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The Distance Between
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Текст книги "The Distance Between"


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“You’re accusing m e of sucking up to dad? You’re the one whose entire life is centered around

pleasing dad!” I almost yelled, “You’ve been sucking up to dad ever since you came to live with us, just

admit it. You’ve played football and went to Columbia to study law just because you thought that dad

might like it.”

“I wanted to go to law school. You’re the one who didn’t even want to study law!”

“Well I did,” I said and continued with “And who’s the better lawyer of us now!”

I regretted saying that last thing as soon as it slipped out of my mouth. David didn’t respond, he just

picked up his coffee and went back to his office. He didn’t talk to me anymore for two whole days.

But then it was Sunday again, the days were flying, and I didn’t feel like going to our parent’s place. I

knew that Juliette was expecting me to come so I felt obliged to go anyway.

On Sunday we had to sit opposite each other at the dinner table. David was still furious. Brad tried to

brighten the mood at the table by entertaining my dad and keeping dad’s attention away from David and

me. “It’s just like old times again,” David finally said, so quietly that my dad didn’t hear him. “You’re

back and acting like a jerk again.”

“I’d rather be a jerk than incompetent,” I shot back at him. “Fuck you!” he said and that my dad did

hear.

“What’s wrong with the two of you again?” my dad said. “Don’t start this bullshit like you did at the

office this week. The secretaries were talking about your little dispute near the coffee machine. I won’t

have unprofessional shit like that at the firm. The two of you better be polite to each other!”

Brad looked helplessly at Christine. She and Juliette didn’t even respond to our dinner table squabbles

anymore.

After that dreadful dinner Christine helped Juliette to clear the table. My dad poured himself a cognac

and gave David, Brad and me a glass too. I gulped it down quickly. “Just shake hands and don’t let this

affect your work on Monday,” my dad told us. We shook hands reluctantly.

“I’ll go and see if I can help my mom in the kitchen,” David said and he dashed away. I knew that he

couldn’t even stand to be in the same room as dad and me anymore.

David and I were polite to each other at work the rest of the week, just like my dad had ordered us. I

tried to ignore his angry glances at me and closed the door to my office so that I didn’t have to see him in

the hallway. He didn’t bring me coffee that week…

The next Sunday I tried to think of a good excuse not to go for dinner. I couldn’t think of anything. It

would be too weird for me not to show up.

David wasn’t there yet when I arrived so I sat down to talk to Brad and Christine. The twins were

reading a graphic novel together; I think it was one of David’s old ‘Spawn’ comics. He’d left a whole pile

of them at home when he left for New York.

“So how are things at work?” Christine asked me. “I heard from Brad that you and David are annoying

each other again.”

“It’s nothing,” I said.

“Well be a good boy and try to be nice to him today. I hate it when you are fighting at the table, it puts

me off my appetite.”

“I’ll try.”

“You’d better,” she said. “I know you like David a lot more than you want us to believe.” She laughed.

I forced a smile on my face.

Then the doorbell rang and David came in. He’d really made an effort to look nice today. He was

wearing neat jeans and a crisp white shirt. It was time to make amends; I didn’t feel like fighting for a

whole Sunday again. I stood up from the couch to say ‘Hi’ to him. “Hi,” he said back, he was smiling and

I could see in his eyes that he wasn’t so angry anymore.

“That’s a really nice shirt,” I said.

“Thank, it’s a Hugo Boss, they had them on sale.” Without thinking I picked up a loose hair from his

shoulder. I could hear him hold his breath as my hand brushed over his shirt.

“You look nice too,” he said in a low voice so that only I could hear him.

“Are we good again?” I asked. He nodded. His eyes still looked sad.

“Let’s go outside for a while.”

We walked outside and leaned against the wall next to the outside dinner table. “Did you mean what you

said?” he asked. I shook my head. “Of course not.” I put my hand on his arm. “I’m sorry about what I said.

It’s just that you annoy me hopelessly sometimes.” I ruffled up his hair with my other hand. “And why is

that?” he asked softly. “Because you’re such a good boy all the time. Sometimes it’s just like in high

school when you were every teacher’s pet.” He opened his mouth to say something but I beat him to it.

That’s what I like about you too though; that you’re always such a good boy. You try to stick up for people

who are less fortunate and you are always doing what you believe is right. You’re such a nice guy.”

