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In that journal, I started writing poetry. Rhyming lines I thought only made sense to me. The more I looked at it, the more I realized they could be song lyrics. Depressing as hell lyrics because they were about how I felt, but there they were. Once I started writing them, I couldn’t stop. Every night I’d write something else. Poetry or a song? I wasn’t sure, nor did I care. The exercise of writing them was what gave me room to breathe. It unlocked this part of me where I could freely write what I was going through without fear of judgment.
Then Dash and Tristan stumbled into my life, and those words turned into more. This yearning for two men who I didn’t know what to do with. My only relationship had crashed and burned. Not my fault, but it still happened. My anxiety flared anew and the journal I’d kept had a new purpose. I wrote every fear I had in there. A long list of what-ifs. The fears weren’t alone. I made myself go line by line and write the reaction to those fears as if it would happen.
What if Dash and Tristan can’t handle me having Jordan in my life?
Then they aren’t meant to be in mine. The relationship I have with Jordan is complicated, but it’s mine and I like having him around.
What if one day my panic attacks get too frequent, and I can’t get them under control?
I’ll go back to therapy and work through my problems. If Dash and Tristan aren’t by my side, then I know they aren’t right for me.
What if they ask me to stop dancing?
I won’t. This is who I am.
No matter what questions I wrote, my answers were always the same. I had to put myself first. I didn’t get this far to go in reverse. If they were meant to be mine, they would be there for me like I’d be for them.
I was a twenty-three-year-old man with a dead father who used to be second-in-commend to a powerful mafia boss. My bank account had more money than I knew what to do with in it. I danced nearly naked in front of men multiple times a week and did private dances as well. My anxiety was a pain in the ass. It made itself known when I least expected it. But all these things were who I was. Not only them, but they were big. They were deal-breakers to many. Dash and Tristan knew of them, and they were still here. They showed up for me tonight. They wanted to be present in my life. I had to do the same for them.
Somehow, I made it through my songs and stripping off my clothes while I was stuck in my head. Fuck if I knew how, although I was grateful when my last song slowed.
As I gave in and swung my gaze to Dash and Tristan before taking my leave from the stage, I saw them with JJ and Greer. They were laughing and getting along, but their eyes were on me. They seemed to fit in with the men who were part of this biggercircle of friends. Dexen liked to refer to them as an extended family.
Dash and Tristan were different than me. I didn’t love being in the thick of it with these men. I didn’t find comfort in a lot of people.
Why couldn’t I be as confident off-stage as I was on? Why was I like this?
Those fears and doubts crept in again. I didn’t have a way to exorcise them and think each through logically.Not while I was still out in the open.
What if that’s what Dash and Tristan want?
What if they love to have a large group of friends?
What if I panic every time they invite me to go somewhere there will be a crowd?
What if they want nothing to do with me?
My breath started sawing in and out of my lungs rapidly. I barely made it off the stage and ended up stumbling to the wall, so I had something to brace against.
“Romeo?” I heard Dexen ask, but it was like I was underwater, and everything swam in front of my eyes. My legs shook as I leaned heavily against the wall.
Dexen went to reach for me, but I shrank back and ended up falling down, my bare ass connecting with the cold floor. “Go get Dash and Tristan!” I heard him bark. Dexen tried to soothe me, tried to get me to listen to the sound of his voice, but he wasn’t the ones I wanted to hear.
Tears finally broke free and fell down my cheeks. I wasn’t enough for them. They were going to see me like this again and run. Who would want someone who had panic attacks like I did?
An image from my past flashed through my mind. One when I was a teenager and a couple of boys in high school cornered me in the locker room. I didn’t hide I was gay, but I didn’t broadcast it either. All it took was one person to find out, then it spreadlike wildfire. I remembered being pinned to the lockers, my back digging into the metal handle and the plastic lock as one of the boys spit in my face and called me names. Another jerked my shorts down and threatened to rape me right there. It was the sound of others entering the room that made them leave.
That was the moment my anxiety started. My mom was amazing. She pulled me from school and let me finish high school from home. I thought I was okay. I thought I was safe. Sure, I’d avoid crowds and keep to myself. I liked to be away from others and didn’t want to be cornered. Then I met the guy who ended up breaking my heart in college. I thought I could trust him, that he saw me for me. He never wanted to come out. I wasn’t enough. It solidified my need to not let anyone in.
Enter Jordan. I didn’t know I needed the security he provided until he gave it to me. When I was approached one night and a familiar voice skated down my spine—that voice from my high school locker room—I froze. I couldn’t do anything. Suddenly, I was transported back to that day where I didn’t bother anyone and yet was a target. He didn’t rape me that time either, but it was close.
Now I was a mess on the inside. I buried it down until I was home and alone when my anxiety could consume me without others witnessing.Where I let it out without the repercussions of judgment. Dash and Tristan had seen me, they’d been there for me. For how long though?
Here I was, fresh from the stage with tears in my eyes, barely able to get a full breath in.
15
DASH
