Once a Nerd Ch. 13

"Mmhm." He snorts. "Don't fall on your face because you can't keep your eyes to yourself."

"Cardio is an extremely important part of a balanced fitness routine, Sam. The world doesn't revolve around you, buddy."

"Guess my ego's gotten the better of me." He rolls his eyes, mashing at the display to kickstart the belt's continuous loop. Unfortunately, I'm obligated to do the same. Runners are a strange breed, and I'm fully convinced the 'runner's high' is a widespread delusion. The brain is a powerful tool, and humans have the ability to adapt to almost anything if left to endure it long enough. Theoretically, you can convince yourself a torture is some form of delight. There are goals and finish lines in running, sure, but what was actually accomplished?

You went from point 'a' to point 'b' slightly faster.

Exhilarating.

Treadmills, specifically, are awkward for someone as heavy as myself. The machine thumps and creaks like its verging on collapse with every footfall. If there's something worth looking at, I might understand. The world's full of captivating scenery. Snow-capped mountains, reflective lakes, timeless redwoods grand enough to make you feel as though you're transmigrating into a realm of fantastical, woodland creatures when passing through them. I've never jogged through such a place, but I'm sure the majesty of it would fall flat.

Glancing over, brine singing the corners of my eyes from where sweat gathers and descends from my hairline, Sam's jogging smoothly at a moderate pace--on track for a seven minute mile.

Eyes blank and forward, mind a million miles away. His arms are bent, hands loosely fisted, moving just enough for balance's sake. His chest undulates deep and steady, a nod to his excellent breath control. Like he's stuffed with roses, blood blooms hot right under his skin with the slightest exertion. Some of that thick, dark hair was destined to shake free from the band straining at the back of his head, and I'm sure the curls bobbing in his vision is an aggravation. His throat and collarbones shine with a light sweat, and the muscle in those long, gorgeous legs wobbles on impact with the tread. I mean, I've got the Eighth Wonder right next to me.

What else is there to see?

I might imagine fucking the pure sense out of him in one of the shower stalls, but I feel bad about it. I can't even fantasize in peace. Plus, running with a boner is a punishment in itself. I'm not sure what possesses him, but Sam's eyes cut at me through his hair. When he catches me staring back, his face colors six shades deeper. He's flustered, struggling to hide it, and that expression sets me on fire. More than a loaded bar, I feel like I could press an entire single-family home.

Before I know it, those fifteen minutes are over.

"See?" I huff, dragging my damp hair across my head. "Piece of cake. I live for cardio, gets the blood pumping."

He glances pointedly at the slight bulge in my shorts. "It's certainly pumping."

"Proof of my youthful vigor."

"Go work it off." He gestures vaguely in the direction of the weightroom. "I won't be able to show my face in here again if you go around advertising a hard-on to the entire building."

"Wha--? What about you? Don't you wanna spot me?"

Sam looks at me like I'm stupid. "That's a terrible idea for so many reasons. I'll be in the studio."

Pointedly dismissed, I drag dejected feet into the weightroom. He brought us here mainly for me, so I should be more appreciative of his catering to my schedule. It's not like we're...not together, and he isn't wrong. If he joined me for lifts, I'd probably end up tearing or breaking something through sheer inattention. But, I work out all the time. This isn't some new, exciting venture without Sam. I'm also just--plain distracted. The more the day wears on, the stronger that anxiety curdles in my gut. The longer I drag my ass on telling him, the worse his reaction will be.

In an effort to stamp out the corrosion eating through my ribs, I lift more aggressively than the situation demands. There's no reason to go balls to the wall on a spontaneous excursion with Sam, but it's the only coping tool strapped to my belt. Other than, y'know, coming clean.

Thirty minutes in, some good Samaritan approaches with an unsolicited offer: "Hey, man, you've got that thing bowing. Need a spot?"

Looking back at the bar I've just finished loading with over five hundred pounds, it might not be a bad idea. My chest, shoulders, and upper arms are starting to twitch and shake with fatigue. Last thing I need is a crushed ribcage. Or, maybe that'll earn me a sympathy card. Turning back to the offeror, I size him up. If he doesn't work here, he's absolutely an influencer--the type to have their Instagram handle printed on the breast of a T-shirt. Mid-thirties, early forties. Neat, graying hair. Complimentary beard. Becoming crow's feet. Tan, tall, shredded.

