Undeniably In Denial

Hanging out with Reese, back home in New Jersey.

Something I never thought would happen again. I thought the same thing when we’d started talking again, but this is way different. I knew Reese still lived in Jersey, but I lived in England with Jared and I never thought that either of us would be able to find time to get together. I never imagined that anything like what’s happened in the last few weeks would happen to me. I didn’t know that Jared was going to die. I never knew Reese would take a bullet for me. And I definitely never knew that he and I would become so close again in such a short period of time. All of that has happened, though, and to be honest, it’s seemed to have made my life a little better than before; minus the death and shootings, of course.

Reese and I were going to redecorate my attic room, so we went to town and bought a whole bunch of paint and supplies and some bedroom things to match it all. The idea that I had for it was a base of black and then all kinds of colors splattered and splashed around. Then I had the idea for us to wear a completely white outfit while painting so the clothes would be splattered with paint too.

“Okay, let’s break out these colors,” I said, standing back to see the semi-dry black walls and ceiling.

“We’re not going to let it dry first?”

“Nah; no point to it. What’s going to happen? The paint’s going to smear? That’ll just add to the effect,”

“Very true; alrighty then, let’s get this show on the road. How many colors do you want open right now?”

“Let’s open them all that way we can just reach in and fling it out. And don’t worry about mixing colors, because that’ll just make it all better,” I laughed, pulling all the paint out of the bags and setting the cans in the middle of the floor with the barbeque things I found. We opened all the cans and each grabbed a brush-thing. Reese looked at me and smirked, doing something that made me really glad we took everything out of the room, or covered it in tarps. He dipped the barbeque thing in the orange paint and spun around in a circle, flinging paint everywhere, somehow managing to get some on all four walls. It worked great, though, so I did the same thing with the red, laughing the whole time. We did that with a couple more colors before Reese spoke up with a really neat idea.

“Hey, why don’t we do sort of a crime scene outline thing on the wall by the door? One of us on each side maybe?”

“Yea, and we could be kissing the doorframes, so it kind of looks like we’re kissing each other through the door,”

“Ooh, that’s great!”

“And it can represent the fact that you and I are the only two people on the planet that know about this room and what it means to me.” About how much you mean to me.



Later that night, Reese and I were sitting on the plastic covered bed, admiring the huge piece of art that we just created. He turned to me and asked, “Why did we spend all the time and money on this if you’re just going back to England in a couple of weeks?”

“Because I'm not completely sure I am going back to England,”

“You might stay?”

“I'm pretty sure that I'll end up moving back here, yea,” I explained. “I don’t know if I’d be able to live in a place where everywhere I turn, I'm reminded of Jared and the life he and I had together.”

“Well where would you live? Surely you wouldn’t stay here at your parents’ house forever,” he chuckled, mainly joking, but partially serious.

“Have you noticed how they haven’t been home all night?”

“Yea, but I hadn’t thought anything of it. Where are they?”

“They’re looking for a new house, actually. Since Gina and I moved out, the house has been too much for them to take care of. They’re giving me this house if I stay in Jersey. But if I leave again, they’re going to sell it. I have so many memories in this house and I’d hate to see it sold. But it’s almost too big for me, too. I mean, it does have three bedrooms – four if you count this beauty,” I smiled, gesturing to the attic room. “And I'm only one guy. I only use my room and the attic, so, yea.”

“Camron Dole,” Reese said in a tone that closely resembled scolding, but was also one of joking at the same time. “Are you trying to ask me if I’d like to move in with you?” He had a smile on his face, and it was easy to see that he was trying to poke fun at me, because he shoved my shoulder playfully, forgetting about the paint on our clothes and leaving a splotchy hand print on my shoulder. I did the same thing back at him on his good shoulder, leaving a hand print on it too.

“Yea, I suppose I am,” I said, chuckling and blushing a bit. “But if you don’t want to for any reasons, I completely understand. I don’t want it to seem like I'm guilting you into anything, because I'm not, but it would be nice to have someone else living in this big house. So don’t be afraid to tell me if you want to stay where you are or whatever. Don’t worry, I won’t be offended or anything; I just wanted to let you know that you’re plenty welcome to stay and – “

“Relax, Cam, and just listen to my answer before you start freaking out and rambling worriedly like you are,” he laughed, putting his hand over my mouth to silence me. “I’d love to move in here. My place is nothing special. We go on tour so much that I never needed a big place to stay when we came home, because we’d just be off again soon enough. This house is way better than my little apartment.”

“Really? I just got all self conscious for nothing?”

“Yes, really; I don’t really like my apartment anyways. Like I said; way too small. This sounds like a fantastic solution to both of our problems,”

“You don’t think it’d be too weird?”

“Why would it be too weird? Why would it be weird at all?”

Because we used to date?

Because we’ve both established the fact that we loved each other?

Because of the possible sexual tension that could build up between us if we live under the same house?

“Because we haven’t seen or talked to each other in over five years, we started talking again only a few months ago and now we’re going to be living together. That might do it,” I said laughing.

