optimistic. Happy, even. And then you go for a walk to Hightower Bridge, and the moment you get back, you act totally different. What happened to you on that walk?”

Everything happened. Nothing happened.

There was no way I could dive into that right now. I could only skate above it. Briefly.

“I realized some things this morning. Things I’d been thinking about a lot.”

“And?”

“One of those things is…” I had to word this exactly right. I hadn’t prepared for this at all. “I don’t think I’m right for you. I’ve realized this isn’t going to work.”

Shock seemed to have slapped her across the face. A rabbit-like sound slipped from her lips, like a frightened animal meeting its certain end.

“I’m sorry,” I offered, as if that would somehow soothe the gaping wound on her heart. A wound I was sure grew larger by the second, by every accelerated thump.

Cristella was right in saying that this morning had been great. I woke up feeling better than I had felt in a long while, and that all might have been because of a dream I had woken up from, one that still lingered on my thoughts throughout the day, phantom kisses lingering on my lips.

It hadn’t been a dream of me and Cristella, or of me and Angelina Jolie, or any other woman for that matter.

The dream, painted in technicolor bold and still replaying in my head, had me rolling across an infinite meadow of brightly colored poppies and daisies and sunflowers and lavender, their petals all throwing off rays of rainbow light as our two naked bodies writhed and our moans rose up to color the skies, which were dashes of pink and blue and orange and purple. Soon, the meadow of flowers disappeared, and the two of us were resting on a private island, golden sand glittering underneath us, slipping between our toes and our fingers as we moved into new positions, fucking and stroking and kissing.

I never remembered dreaming in such vivid color. Never.

Me and the man spent a night more passionate than I had spent with Cristella in the two years we’d been together. This dream had felt more real to me than any of the empty nights I had gone through the motions just to have sex with my own girlfriend.

And so yes, I was happy during our breakfast, but as Cristella cheerily listed out all the things she wanted to do in America for our holiday trip, I knew that my heart was somewhere far, far from the table. I wasn’t happy because of her, not at all.

At the same time I couldn’t be fully honest with her. If I told her I was breaking up with her because I was gay, then one: I’d always remember my first time coming out as something terrible, and two: it would be front-page news within the hour. I didn’t want to risk that. I had to beat around the bush without beating up her heart too badly in the process. I still cared about her as a friend, and even though all throughout university I’d been rumored to be an overly cocky and heartbreaking guapo by the Spanish papers, an image that ended up sticking, in reality that portrayal of me wasn’t true at all. I cared deeply about the people in my life, even if very few of them seemed to care much about me.

“How? Why?” Cristella said, her upper lip beginning to shake.

Cristella Montenegro, the only girl who had broken through the protective bubble I’d put up, and actually lasted as my girlfriend for longer than six months. Mainly because she had been forcibly pushed past it by my parents, who saw their young prince growing up without ever having one stable relationship, without ever finding his queen.

“Did I do something?” she continued. “¿Que hice?”

“You did nothing,” I said, once again finding an opportunity to be absolutely truthful. “It has nothing to do with you.”

“So what exactly are you saying?”

“I’m saying I can’t be in this relationship anymore, Cristella. I just can’t.”

She shook her head, wiped at her cheeks. The skin around her neck and over her chest flushed bright red. She got up from the bed and walked over to the window, her steps soft on the floor and still somehow sounding like bombs going off in the silent room. She pushed aside the dresser with a surprising show of force. Her silk nightgown, light pink and hemmed in black, clung to her skin, hugging her hip bones as she whipped around and grabbed the thick red window blind.