Early Mornings and Late Nights Under Overcast Sky (Jensen/Jared RPS) -- 30/? (WIP)
Title: Early Mornings and Late Nights Under Overcast Sky
Characters/Pairing: Jensen Ackles / Jared Padalecki; Jensen Ackles / Luanne (OFC); stated Jared/Sandy; stated Jared/Rebecca (OFC) and stated Jared/Ryan (OMC)
POV: Jensen Ackles
Author's Notes: It’s fiction. That means it’s not real, folks. Jensen and Jared are real people. So is Eric Kripke. The show “Supernatural” is a real TV show on the WB11. If anything else in this is real, I wasn’t aware of it.
I'm not going to say when or if the next chapter will be posted...
I just now (after twenty-five chapters and nearly 60,000 words) admitted to even writing this. Yes, I am responsible for this epic debacle!
But really, it took on a mind/life of it's own... So... read at your own risk. I would enjoy feedback, but I'll understand if you don't want to start reading a WIP with no end in sight or in the works. I really have no idea what's coming next here.
Summary: Jared’s girl (Sandra) breaks up with him. Jensen tries to help. Things go (rapidly) downhill from there…then fester… then get better?
*Holds out handbasket if you'd like to join us. It's getting cozy in here*
Spoilers: Nothing to see here, folks...
-------------------------
Chapter Thirty: Conversations Pt. 2: Storytelling
Rating: light R for emotional segments, general discussion of m/m sexual activity, adult content
Pairing: before Jensen/Jared, there was Jared/Rebecca. And Jared/Ryan.
Word Count: 3,299
Chapter Thirty: Conversations Pt. 2: Revelations
I wake up, breathing hard and heavy. Jared’s eyeing me with an odd expression, peeking out from over the top of his book, seemingly in the midst of turning a page. “Nightmare?” He asks.
I nod dumbly, push myself up into a sitting position, legs sliding across the couch, stretched out in front of me. I reach for the water on the coffee table and down half the bottle before putting it down and taking a breath.
“Want to talk about them?” Jared marks his page, closes the book and lays it in his lap. He looks at me expectantly.
“Not particularly.”
“Too bad.” He says. “Talk.”
I glower at him, but I know he’s right. I’m sure he knows they’re related-directly so-to the panic attacks, and therefore, to my feelings for him and all I’ve been thinking about (or not thinking about, as the case may be) lately.
“Same as always.” I keep my voice even. It still sounds hollow and calm in a way, thanks to the drugs. “Your mom… telling me I’ll hurt you… reminding me I don’t know everything about you…” And it strikes me then that not once in my dreams have I thought that what I (might) feel for him is wrong.
My dreams are focused on hurting Jared-granted, as a result of me thinking that it’s wrong, and fear of not being able to be what he needs or give him what he needs, but it’s not directly the thought that the emotions themselves are wrong that drives the nightmares, and that gives me pause to think about it. It’s emotion. Men are people, human beings, just like women… and loving women is ‘right’…
I get lost for a while in thought, about the concept of men and women and emotion and feeling. I won’t admit to suddenly being a-okay with the idea of being with a man either emotionally (but then, I already have feelings for Jared… why else would I worry about hurting him… care about him the way-to the extent-that I do?) or physically, but I think I’ve reached a mental point where I’m accepting of the concept. Accepting of the fact that I do care about the man sitting next to me on the sofa… almost accepting of the fact that I (admittedly) sometimes think of what it might be like… to be at ease with him putting his arm around me… to be able to put my arm around him in return… to touch him, to let him touch me.
“Just dreams.” I whisper, breaking the silence. “Just dreams.”
“Dreams, but they still hurt you.” Jared comments lightly. He knows.
“Just your mom...”
“Your subconscious.” He counters.
“…just that I don’t know what’s happened to you… that I’ll hurt you.” I sigh. “They’re nightmares… they’re dark and cold and shadowy. Like nightmares.” I can’t think of a good way to describe them. They’re more than just his mom telling me I’m not good enough, that I’ll hurt him.
He swallows. “If you… think it would help… or if… you really want to know… I’ll…” He looks at me. “I’ll tell you.”
