Jim - Eighteen

Jim

It was a week and a half since Rebecca and I started having sex, and I thought I was going to die. By that point, I was spending up to a good six hours a night in her room. Maybe two were spent sleeping, if I was lucky. So I was happy, and I was dead. I fell asleep in at least one class every day. I dozed off in my desk whenever I tried to study. I was falling behind in all my classes, and my lazy b*****d roommates were depending on me to get them through finals. It was not a good system.

Needless to say, when I got the chance to sleep, I slept like a rock. This was not amusing to Rebecca. That Wednesday night, I passed out next to her as soon as we finished, and woke up barely twenty minutes later to her whispering in my ear.

“James? Come on. Wake up!”

I groaned and flipped over. “Just give me a minute, will you Abrahamson?”

She kissed my ear and whispered, “Wrong Abrahamson, stupid.” Damn it, that was tempting. I rolled back towards her without opening my eyes. Rebecca curled up against my chest and I immediately felt more at ease. “Come on,” she said, pulling my arm over her shoulder. “Talk to me. I never talk to anyone anymore. I love talking to you.”

“Really?” I asked sarcastically, “Because I never sleep anymore. I love sleeping with you.”

Rebecca groaned and jammed her elbow into my ribs. “Don’t be a jerk.”

“Ow!” She was so surprisingly strong.

“Awake now?”

“You’re lucky I’m alive now,” I grumbled, sitting up and reaching for the lamp.

“You are such a baby,” she teased, pulling on her robe. “In a month, your final exams will be over and you can sleep all you want.”

God, she was amazing. I grabbed her wrist and pulled her back down to the bed with me. “I doubt that. I don’t think I’ll ever get sleep with you around.” I was getting better at this romance thing, if I do say so myself.

“Well, you should get used to being tired then. You can bet you will not be rid of me in a month.” I kissed her hard and long, untying her robe again. Unfortunately for me, Rebecca wasn’t done talking yet. “James,” her voice was muffled behind my lips. As usual, I was completely unable to stop myself from kissing her. “James,” she tried again. “James, listen to me!” In the end, she had to push me off. “I want to go back to America with you.”

I was one hundred and fifty percent sure I had misheard her. “What?”

Rebecca smiled back at me. “When you go back to America in June, I will go with you.”

Naturally, I asked the most intelligent question I could think of. “Why?”

She laughed and pressed her face to my chest. “Because I love you. You’re the only boy I will ever love, James. You are all I have. I have nothing to go back to.”

That might have been the most sentimental thing she had ever said about me. Hell, that was definitely the most sentimental thing she had ever said to me. The warmth that spread all over me was so intense I thought I might actually be on fire. Rebecca made me so unreasonably happy every minute I was with her. How the hell was any of this even possible? Was I really going to go home with this beautiful woman who loved me? For about the thousandth time since I met her I thought, how the hell is any of this happening to me?

“Really? You’ll come home with me? Back to Wisconsin?” Rebecca nodded, and I hugged her close to me. “You’re amazing, Rebecca,” I breathed. “I love you so much.”

She laughed into my chest. “I love you too, dummy.”

About ten seconds into the hug, something dawned on me. “What about Hersch?”

That obviously was not the question Rebecca wanted asked. “I don’t know, James. He wants so badly to go back, and I won’t go no matter what he says.”

“Rebecca, we can’t just go without telling him.”

“I know.” Her voice was calm, but she was making the face that made me feel like I was about to be murdered. She clearly did not want to talk about this. “But I’m scared if we tell him now, he will leave before either of us can talk sense into him, understand?”

“Rebecca…”

“We’ll tell him soon.” She took my face in her hands and kissed me. Apparently at that point she was willing to try anything to shut me up. “I promise we will tell him soon.” I had to give up. Even if I wanted to figure this out (and frankly I didn’t, since I had completely no idea what to do about Hersch either) I don’t think I could have kept my hands off Rebecca if I tried.

…

I never told anyone what I saw when I came back from Rebecca’s that night. In my whole goddamn life, I have never told a single person. Looking back, I know it was the right thing to do. I shouldn’t have had anything to do with it in the first place. Those two never should and never will know that I �" the idiot that I was �" invaded that first moment; the moment that I can only assume led to everything that happened in, basically, the rest of our lives. So I never told anyone.

            If I was a more honest person, probably would have at least told Hersch what I had seen. But hell, if I was a more honest person I also would have told Hersch I was screwing his sister (meaning if I was a more honest person I would also probably be dead). Later I would find out that Hersch knew about Gabe and Erich anyway, that he had been awake the whole time. But he never told me either. I read it in his journal.

But that’s not what I was thinking when it actually happened. At the time, I just really, really didn’t want to lose that bet. And seriously, what are you supposed to do when you walk in on your two friends sleeping in each other’s arms?

