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Saturday morning at eight, I pulled to a stop in front of Adam’s apartment building. I’d been here a few times - even staying the night one overly drunken evening. With as chronically late as I knew Adam to be, it was surprising to find him waiting outside for my arrival.
He was leaning against the wall, his suitcase sitting next to him as he looked down at his phone. His dark curls obscured his face, but I could tell he was intently reading something on the screen. He was wearing a green sweater under his open black jacket. His dark blue jeans clung tight to his legs and his brown leather boots made him look like something out of a photo shoot.
He looked comfortable standing there, his cheeks only showing the slightest blush from the chill in the air. Even though it was December, the weather in Seattle wasn’t terribly cold yet.
I watched him for a moment. Even though I’d place him strictly in the “not for sex” section of my brain, it was hard to not admire the way he held himself. The way his fingers moved across the screen of his phone as he scrolled. The way that all his clothes seemed to have been designed specifically with his muscled frame in mind.
The way the deep forest green made him look like something from a dream.
I shook my head and snapped myself out of it. Stop being so weird, I told myself. You’d think after years of knowing a guy, the effects of their looks would wear off on me.
Just a friend. Only a friend. Get that through your dumb ass head. We aren’t doing this again.
Right. Because I have enough self-respect to not pine over a straight guy. This wasn’t high school. Or college. Or the first year or so after college.
Jesus, I’d been a mess.
I had to laugh at myself and I rolled down the window. I was just being dramatic. This was Adam. Same man as always. Same beautiful man.
“Hell must’ve frozen over if you’re on your feet before ten,” I called to him teasingly.
He looked up, seeming genuinely lost for a moment before his eyes locked with mine.
“I know it’s awful,” he said and approached the car. He opened the back door and tossed his bag in and then climbed into the passenger seat. I was greeted with the smell of his cologne. He smelled of a mixture of wood and sage. It was different from what he wore at work.
I waited until he was buckled up to put the car in drive.
“I should’ve warned you the drive is a bit far,” I said. “This is your last chance to leave.”
“I know. Your family lives in Kalispell, right?”
I gaped at him stupidly for a second. “How do you know that?”
“You told me ages ago,” he waved his hand lazily. “I remembered because I had to look it up.”
“Oh,” was all I said. Why did that shake me so much? I mean, I wasn’t used to people paying any attention to half the shit I said, so maybe that was it.
Adam grinned at me. “Hand me the aux cord. If we’re about to drive eight hours, we’ll need a good soundtrack.”
I rolled my eyes at him and passed the cable. He took it happily, plugging it in and pressing play on his phone.
Music played throughout the car, and for a while we drove without talking. We just let the music wash over us. I almost pointed out to him that his playlist was very generic music from 2008, but I didn’t mind.
Adam’s first playlist got us through the first two hours of the drive. As our journey continued, however, I noticed him beginning to get fidgety in the passenger seat. Come to think of it, this was the longest I’d seen him stay still since knowing him. Back at the office, he was always getting up to get water or snacks or bug me.
It seemed someone had a problem with staying put.
I turned down the music to a barely audible level.
“Regretting your choice to come yet?” I gave him a wry smile.
Adam rolled his eyes in return. “I have a hard time sitting still.”
“I can see that.”
“Tell me about your family,” he said. “It’ll help take my mind off of it.”
I paused. That was a broad and somewhat painful topic to broach. When so much of who you are as an adult is a pure reaction to your crazy family, where do you even begin to describe them? I’d made mentions of things with my family in the past to Adam, but mostly they existed in a different world than me. A place which I very much preferred for them to stay.
“If you want,” Adam added. “You don’t have to.”
I cleared my throat. “No, you should know what you’re getting yourself into.”
“You look like I just asked you to confess to murder.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I gave him a dry laugh. “It’s just my family - I thought they were normal for a long time. But that’s because it was what I was used to growing up.”
“You’re not about to tell me you’re part of a cult, are you?”
“Nothing so dramatic,” I said. “When I was eight, my dad and grandpa decided they wanted to move to the same area. My dad was getting out of the military. My grandpa was retiring. So they decided to buy a chunk of land to share. Well, my dad’s siblings all wanted in on it. So picture a single dirt road with five houses.”
“So like a neighborhood?”
“Pretty much that’s how I thought of it, only when your family makes up your neighborhood and then they all go to church together and then your parents homeschool you... Your family becomes your life. And they’re not great people. I mean, they think they’re saints, but they have a laundry list of people they despise,” I took a deep breath. “Including the gays.”
And coming out in that environment wasn’t something I’d wish on most people. Which is why I’d waited until I was safely away at college.
“So... like a cult,” Adam said with a kind, joking smile. “I’m kidding.”
“No, it felt like it. Or at least leaving them did,” I chewed my bottom lip. “Anyway, long story short there will probably be many unannounced and unwelcome visits throughout the week so that’s something to look forward to.” If it had just been my parents and sister, I knew I wouldn’t be dreading this so much. Mom and Dad could be difficult, but that was manageable. Everyone else, not so much.
