Chapter 21

The sheets on my bed were rumpled and twisted, a mess of covers partially surrounding my body with no rhyme or reason. One leg hung from the side of the bed while Maestro trapped the other one with his body. He must have wriggled his way out of my arms at some point, leaving me to fight my way under the covers to stay warm. It felt cold in my condo, much cooler than I usually kept it.

Matti's indiscretion again punched me in the face, continuously knocking me down as I attempted to get up and ready myself for the day.

By then, I knew his workday routine: awake by six, a jog around the park with Hugo, back home and in the shower around seven. Lately, Maestro and I had been joining them. But not today. Then, a quick breakfast of fruit or yogurt or oatmeal—the only variation in his routine that he didn't put much thought into—while he scrolled through the news on his phone before heading out the door to the metro station down the block. The train usually had him within a five-minute walk of his downtown office by eight.

Since we'd gotten serious, I'd been walking Hugo and Maestro together midafternoon, everything Matti's mine and everything mine his.

Matti would leave work around five—sometimes joking about how many more hours Americans put in than Europeans did—and catch the train back to Midtown, hitting the gym around five thirty. By seven, he was showered, preparing to meet me for dinner.

By seven, the shop was usually empty, allowing me to close up and head out for the night.

That was the weekday routine though. Had it been a Tuesday or a Thursday or a Monday, I would have used my knowledge of his routine to avoid him altogether, at least until I could get my thoughts sorted. But it was Saturday, and weekends were different, more relaxed, more casual.

I couldn't remember the last time we'd spent a weekend night in different beds. We would rise with the sun, peeling our eyelids open without having to turn off an alarm or check the time. Usually, Matti would wake a few minutes before me, watching me sleep, laughing at the drool on my pillow, smiling as I opened my eyes, embarrassed and insecure. I would wipe the corner of my mouth and try to pull the covers over my head to hide. Matti would tell me I was adorable.

This would come after a perfect night of lying next to each other on the couch, watching a movie with the dogs passed out on the floor below. A night of feeling completely comfortable, no distractions and no expectations.

Matti and I fit. In silence, in chaos, in a quiet conversation, we fit. In blue jeans, in khakis, in nothing at all, we fit. His features, usually sharp and stoic, and those intense eyes, they would all soften around me, invite me in. It was subconscious. Everything about him welcomed me. His arms wrapped me up tightly, his fingers caressed my skin, his touch felt like a million little butterfly wings gently flapping against my flesh, tickling me, comforting me, carrying me off into the sunset. I would lie next to him wondering what he was thinking, hoping it was about me and our friends and our future together. Hoping he thought of us—Maestro, Hugo, and me—as our little family.

We would lie with each other on that couch, fully clothed, thinking about our last fuck, our next fuck, being turned on by each other without the slightest bit of friction. Just as much as we wanted to shed our clothes and please each other, to please ourselves, we were perfectly happy not doing that. Sometimes, we didn't want to. Sometimes, we just wanted to be next to each other, talk to each other about our days at work or something that happened at a visit to the doctor or a traffic accident we happened to walk by. The most mundane things were perfectly interesting. We were comfortable.

Until I witnessed that kiss from the stranger who maybe wasn't so much of a stranger to Matti. Then I thought about the cashier in the shop in the mountains, his smile, his lingering eyes, the look of disappointment on his face when he realized Matti wasn't on the market. Not that night. Then I thought about all the other hypothetical guys that had kissed him and touched him and fucked him, slipped phone numbers sloppily written on cocktail napkins into his back pocket as they drunkenly winked goodbye. The guys he led out of the club at three in the morning, only to take them home and fuck their brains out, just like Nate had done to me.

And then I thought about Nate and his indiscretions, his roving eyes, the lies. Lie after lie. And I knew it. Somehow, I knew he was lying to me, and I let it happen over and over again. And Kenny, walking in on him half-dressed and out of breath, some random guy emerging from his bedroom, when all I wanted to do was celebrate our time together. And Neil, who hadn't really done anything wrong but who I partly blamed for not being able to love. People weren't meant to be together forever, after all. And Ricky, my childhood best friend who made me think he was like me, like I wasn't alone in feeling how I felt, then proceeded to push me away when I tried to get close to him again. It was water under the bridge now, but it bruised me then, cut me deep. And my pops, who had lost his way. He lost his cool and his kids while clinging to a misguided conviction, a silly notion of masculinity, a one-sided demand for respect, the back of his rigid hand against the side of my face.

