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And they didn’t. Not really. They stopped. But only Colin turned truly poisonous, as if he saw my retreat as an attack.
Now, though. What? Did he see me doing what he wanted to do? I don’t think so. Colin may be gay—Christ, the sentence even sounds insane in my head—but he loves working at the shop, loves the cars, loves sports. And he fucking loved our dad. Would do anything he said. So, when he saw how badly my dad reacted when I told him that I was gay, it would have made it a thousand times harder for him to do the same. If he even knew then.
And instead of confiding in me, he turned it inside out and terrorized me instead.
I can’t imagine how it must have felt, calling me a faggot all these years and seeing my dad and my brothers go along with it. Fuck. How could he do it?
We’ve been walking for three or four miles when Rex breaks the silence.
“Can we stop for a coffee or something?” he asks, startling me.
“Yeah, of course,” I say.
We duck into a café and I order coffees to go while Rex uses the bathroom. I realize, as he comes back, that he probably meant he wanted to stop and sit down to drink a coffee and get warm.
“Did you want to sit?” I ask, hoping he’ll say no.
“Um, no, it’s okay,” he says, uncertainly.
I really think he wants to stay, but I jump on it and walk out the door. I just can’t be around any of these people right now, sipping their fucking chai lattes and triple skinny caramel whateverthefucks.
Rex slides his hat back on and takes the coffee.
“Thanks,” he says. I can tell he wants to say something, but he just keeps walking with me.
After another few blocks, he drains his coffee and tosses the cup.
“I never went to my mom’s funeral,” he says.
“What? Why?” I ask, realizing that while I’ve been busy wrapping myself in a blanket of my own shit, Rex is probably dealing with some pretty heavy memories of his own.
“When I took up with Jamie,” he says, his voice low and his chin tucked into his jacket, “I started spending all my time with him. Just, he was the only one who talked to me, and that felt… good. I didn’t see much of my mom in the evenings because she had this boyfriend, John, who didn’t like me, and she was working all the time during the day. So, I didn’t think anything of staying out with Jamie. Maybe six months after I met Jamie, John got a job in Colorado and my mom told me we were moving out there. But I didn’t want to leave Jamie, didn’t want to start all over again.”
He pauses, looking around for something to do with his hands. I hold up my half-drunk coffee to him. He takes it, smiling gratefully and wraps his hand around it.
“I told her I was staying. We had a real go-round about it. The only time we ever really fought.” He shakes his head. “I told her I was tired of following her all over. Told her I was staying. And I did. Jamie said I could stay at his place, said his parents wouldn’t mind, but of course they did. So I’d sneak into his room after they went to bed and sneak out again before they got up in the morning. I’d eat breakfast and lunch at school and scrounge something up for dinner. Then—” He stops short to avoid a dog-walker’s tangle of leashes and looks longingly after the dogs.
“Then, you know, That thing happened with Jamie about three months after. In the hospital, I kept wanting to call her, but I didn’t want her to worry. Gave a fake name at the hospital and skipped out before they could discharge me. Didn’t know what to do, so I hitched to Colorado. I’d missed Jamie’s funeral while I was in the hospital. By the time I got to Colorado….”
“Oh god,” I murmured.
“She was already gone.”
We walk in silence another block or two.
“How did she die?” I ask, hooking my arm through Rex’s.
“Pancreatic cancer. She must’ve been sick for a while and never knew it. She hated doctors. Wouldn’t ever go. She’d been losing weight for a year or so, but she was always trying to lose weight. Always on some diet or another. She was happy about it. Bought a new dress and all.”
“John didn’t let you know?”
“I guess he tried, but he only had Jamie’s parents’ number, and I wasn’t there. She died two weeks before I got there. If it had taken me even a few days less to get there…. So, I’ve never been to a funeral before today.”
I pull him close to me with the arm hooked through his, bumping our hips together.