I can see in his eyes he doesn’t really want to, that it won’t be easy for him. “You don’t have to.” I say quickly. I want to give him an out, don’t want him to feel like he has to tell me. Though I’d like it if he did-I do want to know what happened to him, and I’m sure it happened when he was in high school, had something to do with that Rebecca Ann Taylor girl he mentioned yesterday.
He raises an eyebrow at me.
“I’d like… for you to tell me.” It’s just putting words to what he already knows. I’m glad I took the Xanax. I’m still scared, and I still have no idea what I’m doing, what I’m thinking, what I’m saying… I’m afraid and I’m panicking, but I’m not exhibiting any of the signs-I’m not shaking and I don’t feel like I’m going to vomit-always a plus. I feel like I might cry, which is ridiculous. I’m scared. I can’t get past that feeling of fear.
And I want physical contact, and not in the sexual way. The idea of calling Luanne doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest. I want more than sex… I want something gentle. And I can’t remember the last time I wanted that. I’m so far out of my element right now.
“I can’t, Jared…” I stand up and run my fingers through my hair. I need a shower, I need to go to the gym. I need to get my head screwed on straight before I do anything else. “I can’t do this… not right now.”
He nods, seems more confused than hurt.
“I…” I sigh, shift my weight from left to right foot, balance unevenly and rest my hands on my hips, look down at the carpet. “I gotta get out of here…”
“Stir-crazy.” Jared says. “Me, too. Been cooped up too long.”
I think he’s right. I’ve spent the last couple of days inside my apartment without any fresh air, without any exercise, no contact with the outside world. I need something.
“I just...” I start walking away from the couch. “I’m gonna head to the gym… I just… I gotta… do something.”
Jared nods. “I’ll...”
“You’ll stay here and rest. And hope your fever goes down so I don’t drag your ass to the hospital.” I tell him.
He smiles and yawns widely, reaches to cover his mouth with one hand. “I am kinda tired.”
I disappear out the front door, leave Jared to his own devices. I’m sure he’ll be okay-he’ll sleep, and hopefully his fever will break, and he won’t be coughing so much. I don’t want to have to take him back to the hospital, but if his fever doesn’t go down soon I will-I’m worried, maybe without reason, but regardless.
The air outside is crisp and cold, and I drive with the windows open. It feels good. My workout goes quickly, almost too quickly, and as I drive back home, I roll the windows up, not wanting the cold air to spoil the burn I feel deep in my muscles, the slow ache I crave, don’t want to be too stiff in the morning. I stop and buy Chinese food on a whim for dinner-enough to feed an army, but then, anyone worth their salt knows you can stuff yourself on Chinese food, and then an hour later, be hungry again.
I stretch my legs as I get out of the car, crack my neck and back, roll my shoulders. I stretched after the workout at the gym, but I put in a rough day-really pushed myself. I needed it. To clear my head. I feel like a million bucks.
Jared’s channel surfing when I walk back in the front door, nursing a pedialyte. He follows me into the kitchen when he smells the food, hovers over my shoulder, watching as I take every cardboard container from the bag, as well as the plastic quart of chicken rice soup.
“Hungry?” Jared asks, reaching over my shoulder and pushing slightly to grab the soup and one of the cardboard boxes.
“That’s sweet & sour chicken.” I tell him, nodding at the box he holds.
He wrinkles his nose. “What else you get?”
I line up food. “Dumplings… General Tso’s… Chicken Chow Mein… Vegetable Fried Rice…” I turn to him. “…the sweet & sour chicken… and the soup you’re holding.” I definitely went overboard, but I was hungry, and couldn’t decide what I wanted.
Jared takes the veggie fried rice, half the container of soup, and a dumpling, which he eats in two bites on his way back to the living room. I settle on a little bit of everything dished onto a plate, eat the rest of the soup straight from the container. I follow him to the living room, flop down on the couch next to Jared.
We eat in blessed silence, watch some horrible movie on the Sci-Fi channel, and by nine, we’re full, half-eaten Chinese on the table in front of us, the rest of the untouched food in the refrigerator for tomorrow. Jared sips at the pedialyte still, seems in better spirits and in better health. He lets me take his temperature, and it’s almost ‘normal’ again, below a hundred, and his skin is merely warm, not hot.
“I was sixteen.” Jared says suddenly. “Rebecca-Becky-was beautiful… she was smart and popular, and for a while it was enough just to be seen with her. We got along as friends-it was never anything more.”