Blistering memories of rejection after rejection and deceit after deceit flooded my brain, forced me to swim in dark waters, struggling for a reprieve, gasping for air. And now, Matti had done the same thing. Only, his indiscretion went ten times deeper than any of the other stab wounds had gone, nicking arteries and puncturing internal organs. Plunging into my flesh, into my core, splattering my feelings against the wall with its force, peeling back layer after layer of bottled-up hurt, exposing it to the elements like a raw nerve. My insides were a disheveled mess. Nothing was in the right place anymore. My blood turned cold in my veins and flowed backward. My gut had sustained punch after punch from a prized fighter's fist, bruised and sore. I felt hollow.

Eventually, I lifted myself from the bed to get ready for work. A shower would do wonders. At least I hoped it would. I ran Maestro out for a quick stroll around the Garden District, desperately hoping we wouldn't run into Matti. He would likely take Hugo to the park, our normal weekend morning destination. The temperature seemed cooler than usual for October, and clouds covered the sky, casting a pale gray hue on everything from flower gardens to Frank's pastel house. A light drizzle fell from above, not hard enough to use an umbrella but frustrating enough to want to. And my head hurt.

I couldn't go on feeling like this. I was going to have to talk to Matti at some point. He knew something was wrong.

My phone vibrated in my pocket as we turned the corner onto Grove and made our way to the shop. I pulled it out. It was a message from Matti. "Good morning. Hope you slept well. I'll see you after work. Love you."

I didn't text back until that afternoon.

After work, we met on the patio of Howard's for dinner. A lively crowd had already gathered for sustenance and pre-drinks and uncensored conversation when I approached Matti, who was lingering next to the host stand with his hands in his pockets, waiting for a table to open up. The air was crisp. Light jackets were worn by most, the exception being a few guys in tank tops who'd likely been asleep all day after a pre-Pride circuit party the night before, emerging from their condos to find the temperature had dropped nearly twenty degrees in twelve hours.

Twice as many rainbow flags as usual hung from the patio, each one occasionally picked up by a breeze, dancing for a few seconds before taking a break. More and more rainbow flags and banners and balloons started to adorn the storefronts of Midtown each year as October rolled around, the annual Pride festival announcing its impending arrival. I'd hung one in the window of the shop earlier that day, simultaneously announcing my sexual preference and my support for the community. My pops would have been so proud.

As I joined him near the host stand, Matti leaned in for a kiss. I didn't flinch. I had had time to collect myself that day at work, organizing my thoughts and outlining conversation points in my head while I rang customers up and stocked shelves. I was frustrated, and my heart was broken, but there was no need to act like a petulant child. The shock waves had exited my system, leaving only wake in their absence. I could pretend as though I hadn't been destroyed. As long as I was able to get my words out, to say what I needed to say, I'd be fine.

A couple of guys had vacated their table as soon as I arrived, so the host seated us once the dishes were cleared and the surface wiped down. We each ordered a glass of wine and engaged in stunted small talk while we waited. When the waiter came back, Matti ordered a sandwich of some kind. I don't remember what. I ordered a salad, knowing I'd just end up pushing the greens around on my plate with a fork. I needed to talk, not eat. But where to begin? The outline I'd stored in my head went missing as soon as I saw Matti's face, that rugged, handsome face.

Fortunately, Matti broke the ice, broaching the topic with more poise than I could have ever hoped to. "Brandon," he inquired, ignoring his sandwich, forefinger and thumb gently massaging the stem of the wineglass sitting to the left of his plate. It was a nervous habit of his, one that was appealing and sexy. "You have been distant since last night. What is going on?"

