Nashville

This was it. This was the day I would tell her I was leaving, that I was moving away from here with him. I needed this. I needed him. She had to understand that. If she didn’t, I don’t know what I would do. She was like my mother now and I wanted her to tell me this was okay. I don’t think there was anything I could do if she didn’t accept this. She wouldn’t change her mind, even for me; I wouldn’t change my mind, even for her.

I had gotten little sleep the past few nights knowing that soon I would be gone. It was the most bitter-sweet feeling I had ever felt.

May was always a difficult woman. She was always so stern when it came to me, that’s partly why I loved her so much. I was her whole world, but her world was leaving her now and she didn’t have the control over me that she used to have.

“Joel, come help me put these groceries away,” May called from the kitchen. I was currently in the living room just sitting on the couch, trying to pick out the perfect words to make her understand. With jittery joints I made my way into the kitchen where I saw May. She had her graying hair pulled into a messy bun at the crown of her head. She was dressed in frumpy grandmother-like clothes; long floral skirt and all. When you looked at her face though, there was something about the creases around her mouth and eyes that said she was once a beautiful young woman. Her beauty still shows today but in different ways. That’s what made her special. That’s what made her May.

I made myself useful, just like she asked, and started sorting through the things in the reusable shopping bags. There wasn’t much but she couldn’t reach the top shelf anymore so I had to do that for her.

The pain in my chest was increasing just thinking about all the weight I would be putting on Kyle’s shoulders. He was just a kid and now he would have to take care of himself and May.

“I’m going to make you something special tonight Joel. You’re finishing up school soon and I want to give you something as a reward for working so hard,” she said from a seat at the kitchen table while I was putting away the last few things. She didn’t even realize how much she was breaking my heart right now.

“You don’t need to make me anything. You should make Kyle something special, the kid’s been having a hard time lately,” I tried convincing her.

“But you only graduate high school once. Kyle still has a few more years ahead of him; I only have a little while until you start community college.”

I gave her a sad smile that she didn’t understand, and let the topic drop. I’m such a selfish bastard.

It turns out that my prize was chicken alfredo. It was my favorite but May didn’t care too much for it so it was a rarity. I could barley eat it though, knowing it would be a long time until I had it again. After dinner I made sure to wash May and Kyle’s dishes, along with my own. It was the least I could do at the moment.

Kyle had disappeared into his room, being the social recluse that he somehow ended up being. I worried about him sometimes. He didn’t seem to have too many friends anymore. He was different.

I took May into the living room afterwards. I poured her some iced tea and prepared myself. My legs were shaking horribly and I couldn’t help but shiver in anticipation.

“May,” I began but I couldn’t get the words out. They were stuck in my lungs with no way to escape. I opened my mouth again but I couldn’t get a sound out. May just sat there, patiently waiting for me to tell her the information that she knew I had been struggling with for the past few days. She was such an incredible woman.

“I-I… I’m leaving,” I finally said after a long awkward silence. May just sat there looking confused, head tilted gently to the side and mouth slightly open, trying to understand the horrible words coming from my mouth.

“I don’t understand Joel.”

“I need to go May. After schools over…” I sighed. This was the part she would hate the most. “I’m leaving for Nashville with Leo.” My voice broke as I saw her facial expression went blank.

It felt like she was silently telling me that we would never make it. That Leo wasn’t going to get anywhere with his music career. We’d end up on the streets. I was very prepared to tell her that I didn’t care, that I would go to the end of the world for Leo. We were in love and we couldn’t be stopped.

“I’m so sorry May.” That was completely the truth. I was sorry that I was choosing Leo over her. I was sorry that I couldn’t be there to take care of her when she needed it. I was sorry that Kyle would have to take care of her by himself now. I was sorry that I wasn’t going to college. I was sorry that I loved him so much. That I probably loved him too much.

She was silent for so long. She wouldn’t stop staring at me with expressionless eyes. I thought my chest was going to explode from anxiety. I thought my eyes would shatter from the tears I was holding back.

