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“I want to introduce you to the magic of shuffle,” Wade says. I don’t hand my phone over, but Wade isn’t shy about going into my coat pocket and retrieving it. “We’re going to play radio with your downloaded music. See, these are all songs you’ve chosen at one point or another and were all favorites for different reasons.”
“So I’m still in control?”
“Not really. But you’re in control of allowing yourself to be surprised.”
“I can’t control being surprised, that doesn’t make sense.”
Wade smirks. “Griffin, your comfort zone is maybe a little too comfortable, okay? It’s like you’ve got a TV with surround sound and every video game and the biggest bed ever so all your favorite people can hang out with you. But that place isn’t real and you should live somewhere a little more realistic.” Wade crosses to the corner of the room and swaps out his phone for my mine for these better acoustics. “Stay in the moments.”
He presses play, and the first song that comes on immediately takes me back.
Then comes “Be Still My Heart” by the Postal Service. We listened to this on the walk home the day we came out to each other, sharing headphones. I feel like I’ve been thrown back to the beginning of time. I haven’t listened to this song in so long, and I didn’t even realize I missed it.
“All Night” by Icona Pop. I discovered this song with Wade the day after my birthday. It was a little after you called me to wish me a happy birthday, feeling the dumbest you’ve ever felt in your life when you realized you mixed up the days. Wade and I were walking to Duane Reade, the same one where my dad gave us all a sex talk, and this song blasted from some parked car’s radio. It only planted itself in my brain for an afternoon, but I enjoyed my time with it—just like I am now.
“Take Me Out” by Franz Ferdinand: Another you song, though even I don’t have to tell you this one. It’s a little uncomfortable because I’m pretty sure Wade knows you and I listened to this on repeat after we had sex for the first time. It came up when we were all playing Guitar Hero, and everyone wanted to know why you and I busted out laughing and were so good.
“Hold On” by Wilson Phillips: Okay, this one is a bit of a downer, but it was something I really connected to in the months after our breakup. I know it’s lame, but it allowed me to feel lonely and didn’t force me to lie to myself about how I was really feeling. I understand putting on a tough face for other people but never myself.
“Carry Me” by Family of the Year: Wade’s favorite song that isn’t jazz or some film score. He shared this one with me because he knows I love songs with words, and, yeah, this one really stuck with me for a couple of weeks. There were times I didn’t even want to be thinking about Wade and what we did together, but I couldn’t keep myself away from this song, like it was oxygen.
I was right about not being able to control my own surprises, but I was wrong about how good these surprises could actually be for me. Every time a new old song comes on, I’m being resurrected. This is the true power of history. Old memories and feelings are being revived, and I’m not complaining. It’s like I still have the fatigue that got me to quit the song in the first place, but I don’t mind being woken up to it for a little bit.
Wade gets up and turns off my phone. “How was that?”
“Play another song,” I say. “You only played five.”
“I know.”
“Five isn’t one of my good odd numbers. It’s one, seven, and any number ending in seven.”
“I know. Three birds with one stone.”
I feel tricked. At least I knew what the battle plan was with the walking on my left and playing different songs, but I didn’t know he would make a move on my even numbers, too. But it’s okay, I can make my way out of this; I’ve made my way out of tougher situations before, situations completely out of my control, situations that affected me as if they were my fault. The jazz song that played before Wade started playing my songs can count as the first and sixth, and it qualifies because it is a song I enjoy and a song I would’ve wanted played again.
As for his painful three-birds-with-one-stone comment, if I were desperate enough, I could say three plus one equals four, but that’s not going to fly with me, so I need something else to settle me. Um, uh, okay, I got it. I’m going to go with the grouping situation, one group for the birds and another group for the stone.
“You okay?” Wade asks.
I take a deep breath.
“The world didn’t end,” Wade says. “You stayed in the moments.”
He’s right. The universe isn’t eating itself up like some cannibal chewing on his own arm. It feels like the universe is at least nibbling, but I’m still here, I’m still whole. I know it won’t last long, but knowing I could do three trials—three!—in one evening is a huge deal. And it’s an empowering feeling I never felt with you, not with my compulsions, at least.
“Theo made me feel special,” I say, which takes Wade by surprise. “With my compulsions, I mean. Sorry. I know they sometimes frustrated him, but I also couldn’t ever shake this feeling that they made me stand out in his eyes. And, I don’t know, I always believed Theo loved me but there was always this voice in me that convinced me to make sure I always fit with him. If I didn’t change, I would never stop being special in his eyes. Almost like, if I started trying to do stuff like we’re doing now, I might lose my spark and suddenly feel, I don’t know, faded to him?”
“Your thing . . . it’s not healthy,” Wade says. “I don’t understand what it’s got to be like in your head, but you have to do what’s necessary to not be your compulsions’ bitch. It’s limiting your life.”
Not controlling. Limiting.
I try to believe it, but I can’t. My compulsions threaten my health, physically and mentally. For example, I can’t shake off the thought that I’ve had sex with three guys—three. Even though there’s no one else I want to sleep with, I feel like I have to, otherwise the universe will close in on itself or something bad will happen to someone I love. I’ve tried making logic out of this, like how I only slept with two of the guys—Wade and Jackson—out of need, and not out of love. So Wade and Jackson are in their own category, far removed from the bubble you live in. But if I’m going to have a pattern here, the next person I sleep with needs to be out of love and not a need to feel something.
“I get it,” I say. “I’ll try these exercises some more.” I can’t bring myself to ask him for this great favor just yet, but I want him to help me, and that’s the truth. And he wants to help me. I’m not trying to make it sound like I have to give him my heart or dick in exchange for his help, but I do have to give him friendship. He’s given me some history back that I hadn’t thought of in a while and was possibly at risk of forgetting forever. I have to be fully honest with him in return.
“I have to tell you something. I don’t know how to do it delicately, but I just have to spit it out. I’ve messed up. I don’t just mean that I messed things up with you and whatever you would say we were, but I did something stupid because I was just not in my best space.” He knows what I’m about to say, I can tell from his face. But I can’t cheat him out of the words. “I had sex with Jackson when I was in California.”
Wade nods, over and over, pirate bobblehead–style. “I know.”
