The caption read “Costars Eddie McCreevy and Joel Pettifer share an intimate moment off the set ofThe Heart You’re Dealt.”
The photo was of him with the dark-haired man from the subway poster—Joel, apparently—standing outside a restaurant.Joel was leaning down and saying something to Eddie, because of course he was tall, and Eddie was laughing, and Joel’s arm was around him, familiar and relaxed.It was acting.Except when it wasn’t.I remembered what he’d told me about his costar inWanton Town—Edgar.How he’d done whatever the hell Eddie’s kink was and gotten him off.Eddie banged his costars sometimes.I guess this was one of those times.Whatever he told me about his preferences, I’d seen Joel with his shirt off on TV, and he was ripped.
I took off my engagement ring and strung it on a necklace with his wooden ring, and I wore them under my shirt so no one could see.I should have put them away or got rid of them.I couldn’t.
I kept watching the show after I saw that photo.I guess maybe to hammer it home that he’d moved on.Why wouldn’t he?He didn’t know I still spent every day wanting him, regretting that I’d betrayed him.Even if he did know, why would he care?I told myself I was lucky I’d had him for as long as I did.
And then episode 8 aired.They put a content warning at the beginning, but I watched it anyway.And in that episode, someone slipped something into Joel’s drink, and he had some kind of drug-induced psychosis, and he sexually assaulted Eddie’s character.Watching that fucked me up.I had to turn it off.I went to the bathroom and retched and lay on the bathroom floor crying and shaking.I kept telling myself it wasn’t real.That he was okay.But it had looked so real.
I still had his number.I wanted to call him and make sure he was okay.But I stopped myself, and I called my therapist instead and had an emergency session the next morning.
And I never watched his show again.
But even though I stopped watching, people talked about it at work.People talked about it at the subway station, on the street, everywhere.Royce talked about it constantly.I’d never told them Eddie’s last name, so he didn’t know what he was doing to me.It seemed like everyone was just discovering how amazing he was.I always knew.
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Starting Over
Idid some pretty stupidthings trying to get closure.I reminded myself of all the annoying things he used to do.He was a slob.He dropped things on the floor and didn’t pick them up.He had to have his hair the way whichever director he was working for wanted it.He sucked at cooking.He was too lazy to shave every day, so I’d get stubble burn from making out with him.It didn’t help me get over him.One morning, I was cleaning the toaster for the first time in a year.I shook it out, and a handful of black crumbs fell onto the counter, and I just fell apart.I would have given anything to trip over a pile of his stuff first thing in the morning or smell the toast he was burning in the kitchen.
I spent way too much time trying to figure out what his kink was.I did a lot of reading and looking stuff up online and losing my appetite and freaking out, and then, based on what he’d told me, I thought I’d figured out what it was.On the one hand, I felt relieved that I’d never have to do that.On the other, I felt disappointed I’d never get the chance to do it for him.
A month after I went to Pride, I was walking through the transit hub on my way home, and I stopped and stood against the wall by the top of the escalator and watched people walk past.I didn’t know why.I wasn’t tired, and I wasn’t dreading getting home any more than usual.After waiting half an hour, I went home.The next day, I did the same thing.I kept doing it every day for a week, just standing there, watching people walk past, looking at their faces.
I mentioned it to my therapist, and with his help, I figured out that the place where I was waiting was where I’d found Eddie after we’d lost touch for the first time.What I was looking for at the transit hub was him.I was trying to recreate our reunion.It felt like if I found him again, we could get back together, only I wouldn’t fuck up this time, and he’d forgive me, and he’d come home with me, and we’d get married.
But I never saw him at the transit hub again, and once I realized what I was doing, the urge to stop and wait for him disappeared.
Then, one day at the end of August, I got an official envelope in the departmental mail.I’d won my scholarship to grad school.And I was happy.I was.But it was bittersweet, because grad school was the plan I’d made before I met him.I was moving on with my life, without him.