“Am I?”

“Yeah you are,” I said.

“Being a nice guy sounds pretty boring,” he said.

“You are not.”

He put his hand on my shoulder and looked serious. “You can be a nice guy too…when you want to,” he

said. “I’m trying today,” I replied. “I’ll try to be nicer at work too,” I whispered in his ear.

“So do you want the shirt?” he asked me.

“What?”

“It looks nice on me, but it would look even better on you.”

“You just bought it, you should keep it.”

“No, I want you to have it. I’ll trade it for the one you’ve got on now.”

The shirt that I had on was nice too, but kind of old and not nearly as expensive as David’s shirt.

“Are you sure?” I asked, but he’d already started unbuttoning his shirt. I started unbuttoning mine too.

Of course I’d seen him without his shirt thousands of times, but the sight of his naked chest, his bare

shoulders and perfect arms still made me catch my breath. He offered me his shirt and I gave him mine.

He smelled the collar before he put it on.

“It smells nice, what kind of aftershave are you wearing?”

“It’s the big Hugo Boss bottle, I still haven’t finished it.”

“You used to wear this back in New York right? I remember your sheets smelled like this,” he said and

then he blushed. We never talked about the things that had happened back in my old apartment. I put on the

new shirt.

“It looks good on you,” he said with a smile.

“Let’s go inside,” I said. “I think Juliette is putting dinner on the table.”

We went inside to eat and after dinner, Brad and Christine talked some more about their wedding plans

with our parents. David and I snuck upstairs to listen to a new album he bought. We hadn’t done this in

forever; just be in his old bedroom together and listen to music. I sat on his old bed and he put the CD in

the CD player. It felt weird being back here in this room after all this time. The room had never changed

much since David had left for New York. There were still the same posters on the walls and his stuffed

animals and his little Star Trek figurines looking down on us from the shelves. He sat down next to me on

the bed. The extra weight made the springs squeak. We listened to the first couple of songs on the album

without saying anything. The atmosphere was tense.

“It’s a nice album,” I finally said. “A bit more moody then their older work maybe.”

“Yeah you’re right,” David said and then he put his hand on my arm. “About what I said this

afternoon…”

“About what?”

“About your sheets…” He started blushing again. “I miss those times. I miss waking up next to you.” He

looked at me helplessly.

“Things are more complicated now,” I said. “It can’t be like it was in New York anymore.”

He looked like he would start crying any minute now. I hugged him and buried my head in his hair. I

wanted to say to him that I missed those times too, that I wanted nothing more other than waking up next to

him forever. I couldn’t say it.

“I’ll try to be a nicer brother to you but I can’t do anymore than that. You understand?” I whispered.

“Yeah,” he said muffled.

I let go of him. We listened to the rest of the album and then went downstairs. Something had finally

been broken between us.

26. I can’t be like it was

At work we were polite to each other. Dad didn’t even notice that something was different. Brad did,

but probably he thought it wasn’t his place to say anything.

David still came home for Sunday dinners, just like me. Mostly, he only stayed for dinner itself and not

for the rest of the afternoon. We didn’t talk much, only about work.

He didn’t tell me that he was dating another guy. Christine told me that he’d met a guy at the gym and

that he was rushing into things again. He acted like he was head over heels in love again. I didn’t know if

he really felt that way or he only wanted himself and me to believe that this was the real thing.

After dating this new guy for a little over two months he asked if he could bring this guy over on Sunday

to one of our family barbeques. Juliette said yes of course and my dad reluctantly agreed too.

The new guy was already there when I arrived. I recognized him from a conference that I’d been to a

couple of months earlier. So he had to be a lawyer as well. I remember the conversation we’d had. He’d

been a real macho prick when I’d talked to him and I knew the firm that he worked for was close to ours.

He and David apparently worked out at the same gym after work and they’d been checking each other out

lifting weights. How typical.

The guy introduced himself to me as “Josh”. Apparently he had no idea that I’d seen him before.

“We’ve met,” I said. “We talked at a conference in L.A. a couple of months ago. You work for Johnson

& Beecker don’t you?” He looked surprised.

“Yeah I do. You must have a really good memory.”

“You made quite the impression,” I said and I knew that only Christine and David could hear that I was

being sarcastic. Josh lapped up the ‘compliment’ happily. He was sharply dressed and had a stern,

handsome face. He looked a bit like a younger version of dad, which freaked me out a bit.

