What It Takes Page 8

  Andrew’s fingers tighten around Milo’s bicep. “Ashamed of what?”

  “Look at me, Andrew. I’m strong; I lift weights and I train and I’m the best swimmer on our shitty team. I’m a big guy, and I let my father make me feel like the smallest, worst thing.”

  “Milo, you don’t let him. He’s worked your whole life to break you. You’re incredible; look at you. You are going to get out, you are surviving, you are a beautiful person and he’s never going to break you. You won’t let him. I won’t let him,” Andrew promises.

  Milo sighs against him and Andrew can feel the weight of his long bones and dense muscles begin to relax fully. He matches his breaths to Milo’s, and after a while they slip into an uneasy sleep.

  °

  Milo struggles for the remainder of the summer—not with sharing his secret with Andrew, but with everything else. Trapped in that seething cage of a home, sometimes he wakes up at night, heart throbbing and chest tight from dreams where he hits back, where his voice reaches that vicious, breaking tone his father specializes in. Where he gets on top of him and hits and hits and hits until there’s nothing but blood and crunching bone. The worst is waking up and knowing utter futility and helplessness.

  He wakes up and lives his life, but there are days when he doesn’t think he’ll ever get through without Andrew helping him breathe with light touches and easy smiles. If he ever let himself, if he ever gave in to the sweet, silver thread of longing he has for Andrew, he knows he would somehow end up breaking everything. There’d be no happy ending. He’s so scared he could lose his very best friend that he manages to settle them both into friendship, and tries so very hard to give everything he is capable of to Andrew, who deserves so much more.

  One Wednesday, Milo can’t find Andrew. It’s overcast and cold for mid-July. Andrew isn’t answering his phone and he’s not home. Milo has no reason to seek him other than wanting to be with him, but not finding him makes him feel colder.

  Andrew’s mother lets him in, and he settles at Andrew’s desk and tries to read a book, but Andrew is still going through a horror novel phase and Milo isn’t into that. Although something of Andrew lingers intangibly, he’s not here.

  It strikes Milo that in a few short weeks, they’ll be across the country from each other. Until this moment, that understanding hasn’t really imprinted in his bones. A fear so big he sees gray covers him.

  It’s suddenly clear that somehow Milo needs to learn to stand on his own. He throws Andrew’s book on the nightstand, grabs his shoes and runs all the way home. He locks himself into his room and prays his father won’t do a room check tonight.

  He’s gotten much too big for it, but Milo needs the close, dark shape of the closet around him. Losing Andrew is going to kill him unless he learns how to live with it. He turns off the closet light and puts his head against the wall and uses the memory of Andrew’s voice to help him breathe and tells himself that that’s good enough, that he doesn’t need his hands in Andrew’s and the comfort of his shoulder when he comes down, shaking and broken.

  chapter five

  Milo has a hunch from the first email exchanged that his roommate is a douchebag. If he’s reading the subtle undertones right (if, dude we’re gonna be wasted all the time, it’ll be awesome can be considered an undertone), it’s going to be... interesting, to say the least.

  Milo isn’t interested in partying. He’s never been huge on it, dislikes the out of control feeling that comes with being drunk. Even with friends, down at the bonfire or up in P-Town, it’s rarely been as fun as others seem to think. Maybe it’s the fear—fear of his father finding out, of being caught, of having an anxiety attack—whatever it is, Milo has never found a way to completely let go.

  His roommate really is a douchebag. By the time Milo arrives, two big suitcases in tow, seventy-five percent of the wall space is covered in posters of mostly-naked women, and the room reeks of beer. Two other guys are hanging out and there are beer cans lined up on the windowsill. Thank god his father is downstairs commandeering the rest of his belongings.

  “You have to put those away,” he hisses, slamming the door shut with his bags still in the hall.

  “Dude, hey, you must be Milo!” Shane holds his hand out, a too wide smile on his face.

  “My dad is downstairs.” Milo speaks in a low tone in case he’s somehow managed to get up here that fast. “He will kill me, you have no idea. Could you guys clear out until he leaves?”