“Please May. Just say something, please.” My voice was quivering and I knew I couldn’t take much more of this. Of the silence that I wasn’t accustomed to. It didn’t belong in this house.

“What do you want me to say Joel?” she sounded so out of character, so spiteful. “Do you want me to say that I’m proud of your decision? Do you want me to tell you that what you’re doing is right and that I’ll support you? You were supposed to go to college and become better than your mother and be able to support a family of your own. Do you want me to tell you that because Leo loves you that you’ll be alright? Do you want me to tell you that Leo is going to take care of you? Because he’s not. He can’t even take care of himself. So what is it Joel? What do you want me to say?”

“Just tell me-” I had to stop to swallow the log in my throat that made it difficult to talk. Her words stung like no one else’s ever could. “Just, tell me you’ll let me go.”I sounded so desperate right now but I needed May to tell me it was okay to leave her.

“You’re 18 now. You don’t need my permission to run off with your boyfriend instead of going to college like we had talked about. You’re obviously old enough to make those decisions on your own so I don’t understand why you want my permission.”

“You know I love you May. I would never leave you if I didn’t have to. Leo has dreams, his plans are bigger than community college and I won’t let him go.” Why wouldn’t she just understand?

“I guess giving you a home for eleven years isn’t enough to make you stay then,” she laughed bitterly. “I took you boys in when you had no one. And now you’re leaving to go be with some…musician. I can’t support you on this decision Joel. If something goes wrong you can’t come back to me for the answer to your problem.”

“I know,” my voice came out quietly. I felt like a little kid being reprimanded. And that’s kind of what she was doing. She was trying to knock sense into my thick skull. I knew what I was doing was stupid and careless but it’s what I wanted.

She didn’t understand the love that Leo and I had for each other. She wasn’t there all those nights where he would just hold me, whispering “I love you” into my ear all night. She wasn’t there when he would talk about our future where he would get his big break and he could finally give me all the things I deserved.

She didn’t understand.

His dreams were so important to me. I wasn’t going to hold him back with the plans I had, especially when I didn’t need them. He was all I needed and even if May told me that if I left I could never come back I would still go. I hated myself for that but I was determined not to regret this decision.

“You need to figure out on your own that what you’re doing is a mistake.” And with that she got up and left the room. I wondered if she would ever forgive me. May never married nor had children of her own so when Kyle and I moved in we gave her the one thing that she wanted most of all. A family. I was destroying her family and that’s why she couldn’t tell me that it was alright. I was taking away the only thing she ever wanted.

She took care of us as if we were her own when we were really just the children of the druggie who used to live down the street. She has the biggest heart I have ever seen.

I wasn’t just taking away her family. I’m also taking away the future I should’ve had. The one where I was better than my parents. Now I’m being just as reckless as they had been.

I felt like crying because I was hurting her. I felt like lying in bed for weeks and just not doing anything. May became my mom years ago when my real one couldn’t handle Kyle and I. She didn’t even care that I was gay. When I came out she told me she loved me yesterday when I was gay and she would love me every day after. I just wanted her to tell me it was okay, like she did then.

I knew she wouldn’t though. She wanted what was best for me and she was convinced that college was the way to go. She might be right but I couldn’t bring myself to go when I knew that I could be happy with my Leo, my everything.

I just sat there with twitching legs for what felt like the longest time. I wouldn’t cry though. I wasn’t done breaking the news yet.

I hesitantly started making my way up the staircase. I was going to have to go through this all over again. I hoped Kyle would understand. I needed him to believe me when I told him that I needed to leave, and that this was for the best.

When I reached his door I knocked lightly before just going inside; he usually had his music blasting in his ears too loud to hear. When the door opened up he seemed to sense that I had entered because his eyes opened and he started to sit up straight. He pulled his feet into a criss-cross position and took his headphones out, waiting for me to speak.

I slowly entered his room. It was so impersonal, there were no posters or pictures or anything. It was just furniture. There was no life in his room. He was so lonely. The only thing that seemed to be have been used recently were many notebooks scattered around the room, on desks, on chairs. I had always wondered what he wrote in them.

