Copyright © 2026 J.P. Russell. The author asserts the application of all U.S. and associated international copyright protections and all rights to this original work of fiction. Do not reproduce without explicit written permission, etc.
Always On My Mind
Reentry to school was rougher than I expected. Dr. Ayoub and our family doc sent all relevant records to a specialist affiliated with the college, so I could do all follow-ups there. And as much as I was angry at Grady, he’d provided enough for me in that last paycheck to take care of all my physio appointments and ensure that all my expenses were covered for the academic year, with a good start on final summer courses.
Surprisingly, that was the easy part. Figuring out how to manage getting my books, sorting out my dorm room, doing my shopping and laundry, and getting myself showered, shaved, and dressed with only one arm for much of the time was tougher. So was the pain. Dr. Ayoub was right—the muscle pain was still pretty constant, and I was often just worn out. My family checked in by phone every day, and I always rallied so they wouldn’t worry, but for the first few weeks I was pretty down. But I kept up with my physio, and by the end of September I could tell there was progress—slow, but real.
I occasionally saw Alex on campus, but I ignored him; the one time we ran into each other in a coffee shop I was ice-cold, and I could tell that it really bothered him—he was used to being the one controlling interpersonal dynamics. He emailed me a couple of times after that, but I never responded, and I heard from a common acquaintance that his feelings were really hurt that I was so “immature” about our breakup. I replied that I was happier being alone than waste time on such a tiresome, low-rent snob, and that was the last I heard from or about him.
Most of my friendly acquaintances had already graduated or transferred to other schools, but I found my real friend group in a really weird way. The story of my rattlesnake encounter spread quickly once I was comfortable answering questions about my injured arm, and it didn’t take long for other people to come up and share their own near-fatal or deeply traumatic animal encounters. We became a kind of club, survivors of experiences that most people could only imagine: Andrew Tsosie, who lost a big chunk of muscle on his upper thigh from the dissolving bite of a brown recluse spider; twins Angie and Michael O’Neal, trampled by a bull moose in Yellowstone; Tawnesha Giddens, hospitalized after a near-fatal jellyfish encounter during a family trip to the Great Barrier Reef; Hector Serrano, bitten by a rabid bat the first night of summer camp; Danny Durbin, lost parts of two fingers and an earlobe to a neighbor’s Cocker Spaniel when he was a baby; Sarah Hu, anaphylaxis-induced seizure and vision loss after stumbling into a wasp’s nest on her granddad's berry farm.
Our scarred skin and memories weren’t deformed or strange or off-putting to one another—we understood the trauma and the survival in ways no one else could. We’d meet up for meals, movies, study sessions, or just to hang out. Later on I'd understand this as an organic talk therapy group, but at the time it was just such a relief to have a group of friends who'd been through similar things and came out the other side stronger.
Andrew said our unique little club needed a name. He was an English major and a fan of contemporary American lit, so he suggested a riff on a novel he’d just read and loved: Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk’s controversial meditation on capitalism and toxic masculinity. So naturally we became Bite Club, complete with a logo of dripping fangs in a ring of dangerous animals in silhouette designed by graphic design major Tawnesha. Only the first rule of Bite Club was that you were encouraged to talk about Bite Club, as silence only kept people isolated and ashamed. When the Brad Pitt movie hit the next year we congratulated ourselves on being well ahead of the pop-culture curve.
I spent a lot of time with Andrew. He was funny and smart and a little bit quirky, and he loved a lot of the same books, hobbies, movies, and singers I did, especially if there were fantasy, sf, or horror elements. He was gay, too, and cute—he had huge hazel eyes with long, luscious lashes, full, kissable lips, and a pencil-thin mustache that would have looked silly on a lot of people but suited his round features surprisingly well. It was clear that he had a huge crush on me--he had absolutely no chill. But I liked that about him. In a different time and place I’d have probably been interested, but I was still pining for Grady.
One afternoon we hung out in my room to watch some gay art film he’d been assigned for one of his classes, some French thing I couldn’t understand but that he seemed entranced by. There were some hot sex scenes between the two main characters, and I was feeling particularly lonely and horny, so we gradually started fooling around a bit, but when he dropped to the floor beside my bed and reached for my zipper, I stopped him.