  “Whoa, what?” Shane, to his credit, has the presence of mind to pass the can he’s holding off to the shaggy blond-headed guy who had been leaning against the desk. He high-fives both guys on their way out. Shane roots around in a desk drawer and finds some gum. “Want some?” He holds it out, and Milo shakes his head. Shane already has a box fan set up in a propped window, so Milo turns it around and turns it on, trying to get the air out. He tosses all the cans into the garbage can and the can into the closet. Then, before his dad can come up, he opens the door and props it with his bag.

  “I’ll tell him it’s for cross-ventilation if he asks,” he mutters, mostly to himself.

  “Are you okay?” Shane looks at him.

  “I’ll explain later.” Milo hauls a bag onto his bed, and tries to ignore the poster of a vintage Playboy bunny spread above his bed. “If this works, he’ll be thrilled,” he says to himself. Not that he’s ever so much as hinted to his dad, but the fact that Milo is gay is starting to become the secret everyone suspects but is kept, like all secrets, tucked into the deep silence of their home. The fan is loud enough that Shane doesn’t hear him. God only knows how he’d take that; the last thing Milo needs is a homophobic roommate.

  “Miles?” James thumps in with a large box and another suitcase in tow.

  “Here, let me get that.” Milo takes the load easily. Sometime in the last two years he’s grown bigger than his dad. His father doesn’t like looking up at him, and Milo will always feel smaller. “A lot more?”

  “Just a few boxes; your mother is watching over them.” James brushes his hands off.

  “I’ll grab them, then,” Milo says.

  “Hi, um, sir,” he hears Shane begin, “I’m Shane Abernathy.”

  “Huh,” is all James says. Milo winces and then sprints down the stairs to find his mother.

  °

  “Shane seems nice enough,” his mom says over dinner.

  “I suppose.” Milo is busy with his food. It’s a surefire way to stay under the radar. If there’s anything his father approves of, it’s Milo eating. So long as he eats healthily, Milo’s big appetite is a sign that Milo is training well.

  “Room smelled like beer,” his dad says tightly. Milo’s stomach falls. They’re at a nice restaurant, pretty far from campus. His mother wanted one last nice dinner to top off the whole horrible moving-to-college experience. Milo wanted to do it on his own—not only because the specter of his father on such a day was enough to swallow, but because this is the start of a whole new part of Milo’s life, one he hopes his father won’t be a part of in any way.

  It’s a pipe dream, but a nice one. He takes a careful bite of his broiled chicken and wonders if he should fess up to Shane having alcohol.

  “Now, honey, it’s college. Some kids are going to get up to trouble,” Shelby says.

  “Not Miles though, right?” James turns pale eyes in his direction. “You’re a good kid; I know you’re smarter than that.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” Milo says. “Nothing to risk my education, right?” It’s true, too, but his father has a way of looking at everything he says as if it’s a lie.

  “Don’t be dumb while you’re here,” James warns, then quicksilver-transforms his face into a genial one for the waitress.

  “Trust me Dad, that is not the plan,” Milo says under his breath. Nothing is bringing him back home, not if he can help it.

  “Good.” His father closes the black leather book with a signed card receipt and stands. “Shelby, it’s time to head out. W
ant to get back in time to turn in the rental and get to the airport.”

  “Thanks for dinner, Dad.” Milo smiles. So what if it’s aimed at his mother? His father takes everything he sees as his due.

  °

  “So your dad seemed…” Shane looks up from where he’s kicked back at his desk, watching Milo unpack. Shane moved in earlier in the week, so everything of his is stuffed or strewn in some sort of order. Milo refolds all his clothes carefully before stacking them in his drawers.

  “Yeah,” is all Milo says. There aren’t really words to cover his father. Sometimes his father is an excellent actor. Others, not so much. He had no reason to impress Milo’s roommate; many, in fact, to intimidate him, if he thinks Shane is in any way a detriment to Milo’s future. Not that he is going to be one on his second day of college. But still. “He expects Great Things,” he explains.

  “So…” Shane watches him fold for another minute. “Wanna get hammered?”

  Milo laughs. “No, not really. Not my thing.”

