Winter break was in about a week and all of the tension
within our apartment had come to a head. Zach and I had gotten into an argument
and I had said something that I should have never said; I had called him—or
Carson, I am not sure—a faggot. How could I have done something like that? I
did not really think that of either of them, I only had said the first thing
that came to mind that I knew would do the most damage. I had been depending on
Zach for transportation since my minivan, which I affectionately called Big Blue,
has broken down the summer before. Because of our argument, Zach had told me
that I needed to find another ride home for winter break. He had crossed some
invisible line, and threatened me with not being able to see my family. How
could he have done something like that? He knew how important it was to me to
see them, how much stress I had been under lately, how much I needed a break. Old
Zach would have never pulled a stunt like that.
Now I could be stranded in Savannah over winter break.
Christmas is not that important to me anyways, for the most part, I cannot
stand the superficial nature of the whole celebration, but I wade through it
for one reason, to see my family. My Grandpa was diagnosed with lung cancer a
few months before and I had not seen him in a long time, making this trip home
for the break even more important to me. First, almost immediately after our
fight, I called my mum and told her that I might need her to come and get me. I
told her the basics of what had happened, not going into the details of Zach’s
sexual orientation. She told me that if it came to it, that either she or my
brother would come get me, but I needed to try to find a ride home first, even
if it meant apologizing to Zach and begging him to take me. I hated to inform
her, but that was never going to happen. I have always been excessively stubborn
and too prideful to do something like that. Nonetheless, I did look for another
ride home. My choices were somewhat limited though. After you singled out the
people I was well enough acquainted with to be comfortable to ask for a ride
home, I was left with a rather small pool.
Then remove the people that were not going anywhere near
my house or even in that direction, I was left with three: John, Molly, and
Morgan. John
and I had become closer since that Faithful Night. If anything, we always had
our two gay roommates in common. I asked him if he could swing by my brother’s house
on his way home, but due to my horrible sense of geography and the fact that he
was broke and could not afford the detour, it did not pan out. Then there was
Molly, someone who more than anyone deserved to tell me ‘no’. I had treated her
like shit for the better part of a semester, but I was confident that her
outstanding moral character would prohibit her from leaving me in Savannah. I
tried to appeal to her good nature, but came up empty handed. It is not that
she straight out denied me a ride home, she just did not know when she would be
leaving, or even if she was driving her car—she might ride home with Zach as
she often did. My final option was Morgan, who lived a town over from me. I
really could not blame her for saying no. We had different outlooks on life;
she was emotional and I could be considered a sociopath—which I am blaming on
my anti-depressant medication—and our views collided often However, I do think
that the reasoning for her not to give me a ride home did turn out to be
something more to do with limited space than our different dogmatic viewpoints.
I was royally screwed, either suck up my pride and honor and
beg for Zach’s forgiveness or call my mum and tell her that she needed to drive
around six-hundred miles, round trip, to come get me in Savannah. When I gave
my mum an update, she told me that I needed to beg for Zach’s forgiveness. I
tried to explain how I could not do that because of my pride and she told me I
did not have to mean it. Essentially, she wanted me to lie to him and tell him
that I was sorry just so that I could get a ride home. I was even further
morally opposed to this option. Not only would I be begging I would be a lying
and manipulating him for gain. This just did not seem right to me. I finally
decided that I would try instead to heal our relationship, instead of only
trying to temporarily mend it.
I had not really talked to Zach since our argument, so the
first thing I had to do was break down the barrier between the two of us. It
was rather easy, I simply posted a rainbow chicken—or another equally ludicrous
animal that can only be found in Farmville—to my Facebook wall and fixed it to
where only he could see it. After the initial dialogue started, it was easy to
move to matters that were more important. I am not going to go into the whole dialogue
of the conversation, mostly because I do not really remember it, but it went
something like this. I apologized for tapping on the wall, even though I did
not realize that I did. I explained to him that it had pissed me off that he,
instead of Carson, had come in there to get onto me. He reminded me of why he
had come, instead of Carson; I would have told Carson to fuck off. I tried to
explain how I felt that Carson was using Zach’s and my friendship to manipulate
me, but that did not turn out so well. Zach took Carson’s side, as I figured
that he would. But, Zach did understand where I was coming from. Finally, and
most significantly, I apologized for calling Carson—or Zach, whoever it was—a
faggot. I told him that I did not mean it and that I really did not think of
either of them like that, I had only spoken
out of anger and I hoped that he could forgive me. After a bit more of
talking, he finally accepted my apology.
