From Him, With Love

The restaurant that May picked wasn’t particularly fancy. It was an American bar-style restaurant with loud music and booths rather than tables.

“May, I don’t see why you chose and American restaurant that was far from number one on Trip Advisor rather than all of the other restaurants that got better reviews and that we can’t go to back in Baltimore," Jack complained.

“You said it was my night to pick, you can pick wherever you want to go tomorrow night.”

“I guess you’re right.”

The hostess came and led us to a booth. May and Ella sat on one side, and their quick movements to sit together seemed deliberate and planned out. Either Ella had a thing for girls that were minors or they wanted me to sit by Jack. My guess was that it was the second one. I didn’t protest.

“Can I get you something to drink?” a waitress with brown hair asked.

“I’ll take Jack on the rocks,” Jack said. “Thanks.”

I ordered the same, and Ella and May ordered iced tea.

“I guess I’m driving tonight,” Ella grumbled when the waitress was gone.

“Sorry, El, you can have some of mine if you want.”

“Thanks, Lex,” she said.

“No problem.”

I sat up tall in my seat, and realized that Jack was taller than I’d previous assumed. He was about two inches taller than me, which meant that he was about 6'3". May was marginally shorter than Ella, so she must not have gotten the height. She seemed to be about 5'2", and Ella’s 5'8" easily ivaled that. Our drinks came, and we drank them like we’d never had a sip of liquid in our lives.

“I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Anna, and I’ll be your server tonight. Can I get y’all anything to eat yet?” the pretty waitress asked, popping up again.

She, by comparison to Me, Ella, and May, was as tall as you could get. She had sparkling green eyes and a goofy smile like she’d just been told the best news ever. I also noticed that she had an American accent.

“Yes, can I please have the Giant Perth Burger?” Ella asked.

She wrote it down on her slip of paper, and her dark hair fell across her face. She blew it out of her face, and I smiled at how cute she looked. I realized that it was because she reminded of Ella when we were kids. She had a lot of the little mannerisms that I’d observed Ella doing since she was little. For example, she would shift her weight often onto the opposite foot, and I would often see her go up on her toes for a moment before going back down.

There was no denying that this was an active girl, and she couldn’t help but keep moving. She kept doing that the whole time we were ordering. While they were ordering, I wrote her a short note on a piece of my napkin that I ripped off. When I reached for the pen that I kept in my pocket, I hesitated briefly because it was in the same pocket as Ella’s razor, but I grabbed it anyway and wrote when everyone’s eyes were averted from me.

My number is 555-555-4532. (Don’t worry, I’m not creeping. I’m gay, but you remind me of a girl I know. I’d love to hang out sometime.)

I decided that I would wait until we got our bill, and then slip the note in with my credit card, so I tucked it into my pocket while she walked away.

“I drank too quickly,” Ella said. “And now I have to pee. I’ll be right back.”

She got out of her seat and headed to the bathroom.

“Uh, yeah, I did too,” May said, and followed Ella.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Jack burst out laughing.

“Would you look at those two? They seem to think that we’ll automatically fuck as soon as they leave the table.”

“I know, right? It’s insane.”

We were quiet for a moment, and then Jack reached for my hand. He looked at me as if asking for permission.

“Can I?” he asked nervously

I just nodded, and he held my hand lightly. It wasn’t much, but it filled me with chills. Good chills, butterfly chills.

“This is nice,” I said.

“Yeah, it is,” he agreed. “We’re leaving in eleven days. I think we should go on a date tomorrow. What do you say?”

“I say yes.”

“Can I pick you up at seven? We’ll go to dinner, and then we can go to the beach again.”

“A million times yes.”

Ella and May took their sweet time in the bathroom, and Ella grinned when she saw our hands locked together. She leaned over to whisper something in May’s ear, and May looked at us too. She was smiling just as widely as Ella was.

“You two; masters of stealth, I tell you,” I said as sarcastically as I could.

“Really,” Jack agreed. “You should work for the CIA.”

“Shut up, we just think it’s really cute.”

People were staring at us, some in disgust, and others with the same googly eyed expression that Ella and May had worn when they’d first seen us. It wasn’t long before I noticed two other gay couples holding hands, and I pointed them out to Jack. He waved kindly, and they, smiling, waved back. About twenty minutes later our food was there, and I bit into my burger.

“So, how long have you lived in Baltimore?” Ella asked Jack.

“I moved there from Lebanon when I was really young and May's lived there her whole life.”

“That’s awesome, is it nice there?”

“It’s okay, I honestly prefer Australia.”

He winked at her, and she smiled.

“Alex, it looks like we’ve got a charmer on our hands.”

