Running between Tav’s room and Levi’s at 1am is not something I’d ever thought I’d be doing a few days before finals started. Shirt barely on, pants crazy, and shoes oddly ajar, as though shoes can be ajar.
I knocked, and nothing happened. I knocked again, louder, and I heard something thrown at the door. I knocked a third time with a “shave and a haircut” pattern that no one had ever established and I heard Emilio yell “FINE!!” I heard rustling, the handle, and Emilio opened it. Boxers, eyes squinting into the dim hallway, and hair mashed flat on one side. “Si? Dude, it’s the middle of the—”
“Is Levi up?”
He looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe I was. He breathed like he wanted to smack me, but he turned into the darkness and said, “Your charge is here.” I heard the words and didn’t know what they meant and didn’t care, but I heard more noise and saw a silhouette arise in front of the window, glass stained with light from other buildings and a single yellow bulb glowing like a halo above his head. “Close your mouth, you’ll catch flies,” Emilio muttered and turned around.
Levi came to the door, leaned against the frame, propped up with one hand, sleep drenching his face while boxers were all that adorned him.
“Si, can we d—”
“It’s you.”
His half-lidded eyes told me nothing. I tried again. “Levi, you’ve always been there. You tried to connect. I used you for help and threw you away when you were trying to be there for me, be with me, and you asked me a question after Thanksgiving and I couldn’t answer it but I can answer it and I want to answer it so please, can we just talk?”
Levi turned his head, “Milo?”
“For cryin’ out ... couldn’t you have your Hallmark moment during more godly hours, church boys?” But, I heard Emilio moving, and he came back and passed by us both, clad in boxers, sandals, and phone in-hand.
Levi’s eyes were still mostly closed, but he cocked his head towards the room and I came in, closing the door behind me. He turned on a faint desk light and sat on his bed.
“Si, it really is late, and I’m tired. And to be honest, I don’t want to be jerked around.”
I sat on a chair and felt more nervous than at any church dinner. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” His breathiness sounded exasperated.
“Everything. I don’t know what I’m doing. I thought coming here would be like a lamb going to slaughter, but going home again was so much worse than I ever thought possible. It affected me in ways I still don’t think I understand,” I raised my hand to my neck – no necklace, no reminder of His sacrifice for us all so our souls could be saved. So mine could be saved. So I could have a better life, the life I wanted. Levi’s eyes were a little more open as he leaned against the wall, sitting on his bed.
“You asked me a question. I gave a ... a ... I gave a shitty non-answer. It felt wrong at the time, I know it’s wrong now. I tried to make it up but it was wrong then. And then the whole thing all semester with Tav, and how now I’m in the frat and the ban is lifted, and you nodded to me at the party saying it was okay to be with him, but it was just physical and I couldn’t go where I think he wanted because I didn’t feel anything. But you ... you make me feel something even though we’ve never even done anything and I want to feel, I want to see where that can go, I don’t just want to be with you because you’re a shoulder to cry on but because I feel the same way you do – or did? – that there’s a connection.
“Please, don’t close that connection, not until we try. Not until we can see what happens, what might happen.”
“You were with Tav?”
“Yah, you said it was okay.”
He looked confused.
“You nodded.”
“I was toasting you as a new member.”
I sank back in the chair. Had I messed up? Did I destroy this before it started?
He sighed very loudly. “Si, look. I don’t care. But you need to be honest with yourself before you can be honest with me. Or anyone. Am I glad you slept with Tav? No. But I guess it’s also a good thing, everyone wants to sample his Grade-A beef,” he laughed a little and rolled his eyes. “I watched you look at him for months, but it’s fine. I’ve watched you fuck your way around campus for months, and that doesn’t bother me. But, you should get tested—”
“—I got tested Monday.”
“Of course you did. I mean, good. Look, you do you. I just don’t know what ‘you’ is, and more importantly, I don’t think you know what ‘you’ is.”
It stung, but he was right, but he didn’t know that’s what I’d been doing for the lifetime of the last 10 minutes. “Fair. But that’s what I’ve been doing. Even if I didn’t know it at the time. I’ve thought long and hard about this – it feels like a lifetime – and I don’t want that anymore. Sex with other guys to get over things and get back at my parents was just doing it wrong. It’s not what I want. Tav felt nice, physically. But it felt wrong every other way. You ... you’ve felt right. From the first time I saw you, to every time you’ve talked with me about home. I felt like there was a connection and I just thought it was because we both had overbearing childhoods.”
He scoffed and rolled his eyes, “And then some. But Si, you don’t have to tell me about every guy you slept with and how it made you feel. Like, good for feeling you can talk to me, but some things you can keep to yourself.”
“But I want to share. Okay, maybe not everything, but look ... weeks ago, you said I’m not broken, and to never let anyone tell me I’m broken. Levi, I feel like I’m broken when I’m with other guys. I thought they were bandaging me up as some sort of substitute salvation. I was wrong. Every time I’ve talked with you, even when crying my eyes out, I’ve never felt broken. I’ve felt whole. Like there was someone else out there who knew what I was going through. Someone else who was like me in other ways, and I felt like there might be something else there. Like you. But I couldn’t admit it to you, to myself ... I just couldn’t let myself go there.
“I want to let myself go there. Please?”
Levi looked at me and I refused to blink, my eyes would have to stay glassy as he stared into them. He reached to the shelf by the bed and picked something up and held it out. Two pieces of perpendicular metal, suspended from a leather cord. It swung slightly from his fingers, catching the light from the room and the window. I felt a moment of comfort at seeing it, and then that comfort turned to constriction.
“I don’t want it back. That’s ...” I took a deep breath and held it, while Levi sat motionless and the hypnotic, unasked question played out. “That’s my past. I don’t want to go back to it. I need to move forward. I want to try to move forward ... with you.”
I finally let myself blink, and the water dripped down my cheeks as visions of an empty spot on a pew, my mom’s dinner, 👍, and calls on Sunday all poured like the Great Flood through me. When I stopped, I was on the bed, my head on Levi’s shoulder, his skin wet and his hands around my back. He kissed me on the forehead as I sat up and he took his thumbs and swiped my cheeks to dry them. He looked at his thumb and I took it and wiped it on my pants.
I unbuttoned my shirt and watched him; he didn’t shift, didn’t move, and when I got it off I used it to dry his shoulder and lightly-haired chest. His head followed my hand, and when I threw the shirt on the floor, he said, “Yes.”
“What do you mean?”
He rolled his eyes. “Yes, I’m willing to give ‘us’ a shot. I think you still don’t know who you really are or who you really want to be, but – I’ll probably hate myself for this later – I’m willing to try to find that out with you.”
If you enjoyed this story, consider supporting the author on Patreon.
To get in touch with the author, send them an email.
