Chapter 12 Explain yourself

“I KNOW you’re in there, Cole! You can’t avoid me forever!”

Rob yelled through the door as I leaned against it from the other side. He’d tried this tactic now on seven other occasions, and I’d managed to fake him into believing I wasn’t there. Only this time I think he spotted me sprinting past the theater building. I ducked behind the bushes, hoping to lose him, but he showed up at my door anyway. Crap!

“Cole! Open this freakin’ door!” He pounded on it. “You have to help me! Cole, you infuriating pain in my rear, open this door and help me get Ellis back!”

I exhaled loudly and realized my mistake only after. I clamped my hand over my mouth, but it was too late.

“Cole?” he said in a softer voice. “Did I just hear you on the other side of the door? Cole, come on. Open the door and let me talk to you. You’ve been dodging me ever since Ellis broke his leg two weeks ago. Come on!”

Against my better judgment, I relented.

Rob barged inside as soon as I turned the knob. I’d never seen him so pushy. “You know,” he said to me with a look angrier than I have ever seen on Rob, “you can be a total dickwad!”

I stepped back a pace in shock. Rob just cursed at me! “What did you call me?”

“A dickwad!” Oh my gosh, Rob was mad! Normally he altered Mike’s favorite phrase from “dickwad” to “dipwad,” so for him to say “dick” he seriously got my attention. (Rob never cursed.) “Your best friend is lying at home, being held prisoner by June Cleaver, and you sit here doing nothing! What the heck? And you don’t call, you don’t text, and I bet you even deleted my voice messages without even listening to them!”

He had me there! “First of all,” I asserted, “I did text Ellis, three times, and he didn’t respond.”

Suddenly Rob backpedaled his high horse. “Oh… yeah… well… here’s the thing…. His mom kind of took his phone away for a teeny-tiny bit.” Rob rolled his eyes and flopped his wrist flamboyantly as he tried to make her actions sound silly. (Rob acted gayer than me sometimes!) “She said something about it distracting him from all the rest he is supposed to have.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Then why are you giving me shit about it?”

 

He got red in the face and bellowed, “Because you didn’t answer my calls! Mine! I thought we were friends too.”

 

Talk about mood swings. Wow! “What if I didn’t want to talk to you?” I yelled back at him.

Rob covered his heart. “Ow! That hurts.” Resetting his jaw and fortifying his willpower, he looked me straight in the eye and said, “No. I don’t accept that. You’re such a pain in the ass and I’m not letting you get away with it!” Oh my. He said “ass” that time. Then he paused and took a deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was controlled instead of on the verge of hysteria. “Look, I came here to get you to go with me to Ellis’s house and help convince his mom he’d be better off on campus. I’ve done the best I can bringing his assignments to him, but it takes up all my free time driving back and forth. Plus, he’s alert now, he’s not on Percocet, and his mom has kissed his forehead twelve too many times. It’s sickening. We have to get him out of there or he’s going to die of sugar shock and get fat on homemade bread pudding.”

“Have you ever thought that maybe he doesn’t want me there?” Hadn’t Rob seen the blond girl draping herself over his chest in the hospital? Jeez!

“Now why would you even think that?” Rob looked flabbergasted. Really? Why? I didn’t know what was going on in Rob’s head, but he had to know Ellis was dating that blond girl.

“Maybe because we haven’t spoken two words to each other in weeks?” I replied. “He’s been mad at me for a while now. We almost got a chance to clear the air, but then he broke his leg.”

“Yeah! Nice of you to show up for his surgery, by the way!” “Hey! I didn’t know when the surgery was—it’s not like his family even cared to inform me. They probably don’t know I exist.”

“That’s why I called you, you asshole!” Rob reached out and swatted me on the side of the head. “He asked if you were coming, and I had to tell him you weren’t answering my calls.”

That made me feel ashamed. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. He really asked about me?”

 

“Of course, he did! Why wouldn’t he? Ellis is in love with you, for crying out loud!”

Rob said it matter-of-factly, but the sudden squeeze in my gut left me speechless. “He l-lov….” Talking and me weren’t together on this one; I stood, slack-jawed.