“Jared…” I turn to him. “Jare… you don’t have to…”
“I want to… I haven’t told anyone. Not even my mom… I mean… she knows...” He shrugs, pauses a minute, says casually, “…she knows, but… she doesn’t… know. It’s about time I talked about it.”
I never realized he’d never told anyone. It makes me feel good, that he trusts me enough to tell me… makes me feel special. It also makes me incredibly nervous, almost uncomfortable, that I’m the person he’s choosing to share this-this something that almost certainly has hurt him, helped shape him-with first, before anyone else. “Jare…”
“I was sixteen.” He repeats. “Becky and I were friends… she was… she was in classes with me, and I think we always got along, though we never really talked outside of school until one day I saw her with my brother. She wasn’t dating him… but I think he wanted her to. She was pretty and popular and on the cheerleading squad-just the type he’d go for, being a jock and all… But she was smart too, and when he brought her around, she and I got to talking… She was my first girlfriend.”
“I thought…” He’d said they were friends earlier-nothing more.
“So to speak.” He amends. “We dated-meaning, we went to the movies and to get ice cream together. We’d show up at school functions together, and if I were at a football game to watch my brother, she’d wave to me from the field, and we’d hang out afterwards. We never kissed, never… really did any of that. I thought she was pretty enough, and I really liked her, but… it never clicked like that for us-me, or her either.”
He’s leaning against the back of the couch, staring at his hands, which play idly with the wrapper of a straw that came with the Chinese food. I curl one leg beneath me, turn slightly towards him and turn the television off with the click of a button on the remote. There’s enough light, cast by the parking lot lights outside and the faint glimmer of a light left on in the kitchen, so I settle into the sofa, get comfortable and don’t turn on the lamp behind me.
“So... for a year it was like that. And… we’d talked about… homosexuality and… just… people being people. We both believed that it wasn’t a matter of gender, just of feeling, and for the first time I really felt like someone understood me …”
He’s tearing at the paper now, ripping little pieces off and working them into tiny balls between the pads of his fingers before dropping them into his lap.
“I think though… the peer pressure was getting to her. She told me that… she heard from friends about sex…” He breaks off. “It’s all unimportant… really. We… kept seeing each other-for me it was appearances, for her … I’m not sure what it was for her anymore. We… we kissed in public when it was… expected. Held hands… went on double dates and such…But it was never… never anything serious and never anything really… behind the façade.” He swallows a few sips of pedialyte. “Anyway… my senior year… I was seventeen then… I met a guy-somebody I really… felt for. Ryan Kirkland.”
“Jare…” I’m not sure where this is going, but I’ve got a feeling it’s nowhere good. He’s lightly rubbing at the shirt covering his left forearm with his right hand, cupped around it and sliding up and down mere inches, like he’s rubbing an old scar, soothing an old ache that hurts with the weather. He’s staring off past me, into the darkness, remembering, and his knees come up to his chest, arms wrap around them and his feet rest on the couch. He keeps rubbing at his arm.
“He was… older. He was in college. Smart and funny and…” He laughs a little, smiles a tight-lipped smile and blushes dark red. “…really hot… really… hot.”
I smile back at him, and suddenly its like he’s not there. He’s staring off into space, unseeing, lost in memories, and there’s a haze of pain and unshed tears in his eyes. “Jare…” I whisper gently, reaching out to him, cupping my hand around the muscular curve of his shoulder.
He shudders, blinks, and looks at me. “Huh? Oh…” He shakes his head and brings thumb and forefinger to his eyes, rubbing. I don’t miss the moisture that slicks and shines his fingertips as he lowers his hand on finishing. “Sorry… just...” He smiles. “Got lost there a minute.”
I tighten my hand on his shoulder. “Jare…”
He just looks so lost, so hurt by his memories, by what happened to him years ago, that my heart goes out to him, and I want to hold him, want to tell him everything is going to be okay even though I don’t know for sure. He’s rocking back and forth-not enough where I can see it, but I can feel it under my hand, the way his body moves. “Jare…” I repeat his name.
He squeezes his eyes closed and shakes his head again. When he re-opens his eyes, there’s not a hint of the earlier hurt-he’s turned down the curtains, shuttered himself, shielded himself. He takes a deep breath, the shaking ceases, and he looks at me. “He was hot.”