I can already hear the 1st Phorm advertisement: "Hey, guys, just wanted to introduce you to my favorite flavor this month! My personal latte recipe is captioned below--"

More than adequate to catch a bar.

"Sure, man. Thanks."

My skin is to the point of sticking to the bench when I lay back against it, forcing me to lift my shoulders with every adjustment beneath the bar. "You've been throwing it around since you got in here." He chuckles from his place at the head of the bench, and I don't miss the insinuation.

"I didn't come to look at 'em."

"Fair enough. Cody, by the way."

God, he looks like a Cody.

"Dean."

To stave off further small talk, I brace myself under the bar, tweaking my grip until I'm happy with it. Even before lifting it off the j-hooks, I know I've got about five reps in the tank. Anymore than that, I'd leave myself open to Cody having to step in. It'll be a snowball's chance in Hell before I let this asshole lift a bar off me. Trapping a big breath in my lungs, I lift the hulking weight from the hooks. It drops to my chest, and the breath is hissed out on the upward press. Just as I thought, no more than five--and that's pushing it. But, it's the goal I set for myself.

Cody, at least, has enough sense not to reach for the bar as I struggle to get it up on the last rep. If he did, I'd force five more out of straight spite. Once it's re-racked with a jarring clang, I let my arms noodle off the side of the bench.

"Goddamn, dude, you're strong as shit."

"Hah, thanks, man. You need one? I'm fuckin' done."

"Exercised the demons?" He laughs. "Yeah, I'll take one. I'll lose a plate though."

Heaving up, I wipe the bench down. Cody sets to unloading a plate from either side of the bar. Just when I thought my mood couldn't descend any further into the pits of perdition, he says:

"You came in with Sam, right?"

Pardon the shit out of me--?

"Yeah?"

"You guys close?" He asks, settling against the bench. "He doesn't come a lot, usually once a week, but I've tried talking to him a few times. Tends to keep to himself, y'know?"

It better have been in the name of selling him something, or I might crush Cody's larynx with this fucking bar. "We're close."

"He's single?"

I grit my teeth against a sharp, incredulous laugh that missiles up my throat. Stupid, fucking California. Sammy's too pretty for this place. "Rip your set, then we'll talk. What are you going for?"

"Ah, ten, I think."

Cody gets his set underway, and I watch dispassionately as the first few go up and down smoothly. He begins to fatigue around the fifth rep, actively floundering by the eighth. Flicking a quick look around the room, it's near empty. The only other two occupants are on the opposite side, chatting by the free weights. Cody's stuck under the bar on his ninth rep, and it's obvious he's expecting me to reach down and snatch it up. The only thing keeping it from snapping his sternum or rolling into his throat is the barrier of his hands.

"Dean, hey--" He exhales, stifled.

I reach down after another beat, sliding my fingers beneath where it's pinching into his chest.

"Nah, he's not fuckin' single."

Then, I re-rack it. I'm already in enough shit as it is, I can't kill someone in Sam's gym. He jackknifes into a sitting position, rubbing the middle of his chest like a guillotine almost came down on it.

"Dean, you done?"

Sam's standing in the threshold of the weightroom, and there's a short towel limp around his neck. He's much more flushed than when we parted ways, hair as heavy with sweat as mine is. Goddamn, look at him. He's glowing after a workout. Small victories. "Yeah, I'm done." I call over to him, before leveling Cody with a venomous look.

"You got the plates, right, man?"

Without waiting for an answer, I rip my bottle from the floor and join Sammy in the arching mouth of the weighroom's entrance.

My mood spirals with each passing minute of the day--through no one's fault but my own. I do my damndest to keep Sam from noticing, but he's perceptive. Or, he's just that tuned into the minutiae of my behavior. He asks me twice more if I'm okay, if everything's alright, and that's two more cookie-cut opportunities to come clean. Two more times I choke on the truth.

I can feel the hole under my feet deepening, the shovel's handle digging against my callouses as I toss the dirt out myself. Despite the stress aging me ten years per second, it's not heavy enough to tip the scale. I'm fucking scared in a way that's new and wholly consuming. I never want to be the one responsible for upsetting him, bruising his heart with a negative feeling. I want to be the one who makes those feelings go away. He's finally, finally warmed up to the idea of a real, bonafide relationship with me, but our house is still made of glass. One stray pebble, and it'll shatter.

Telling him feels like slinging the stone myself.

It feels like ending everything.