Rob, on the other hand, always seemed primed and ready for more. Perplexed by my silence, he continued, “Surely you knew that? Come on, Cole, with all the time you spend together? Stolen glances. Secret caresses. And then that hand-holding thing at the hospital?”

“You said it was drug-induced and he wouldn’t remember!” I found my voice out of sheer desperation.

“I said that for Russ’s sake.” He blew it off with a wave of his hand. “I didn’t know how he’d react. I wasn’t going to share my theory about the two of you until I knew for sure.”

“The two of us?” Rob was doing it again. He was assuming, yet overlooking one all-important factor—that girl! “Don’t you mean Ellis and his girlfriend?”

“Girlfriend? What girlfriend? Ellis has a girlfriend? Since when? And why would he write a poem about you when he has a girlfriend?” He unshouldered the backpack he had on and unzipped it before pulling out a piece of paper. “Look,” he said, handing it to me. “Read that and tell me I’m imagining things.”

I glared. “You’re imagining things!”
“You haven’t read it!” he pointed out as I scoffed.

I didn’t know what the hell was going to be so convincing that I’d believe Ellis was in love with me. Sure, he’d murmured he loved me, once, after sex, while he was falling asleep. He could have said anything. Halfheartedly, I looked at the paper in my grasp. It was a poem.

Of Love and Sadness

And what should I speak to you today, Of paper flowers and skies of gray? Or moon-lit nights, sitting alone, Candles burning with no one home. Pure sadness falls upon mine ear; I hear it whisper, because you’re not here. My cold tears that fall, deafen the night In ways that can't be found in light. The shadows cry of a love so dear That my heart won't beat without him near. Cupid calls, “Fear not, my friend, for love is a fire; Which kindles, ignites, and consumes the pyre.” Love is the flame that banishes dark, And teaches a tune to the morning lark. It's love that beats within my breast, And love that gives each soul true rest. So when my heart in sadness sighs, I remember that love is in his brown eyes.

IT WAS nice but there was no evidence it was about me. So I had brown eyes. It didn’t prove anything. I looked up. “It’s not about me.”
“Yes, it is. It has to be! You haven’t seen him lately; he’s a

mess. Glum. Listless. Bored out of his mind! I’m telling you—he misses you.”

I lowered my eyelids halfway. “Because I put the ‘hoot’ in hootenanny, and Ellis never knew fun before he met me.” Snide? Not me.

“Cole, why do you have to do that? Not every situation is negative.”
“Because people don’t fall in love with me!” Oh God! I’d said it out loud, and my mouth kept confessing. “I’m unlikable, Rob, or haven’t you figured that out? I’m prickly and derisive, and I’m not good for more than a fifteen-minute fuck before the guy’s out the door. Why should Ellis treat me any different? He sure left in a hurry the morning after we fucked!”
Maybe I was too blunt? Oops. Rob certainly looked shocked as he held up his index finger. “Ah, let me just say, I didn’t need that word picture.” He reached out and grabbed the wall. He looked gaunt. My bad.
“I guess I shouldn’t have blurted about me and Ellis—”

“Stop!” He threw up all five fingers to block the words from entering his personal space. “Let me just….” Rob carefully made his way to the couch and sat down.

“Can I get you some water?” I asked because he looked ill. “Please.”
I left and filled a glass for him. After he drank half of it, he

motioned for me to join him, so I sat and waited. Maybe he was processing the information I’d let fly? I’d already acted like an ass by not returning his calls, so this time I waited until he was ready to talk to me.

“I knew he liked you,” he said finally, quietly, breathing through his nose again instead of heaving gasps through his mouth. “Ellis changed as soon as he moved in, and I credited it to leaving his parents’ house. But that morning, when we went to breakfast, I saw it in his eyes. He looked at you differently.” Rob was looking at the table and then finally brought his eyes to meet mine. “I knew he loved you. The camping trip confirmed it.”

“How?” I asked. Love at first sight never settled well with me. Romance movies and fairytale princesses falling in love at a single glance—that stuff wasn’t real. Nobody could know without knowing a person. You could easily lust in one glance, but love? I doubted it.