He looked confused. “Don’t you want to?” he asked.
I could see something of my own sense of rejection in his still-hopeful eyes. “Yeah, Andrew, I do. Truly. But…I can’t.”
“Why? I really like you, Ben. I thought that maybe you liked me too.”
I pulled him up to sit beside me and took his smaller hands in mine. “I do, Andrew. You’re amazing, and you’ll make someone an incredible boyfriend. But I’m still in love with someone, and until I figure out that situation it wouldn’t be fair to you or to me to go further.” I squeezed his hands. “But I promise you, Andrew, you’re a real catch. There’s nothing about you that wouldn’t interest me. I’m just not ready yet.”
He gave me a sad but sincere smile. “He must be a pretty incredible guy, then.”
I let out a long, drawn-out sigh. “Yeah, he’s pretty much perfect. Aside from, you know, the whole breaking my heart thing.”
“You want to talk about it, gay friend to gay friend? Bite Club confidential?”
I almost said no. I’d gotten so used to just pushing everything down and getting on with life, just laughing and having fun and pretending that my heart wasn’t shattered in a thousand jagged pieces and that I wasn’t desperately sad and lonely.
But it was shattered, and I was sad. I missed Grady in a way that felt almost elemental. Here was someone who understood my life in a way a lot of others didn’t. So I took a deep breath and told Andrew about me and Grady, from the beginning to the end, leaving out most of the more graphic sex details but not much else.
It was early evening when I finished. He was still sniffling, having broken down bawling when I told him about me and Mark turning around at the Saddle Mountain gate. I’d been dry-eyed the whole time. I was glad I’d shared the story, but I felt distant from it, too, like it had happened to someone else. “So that’s the story of the one who got away.”
He wiped his nose and eyes with a tissue. “I always wondered about that painting.” I’d hung Grady’s portrait in my dorm room, directly above my desk where I could see it from my bed first thing in the morning and last thing at night. “Never imagined it had such a tragic backstory. He’s so handsome.”
“He is. Even more so now that he’s filled out. But I don’t even have a photo of him, or of us.”
“No,” Andrew said, his eyes refilling with tears. “Please don’t. I’ll never recover.”
I laughed. “Sorry.”
“I get it, though. I wouldn’t be looking for someone else if I’d just been with somebody like that.”
“It kind of pisses me off, you know? I mean, I’m twenty-one. I’m gay. I’m apparently single. I’ve got a revved-up sex drive. I’ve got cute guys all over the place, especially the one currently in my room.” Andrew blushed, pleased by the observation. “And all I can do is think about him. I don’t know why. It’s not like he’s reached out, or called, or written to me. It’s not like he’s shown even the slightest interest in my life.”
Andrew frowned. “Um, he only saved your life. He only paid your hospital bill. He only gave you enough money to cover all your physio for the year, plus some. He only gave you one of his two most precious paintings. He only made sure that you didn’t have to worry about how you were going to get through this year at school. He only said he loved you a thousand times and gave you the kind of sex songs and pornos are written about.”
I felt like an idiot. Andrew was right. Grady had done all those things and never made a big deal out of it. He’d never once made me feel like a burden or anything other than the most precious thing in his life.
“Then why did he give all that up?” I asked. “I mean, you’re right, I know, but then he just walked away.”
“Maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he really thought you’d be better off without him. It sounds like he’s used to giving up his own dreams to make other peoples’ lives better, even when it was hard. Isn’t that what he did with his uncle?”
Andrew’s insight hit me in the solar plexus—the revelation was almost a body blow. It was all true. Grady always put himself second. He made hard choices so that others had things a little bit easier. The more he loved, the more he was willing to give up of himself so that the people he cared about were safe and provided for.
Everything he did, he did because he loved me, not in spite of it.
The grief unleashed like a geyser—it was like this long-brewing realization cracked something in my consciousness, the last barrier that kept me from feeling what I needed to feel. I started sobbing then—deep, heaving, gasping sobs—but Andrew grabbed me and held me in a tight embrace while it all came pouring out. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t try to offer banal words or stock phrases of comfort. He just let me cry out all my love and sadness and grief for Grady and what we’d meant to each other.
