LOML

It was mid-July of our last summer vacation, where the weekdays blend into weekends without the punctuation of early alarms and class period bells that we would never hear again. I was off to college in the fall, a state school two hour’s train ride away from our town. You were taking a gap year.

The days we had been spending together all of lives felt scarce all of a sudden. A yearning had taken a grip on me the closer we got to graduation, an impending feeling that I was going to miss you forever. It wasn’t realistic, I knew, high school friends easily stayed in touch, but the feeling was desperate and relentless.

It was a Wednesday, I think. We laid in the field next to your house, green grass swaying in rhythm with the clouds above us. You took out one of your earbuds and put it in my ear.

I listened intently to the lyrics, ready to cling to them like I did every word you spoke. Searching, desperately, for any sign that this heart-racing, head-spinning, rib-crushing feeling that was taking over me wasn’t one-sided. I hear the lyrics “I want you,” and try to look at you without turning my head.

Out of the corner of my eye I see the outline of your face, your nose you broke in seventh grade and the beginnings of a beard that fits you so well it’s hard to remember what you looked like before it. Your eyes are closed like you’re dreaming. I wonder if you’re dreaming of me.

I still dream of you now, ten summers later.

You were going steady with Katie Long that summer, had been since homecoming the year before. You made a picture perfect couple on her Instagram, but there was no trace of her on yours. You fought about it, along with the million other things you did that drove poor Katie insane. Her friends told her you were no good for her. They were right. Every time your phone lit up with her name, I hoped this would be the time she told you she was listening to them.

I asked you why you didn’t just break up her if you didn’t like her. You never gave me an answer. Sometimes a shrug, sometimes a sigh, sometimes an eye roll. But you would never put it into words like I wished you would.

But I couldn’t hold it against you that you couldn’t say it. I couldn’t say it either.

I was in the passenger side of your car as we rode the highway, windows open tousling our hair so we could barely make out the song on the radio. You turn to me and grin. My heart jumped in that way that twists your stomach at the same time. You reached across the gears and turned the dial up, joining in loudly. I remember looking out the window, watching the trees and the fields and the streams roll by, wishing it could always be like this.

But if I was honest with myself, which I can be now, I didn’t want things to stay like that. The electricity between us was tentative, delicate. I wanted to seize hold of it and let it course through my body, let it intertwine with my blood and veins, carve itself into my bone and linger, if only just a little bit, forever.

We were out of town and down the highway. You pointed out every cow you saw, something your parents made fun of you for, but I could only laugh. I wondered if you did the same thing when you were in the car with Katie. Somehow I didn’t think so.

The sun was dipping behind the horizon when we shut the car doors and headed towards the pier. Golden orange light painted the tops of the rolling waves while seagulls cried over our heads. Salt spray dampened our cheeks as we walked the old pier. We stop at the end and you pull an old piece of bread out of your pocket, and I can’t help but laugh wondering how long it’s been in there, and how you’ll ever get the crumbs out. With a grin, you start tearing off chunks and tossing them over the edge of the pier. We watch as fish scramble to the surface to grab it.

The silence between us was warm in my chest, even my secret feelings unable to make it fraught. The sky was growing darker and the moon was rising overhead, pulling the waves towards the shore, crashing beneath our dangling feet.

“Hey,” you say suddenly turning to me, a look in your eyes I had never seen before, “Can I kiss you?”

I wanted it so badly I might have died if you didn’t. But I couldn’t form words, and only nodded.

You kept your eyes open until the very last second, watching me intently. I remember the way your fingers brushed my cheek as you leaned in, the way your freckles got clearer the closer you got. The moment your lips touched mine, I knew I would be in love with you for the rest of my life.

The kiss started out gentle, curious. We lingered with our faces close, neither one wanting to be the first to pull away. But then you took my face in your hands and kissed me again, for real, like you meant it, with a desperation like you had been wanting to kiss me for years. I kissed you back with the same fire, and the knowledge that after that night I may never kiss you again.