“Have you ever walked onto the porch in the wee hours of the morning after it snowed the night before and watched the sun peeking through the snow-laden trees and breathed a deep lungful of cold, crisp air and felt more alive than you’ve ever felt before?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Yeah, I guess I have. It’s been a while.”

“I remember a few winters ago walking outside just before sunrise. The freezing air filled my lungs and made my chest hurt with cold, but it warmed me, too, with the very nature of life. I felt connected to everything, even if only briefly.” Rob smiled. “You’re that lungful of winter air, Cole. I could see it in his eyes: at breakfast, and every time we were all together afterwards. You may not believe me, but I’m pretty intuitive that way.”

I wanted to believe him, I did, but my memories looped a vision of him with that girl over and over. Rob had to be wrong. “But what about that girl?”

“What girl? You keep saying that, but I don’t know what girl you’re talking about.”

“The blond at the pub! He kissed her right in front of me. And then she showed up at the hospital with his mom. He loves that girl, not me.”

Rob smirked. Then he grabbed his mouth and snickered behind his hand. “That girl? The blond at the hospital. You’re worried about her?”

“Yes!” If he didn’t stop giggling I was about to…. “You mean Sara?”

“Yes, Sara! I don’t care what her name is! She’s the one he loves.”

 

Rob nodded. “Yup, he does.”

 

Now I felt sick. “I told you. Why did you have to go on and on if you knew he loved that girl?”

“Cole,” he said, this time with more consideration than his giggling had conveyed. “He loves her because she is his sister. And his lesbian sister to boot.”

Did I hear him correctly? “Sister?”
He nodded again. “Sister.”

My skin grew hot. My mind was swimming. My eyes stung. “She’s his….”

 

Rob reached out and gripped my shoulder. “Yup. Sister.”

“He….” I didn’t know what to do now. It was like the broken record that kept telling me Ellis was straight ground to a halt and snapped the needle. “She’s his sister?”

“Yes, Cole. Sara is his sister.”
“And he loves…?”
“You. He loves you.”

As soon as I looked into Rob’s eyes, I knew I was crying. I covered my face with my hands. “Oh God,” I moaned. “You must think I’m a complete loser.” I wiped my cheeks and rubbed the tears away, but they wouldn’t stop. “Shit.” I jumped up and awkwardly went to the bathroom. I blew my nose and washed my face, and then glanced up to find Rob watching me. “Aren’t you going to tell me how stupid I am?”

“No.”

“Aren’t you going to condemn me or something? Doesn’t your Bible say homosexuality is a sin?” (I don’t know why I have to drag that into the conversation. It wasn’t as if I didn’t have enough to think about.)

“No.”
“Are you going to chastise me for stealing his virginity?”

“La la la.” Rob turned away from the bathroom doorway, shielding himself from my words again with a raised hand. “Okay, Cole, that’s enough. What you and Ellis do together, I really don’t want details.”

I followed him into the living room. “But you don’t approve,” I said with deep curiosity.

“I have to admit I was repulsed to think about it, initially.” I could hear in his voice he wasn’t finished. “But?”

“But… Ellis is my friend. One of my best friends. He’s the only person besides Russ that I can honestly say I would die for. I’ve never known a homosexual before. I mean really known one. Gays were always ‘over there’ in that group, but not in mine. It’s easy to bash or criticize something or someone you don’t know. But I know Ellis. I love Ellis. He’s like my brother. And yeah, I’m having a hard time with it. I don’t understand how it fits into God’s plan, but I’m trying. I want to understand. I love him, and I believe with all my heart that God does too. And if Ellis is in love with you, what kind of a friend would I be to hate him for loving someone?”

I had no verbal response for that. I reached up and squeezed his arm.

Rob went on to say, “I don’t think sin is as black and white as people want it to be. I think sin comes in an array of colors, and one of them is so bright that it blinds us to our ability to love. And if I don’t think I can love you just because you’re gay, then Satan wins; because without love, the only color left is hate.”

Well, damn! I was crying again! And as stupid as I felt for being so emotional, I caught a glimpse of a tear welling in Rob’s eye and suddenly I didn’t feel so dumb.