“So you said.” I say, unable to keep the question and the concern and the confusion from my voice.
He doesn’t seem to notice.
“So… he was into me. Seemed…” He amends. “Seemed. Into me. And...” Another deep breath. “…so we started dating… and Becky knew. She was happy for us…”
He thinks for a minute, blushes. “We uh… He…”
“Just say it, Jared.” I tell him with a grin. I have an idea I know what’s coming. It feels like I’m back in high school and I’m hearing about first times and experiences and it’s enough to calm the fluttering in my stomach and the nerves that bunch the muscles in my back and shoulders.
He blushes darker. “He uh… he kissed me… I’d… I’d touched guys before… I’d… had feelings and thoughts… but… he was the first to really… show me anything… he… he taught me about…” he looks at me and something flickers across his face.
“It’s okay, Jare.” I know it’s nerves, about discussing anything homosexual around me. “I want to hear it.” I do.
“…about male… relations.” He stutters, and when I don’t make a face or react badly, he smiles, continues. “He… was incredible. His lips were… so soft and… he knew how to kiss me… just so… you know? …and he gave me my first hand job… so slow and so gentle-a hand job because I was nervous about anything more… cold feet as it were… we … experimented with toys… and … I let him…” He shakes his head and stops talking.
“What?” I ask, and I’m surprising myself-I really do want to hear this. He seems truly relaxed talking about this-truly happy, even-and I wonder what bad things could have possibly come from any of this.
“We… tried alternative things.” He turns away and flushes hot pink.
“Oh.”
“Yeah…” He takes a sip of pedialyte, fiddles with the cap before continuing, the color slowly fading from his cheeks. “Things… were good. We went together for a while… I thought... that maybe I was in love… that maybe… we were in love.
And with that, just then, all detail disappeared from the story, all emotion disappeared from his voice. It became little more than words for him.
“It didn’t take long for things to get bad. Becky told one of her friends… maybe she thought she could trust her… and Ryan was a friend of hers. Becky told me later… when she said she was sorry-the last time we ever talked-that her friend knew about Ryan, knew he was gay… I guess that’s why she thought she could trust her friend. But… I guess her friend talked to Ryan and talked to some other people… I don’t know what was said… who she told or what happened… I suppose it doesn’t really matter, not now.”
He’s probably right. It’s all in the past, and nothing I can say or do will change it, but I can’t help but feel it does matter, in some way. Maybe it just matters that he’s telling me, that he’s finally telling someone… maybe it just matters to me, to know what’s happened to my friend, my co-star… what happened to him to put such a hurt in his eyes, to age him beyond his twenty-three years.
He swallows quickly, shrugs. “I guess… the word got out to some of the wrong people… or who they wanted it to. I don’t know. But… the name calling started-faget, cocksucker… probably some others I can’t think of now. All the names you’d think of, and some you wouldn’t. The night of my senior prom-I went with Becky-that’s when the shit hit the fan… she’d… I don’t know. I don’t think she knew what was going to happen, but I could see it in her eyes that when it did… when everything went down with her friend… she felt guilty. Maybe it’s why she came to apologize.” He shrugs. “She didn’t do much but tell her friend… maybe it was enough to make her feel guilty. It’d have been more than enough for me.”
“Oh…” It’s a strangled gasp from my mouth, I’m sure he doesn’t hear it-I barely hear it myself. I mouth his name-my lips form the word-but no sound comes out.
He doesn’t say anything for a long while.
It’s horrible that he had to go through that. I suppose it could have been worse though… thinking about it though… for a child who had probably seen it through grade school with teasing and name calling, just for being different… What he said at the end about guilt-that made me think that maybe there was more, but he seems to have stopped telling the story. He shrugs again.
“I’m sorry, Jared.” I offer finally, after enough time has elapsed that I’m relatively certain that the story’s over, that he’s done talking.
He’s not looking at me, though. He’s staring off into the distance and he’s again rubbing at his arm. I’m not sure if he even knows he’s doing it. Suddenly, he does look at me.
“They… well… her friend. Had friends.” He sighs. I look at him expectantly, and he nods once, then looks away, and speaks quietly, like it doesn’t mean anything to him-though I know it does. He just manages to somehow sound completely detached, and though the words refer to him, it sounds like he’s talking about someone else. “They put me in the hospital for a week.”
