John Graves had wanted me back that summer, working at the park with kids, and I’d so enjoyed my experience there last summer that I was happy to go back.
Stewart was working there this summer, and I found out he’d had a part-time job working for John during the school year as well. John told me Stewart was a troubled kid, but he was spending more time at the park and with him than at home, and he’d been getting his head straightened out. John thought there was a lot of good in him. Stewart wasn’t one of the counselors like I was. He worked in the Maintenance and Grounds Department. I had a lot of opportunities to talk to him during the summer. I saw how much he’d changed.
He was quieter now and not a bit aggressive. And he did smile more than he used to. He told me he was happy. Just the way he acted, and when I saw him from a distance and watched his body language, just the way he carried himself, he wasn’t the same as before. I believed him; he did seem happy.
I’d thought, when the summer began, I’d be seeing Kevin every night, or at least most nights, like the summer before. I was disappointed it wasn’t like that. Kevin had a job with a local law firm. My dad had arranged it for him. Between them, my mom and dad seemed to know an awful lot of people in this city. My dad was quiet, but he had a lot of friends. I’d asked him about that, and he’d said he’d been a jock as a kid in school, and jocks get more than their share of attention in a community, and then an awful lot of guys had gone through his gym classes after he’d begun teaching; he’d got to know them and some of their parents, so it wasn’t surprising he knew a lot of people. He didn’t say it, but I thought it: knowing people, and having them like and respect you as much as people did my dad, were two different things.
Kevin was working as a gofer and a boy-of-all-trades. He was taught how to answer the phones, make and collate copies, act as a legal messenger, make coffee, do some computer layouts and printing, order and bring in lunches, all that sort of office busywork. He got to overhear a lot of lawyers discussing their cases and learned some practical law procedures just by being in the middle of what was happening at the firm.
I still talked to Becky all the time, on the phone or in person. She had decided to go to our local Cal State university. She was planning to live at home. I asked her why; her family could certainly afford to send her away, she could choose most any school she wanted, but she said she wanted to stay, and I couldn’t get any more than that out of her about it.
Kevin had always been the forward one in our relationship. He’d drop over to my house, he’d call me, and it was because of him we got together all the time. It had just become the way we did things. It was how I expected them to continue, what I took for granted. I’d been working at the park for a week already when it suddenly dawned on me that I hadn’t seen him yet this summer. He’d been absent, and I’d been busy with my job during the day and had started reorganizing my room at home, getting high school stuff boxed up and packed away, deciding what to take to Pomona with me, organizing that, going to the mall shopping for some new clothes, when I realized I hadn’t seen him in over a week.
I called his house, but his mother said he was out. I liked his mother, but couldn’t take too much of her. She was a little spacey, a little detached. I always began sort of mentally fidgeting when I spoke to her. I asked her to have him call me when he got in, and she said she would if she saw him but wasn’t sure she would.
So I wasn’t surprised when he didn’t call. I doubted she’d given him the message.
I asked Becky the next time she called if she’d heard from him, and she said she talked to him most every day.
“In person or on the phone?”
“Both. Why the questions, Matt?”
“I just was wondering, is all.”
“Matt, I can hear something in your voice. You’re in one of your worrying funks. Is it about Kevin? What’s the matter?”
“I just realized the other day, I haven’t seen him or heard from him yet this summer. But you’re talking with him every day? What’s going on? Why isn’t he calling me? Do you know something I don’t?”
There was a pause before she answered, and what she finally said wasn’t helpful at all. Her voice was different, more constrained, more cautious, less Becky-like. The humor that underlay nearly everything she said when she spoke was suddenly missing. “Matt, if you want to talk to Kevin, talk to him. Don’t go through me.”
“You do know something. What’s going on, Becky?” All of a sudden, my stomach wasn’t where it was supposed to be, but closer to my throat than what was normal, and I needed to sit down on the bed. I’d been pacing my room, talking to her on my cell phone. My legs felt rubbery all at once. I sat down, tried to contain the sudden anticipation of doom I was feeling. I’d had just the barest idea that anything might be wrong. Now, that idea seemed to be gaining legs.
