Once a Nerd Ch. 13

It could've been for any number of reasons, and while he's never had any qualms discussing himself or the stressful things happening in his life, he's not obligated to share every little thing. I figured if it was important, or if it was eating away at him enough, he'd want to talk eventually. Of course, I assumed it had to do with him, his life. His assignments, grades, athletics, friends. Not--

--my motherfucking mom.

There are two major, separate issues at play. One is Dean's fault, the other isn't. Per his explanation, Mom found out on her own. Dean didn't approach her, and I sure as fuck didn't tell her. It's unclear if she knew to expect Dean, or just someone, but it was important enough for her to lie in wait. Somehow, I think she knew it was Dean. If I was in a typical relationship with a typical man, I don't believe she'd have gone to such an extreme. She knew it was Dean, and she knew I'd take it to the grave. Or, I'd only confess to her headstone.

Dean said she was...unreadable. Neither angry, nor acceptant. She asked a few questions, then left. My mom is an incredibly even-tempered woman, and it takes a lot for her to outwardly fluster. Having a plain, unruffled expression means nothing. I've witnessed her dragging students, colleagues, and administrators through the mud without so much as a facial spasm, let alone raising her voice. During tomorrow's lunch, she could very well drill me in the eyes and say, painfully monotonous: "You're no son of mine. Have the condominium vacated by the end of the week."

Mom finding out isn't Dean's fault, nor is their unanticipated confrontation. It might sometimes seem like he has a divine command over the world around him, treating others like marionettes on his miniature stage, but there are bound to be scenarios out of his control. My mom isn't so easily sweet-talked, no matter how charismatic he is. What most certainly is his fucking fault is keeping it from me all goddamn day. He brought my coffee and slipped in behind me like all was right with the world. We--had sex! It was so, so hard to verbalize my desire for it, but I did. I'm making a serious effort to be more outspoken with him. Unashamed.

Of course, I would never have been so eager if I knew the gravity of what'd transpired in the next room over. I don't think Dean was withholding it maliciously, but he was all too eager to fuck me when the opportunity arose. Even if it was to maintain an illusion of everydayness, it makes me feel...gross. Knowing how I'd react, he prioritized spending a comfortable, typical day together instead of dealing with the gargantuan issue at hand. Whatever his reasons, malicious or not, it's fucking unacceptable--even from him. He needs to shake out of whatever complex is possessing him: hero, savior, martyr, God.

It's a mystery to me.

His timing for telling the truth also begs the question: would he have kept it to himself until Sunday, if not for my mentioning tomorrow's lunch with her? How long would I have been ignorant to it, lazing about without a care? With the disclosure of the truth, I told him to leave. There was only one reason for it.

I want the luxury of being upset. The chance to be angry at him for more than a few moments, before he slaps a bandaid on it and rubs the sore spot until 'minutes ago' feels like a spat decades past. I've never...seen him like that. If I didn't make him leave, I'd want to let him make it okay. I'd give him the chance to soothe me, to murmur those comforts and promises he's always good for. Except, this was something he couldn't fix in a timely, concise manner.

He was scared.

He was scared to tell me, because there was nothing he could do to make it go away. Mom proved too tough an adversary, and Dean's never been so far removed from control. He looked like he was falling apart as he admitted that to me, and it was all I could do to cling onto my own distress and indignation. His heart might be in the right place, but the road to Hell is often paved with good intentions. I should be allowed to put my foot down with him, too.

This time, he didn't push.

For the first time, he quietly left.

I hate how fucking awful that feels.

Initially, I ran the water to create a barrier between myself and the rest of the apartment, a homogenous sound to drown out Dean's leaving. But, what better place to sulk than under a torrent of scalding water? Why just be miserable, when you can be miserable and almost boiled alive? My decisions made sense in the confines of the stall brimmed with steam I could hardly breathe through, head hung under a punishing, superheated downpour. They made significantly less sense upon vacating the bathroom, coming into a silent, empty flat.

My hair is waterlogged where I'd halfheartedly dragged a towel through it, and those tracks to the carpet catch an instant chill.