            The first thing I noticed when I walked in the room at four in the morning was that Erich wasn’t in his bunk. I could always see him when I snuck in, even in the dark, because he slept with one massive arm hanging over the edge. I figured he was sneaking a smoke while everyone else was asleep. But then I looked in Gabe’s bunk. I actually couldn’t figure out what I was seeing for a second. I got really close to them, trying to figure out why the hell Gabe seemed to be taking up so much room in his bed. It wasn’t until I was practically nose-to-nose with him that I realized it was Erich propped up against the headboard, Gabe curled up in his arms.

            I sprung back and had to bite my fist to keep from shrieking in surprise. I think I must have somehow flown up to my bunk, because I don’t actually remember how I got there. All I know is that I found myself huddled in my bed, trying to work out what the hell was going on.

They couldn’t have been f*****g; that was the first thing that ran through my mind. S**t, there was an image I wanted to burn out of my imagination. Holy hell. Obviously I knew Gabe was queer, and I had been suspicious of Erich ever since Hersch brought it up. But I had never actually thought about them, you know, together. I had never thought about two guys together at all. And I never expected to have it paraded in front of my eyes like that.

But they couldn’t possibly have actually been doing anything. They weren’t that dumb, were they? I mean, Hersch was right there. Oh, f**k. Hersch. If he found out, I would lose the bet for sure. This proved everything, didn’t it? Hersch had been completely right about Erich, and I had been too stupid to see it. Now I would lose my very last quid along with �" I guessed �" my pride.

That is, if I told him. If I told him. He didn’t have to know, did he? This would only ruin the dynamic of the group, which, let’s face it, was already pretty f*****g delicate. I imagined how awkward it would be to have to explain this to Hersch. I could consider myself dead if Erich found out I knew. The guy may have been a fairy in disguise, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. Queer or not, I was pretty sure he could still use my arm as a toothpick if he wanted to.  

It would so much better if I didn’t tell anyone. Better for me. In the end, it would turn out to be better for everyone else too, but right then I was one selfish b*****d.

I didn’t sleep all night, even after I made the decision to keep the whole thing a secret. I was too paranoid that those two would start messing around once I shut my eyes. I tried to convince myself that I would have to get used to the idea of the two of them together. Other than the general bizarreness of the whole thing, I didn’t really have a reason to let them bother me. They weren’t exactly supposed to be together. But hell, neither were Rebecca and me, and I loved her more than anything.

Obviously I had been taught that it was absolutely not okay to be that way. Back home, Reverend Morrell sat down all the boys and talked about it one time, even though girls were literally the only thing on my mind. He told us men who thought about other men the way men were supposed to think about women would all go to hell. I mean, in the Bible God was always cursing the sodomites and turning them into salt and s**t like that, but even as a kid I had wondered why the hell He cared so much about who everyone slept with. Didn’t God have better things to worry about?

I didn’t know. Maybe Reverend Morrell was right. But all I knew was that Erich hated the world, and when Gabe was around he hated it a little less. And what the hell could possibly be wrong with that?

I was practically delirious by the time morning came. I almost missed it when Erich woke up and realized where he was. Seriously, if it wouldn’t have gotten me murdered, I would have laughed so hard. I heard him shift around, so I buried myself under my blankets and peeked one eye out, so I could see him but he couldn’t see me. F**k, he looked so confused. He obviously hadn’t meant to sleep there and wanted to get the hell back to his own bed, but he didn’t want to wake anyone up. He had to snake himself out of Gabe’s bed and onto the floor before getting up and storming out the door. I swear to God I had never seen anyone look so unnerved in my whole life.

There was no way the two of them were having sex. Erich didn’t even seem to remember how he had gotten there. Maybe the whole thing was just a big misunderstanding. Better not to tell anyone anyway, in that case. Even if I was right, Erich would probably break off my fingers like twigs. S**t, if I accused him of being a fairy and it turned out he wasn’t queer at all, I could kiss my spinal cord goodbye.

He must have woken Gabe up, though lucky for both of them Erich managed to escape before Gabe was coherent. He sat up and looked around, like he was expecting Erich to still be there. It was actually pretty sad to watch. Those days, everything about Gabe was sad to watch.

I shut my eyes because I really, really didn’t want to think about how s****y he must have felt right then. I didn’t want to think about anything anymore. I was sick of worrying about everyone but myself. For my whole life, I was the only person I ever had to look out for. All this friendship stuff was driving me crazy. I wanted to shut it all out, just close my eyes and forget about who was a fairy, who was going to Poland, and who would get the chance to murder me first. I shut my eyes and forgot about it. And I didn’t wake up until noon.

Reviews

[Arianna]

yeay this was really awesome!!!
theyre cute, becky and james i mean.
but gabe and erich are still the best :)
anyway i am in love with this chapter and gosh i dont have my info. but really
im sure ill get around to it eventualy. cause im on a cell phone and its hard to copy and paste on here. >.< anyway
really good chapter he had a funny reacttion to gabe and erich. they are adorable yeay! :)

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[R.G. Bennet]

Well, this certainly sounds like something I'd see in one of the more mature sections in a bookstore. Not really my thing, but I must credit you on your narrative skill - it is quite good. You certainly know how characterize the main speaker well.