I wonder if Jane realizes the position she's put me in, or if she's clever enough to have put me in it on purpose. Now, I'm complicit. With Sam not reaching out to her, she'll know I kept our encounter a secret from him. If it was a test of some kind, I've failed spectacularly.

Upon leaving the gym, our desperate need for carbs sees us in a pizza parlor three blocks down. It's a trendy, vegetarian collective that'd put a redblooded Italian in an early grave, or have the deceased nonni's rolling in 'em. Afterwards, a book shop with an attached café. Sam buys three secondhand books, and we take our overpriced beverages to-go. He's chattering excitedly in the passenger's seat as he flips through a few pages of Don Quixote. The previous owner left tiny, blocky walls of insightful commentary in the margins of most pages, highlighting the paperback halfway to death. While the details are incomputable to me, Sam's babbling is sweet, pleasant cotton in my head.

It's nearly six when we come through the door, and I'm mourning a day that's not even gone. It was a perfect fucking day, and I couldn't immerse myself in a single second of it, not with the weight of a relationship-ending bomb ticking down in my back pocket.

I feel sick. Physical, crippling affliction. Clammy, skin clinging to my clothes like melting wax. I'm hot under the collar, and my stomach whorls violently. If I don't have this conversation in the next twenty minutes, I'll be having to instead explain why I'm repainting Sam's toilet with cremini mushrooms, artichoke, and house-made basil-pine nut pesto.

He's...brought out all sorts of ugly sides from me. Now, a foul brand of cowardice makes the list. Shortly after getting back, we'd settled into the living room to catch up on our respective coursework, but I quickly escaped to the bathroom for a much-needed kick in the ass. I'm praying shocks of cold water lashed up from the faucet was the missing link all along, the external factor to solidify my nerve. Glowering at the white-livered stranger in the mirror, I breathe a harsh rebuke:

"Get the fuck out there. You've fucked this up enough, yeah? Man up, or you don't deserve him in the first place."

Right.

This is it--now or never. From the moment Jane walked out, this was the only thing I could have done. Sam's reaction was never going to be composed or easy to handle, and delaying the inevitable was a pointless, stupid thing to do. Whatever the consequence, I'll just have to eat it. I haven't fucked up this bad since our dustup with Jamie, when I took out my misguided frustrations on him.

Stowing my hands in my pockets to keep their constant, involuntary clenching from Sam's notice, I return to the living room. He's curled into his preferred end of the couch, and the lamp's amber casts a crown off his dark, satin head. While his laptop is open and on, it's been abandoned in his lap. He's frowning down at his phone, and I fear the worst. I can only hope it's a humanitarian crisis halfway across the world that's come across his feed, as Sam gets real bent out of shape over hungry, orphaned children and civil unrest.

"Hey--" He starts, looking up. "I might have to leave you here for like, an hour or two tomorrow. Mom wants to get lunch, and she's being weirdly persistent about it."

My heart all but drops out of my ass.

Setting my jaw, I come around the couch and reclaim my spot on the floor. I'd been using the coffee table like a desk. Instead of my laptop's glaring screen, I sit facing him. "I...I have to tell you something, actually."

Sam tilts his head, the frown returning to twist his face. He knows a somber tone when he hears one, especially from me. "What's up?"

Get it out.

Spit it the fuck out.

Come on--

"Your mom was here this morning."

I knew it'd be bad. I knew he wouldn't take it well. I knew his reaction would crush me, and I've spent a great deal of today imagining it. But, the real thing? The stricken, devastated version of Sam that plagued my mind's eye is a watered-down, inadequate imitation. It's tissue paper reduced to confetti, gusted away by the impact of the real thing. The color is zapped from his face, and his eyes round out beneath the baffled, downward tumble of his brows. He's so stiff against the arm of the couch, his laptop threatens to slide off his lap.

"--what?" He gasps, and the raw, bloodied fear in his voice puts a roar in my ears.

Over the next few minutes, I choke out a crippled recount of my unexpected encounter with Jane. Sam isn't any better for the explanation. His mouth is pinched, and I can tell he's punching overtime to merely breathe. Deep, level inhales that touch the bottom of his lungs, otherwise he'd hyperventilate. He's picking incessantly at the blanket's few loose threads. While he's looking away from me, his eyes are unfocused on unmoving. He's doing his damndest to process.

It's silent for a long, long time after I finish. When he does speak, Sam's voice is croaky and overwrought with emotion: "...she knows."