“You know I’m glad I’m coming.” Adam mused. “It can’t be easy facing them alone.”
It really wasn’t.
“I’m glad you came too,” I said. “Just promise not to judge me too hard for it after.”
Shortly after, our conversation shifted to something much more palatable and soon, little by little, the eight-hour drive went by. We stopped near the state border to get some food before continuing. I didn’t care what we ate, but Adam said he needed pizza now.
So we got pizza.
The second half of the drive was quicker than the first. I couldn’t tell if it was because we were maintaining a conversation throughout it or if it was because my brain was too tired to keep a detailed track of the endless two-lane roads through the dull, dead countryside. Or maybe it was the growing sense of anxiety that was causing the clock to move faster.
Whatever the case, it came as something of a surprise when I recognized familiar landmarks from my childhood. The back road we’d take sometimes on the way to church. The Taxidermy shop where my dad had made a rug out of a mountain lion one year. The vet clinic that had a sign that displayed a temperature that was always exactly four degrees too high and a time that was always an hour behind. As I began to register the closeness of my proximity to my home, an odd mix of nostalgia and dread crept its way into my veins.
There’s always a part of me that would always love going home and seeing the sights that were the backdrop of my childhood. But there was another part of me that remembered all too well the scared little boy I was when I’d torn myself away from here to go to college.
Chancing a glance over at Adam, he seemed content with the world, his dark eyes taking in the town as we drove through it. I pointed to a few places - the highschool where I did community theater during the summer, the Starbucks I used to work at - but this route didn’t take us by anything very interesting. Adam took it all in stride, smiling at the thought of me being in a production of Alice In Wonderland.
“What part did you play?” He asked.
“I was the Mad Hatter,” I said.
“Seems fitting,” He said, earning a push to his shoulder when he laughed.
We were getting close to home, and my sense of dread deepened. When I’d warned Adam about my parents thinking we were dating, I’d been using it to talk him out of going. It was only now as I turned onto my parents’ dirt road that I realized that them thinking Adam and I were dating would mean that, in their eyes at least, I’d brought home a boyfriend to rub my queerness in their faces.
What had I gotten myself into? What had I gotten Adam into?
The road was paved with dirt as we went deeper into the family’s property. I looked back over at Adam, who couldn’t appear less bothered by the increasing proximity to our impending doom. I envied him for that.
We rounded a corner in the road that was more familiar to me than the back of my hand. A few seconds later, we pulled off the dirt road and into the gravel driveway that belonged to the house I’d been raised in.
It was a simple two-story structure with a covered porch surrounding the bottom floor. Three windows looked out from the top floor, behind one of which was my old bedroom. The dark gray shingles covered the soft blue paneling of my parent’s house. Off to one side, there was the garage, and off to the other, my dad’s workshop. It wasn’t too imposing or too humble. It just was.
There’s no way to tell what a stranger would see looking at the building. But for me, I saw the window I’d snuck out of when I was fifteen. The tree in the corner of the property where my dad had helped me build a treehouse. The large shop that my parents had made me build over Christmas break one year.
And all of it was home. Or had been. I still felt a tug of nostalgia in my gut for the place that made me. But it was hard to acknowledge that too much without a stampede of horrible memories coming flooding back from the recesses of my mind.
I killed the engine. My heart stopped with it. I turned to Adam.
“It’s not too late, we can turn back.” Fuck, my throat was tight. It hurt to talk.
“Eli, someone’s already at the door,” Adam said, waving at whoever it was.
With dread I followed his gaze only to feel my heart swell in relief. It was my sister, Dani, wearing her signature grim smirk and holding her signature glass of red wine. We both had our ways of dealing with our family. Mine was to stay far, far away, and hers was to sedate herself with enormous amounts of alcohol.
“Oh thank god,” I sighed and opened the car door. In five steps, I was at the foot of the stairs that lead up to the porch.
I pulled Dani into a one-armed hug. “I thought you weren’t getting in until later in the week.”
“Got extra time off work,” she said. “Plus, I couldn’t miss you bringing home your first boyfriend.” Her eyes glistened with mischief.
“He’s just my friend,” Adam had joined me by my side as I said this. I gestured to him. “Dani, this is Adam. And Adam, this is my lovely alcoholic sister, Dani.”
Dani took a pointed sip of her drink before shaking Adam’s outstretched hand. “If you don’t want him, Eli, I’ll take him. How tall are you?”
That caught the easy going Adam off guard. “Six four? But I don’t see why that matters.”
“Oh honey,” Dani said with the tone one reserved for a naïve child. “Come on, let’s go meet the family.”
Steeling myself, I followed my sister off the porch and into the house.