We digressed for a while then ventured back on topic and I
finally realized what was really happening. I was losing my best friend. When I
told Zach this, he assured me that I was not. I wanted to believe him, I really
did, but I did not. I missed having my buddy around, my confidant. I was alone
and had no one to talk to about everything that was going on in my life, except
maybe John but he was not Zach. I did not mention the ride home to Zach at the
time. It seemed like if I was to immediately go for it, that I would seem as if
that was the only reason I had apologized, which it was not. I had apologized
because I had meant it. In addition, I was not quite certain that everything
had been restored.
After the initial apology, I realized that I needed to talk
to Zach again; I needed to let him know what was going on. I had to tell him about
everything, I could not hold it in any longer. I also thought that it would be
a good idea to confide in him as a way to help restore our friendship. Instead
of holding in all of my anger and annoyance about Carson and the whole
situation, as I had been doing, I figured it would be a step forward to try to
talk to Zach about it. Maybe I could use our friendship to my advantage as
Carson had used their relationship. I tried to find the perfect time, or
perfect way to talk to him about it, but it never seemed right or people were
always around, particularly Carson.
Finally, one day I decided
that I could no longer put it off, or else I risked losing it again and causing
even further damage. I asked Zach if he wanted to go on a walk around campus,
which was a code of sorts for “I need to talk to you.” As we left the
apartment, we ran into Carson and he wanted to tag alone. Zach knew that
something was up with me, but I said it was fine if he came so that I did not
cause any more stress on our relationship. If I had said no, Zach would have
obliged, but there was no point in it. Luckily, Carson is extremely AD/HD and
gets distracted very easily, and
before we knew it he had wondered off and it was just Zach and I. You go to
love the idiosyncrasy of the AD/HD mind. We walked over to a bench in front of
a live oak tree and started talking. He asked me, “What’s up?” knowing that
something was bothering me. It took me some time, but I finally got to it and
started telling him how I was feeling in a roundabout manner.
It did not take long
before I realized that this was not going anywhere. My wiggling around it,
dropping subtle hints, and vaguely mentioning me having no one to talk to or
the tension within our apartment was only leaving him confused. I gave up and dived
in. I told him that I had no one to talk to anymore. He tried to reassure me
that I could still talk to him, but I knew I could not. In a brazen hope of
abruptness, I told him, “You are part of the problem.” He really did not know
exactly how to take this. I told him that I needed someone to talk to, anyone.
I felt it was right to ask first, since the majority of my afflictions were his
personal business, so I asked if I could talk to my mum about it. I had
expected him not to want me to, but eventually understand that I had to talk to
someone or else I was going to lose it and it was not going to be pretty.
Instead, he told me not to, something about the less people that know the better.
The whole relationship renewal idea was not working. I needed a ride home,
whether or not it was with my best friend or Zach did not matter anymore at
this point. Before we got back to the apartment, I asked him if I could ride
home with him. I remember his response very well, “Are you ready to stop being
an ass?” I was desperate enough to be, and so I had a ride home, but still it
bothered me.
On the car-ride home Molly joined Zach and I, which I was
opposed to initially. I thought that a four-hour car ride along Interstate 16
would be a great opportunity to try again to talk to Zach. I was confident that
he would not leave me on the side of the road. However, as I objected Zach had
no problem reminding me that I could always find another ride home. What an ass he was turning into, I
thought. As it turns out, Molly riding along with us was good for me, because
if anything she would not leave me on the side of the road—I hoped. At around
Macon, just as it started to snow a little, we finally got to a point in our
conversation where I thought it applicable to steer it in the direction I
wanted it to go. I tried to talk to Zach about what I had wanted to talk to him
about earlier. I was hesitant, because of Molly being there, and I was sure
that she would take his side, but she promised to be open minded and it turned
out pretty well with her acting as a mediator. Even though we did make some
strides, we did not have enough time to fully find the underlying cause of it
all and I ended up being just as annoyed as I had previously been. As we
approached my brother’s house, I asked him to reconsider his response to me
talking to my mum about everything. He did not tell me that I could not this
time, especially after I told him how unfair he was being and stressed the
importance of talking, but instead he made the decision even harder by saying
that I could, but he was asking me as a
friend not to. Zach and Molly dropped me off at my brother’s house—my
childhood home which now served as a layover for me while I waited for my
parents to come pick me up and take me to their new house in Alabama. Before leaving,
I told Zach, and Molly, to call me when they got home because it was starting
to snow and the weather was getting especially bad in northern Georgia, where
they were heading.