“Talk to him, Matt,” was all she said, then said she had to run and hung up.
I waited a few minutes, forcing myself to calm down. I was used to worrying. I’d done it all my life. Almost always, it came to nothing. I knew this. I’d worry needlessly about this. I waited, then called Kevin.
I got his mom again. This time she said he was at the mall with Timothy. “I’ll be sure to tell him you called,” she said.
I didn’t want to be rude, and tried to keep my voice as even as I could, but my worrying had just gone up a notch and I wanted some reassurance, I needed some, so I replied to her with, “He didn’t call the other day when you said you’d give him my message.”
She paused briefly, as though remembering, then said, “Oh, the other night? He didn’t come home, so I didn’t get to tell him.”
“He didn’t come home?”
“No, he stayed over at Timothy’s house that night.”
◊ ◊
I called the next night, too. His mother sounded apologetic this time. She said she’d told him to call me. She didn’t understand why he hadn’t. No, he wasn’t home. He and Timothy were at a movie.
I didn’t bother asking her to have him call me.
I called Becky. She was happy to hear from me, but as soon as I started talking about Kevin, she became reticent. When I complained about that, actually when I got angry about that and began yelling at her, she rather coolly asked me just what I’d expected from Kevin, then told me if I wanted to talk again, to call her after I calmed down, then disconnected.
I’d certainly gotten the message now. Kevin was avoiding me. I realized that it was probably more than that; he’d most likely just got over me. I was noncommittal, I wasn’t having sex with him, I was going away in a couple months, I had—oh my God!—I had told him he should find someone his own age! It was obvious that he and Timothy had finally got together, the way Kevin had wanted the two of us to get together. Timothy had wanted that all along, and had waited, and had succeeded.
Then I thought about how all my life I’d worried about everything, and almost every time I’d found that what I was worrying about wasn’t real, I was just worrying for nothing. So, before I let myself believe Kevin had dumped me and was simply too embarrassed to tell me, I decided I needed to find out. I mean, I loved Kevin and had thought that we’d eventually be together, and like we’d discussed, he’d wait for me. I’d depended on his love for me being inextinguishable.
Well, if it hadn’t been, if he now had found a more suitable partner, a more willing one, I needed to know.
I called Becky back. She sounded stiff, and I apologized for yelling. I’m sure she heard the pain in my voice, and softened. I told her why I was calling.
“Becky, it’s the middle of summer. I haven’t seen much of you and nothing of Kevin. Can you guys come over and we can swim? I need that. Please? Can you get him to come over?”
“When?”
“Tomorrow? It’s too late tonight. Tomorrow. After dark. It’s more fun swimming then, and easier to talk afterwards, sitting in the dark. Can you? I mean, can you get him to come?”
“Yeah. I’ll come, and I’ll bring him. Tomorrow night at eight-thirty.”
She hung up, and I spent the rest of the night worrying, and being resigned, and worrying. I did a little crying, too, for what might have been, for what I now was pretty sure I’d lost.
◊ ◊
Becky came at eight-thirty. No Kevin. Becky said he’d be here, to stop being so uptight. I told her I wasn’t, and she told me to stop snapping at her.
At almost nine, the doorbell rang.
“I got it,” I said, already moving. I opened the door, and there was Kevin. And Timothy.
“You don’t mind if I brought Tim, do you?”
“No, good to see you both. Come on in.” I was afraid the forced smile on my face would be too obvious if they looked at it very long, so turned quickly as I ushered them inside.
We went outside. I already had my bathing suit on. The others changed in the pool house. My mood, which had been very nervous and slightly hopeful, was now dour.