  Shane shrugs. At least he’s not coercive. Milo tucks his last stack of laundry away, then sets about making the bed. All around him are mostly-naked breasts. It’s so disconcerting.

  My roommate has naked girls all over the walls, he shoots a quick text to Andrew.

  gross

  like literally. he hung one over my bed.

  hopefully not an actual girl

  well at least she’d make interesting conversation

  ohhh, I see this is going well already

  kill me now. Even his closet doors have girls

  shut up, go have fun, stop acting like an eighty year old man. And tell him you like dick. Put a picture up of a giant cock. Come out of the closet on your closet.

  you shut up you ass :D

  “Girlfriend?” Shane asks innocently. Fishing. Milo tosses a smile back over his shoulder. It’s too soon in the year for this.

  “My best friend, Andrew,” Milo says, dropping his phone on the nightstand.

  “Where’s he?” Shane is texting someone, too.

  “Brandeis.”

  A knock at the door startles him.

  A close-cut brown head pops in. “Hey guys.” Whoever this is has a hard, well-defined face, an interesting face with deep brown eyes. “Shane,” the guy waves. “You must be Miles?”

  “That’s me.” Milo takes the proffered hand and shakes it. “You can call me Milo.”

  “Cool. I’m Josh, your RA. You’re the last one here, just in time for the weekly hall meeting. Come on out to the commons by, like,” he checks his phone, “eight thirty?”

  “Sure.” Milo smiles. Hall meetings. It’s a college thing. This is a college thing. He looks around again. The room is small, and he’s living practically on top of a messy, potentially gay-hating, party-loving stranger, but his father is on a flight back to Boston. For the first time, Milo can be anyone he wants. And what he wants most of all is not to be James Graham’s son.

  °

  From: Miles Graham [milodgraham@---]

  To: Andrew Witherell [drewithit7@---]

  Subject: this sucks

  I still haven’t come out to Shane. It’s been a week and so far he’s brought two girls over. I see boobs everywhere I turn (not the girls, on my walls I mean). I have run out of ways to say no to parties. Do people do anything constructive here?

  Tell me more about your roommates. How did you settle on room arrangement?

  °

  From: Andrew Witherell [drewithit7@---]

  To: Miles Graham [milodgraham@---]

  Subject: RE: this sucks

  stop whining and go have fun like any hot blooded 18 year old. Go find an alliance. I looked a few up for you, I’ll email them later. Find a little haven. Go for a swim, it calms you down. I know you decided not to do the swim thing there and focus, but you can do Masters Swim (I looked that up, BTW, you can use the internet to find things, did you know?)

  Go get laid, stop being the oldest virgin this side of the Pecos.

  I like them ok. For now we’re testing out having all the beds in one room and the other for study. But we’re all open to changing that if one person is too annoying :D It’s hard to tell now, but Damien and I get along great. Levi is hard to read.

  -a

  °

  From: Miles Graham [milodgraham@---]

  To: Andrew Witherell [drewithit7@---]

  Subject: RE: this sucks

  asshole, I don’t even know that there are Pecos between us. Thanks for the other links. I’m on the fence. I guess at some point I have to “officially” come out. Will I ever feel ready? How the fuck do you do this?

  I might do that master club thingy (idk I need to figure out how that works). My course load is pretty heavy. There is a workout room in Marks Hall I can use too. I’m glad you get along with your roommates. I’d feel so confined with three people in one room. Send pictures.

  p.s. You go get laid….

  -m

  ° ° °

  THE FIRST week of college is hard for Andrew: harder than he admits to Milo, because he knows Milo is out of his depth in a way Andrew isn’t. Andrew misses so many things about home: the sound of the water at night; the pinpricks of starlight he mapped into constellations of his own making; his friends and parents; and, terribly, achingly, Milo. But he knows it’s not nearly as hard as it could be.

  On the sixth day of his new life, Andrew starts a blog. Not only to commemorate his new life, but as a blank space in which to document it. No one he knows will read it, which is freeing. Although he promises himself he won’t use it to pine over Milo, Andrew’s lying to himself.

