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"What were things like for you at home? When you were a kid, I mean? I never saw you at school. The first time I remember meeting you, it was when you came to work with your father that one day," I said.
We were in the bed of the truck with our backs against the cab. We had several blankets wrapped around us to protect our naked bodies from the cool morning air. Xavier had one of his hands on my thigh and was holding my hand with the other. I had my head on his shoulder as I tried to keep my tired eyes open.
"The house we lived in when I was a kid was located along the border of Eden and the next town over. So I went to the school in that town. I ended up dropping out when I was fifteen. Learning was never something that came easy to me. My dad said I didn't get to be a freeloader, so he started bringing me to work with him. Of course, it wasn't really a hardship since I loved the horses."
Xavier's fingers ran over the back of mine. "Then I met this kid who followed me everywhere and asked me a million questions and was smart and sweet and was crushing on me hard."
I could hear the smile in Xavier's voice as he described me. I laughed and said, "I was. But you never did anything about it."
"I couldn't get past the fact that you looked like you were twelve or something," Xavier said with a chuckle. "I actually didn't even find out you were my age until my mom told me. By then it just felt like you were…"
"What?" I asked as I sat up a little so I could look at him.
Xavier’s smile faded a little and he shook his head as he stared at the sun. "That you were out of my league."
"But I wasn't," I began to say but fell silent when he turned and looked at me.
He lifted his finger and ran it over my bottom lip. "I knew you were going somewhere, Brooks. Sometimes I think it was better that things ended like they did, because then I didn't have a choice but to let you go. I'm afraid you would've stayed in Eden if you’d been given the chance."
I would've stayed in Eden. He was absolutely right. If given the choice between Xavier and Harvard or working for my father or anything else, I always would have picked Xavier.
Xavier sighed and I could see it was something he didn't want to talk about, so I let it go. I leaned back against him and watched the sun's rays spread across the open Wyoming landscape.
"As for what home was like, I guess it was good and bad. Money was always tight, so my parents argued a lot about that. But my mom and dad really did love each other."
"But your father left?" I asked. "You said he left before things happened."
"That day." Xavier paused a moment and said, "He left that day, Brooks."
That day.
God, I fucking hated that day.
"Tell me about your life in New York," Xavier said. His voice had a forced lightness to it. I knew he was interested, but like me, I suspected he was still thinking about the day our lives had changed. The day we couldn't talk about.
"It's good," I said. “I have an apartment that overlooks Central Park. I've got Jules. I've got…" My stomach fell out as I found myself on the verge of repeating all the things that I told myself on a constant basis that made me a success. They were all the things that my parents had wanted for me, and somehow, rattling them off to Xavier seemed wrong. I didn't want him to see me that way. I wanted him to see me like this, like who I was in that moment.
Because this was who I really was.
"What is it, sweetheart?"
My throat felt thick with emotion as I whispered, "You wouldn't like the Brooks from New York, Xavier." I shook my head and added, "That Brooks works for a company that's all about making money. He dates women that his parents have deemed acceptable for marriage. He has a fancy car that he never drives because he never goes anywhere. He’d never be caught dead lying in the back of a pickup truck with another man." I choked back a sob. "He craves his father's approval like a dog craves table scraps. He buries his head in the sand and convinces himself on a daily basis that he's done everything right and that it’s just a matter of time before he actually starts to feel like a success, instead of just looking like one."
I sat up and put a little distance between myself and Xavier because I was afraid that I'd feel the change in him as he accepted my words. I didn't care that the blanket fell open. I stared at my hands and considered how different they were from Xavier's. His were work roughened while mine had no signs of calluses whatsoever. "You're right, Xavier. I would've stayed in Eden if things had been different when we were kids. You and Uncle Curtis were the only ones who ever made it okay for me to be someone who could spend hours working through math problems just for fun. You made me hate wearing those stupid slacks my parents insisted I wear all the time. I wanted to go swimming in the lake with you and your friends and I wanted to learn to ride a horse and I wanted to know what it was like to kiss a boy and not have anyone care." I glanced at his truck and added, "All the times we could've been together like this. I can't imagine a more perfect life, Xavier."