We swam, and the others were happy and frolicking, and I tried but couldn’t capture the energy they had. We talked afterwards, sitting in the chairs on the patio. Kevin talked about his summer job, how much he loved it. Timothy had grown during the school year and was as tall as Kevin now, and had put on some muscle. He’d also matured some. A couple of months ago, not long before school was out, he’d stood up to his father and told him to stop berating him all the time, and had told us at lunch that he’d been prepared for anything, anything except his father accepting the criticism, actually apologizing to him, and from then on, treating him much better. His father had told him he’d just not known how to relate to Timothy because he was so different from how he’d been as a kid. But, he’d said, now that Timothy was older, it was easier, and he saw he’d been wrong for what he’d done, and he’d try to do better. Timothy was working on one of his father’s construction crews this summer, learning from the ground up.
Becky was still seeing Ryan, but her tone of voice was different when she spoke of him now. I had the feeling the relationship wasn’t going to last. I was sorry about that, and stopped thinking about myself for a while and thought about her. She was as beautiful as any girl I’d ever met, and had about the greatest personality, too. She deserved someone special. Why she hadn’t found anyone like that yet, I didn’t know, but she still had college ahead of her.
I didn’t talk much. I didn’t feel like it. I watched the others, as much as I could see them in the dark. Timothy spent all his time looking at Kevin. He’d sat down in the chair closest to him. Kevin looked at Timothy, too, but he’d glance at me occasionally, very briefly, then look away. It was way too dark for me to read his eyes.
They all left together. I’d learned nothing. As he was heading out, standing between Becky and Timothy in the doorway, I said, “Kevin, I’ll call you. When will you be home?”
He paused where he was then, thinking I guess, and said, “I’ll call you. Easier that way.”
And then they were gone.
◊ ◊
Kevin did call me, a couple of days later. A couple of days is a very long time when you’re waiting like I was. Worrying more than waiting. Hurting more than worrying.
We talked on the phone. He sounded pretty much like Kevin. Not like he was hiding anything. Not like something was wrong. Just confidant and happy and enjoying his summer.
I told him I missed him. That got through to him, the words or the tone of voice, because he sounded both surprised and defensive.
“Matt, I thought you’d be busy with getting ready to go away. And Timothy has been dropping by, and, and, I’m sorry. I just thought . . . .” He stopped, then said, “Hey, if you want to, we could do something tomorrow night. The mall, a movie, swimming, anything. Just you and me. You want to do that?”
I quickly jumped at that, but somehow, the way he asked, it wasn’t the same. That special closeness we’d had seemed to be missing. We talked some more, and I realized we were skating around the issue of us. I tried to bring it up, what I was worrying about, but somehow, with the different feeling I was aware of, the slight distance between us, speaking openly, something I had always done with Kevin more than anyone, wasn’t happening. Things had changed between us, and I was realizing the extent of it right now. Yet he seemed oblivious to all this, and just chatted away. When he hung up, I was confused. When I get confused, confused enough that I need to talk about it, there’s always one place I go.
My mom was in her office, but not working on charts for once. She was holding a piece of cloth up to her drapes.
“Hey, Matt. Do you think this would be a good color for new drapes? I’m going to redecorate this office. Brighten it up. What do you think?”
I slumped into one of her chairs. She really looked at me then, and frowned. “Uh oh. We need to talk, don’t we?”
“Yeah. For the past week or so, I’ve been pretty sure Kevin has dumped me. He’s been spending a lot of time with Timothy, and none at all with me. It’s sort of like he’s been avoiding my phone calls, too. And he must have said something to Becky because she just seems to close down and then get angry when I try to talk to her about him. Just now, I had my first private talk with him all summer, on the phone. And he sounded almost like everything was just the same as always. But it wasn’t. It felt different. I don’t get it.”
“Did you tell him what you’d been worrying about?”
“No, I didn’t want to give him ideas if he didn’t already have them, and it felt really awkward trying to talk about it. He’s always teasing me about worrying too much, and that could be just what this is, but it hasn’t felt that way. He’s just sort of dropped out of my life, and no matter what he said just now, it’s different than it was. But Mom, he’s always said he loves me. I know he’s been in love with me. Can he just stop like that? Is that the way love works?’’
