[ 10 ]
I walk up the steps and approach my door like I’m entering a warzone. My heart’s in my throat and I can’t seem to make my hands work properly. Everything’s slippery. I take a deep breath, my hand resting on the doorknob, and then I push it open.
No one’s in the living room or kitchen. I step further inside, leaving the door open behind me. “Trent?” No one answers back. I poke my head into his bedroom, find no one there. I peer into my own. No one. I probably should’ve checked to see if the car was out front. Didn’t even bother, figuring he’d be home. God forbid I consider that anyone else might have a life and, y’know, go out and do things.
When I return to the living room, Trent is standing at the door. I freeze in place, a deer at the first sight of the hunter. Even my breath stops. Our eyes are locked to one another’s.
He speaks first, so quietly I hardly hear it. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I quickly return.
He doesn’t say anything. Quietly, he moves to the back of the couch, then leans on it. His eyes drift to the cushions, as if he’s recalling my moment of complete and utter humiliation, the moment I’ll likely regret for the rest of my life.
“I don’t like how this feels,” I finally say, having trouble ignoring the panting of my tired heart. “I … I hate that I hit you and … I hate that I did … what I did … to you.”
“Nah.” He taps his own face, gives me a smirk. “Didn’t even leave a bruise, pussy.”
I break a tentative smile. “I meant … the other stuff too. The stuff on the couch.”
“I got over it,” he says, shrugging. “Pretty sure I barked up the wrong tree a few times before, hittin’ on girls that wanted nothing to do with me. It’s basically like that.” He bites his lip. He looks so cute when he bites his lip, the ring popping up.
“So what you’re saying is, I’m like a girl you’re way not into, and I barked up the wrong tree. You’re calling me a girl?”
“You sure hit like one.”
“I know girls who can kick your punk ass black and blue, Trent, watch out.”
He grins. “Like Sandy?”
I come up to the back of the couch, leaning against it with enough space for a person between us. He doesn’t flinch or move away. Somehow, that simple observation reassures me deeply. “I’ve been staying with …” My heart gives a leap, worried for an instant what he’ll think. “Charlie.”
“I know.” He picks at his fingernails.
“You found out? How?”
“News spreads. Steve and a couple of his buddies said they saw you entering Charlie’s house one day after you got off work. Couple days ago, they kinda confronted me about it. I told them it didn’t matter to me. Steve started saying some shitty things, so I told him his ass looked good in those jeans, and he fuckin’ took off. Dipshit.” Trent grins at me, his eyes finally meeting mine. “I freaked out,” he says, the smile going away. “I freaked out when I woke up with a dude on my cock. I’m sorry, Benny, but I might’ve freaked out if you were a chick too. I didn’t know what I was seeing. And then I felt hurt and betrayed and … and a bunch of other weird shit. Believe it or not, I am actually surprised. I didn’t fucking know. I thought …” He reaches for the words, shaking his head. “All those times we jerked off together … like, were you …?”
I feel my insides squirming. “Can we not talk about that?”
“How long have … have you …?”
“Since ever, I guess.” I cross my arms, losing the confidence I was feeling a second ago. My face is already burning.
He breathes evenly, thinking on it all. “I’m just really weirded out right now, dude. You finished food I didn’t like. We, like, did the Batman and Robin thing last Halloween. We share underwear for fuck’s sake.”
I screw my eyes at him. “What does any of that have to do with anything?”
“It’s everything. It’s all different now. I was having one interpretation of all that and, like, you were … you were having another.” He shrugs, as if I ought to follow his logic easily. “How do I know you don’t, like, sniff my underwear when I’m not home?”
“You fucking kidding me?”
“No. I have no idea. You’ve been my bro forever, Benny. I don’t have siblings. You’re it and you’ve been there for me and you’ve touched me and now you’re sucking my cock.”
I already feel like this is going to end in fists to face once again. “I’m the same dude.”
“You are. But now that I know the truth, I’m not. I’m changed. Your truth changed me. It’s all fucking changed, Benny.” He crosses his arms too, tightly, shaking his head between sentences. “It’s like I signed up to be your friend, to join the Benny club, and after years of being a … participating member … I only now notice all the fine print. If I’d known that you were looking at me this whole time—”
“I was drunk, Trent. You could’ve been anyone that night.”
“Stop making excuses.” He turns to face me. I meet his eyes challengingly, daring him to piss me off again. He’s already halfway there. “If you want me, just say it.”
“You think that’s gonna solve everything? If I just come out and say that our friendship has really been a one-sided relationship this whole time? It doesn’t help, Trent. I’m runnin’ out of air. This town’s suffocating me.” My teeth are grinding through my words, whether from nerves or anger, I can’t tell. “I came back to talk to you, but if … if there’s no chance of us figuring this out and going back to the way we were, then …”
“I don’t wanna go back to how it was,” says Trent.
“Give me one fucking reason to stay, Trent. Give me just one, because I have about a thousand reasons to go.”
“Here’s one.” Trent opens his arms and, despite my flinching in thinking he was about to hit me, instead his arms wrap me into a hug. He pulls me in tight, squeezing me.
Not what I was expecting, after all that.
Into my ear, he asks: “This givin’ you a boner?”
“Fuck you,” I say quietly, an annoyed smile breaking over my face.
“Gotta check, now. Gotta check now that everything’s different,” he says while he keeps holding me, speaking over my shoulder. “Hey, all those times I called you a fag …”
“I don’t care.”
“I was gonna say I meant them. Each and every one, you fag. And I love you.”
Fuck you, I try to say again, despite Trent’s attempt to lighten things up and show me, in his straight boy punk-ass way, that he cares about me. Fuck you … but the words are choked by my sudden untimely desire to spill tears.
My arms come up and suddenly I’m hugging him back, wetting his shirt with my leaky eyes.
“Like … brother-love you,” he clarifies in my ear, knowing I already know what he meant. “Not like, wanna-hump-your-ass kind of love you.”
I sniffle up my tear-snot. “I know. But next time I beat you in Smash Brothers, I’m humping you so hard.”
“We’ll never play Smash Brothers again.”
The two of us collapse into a fit of laughter, dropping to the floor and leaning up against the back of the couch, cracking the fuck up. It wasn’t even that funny, but after the tension and the tears, I think we both desperately need a reason to laugh.
“I wanna reenroll,” he says finally.
I lift my eyebrows. “Oh. You’re leaving?”
“I wanna reenroll and …” He bites his lip, casting his eyes to the floor. “And I think you should, too.”
“Why?”
“You said it yourself. This town’s fuckin’ out of air, dude.” He grabs my neck suddenly, pulls me into him. My head rested on his shoulder, he says, “Whether you’re a homo or you’re me, this town’s got no one for us, and unless we get the fuck out, we’re not gonna be happy. I wanna …” He sighs. “I wanna do this with you, man. But I kinda want you to have your space, too. I want you to meet people. I want you to, like, suck other dicks.”
I snort into his shirt. “That bad, huh?”
“Until I opened my eyes, it was heaven.” He gives the side of my head a slap. “Don’t you ever repeat those words.”