The problem with being happy is that happiness gets you used to things being a certain way. You tend to forget about what happened before or how everything used to be, and you can’t imagine that what you have right now can so easily turn to nothing, leaving you with nothing but regrets.
That first year in college spent with Adrian was the happiest year of my life. I say ‘year’ but all I got with him were a total of six months. The cruelty of the world we didn’t care about waited around the corner.
There’s always blame to share around. Let’s not pretend we’re always faultless in what happens to us. How we behave in front of obstacles defines us forever.
The first obstacle happened in our path toward the end of freshman year. We had gotten too used to each other, preferring to be naked in our dorm room since we didn’t have to worry about others visiting us. The few friends I’d made usually involved study groups that happened at the library and other adequate places. Adrian must have forbidden everyone to visit him in his dorm room, so that was our kingdom.
One in which we were naked all the time and fucked for about half of it. Adrian no longer needed anyone else. He knew I’d put out the moment he brushed by me. At this point, it could very well be a learned instinct. He took me all over the room. In our beds, on the floor, against the wall, against the desk. As for sex positions, we were really something else. Adrian had an inclination toward acrobatics, so I found myself more often than not in positions that shouldn’t have been possible to achieve for the average human.
Nothing about Adrian was average. Except for me being on top and the one to fuck him, we had tried about everything up to that point.
That made us too comfortable, too not-cautious. So, when my father walked in on us, not waiting to be invited in after knocking once, we weren’t ready for it.
We weren’t fucking. At least, there was that. But we were naked, and we had to scramble for our clothes while murmuring apologies while my dad looked ahead sternly as if he were a saint forced to witness the debauchery of heathens.
“Why didn’t you call?” I asked, buttoning myself up. Summer was within its rights, but I choose a long-sleeve shirt because there were just too many bruises on my body. I had no intention to invite questions.
“I wanted to see if you’re studying as hard as you keep pretending,” my father said.
Over the years, I had learned everything there was to know about my father’s silences. And this time, it was better for me to shut up and wait for him to make his decision. Whether he was going to pretend that he’d seen nothing or give me a thrashing for behaving improperly, it was up to him.
But Adrian had no idea how to deal with a saintly man like my father. So he did the opposite of what I was doing. He spoke up.
“Jo studies all the time,” he said. He looked his usual self, in a black t-shirt and tight jeans. From where I was standing, I could see the last hickey I’d given him, peeking from underneath the collar of his tee.
“Adrian, I did not ask you anything about my son.” My father didn’t want to antagonize his wife’s child, but it wasn’t like him to be civilized in the true sense of the word.
“But I’m right here,” Adrian insisted. “I’m sharing a room with him. I know how hardworking he is. You shouldn’t be so hard on him all the time. He doesn’t deserve it.”
My dad turned to Adrian so abruptly that even my beloved brother tensed, waiting for violence. I felt a vein pulsing in my neck. It was one thing if he wanted to punch me in the face; he couldn’t know what I was capable of if anyone dared to touch a hair on Adrian’s head with the intention of hurting him.
“Adrian, please step outside for a bit,” my father said. “Your mom sends her good wishes.”
Adrian talked to his mom on the phone all the freaking time. He definitely didn’t need my dad to tell him anything about her. However, this small detail made one thing abundantly clear: he was here of his own accord and alone. That meant that he wanted to take me by surprise, catch me doing something. And that didn’t add up.
“It’s okay,” I told Adrian, who glanced at me. He looked like he didn’t want to do that at all, but since I continued to stare into his eyes, he understood.
“I’ll be back in half an hour. People around here need to study,” he threw at my dad, daring to look him in the eye.
“Without any clothes on?” my father asked.
Adrian was good at standing his own ground, but he didn’t reply to that. He didn’t want to put me in a bad light, and I was thankful for it.
My dad waited until Adrian was out of the room. He didn’t say anything for a while, just moving around and examining the textbooks opened on the desk, and a few of Adrian’s sketches. When I noticed what my dad was staring at, I knew it was too late.
