On Friday, Matt is his buoyant self. He picks me up and we play laser tag and the glow of it is perfect, as usual. But then I’m too quiet in the car on the way to his house.
“You doing okay?” he asks.
“I don’t know.”
“Yeah.” He turns the music up. A song we like, with a good beat. We bob our heads to it until we pull into his driveway.
In the basement, Matt’s first stop is his liquor stash.
I take his arm. “Could you … not?”
“It’s just to take the edge off.”
“It’s only me,” I say. “What edge?”
He’s annoyed. “This is how I blow off steam. You know that.”
“It would be nice if we could just be together and talk. Instead.” What I’m craving is stillness and calm, our fingers laced together. I want to say things into the space between us and not worry that he won’t remember.
“Fine.” He sweeps me into his arms. “Anything for you, sweet Kermit of my heart.”
He twirls and dips me like Fred Astaire in a sepia-toned movie. The glow of that fills me with delight.
We lie in the hammock, kissing and goofing until I’m somehow both stirred up and relaxed.
“This is nice,” I whisper, running my finger along his jawline. He keeps himself clean-shaven, but it’s evening and there’s the slightest hint of stubble coming in.
“Yeah,” he says. Our legs are entwined and the closeness is thrilling.
“Are the holidays weird for you?” I ask. “It’s been weird for me, the first and all.”
“The first is a thing,” he says. “Maybe it gets easier. Anyway, let’s talk about something else.” He touches his nose to mine. “Or not talk about anything.”
This was only his second year spending Christmas without his mom. “Does it get better?” I genuinely wonder. I can’t imagine next year feeling much better.
Matt pushes away—not far, due to the constraints of the hammock, but enough to feel symbolic. “Can we not?” he says, echoing my tone from earlier. Touché.
“I like how sometimes we talk,” I say.
“I can’t,” he says. “So drop it.”
Our sweet, cozy bubble has shattered, and I shattered it. Once when I was a child, I picked up a glass vase that I wasn’t supposed to ever touch. The temptation was too great and one day I grabbed it. I knew immediately that it was too heavy, that I wouldn’t be able to carry it, that I should set it back down, but still I held it and tried to run. The shatter was epic.
I feel it now, that you-should-put-this-down feeling. But reckless desire wins and I can’t. I run with it.
“Sometimes at night, you tell me things that matter. I want us to talk, like that.”
“When I’m drunk,” he says. “It’s different.”
“Why? Why does it have to be different?” He’s inches away; our legs are still touching, but my body and soul cry out like he’s left the room, left the building, left the planet.
“So, you want me to not drink, but act like I’ve been drinking?” He throws up his hands. “Pick a lane, Kermit.”
“Can’t we be ourselves together? Without it?”
“This is who I am without it,” he says, pointing at his torso. “I get why you don’t want this guy, but I don’t know how to be different.”
“I like you how you are,” I say. “That’s the point.”
“Feels like you’re asking me to change,” he says, and I don’t know how to respond to that.