"I...I'm--"

"Why didn't you tell me?" He's looking at me again, finally, but it's like a criminal caught in the beam of a searchlight. Betrayed, hurt beyond words, desperate for a satisfactory answer we both know doesn't exist. There's nothing I can say to excuse the delay of critical, life-altering information.

"I'm...scared." I admit on the wings of a weak, failing breath. "Because I--I couldn't...do anything. I'm scared of what you'll say. I'm...terrified of you, Sammy. You've got me by the fucking throat. You make me desperate and--and so, so stupid. With shit like this, I can't just...force you to let me handle it, take care of it, but I don't know how to take the backseat with you. I want to handle it, and I can't--"

"Do you understand how fucking unrealistic that is?" He interrupts sharply. "How insulting it is? I'm an adult, Dean. I'm older than you by more than a decade. I know you have this...need to solve everything, to try and make it all okay, but it's not always going to be okay. For some people, it'll never be fucking okay, and you'll run yourself into the ground trying to change that." He hunches forward, scrubbing his face with trembling hands.

"But, that's my mom, Dean! You can't--keep shit like that from me! When it's all said and done, her feelings and opinions won't make a single goddamn difference in your life, but they can ruin mine."

The dichotomy between our way of thinking is starkly outlined, and I have to swallow down the refute building in my mouth: "My life is fucking over without you." I can't say anything along those lines right now, because it's a separate issue. It'd also be burdensome for him to hear something so overtly codependent, selfish. Against my better judgment, I reach for him. "Sam, I--"

My chest crumples in on itself when he rips his leg away before contact can be made. "Don't touch me right now."

No, no, shit, shit, this is--

"Sam, please, I'm so fucking--"

"Stop it." He snaps, and he's suddenly climbing from the couch. There's a jerky urgency in his movements. "I...I want you to leave."

My kneejerk instinct is to immediately argue, and I'm on my feet before I can think better of it. Sam flinches on the opposite side of the couch, watching me warily, and my brain flatlines. My lungs stall, and I grow lightheaded after too many seconds. Leaving, as he'd asked, feels no different from stepping off the edge of a cliff. From the top, it's a bottomless, pitch canyon, and I won't have any concept of the ground until I'm a smear on it. No resolution. No concept of which direction we're headed.

No control.

But, I remind myself of earlier convictions: 'whatever the consequence, I'll just have to eat it.'

This is that consequence. "I'll go."

Sam watches me for a moment more. His mouth splits, hesitant, but he must think better of continuing anything in the heat of it. Maybe to avoid an awkward hover as I collect my things from around the apartment, he retreats into his bedroom's adjoining bathroom. The only consolation is that, while he's asked me to leave, there were no ultimatums or finalities. He's not ridding himself of me yet. With Jane, it was ominous. With Sam, it's a bone-sagging relief. I wonder if he knows how alike they are in maddening ways like this one.

In his room, I pause outside of the bathroom door. I don't have to try the knob to know it's locked. The shower's running. I wonder if he's in it, or just crunched up on the floor. Is it just white noise to escape my footsteps? To avoid hearing the front door snap on the latch? Does he regret asking me to go?

It goes against the grain of my genetic code to turn away, but I do. He has every right in the world to ask it of me, as even under normal circumstances, time and space should be cheap commodities. For me, it's almost unaffordable. With my bags cutting into my shoulders, heavier on the way out than they were coming in, I leave. The first leg of my journey ends at the bottom of the stairwell, and I dig my phone from my pocket.

The line drones a few times before it's picked up.

"Hey, man, you workin' tonight?"

"Yeah, why? It's only Friday."

"Sam kicked me out."

There's a sympathetic whistle. "Shit, what'd you do?"

"Listen, whatever you think you were gonna make tonight, I'll pay it--if you get shitfaced with me."

--

Dean wasn't himself.

He wasn't as handsy. Less flirtatious, less affectionate. Subdued. There weren't nearly as many wisecracks throughout the day, or real conversation of any kind. His mind was elsewhere. I asked him so many times, but he wouldn't cop to the blatant discrepancies in his behavior. He assured me he was fine, all was well, and it was...a nice day. Or, it would have been. In hindsight, I feel humiliated. I'm trying so hard to be more like Dean, more reciprocal. I skipped around town with him like any pair of lovers, doing my best to overlook his strange mood.