You see, I had turned into Adrian’s personal muse at some point. He sketched me all the time. I was a good study for him, he kept telling me. I only think that he enjoyed having a naked model around, outside the designated hours when their class could stare at someone in the buff and learn their anatomy.
“Is this what your brother draws all the time?” he asked. He moved away from the desk as if scenes of the Apocalypse were painted there. My father couldn’t understand art if it hit him in the face.
“I have no idea,” I lied. “I’m too busy with my own studies.”
I could tell that my answers didn’t work this time. There was something else.
“Why are you here?” I asked directly. There had to be something. Why not bring Adrian’s mom along? Something was definitely fishy.
He stopped by the window, hands behind his back. Even without looking at me, I knew that his eyes were just as cold and judgmental as ever.
“Rumors have reached my ears,” he started.
I waited. My jaw was so tense I worried I might pull a muscle.
“Rumors that it’s not only studying that you do around here.”
What rumors? Who could possibly tell my father anything? Especially regarding my non-studying activities?
“People send their children to college, and once they end up there, they change. They forget all about their good education and upbringing. Eighteen years of efforts to keep them God-fearing and teach them right from wrong, and they still end up throwing it all out the window. And for what? To live in sin.”
I hadn’t gotten a preaching from my father in so long. But I recognized the signs. He was going to do something bad. Good thing Adrian was out. One strange thing kept happening to me since Adrian started treating me like I was his boyfriend; one that preferred to keep their relationship hidden, but still. I was starting to become proud of myself. I was worthy of being the only one he fucked, and I knew I was even more than that. You see, Adrian talked to me all the time. He liked listening to me, too, though I was dull and boring. So I had become proud, as I was saying.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said. “It’s hot outside, and there’s no AC. And we’re both men. What do you think we’re doing? Getting pregnant out of wedlock?”
Again and again, my instincts regarding him had dulled, and it didn’t work in my favor. My father turned on his heel and now I could see his eyes. Fire and brimstone. Yes. Fire and brimstone.
“Are you taking me for a fool, boy?” he boomed. I swear, the window panes rattled.
“No, Sir.” I had to remind myself that it wasn’t in my interest to antagonize him. All I had to do was calm him down, avoid the storm, and then remove him from our dorm room. His mere presence was tainting what I had with Adrian. But I couldn’t say all those things out loud. My religious father causing a scene was the last thing I needed.
If causing a scene had been all he wanted, I could’ve lived with it. No such luck.
“I know for a fact that you started committing the gravest sin,” he said, wagging a finger at me.
I remained silent. I only stared calmly at him. If I continued to pretend that I had no idea what he was talking about, I’d be fine. We’d be fine. What a joke.
“While I don’t condone a womanizer, I saw enough of Adrian when he lived with us to know that he spent all his time with females.”
Seriously, the way he talked. Females. Like animals or something of the kind. I still don’t understand how Adrian’s mom could put up with him.
“What’s Adrian got to do with anything?” I still hoped I could steer the storm away from us.
“You,” my dad said and got in my face with his accusing finger raised, “are destroying his life.”
“I have no idea who the hell told you--”
The slap was so sudden that my head snapped to one side. Fuck, how could I have forgotten he was that quick to anger?
“It doesn’t matter who told me,” he whispered menacingly in my face. “I found out. Jordon, I tried, I swear to God Almighty, I tried making a man out of you. But you’re a sinner. You are like your mother, a whore--”
I saw red. My mother had left so long ago, but he said just the wrong thing then. I caught him in the chin. I’m no boxer, but I did hit him so hard that his eyes rolled in his head and he fell on his back.
The sight of him on the floor unmoving turned my blood into ice. I couldn’t move. How hard had I hit him? My mind was trapped like an animal inside my skull. Thoughts bounced off the bone, making something hurt behind my eyes.
But he moved with a groan, cutting my panic short.