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Characters/Pairing: Jensen Ackles / Jared Padalecki; Jensen Ackles / Luanne (OFC); stated Jared/Sandy; stated Jared/Rebecca (OFC) and stated Jared/Ryan (OMC)
POV: Jensen Ackles
Author's Notes: It’s fiction. That means it’s not real, folks. Jensen and Jared are real people. So is Eric Kripke. The show “Supernatural” is a real TV show on the WB11. If anything else in this is real, I wasn’t aware of it.
I'm not going to say when or if the next chapter will be posted...
I just now (after twenty-five chapters and nearly 60,000 words) admitted to even writing this. Yes, I am responsible for this epic debacle!
But really, it took on a mind/life of it's own... So... read at your own risk. I would enjoy feedback, but I'll understand if you don't want to start reading a WIP with no end in sight or in the works. I really have no idea what's coming next here.
Summary: Jared’s girl (Sandra) breaks up with him. Jensen tries to help. Things go (rapidly) downhill from there…then fester… then get better?
*Holds out handbasket if you'd like to join us. It's getting cozy in here*
Spoilers: Nothing to see here, folks...
-------------------------
Chapter Thirty: Conversations Pt. 2: Storytelling
Rating: light R for emotional segments, general discussion of m/m sexual activity, adult content
Pairing: before Jensen/Jared, there was Jared/Rebecca. And Jared/Ryan.
Word Count: 3,299
Chapter Thirty: Conversations Pt. 2: Revelations
I wake up, breathing hard and heavy. Jared’s eyeing me with an odd expression, peeking out from over the top of his book, seemingly in the midst of turning a page. “Nightmare?” He asks.
I nod dumbly, push myself up into a sitting position, legs sliding across the couch, stretched out in front of me. I reach for the water on the coffee table and down half the bottle before putting it down and taking a breath.
“Want to talk about them?” Jared marks his page, closes the book and lays it in his lap. He looks at me expectantly.
“Not particularly.”
“Too bad.” He says. “Talk.”
I glower at him, but I know he’s right. I’m sure he knows they’re related-directly so-to the panic attacks, and therefore, to my feelings for him and all I’ve been thinking about (or not thinking about, as the case may be) lately.
“Same as always.” I keep my voice even. It still sounds hollow and calm in a way, thanks to the drugs. “Your mom… telling me I’ll hurt you… reminding me I don’t know everything about you…” And it strikes me then that not once in my dreams have I thought that what I (might) feel for him is wrong.
My dreams are focused on hurting Jared-granted, as a result of me thinking that it’s wrong, and fear of not being able to be what he needs or give him what he needs, but it’s not directly the thought that the emotions themselves are wrong that drives the nightmares, and that gives me pause to think about it. It’s emotion. Men are people, human beings, just like women… and loving women is ‘right’…
I get lost for a while in thought, about the concept of men and women and emotion and feeling. I won’t admit to suddenly being a-okay with the idea of being with a man either emotionally (but then, I already have feelings for Jared… why else would I worry about hurting him… care about him the way-to the extent-that I do?) or physically, but I think I’ve reached a mental point where I’m accepting of the concept. Accepting of the fact that I do care about the man sitting next to me on the sofa… almost accepting of the fact that I (admittedly) sometimes think of what it might be like… to be at ease with him putting his arm around me… to be able to put my arm around him in return… to touch him, to let him touch me.
“Just dreams.” I whisper, breaking the silence. “Just dreams.”
“Dreams, but they still hurt you.” Jared comments lightly. He knows.
“Just your mom...”
“Your subconscious.” He counters.
“…just that I don’t know what’s happened to you… that I’ll hurt you.” I sigh. “They’re nightmares… they’re dark and cold and shadowy. Like nightmares.” I can’t think of a good way to describe them. They’re more than just his mom telling me I’m not good enough, that I’ll hurt him.
He swallows. “If you… think it would help… or if… you really want to know… I’ll…” He looks at me. “I’ll tell you.”
I can see in his eyes he doesn’t really want to, that it won’t be easy for him. “You don’t have to.” I say quickly. I want to give him an out, don’t want him to feel like he has to tell me. Though I’d like it if he did-I do want to know what happened to him, and I’m sure it happened when he was in high school, had something to do with that Rebecca Ann Taylor girl he mentioned yesterday.
