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“How did they leave things? In the journal?”
“I don’t know. Hold on. Let me get it out.” I slid my backpack over from where I’d left it on the counter. I pulled the envelope and the journal free. “I haven’t read all of this stuff yet.” I flipped to the end of the book.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. It just seems so sad. With Bobby, and AIDS, and…everything else. I guess I’m tired of thinking of gay men being sad.”
“I know. Me too.”
I skimmed from the end of the journal back toward the beginning, looking for mention of Harold. George called him “H” and was surprisingly honest about their relationship. What if his wife had found this? I supposed the fallout couldn’t have been worse than what had actually happened to him.
Maybe it would have been better if he’d been caught. Maybe he would have left his wife, or she’d have told him to go, and he could have spent his years with Harold instead of…
I shook the thought away.
Coming to the last entry that mentioned “H,” I grimaced. “They fought. That’s how they left it, I think.”
Daniel sighed. “What did they fight about?”
I read the entry to him. “‘H and I fought last night. I think it is finally over with him now. He asked me to divorce Beth and move in with him. He’s asked this of me many times, but I told him, once and for all, to stop asking. It won’t happen. I won’t leave Beth. H says it’s her or him, and I choose her.’”
“Wow.”
“He goes on to say, ‘It breaks my heart to the point I feel like death has already snatched my soul, but I won’t turn my back on my family. I’ll have to turn my back on H instead.’”
Daniel made a sad noise.
“Yeah.” I sighed, rubbing my eyes. I needed to take out my contacts and put on my glasses. They were feeling gritty. “Plus, if I reached out to Harold, I’d have to tell my mom about him. Especially if I met him, right? What if it upsets her so much that she goes back to Valium?”
“Take it from me, you can’t protect her from her worst self. Only she can do that.”
“I know.” We were silent together a few moments.
“Speaking of our worst selves…” Daniel ventured.
“Yeah?”
“What I said last night when we were…”
My heart twisted. “Don’t take it back.”
“It wasn’t right,” Daniel said urgently. “I need you to understand that wanting something doesn’t mean I need it from you. It’s just a fantasy I have. That’s all.”
“It’s all right,” I said, my throat thick. “It’s a nice fantasy.”
“Yeah?”
“I liked hearing you say it.” I hesitated. “So please don’t take it back. I don’t think you’re trying to pressure me into doing it like that.” I huffed a small laugh. “I mean, we haven’t even ‘done it’ at all.”
A beat of silence came down the line before Daniel asked, “Do you want to?”
“If you do.” My heart rate doubled, and my voice sounded breathy.
“I think we should both get our test results back first.”
I smiled. So reasonable. So steady and obsessed with doing the right thing. That was my Daniel. “Yeah. Okay. The UT Health Center said it could take six weeks.”
“Right, my family doctor said the same.”
