One Voice 02 - Here Without You (23 page)

That family is more a family to me than Ma
ever
was—and definitely more of a family to Nate than his own mom and uncle. Get this, dude—later that night, Casey’s parents told Nate that he could stay in Casey’s room at their house until we found an apartment for all three of us. That was really cool of them to offer, but we aren’t gonna take them up on it. Nate belongs with the two of us, and we plan to smuggle him into our dorm room and keep him with us until we have an apartment.

Eventful Turkey Day weekend, right? Glad you and Abby were there to share the drama. Abby’s a keeper. Just saying.

Shit, did you get the we-are-family vibe when we all ate Thanksgiving dinner together at our place? You and Abby included. And then when we went over to the Mintons’ house for games and leftovers on Saturday? Wasn’t it like we fucking belonged?

There I go getting all sappy again, but I will admit, I was into it.

Tomorrow, back to classes for all of us. But your baby bro isn’t all torn apart in the head and heart anymore. And for the record, I know Nate didn’t talk too much this weekend, but first of all, he never is much of a chatterbox—that’s Casey’s job—and second, he’s still getting over his ordeal, plus I think he was missing his little sister, Cindy, something fierce.

We’re gonna work on that situation once Nate is on his feet again.

Fucking loved seeing you guys.

Talk soon.

Zander

C
ASEY
’
S
REAL
LIFE

D
EEP
EMOTIONAL
trauma changes a person. Over Thanksgiving weekend, after we made love and recommitted ourselves to one another, I noticed that Nate was slightly more remote than he was before our breakup. He was also very cautious with every word he said. I would swear he thought and rethought every sentence he uttered to Zander and me.

But I understood. Seeing Nate behave with such detachment brought me back to the most emotionally difficult days in my own life. It dragged me back to the severe beating I took from Liz Trainer during junior year of high school. It had taken me weeks and weeks, if not months, to let go of the emotional strain from that ordeal and to fully rejoin the world. Nate is definitely the strong, silent type by nature, but I still had to remind myself that it would take some time for this remote and distressed version of Nate to find the more secure Mr. Strong and Silent again.

We spent most of the weekend at Zander’s house, where we normally would have spent it at mine. Nate needed time to readjust to our relationship, and we felt that he would do that best by being alone with us. Up in Zander’s room, we spent the better part of our time lying together on the bed, the three of us in a tight row, Nate always curled up in the middle, while Zander and I watched mindless television or studied. Nate didn’t seem to want a diversion other than our presence. He often kept his eyes closed, but he was always touching us as much as possible.

Hands splayed on our thighs, feet hooked around our ankles, face pressed to our sides—Nate needed physical connection. And so did we.

It was striking to see such an imposing, potentially dominant man behave like a frightened child, curled docilely between Zander and me. But it was beautiful that he trusted us enough to let his guard down.

On Sunday, when it was time to return to school, Nate became agitated, like a child would before a dreaded doctor’s visit.

Zander wanted to spend time with his brother and his girlfriend before we all left to go back to our respective colleges, so we ventured downstairs earlier than we had on previous days. Nate was still dressed in all of Zander’s clothes—his T-shirt, boxers, and sweatpants—even though Zander and Dan had retrieved the two big plastic trash bags from the bed of Nate’s truck, inside of which were all of his earthly belongings. I had washed and folded every item of Nate’s clothing, and Zander had filled a box with Nate’s other personal items. They all sat in the corner of his bedroom. Nonetheless, Nate seemed perfectly comfortable to be outfitted in Zander’s clothing. With his weight loss, the clothes more or less fit. I thought it made him feel further connected to one of his boyfriends to be dressed in Zander’s clothes.

“Good morning, Abby. Morning, Dan,” I greeted them as I entered the kitchen. “I’m thinking of making chocolate chip pancakes this morning. We need to fatten up this guy.” I patted Nate’s rear end, and he blushed. “Anybody up for pancakes?”

They all raised their hands slyly.

“Well, then, I’ll get right to it.”

“There’s coffee.” Abby spoke sweetly but kind of tentatively. “How do you take yours, Nate?”

