More Happy Than Not

Thomas palms his fist. “I wanted to snuff Brendan when he was let out of jail, like you taught me, but I haven’t seen him. They must all be grounded.”

Doubtful. “Don’t worry about it,” I say, hoping to clock Brendan in the chin myself.

It’s quiet again. I can only assume they’ve been chatting it up with each other, and I both hope they weren’t talking about me, and also that they were. If they weren’t talking about me, it wouldn’t make sense because they only know each other through me and without me they’re nothing to each other. If they were talking about me, I hope Genevieve wasn’t telling Thomas everything about what led me to Leteo, everything that I couldn’t remember to confess to him myself. Those are my stories, not hers. And I hope Thomas wasn’t telling her about that time I kissed him and he didn’t kiss me back.

“Can I catch up with you in a few, Genevieve?”

She looks at me like I just punched her in the face and kicked her while she was down. “I’ll be outside,” she tells Thomas—not me—and punches his arm.

I’m dizzy again. The door practically slams behind her and there’s a ringing in my ears.

He paces back and forth and it hurts my neck but I keep my eyes on him.

I say, “So what’s new?”

“Heart stuff and insanity,” Thomas says. I feel something awful rising inside of me. He better not be talking about Genevieve. “I’ve been giving thought to my life chart and overheard something on the radio about love addiction. It’s a real thing. People who are in love with love. I think I’m a love addict. It explains why I always pull away from a girl when I’m not in that honeymoon phase anymore and start searching for someone new. It’s a cruel cycle, Stretch.”

“That’s where your mind has been while I was laid out here?”

It’s quiet except for the sound of my heart monitor beeping.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Thomas finally replies. “Okay, I know exactly what you want me to say, but those aren’t words I can tell you. I’m not even a hundred percent sure who I’m talking to right now.”

“The Stretch you’re talking to is a guy who didn’t want to like other guys so he tried changing that,” I say.

“Let me get this straight,” Thomas says. “Leteo made you forget you were gay?”

“Yeah. You thought I told you my story before—hell, I even thought I told you everything there is to know—but you have no idea what I’ve been through.”

Thomas sits down, his head hung low. “So who are you?”

“I don’t know. I’m sort of two people who want very different things, but even with all this confusion, I’m still pretty sure who you are and it kills me that you’re not.”

He almost looks at me, but his head drops again. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I should be apologizing for something or going back to your block to fight those guys or if I should stay here and figure out who you are or if you’re better off without me being around. I just don’t know. What do you want?”

“You,” I say, and I actually say it, because I want him in the same way I wanted Genevieve when I was straight, and the same way I wanted Collin months ago. Except I want—no—need him more than the others. “And if that’s something you’re not ready for, I think I need a little space to try and forget these feelings.”

“Okay.” Thomas stands and gives my resting hand a fist bump. He looks at me—finally—and I know I’m punishing him just as much as I’m punishing myself. “I wasn’t just self-diagnosing myself while you were laid out. I was distracting myself however I could because thinking of you never waking up and being okay was fucking killing me. I missed you and I hope that’s okay to say.”

Then he leaves and I feel like the biggest idiot in the universe.

3

DEAD END

When Genevieve comes in, she sits down on the bed and holds my hand like we didn’t break up the last time we saw each other. She asks me how I’m feeling. I tell her I’m okay, when I’m really still struggling with Thomas walking out of my life, but it seems like too much to share that with her.

“Do you like the blue walls?” she asks. “I suggested a room this color might relax you when you woke up.”

Of course she did. I hold my aching arms up and she hugs me, resting her face against mine. “Remember that time I sort of told you that I liked guys and we were going to live happily ever after? And remember the time before that where I was the worst person ever and used you?”

Genevieve sits up and shushes me. “No, stop. You were confused and had every right to be nervous. This moment here proves that.” She lowers her head. “As for me, I should’ve pulled myself away. Even when I knew you were only mine because Leteo crossed your wires, I stayed with you. Wrong move.”

“I’m sorry we broke up.”

She cries a little. “You’re not for me to love, Aaron. It was a dead end and I kept trying to go forward.”

And we crashed because of me. “Can you be real with me about something? You never told Thomas why I got the procedure, right?”