He raises an eyebrow at me.
“I’d like… for you to tell me.” It’s just putting words to what he already knows. I’m glad I took the Xanax. I’m still scared, and I still have no idea what I’m doing, what I’m thinking, what I’m saying… I’m afraid and I’m panicking, but I’m not exhibiting any of the signs-I’m not shaking and I don’t feel like I’m going to vomit-always a plus. I feel like I might cry, which is ridiculous. I’m scared. I can’t get past that feeling of fear.
And I want physical contact, and not in the sexual way. The idea of calling Luanne doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest. I want more than sex… I want something gentle. And I can’t remember the last time I wanted that. I’m so far out of my element right now.
“I can’t, Jared…” I stand up and run my fingers through my hair. I need a shower, I need to go to the gym. I need to get my head screwed on straight before I do anything else. “I can’t do this… not right now.”
He nods, seems more confused than hurt.
“I…” I sigh, shift my weight from left to right foot, balance unevenly and rest my hands on my hips, look down at the carpet. “I gotta get out of here…”
“Stir-crazy.” Jared says. “Me, too. Been cooped up too long.”
I think he’s right. I’ve spent the last couple of days inside my apartment without any fresh air, without any exercise, no contact with the outside world. I need something.
“I just...” I start walking away from the couch. “I’m gonna head to the gym… I just… I gotta… do something.”
Jared nods. “I’ll...”
“You’ll stay here and rest. And hope your fever goes down so I don’t drag your ass to the hospital.” I tell him.
He smiles and yawns widely, reaches to cover his mouth with one hand. “I am kinda tired.”
I disappear out the front door, leave Jared to his own devices. I’m sure he’ll be okay-he’ll sleep, and hopefully his fever will break, and he won’t be coughing so much. I don’t want to have to take him back to the hospital, but if his fever doesn’t go down soon I will-I’m worried, maybe without reason, but regardless.
The air outside is crisp and cold, and I drive with the windows open. It feels good. My workout goes quickly, almost too quickly, and as I drive back home, I roll the windows up, not wanting the cold air to spoil the burn I feel deep in my muscles, the slow ache I crave, don’t want to be too stiff in the morning. I stop and buy Chinese food on a whim for dinner-enough to feed an army, but then, anyone worth their salt knows you can stuff yourself on Chinese food, and then an hour later, be hungry again.
I stretch my legs as I get out of the car, crack my neck and back, roll my shoulders. I stretched after the workout at the gym, but I put in a rough day-really pushed myself. I needed it. To clear my head. I feel like a million bucks.
Jared’s channel surfing when I walk back in the front door, nursing a pedialyte. He follows me into the kitchen when he smells the food, hovers over my shoulder, watching as I take every cardboard container from the bag, as well as the plastic quart of chicken rice soup.
“Hungry?” Jared asks, reaching over my shoulder and pushing slightly to grab the soup and one of the cardboard boxes.
“That’s sweet & sour chicken.” I tell him, nodding at the box he holds.
He wrinkles his nose. “What else you get?”
I line up food. “Dumplings… General Tso’s… Chicken Chow Mein… Vegetable Fried Rice…” I turn to him. “…the sweet & sour chicken… and the soup you’re holding.” I definitely went overboard, but I was hungry, and couldn’t decide what I wanted.
Jared takes the veggie fried rice, half the container of soup, and a dumpling, which he eats in two bites on his way back to the living room. I settle on a little bit of everything dished onto a plate, eat the rest of the soup straight from the container. I follow him to the living room, flop down on the couch next to Jared.
We eat in blessed silence, watch some horrible movie on the Sci-Fi channel, and by nine, we’re full, half-eaten Chinese on the table in front of us, the rest of the untouched food in the refrigerator for tomorrow. Jared sips at the pedialyte still, seems in better spirits and in better health. He lets me take his temperature, and it’s almost ‘normal’ again, below a hundred, and his skin is merely warm, not hot.
“I was sixteen.” Jared says suddenly. “Rebecca-Becky-was beautiful… she was smart and popular, and for a while it was enough just to be seen with her. We got along as friends-it was never anything more.”