Nate leaned against the doorway. “You don’t have to fix it for me, Abby. I can do it.”

Abby stood up from her chair and went right to Nate. Again, he turned red. “I want to fix your coffee for you, Nate. Let a houseguest make herself feel useful, okay?”

“Well, sure. Uh, thanks, ma’am.”

“Ma’am?” Abby looked like she was ready to jump out of her skin, but instead she impulsively grabbed Nate by the shoulders. “Never call me
ma’am
. That’s for housewives and spinster librarians, and I am neither. It’s Abby, Abster, Ab, or sis, but never ma’am.” She turned toward the counter to pour Nate’s coffee.

“I take it black.” Nate smiled. “Just plain, like me.”

“You gonna fix
my
coffee, Abster?” I could tell that Zander was just loving the playful interaction with this woman who might one day be his sister.

“You, on the other hand, Zander, can call me ma’am.” Delivering that zinger, she never even turned to look at Zander.

The ice was broken, I made pancakes, and we talked like a family.

“I start my guidance prepracticum in January. I’m really looking forward to it. I’m doing it in a high school about twenty minutes from Northwestern. Three other students are also student teaching there, and one has a car. If I pitch in for gas, I can ride along.” Dan was practically glowing with excitement at his first taste of the classroom.

“Can’t wait ’til that’s me, dude. But I got a load more classes to take before they’ll let me near the kids,” Zander said.

Dan shifted his attention to me. “And you’re premed, Casey?”

“Yeah. Bio and statistics major.”

Everybody groaned.

“What sort of doctor do you want to be?” Abby appeared genuinely interested.

“Not sure yet. I have time to figure that out.” I wanted to bring Nate into the conversation. “And my mom is going to look into the cooking school, Boston Culinary Institute, for Nate to attend starting second semester.”

“You should’ve let Nate make the pancakes.”

Dan was joking, but I knew Nate would be embarrassed.

But Zander stepped in to save the day. “Not so much. He’s not a chef
yet
.”

Nate bashfully glanced up from his plate and sent a shy smile around the room. “Wouldn’t wanna poison ya.”

And again we all laughed. Breakfast turned out well.

But when we went to Zander’s room to pack, the tone changed. Just seeing the suitcases set Nate off. He stood awkwardly near the doorway and said, “I gotta do a couple errands and shit. Got one last check to be cashed and—”

“Nate, it’s
Sunday
. You can’t cash a check today.” Zander went into the hallway, came back with a big yellow duffle bag, and dropped it at Nate’s feet. “Time to pack, big guy.”

“But… I… uh….” A typical Nate response.

“You’re coming with us, so there’s no point in arguing.” Zander turned back to his own suitcase. “Fill it.”

For a minute or two, Nate stared at the duffle bag, looking fearful, like it might bite him. “I don’t have no money.”

“I have money,” I offered brightly. “Most of the money I made from my summer job at Abercrombie & Fitch is still in my account.”

“I got cash from my movie theater job too, dude. No worries, okay?”

Nate shifted his weight from foot to foot, clearly uncomfortable with accepting help from us.

“You’ll be our ‘kept man.’” I grinned at him.

“Shit,” was all he said. “Can’t come with ya.”

That was all it took for Zander and me to drop our clothing, grab Nate, yank him over to the bed, and push him down.

“You look at me, buddy.” Zander clearly meant business, so Nate looked at him. “We fucking love you, dude. We plan on having you with us for the long haul. There’s gonna be times I’m gonna need your backing—your money and your strength. And I wanna know it’ll be there for me when I need it. Man, it’s just your turn to need right now.”

I knew the moment had come for me to speak up. “And I’ve already been in that emotional place where I needed you guys to support me. And the support was given. The tables are turning, Nate, and we’ll support you. But over a lifetime, the tables will turn over and over. We’ll all be called on to support each other.”

“We’re a throuple.” Zander looked at me and winked because he was using my term for our threesome. “Let’s start acting like one. Now pack, Nate.” And just like that Zander turned back to his suitcase, and I did the same.

Nate didn’t argue. He filled the duffle with his clean clothes.