“Don’t you fucking dare talk like that about her,” I growled at him.
He didn’t say a thing while struggling to get up. He just barreled into me, making my back hit the wall. This time, I was no longer in the mood to pretend that I was the same obedient son. I elbowed him in the back and managed to escape.
But he was heavier than me, and I had no room to run.
I don’t recall the beating in detail. But he did give me one to remember.
And Adrian decided to come back sooner than he promised.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he shouted, hurrying to get him off me, while my father still landed punches everywhere he managed. My forearms would be black and blue for weeks after that. But them better than my face, right?
I lay on the floor, breathing hard, while my father squared off with Adrian.
“Are you fucking mental?” Adrian shouted. “He’s gay, so fucking what?”
I thought my father would have a coronary on the spot. But God isn’t merciful like that.
“Do you admit to what he’s been doing to you?” my dad sputtered.
“What?” Adrian was so much from a different world than ours that he couldn’t even begin to imagine what was going through my father’s head. “The fuck do you mean? I’m doing things to him, okay?”
Yeah, he was my guardian angel or trying to be. He was getting into my father’s face, thinking that he was safe because he was a stranger.
“What? Can’t you take it, old man? Yeah, your son takes it up the ass and loves it. And it’s me,” Adrian continued, smacking his fist against his chest, “who’s fucking him. Live the fuck with it already. Or crawl back to the fifteenth century where you belong.”
I had a cracked rib and the inside of my right cheek was bleeding, but I was smiling. He was crazy, and he was doing the thing I told him not to, but I was smiling.
My father pushed Adrian. That was all it took. I rolled to one side and grabbed his foot.
We were lucky that campus security made an entrance like the cavalry that very moment. Things could’ve gone so much worse if they hadn’t come then.
We settled things quietly in the end. No one wanted a scandal. When you’ve lived in a place where no one ever talks about the bad things, you learn to be quiet, too. My father told me never to come back home, and I promised that I’d honor his wish if it cost me a lung. Adrian spent two hours on the phone with his mom being pissed.
And I got one of those things that keep your ribs in place to help them heal while preventing you from moving too much.
***
“You were insanely stupid,” I told Adrian, my textbooks open in my lap.
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, really. Don’t do that shit ever again.”
“Are you pissed that I told your dad you’re gay?”
Was I? Not really. What I was pissed about was how Adrian had put himself in danger for me. But I didn’t want to tell him that, because he was so different from me and he’d talk my ears off about it. He wasn’t ready, I guess, to understand, just how much I loved him, and to what lengths I’d go if anyone dared to touch him the wrong way.
“It wasn’t your shit to deal with,” I said. Because of the rib binder, I wasn’t keen on talking much, but Adrian needed me to talk, so I did.
“So why was he beating the shit out of you then?” Adrian had wrongly understood that he’d spilled the beans at a bad time because my fight with my dad was about something else.
“I dared mouthing off to him,” I said.
“You shouldn’t bind your ribs tightly like that,” he said. “I know someone at the nurse’s office. She told me you should just use ice packs and rest.”
“She must know, then,” I said, looking him in the eye. “Is she pretty?”
Adrian groaned. “Are you serious? You’re in pain but you still have enough energy to be jealous. You have the devil in you, Jo,” he joked.
“Looks like you at least agree with my dad on something.”
His face darkened. “I told my mom to divorce him, but she doesn’t want to. What the fuck does she see in him?”
“That’s something only she knows. Maybe she doesn’t want to be lonely.”
He looked away. There was guilt written all over his face. He’d been close with his mom all his life. But he was leaving her behind, because that was life. I knew he’d do the same to me, not by choice, but because it had to be that way.
“Anyway,” I said, “we should tone down on the fucking. And all else.”
“It hurts a lot, doesn’t it?” he said, moving to sit by my side.
I didn’t have the courage to tell him I wanted him weaned off me, so he didn’t have to get close to violence ever again. We never choose for others, and that’s the hardest truth to face.
tbc
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