She sat down in her chair before answering. When she did, there was compassion in her voice.
“Matt, you have to look at someone, anyone, as a whole. To really understand Kevin, you have to consider his background. Parents are supposed to love their kids, and kids need that love if they’re to grow up secure and strong, but Kevin had very little of that at home. Kevin comes across as being outgoing, but kids like Kevin who have that background, kids that seem perfectly adjusted and happy, often have insecurities, even if they don’t show them. Kevin grew up feeling unloved, and that feeling can lead to the most profound insecurity a child could have.
“Kevin is also gay, and gay kids have another reason to be insecure. They aren’t part of the majority. They are not well regarded by some people, and they have to deal with that. So they have more reason to feel insecure.
“Kids with these kinds of insecurities are often looking for love to prove to themselves that they’re worthy of it, and looking for proof that anyone who claims to love them really does. They tend to test anyone who claims to love them. You were surprised when Kevin told you he loved you before you thought he knew you very well. Insecure kids latch on to someone like that. They profess love easily. They want to hear that someone loves them, too. They need to hear it. They need to know they are loveable.
“This is probably why sex is important to Kevin. To him, having sex with him is proof that you love him.”
I sank lower in my seat. What she said really hurt. “So since I’ve told him that would have to wait, since I won’t have sex with him, he’s taken that to mean I probably don’t really love him?”
“Matt, people have moods. I’d guess some days he’s really needed reassurance of how you feel about him, other days he hasn’t. That’s how people are. It’s possible, because you’re going away, he’s needed someone to prove to him he’s desirable, he’s worthy of love, more this summer than before. He might have found that in Timothy. You’ve told me Timothy makes it pretty clear that he adores Kevin. Kevin might be feeling very vulnerable right now. He has reason to. So attaching himself to Timothy would make a lot of sense.”
“But does that mean he’s fallen in love with Timothy now?”
“You’d have to ask him that to be sure. That’s a possible outcome of all this. I think he’s feeling very insecure right now. I think he may feel he needs someone that will be here for him after you leave. He might not have really thought about all this. It could be just that he’s already feeling the separation that’s about to happen and is protecting himself against the pain of that in advance.
“But I think you should talk to him. It might not change anything, but it would help you. His emotions could be leading him to do what he’s doing, and talking might make you, and him, understand it all better, but won’t necessarily change anything. But you both need to know what the other person is feeling.
“Matt, you knew you were going away to college. You knew you’d be leaving him. You even told him this is why you weren’t going to be intimate with him, so this was all expected. Why are you having second thoughts now?”
“Because I love him! Because I don’t want him to hook up with Timothy! Because I want us to be together, just us, no one else! I love him, Mom! I love him!”
I started crying, and she came over and hugged me. There was nothing more she could say right then that would help, and so she didn’t say anything. She just hugged me.
She’d always been able to fix me before. She couldn’t this time.
◊ ◊
I did go to the movies with Kevin as he’d suggested. After that, Kevin did call some and we did talk. He even came over unannounced once or twice. But this summer wasn’t like last summer when we were together most evenings. We weren’t together much at all.
I tried to bring up our relationship, but he told me he loved me, and then got antsy and snippy if I kept on about it, so I couldn’t pursue it as much as I wanted to. No matter what my mom had said, I was the insecure one now. If he was, I sure didn’t see it.
And then, he showed up at my house one night toward the end of the summer. He wanted to swim. I tried to control myself, but somehow, now that there seemed to be a distance between us, it was more difficult than it had been. I’d always wanted him, but had steadfastly told myself no. Having him here now, realizing he was unavailable to me, somehow made wanting him even worse. Seeing him standing in the twilight on the edge of the pool, his very slim, slightly muscled body, his skin a lighter dark than the deepening night around him, his long blond hair slightly fluffing against his shoulders in the light breeze, I knew that what I wanted wasn’t to swim at all. What I wanted was to spend the night in bed with him, not jump in the swimming pool. But the swimming pool was where we went.
