Looking Back.... JT.9
Even though we’d cut down a lot on visits and phone calls, due to me being a jealous mother fucker, Ennis still invited himself up for a weekend right before I had to move back into the athletes’ dorm, and I said yes, he could come. He wanted me to show him around and all, and I guess he knew things were fucked up between us and needed to get fixed one way or the other. It would be our last chance to have some privacy, because there was no such thing as getting any alone time in my dorm and he’d be rooming with Bill, so he probably wouldn’t get much either. If we were gonna have a fight or whatever, we needed to get to it.
Steve said he was cool with me having company, as long as my friend didn’t mind sleeping in my room, ‘cause he had people coming over both nights, already planned. Our place was real popular with the stoners ‘cause Steve was as generous with his weed as he was with his Doritos. I told him we’d manage, then about gave myself an ulcer wondering what I’d do if Ennis was in love with her or whatever and I had to sleep with him and not touch him. That would suck beyond belief.
By the time he got there late on Friday evening, I’d almost paced a hole in the carpet waiting for him. I was so nervous and horny and scared and horny and insecure. And horny. I’d been the one to cut myself off from him that summer, but I honestly thought it was the right thing to do. If he liked her enough to let me go, then he needed to be with her. I didn’t want him to keep our thing going just because he felt sorry for me, or just because I was in his face all the time, confusing him. He hadn’t said anything about changing schools, though, and we were still sharing money - I put all my checks in our checking account and so did he - so I was pretty much clueless about what we were doing.
As soon as he pulled up I ran out to greet him, then felt stupid and high-fived him instead of giving him the hug I’d been thinking about all day. He handed me his duffle, then grabbed a bag of supplies his mom had sent and followed me into the apartment. I introduced him to Steve, who was already stretched out on the student-issue sofa, feeling no pain. “Welcome, Ennis-san. Live long and prosper.”
Ennis said, “Yeah, man, for sure,” like he was used to drugged out hippies, and then to me, “Let me put this stuff in the kitchen, ok? Mom was afraid we’d starve or something. I told her they’ve got food here too, but you know how she is.”
The kitchen was tiny and we kept bumping into each other while we put the stuff away, which wasn’t helping with my need-to-get-laid situation at all. (Not to say that I’d gone without all summer, but this was Ennis, and I hadn’t had any of that in a while.) Finally we were done and I grabbed two beers out of the fridge - I wasn’t as die-hard about drinking and shit off season - and pulled him back to my room. I wanted to pounce on him as soon as I got the door shut behind us, but that wasn’t cool, so I popped my beer and said, “So, what’s up back home? Tell me all the news,” like he was just a regular friend and nothing was fucked up between us.
He looked a little surprised but went with it, opened his beer and started sipping and telling me the gossip he’d heard at the drug store and some of the parties he’d been to lately. His parents had slacked off going to church, but they’d gone on Sunday and he told me about hanging out with Toby and Mathew, them wanting to hear all about me, and it made me feel like shit that I hadn’t gone home more over the summer. I’d hosed myself and Ennis and my brothers and sisters just because I couldn’t deal with being jealous.
After about thirty minutes, he was all out of news and we just sat there for a few minutes, him looking around my room at the stack of school books on my desk and the small pile of dirty clothes in the corner. Mom had put the fear of God into me early about not keeping my room clean, and even though she wasn’t around anymore, I still kept to her rules. My bed was even made, which was probably not the best plan, since I really wanted to get Ennis in it, but we had some work to do before that happened.
“You hungry?” I asked at the same time he asked, “What’s wrong?”
He didn’t answer my question and the look he was giving me let me know it was my turn to talk.
“Nothing.”
“Jack, I’m not brain dead. You’ve practically blown me off all summer. You never come home anymore. You never call. If you wanna quit this,” he waved his hand between us, “maybe you could tell me, so I know what’s going on.”
I sipped my warm beer and tried to look unconcerned. “I had to work and take classes. I was busy.” I ignored the part about us breaking up.
“Yeah, I know, but you had a break in between”
“I came home”
“Barely! For one night!”
“Your house is not my house, Ennis! Your parents are not my parents! I don’t have a home to go back to.” I jumped up off the bed at this point ‘cause I couldn’t sit still anymore. Since my room wasn’t much bigger than a closet, pacing wasn’t helpful, so I threw my back against the wall and glared at him.
“Since when? You’ve been coming to my house for a year now, then all of a sudden it’s not good enough anymore?” He unfolded himself off the bed and leaned against the dresser.
“Since you got a fucking girlfriend, Ennis.” I totally didn’t mean to say that, but it got out before I could stop it. It didn’t even phase Ennis.
“How many girls have you fucked since you got here?”
We were getting loud but I didn’t really care. If Steve and his buddies could hear over their music, they’d be too stoned to make any sense of it. “What difference does that make? I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“It makes a lot of difference, Jack. You’re fucking other people. You told me that’s how it’s got to be. So how come when I do it, it messes everything up.”
“’Cause you weren’t just fucking her.”
“So I liked her? Big deal. Who wants to fuck someone they don’t like?”
“I do it all the fucking time.”
“Well fine. I’m not you!”
“No shit.”
Stalemate. We glared at each other for another minute, both of us breathing heavy. I could smell sweat on the dead air in my room.
