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“So, whatisthe plan now, Eth? You’re going to Boston on your way home?”
“Yeah, just a quick visit. I promised Avery.” Matty didn’t know if it was just in his imagination, but Ethan’s voice sounded sad at the mention of Avery. In fact, it was probably the saddest he’d ever seen his friend in all the years he’d known him. Ethan looked even more devastated than he had when his dog Polly had died when he was eight. Ethan had cried himself to sleep for a week until Dan had brought home a new puppy—the ugliest mutt that Matty had ever seen.Walter. Ethan had taken one look at Walter and the loss had evaporated from his eyes.
Ethan hadn’t shared much about Avery. Just that they’d met on the road and hooked up. But it didn’t take a fucking genius to see that something had changed inside his friend. He wasn’t the same. He’d get this faraway look in his eyes as if he was adrift at sea. Lost. Like he was looking out for something or rather someone. Hell, if Matty didn’t know any better, he’d think that Ethan was heartbroken. Well, maybe he was. Maybe he was.
“And then what? Back to Eden and…?”
“Yeah, that’s the plan. I have a full-time position waiting for me at Peterson’s.” Ethan sounded like he’d just revealed that he was dying from cancer or that his entire house had burned to the ground.
“Oh, okay…” Matty felt something building. Frustration, perhaps. It wasn’t a feeling he was used to when it came to his best friend, but fuck, Ethan was annoying the shit outta him as he sat there next to him, shoulders slumped, eyes blank.
“What?” Ethan looked at him questioningly.
“Nothin’.”
“C’mon, spill it. I can tell that you’ve got somethin’ to say. So, say it, Matty.” Ethan’s voice came out clipped, probably harder than he’d intended.
“It’s just that… I always figured you’d go off to school somewhere. I mean, you were always the smart one, Eth. Kinda figured if anyone was gonna get the hell outta Eden, it’d be you, man.”
“Yeah, that’s not in the cards for me, Matty,” Ethan sighed, eyes following a small fishing boat in the horizon. “Ryder is going off to college next year and the twins are still too young to be of any real help to Mom… So, yeah, school is just not an option…”
“Fuck, you always say that, and it always pisses me off. What do you mean by that? What fucking cards, Eth?” Matty felt his chest tighten and something building inside him which he hadn’t felt in a long time. Anger? Yeah, it was anger, alright. He didn’t recall ever being angry with his best friend before—not even when Ethan beat him in Uno for the fifth time in a row when they were kids.
“You know what I mean…“ Ethan trailed his fingers along the sun-bleached wooden boards of the pier.
“You could always stay here. With me. And Austin. You could work on the boat with us. We used to talk about it, remember?”
“Yeah… I remember. That was always your dream, though, Matty, wasn’t it? It was never mine. I can’t stay.” Ethan shook his head, a strand of hair tumbling into his eyes. Matty realized that there were so many things he no longer knew about his best friend.
“Do you ever dream, Eth? And I don’t mean when you’re sleeping. I mean about the future. Do you ever have dreams for yourself? Dreams that are just for you. No one else’s. Just yours. Selfish dreams.”
“Sure,” Ethan mumbled, looking at the sky as if it held the answer to Matty’s question. “I dream… I mean, I do…” Ethan sounded everything but convinced. He sure as shit wasn’t convincing Matty.
“Yeah, what do you dream about, then?”
“Look, man, it doesn’t matter. Dreams are just a way of running from real life. They’ll get you nothing except for a whole lotta heartache.” Ethan pulled at his hair repetitively, his freckled cheeks starting to turn pink. “I think I can make an okay life for myself in Eden, okay?” There was a pleading edge to Ethan’s voice.
“Jesus, that’s the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard. You sound like you’re staring down the barrel of a gun. Are you, Eth? Are you staring down the barrel of a gun?”
“No… What the fuck are you talking about? There’s nothing wrong with working at a farm. There’s nothing wrong with helping your family.” Ethan looked at Matty defensively.
“Of course there ain’t. Only, it ain’t what you wanna do with your life. And you didn’t answer my fucking question. What do you dream about?” Matty’s voice was getting louder by the second, and his fingers itched. He felt like grabbing on to Ethan’s broad shoulders and shaking some sense into his best friend. “When are you gonna stop doing what you think people expect you to and start doing whatyouwant instead?”
“Matty…”
“I mean it, Eth. For eleven years, you were my fucking keeper. You were the man around the house when your dad was away. You worked your ass off through middle school and high school to put food on the table. You never wanted anything for yourself. You only ever thought of others.” Matty grabbed on to the back of Ethan’s damp neck. “And don’t get me wrong, Eth, that’s a commendable thing. It is. But now, you’re finally free to do what you want, and you choose to go back to fucking Eden and work at some godforsaken farm and just waste away? Cause that’s the plan, right?” Matty felt his chest tightening as the words spilled from his lips and he rested his forehead against Ethan’s.
“It’s not like that, Matty…” Ethan whispered, his warm breath hitting Matty’s chin.
“And what about you, Eth? How do you plan on being a gay guy in Eden? Or maybe you aren’t gonna be one?”
“I don’t fucking know, okay? Okay?” Ethan raised his voice, eyes burning with frustration. “I just know that I owe my folks—”
“You don’t owe them anything,” Matty interrupted. “Except for living your life the way you wanna live it. That town, man… It’s gonna suck the life outta you, Eth.”
“Well, at least I’ll be able to go to sleep at night knowing that they’re okay!” Ethan was shouting now, his voice shaking with a level of emotion that Matty had never seen or heard in his best friend before. “At least I’ll know that. That they’ll be fucking okay! That they won’t want for anything. Dad’s getting older. He’s worn down, man. How long do you think that he’s gonna be able to drag buckets of fucking bricks around at some building site in Austin? How long before they drop his sorry ass for some guy twenty years his junior?” The words came out in pants, Ethan’s cheeks scarlet, splotchy.
“Yeah, I get it. I get, okay. All those are valid reasons for going back, Eth. They are. And they’ll make a pretty fucking headstone one day, too.‘He just wanted to make sure that everyone was okay.’”