Dean's few things are gone, as if he'd never been here at all, and my ribs feel like they might snap. I don't think sending him off was the wrong thing to do, but the aftermath hits harder than I thought it would. The support wall I'd been leaning on is gone, crumbled away from my back. Now, it's just me, myself, and I--a trio of unhelpful, anxious overthinkers. I'm left alone with the tremendous burden of my biggest fears. How quickly anger turns to hurt, and I can't properly be angry at Dean for it.

I can't be angry at him for respecting a boundary, even if a part of me was desperately hopeful he'd trample it again.

It's too early to sleep. There's still work to be done. But, with the future--both near and far--so uncertain, there's not a drop of motivation left in me. Hunger gnaws at the edge of my stomach, but even something as simple as feeding myself feels like an impossible task. In the living room, Dean's absence is striking. He tidied up before leaving. Blankets folded, pillows fluffed, trash discarded, dishes rehomed to the sink. Scowling at the aberrant neatness, I lash at one of the decorative pillows. It tumbles soundlessly to the floor, and I'm angry at it for not making more of a clatter. Dean isn't petty enough to do something like this out of spite, but it pisses me off nonetheless.

Stupid, considerate bastard.

Maybe I want my space to reflect the shitstorm in my head.

With this thought in mind, I transform the couch into a nest, hauling out my pillow and much-too-large comforter from the bedroom. Despite Johnnie Walker's banishment to the back of my freezer, the tumbler I overfill doesn't make it to a coaster. Rings in the varnish are a befitting part of the mess.

Because it was my dad's favorite, I set colorless reruns of Andy Griffith to play at a near inaudible volume. If I dared creep from my room past the strictly-enforced bedtime, I might catch him dozing on the couch to obnoxious laugh tracks. Hijinks spurred on by Barney Fife's neuroses. On weekend nights, there'd be a few empty cans scattering the end table. Sometimes, a hands-on project spread across the area rug. Metal oddments and wiring I knew nothing about. Mom never let him go a full night on the sofa, always fetching him before the stroke of a new day.

It feels safer to connect with a dead man. I don't have to worry about letting him down anymore. As far as I'm concerned, if any part of the human experience survives after death, it's not lurking behind doors or in closets to enact postmortem judgment. Now, my dad's nothing more than a comfortable, convenient memory. But, as the minutes stretch--it's not enough. His memory can't reassure me that everything's going to work out. His memory can't flatten my hair under the heavy, graceless petting of a big hand. Realistically, were he still around, he'd never comfort me through a circumstance like this, and if that doesn't hurt tenfold more.

This isn't a failed vocabulary test or a runaway pet, and my father's love was far from unconditional. Yet another thing I'm not sold on--unconditional love. It might be given away more freely, forced upon more strongly, but there are always conditions to keeping it alive. Dean's a great example. If there was no physical attraction on his part, we wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be here.

I wouldn't be halfway to smothering in a thick blanket, pitifully seeking comfort from its weight. I wouldn't be using the back of the couch as a replacement for the big, warm body that's normally tucked in close, too afraid to confront the vast emptiness of a king-size bed. I wouldn't have one too many lamps flicked on to manufacture a feeling of warmth. I wouldn't be drinking and blinking hard against a shameful, persistent burn.

I wouldn't feel like the last person on Earth, more alone than stranded at sea or untethered in space.

The scotch goes down with too much enthusiasm. Closing my eyes, it's like being on a Tilt-a-Whirl. I struggle to doze through the vertigo, ultimately earning myself a staggered trip to the bathroom. The tile is ice under my knees, the porcelain rim a cold compress against my blistered cheek. My chest and throat are on fire with the aggressive rejection of bile and liquor.

Once I realized Dean was gone, I shut my phone off to avoid a repetitive cycle of disappointment. Picking it up over and over to find a lock-screen devoid of notifications, only measuring the crawl of time. I'm unsure when sleep takes me. It could be a little past nine or a quarter to three. Violently hungover probably isn't the smartest state to be in for the dreaded luncheon with my mom, but those are the lemons life dealt me. Lemons which demand insobriety.

It's a hard enough sleep to leave me deeply confused by my place on the couch and the encompassing chaos come morning, which could be good or bad. I get to remember everything all over again.

So, bad.

"Fuck me."