  Brandeis isn’t a party school. That doesn’t stop people on his floor from celebrating new freedom from parents by getting to know one another with the ease provided by alcohol. The sounds of drunk people slamming in and out of their rooms, raucous laughter and music keep Andrew up at night, irritated and longing. He wants new friends, too.

  On the seventh day he admits his homesickness to Milo.

  “I didn’t realize you were having difficulties too,” Milo says.

  “You’re having such a hard time—”

  “Andrew, don’t do that. You don’t have to hold my hand like a child. I want to be here for you too.”

  Andrew swallows. The bright campus lights flood his room. “It’s hard. I live on the first floor and it feels really exposed. I just—three is such a crowd, the bed is tiny and, god, this comforter my mom got me, it’s so lame—” Andrew stops at Milo’s soft laughter. “See,” he says, but with a smile, “I told you it was dumb. I know I’m being dramatic.”

  “No, it’s not dumb. I’m laughing because you’re funny. It’s nice to hear your voice like this. I miss it.”

  Andrew squeezes his eyes shut and pushes down the longing cramping in his heart. “I think you’re the thing I’m most homesick for,” he admits.

  “Me too,” Milo says. They breathe into the quiet, and despite twenty-five hundred miles between them, Andrew feels so connected to him.

  After they hang up, his room is quiet until someone in the hall turns on a throbbing, room-vibrating song. Andrew’s been staring at his computer, debating the wisdom of devoting himself to another dramatic monologue, this time for a faceless audience, about how viscerally he needs Milo. He misses Milo’s smell; he smells so keenly of boy and home. He recalls the way Milo’s head fits perfectly in the curve of his neck, and the beautiful face he’s watched grow for years, pressing into new skin from a round, adorable, pouting, tragic boy into a strong-boned, handsome, at times silly young man.

  The blog isn’t meant to be devoted to confessions of missing a lover. No matter what he wants, Milo is not his lover, and never will be. Andrew is in love with a boy who can’t love him back in the same way, who is thousands of miles away, trying to escape the life he had. If Milo can work to escape his old life, maybe it’s time for Andrew to try to move past a childish, unrequited and impossible love.

  “Come o
ut here and have some fun.” Kent, a boy who lives three rooms down, stumbles through the open door of his room. Damien left it open since he’s floating in and out. God only knows where Levi went. He comes and goes like a ghost.

  Andrew bites his lip and shuts down the empty blog post. Enough sitting around and moping. Maybe it’s time for him to act his age, find some trouble. Grow new skin.

  ° ° °

  WHEN MILO tries to sleep, he can’t stop thinking about Andrew. And when he wakes up, it’s Andrew. He misses him. He longs viscerally for the nearness of his body in a deep, cutting way Milo didn’t expect.

  Once he got past that first week, Andrew took to college like a duck to water. Milo’s received late-night drunk texts twice; has had the dubious honor of hearing Andrew rave about that scorching hot guy down the hall he’s got his eye on. He knows Andrew is already fast friends with a group of kids in his dorm. He has plans for the weekend and the one after.

  Milo has a roommate he avoids talking to for fear of saying the wrong thing and has the constant, itching feeling that he has no idea how to function like everyone else around him. As the days crawl by, he finds anxiety lurking behind corners, waiting to catch him unawares. He wonders how long he can live in a box with someone else and not have an anxiety attack. Or worse, have one in front of him.

  Maybe it would be for the best, though. Milo thinks maybe hiding things is making it worse.

  Halfway through September he massively tanks a weekly exam in his calculus course.

  Milo sits in the unusual quiet of his room—Shane must be out—before eventually dialing Andrew’s number.

  “Hey you,” Andrew’s voice sings through the receiver. That alone is enough to calm Milo from all-out panic to merely roiling fear.

  “You sound happy,” he manages. There’s noise in the background.

  “You don’t. What’s up?” The noise fades.

  “You’re busy, aren’t you? I’m sorry, I can call you later—” Milo checks the time. It’s already ten; later would be a bigger imposition. Or, knowing Andrew’s habits, an impossibility, because he’ll be partying.