AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His smile grew a little bit. "There's a place at the mall that sells a bunch of rainbow stuff. I got some cool t-shirts there over the summer. If you want to go sometime, we can."
"I'd like that." I also liked how he blushed.
He ducked his head. "Cool," he mumbled.
I was smiling as I focused back on my wind chime.
Since I wasn't Bolivar's assistant anymore, I really didn't have to add to his collection, but I still sent him the wind chime. It was pretty simple, just a few pieces of metal tubing, some beads, and fishing line attached to a wooden ring on top. But I thought it was pretty good for the first time, and besides, he had a deck to hang it from. I didn't have anything more than an open window in my dorm room.
I started dating Jeffrey about a week after we'd made wind chimes together. I didn't talk about my family or my past, and it seemed to bother him, but I couldn't really tell him that I'd been an assistant to a dragon and now that I wasn't one anymore my dad didn't want to have anything to do with me.
He was sweet. He held my hand when we went out together, and he was always making something. He made me a card out of thick paper and an old lace dress he'd found at a thrift store on our way back from the mall. That was a present for our second date.
Jeffrey didn't make me crazy about him, and I didn't needto see him all the time but I liked being around him. He was nice and he only ever wanted to hold my hand.
We kissed for the first time on our third date. We'd gone out for lobster rolls. He liked them, too. And then at the door to my dorm room, he stopped and I kissed him. I tried not to let it bother me that he pulled away quickly.
"Do you want to come up?" I offered.
He shook his head, and that was harder to let go of but I tried my best.
"So I'll see you tomorrow?"
Jeffrey smiled at me, then he kissed my cheek. "Yeah. Tomorrow."
He waved bye and I went up to my room. I didn't know why I wasn't crazy for him. Or why I hadn't been for Jack, either. They were both really good guys. But for me, they were just eh, and I didn't have any idea why.
Maybe it had something to do with Imrel, or even Bolivar. Maybe Imrel had screwed me up somehow when I'd been with him, or maybe it was that I couldn't stop thinking about Bolivar. It made sense, though, why he would be on my mind. He was a dragon, and for twenty years I'd studied up about him and read everything I could about him to make sure that I served him well. It wasn't my fault that I'd lasted less than a year with him.
Christmas vacation came much sooner than I had anticipated. I had kind of expected that Jeffrey and I would spend at least some of the break together. That was, until I went to his dorm and found his parents there.
"Hi," I said, as I awkwardly stood in his doorway. The day before I had been welcomed by his hug. Now he gave me sort of a half wave.
Jeffrey looked between me and his parents before turning back to shoving his things into the bag black suitcase stretched across his bed. "Mom, Dad, this is my friend, Wesley. He's in thechess club with me."
I understood instantly and I wondered why Jeffrey had never mentioned to me that he wasn't out with his parents. He couldn't even tell them that he was in a crafting group. I hoped his parents didn't ask me anything about chess, because all I knew was that there were a bunch of different pieces and half of them were black and half of them were white and one was a horse. I knew that the term checkmate had something to do with chess but what it actually meant or how I make it happen were mysteries to me. I had to get out of there quickly if I had any chance of keeping Jeffrey's cover in front of his parents. As annoyed at him as I was, I didn't want to out him in front of them. He wasn't out, and he probably had a pretty good reason for choosing not to be.
"I just wanted to say Merry Christmas and have a good time." I looked to his parents and knew I should say something to them too. But I couldn't help assuming that they were some horrible homophobic, hugely judgmental couple that had made Jeffrey's life miserable since the time he realized he was gay. "It was nice to meet you," I blurted out. Then I was gone, hurrying back to my own room. It wasn't long after that I was in a taxi headed to Bolivar's house.
I didn't really have a plan in going to his house. I didn't expect him to be there, either. I just wanted a place to crash and think for a while. I needed that. I didn't know how to be with someone who wasn't out. I didn't know if I could be either.
I’m sorry, Jeffrey texted an hour after I’d left campus.
I didn’t know how to respond. I didn’t even know if I could without being overly generic. I didn’t want his family to maybe see his texts and figure out what he was hiding from them. It’s fine. I’ll see you when break is over.
I’m planning to do it someday when the time’s right.
I hoped that he could. I really did. But I was strugglingwith this and wondering how I was supposed to date someone that I couldn’t ever be with in public except for when we were away from his family. I didn’t have my family. Part of me had really wanted to get to know his. I hadn’t pictured Christmases around the fire with rainbow tinsel everywhere. Not yet at least. But I was close to getting there, and it sucked that now I had no idea what to think or do.
But Jeffrey was waiting on a response from me and I had to come up with something.Good luck. It was all I could think to say to him. We'd been going out for months and he'd never once brought up the fact that he wasn't out to his parents. He was out on campus, and I'd just assumed, of course incorrectly, that he was out at home too. Maybe it shouldn't have bothered me as much as it did, but I was really struggling with this as the taxi dropped me off at Bolivar's house.
He wasn't home when I let myself in. I didn't even know if he still lived there. His TV didn't have any dust on it, but maybe he had a cleaning service come in once a week or something. He could certainly afford it.
The wind chime I'd made for him was hanging on the deck. I found it there when I was wondering what that awful metal sound had been. Now I felt bad about giving Bolivar such a defective piece of treasure for his collection.
I ordered pizza and ate it on the couch in front of a movie. He had a big collection, and it would have been nice to watch something with him. I had no idea where he was, though, or if he had any plans to return there ever. Part of me wished I could just hang out there full time and not worry about going back to college at all. It was so peaceful just being alone with only the ocean and the clanking of the wind chime I'd made him to keep me company.
It was nearly one in the morning when I decided to go to bed. With no class to get up early for I didn't need to worry somuch about what time I did anything or when I was supposed to be somewhere, which I really liked. I slept naked, something I'd never done while Bolivar was around in case he happened to walk in, but I chose to now because I figured he wouldn't be coming back anytime soon.