22

N
ATE
’
S
D
IARY

November 30

E
VERYTHING
’
S
SO
fucked up, but in a real good way. See, these two dudes—my boyfriends, my partners, my lovers, my throuple, or whatever the fuck ya wanna call ’em—are, like,
takin’ care of me
. Takin’ damn good care of me too.

Better care than I ever took of myself.

Right now them two’s in class, but I got strict instructions on exactly where to have my ass sittin’ at lunchtime, ready and waitin’. They expect me there so we can all chow down together—it seems to mean somethin’ to them—which doesn’t suck. Both Casey and Zander got “food points” on these credit-card thingies that they use to get meals, and they just buy me whatever the fuck I wanna eat with them. It’s cool.

And who’d of ever guessed that I’d be fuckin’
livin’
with them two in this tiny dorm room? We got the beds pushed together, and my shit is in the bottom drawers of each of those guys’ dressers. I said I’d live outta the duffle bag, but they said I ain’t no guest, so no fuckin’ way. So yeah, I live here now. But it’s just temporary.

Miz Minton is taking care of all the details with signin’ me up for cookin’ school. All I had to do was get Benjamin Franklin High School to send over my transcripts and fill out the official Boston Culinary Institute forms that came to me in e-mails. Miz Minton is as awesome as her son. She treats me good as gold. Plus, I’m so psyched about cookin’ school. Can’t believe I’m not gonna have to be no gas pumper no more.

Same with Mr. Minton. He rocks, totally. The guy’s already found four apartments for us three to look at this weekend, ones that we could move into January 1.

The only thing I got left to worry over is Cindy and the fact that she still won’t talk to me. I just talked to Aunt Terri yesterday, and she told me Cindy ain’t softened up none in regard to me. But Casey says us three are gonna talk shit out about what went down with Cindy, cuz he tells me now I’m “emotionally ready to go there,” and they’re gonna help me figure this all out. They tell me that a few things were screwed up with the way Cindy had been treating
me
before all this shit went down, cuz she was always settin’ me up to get beat on by Uncle Rich. So at some point we’re gonna go to Cindy and try talkin’ to her all together as “one voice.” Plus they wanna talk to me about why I never drew the line and called the police and the reasons why they didn’t either. That’s all cool.

And guess what? This dumbass believes it can maybe work out. Got faith in my guys.

I was fucked up, in a real bad way, when they found me last week. It sure does seem longer than that. But I’d lost all my will to go on. Guess I was pretty sure I had nothin’ to go on for. Cindy was gone, my throuple was history, couldn’t support myself no more. I had no reasons.

But I was real wrong. Cuz I had lots of reasons, just didn’t know where to look for ’em. I could’ve lost everything back then, and look what I’d be missin’. The greatest love in my life, ever.

Learned that nobody should give up when it looks dark and foggy and ugly in his life. Cuz the sun can still come out and shine again, like it did for me. Guess I’m a poet now, huh?

Been lower than low, but I’m feelin’ so much better. Hopeful, even.

This Sunday night us three are goin’ to the One Voice meetin’ together. Those two cool girls, Claire and Anna, are gonna be there too. Zander asked me if I’d share my message about how people shouldn’t give up hope, even when everything looks like it’s gone to hell in a friggin’ handbasket. And I’m gonna do it. Cuz I know I ain’t the only one to feel that low. It might make somebody feel less shitty to know I been there too.
And
it’s a real good message. Plus Zander really wants me to do this.

Kinda got a life again, don’t I? Maybe I even got a message to put out there.

Z
ANDER
Z
ANE
’
S
One Voice Blog Spot—by invite only

Your host, Zander Z

December 4

One Voice Site First Official Blog Post

Hi, all. I would like to welcome you to the first official post of the Boston City College One Voice Club Blog Spot.

*Please note: There will be some back blog posts from the very beginning of the school year, but I need to sort through them. So watch the blog for “Looking Back—One Voice’s First Three Months at BCC.”

*Hint: There will even be a few pictures (watch out, Britta!!)

*And now you all have my phone number and my e-mail address, so there’s no excuse for being a
no-show
at any meeting or event, is there? (Cue the evil laughter) Mwah ha ha!!