My mouth tastes like decade's old upchuck, head pounding like it's home to a second heart. Blindly fumbling for my phone, I'm confused when it doesn't brighten on contact. Ah, right. I didn't want to read into the lack of texts and calls, assuming Dean would give me more space than I could stomach. In the few seconds it takes to turn on, I hide the screen against my stomach. I'm not sure how I'd feel if he made no attempts to contact me at all. Hypocritical, probably. I initiated this, so I should be appreciative of his adhering to my need for distance.

I won't be. I'll feel like a miserable, lonely piece of--

My phone vibrates in short bursts. Back to back.

Picking it up, I blink at the wall of alerts building line by line on the screen. Five missed calls, one voicemail, twenty texts--of which five are recordings, the last five complete gibberish. All from Dean. They start at eleven in the evening, continuing until three the following morning. Reading them, that invisible load on my chest starts to lighten:

11:07 PM Is your phone off

11:07 PM Or dead

11:29 PM I'm so fucking sorry

11:52 PM Sam, pls turn your phone back on

11:52 PM I'm losing it

12:26 AM 00:33_"First of all, I'm sorry for blowing you up. I know you want space, and I...I'm being such a pussy about it, shit! When you get all this, I hope it's like, 'aw, so endearing' and not, 'what an annoying cunt.' Second of all, I love you so goddamn much, Sammy, and I'm sorry for being a huge piece of shi--"

12:32 AM Phone died lol

With that first recording, the whole slew of calls and messages make sense. I wasn't the only one seeking solace in the bottom of a bottle. He didn't sound plastered, but he must've had enough to drink by eleven to start dumping every thought and worry into his phone. Dean's a heavyweight, so I can't imagine how much he consumed to have the last few texts reading as hieroglyphs.

12:55 AM I love you

1:12 AM 01:05_"No goddamn way, fuck--you fuck off! I need it, Rish--! Sam, Sammy, baby. Listen, if it was you or the entire world, even babies and orphans and shit, I'd--"

"Dude, give me the fucking phone, it's not endearing!"

"It is endearing, asshole! I'm talking, fuck off--!"

The rest of it is rustling and muffled arguing, in which I presume Dean is fighting tooth and nail to keep his phone from being confiscated.

1:23 AM Dudes liek 50 lvs lol think he csn take my sht

1:23 AM Hope ur sleeping good

1:44 AM Dont leave me, Sammy, ill die frfr :(

2:09 AM 00:21_"...I tear my heart open, I sew myself shut--! My weakness is...that I care too much--!"

I bark a startled laugh into my palm. By this point, he's completely shitfaced--enough to belt a slurred, tuneless rendition of 'Scars' alongside Jacoby Shaddix's original. There's unruly cackling in the background, and whoever he's with is only slightly less inebriated than himself.

2:12 AM Sht didnt rcrd th e hole thng

2:13 AM it's mr balls

2:13 AM BALLS

2:14 AM BALLAD

2:32 AM You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, Sam

I'll assume Siri helped out with that one.

2:52 AM 01:03_"...Sam, I'm...so fucked up right now, and not--not like drunk. I mean, that, yeah, but not just that. 's not the same as just...goin' back to campus, because I keep re...rememberin' your...face, and how you--the way you fuckin' looked at me. Like I broke your goddamn heart, and I know...I pro'ly did, but I can't stand it, y'know? I can't fuckin' stand it. Feels like I can't...breathe, and gettin' trashed was the only thing I could...could think of. I'm so, so sorry, and I--I love you so much, Sammy. 'm sorry."

It's a hard listen. Dean sounds as miserable as a person can be, living out the cruelest trial of any playwrights' tragic hero. Drunk as he is, his words are fumbled and running into the backs of each other, but he's trying so hard to articulate himself. His voice cracked off the end, thick with choked-back tears. In all the time we've spent together, Dean's never drank to a point of impairment. He's never cried.

I swallow against a sudden knot in my throat, resisting the urge to dig my knuckles into my breast where it's started throbbing. I won't permit myself to feel guilty for sending him away, and I know that's not Dean's purpose for this onslaught of messages. It's more like an electronic diary, because he's struggling to work through an unfamiliar dilemma--between us, at least. He's the unstoppable force that met an immovable object. When faced with a loss of control, a lack of resolution, he trips up in big ways. He acts out in one manner or another.

This time, it is endearing. To me, at least. It'd be less so if he had shown up on my stoop in a drunken stupor, pounding my front door off the hinges.

