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“Why don’t we just try them all?” Remy suggested excitedly.
“All of them?”
“Why not? Do you have somewhere else you need to be?”
“I was just going to catch up on TV tonight.”
“Then, what do you say? Do you wanna find out what the best ice cream in New York City is?”
We walked the entire night, laughing, and hopped up out of our minds on sugar. When the last of the shops closed and we ate our final sample, we leaned against the railing staring out at the river. The moonlight twinkled on the rippling water and I wanted him to kiss me.
Silence had fallen over us. My sixteen-year-old body needed his. I shivered yearning for him to hold me. But he never did. Instead, he walked me back. Standing in the doorway of his parent’s place with him not coming in, I could have cried I wanted him so badly.
“It’s late,” I told him. “Why don’t you just sleep in your room? …Or wherever,” I said welcoming him into my bed.
“I shouldn’t,” he said, his eyes tormented.
“Why not?” I dared to brush his forearm, hoping to draw him closer.
“Because I don’t trust myself,” he said with a tortured smile.
“Because he didn’t trust himself,” I said aloud remembering his words.
What did that mean? For the past four years, I had chosen to believe that it meant he wanted me. That he liked me back.
After replaying it in my mind for months, I declared that he had only said it because of our age gap. He was just being respectful. So the next time I saw him, I tried to tell him that I didn’t care about stuff like that. But either he didn’t understand, or he didn’t want to, because it didn’t change anything.
Now, as the pain from every heartbeat threatens to bring me to my knees, I understand that I had gotten the most romantic evening of my life all wrong. Remy had only come that night because of a security alert. And our citywide ice cream tour had only been about his love for the dessert.
Having spent a million dollars on a shop of his own, he obviously really loved the stuff. None of it was ever about him having feelings for me. I had always been nothing more than his family’s charity case.
As the city came into view again through the train’s window, I considered how many other things about my life I had gotten so wrong. There had to have been a lot. Looking over the sprawling city bathed in the setting sun, I wondered if I was the only person to have ever misinterpreted something so badly. I couldn’t be, could I?
Because the only thing special about me was that a rich family saw me as a convenient playmate for their gay son. The only thing that differentiated me from everyone else was luck. My mother was luckily assigned to the Lyon’s as their housekeeper. And their gay son was luckily my age and lonely.
It was only those two things that took us from the projects of Brownsville to my mother owning a home and me being a year from graduating from college. As heartbroken as I was, I was still lucky. There were millions of kids like me who would never get what I had gotten.
And wasn’t that what Remy’s proposal was about, me helping him spread his family’s charity to others? That was a good thing, wasn’t it? So, as much as it hurt to accept that that was all he saw me as, didn’t I have a responsibility to those who weren’t so lucky?
For the next few days, I didn’t go into the office. Instead, I did what Remy had suggested. Walking the boroughs, I considered a suitable location for his community outreach center.
Eventually, my wandering led me back to the projects in Brownsville. It was where I was born and where Mom and I lived before she got her job with the Lyons.
As I strolled through the area, I ran into a group of guys I hadn’t seen since elementary school. They were hanging around in front of the building drinking beers with their shirts off. It was the middle of a weekday. My heart clenched thinking that could have been me if not for a little luck.
Recognizing me, their faces lit up. After friendly greetings and brief small talk, I continued on.
Another of the privileges I received from the Lyons was not having to hide who I was. Considering how little I could hide being gay, I might have been eaten alive if I had stayed here. As a kid, I had heard about guys being beaten to an inch of their lives for flirting with the wrong guy. Remy’s family had rescued me from that.
As I continued my walk through the old neighborhood, my senses were overwhelmed by the area’s harsh realities. The faded signs, the echoing engines from narrow streets, the smell of full trash bins. It was day and night compared to where I now lived in New Jersey, much less Remy’s neighborhood in Brooklyn.
Continuing down Pitkin Avenue, my thoughts flashed back to the challenges Mom had faced raising me single-handedly. I could never stop the anger from boiling up whenever I thought about this. It shouldn’t have had to be that way. I shouldn’t have had to grow up without a father. And as I thought more about it, I realized exactly where Remy should put his community center.
With the decision made, a wave of anxiety washed over me. Not only was I going to have to tell Remy where and why, but he would expect me to work with him to build it. Thinking about working that closely with him, smelling his manly leather scent every day, made me weak in the knees. It was like a vise gripped around my heart.
But I had to put my feelings aside. This outreach center was more important than whatever I was experiencing. I owed it to kids like me. Living in this harsh environment, they deserved the same opportunities the Lyons gave me. So with a newfound determination, I vowed to fight through my selfish pain and face Remy with my proposal for his center.
The next day, I stormed into Remy’s office powered by anxiety and resolve. Determined not to get distracted by feelings, I immediately was. For a moment I had forgotten what he looked like in a crisp white dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves. Did the man have to show off his tattooed forearms like that? No one deserved to be that sexy. It wasn’t fair.