The familiar smell of home greeted my nose - cinnamon mingled with the laundry detergent my mom used. The scent alone was enough to put a part of me at ease, even as the rest of my being was still on high alert.
It was an odd thing, though I’d been out for years, my parents and I never spoke of it and so bringing a guy home (even if he was a friend) felt like coming out all over again. I felt exposed and vulnerable, like I’d lost armor that I’d been so used to carrying that I’d forgotten about its weight. Even though I felt lighter now, I was still conscious of how easy it would be to wound me. And I was wading into fucking war.
We walked through the entry, past the living room, and into the kitchen where my mom was working on her famous rolls and my dad was washing the dishes as she dirtied them. It was a familiar sight, my parents dividing up work, and that was comforting.
“Look who showed up,” Dani said, draping herself over one of the nearby kitchen chairs. Of her many infuriating qualities, the ability to look imperiously aloof was high on the list.
Both parents looked up, wearing matching smiles that I knew were fake. Likely they’d been talking about us moments before our arrival.
“Eli, you made it!” My mom came around the island to give me an awkward I’m-trying-not-to-get-dough-on-you hug, and then she faced Adam. It might’ve been my imagination, but it looked as though she was bracing herself for the effort she was about to put forth.
“I’m Jean,” she said. “I’d shake your hand but-” she motioned her dough covered hands pointedly.
“It’s perfectly fine,” Adam said with a chuckle. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Hope the drive wasn’t too bad,” my dad said, tossing the towel he’d been drying his hands with over his shoulder. He held out a hand to Adam. “I’m Scott.”
“Adam,” he shook dad’s hand with an easy grin. “Drive wasn’t too bad. I had good company.”
My parents paused for a beat too long. I could practically see their brains churning as they tried to find the hidden meaning in his words.
“Not to be that guy,” Adam said, seemingly oblivious to the awkwardness of it all. “But is there a restroom I could use?”
My mom smiled, eagerly grasping on to a question with a simple response. “Of course, it’s right up the stairs first door on your right.”
Adam thanked her and left the kitchen. It wasn’t until the bathroom door closed that my family relaxed. My parents returned to the positions they’d been in when we’d arrived.
“He seems nice,” mom said, sinking her hands back into the dough.
“You haven’t even gotten to know him yet,” Dani said from her chair.
“Well, from what we’ve said to each other, he seems nice.”
“Eli, there’s something we need to discuss,” dad said, abrupt, as he finished the dishes.
“Okay?” Wherever this was going, I had a hunch it would not be good.
“We have no problem with you bringing Adam here with you,” Dad started. He folded his arms in front of his chest, a move that usually preceded him putting his foot down about something.
Oh, hell. I thought.
“But your mother and I have been talking about it, and you two need to stay in separate rooms for the week.”
“I figured he would,” I said. “I mean he’s just a frien-”
“We don’t need to know specifics,” Mom interjected. “Just know you can’t share a bed.”
“We’d expect the same if Dani brought someone home,” my dad continued.
I gaped at them, stunned by what I was hearing. I’m not sure what was more insulting; the insinuation that I was lying to my parents about dating Adam, or the idea they thought I’d brought someone home just to fuck their brains out under my parents’ roof.
My vision went red, and I tasted copper in my mouth.
“Don’t worry, Mom, I’m not trying to have sex in my parents’ house.”
“Watch it,” Dad said. At the same time, Dani snorted. “I think we are being more than fair.”
Mom, for her part, looked like she was about to cry. “There’s no need to be vulgar.”
Except that’s exactly what they were expecting of me. I wasn’t going around making accusations thinly hidden behind “rules of the house.” I opened my mouth to say as much, but snapped it shut. It didn’t matter, they wouldn’t change their minds on the issue. It would be a waste of breath.
I’d save them their energy and mine.
Adam’s footsteps were thudding down the stairs and in an instant everyone was pretending as though nothing had happened. Except Dani, who was grinning into her cup.
“Just so you know, boys,” Mom said, all traces of tears gone. “Some family is coming over in a few hours.”
Fucking great. By some she probably meant most, if not all, the extended family.
I shot Dani a panicked look and she shrugged. “Welcome home,” she said in a sing-song voice.
I sighed. “How long do we have?” Even I could hear that the question sounded like I was asking when they’d carry out my death sentence.
“They said six,” Mom said. “But you know your Uncle Sam and dad like to talk.”
“Dani, do you have anything stronger than wine?” I asked.
“That’s not funny,” Mom said.
“Who said I was kidding?”
“We’ll need some help setting up,” Dad said, shutting down the conversation in the only way he knew how; talking about doing some work. He straightened himself off the kitchen counter where he’d been leaning. “Actually, let’s go to the shed and grab the tables now.”
I sighed again. I could be at my apartment right now, binge watching my box set of Avatar the Last Airbender and eating a family sized box of Cheez-Its. Instead, I’d let the guilt drive me eight hours to deal with people that drove me crazy.
And still seven days to go.