“Are we having a staring contest I wasn’t aware of?” he asked, pulling me out of…well, the way I’d been taking him in. It felt really different to do this as adults. An uneasy feeling started low in my gut, traveling up into my chest. But then, our relationship had changed so much that it made sense.
“Sit down.” I pointed to the couch.
“Not your lapdog, Lane.”
I rolled my eyes. “Just sit down, Isaac.”
With a sigh, he did, but I knew he wasn’t done talking yet. Isaac rarely was. “Are you sure you’re allowed to be up here? I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble with your boyfriend—oh, hey, remember how you always told me you were straight? I’m gonna need you to explain to me how the whole dating-a-guy thing happens in that situation.”
I searched through the desk drawer and grabbed an old sketchbook and a pencil. With my back to him, I said, “You can be a real dickhead, you know that?” It had always been true about him. The difference was he never used to be one to me.
“It’s a talent.”
“You should work on a new one.”
“Why would I when I’m so good at it?”
I ignored him and pulled the chair over so I’d be in front of him. We were quiet as I opened to a blank page. I placed my feet on the small coffee table between us, book on my lap, before the tip of the pencil made its first scratch along the paper.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
“I always loved that sound. I slept to it so many times over the years, when I’d come up here while you worked. It does something to me like…fuck, I don’t know. Like it’s a goddamned lullaby or something.”
My gaze snapped to him, but Isaac wasn’t looking at me. He never in a million years would have said that to someone else. I didn’t know what it was about me that made him lower his guard, but it always had, and I’d always reveled in it. The only time I’d ever felt special in my life was because of my art, and then because of who I’d been to Isaac. When someone who’s confident and bright enough to set the world on fire trusts you, it does something to a guy. I wasn’t sure I’d ever deserved it, but I wouldn’t walk away from it either.
“I don’t have one,” I finally replied, my gaze darting to him. Isaac was frowning.
“Have a what?”
“Boyfriend.”
“Shit.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I know I should say I’m sorry, but I’m pretty sure I hate that guy, so it’s hard to get the words out.”
I chuckled. It was such an Isaac thing to say. Again, he was a bit of a dick, but I’d always loved him for it. “He’s not a bad guy.”
“He’s basically the worst.” I rolled my eyes, and Isaac, reading my silent response, said, “I’m not being dramatic.”
“I’ll give you that he wasn’t right for me and didn’t quite fit in with us, but he’s not the worst. That’s taking it a little too far.”
“He was jealous of time you spent creating art, Lane.”
He had a point. “Jayden is used to being the center of attention. And he’s been hurt in the past. He has pretty low self-esteem, though you’d never know it from the outside. Lack of attention makes him feel unloved.” Which I’d known from the start, but I hadn’t realized it would get to me as much as it had. And then adding in the cheating…
“Nope. Doesn’t help. Still hate him,” Isaac said, making me laugh. He was always so good at making me do that.
“You’re an asshole.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know,” he replied. Because sarcasm and being a jerk had always been easier for him than real emotions.
We slipped into a comfortable silence this time, nothing but the sound of our breathing and my pencil scratching against paper filling the space around us. I needed to explain things to him, but I couldn’t figure out where to start, how to get us back to where we used to be. I just knew that one day we were okay, and then we weren’t. My not telling him about being with men only made it worse. “I didn’t know,” I said without looking at him. “When you asked me if I liked men, I didn’t realize. And maybe that doesn’t make sense to you, someone who’s always been so secure in who he is, but it’s the truth.”
“Sexuality is a complex thing. I can understand that, but at some point over the years you figured it out, and you kept it from me.”
When I glanced up, Isaac was massaging his chest, right over his heart, as if he had an ache in the muscle there.
“Things haven’t been the same between us in a long time. We don’t talk like we used to.”
“That’s a bullshit excuse, and you know it. Yeah, sure, we grew up, shit changed, but there’s still no reason we wouldn’t know this about you unless you specifically tried to keep it from us. I take it Jayden isn’t your first, and you…what, conveniently never mentioned having a boyfriend? Why?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. I couldn’t figure out how to explain it either. How could I, when I didn’t understand it myself?
“Again. Bullshit. It was me, wasn’t it? You didn’t want me specifically to know.”
I put the pencil down, ran a hand through my hair, scraping my scalp and messing up my already wild curls. He was right. It had been there, deep inside me, hiding, not wanting to come out. I hadn’t wanted Isaac to know, but I couldn’t sort out why that would be true.
Isaac shoved to his feet. “It’s me, Lane. You’re the first person I ever told. Almost every goddamned secret there is to know about me, you have them.”
I looked up at him, cocked my head. “Almost?” fell out of my mouth, which in hindsight, wasn’t the best word to set free.
Angry fire flashed in Isaac’s eyes. “Jesus fucking Christ. We’re sitting here arguing because you kept your sexuality from me all these years, and you’re really questioning me on what you might not know?”
Well, when he put it that way, I could see why it sounded so bad. When I didn’t answer, Isaac said, “You’re the one who was always so open. You’re the one who talked so easily about his feelings and who looked past my facade to see mine. You found words and emotions inside me I hadn’t realized I’d locked away, you pried every fucking one of them out of me, and then you hold on to this? You kept this from me? Why?”
I stood and walked to the window, looked out at the night, and then Isaac was there, behind me. His reflection watching mine.
“You didn’t want me to know,” he said again.
“Yes,” I replied. I hadn’t. I turned so we faced each other, only a few inches separating us. Isaac’s chest rose and fell deeply, as if his breath was trying to run away from him. “It doesn’t make sense. I get that, but…I let you down that day. When you asked if I was into men and I said no, I let you down, and while my answer felt true at the time, I fucking hate disappointing you. I don’t ever want to let you down, Isaac. I wanted to be attracted to men back then just because you were; because I could tell you needed me to be.”
“So…what? You went off to college and turned queer so your brother didn’t feel so lonely? It doesn’t work that way.”