As the evening wore on, I began to worry about Zach and
Molly, neither of them had called or texted me since leaving my brother’s house.
As I settled in for the night, I decided to check Facebook—probably to harvest
my crops on Farmville. I noticed that Zach was online so I had to get onto him
for not letting me know that he had made it home all right. He was fine and we
started talking again, this time it did not go so well. I do not really know
how the conversation went, but it turned quickly into an all-out shouting match
on Facebook, with Caps Lock and all. I did get a lot of stuff off my chest—you
got to love the anonymous nature of written electronic communications. I pretty
much told him everything that was bothering me. From how I was afraid of losing
my friend and resented Carson for it, to the unspoken tension within our
apartment and my annoyance at them randomly getting up in the middle of a
conversation to go talk in private. I told him how I thought it was a real dick
move for him to tell me to find another ride at the last minute, to hang my
dependence on him for a ride over my head, and not allowing me to tell my mum
about what was going on. I probably should not have mentioned the bit about the
ride, because we were already arguing fiercely. He simply told me that I had
all of winter break to find a ride this time.
I had initially planned on spending a few days, I think
maybe a week, at my brother’s house, but soon realized that that was not such a
good idea. My Nana was living there, along with my cousin. In addition to my
brother and his live-in at the time—which most people would call a girlfriend,
but since I knew that he did not really care for her other than paying half the
bills I always called her his live-in, plus I thought she was a bitch.
All-in-all I quickly realized that my brother’s house was not the place for me,
I needed peace and quiet, and as much as I hate to admit it, I needed my
parent’s Alabama home—which I fittingly called the winter cottage at the time. Once
I finally got to my parent’s house everything more or less calmed down, which
was good because I could not handle much more stress. It did not take long
before my mum asked the million-dollar question that I had been trying to
avoid, “So why have you and Zach been arguing so much lately?” I tried to avoid
the most obvious and truthful answer, I had decided that I was going to still
try to honor his wishes, as a friend. However, I swear my mum could work for
the goddamn CIA; within minutes of us starting to talk, she already guessed
what was going on. I tried to deflect and tell her that I did not know, but
that only went so far and finally she started asking more and more direct
questions. Finally, she just asked straight up, “Has Zach been sleeping in
there?”
I could not lie, “Yeah.”
She was a bit shocked, and took a deep breath before
asking, “Are they having sex?” I honestly did not know exactly, so I tried to
play it off and told her that.
Then she asked the final question, “Are they dating?”
No
denying this one, “Yeah.”
I felt bad about telling my mum, I did not really want to
tell her, but it felt amazing to have someone to talk to about it. I had
been holding it all in way to long, and I was ready to burst. Finally, I could
talk to someone about my troubles with my two gay roommates. I did however;
make her swear not to tell anyone, especially my brother and daddy. I still did
not want them to be harsh and judgmental about him.
Around a week before I was to go back to college, we got
a call from my grandpa. His chemo had been successful and they had shrunk the tumor
on his lung enough so that they could operate. My mum and I went to Columbus so
that we could be there when he had his surgery and stay in the hospital with
him afterwards. His surgery took longer than expected, but it turned out okay. They
ended up removing half of one of his lungs before they finally got all of the
cancer out, except for the prostate cancer that took a back seat to the lung
cancer. After his surgery they took him to recovery and then to ICU. As the day
wore on, we lost more and more of our party until by the time night had rolled
around it was only my mum, my uncle, and me.