The guy was all too happy to be talking to dad; I think he was using this opportunity to do a sort of

unofficial job interview. He talked to my dad and Brad all afternoon about court cases he’d won and how

he’d be even better working for another firm. David just listened to their conversation helplessly. I don’t

think this was what he’d imagined the Sunday to be like. Christine came up to me after dinner.

“I feel bad for David,” she said.

“You mean because he’s managed to find another dickhead like this again?”

“He’s so unlucky with his boyfriends,” she said. “This one is going to treat him like shit too, I just know

it.” She wrung her hands.

“He’s a grown man,” I said. “He can date what ever jerk he wants too.”

Christine wasn’t the only one who didn’t like Josh. After David left with him, my dad and Brad were

complaining too.

“I hope he doesn’t bring this one home again,” my dad said.

“I don’t get what David sees in him,” Brad muttered. “That guy is so full of himself.”

David only brought Josh over for two more times. They broke up after four months; as soon as Josh knew

that there was no way in hell that my dad would hire him.

David didn’t pine over Josh long but started seeing another guy soon after that. He never brought this

one home with him. Christine and Brad had a double dinner-date with them on a Saturday evening and

they both disliked this new guy too.

“I don’t get why he always picks out jerks like this,” Christine said. “This one was even worse than

Josh.”

“He was a financial controller,” Brad said. “There was only subject that he loved to talk about more

than ‘money’ and that was himself.”

“I don’t know why David does this to himself,” Christine complained. “He’s only dating guys that he

knows he’s never going to be happy with.” She sighed. “It’s like he want to get dumped.”

After that last guy did dump David after a couple of weeks he didn’t even bother to try to find a decent

guy to be with. I heard from Christine that he was going out a lot and even had lots of one-night stands. I

was worried. It was so out of character for David to just go home with a stranger for a night of mindless

sex. I didn’t want him to get hurt.

He looked like shit too, like he wasn’t sleeping well. There were dark shadows underneath his eyes

and I hadn’t seen him smile in weeks. When he came to the office in the morning he wasn’t focused and

his eyes looked glassy during our meetings. I hated what he was doing to himself. I thought that he was

trying to punish me for saying that things couldn’t be like they’d been in New York for us. I was afraid

that he was ruining himself just to get back at me.

He was working on a pretty important case at that point too. Finally dad had entrusted him with

something big and this was his chance to show dad what he was worth… But then during the court hearing

it turned out that he hadn’t focused enough on a seemingly unimportant detail and he lost the case.

My dad was furious at him. That Sunday over dinner my dad didn’t even want to look at him at first. I

was mad too that he’d screwed up this chance. When we were finishing desert, David said: “I’d better go

home early today.”

“You’d better do that,” my dad said. “You need your rest so that you can focus a little better.” His tone

was vicious.

“What do you mean?” Juliette asked. She clearly hadn’t heard about David losing the case.

“I lost an important case,” David said. “I’m really sorry.”

“Being sorry doesn’t change the fact that you lost,” my dad said. “You should have nailed this case. All

the evidence was there.”

“I did try very hard,” David said. “I’ve been working my ass off.”

“Literally perhaps,” my dad said sarcastically.

“What do you mean?” he shot back.

“It didn’t seem like work was one of your main priorities lately,” my dad said.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Dad means that if you spend more time working on the case in stead of other things, you might have

won,” I said.

“Shut up,” Michael,” he spit back and turned to my dad. “I’m sorry I lost but I really don’t think I

could have done more work on this case.”

“If you’d spend more time on this case in stead of fucking around, you would have won,” I snarled.

“You take that back,” David screamed at me.

“Take back what? It’s the truth isn’t it? If you hadn’t been whoring around like a first year student, like

you told Christine, but spend more time concentrating on the case, you would have nailed the

prosecution!” I was yelling too.

“Fuck you,” David yelled back and threw Christine an ugly glance.

“I didn’t say anything like that!” Christine yelled at me.

“Like you don’t tell Michael everything I tell you in confidence,” David yelled at her. “I’m going

home!”

He stood up and pushed over his chair accidentally. It crashed on the floor with a dreadful sound.

“You sit down this instance,” my dad yelled at David, his voice more threatening than I’d ever heard.

“Your mother has worked very hard to put this dinner on the table and all of you will stay here and finish

your meal.”