“Hey kid.” No reply. I actually couldn’t remember the last time I had heard him speak to me. What the hell have I been doing these past years?

I sat down at the edge of his bed and took one last look around before finally meeting his gaze. His eyes showed nothing but an empty heart, or so it seemed. They were just wide, feigning curiosity and childlike innocence. He was just fifteen and he seemed like he was already dying.

I sighed first, “Listen kid, as soon as school lets out I’m going to be leaving. Leo and I are headed for Nashville.” I saw the wheels in his head turn as he took in what I was saying. He suddenly couldn’t make eye contact with me and just stared at his lap.

“I’ll call all the time. I promise and I’ll see if I can come back for holidays, or maybe you could come down and visit us.” I didn’t want him to think of me as permanently removed from his life, that I was gone for good because if he thought that then he might make it come true.

He still wouldn’t look up at me. I looked where his gaze was, trying to see what drew him in so deeply that he couldn’t make eye contact but all I saw was the curve of his hands. All I saw were lines and shapes. I didn’t see that they were clenched and slightly shaking. I just saw hands. That’s always my problem.

“Is there anything I can do to make you stay?” he softly inquired, still not looking up

“No kid, there isn’t.” And that was the truth.

“Then I guess you’re leaving,” he sounded so disappointed. And then without warning he suddenly looked up from the curves of his hands, forcing me to look into his eyes. I don’t know why I was expecting to see emotion all of a sudden. They were just as desolate as they were a few moments ago.

Maybe it was the sound of his voice that gave me the impression that he would care. I was wrong and it seems like he doesn’t have the ability to care about anything anymore. I wanted to ask him what was wrong, what made him so ghost like. He wouldn’t have told me the truth, but if he did I wouldn’t have been able to do a single thing about it. I was protecting myself from guilt.

After our long staring match he placed his headphones back in, closed his eyes, and layed himself down in the same position he was in when I first entered.

We were once so close that we were more like best friends than siblings, even with the age difference. That was a time when we had no one but each other. We grew apart when I made friends and met Leo and Kyle faded into the background at school. I never saw him in the hallways or heard people speak of him.

I think we both want to go back to the way things used to be but neither of us wants to admit we still need each other, that we still need family. It’s especially so for me. I felt like I was killing something that was once so strong but maybe it started breaking a long time ago.

This was it. This was the day that I was leaving her, and that I was leaving here with him. I needed this. I needed him.

It’s the day after school has let out and I’m all packed; brown boxes fill the porch as I wait for Leo to arrive with his flatbed truck. When he does he has a smile on his face and laugh lines at his eyes from happiness.

Kyle is hiding from the world in his room and May is doing some type of house work trying to keep herself occupied. All I have is Leo and I’m fine with that.

He hops out of the front seat and greets me with a kiss and sparkling eyes that are alight with excitement because today, and many days after, will be adventures. Leo is just like a child in that way, always searching for the next task to conquer, and he conquers them all.

“Let’s get these boxes loaded, yeah?” he asks and I just nod my head as confirmation. I didn’t have much that I wanted to bring, the boxes consisted of mainly clothes other necessities like soap and blankets and other things of that sort.

“Is this all you have?” he was referring to me having only three boxes set out on the thumb-sized porch.

“No there’s still some upstairs but I was too lazy to bring them down. So…” I trailed off hoping that he’ll catch what I was insinuating. He did and with a roll of his eyes he made his way into the house to retrieve more brown boxes frommy the room.

It didn’t take me long place the boxes into the truck bed and I was starting to wonder where Leo had gone off too. It shouldn’t have taken this long to gather up two boxes and bring them down a flight of stairs.

I entered the house and was about to travel up the stairs when Kyle came storming down with an actual emotion in his eyes. Anger. I saw Leo at the top step holding onto his jaw as if he couldn’t believe what happened. Connecting the dots I was able to infer what had taken place and I couldn’t believe that Kyle would do such a thing. I didn’t even know he knew how to throw a punch.