“Jared…” I turn to him. “Jare… you don’t have to…”
“I want to… I haven’t told anyone. Not even my mom… I mean… she knows...” He shrugs, pauses a minute, says casually, “…she knows, but… she doesn’t… know. It’s about time I talked about it.”
I never realized he’d never told anyone. It makes me feel good, that he trusts me enough to tell me… makes me feel special. It also makes me incredibly nervous, almost uncomfortable, that I’m the person he’s choosing to share this-this something that almost certainly has hurt him, helped shape him-with first, before anyone else. “Jare…”
“I was sixteen.” He repeats. “Becky and I were friends… she was… she was in classes with me, and I think we always got along, though we never really talked outside of school until one day I saw her with my brother. She wasn’t dating him… but I think he wanted her to. She was pretty and popular and on the cheerleading squad-just the type he’d go for, being a jock and all… But she was smart too, and when he brought her around, she and I got to talking… She was my first girlfriend.”
“I thought…” He’d said they were friends earlier-nothing more.
“So to speak.” He amends. “We dated-meaning, we went to the movies and to get ice cream together. We’d show up at school functions together, and if I were at a football game to watch my brother, she’d wave to me from the field, and we’d hang out afterwards. We never kissed, never… really did any of that. I thought she was pretty enough, and I really liked her, but… it never clicked like that for us-me, or her either.”
He’s leaning against the back of the couch, staring at his hands, which play idly with the wrapper of a straw that came with the Chinese food. I curl one leg beneath me, turn slightly towards him and turn the television off with the click of a button on the remote. There’s enough light, cast by the parking lot lights outside and the faint glimmer of a light left on in the kitchen, so I settle into the sofa, get comfortable and don’t turn on the lamp behind me.
“So... for a year it was like that. And… we’d talked about… homosexuality and… just… people being people. We both believed that it wasn’t a matter of gender, just of feeling, and for the first time I really felt like someone understood me …”
He’s tearing at the paper now, ripping little pieces off and working them into tiny balls between the pads of his fingers before dropping them into his lap.
“I think though… the peer pressure was getting to her. She told me that… she heard from friends about sex…” He breaks off. “It’s all unimportant… really. We… kept seeing each other-for me it was appearances, for her … I’m not sure what it was for her anymore. We… we kissed in public when it was… expected. Held hands… went on double dates and such…But it was never… never anything serious and never anything really… behind the façade.” He swallows a few sips of pedialyte. “Anyway… my senior year… I was seventeen then… I met a guy-somebody I really… felt for. Ryan Kirkland.”
“Jare…” I’m not sure where this is going, but I’ve got a feeling it’s nowhere good. He’s lightly rubbing at the shirt covering his left forearm with his right hand, cupped around it and sliding up and down mere inches, like he’s rubbing an old scar, soothing an old ache that hurts with the weather. He’s staring off past me, into the darkness, remembering, and his knees come up to his chest, arms wrap around them and his feet rest on the couch. He keeps rubbing at his arm.
“He was… older. He was in college. Smart and funny and…” He laughs a little, smiles a tight-lipped smile and blushes dark red. “…really hot… really… hot.”
I smile back at him, and suddenly its like he’s not there. He’s staring off into space, unseeing, lost in memories, and there’s a haze of pain and unshed tears in his eyes. “Jare…” I whisper gently, reaching out to him, cupping my hand around the muscular curve of his shoulder.
He shudders, blinks, and looks at me. “Huh? Oh…” He shakes his head and brings thumb and forefinger to his eyes, rubbing. I don’t miss the moisture that slicks and shines his fingertips as he lowers his hand on finishing. “Sorry… just...” He smiles. “Got lost there a minute.”
I tighten my hand on his shoulder. “Jare…”
He just looks so lost, so hurt by his memories, by what happened to him years ago, that my heart goes out to him, and I want to hold him, want to tell him everything is going to be okay even though I don’t know for sure. He’s rocking back and forth-not enough where I can see it, but I can feel it under my hand, the way his body moves. “Jare…” I repeat his name.
He squeezes his eyes closed and shakes his head again. When he re-opens his eyes, there’s not a hint of the earlier hurt-he’s turned down the curtains, shuttered himself, shielded himself. He takes a deep breath, the shaking ceases, and he looks at me. “He was hot.”
