Page 35 of AJ’s Fire

It only took a little more than an hour to get there if there was no traffic, and if one was willing to defy certain roadway signage. The flurries started almost as soon as I was out of the city and settled on the scenic highway that would lead me to the cabin on the lake.

I warred with myself the entire drive, knowing Jackson knew how to take care of himself, confident he would be pissed to see me. I ran my cryptic conversation with Emily over and over in my head. Her detailing how worried she was about him. How he needed me. I’m still not sure how she convinced me to borrow Jamie’s car and head Upstate. And I damn sure hadn’t figured out why I felt compelled to do so.

The whole thing was more confusing because Emily knew Jackson was at Cedar Lake, but I had no idea if she knew about his date. If she did know, why would she send me chasing after him?

I didn’t tell Emily about the message I had seen, of course, especially since I shouldn’t even have known about it. It definitely wasn’t my place to share that information with Emily.

I thought about that message during the entire drive. Jackson had a date with a guy. A secret date, when up until a few months ago, I wouldn’t have believed Jackson and I had secrets from each other about anything.

Obviously, this was the thing that had had Jackson so hung up for all these months. He wanted to go out with guys. He had to know that I, of all people, wouldn’t have a problem with him being gay or bi or whatever. So why hadn’t he just come out and told me? He had to know I wouldn’t care, right? And yet, and yet, the way I felt after reading those messages, the way I’d felt all those months without him, it was like the opposite was true; like I really, really did care. Like it was all that mattered.

I needed to see my best friend, and for both of us to work through our feelings. Still, it had been impulsive to hop in a car and drive Upstate, a fact I realized as I pulled onto the winding, secluded road that would take me to a small cul-de-sac of homes near a picturesque lake.

It’s too late to turn back now I decided even as I understood that I had absolutely no business invading Jackson’s date.

I knew from past experience that most of the homes near Jackson’s grandparents were deserted at this time of year, so I pulled into the neighbor’s driveway, watched the snow fall, and waited. More than once, I thought about getting a hotel room or simply turning around and heading home, but instead, I just sat there and watched the cabin as snow fell around it.

Jackson’s car was in the driveway, and there were lights on in the window I knew to be the living room, but the rest of the house was dark.

As I sat there staring at the quaint cabin that Jackson loved so much, I thought about all the times we had come up there for a change of scenery, or to screw around on the lake, and I realized the days I remembered most, and certainly the ones I remembered most fondly, were the times it had just been the two of us. No different, really, than our time in the city. The women came and went, but Jackson, my best friend, my partner: Jackson was the constant.

I felt like a crazy creeper, having followed him to the lake house, and I was sure he would agree with me. But I didn’t turn around. I sat in that driveway and waited, not entirely sure what for.

At one point I saw motion, a figure I knew to be Jackson, even in silhouette, standing, walking around, and then sitting back down. I could picture him then, knew exactly where he was: on the couch in the small living room, facing the fire, the front door to one side. I imagined I could even picture his face, stressed and nervous, the opposite of the confident partner in crime I knew so well. He appeared to be alone.

It wasn’t very long after that that another car pulled up. I could see the driver in the glow of a cell phone mounted to the dashboard. I couldn’t tell much from my distance other than that it seemed to be a man. He didn’t pull into the driveway, instead stopping on the side of the road and cutting off his lights. I slunk down in my seat, hoping not to get caught.

The man ran his fingers through his hair, then quickly turned the overhead light on in the car before lowering the sun visor. I assumed there was a mirror on the visor because he was still patting his head with a nervous flick when he flipped the visor back up. With the overhead light on, I could see him more clearly. It was difficult to determine his age, but I would have guessed he was around my age, therefore older than Jackson. He sat and stared out the windshield for some time before sitting up straight and watching the snow. He did that for minutes on end before yanking the phone from its holder and staring at it intently. Eventually, he looked up. I instinctively slid down lower and watched him watch the same window I had been staring at for the better part of an hour.

He placed the phone back in its stand, and without turning his headlights on, drove around the cul-de-sac and back out the exit. I watched until, further down the road, some distance from Jackson’s cabin, the lights came on, and he sped away.

My best friend had been stood up, and as I sat there, my emotions were so overwhelming that I couldn’t decipher them.

I was upset, of course, that Jackson hadn’t told me he was into guys. Upset and more than a little surprised, based on the amount of time we’d spent together and the number of times he’d gotten laid. Why hadn’t I known? I should have known how he was feeling. On top of which, I’d managed to get my own feelings so jumbled up that for months I’d been confused about what I wanted, how I was feeling.

The snow turned heavy, and I watched it fall, waiting to see more movement in the cabin, and that’s when I realized something.

I knew exactly what I wanted. I knew exactly how I felt. It had been Jackson all along, from the first time we’d shaken hands, to the nights of endless partying, to sad days and impossible nights where he’d stood by my side. To two consecutive New Year’s Eves, where we’d both gone home alone.

But I hadn’t been alone, had I, because Jackson had always been there.

I left the car in the neighbor’s driveway and bounded up the steps of the perfect little cabin on the lake. The wind whispered and spread the chill from the water, causing the snow to stick to the road. I didn’t think about the trek home or what Jackson would think when he saw me. All I knew was that I had to see him. To really see him; all of him.

And I needed to see myself as well.

I pounded on the door, harder than was necessary, as if I could release all of the nervous tension I felt and transfer it to a door on a cabin by the lake.

I watched his silhouette again as he rose and headed toward me. He opened the door, the anxious and forced smile on his face turning immediately to confusion.

“You?” He blurted out in shock, and for a quick second, his smile was genuine, but it reverted back to a look of confusion, and he shook his head no as if he were answering a question only he could hear. “What are you doing here?”

I tried to answer, I really did. My mouth opened, and the explanation, the justification, the apology was right there.

“I know,” I said instead as I grasped his arms, stepping through the door and so close to him our chests were almost touching.

“I know,” I whispered, and his eyes went wide. It was his turn to open his mouth but say nothing. There were no words, but his eyes, those eyes that held a honey-dappled forest in them, they said all I needed to hear.

It wasn’t a thought I’d ever had. Not the day we'd met, not any of the nights we were out together, not any of the times we’d passed out on my couch after a game or dragged each other home, one or both of us too drunk to make it on our own. Not any of the times I’d cried in his arms or sat next to him in the hospital when we’d been forced by the department to go for a medical check, or any of the times we spent watching my niece. Not any of the times he was so frustrated with his parents and their expectations that he was almost on the verge of tears. Not once when his blinding smile and shocking eyes had lit up my world so completely that it felt like there was no one else in the universe. Like it was just him, and me, joined together forever. Not even the night before, when shock and confusion had clouded all my thoughts.