There's one last recording, and I'm a little hesitant to play it. It's forty seconds long. What if Dean's...actively sobbing? Pulling the inside of my cheek between my teeth, I tap the screen. The first few seconds are sounds of shuffling, then the awkward clearing of a throat. It's not Dean.

3:12 AM 00:42_"...um, hello, Sam...? I'm...Rishad. The, um...Dean's Uber driver? I don't know if he's mentioned me...by name, but uh--anyway, yeah. I just wanted to let you know that, somehow, he's not dead, but he passed out in my bathtub. Still breathing, so that's...good. Um, he's on his side, in case he...throws up. So, he shouldn't drown. I thought you might be worried, since he was acting a bit...unhinged...? But, um, yeah. He's good. I mean, not good, but...y'know. Right. So, uh, bye."

Rishad sounded just a few sips away from the unintelligible slur of Dean's last recording, but he was at least clearheaded enough to make sure the bonehead wouldn't choke to death on his own vomit. I've heard the name before, and now that his voice isn't garbled in the background, I realize he's been with Dean since at least that first recording. Most likely since Dean left my apartment. He roped the poor guy into drinking with him. I mean, someone had to provide him access to mass quantities of alcohol.

My fingers twitch with the urge to send something back, but...what can I say to him right now? Depending on how today's mandatory luncheon goes, what's left for him and I? If she wants nothing more to do with me, I'm not sure I can afford to stay in this city. I'd have to give up on my doctorate a second time, forfeiting any future tenureship or position at this university. Or any university, probably. My childhood home is paid for and titled in my name, so I'd...

I'd have to go back.

If Dean found out, he might be stupid enough to try and follow. I can't let that happen. Love is all well and good, but some lands are barren enough to kill even the most stubborn weeds. Our hometown is one such land, a circular purgatory where the status quo is religiously maintained. No broken molds, conditions unfit for growth or change. Dean was always too good for a place like that, and even he'd wither up if rooted in the soil for too long. Anyone would, but not everyone has the potential to be a Great. Even if it was all he wanted in the world, like he so often says, I'd never be happy in a relationship like that.

I could never be happy with someone knowing I murdered their chances at lifelong success. Eventually, I'd bet Dean wouldn't be so happy either. Pinching pennies and going nowhere on the proverbial running wheel is a surefire way to lose the rose-tinted glasses. It's hard to romanticize life when all your time and energy is sunk into surviving the week.

It's a waiting game now, and if this dialogue with my mom ends on a sour note--

If it ends badly, I'll...

I'll be alone, more completely than ever before.

Deceased father, disowned by my mother, and this whirlwind affair with Dean a thing of the past. Is a year of his love worth a lifetime of heartache? I might find another relationship, but I'll never be treasured like this again. Individuals brimming with unearned confidence might say: "you'll never find another like me." In Dean's case, even if he's never said it, he doesn't have to say it. He's one in a million, and never again will a man like that go the distance for a man like me. I almost feel...wronged. He painstakingly dismantled my walls, brick by brick.

I let myself love him, knowing it was a one in a million chance of things working out for the best.

It's half past ten. There's an hour and a half left before meeting her.

Now, I'm hungover and marinating in self-pity.

--

It's a stately joint.

One grand dining hall with linen-dressed tables spaced evenly about the room. The upholstery looks like gold rorschach blots, and it'd be heinous anywhere else. Here, the chairs match the similarly gaudy tapestries and a large, egregious rug atop original brick. The tall windows are iron-wrought, and the ceiling is dark and vaulted. The cuisine is French and New American. Puking in a place like this would probably see me banned from every upscale restaurant in the entirety of the Bay, but my stomach is tossing into my throat.

Mom picked this place because there's a member's lounge available to the public when not reserved. It's got real Old World charm. Fireplace, period furniture, loaded bookshelves--though I'm not sure they aren't decorative spines glued together. It's as good a place as any to be succinctly disavowed. We've been seated across from each other in the main hall, by the window. Mom looks twee and pretty in a pair of high-waisted, pleated slacks and a fitted blouse overlaid with a herringbone blazer. Meanwhile, her gray-faced son is sweating bullets in a wrinkled sweatshirt fished from the to-be-folded mound.