David picked up his chair and sat down again. He was looking pale. We were all afraid of my dad

when he used this tone of voice. Juliette’s hands were trembling and Christine had started to cry softly.

The twins didn’t dare to say anything. They just stared at us like we were some alien life form come to

destroy the planet. Brad put his hand on Christine’s arm. I looked at David. I could see that he was

fighting back his tears too.

“I’m sure Michael didn’t mean what he said,” he tried. “We are all just stressed about losing this case.”

“Brad’s right,” I said. “I was just really pissed that we lost the case. I’m sorry.”

“We won’t talk about it anymore,” my dad said in a stern voice, ending the conversation. David looked

down at his plate. He was so angry and embarrassed that he didn’t want to look at any of us anymore, not

even the twins.

Later, before he left, I wanted to apologize to him but I was too late. He was talking to Christine in the

hallway. “I’m not going to tell you anything about my personal life anymore,” he told Christine.

“Don’t say that,” Christine pleaded. “Please don’t leave while being angry with me.”

“I’m not angry at you,” he said. “I’m angry at myself for always believing that I can make dad and

Michael be proud of me. But they clearly don’t even like me. I shouldn’t come to dinner anymore.”

“I’m sorry I told Michael,” she cried. “But I worry about you and so does he.”

“Michael doesn’t give a fuck about me,” David said.

“Don’t say that,” I said. David looked startled. Christine rushed away from us and closed the door to

the hallway.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “What I said was way out of line.” I swallowed down the lump in my throat.

“It sounded like you meant it,” David said. “Is that really what you think? That I’m fucking around? That

I throw myself at just any guy I meet? That’s what you did for years, do you remember?” He sounded

bitter. “What do you expect me to do? Be celibate and work myself to death like you are trying to do

now?”

“I worry about you David, this fucking around thing is nothing like you. I just want you to be happy,” I

said. I reached to touch his arm.

“You don’t mean that,” he said and backed away from me. Then he left. He slammed the door behind

him and I heard his car backing away on the driveway.

“You have to go after him,” Christine told me when I came in to the living room again. She was close to

tears. “Why do you always have to say shit like that Michael?! I know you love David.”

David did nothing but work in the weeks following that disastrous dinner. He was at the office even

earlier than I was and sometimes he stayed until midnight. He did come for all our Sunday dinners but he

barely talked to me during those days. He helped Juliette in the kitchen or played video games with the

twins. He tried to be as normal and lighthearted as he possibly could for Juliette’s sake but I know it was

all show. He really loved his mom and he didn’t want to cause fights at the dinner table or worry her.

Still, I couldn’t help but make the situation even worse.

At a conference that we’d attended my dad had heard some of the other lawyers make a remark about

David’s longish hair. Everybody at our firm was dressed impeccably and David kind of stood out with

his unruly curly hair that was always too long. When we were having dinner my dad told David that he

might want to follow my example and get a nice haircut.

“I like my hair like this,” David said. “Nobody has ever said anything about my haircut.”

“They haven’t told you but everybody thinks that you look sloppy,” I told him harsher than I’d intended.

“I thought you always liked my hair just fine like this,” David said sharply.

“It looks inappropriate, just like dad said,” I told him. My mouth tasted of ash. Why did I say shit like

this without even meaning it? How many times had I smelled that hair, combed through it with my hands,

even tasted it in my mouth when I was dry fucking him through his shorts in my bed?

“You can’t walk in to a courtroom looking like a messy student anymore,” I continued.

“Okay, I’ll get a haircut,” he just said and continued eating his dinner. I didn’t think anything of that

conversation all week until the next weekend.

Brad, Christine and me were talking before dinner the next Sunday when David walked in. When I

looked up at him it was as if a knife had been plunged in my chest. He’d cut off all of his beautiful long

hair and was wearing a razor short new hairdo.

“What have you done?” I cried out. Brad and Christine looked at me disproving. Why could I never

keep my big mouth shut?

“Does it look more appropriate?” David asked me in a flat voice. My dad walked in and he looked at

David approvingly. “It looks much better like this,” he said while he folded out his Sunday paper and

started reading.

“It looks awful! Who cut it like this? You look like you’ve been prepped for surgery,” I blurted out.