“I don’t think that’d be all that odd,” he shrugged. “It’s not as if we only just met a few months ago. We’ve known each other for six years. I think we’ll be fine,”

“Yea, you’re right. I guess I'm just over thinking things. Now let’s get cleaned up; we may look pretty cool, but I'm starting to feel a little too crusty for my personal likings,”

My Our house has two bathrooms, but one of them only has an old claw foot bathtub, so Reese and I had to take turns taking showers. That is, unless we took a shower together. I offered the shower to Reese first, but he insisted that I go first, so he could go downstairs and make us dinner. I was glad he was offering to cook, because if I was to try to do that, we’d probably get poisoned. It took me longer than I thought it would to get all the paint out of my hair – and other places – but I still didn’t expect him to be done cooking by the time I got out. He was, though, and was sitting on my bed, reading some magazine I had lying around when I walked into the room. I just had my boxers on, because I didn’t take any other clothes in the bathroom than the painted ones that were still drying.

“Um, Camron?” Reese started, sounding very serious and slightly worried.

“Yes?”

“What are those?” he asked, only nudging his head towards me. I had no clue what he was gesturing at, though.

“What are what?”

He stood up and walked over to me. “These,” he said angrily, pressing really hard on a spot on my lower abdomen, sending sears of pain throughout my body.

“Ow! Shit, Reese! What the hell?” I yelled, nearly doubling over in pain.

“I should be asking you the same thing! Why would you do that do yourself?”

“There’s a whole story behind this! There’s a story behind every one I have. They’re all for good reasons!”

“There’s never a good reason for anyone to do that!”

“Well, I'm sorry! I never knew you were so against tattoos!”

“Tattoos? Are you serious? That’s a tattoo?”

“Yes, that is a tattoo! What the hell did you think it was?”

“I thought you were cutting! That looks like a big mess of scars!”

“It is a big mess of scars. That’s the whole point behind it,”

“Why would you get a tattoo of scars?” he asked; more calm than before, nodding at my throbbing, red, raw looking flesh. I see where he thought I was cutting; it’s a very realistic tattoo.

“It represents Jared; his and my relationship has been ripping at both our hearts since the start. We’d been constantly breaking up and then getting back together for a while, and then breaking up, and so on. We only had a couple of times when our relationship was really good, and they had all been as of lately. If you look close enough, some of the scars have stitches on them, and hanging from one of those stitches are two wedding rings,”

“Wow, you must have put a lot of thought into that. That’s pretty deep,”

“That’s sort of the whole point,” I laughed, rubbing the tender spot, hoping it would stop throbbing soon.

“You said you had more than this one. Can I see them?”

“Sure,” I smiled, extending my right arm and turning my fist one hundred and eighty degrees so that I could show him, as best I could, the underside of my upper arm and the ink that adorns it.

“Is that a penguin in a coat?” he laughed slightly, titling his head a bit so he could see it better. “What story could possibly explain this one?”

“It reminds me of another of my exes,”

“Do you have tattoos of all your exes?” he asked, probably wondering if I have one for him – which I do.

“All the ones that I loved, or at least cared for a whole lot. I'll show you yours in a bit,”

“So what’s up with the fashionable penguin?”

“Well, that was way back in eighth and ninth grade, but he was my first real long term boyfriend. I was still in Ohio at that point in time, and he’d just moved there when I met him. It was a couple weeks after they moved in, and the first time I really made any contact with him was when I ran into him on the streets. He was giving this homeless guy his jacket and then he just walks up to me and says, ‘Hey, I just gave that man my jacket. Can I have a smile to warm me up?’ and I just about died right then and there. Our first date, we went to the zoo and played with the penguins, so when I thought up the most memorable things throughout our relationship, those came straight into my mind. So I combined them and got a penguin in a coat,”

“I think that is one of the most adorable stories I've ever heard!”

“That’s what everyone says,” I told him, smiling and blushing as I turned around to expose the most intricate tattoo I have on me. “Now this one here is for you and me.” It was right below my shoulder blade on the left side of my back, right where my heart is. “It took me a while to figure out what represented our relationship, or the most memorable thing about it, but as I thought about it more, I figured out that there weren’t really one or two things that stood out from all the rest. And I ended up coming up with this.”

“It’s your closet,” he said, basically dumbstruck.

“Yep, and the door to the attic,”

“Is that Vernon?”

“Uh-huh,” I laughed, looking over my shoulder at him.

“And that’s your sister’s orange death stiletto!”

“Yea, the whole reason we met in the first place,

“I've never thought of it that way, but you’re right. I'll have to thank her one of these days. Is that a movie ticket?” I nodded, smirking. “Why is there a movie ticket there?”

“Do you remember that time we got together a big group of friends and went to see that movie that nobody wanted to see? Then my friends Vince and Sasha starting hitting on you?” I asked, turning back around to face him, knowing that he named off all the things that were there.

“Yea, but how’d you know about those two? Did they tell you?”

“Not exactly,” I smirked, thinking back on that encounter.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, I kind of told them to do all that,” I chuckled.

“Why’d you go and do that?”

“I just wanted to know if you liked guys! That’s not really something I felt comfortable asking out loud, so I had them do a little experiment. I found out that you were bi that night,”

“Well that’s the night I finally stopped being in denial. The night I finally came out of the closet, ironically enough. When I told Jason, I swear, that boy just about shat himself, he was so excited for me,”

“I do have to say that I was pretty excited that night too,”

“Why were you excited?”

“That was the night I realized that I had a chance with you,” I smiled, watching as he smiled too.

And this is the night that I realize that I, Camron Dole, want you, Reese Karman, back again