I laughed to myself as I leaned back in my chair, kicking my leg out to the side so it rested on a lower plank of the dark mahogany railing that surrounded the deck. Suddenly, my confidence returned, if only for a moment. Still, I had to think on the fly since I'd been betrayed by my own brain. Should I tell him what I'd seen or let him figure it out on his own? Illustrate my feelings tactfully or simply tell him off? Make him explain himself, or just walk away? A bigger man would have told the truth, asked him why, tried to work it out. Maybe even forgiven him. But I was damaged, scarred from a history of others' careless acts and incessant replays of brutally dashed hopes.

"Sorry," I started, then asked myself why. Why should I apologize? He was the jerk who played fast and loose with my feelings. "I just… I've been here before."

"I know, Brandon," he joked. "We've eaten here many times."

"No. Here." I used a finger to motion between the two of us. "Being used. Being played like some kinda jerk."

"Who is using you?" Matti seemed genuinely confused, which only served to piss me off. It made this hurt even more than it already did. "I love you, Brandon. I would not play you."

Fuck you, I wanted to say. But instead, I stammered, "Just… don't. I don't wanna talk about it." My eyes met his, and we exchanged an intense look. His reflected confusion and fear. Mine was a look of resolve. "I can't do this again, Matti."

"Do what?" He was pleading now, realizing this was a bigger deal than he'd originally thought.

I tried to keep my voice low, but my volume elevated slightly with my emotional state. "Be the doormat for someone who says they're ready to settle down but doesn't actually want to."

"I don't understand."

"Save it, Matti. I can't do this," I repeated.

I stood up from the table and tried to walk away, but he grabbed my arm, awkwardly forcing his fingers around my wrist. It wasn't aggressive, but there was enough force behind it to grab my attention.

"I'm sorry," he announced, loosening his grip. "Please sit back down. Let's talk this out."

Even though I wanted to leave, I didn't. Leaving him was the last thing I wanted to do, but I couldn't stay either. I was caught between a rock and a hard place: staying in another relationship in which I got walked all over or doing the walking myself, walking away from something that could have been perfect, if only last night hadn't happened. If only the fucking guys in this neighborhood could keep their dicks in their pants, I thought to myself. I sat and finished my glass of wine. I don't know why.

"Brandon, I don't know what has happened to you in the past. Other than the good times with your friends, you have shared almost nothing with me. And that's okay. You will do that when you're ready. I know that. But I can see that you have been hurt. I wish you would tell me what has happened that makes you so afraid of this. I wish I could wipe your pain away. But it's like you're looking for an excuse to get out of this relationship, this thing that we have that is so good and so pure. Sometimes you are so sweet, Brandon, so caring. And other times, you close yourself off to me completely. Like you did in the mountains. Remember?"

I just stared at him, unable to respond, unable to reason. Not with him. Not with myself.

"I watched you come alive that day we met, just over there," he continued, pointing to the spot down the block where Maestro and Hugo ran into each other while I wasn't paying attention, bringing us together. "You have this way of describing life in such colorful detail: the music you like, the clubs, the parties. Your friends. Even this neighborhood. You love it all. It's like you see the beauty in everything except love, except this… us. You are so afraid of being vulnerable, of letting yourself feel something for someone else, that you refuse to jump in with both feet. But I need you to do that, Brandon. All I want from you is love. But it seems like all you can see when you look at love is failure. When you look at me, you see heartbreak."

"Why shouldn't I?"

"Just look around you," he continued, his accent growing thicker with urgency. "There is nothing but happy couples and loving friends on this patio tonight. Everyone is having a good time. We can have that too. We have had that. But now you want to throw it away. It's like you are living in the past, too stifled to let yourself enjoy this!"

"Don't you think I know this? It's not so easy to move on, to live in the now when the life has been crushed out of you time and time again."

"Then tell me about it, Brandon. Tell me so we can get past this. I will listen to whatever you have to say."

"What's the point, Matti? It won't change anything."