“Fuck you Michael! You are the one who told me to cut it in the first place!” My dad looked up from his

paper. “The both of you are not starting again, are you?” David shook his head warily. Christine and Brad

were looking in horror at him as well. We all knew that he’d cut his hair like this to punish me for what

I’d said last week. Juliette walked out of the kitchen when she heard us talking. She looked at David and

blinked. “Baby it looks very neat,” she said. I could hear in her voice that she hated his new look too.

When we sat down for dinner I couldn’t help but stare at David’s head the whole time. You could see

his scalp underneath the razor short hair. He looked so terrible, I felt like crying during desert. This was

entirely my fault. I should never have pushed him like this. I think he knew that I was staring at him

because he didn’t look up once in my direction.

After desert I quickly got up and walked outside to get some air. I stood outside for a while, my back

against the brick wall. No matter how hard I tried to keep my calm, I still felt like crying. Tears started to

well up and I couldn’t stop myself from sobbing. I bit my fist to keep myself from making a sound. David

walked outside too and stood next to me, his back against the wall too. “You told me to cut my hair

yourself,” he said in an accusing tone. Then he looked at me and saw the tears. I tried to look away from

him. I really didn’t want him to see me break down like this. “Why are you crying?” he asked softly.

“You look like you have a fucking terminal disease,” I said. “I should have kept my fucking mouth

shut.”

“Yeah you should have,” he replied. He stroked my arm, “Please don’t cry, it’ll grow back.” I let out a

strangled sob. Not just because of the hair but more because I felt like such a jerk.

“I loved your hair,” I said while I stroked my hand past his head. “I really loved your hair. I loved to

bury my face in it; it always smelled so nice. You looked so great with it. Why did you have to listen to

me? You knew I didn’t mean it!”

“Yeah I knew, but maybe this way you’ll think again before you insult me at the dinner table next time,”

he said.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

“I know, that was the intention,” David sighed. I held his head in my two hands and looked in to his

eyes. I was almost drowning in his dark grey gaze. “Things have been so fucked up between us lately,” I

said while I brushed past his dark eyelashes with my finger.

“It doesn’t have to be like that Michael,” he said.

“No it doesn’t,” I admitted. Then tears started to well up from his eyes too. They were trickling down

his face, although he didn’t make a sound. “I hate this haircut too,” he tried with a bitter laugh. “I must

have been out of my mind cutting it like this.”

“At least you’ve got a nicely shaped head,” I tried to say comfortingly. He buried himself in my arm. I

held him so tight that it must have been hard for him to breathe. I kissed the top of his head and said: “I

hope it grows back soon.”

27. Keeping up appearances

In hindsight, that day with the haircut drama was the first time that Brad started to suspect that

something was going on between us. He’d walked outside too to see if we weren’t killing each other and

found us hugging intensely in stead. I saw him throw me a weird glance when we went inside again.

“So did you kiss and make up again?” one of the twins snickered. I laughed.

“Yeah we’re good again.” I punched David on the shoulder playfully. He smiled at me.

“Good,” said Jack and Justin at the same time. “Now that you’re friends again, can you help us with

some math homework, it really sucks.”

“You mean you suck at math,” I laughed and sat down with them to look at their assignment.

The atmosphere in the house had cleared up again and both David and me stayed at our parents’ house

later than usual.

At work we tried to keep a friendly distance from each other, it was still too easy to get in to a fight.

But at least David was bringing me coffee again and that was a definite sign that he’d forgiven me.

Brad and I were working on a case together quite intensely. We knew each other pretty well by now

and I felt like he was not just a colleague or even my brother-in-law but also a friend.

“Christine is kind of worried sometimes about you and David,” he told me one evening when we were

buried neck-deep in papers.

“What do you mean?” I asked as casually as possible.

“There’s so much fighting between you, she just doesn’t get it.” He looked at me and scraped his throat.

“Honestly, I don’t get it either. I mean David was so excited for you to come home and now that you are

back, you’re constantly at each other’s throats.”

“It’s complicated,” I said in a tone suggesting the subject had to be abandoned and we left it at that for

the time being.

Juliette’s birthday was coming up in November and all of us wanted to surprise her by cooking a really

great birthday dinner ourselves. She spent so much time cooking all those Sunday dinners for us that we

wanted to do something in return. On her birthday, she wouldn’t have to lift a finger. The twins agreed to

arrange the starter, Christine and Brad would do the main course and David and me would make a desert.

