I polish wineglasses at the bar, wondering if I should call him. But what can I say? And what if it’s too late? What if he’s decided it’s not worth it? What if I’ve lost him before this thing really could be seen the whole way through?
The bells on the door jingle, and without even turning, I breathe a sigh of relief. I know who it is, can sense him. And, when I turn and see him wandering through the door, I smile.
He’s back. This has to be a good sign. Still, I try not to get ahead of myself. It could be bad news. I study him as he walks closer and takes a stool at the bar.
“Can we talk?” he asks.
I turn to Jodie, who is nearby. She nods that she’ll take over for me.
“Let’s go outside,” I say, and I fling the bar towel on the counter as I head for the door. The bell jingles again, the only sound punctuating the silence between us. This could be it. This is going to determine where this is all going. And I couldn’t be more nervous, because the stakes are high. Jodie helped me realize that.
I lead him toward a bench facing the sand, the night stars sparkling in the clear sky. We take a seat beside each other, not too close. A platonic distance remains between us, and I’m afraid to see where this is all going to end up.
“Listen, Lysander. I’m sorry about last night. I am. I should’ve been open with Cindy and Evan about who you are.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not. And it’s not fair to me to keep you in the dark. You deserve to understand. I owe you that.”
I listen intently, wondering what secrets he’s going to reveal, wondering if it’s going to help the situation or hurt it. I take a deep breath.
He continues. “I know you’re aware my past wasn’t the best. We’ve talked about it some. But I haven’t been completely open about everything. There’s a lot of dark stuff in my past that, well, hasn’t quite been silenced.”
“Reed, it’s okay. I know. You don’t have to—” I begin, but he cuts me off.
“I do. I owe you that much. I owed you that much last night when I was too afraid to admit what I have with you. I owed you that when I lied about who you are to me because of some dumb fear of admitting my own truth to people from my past. It’s just… look. You had a beautiful family. You had parents who loved you as much as they loved each other. You got to see how marriage and family could be when they worked. You were accepted for who you are, even encouraged to be that. I understand why you want what you want. I get why this means so much to you. I think it’s time you understand where I’m coming from.”
I look at Reed, realizing how much we’ve grown over the short time we’ve been together, but simultaneously realizing the man holding my hand is still so much of a mystery to me.
I’ve watched Reed change from a tentative man into a flamboyantly wild version of his true self. But still, with all of that, there are so many secrets. There’s so much of his heart that’s tucked away.
“You know I didn’t have the best start. I’ve talked about how my dad left when I was little. Hell, I don’t even know his name or who he is. Mom also didn’t really have her life together, so when she went to jail, I ended up in the foster care system. I floundered around for a few years, tossed like a sack of unimportant belongings from house to house. I spent years switching schools, learning new families, finding new routines. It was so damn hard to find myself or to even know what love was because it was always temporary in my mind.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine,” I say, meaning it. I knew Reed’s childhood wasn’t stable. I just didn’t realize how unstable it really was.
“It’s okay. I’m okay. But I think it’s why I struggle so much with the forever thing. Forever was never part of my vocabulary. And when, at fourteen, I thought maybe I’d actually found a forever type of family, I learned how wrong I was.”
“Really?”
He nods. “The Dorensons. I spent my adolescent years with them. They were good, compared to the families I had. But, well, they were very traditional in their beliefs.”
“They weren’t okay with you being gay?” I question, assuming that’s where this is going.
“Not in the least. At fourteen, I had a boyfriend I was madly in love with. Mr. Dorenson walked in on us one day.” Reed tenses, looking at the ground. I lean forward, stroking his cheek to let him know it’s okay.
He continues. “After kicking Arthur out of the house, he beat the living shit out of me. It was so bad, Lysander. He beat me within an inch of my life. I thought I was going to die. Broken ribs, broken wrist, broken nose. It was that bad.”
“Reed, I’m so sorry. That’s insane. I can’t even imagine.” I sense his pain reverberating through his words, through the feel of his skin. Anger boils inside of me. I can’t believe at fourteen, when my parents were pushing me to go on dates with my boyfriends, to be myself, Reed was dealing with this. Life is so unfair.
“Yeah. It was pretty awful. The worst part was my foster mom didn’t stand up for me. When he told her why he’d done it, she agreed that he needed to put me in my place. After taking me to the hospital and swearing to the doctors I was beat up by a neighborhood kid and that they found me like that, they brought me home and made me promise to be straight. They said I didn’t have a choice in the matter, that if I wanted to stay under their roof, there’d be none of that so-called craziness happening.” His words are solemn and quiet, as if it’s a different man speaking them. I can sense him recoiling from the present, drifting into that darker past he’s never shared.
I let a quiet moment pass before I ask, “Reed, why didn’t you tell someone? Why didn’t you get out of there?”
“Because, Lysander. I was a naïve fourteen-year-old who never had anyone to have his back. I’d been through so many situations, so many forms of abuse and of neglect, I didn’t even know what it meant to be loved. I thought it was part of the deal, and I knew if I told someone, I either wouldn’t be believed or I’d be sent to a worse family. After the incident, I just told myself that part of my life was shut off. Things went back to normal, for the most part. We didn’t talk about it again. And for the rest of my high school days, I had a family who had food on the table and put clothes on my back. My foster sister moved in the next year, and we were super close. It was the closest thing to a family I had.”
“I don’t even know what to say,” I reply, truly awestruck. So much makes sense now. Reed’s tentative manner when I first met him. The time it took for him to be his true self. It all make sense. The denials in public, the fear of admitting his feelings.
“I wish you’d have told me sooner,” I admit, wondering how different things could’ve been for us if I’d known from the start.
“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just… it’s the past. I don’t like to think about the broken person I was. You changed all that, Lysander. You helped me be me again. I haven’t looked back. It’s why I don’t talk to my foster family, not even Julia, who was basically my best friend growing up. I don’t want to be attached to the naïve boy I was, the one who was hiding who he was all those years.”
I squeeze his hand, feeling saddened by his past. I knew it was rough; I didn’t know it was this horrifying. To think he’s been through all of that and still is able to break out the Reed smile, to be happy, to be the wild, carefree man I know today.
“Lysander, you’ve shown me what love looks like, and I want nothing more than to explore this relationship with you. But the past, well, it still haunts me. I’m so happy with you, and I want to jump in, all in. It’s just so hard, you know? And I know it’s silly and my past shouldn’t define me. But I just… I need time. It’s going to take time. And I don’t know how much. Can you understand that?”
I can. Despite what I’ve been wanting and how much I want to pull Reed into me, to make him see the vision of forever I’ve already imagined for us, I know his past is too intense for a few words or even a few years to cover up.
I squeeze his hand again. “I understand now. I do. I’m sorry for not being sensitive, for expecting too much too soon. I love you, Reed. So much. I don’t need anything more than what we have here. I love you. That’s enough for me if it’s enough for you.”
He doesn’t answer me with words, simply leaning in and kissing me, letting me know it’s all okay, and helping me see we’re back. And perhaps now that I know the whole truth, we’re back stronger than ever, botched vision of forever or not.