He shook his head, a look of defeat in his eyes, a confusion that I simply wouldn't extinguish. But he bounced back, trying again, motioning through the thick canopy of leaves growing from the old oak tree that rocketed its way through the center of the deck, providing shade to diners on sunny days. He pointed to the sky, dusk turning dark, the gray clouds breaking enough to reveal a few twinkling stars, breaking as though the world was telling me things could get better. Greens and browns and blues and grays penetrated my eyes and pushed their way into my being. The colors on the flags snapping in the wind and the halos around the shining white lights strung above us battered my senses. Dancing tails of red and green and white from headlights, taillights, traffic lights pulled at me restlessly, but none of them seemed as bright as they would have days ago. All of it painted a picture around me that was meant to illustrate life, to pronounce sentience and vitality, but the colors were dull versions of themselves, deeper and moodier, muddied with the duplicity of betrayal.

He continued pointing. "Tell me what you see, Brandon."

I didn't understand his game, but I went along with it anyway. It felt like I was being berated by the nicest person I'd ever met, so I felt obligated to play. "I see the stars. I see the world."

"And what do you feel?"

"Insignificant."

"Yes. But you're not. Not to me. And when I look at you, Brandon, I see the world. I see it in your eyes, in your face, in your hands." He grabbed my hand from the table and held it in between his palms, gently stroking the top of my thumb with the rough skin of his. I didn't pull away. His flesh was warm, but his touch was cold. Maybe I imagined it. It never had been before. "To me, you glow. I see the sun and the moon and the trees." He paused, trying to think. "And the stars, Brandon."

"So, what am I, the sun?" I was trying to be facetious, but it didn't land.

"No, Brandon. I am the sun. You are the moon. You light up when I am around, when I shine on you. I see it. And so do your friends. Stop coming up with excuses for why this won't work. Stop running away from this." A brief pause dotted our conversation before Matti continued, defeat lingering in his eyes but hope renewed in his heart. He pled with me, "Those long nights of dancing that you speak so fondly about, they always end. And when the lights come up at the end of the night, you start to see that it was all an illusion, a wonderful dream that cannot last. They are a dream and nothing more. But this? What we have? This is real. This could last. I know that you want this. I see it in your eyes. Please, Brandon, let me love you."

It was a nice speech, but I couldn't. I couldn't stay when I knew that just around the corner, there'd be another guy, another trick, another omission that would make me second-guess him. A spin or a half-truth that would spike my insecurity enough to make me question his sincerity, his fidelity. I just couldn't do it. I was so tired.

I pulled my hand from his grip and stood from the table, my insides tight, a sickness racing to my gut, tears forming faster than I could run. "I'm sorry, Matti. I just can't. I have to go."

I hurriedly exited the patio and walked toward Spruce so I wouldn't have to pass him on the sidewalk on my way out. I didn't look back. What would the point have been? It would only ignite my desire—which I didn't want—and fan the flames of my anger and disappointment—which I didn't need. The fighter returned, only this time, he punched me in the neck, repeatedly. My body felt like it could crumble as I walked away, concrete remnants of me scattering across the sidewalk, only to be kicked by strangers as they passed.

Somewhere deep down, I hoped he'd get up and follow me, try to stop me again, but I hadn't given him much of an option. Besides, the check needed to be paid by someone. I was probably acting like a dick. Had someone run away from me without telling me why, I would have let them go too. Seemingly nothing had been wrong until last night. I could have seen us together forever. But the fact that I saw what I saw, and it didn't seem to register to Matti that kissing someone else behind my back was off-limits? What were my other options but to leave? I had no interest in being with Nate anymore, in being with a cheater like Kenny.

The lump in my throat ached. I tried to choke it back, but I couldn't. My emotions welled, salty tears dripping from both eyes as I focused on my breathing. Inhale, exhale, I thought to myself. Inhale, exhale. It helped, but not enough. I wiped my cheeks with the backs of my hands, trying to destroy any evidence that I cared. My eyes would be red when I walked into Stratus. Hopefully no one I knew would be around to ask questions.

I wanted to grab Maestro and leave—leave the city, leave the state, maybe head back up north—but I had a business to run, employees whose livelihoods depended on me. Broken and tired, a glass of wine on my balcony would have to do for an escape tonight. Maybe a bottle. But Matti would be able to see me sitting on my balcony from his condo. He could see my entire condo if any lights were on. I'd have to close the blinds from now on and live in a dark, shrouded world of pitiful secrecy.