It was the middle of the night and I knew that I was not
going to sleep much, although I was exhausted from staying up the previous
night with my grandpa and mum talking, so I decided to go for a walk. I had
already talked to Zach previously, but nothing more than passing words, mostly
I told him about my grandpa and he told me that Carson was at his house. I was bored
and just wanted someone to talk to, so I called him. Initially he did not pick
up, but he called back as I was standing in front of the vending machines near
the cafeteria. He initially was not going to call back, because it was late and
he figured I just wanted somebody to talk to—which was true—but Carson, to my
surprise, had told him that he needed to. Carson figured that I would not call
that late if something was not going on, shows how good he knew me. I needed a
ride back to Savannah, but I also did not want to just apologize again just for
the sake of transportation. This time I really wanted to apologize and mean it.
I also, more than anything, wanted to actually restore our friendship. Both of
us had neglected it for so long, but now as we talked on the phone, it was like
old times. Sometime during our conversation, I finally realized what I had to
do. No longer could I try to be friends with Zach and hate Carson, the two of
them were together now and if I could not accept one without accepting the
other, then I did not get either. It seems so obvious, but it was nowhere near
as easy to come to this realization, as it seems. I had to become friends with
Carson, if I was to be friends with Zach. I did not necessarily have to
‘buddy-buddy’ with Carson, but I at least had to respect tolerate him.
After a while on the phone, I apologized to Zach for being
such an ass lately. I did not include any “but…” or anything; I had been an
ass, simple. It did not really matter how justified I thought my actions were,
I should not have let it happen. I did later try to attempt to try to explain
them, but it was an explanation instead of an excuse. I even told Zach to put
Carson on the phone and apologized to him, for being assier as of late and a
general ass all semester. It was right before we hung up, when I finally asked
about a ride back to Savannah. I told him up front that I completely understood
if he did not want to, and that my apology was not just so that he would give
me a ride. It really was not, I sincerely meant it, I was sorry. I really doubt
that I had to go through all of the melodramatics, I am pretty sure that he
would have given me a ride anyways, but I felt I needed to, and it worked. He
agreed to stop by my brother’s house and pick me up.
Being picked up at my brother’s house meant that I had to
leave the hospital sooner than I would have otherwise wanted to. The next day,
my mum and I went to the Waffle House down the road from the hospital to eat
and accidentally locked her keys in her car. Fortunately, we had most of the
stuff that we needed and my mum’s family is from around the area. Shortly after
we finished our lunch, my uncle showed up and took us back to his house to hang
out for a while before returning to the hospital. We returned later that afternoon
to check on my grandpa, who was still in ICU, but doing better. This was also
the last time I would see him before going back to Savannah. My dad was coming
that night to let us in the car and take me to my brother’s house for another
layover before returning to Savannah in the morning. As I stood in the parking
lot of the Waffle House, I realized that I did not want to go and leave my
family, my grandpa, my mum. I missed them. I had moved to Savannah to go to
college to broaden my perspective and ‘explore the world’ but as I stood there
saying goodbye, I realized that my family was my world. For the first time
ever, I questioned whether I had made a mistake moving to Savannah. I know that
nothing that had happened over the past year with my family would have been
much different if I had been closer to home, but still I could not help feeling
as if I was abandoning them. I did not want to go back, but I had to.
The next morning I had to wake up early in the morning, or
at least it felt that way since for the past few nights I had barely slept. My
dad had left to go back to Alabama the night before so that he could work.
Zach, Molly, and Carson finally arrived to get me around noon and we did not
arrive at our destination until later that evening. I was back in Savannah, and
it was a sad substitute for home, but
at the time, it was the closest thing to it. It felt good being back, but I had
a nagging feeling of wanting to return to the Winter Cottage. Partially because
I wanted to spend some more time with my family, and partially because I
dreaded starting classes the coming Monday, but mostly I felt that there was
somewhere else I needed to be.
The year 2010, predominantly the second half will never be a
year that I look back on with particular fondness. I reluctantly returned to
Savannah in a new year, full of possibility and potential. Although the break
was not as long as I would have liked it to be, it was long enough for me to
clear my head and put things in perspective. My family was the most important
thing to me, and I missed them greatly. In their absence, my friends became
even more important to me than ever. If being friends with Zach meant that I
had to be friends with Carson, so be it. I had to at least try. I returned to
Savannah with a sincere internal promise to genuinely try my damndest to be
nice to Carson, not just for Zach’s and my friendship, but because he was a
person and deserved to be treated as such.
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