(no subject)
Cloud nine. That's where I was then, that's where I am now. Nothing could have brought me down after that. Well, as long as nothing chose not to bother me on the ride back up to my apartment. When I got back to my apartment, there was definitely something waiting.
The door was unlocked, and I knew that I had locked it. Instantly, I went on edge as I soundlessly turned the knob and went inside. The smart thing to do would have been to call the police. I never said I did the smart thing. Someone was banging pots and pans in the kitchen. The head that popped up from behind the bar was the last one I expected to see.
"Jesus, Chantelle, you scared the hell out of me!"
She flashed me an innocent smile. "Sorry, Dylan, I came by to pick up some cookingware that I left here. I figured you would be at work."
"No, I have the day off. Is there anything I can help you find?"
"Nope, I just found the last of it."
"Oh." I walked into the kitchen and poured myself some juice. Adding some gin to that juice didn't sound like such a bad idea. Too bad I didn't have any.
She gathered the last of her stuff into a box. "Well, I'll get out of here. I won't ruin your day off."
"Chantelle, you know that you could never do that. How've you been?"
"I've been alright. It's the same old story, work, work, work."
"Yea. I'm getting more and more nervous about starting school next month."
"You'll be fine, sweetie. I have no doubt about that."
I snorted. "You know how many people end up dropping out before they finish."
"But this is what you've always wanted. Before you know it, we'll have to answer to Dr. Dylan."
Not that I didn't love Chantelle, but the way she was acting was enough to make me go crazy. We had broken up 5 days ago, and she behaved as if nothing had ever happened and everything was normal.
"Chantelle, how can you be so casual about this."
"About what?"
"This! Us. Here you are talking to me like last Friday was a dream or something. I haven't talked to you since then, and I miss you."
She cocked her head and looked at me. "Dylan, to be completely honest, I thought you would have wanted me to keep my distance for a while. I'll admit that I let you go suddenly, but I'm sorry, I don't regret it. I thought you felt the same way."
I rubbed my hand over my face. "I do feel the same way; it was time to end it. What I miss is having my best friend. I was hoping that this wouldn't change our friendship, but it seems as though it has already."
Chantelle walked over to me and gave me a hug and a peck on the cheek. "That's the last thing I want to see happen. We've been best friends for too long to let anything come between us."
"Good. So why haven't you called?"
Her eyes took on a distant look and she sighed. "I've been so busy, Dylan, I don't know where I have time for a life anymore. Some days I've forgotten to eat."
"Chantelle!" She knew I had a thing about eating disorders.
"I'm not trying to make a habit out of it. With all the work I have, sometimes I get stressed that I don't feel hungry or I don't notice that I feel hungry for several hours," she snapped. "And why do I have to be the one to call you? I have caller ID, you haven't called me either."
"I didn't want to make the first move. You dumped me, remember?"
She got calm again and her face darkened. "I didn't 'dump' you. I'm here now talking you, shouldn't that mean that I'm not trying to get rid of you?"
I didn't answer. Here she was getting her stuff out of my apartment and saying that she wasn't trying to get rid of me. There was enough tension already and my temper would do nothing to help the situation. The truth is that I did feel dumped. She had been ignoring me, and that's never a good feeling. Fortunately she was the first one to speak again. "That does remind me though," she said holding out the key to my apartment in the palm of her hand, "this is yours."
I held her hand and folded her fingers over the key. "You keep it, you're my best friend. Anytime you want to come visit, you're more than welcome." I kissed her hand.
Her face beamed when I said that. "Thank you," she whispered. Once she recovered, she said, "I should get going. I took a break to get over here because I knew that if I didn't it done now then it wouldn't get done for a long time."
"Alright. Give me a call sometime and we can get dinner or something."
She picked up her box and headed out the door. "Sounds great."
"Do you need a hand with that?"
Her voice was muffled from the other side of the door. "No, I've got it."
I went about the rest of my day. It was the middle of the morning, so I had time to clean up my apartment, which was usually pure taboo, but I was in such a good mood that I didn't care. After I was done, I settled down in the living room to watch TV. I had a boyfriend. Oh, god, I had a boyfriend. The temptation to jump and squeal was killing me.
The phone rang, but it was so comfortable on the couch, in front of the TV. I didn't want to move. Eventually, I dozed off about ten minutes after the phone rang. My nap didn't last long. The phone rang again, and this time I decided to actually answer it.
"Hello?" I answered.
"You have got sixty seconds to explain to me why you and Chantelle are not together anymore."
"Well, sis, Chantelle broke up with me because there was no way we were ever going to be happily married. There was no passion in our relationship. She also figured out that I was gay, which is true, and told me to go after this guy named Ryan that I liked. So I did, now we're together, and I feel great."
"Terrific. That only took 23 seconds. I have to get the kids to a doctor's appointment. I love you, talk to you later."
"Bye Andrea." I looked at the phone and laughed to myself.
That was the least of my worries. I knew that Andrea didn't care about me being gay. We both had a friend a few years ago who was bashed. He ended up in a coma for a few months before his mother couldn't afford to keep him in the hospital anymore. She had to let him go. When Andrea and I went to his funeral, she took me aside after the service. With her finger pointed directly in my face, she told me in no uncertain terms that if she ever heard of me not raising my voice in advocation of the simple rights and protection of gay people, she would personally nail my balls to the wall and let the rodents eat away at my flesh. How could you not love my sister?