I should never have dated someone who lived in my building. I should have never tried to date at all. This was exactly what I deserved for trying. The world was attempting to tell me that it was no use. None of it. The one-night stands, the dates, relationships; all of them were a waste of my time. Maybe the world knew me better than I did. Maybe I was better off on my own. The only problem was that I didn't want to be on my own. I wanted Matti: next to me, around me, inside me. In my bed. In my life. The Matti I knew before that kiss, before that betrayal.

I guess I never really knew him at all.

Alex sat across from me on his couch, shaking his head back and forth in disapproval, Maestro half on his lap, graciously accepting scratches behind the ears. Whether Alex's disapproval was pointed at my sudden decision to leave or Matti's behavior, I wasn't sure. In the kitchen behind us, Patrick filled three stemmed glasses with white wine. Jazz music played softly throughout the first floor of their home, the surround-sound system bringing even melodies to every corner of the open floor plan. Instead of hiding in my condo that night, I had decided to hide out in theirs.

"This just happened?"

"The kiss? It happened last night. But yeah, I just broke up with him."

"He doesn't seem like the type to do that to you, B."

"Yeah?" I huffed. "Well, he did."

"And you're sure you saw what you saw?"

"Look, I only had a few beers. The club was busy and loud, but I know what I saw."

"Did you give him a chance to explain?"

"What's the point? How could I believe anything he'd tell me?"

Patrick delivered our drinks, handing a glass to Alex and setting mine on the coffee table in front of me, then relaxed into the stylish armchair to my left. "Maybe it's not my place, Brandon," he started, "but you dated him for four months, correct?"

"Yeah," I agreed, scrubbing a palm over my face.

"Has he ever given you any reason to suspect he wasn't being faithful? Has he ever lied to you?"

"I don't know." The defensiveness was clear in my tone as I leaned forward on the couch, tossing my hands up and speaking directly. "That's just it. I can't know."

Alex chimed in again. "But you didn't give him a chance. You didn't talk it out with him?"

"Nah. He doesn't even know I saw it."

"But isn't he worth that? So he could at least give you his side of the story? It could have been a misunderstanding, right?"

"It doesn't matter." I was deflating, unable to stand up for myself against supportive friends, allies simply trying to point me in the right direction, any direction. "Even if it was a misunderstanding, I'm always gonna react like this. I'll read into things and fall down rabbit holes that I can't get out of. Every action will turn into a threat, every smile, every laugh. Nate just fucked me up too much. I'm damaged goods."

"You're not damaged goods, B. Nate screwed you over. He was a manipulative prick. You know that now. But you're a good person. Your path has just been a little bumpy."

"A little?"

Alex laughed. "You got friends, B. You run a successful business. You do well for yourself. And you got a good man. Only it sounds like you're not willing to fight for him. And honestly, I think you should at least try."

All three of us took sips from our glasses. My mind waded through years of rejection, deceit, and flightiness, not all of it directed at me. I hurt people too. I walked away from people who didn't understand why. I did it before they had a chance to know me, to understand why I had a habit of throwing relationships away before they got too serious, before I could get too badly hurt. I was always fine afterward—better even. But I was doing it again with Matti. I saw that now. And something told me I wasn't going to be fine this time. But I didn't trust him. I couldn't.

"Maybe," I started. "I just don't know if I want to." It was a bald-faced lie, and they knew it. Both of them. But they didn't say anything. They simply sat there sipping their wine, throwing glances at one another as if I couldn't see them, as if they knew better. Everyone seemed to know better.

"Well, you're certainly playing the part of the scorned lover well," Alex offered. It pissed me off, but I couldn't expect him to understand. He hadn't lived what I'd lived, no matter how much shit he'd been through.

"Can we just watch a movie or something?"

I needed everyone to stop talking and focus on something else. My mind had been racing for twenty-four hours, and it needed a rest. No more chatting. No more hashing things out. No more thinking about the jerks of my past. A movie would focus my thoughts, distract my brain, dull the ache in my heart.

Sure it would, Brandon. Sure it would.