“Whatever,” he said suddenly, flopping down on the bed and crossing his arms over his chest. “She’s gone. Left for Seattle yesterday.” He leveled me with a grim stare. “I’ll never date another girl again. Will that make you happy?”
I knew the answer I was supposed to give probably wasn’t simple, probably needed to factor in his own personal happiness and basic needs for friendship and companionship when I was too busy being a football player to even be able to go out for pizza for weeks at a time. However, I’d spent the last six months being miserable because of a girl who was now gone, and I didn’t want to let another one move in anytime soon.
“Yeah. That and some sex.”
He smirked. “Fine. Get your ass over here then. It’s my turn to be on top.”
I rechecked the lock on my door, then ripped my shirt off as I headed for the bed. I dropped my shorts, switched on the radio for a noise buffer and flopped down beside Ennis, who was peeling out of his own clothes like they were on fire. As soon as his jockey’s hit the floor, we were back on solid ground and the rest of the weekend was as perfect as we could make it after a long, rocky summer.
*****
The fall semester was rough. Football totally ruled my life, and when I wasn’t studying plays, watching films, working out, practicing or playing, I was trying to keep my grades up high enough to keep from getting kicked out of school. It didn’t take Ennis long to realize that keeping my GPA at a passing level was going to take more time and energy than I had to put into it, so he took up some of the slack, writing papers and doing some of my projects. Although I felt bad about it, kinda like I felt bad when I knew the bank account was down to his money only, I took what he offered and kept at it because I didn’t have any choice. My only chance of ever making it depended on my getting one good year of college football under my belt. Two would even be better. I had no intention of sticking it out till graduation. I just needed to hang around long enough to make a name for myself so that the pro teams would want me. Then, I would be done with school for the rest of my fucking life, and it couldn’t come fast enough.
The only good thing about it was that - even though my classes were kicking my ass - they were actually really easy and Ennis was smart as shit, so it wasn’t like he was killing himself to help me out. Whenever I had a test that I couldn’t get out of - Coach pulled strings sometimes, but even he could only do so much - I’d go to Ennis’s dorm room to study. Usually we’d convince Bill to get lost and then Ennis would read me facts while I sucked him off. It probably wouldn’t measure up to some people’s study habits, but it worked for us. I finished up the fall semester with a 2.67, which was good enough to stay on the team.
And, for the record, I kicked ass on the field, had a winning season, and we won our bowl game. One good year down, one more to go.
Spring semester was more of the same, only I did most of my own homework and Ennis just helped. We ran Bill out whenever we could, but it was never enough. Sex with girls was ok, because really - when is sex not ok, at least - but sex with Ennis was fuckin amazing, no matter what we did. I started out letting him top more to pay him back for all the shit he did for me, but eventually I realized that I really liked being on the bottom. It was a long time before I ‘fessed up to that, since I thought it meant I was a total pussy, but Ennis never had a hard time talking me into it, that’s for sure.
Once football was over, they set me up with another job on campus, this time in the admin building, almost as boring as the one from the year before. Ennis worked in the bookstore since he had “retail” experience. We went home at least once a month. The twins were getting big and they got so excited whenever we came in the door. Mrs. D. started inviting my mom and the kids over on Saturdays, although that had to be awkward as hell. She somehow got my mom to come, though, and they’d sit in the kitchen drinking coffee while all eight of us hung out. My little sisters loved Ennis’s little sisters, so they usually played with them while me and Ennis played with the boys, either football or baseball if the weather was good, or board games if it was crappy. It was a much better year than the last one, and Ennis kept to his promise of no dating, and I blew off parties as much as possible, so it was almost even.
We both stayed on campus that summer, and I got Coach to make sure me and Ennis roomed together by telling him that Ennis was my best friend and would make sure I passed my classes. Coach would’ve set me up with a serial killer as long as he could make that guarantee. That summer ended up being even better than my last one back home. We were like a normal couple, almost. We went to class, went to our jobs, and then hung out at night watching TV and doing our homework. I biked or ran most evenings, just to keep in shape, and Ennis usually went with me. On the weekends that we didn’t go home, we went bowling or listened to bands or just hung out at somebody’s house. We went to a few parties, sometimes together, sometimes not, since we had different groups of friends. I never looked at girls if Ennis was around, and never said a word about it when I slept with one. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best I could do at the time.
*****
I’m just stepping out of the world’s longest, hottest shower when my phone beeps with a text from Mrs. D. They’ve taken his blood. Now all we have to do is wait. If I had anything in my stomach I’d probably puke it all out. As sick as it sounds, a part of me had made peace with the fact that he was dying and that there was nothing I could do to stop it. Not that I was ok about it - I was still angry as fuck at God and every doctor who couldn’t tell me what was wrong. But in order to not go fucking insane, I had to be able to live with it, and so at some level I’d given in to the fact that it was inevitable.
Now, in just fifteen minutes, my whole world has been turned sideways with maybes and possiblys and let’s wait and sees, and it’s almost more than I can bear. It’s like being in a duel and hearing the gun go off and then waiting to see if the bullet hits you or not. I want so much for him to live - it’s all I want - and it has been so hard for me to get to the point of accepting the fact that he’s not going to. Now, maybe he will, and I feel like every cell in my body is on acid, screaming and jiggling as fast as it can in the confines of my skin. I could very easily explode. The one thing I can not do is sleep, so I open up the laptop. At least it keeps my head busy.
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