Later, when I’d managed to get myself together, Andrew drove us to Dairy Queen, where he treated us each to a “gay love drama” treat—a banana split for me, chocolate and cherry shake for him—and he started strategizing what we were going to do about Grady Kinsley.
“I think you should write to him,” he said, his mouth full of ice cream. “Tell him how you feel.”
“I already told him how I felt,” I replied. “Remember? At the hospital?”
“That was ages ago now. And neither of you were at your best. He needs to hear it again.”
I considered Andrew’s words. I hadn’t reached out since that day at the gate, and even that wasn’t so much contact as a distant gesture. For all Grady knew I’d gone back to college life and moved on just like he asked me to. He had no idea how much I missed him.
“If you tell him and he doesn’t respond, at least you’ll know and you can move on to…the next best thing.” Andrew smiled shyly. “But if he does respond, you’ll have something to work with. You get clarity or closure either way. But if you just give up, you’ll never know. You’ve got to at least try.”
“You sound like my nurse Nick.”
Andrew nodded sagely. “Then you should try to listen to our wise gay counsel for a change.”
I giggled. He was right. It was better to know either way. Life had to go on with or without Grady, and although I knew which one I wanted, I needed to move forward—I couldn’t linger in this unhappy in-between place.
Later that night, after I’d hugged Andrew goodnight and gone back to my dorm room, I sat at my desk and pulled out some paper and a pen. I looked at Grady’s painting for a long time before I started writing.
Dear Grady,
I’m not sure if you’ll be happy to read this letter or not, but I’m going to go crazy if I don’t put this down on paper, so I hope you don’t mind hearing from me.
First, I wanted to say I’m sorry for not coming to the house that day when Mark and I pulled up to the gate. I’d wanted to see you, but I was scared and hurt, and it just seemed easier to leave stuff where it was. I got your check that day. I guess I thought there would be a letter or something with it. But I’ve had time to think about it, and I really wish I’d have come in and told you how I felt. I hope it’s not too late now, but if it is, I understand.
Grady, I miss you. I miss everything about you. Do you miss me too? I didn’t want us to end things like that. I didn’t want us to end things at all. I understand why you thought you had to do it, but I promise you, you didn’t. We could have made it through it all. I know we could have. You didn’t have to give up on us to make my dreams come true, because the truth is, my dreams include you too.
I think you’re used to taking on everyone’s hurt and ignoring your own; I think you believed that if you let me go I’d be better off, but all that did was make us both sad and lonely. Love isn’t about taking on all the pain for someone else—it’s about sharing that pain and cutting it in half instead of being broken by the weight of it all on your own. Loving someone else doesn’t mean you can’t love yourself or have something special that’s yours. You can want this too. That’s not being selfish—that’s being human. And I love the human being you are.
I don’t know if you’ve moved on or not. I haven’t. I mean, I’ve wanted to, and I have a friend here who’d like us to be more, but he’s not the one I want to be with. You’re the one that I want. (ooh ooh ooh, honey—that’s from Grease, by the way.) I know it’s going to be complicated, but anything worth having is worth fighting for. I’m willing to fight for us, Grady, because I believe we can be something amazing. I think we already are.
If you’re absolutely sure you’ve made the right decision, I promise I won’t bother you again. But if you’ve ever wondered if maybe it was a mistake for us to break up, or missed reaching over and feeling me beside you, or laughing at the memory of one of my stupid jokes, or missed my kisses and hugs and…other things, maybe we can try again and figure out a way to make this work? I’d like that a lot.
Anyway, I just wanted to let you now that I’ve been thinking about you, and us. That’s all I ever think about, actually, and being away hasn’t changed that at all. It’s probably made it worse. No matter where I go, I miss you. I miss you all the time.
Love always,
Your Benji
P.S. Please hug the dogs for me. And Bean. But don’t try to hug Buddy—he’ll probably bite you.
P.P.S. Here’s a picture of me with my “Bite Club” crew. My friend Andrew took it. He’s the one who said I should write to you. I hope you write back.
I sealed the letter in an envelope and wrote Grady’s name on it. Then I folded that envelope, put it in another, and addressed it to Mark. He’d know what to do.