As soon as I hung up the phone, there was a knock at the door. "Come in!" I yelled. Ryan entered the room, and I could feel the muscles in my face scream in pain from smiling too hard.
"Hey, did you still want to go to lunch?"
"Yea, what are you in the mood for?"
Ryan twisted his foot from side to side and looked up at the ceiling like a guilty child. He was so cute, but he was even cuter when he was trying to be. "What are you up to?" I asked with a suspicious look.
"Well, I was thinking. We COULD go down to Sarah's."
"Or?" I asked walking towards him.
"Or we could make this first lunch a little more special and have it be just the two of us." He smiled and pulled out two bags of Sarah's food from the front door.
"Mmm. That sounds really good." I took the bags from him and put them on the kitchen table. He followed me, but for some reason I could feel him smiling behind me. "So what did you get," I asked as I began unpacking the food.
"A bacon mushroom cheeseburger with onions and ketchup, no pickle for you, and a regular cheeseburger for myself."
I raised an eyebrow and gave him a look. "How did you know that was my favorite burger?"
"You mentioned it at the cookout. I also got some curly fries, but it was going to be too much of a hassle to bother with drinks. C'mon, let's eat before it gets cold."
If I haven't said it before, Sarah's burgers were so good. I wish I could have brought them with me. Ryan had a good laugh at my expense when the juice dribbled down my chin. Part of me wanted him to clean it off for me, but I wiped it up myself. We did get an interesting conversation started though.
"Ok, so you know inexperienced I am about this gay relationship thing," I began.
"Right."
"Well, don't laugh at this, but I have to know: which one of us is supposed to be the guy and which of us is supposed to be the girl?"
"Some couples define themselves along those lines, but I don't like to. We're both guys so I would think that we would both be just that. I don't want to be a girl, and I don't want to date a girl. Otherwise I wouldn't be gay."
"I know that, but in terms of sex, what's supposed to happen?"
"Wow. You're jumping a little ahead of yourself aren't you?"
I must have turned ten different shades of red. "I-I didn't mean that w-we should go have sex now or anything, b-but I was just wondering."
"Relax, baby, I was just kidding." He chuckled in that beautiful laugh of his. Oh, wow, he called me baby. It felt so strange, but so good at the same time. "You're asking which of us would be the top and who would be the bottom."
"Yea."
"Well, I don't care either way, but I'm assuming you would want to be the top since you've never done anything like that."
"I'm sorry. I'm really nervous about all this."
"Why don't we cross that bridge once we get to it?" he suggested.
I nodded in agreement. I regretted bringing up the topic in the first place; I had almost choked on my burger.
We finished lunch talking about a few CDs Ryan had picked up. We both had a strange love for 80s music. I told him that I had some good tapes from my parents. After clearing the table, he settled down on one of the couches while I decided on a Madonna tape. The first song was "Dress you up in my Love." I took a seat on the couch next to Ryan as we sang along. After the first two songs, he turned to me and said,
"I should get back to doing my work."
"Are you sure that you have to?"
"Mmm hmm. It's almost 2. My paper won't finish itself."
I gave him a smirk. "Is there anything I can do to convince you to stay a little longer?"
He closed his eyes and gave a great put-upon sigh, but I knew he was only joking. "Ok, I suppose I could stay for a few more minutes."
I pulled my hand up to gave him a playful hit, but he caught it in mid-air. I laughed.
"Didn't I ever tell you I had fast reflexes?" he said.
"No, but I'll keep that in mind."
He still hadn't released my hand. Neither of us really noticed for a while. Ryan was the first to realize it, and he quickly released my hand as if I burned him.
"Sorry," he apologized quietly.
"No, it's okay." I moved my hand back over to his and grasped his palm in mine. Our fingers locked together, and we stroked each other's hand.
Still holding my hand, Ryan put his head on my shoulder and snuggled against my side.
“Is this ok?” he asked looking up at me.
How could I say no to those eyes? “This is perfect,” I replied. I loved feeling the weight of his head on my shoulder and the heat from his body. For some reason, it felt so natural to me; as if we should have been doing this our whole lives. We fit together. I hadn’t ever been an advocate for love at first sight. I always believed that you had to work for a long time to build the basic foundation for a relationship. The man beginning to doze off on my shoulder had started to prove me wrong. Pretty soon, I fell asleep as well.
Ryan was still sleeping when I woke up. Did you ever wake up because you could “feel” someone else in the room? I rubbed my eyes with one hand and the blurry shape of a woman came into view.
“Well it’s about time you guys shacked up.”
A tired smile grew across my face. “Krista, we didn’t ‘shack up.’ We ate lunch.”
“And no dessert?”
I stifled a laugh. Ryan looked so peaceful, I didn’t want to wake him. Then the realization hit me.
“You knew he was gay!?”
“He’s my best friend, of course I knew he was gay.”
“I don’t understand. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I asked her not to.”
Ryan stirred on my shoulder and pulled away from me. “Why?” I asked.
“I didn’t really know how you felt about gay people, and I didn’t want Krista to spring it on you. She also knew how I felt about you.”