Rob hugged me and held me tightly to his barrel of a chest. I heard him snivel in my ear. “If you love him, please take care of him.”

“I promise,” I answered back. That was the closest I had come to admitting how I felt. My emotions were still an untidy heap in my brain. You know? I’d been jealous of “that girl,” and I was hurt when he left the morning after, and then my mind swirled with thoughts after reading the poem; it was hard to sort all at once. Did I love him? I think I did. I think I do. But telling Rob didn’t seem right. I needed to tell Ellis first.
Rob eased back and patted my shoulders. “Let’s go get him.”

“Yes, please.”

 

As we headed to the door, Rob paused. “You were kissing in the tent that night, weren’t you?”

 

I felt my face flush. “You heard that?”

 

“I heard something. I thought it was Russ making noise in his sleep, but now that this is out in the open, I had to ask.”

 

“What about a word picture?”

He shrugged. “It was weird enough hearing you kiss, and it will probably be strange seeing you kiss. Break me in slowly, okay? I’m trying to understand and get used to you and Ellis, but if you ever tell me about the sex, I might have to strip you naked, smear your body with honey, and tie you up next to a fire-ant mound. No sex talk, and no groping in public.”

“Okay. Got it! No sex talk.” Which was fine by me. I understand guys talk about sex all the time, but it never felt right to me. What Ellis and I did together should stay between us, as far as I was concerned. Not talking about our sex life was a no-brainer. “But you’re fine if I kiss him?”

He made a face. “I’ve never seen two guys kiss, and I’m kind of curious and kind of grossed out. Just warn me beforehand.”

We walked out the door and down to his car. “I can do that.” “And don’t tell Russ.”
I got in and buckled the seat belt. “What? Why?”

“He might freak out. And since it made me sort of squeamish, I want to break my buddy in gently.”

 

I shrugged. “Alright. I guess. Just don’t wait for months or anything.”

“I won’t.”
I THINK Rob was done, as far as the talking went. He was a huge talker by nature, but I think our convo in the apartment was good for a while. Once we drove off, the entire ride was filled with silence and it wasn’t uncomfortable at all.

The drive was nice. Ellis lived in a nice, spacious neighborhood. Lots were probably two to three acres each, if I had to guess. Some wooded, some not, but all the properties had lovely single-family, two-story colonials adorned with professional landscaping and matching luxury cars. I spotted several driveways sporting a Lexus or a Hummer.

AFTER we met his mom at the kitchen door (a rather “familiar” and casual entrance, if you ask me), Rob walked in, in front of me, and spoke to Ellis first. Ellis was on the couch, facing the other direction, so he couldn’t see me anyway. “Hey, buddy,” Rob said. I hung back, waiting. “How you doing?”

Ellis looked like he shrugged, but he was lying on the couch, so his shrug was more of a wiggle.

“Okay, I guess.” He sounded awful.
“Anything I can do?”

Another shrug/wiggle. He wasn’t talking. If I knew Ellis, I bet his face was gray and his eyes were gaunt. Just the lack of expression in his voice told me that.

Rob waved me over. “I brought someone to see you.”

“Aww, Rob, why?” he whined. At the sound of his protest, I stopped three feet behind him. “Unless it’s Russ, I don’t want to talk. I’m tired, and I stink. Did you know my mom won’t let me take a shower by myself?”

“Dang, that sucks.”

 

“Tell me about it. I haven’t showered since my brother visited six days ago.”

 

“That’s why it smells so bad in here! Peehew.” Rob pinched his nose, and I choked back a laugh.

 

“Shut up. So who’d you bring?” Ellis asked.

“Me.” I stepped into his field of vision. I offered the answer, but took care to read his expression before breaking out in a romantic aria of my undying love. I had an inkling he loved me, but he didn’t know I knew. We were still wading through the relationship quagmire as far as he was concerned. Plus, I wanted to hear him say it!

“Cole!” Immediately he struggled to sit up. His hair was a mess—it stuck out on all sides and the back of his head was as flat as the pillow he rested upon. And as I drew nearer, I could smell him. Normally I didn’t mind his sweaty smell, but I did now. “What are you doing here?” he asked, surprised.