Leo waved me off and that’s all it took for me to go look for Kyle and it didn’t take long. He was sitting on the back porch steps with his hands in his lap and his head down, reminding me of the other night when I broke the news to him.

I did the only thing I could do at the moment and sat down right next to him and waited for him to speak.

“You shouldn’t be leaving,” he said and I couldn’t stop the sense of déjà vu that I had. He was using the same tone as the other night.

“I know kid,” I said with a sigh. I really shouldn’t have been leaving, but I was, because I was being selfish.

“You’ll come back right?”

“Hey, look at me,” he still refused to meet my eyes. He was still looking down and once again all I could see were hands. “Kyle,” this time, with a sigh, he looked up at me with big glassy eyes filled with hurt and anger and betrayal.

I wrapped him in a hug, the first one in a while, and I let him cry silently. “Of course I’ll come back. I could never stay away for too long. I think May would have my head if I didn’t.” That made us both laugh, but only slightly. He pulled away a wiped his glassy eyes filled with hurt and anger and betrayal and smiled a sad smile. He smiled so we could both pretend my leaving was okay.

Soon his smile evaporated and his eyes drained of moister and became the craters of matter I recognized. Everything was as it was before, but now I noticed everything. I noticed when I was leaving and I wouldn’t be here to see it anymore.

And now that the moment has past we stood up and headed around to the front of the house. I slung my arm over Kyle’s shoulder and, thankfully, he didn’t try and shake it off like I thought he would. When we got around to the front we saw May holding something frozen to Leo’s jaw. She may think me leaving with Leo is the wrong choice but she loves him like she loves Kyle and me. We’ve been together for three years and for those three years Leo has been a part of our family.

“At least I don’t have to worry about you knowing how to throw a punch.” All Kyle did in reply was nod and I accepted that answer because today he’s showed me he cares by punching Leo and by showing me his glassy eyes filled with hurt and anger and betrayal. That was enough for now.

When they spotted us May removed the frozen item from Leo’s face as he soon started making his way over to us. I noticed how Leo was keeping his distance from Kyle; when I looked at Kyle’s face I saw that he had an empty glare placed on his face. Even though it may have been emotionless it was still frightening and I just had to smile a little at the fact that Kyle was trying to stop me from making the wrong decision. He was playing the older brother in this scenario.

“Are we all set?” I asked Leo when he came up to us. He gave Kyle a wary smile and I received a peck on the cheek.

“Yeah, just about. I just have to load one last box up.” I nodded and he went to take care of his last task here. I took my arm off of Kyle’s shoulder so I could make eye contact.

I took his face between my hands and starred down slightly. “I want you to take care of May. I want you to also take care of yourself, okay? I love you kid and I’m always just a call or a text away. I want to know more about your life when I leave than I have in the past.” After I finished my mini-speech I kissed his forehead, which I haven’t done since he decided that boys didn’t kiss other boys. I obviously have no problem with that.

Then I went over to May and I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. I really expected her to be cold and distant but of course she surprised me, just like she always does.

“Good bye May” I said as I bent down to hug her.

Once the hug was finished she said something shocking. “Go on, you better send me some gifts when you boys get down there,” and then she smiled at me. I knew what she was trying to say without her having to actually say it. She was saying that even though this might be a mistake and she might not condone this that I was still family. She was giving me permission to leave which is what I wanted all along.

I smiled right back at her as I felt tears of relief prick my eyes. “I love you May” was all I could say because I didn’t know how else to express my gratitude to her.

“I love you too Joel. You better call me whenever you can now, you got that?”

“Yeah May, I got it,” and with one last hug I found myself leaving her and entering Leo’s truck. Leo squeezed my knee for reassurance and then backed out of the tiny driveway and away from the only woman I would ever love. Away from my brother, the only real family I had left. I was with Leo though, and that’s all that matters right now. So now we’re homeward bound toward Tennessee.