Just having him there, by himself, made me sort of giddy, and we had fun in the pool. I forgot my dark moods for a while and we played like the kids we were. I was 14 again, and so was he.
Afterwards, we sprawled in recliners on the patio. I kept wanting to ask where Timothy was, and kept biting my tongue. Don’t ruin it, I told myself. It’s just us. Keep it that way.
He talked easily, about his summer job, about being a senior next year. About Becky. He was worried about her. She’d broken up with Ryan. She said she was fine and was looking forward to meeting new guys at college. He thought she might be depressed and was hiding it.
He asked me about college, what I was expecting. I told him I’d had some emails from my new roommate, that we’d sent a few notes back and forth and he seemed like a good guy, as much as you can tell from an email. I told him I was getting ready for Pomona’s freshman retreat, where the whole class would spend a week before school started in the mountains just north of the campus in some cabins, getting to know each other without outside distraction. I was looking forward to that.
Finally, we were both quiet for a few minutes, and I sort of had a feeling of normality for the first time this summer. I worried about whether it was real, and then he said something that surprised me, and filled me with hope.
“Matt, you haven’t said anything about it all summer, but last year, you said we’d go to Yosemite again. Are we still doing that? I have to tell them at work if we are.”
My heart was suddenly in my throat. “Uh, do you want to?”
“Sure. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Dad made the reservation. It’s the week after next. I wasn’t sure you’d want to go.”
“You know, you’ve been sort of screwy all summer, Matt. I think it’s because you’re getting older. Old people are weird.”
I jumped up and tickled him. He screamed. Then I pulled him up and over to the pool and threw him in. He climbed out and threw me in. Then he jumped in on top of me. And he kissed me. It was just a quick, playful kiss, but it seemed to abolish all the fears that had been building in me. It was 11:30 at night, but to me, it seemed like the sun had just come out.
I slept better that night than I had all summer.
◊ ◊
We were at the same campsite this year. Kevin and I knew our way around a little better. It felt really good to be with him. I’d been sure I’d lost him. His coming with us was entirely unexpected.
My mom had been surprised when I’d told her he was coming. My dad hadn’t been, but then he hadn’t realized what I was going through this summer. I guess I wasn’t advertising my feelings as much at 17 as I had at 14.
We hiked the first couple of days. I wanted so badly to ask him about Timothy, but was afraid. I was afraid of what I’d hear. He might say that they were merely friends, or he might say he was working out what he felt for him. Or he might tell me he’d fallen in love with him. And that idea scared me to death. I knew what I felt for Kevin. I was pretty sure what he felt for me. I didn’t know what he felt for Timothy, and was afraid to talk about it. That fear I had was there, between us. I don’t think Kevin felt it, but I did. We didn’t have the same closeness this year as last. It was like we were almost one person last year, when we were out together, hiking. This year, I wanted it to be like that, but somehow, it wasn’t. To me at least. Kevin didn’t seem to notice any rift. He seemed to act just as he had last year. And he told me a couple times not to worry so much, kind of lightheartedly teased me about it, so he at least did see that I was brooding about something. He didn’t question me about it, though. I wondered if he did notice but didn’t want to discuss it.
Then, when we were sitting looking out over the park from a high plateau one day, he did ask.
“What’s eating at you, Matt? Is it that you’re going away? Is that what’s bothering you?”
Should I tell him?
I stopped thinking and just spoke. From my heart. “I’m worried about losing you, Kevin. I’m going away, you’ll still be at school, and I think we’re losing each other.”
He was quiet then, and we continued looking out over the hills, Tanaya Lake a small sliver in the distance. Eventually, he scooted over so our hips were touching, but he still didn’t speak.
“Does it bother you?” I asked.
“Yeah, I think about it. I have all summer. But it’s what’s going to happen, you know. You’re leaving, and we have to accept it.”
“I love you, Kevin,” I said then, and was fighting holding back my tears.
“Me too, Matt. I always will.”