We drove back to your house and kissed again in your driveway. Your hands were warm on body, touching my back and moving over my chest.

We went inside without speaking. We’d been staying at each other’s houses for years, and your parents never woke when you turned your key in the door. You shut it and locked it behind us, then your fingers found mind and you led me down the hall. My heart didn’t know whether to stop or burst.

You kept the light on in the bedroom, tugging your shirt off first then reaching for mine. Your lips found my neck for the first time and I swear, I almost died. We collapsed onto the bed, kissing and touching and sighing, maybe ready for more but maybe not. I had wanted you for so long, I didn’t care what happened next—that would have been enough.

With your lips still on mine, your fingers fumbled the button of my jeans. You finally got it undone when the door creaked open.

Your door stood in the doorway with a look on his face I had never seen before. His skin was flushed and his eyes were dark with rage.

“Get out of my house,” he growled, clenching his fists, “And stay away from my boy, you fucking faggot.”

I didn’t wait to hear what came next. I ran out of your house, barefoot and shirtless into the night. I kept running until I was at least a mile away. Finally I looked behind me. There was no one following me. It was after midnight, I was sure, the only sound in the air the steady hum of insects chirping, all the houses on the street gone dark. I leaned into some bushes and retched. And then, I walked. There was nothing else to do.

It wasn’t until I was curled shaking in my bed that I finally let myself cry.

I’d like to be able to say that I woke up to a text from you. Or that you called three days later. What actually happened is that I never saw you again. I can’t count the number of times I pulled up our old messages, hoping to see those familiar dancing dots that meant you were thinking of me.

But our last conversation was two days ago, then a week, then a month. And then I was a freshman in college, kissing other guys and wishing they tasted like you. You unfollowed me on Instagram, and I did the same so as not to seem weird or desperate. But I was. It took almost a year to train my heart not to race when my phone vibrated, hoping it was you.

But I did.

By the time I graduated, I almost had it trained well enough not to be disappointed you weren’t there in crowd.

Almost.

Life went on. That summer night in 2015 was my first step in learning that it always does. There will always be other jobs, other friends, other partners. I can’t honestly say I ever fell in love with any of the men that came after you, but I’ve come close and I suppose that’s good enough.

It kind of has to be, doesn’t it?

It’s been a good six months since I looked you up on Instagram. Long enough that my phone doesn’t autofill your handle in the search bar tonight. The tiny squares on your profile load, and just like every time, it takes my breath away.

Your gap year never really ended and you never made it to university, but your talent shines through without it. I tap on a black and white portrait of a man with a waterfall of braids cascading down his back, and I wonder if you’ve ever touched him like you touched me. If after that night you went back to kissing girls, if it was just curiosity or a one-off chance you decided to take. If you’re gay like me, they used to say that it would get better. For the most part, it actually did.

Maybe you’re out and comfortable now. Maybe you’re in the closet. Or maybe you were attracted to me and Katie that summer, and can find comfort with a man or a woman.

I don’t know how things ended with Katie, but she survived you unscathed, beaming in her photos with a house on the lake and a diamond glimmering on her finger.

And judging from your smile in a rare self-portrait, it seems it was only my heart that got broken. I zoom in on your slightly crooked nose and the crinkling lines around your eyes, but stop myself before I find constellations in the freckles on your cheeks.

I put the phone face-down on the night stand. This kind of thinking is never helpful, never the catharsis the therapist I saw in college urged me toward. I flip my pillow to the cold side and try to close my eyes. Behind them, I see you ten summers ago, golden light catching in your split ends like a halo. The echoes of your laughter ring in my ears, your off-key singing. It’s been ten years, maybe in another ten I’ll have forgotten your favorite color and your birthday.

But tonight, you haunt me.

My phone vibrates and clatters to the floor. I sit up suddenly, then slowly lay back down. I’ll leave it there until morning.