I rolled my eyes jokingly at Jack.

“What are we going to do about you?”

He squeezed my hand a bit.

“Shut up, you’re going to love me,” he joked.

“He already does, obviously,” Ella and May said at the same time, then looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“Now you two need to shut up,” Jack retorted.

“Whatever,” Ella said. “You know we’re just giving you a hard time.”

“Whatever.”

When we’d finished eating, Anna brought us our ticket.

“I’ll pay,” I offered, picking up the bill.

I slid in my credit card, along with my note to Anna. I handed it back to her with a smile.

“So, how long are you staying for?” Ella asked when Anna had left.

“We’re staying for eleven more days,” Jack answered.

“Nice.”

“Maybe you guys could come visit us in Baltimore sometime,” May suggested.

“Maybe,” I said, trying to sound as non-committal as I possibly could.

I gazed a bit uncomfortably around the room. There were a ton of small LED lights lining the ceiling, and when I looked away my vision was spottier than it had been before. My stomach was screaming from the amount of food that I’d force-fed into it. I excused myself quickly and ran to the toilet, ready to hurl. Sure enough, I barely made it to the toilet when my dinner made a beeline for the bowl. After throwing up two more times, I felt marginally better and less sick.

I used toilet paper to wipe my mouth off, and I went to wash my hands. I didn’t have my toothbrush, so I craned my head to the faucet.

Swish.
Spit.
Swish.
Spit.

My head was spinning, and Jack walked in.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I just ate too much. I felt like I was going to throw up, but I’m fine.”

It was kind of true at least. He looked at me suspiciously. However, he didn’t say what he was thinking, which was that I’d barely eaten anything. For me, it was too much. When we returned to the table, he didn’t hold my hand, but I could feel his sympathy. I hated sympathy. Anna came back with the slips that I needed to sign, and I did so quickly

The drive home seemed unexpectedly long. The silence seemed to go on forever. I stared out the window. Ella was in the driver’s seat, and May was beside her. They didn’t say anything. Jack was next to me, looking at my left cheek, which was turned from him. He didn’t say anything.

I felt like screaming, or crying, or both. I didn’t understand why. I didn’t need to understand why. I didn’t say anything, and I didn’t scream or cry. I just wished. I wished that I was someone else. Someone who could say anything they wanted without worrying constantly that they would be judged. I wished to be someone that wasn’t too wrapped up in his own insecurities that I couldn’t even interact with the people I loved. I didn’t realize how tightly my eyes were closed until I opened them and got a headache.

It was dark outside, but it wasn’t raining anymore. The sky was still overcast, and it would probably rain again the next day. Finally, Ella pulled up in front of her house. Jack was the one to break the silence, but he was still staring sadly at my cheek.

“Ella, May, can you guys go out there for a few minutes?” he asked quietly. “I need to talk to Alex alone.”

“Sure,” May muttered. She and Ella got out, and Jack and I were alone in his car, protected from sight by the tinted windows on the car. That was the only nice thing about it.

“I want to know why you’re so upset,” he said finally after moments of unabridged silence.

“I’m not upset, I’m just really tired.”

He fixed me with a look so intense that I wanted to turn away, but his eyes held my head in its position. Then, he did something unexpected. He leaned in and kissed me. I was overcome with the feeling of the kiss, and I couldn’t help but wonder why he’d chosen to kiss me. I was just a lonely, skinny boy from Perth. I’d somehow had a stroke of luck that was this gorgeous, golden Lebanese boy from Baltimore, and I didn’t want the kiss to break. However, things break all the time. Kisses break, glasses break, and, as much as I wanted to deny it, hearts break too. My heart was broken, so how could I say that hearts were the exception to the long list of things that were more fragile and breakable than a twig?

“I love you,” he said, when our particular kiss broke, and I could barely process the words. “I love you, and I want you to feel better. Can you do that?”

I couldn’t. I wanted to say the three words that he’d said to me back, but I could barely make my mouth move, and I could barely make myself love him back because of the especially fragile thing that was my heart.

“Okay,” was the only word that my lips could form.

“Okay,” he replied.

“Goodnight, Jack,” I choked out.

“Goodnight, Alex.”

Then he kissed me again and I got out of the vanilla and coffee scented car. Ella was waiting on the lawn. May got back in the car as Jack replaced Ella in the driver’s seat. I didn’t say anything to Ella, because there would be plenty of time for that later. Instead, I called my mom to tell her that I was spending the night at Ella’s, whose parents were on business in Europe.

The inside of her house smelled the same way that we’d left it: dull. She went into the bathroom and lit the Eucalyptus incense that she loved, then sat me on the couch and made me talk.