That was all he said. We got up and kept hiking when it started to feel uncomfortable just sitting there.
We did other stuff, too. There’s a lot to do and a lot to see at Yosemite. Sometimes, we’d be with my parents. They loved Kevin, and he loved them, and that hadn’t changed at all. Somehow, we all seemed happier when we were together; I didn’t notice the reserve between Kevin and me so much then. Last summer, I couldn’t wait to be away from them and alone with Kevin. As I say, things had changed this year.
Then his birthday arrived. We didn’t surprise him this year. He knew we knew, and even though he didn’t say anything, I could tell by the expression on his face that he was expecting something when dinner was over. I wanted to tease him, to pretend we’d forgotten, but somehow, after this summer, I wasn’t confident enough to do it. So we just gave him presents and his cake.
He was really happy. He was glowing. I remembered what he’d said last year about not having this recognition at home. Then, for some strange reason, I remembered what my mom had said about kids not having love at home needing reassurances of love, and thought how this setting, my parents, me, giving him a birthday like this, telling him we loved him, might mean so much more to him than it would to someone else. He looked like a little boy, eating his cake and opening his presents. And smiling.
He and I went up to look at the stars again. I felt a little awkward. He didn’t. He took my hand, walking up. We spread out the blanket. The stars were the same. He acted the same. Was it all just me? Could this whole summer just have been me, worrying? I didn’t think so. Things felt different. But I was leaving, going away to college, and perhaps what I was feeling between Kevin and me was my anxieties, my insecurities at leaving home for the first time. Maybe that was all it was.
We lay in the soft, warm summer night, all alone on our plateau, blanketed underneath by the padding we’d brought, on top by the stars that lit up the sky and provided us a slivery panoply of light. We looked at the sky in awe.
When he rolled over and kissed me, I kissed him back with a hunger that was unquenchable. I think I shocked him, my need was so great. But it didn’t daunt him. He just kissed me harder, and then was on top of me, thrusting against me, pulling me against him with his own need and hunger.
I thrust back from underneath him, not thinking now, only feeling. I held him as tightly as he held me, and we thrust together in the dance that began before time itself.
“Kevin, stop,” I finally managed to say. “Stop.”
“No!” he cried, anguished, much as he had last year.
“Kevin, it’s okay. I just want to make it better.” My voice didn’t sound like my voice, my passion was so great, my need so overwhelming. “Let’s get undressed,” I said, my voice, my body, shaking. “I want to feel all of you. I want this to feel perfect.”
He looked at me, and in the dim light, I could see surprise and delight and eagerness mixed equally on his face and in his eyes, eyes which shone with his passion. He immediately began stripping, and I did the same, fumbling with suddenly clumsy fingers. When we were naked, I pulled him back onto me. He immediately started thrusting again, and I found his lips with mine.
We were both ready, and the feeling of warm skin pressed together, and the passion we were communicating with our bodies and lips, way too soon sent us to the edge. We had both become slippery with sweat, and the thrusting turned into squirming and wriggling and, briefly, surprisingly, into laughter, and then, our passion and need overwhelmed the laughter. We only stayed on that edge briefly, and then soared over it.
He didn’t want to stop, nor did I, but we had to. I tightened my grip on him and held him steady on top of me. We’d broken the kiss because of the need to breathe. He laid his head on my chest then. I could feel our wetness, and his torso began shaking, and I knew he was crying. He’d been overcome with emotion. When he finally stopped, he said, in a very husky voice, “I love you. I love you. I love you.”
And I knew he did. I knew right then he loved me absolutely.
“I do too, Kevin. I love you, too.” I couldn’t have meant it more.
When we were finally able to feel the night air on our perspiring bodies, when the chill finally touched us, we pulled apart. I used my handkerchief to clean us off, and then we both dressed.
“We won’t be going back with soggy clothing,” I joked.
“I’ve wanted to be naked with you like that forever,” he said, and took my hand.
We walked back to camp together, and I hoped my fears were gone forever, too.
Two days later, I left for college.