“So you said.” I say, unable to keep the question and the concern and the confusion from my voice.
He doesn’t seem to notice.
“So… he was into me. Seemed…” He amends. “Seemed. Into me. And...” Another deep breath. “…so we started dating… and Becky knew. She was happy for us…”
He thinks for a minute, blushes. “We uh… He…”
“Just say it, Jared.” I tell him with a grin. I have an idea I know what’s coming. It feels like I’m back in high school and I’m hearing about first times and experiences and it’s enough to calm the fluttering in my stomach and the nerves that bunch the muscles in my back and shoulders.
He blushes darker. “He uh… he kissed me… I’d… I’d touched guys before… I’d… had feelings and thoughts… but… he was the first to really… show me anything… he… he taught me about…” he looks at me and something flickers across his face.
“It’s okay, Jare.” I know it’s nerves, about discussing anything homosexual around me. “I want to hear it.” I do.
“…about male… relations.” He stutters, and when I don’t make a face or react badly, he smiles, continues. “He… was incredible. His lips were… so soft and… he knew how to kiss me… just so… you know? …and he gave me my first hand job… so slow and so gentle-a hand job because I was nervous about anything more… cold feet as it were… we … experimented with toys… and … I let him…” He shakes his head and stops talking.
“What?” I ask, and I’m surprising myself-I really do want to hear this. He seems truly relaxed talking about this-truly happy, even-and I wonder what bad things could have possibly come from any of this.
“We… tried alternative things.” He turns away and flushes hot pink.
“Oh.”
“Yeah…” He takes a sip of pedialyte, fiddles with the cap before continuing, the color slowly fading from his cheeks. “Things… were good. We went together for a while… I thought... that maybe I was in love… that maybe… we were in love.
And with that, just then, all detail disappeared from the story, all emotion disappeared from his voice. It became little more than words for him.
“It didn’t take long for things to get bad. Becky told one of her friends… maybe she thought she could trust her… and Ryan was a friend of hers. Becky told me later… when she said she was sorry-the last time we ever talked-that her friend knew about Ryan, knew he was gay… I guess that’s why she thought she could trust her friend. But… I guess her friend talked to Ryan and talked to some other people… I don’t know what was said… who she told or what happened… I suppose it doesn’t really matter, not now.”
He’s probably right. It’s all in the past, and nothing I can say or do will change it, but I can’t help but feel it does matter, in some way. Maybe it just matters that he’s telling me, that he’s finally telling someone… maybe it just matters to me, to know what’s happened to my friend, my co-star… what happened to him to put such a hurt in his eyes, to age him beyond his twenty-three years.
He swallows quickly, shrugs. “I guess… the word got out to some of the wrong people… or who they wanted it to. I don’t know. But… the name calling started-faget, cocksucker… probably some others I can’t think of now. All the names you’d think of, and some you wouldn’t. The night of my senior prom-I went with Becky-that’s when the shit hit the fan… she’d… I don’t know. I don’t think she knew what was going to happen, but I could see it in her eyes that when it did… when everything went down with her friend… she felt guilty. Maybe it’s why she came to apologize.” He shrugs. “She didn’t do much but tell her friend… maybe it was enough to make her feel guilty. It’d have been more than enough for me.”
“Oh…” It’s a strangled gasp from my mouth, I’m sure he doesn’t hear it-I barely hear it myself. I mouth his name-my lips form the word-but no sound comes out.
He doesn’t say anything for a long while.
It’s horrible that he had to go through that. I suppose it could have been worse though… thinking about it though… for a child who had probably seen it through grade school with teasing and name calling, just for being different… What he said at the end about guilt-that made me think that maybe there was more, but he seems to have stopped telling the story. He shrugs again.
“I’m sorry, Jared.” I offer finally, after enough time has elapsed that I’m relatively certain that the story’s over, that he’s done talking.
He’s not looking at me, though. He’s staring off into the distance and he’s again rubbing at his arm. I’m not sure if he even knows he’s doing it. Suddenly, he does look at me.
“They… well… her friend. Had friends.” He sighs. I look at him expectantly, and he nods once, then looks away, and speaks quietly, like it doesn’t mean anything to him-though I know it does. He just manages to somehow sound completely detached, and though the words refer to him, it sounds like he’s talking about someone else. “They put me in the hospital for a week.”
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