“I came to see you.” I shoved my hands in my pockets and inched my way into his presence. I had to be sure I was welcome. He stared at me as if lost for words.

Rob caught on to the awkwardness and coughed. “Well, I’m just gonna… go. I’ll see if your mom needs any help with that lemonade.”

He backed out of the room, leaving us to fill up the space with silence. Why did this have to be so hard? Rob had blurted it out quickly, like ripping off a bandage. Maybe I should do the same. “I, um, Ellis….” I stepped closer as I searched for the right words. I guess Ellis could see I was floundering because he grabbed my arm and held it securely.

When I looked at him, he said, “Cole, I’m sorry.”

 

“What for?” I asked, but the question was superfluous. We both had things to be sorry for; he’d simply beat me to an apology.

“For avoiding you and treating you so callously.” He looked very pathetic, and I couldn’t hold onto my detached expression for long. Ellis continued, “I shouldn’t have acted like that the day after we….” He paused and looked at the doorway. “You know… after. I should’ve been more mature and talked it out instead of pretending like it didn’t happen. So… I’m sorry.”

I hated that Rob had churned my emotions earlier, because now they threatened to break loose again. I didn’t want to cry in front of Ellis, not yet, but I was one second from it and I knew my quivering lip would give me away. I took my hand out of my pocket, and Ellis moved his hand—the one that held my arm—down my skin until he was clasping my fingers. I shut my eyes and felt my body shiver. When he let go, I wanted to reach out but didn’t.

“I’ve missed you, Cole.” Such a simple statement, but one that summed up my feelings exactly.

“Me too.” He looked at the door one more time. He was nervous, and it wasn’t right for me to expect him to spill his guts in his parents’ living room. I needed to get him out of here and back to our place, where he felt comfortable.

“I just… there’s so much… I don’t know what to say, Cole. I’m not an articulate genius. I don’t talk about my feelings, and now that I have them, I don’t know where to begin.” He looked down as if embarrassed. Why? Feelings weren’t at the top of any guy’s conversational repertoire. Cars, belching, video games, farting, sports, or in my case the occasional conversation about Newton’s laws of gravitational forces, but the point is, guys didn’t talk about feelings often. Ellis had no need to beat himself up over it.

It seemed like the perfect opportunity to reveal Rob’s interference in his love life. (Rob might get in trouble for that, but oh well.) I wanted to suggest he leave with me and Rob first, but I had to know if the poem was indeed about me.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the folded paper. “Ellis,” I said. “Did you write this about me?”

 

He looked slightly scared when he saw what I had. “Where did you get that?”

“Rob.”
“Oh,” he groaned.
“Did you write it about me?”

“You weren’t supposed to see that. It was part of our poetry midterm.”

 

“Ellis?”

He nodded slightly, putting his face in his hands as if trying to hide from my rejection. Only, I wasn’t going to reject him. I squeezed next to him on the three inches of sofa cushion and pulled his hands away from his face. “Ellis.” When he looked at me, I tried to give him strength. I didn’t want him to be afraid to tell me what he was thinking. I held his hands tightly in mine and fell into the blue depths of his eyes. He was scared, and I had to take the chance for us. I whispered, “I love you.”

Faint shock washed over his face, and then a smile materialized replacing his worry. “You do?”

 

“Why do you look surprised? Surely you know how easy it is to love you.”

He blushed—how adorable. “I don’t know. I’ve never felt…. You’re the first person I….” Ellis struggled to find the right words and looked exasperated. He kept turning his head to look at the doorway behind him as if expecting Rob or his mom to walk in. And his hands were shaking. “Please get me out of here.”

“I will.” I stood and stepped toward the other room, but Ellis still held my hand fast. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

 

He searched my eyes, finally whispering, “I love you too, Cole.”

I smiled proudly. Hearing those words made me tingle. I needed to get him home! I leaned in and kissed him, which of course made him smile. “You don’t need to be an articulate genius, only honest in however little you say.”

“I’ll try.”

 

As soon as he let go of my hand, his mom walked in with lemonade.