My dad promised to take care of the wine.

Brad was the best cook of all of us and he and Christine started preparing early that Sunday. They made

a fantastic roast and pumpkin-puree and sweet potatoes to go with it. The twins made a shrimp cocktail

that was better than I would have expected. David wanted to make a birthday cake for his mom and I

helped him. We were both no stars at cooking, I’m even worse than him, so I hoped that we would make

something edible. I’d put a frozen cake in the fridge as a back-up plan. When we started with the cake, it

felt like we were in high school again, fooling around in the kitchen, trying to get flour on each other.

“Help me mix this,” David laughed.

“It doesn’t look that appetizing yet,” I said worried when I looked at all the ingredients that we’d

chunked in to a bowl together. “Do you know for sure that this is going to work?” I asked.

“I’m sure,” he smiled, “Just mix it all together while I put in the eggs.” Within a minute the mixture

started to look a bit more like dough.

“I haven’t really cooked anything since I came back from France, I just heat things up,” I chuckled.

David looked at the mixture and put his finger in it, he tasted the dough.

“It tastes pretty good actually,” he grinned. “Do you want to try?” He dipped his finger in the bowl

again and without thinking I put it in my mouth and sucked it.

“It tastes good, right?” he laughed and looked at me with a wicked glance. Within a fraction of a

second, sucking his finger was the most erotic thing in the world and I was so turned on that I could have

fucked him right there on the kitchen table.

Right at that moment, Brad came in to the kitchen. I felt the blood rushing to my face giving me a guilty

blush. He looked at us questioningly but didn’t say anything. Not to us anyway. Later I overheard him tell

Christine in the living room: “You know I just saw Michael lick dough of David’s finger.” She laughed

and stroked his hair. “Come on Christine, that’s weird, even for them.”

“I’ve seen them do worse,” Christine said. “At least they seem to get along better again. I’m really

happy that they’re not fighting today.”

“They are not so verbally abusive today, you’re right,” Brad sighed. Christine lightly pushed him on the

shoulder.

“They can be really nice, believe me. They really do like each other Brad, only Michael has a hard time

showing it.”

David and me finished backing our cake and we decorated it with some ready-made frosting and some

sugary flowers. The end result looked decent enough. Juliette was ecstatic over the dinner we made.

We’d bought her presents too, of course. All ‘the kids’ had chipped in to buy her a really nice pair of

pearl and diamond earrings and dad had bought her the matching necklace too.

Everybody was so happy that day. I think the entire family was relieved that David and I weren’t

fighting for once. It was always ‘all or nothing’ for me and David and today it was ‘all’ again. We goofed

around the whole day, I fed him cake and licked some of the sugar-frosting of his cheek when I thought

nobody was watching. In the afternoon, we played a little basketball outside with Brad and both of us beat

him easily. Then David and me played some more while Brad was watching us. We were getting sweaty

and tired and David had taken of his shirt. I’d gotten used to his hair being so short and I still thought he

looked incredibly hot. Brad saw me looking at David as he dunked the ball in the basket. “I think his hair

has actually grown a little since he cut it. It looks nice,” he said. “Yeah he looks great,” I said rather too

enthusiastic, giving myself away even more. Brad smiled and in a flash I saw something in his eyes that

told me that he knew. But then that expression was gone again and he just gave us a goofy smile before he

went inside to eat so more cake.

It was a little over a month until Christmas. David and I didn’t fight once in that period. I don’t think

we’d been this nice to each other for years… The flip side was that it was getting harder and harder for

me to control my feelings. Now that we hadn’t been fighting for a couple of weeks, things were quickly

getting out of hand. I felt like my feelings were on a landslide and I could do nothing to stop them. I knew

that the only sane thing to do was make David hate me again, to drive him in to the arms of yet another

stupid guy but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to fight my desire anymore because that would mean that I would

have to shut David out of my life again, to be a jerk and a disappointment like always. I couldn’t do it

anymore.

I went to work whistling because I knew that he would bring me coffee in the morning and I couldn’t

keep from smiling when I saw him struggle with the copy-machine in the hallway. I allowed myself to do

things at home that I hadn’t done in a long while, like pull David into my lap when we were watching TV

or run my hand through his growing hair when we were on the cough together with our family. Nobody,

except for Brad, seemed to notice any change. Of course our family had witnessed our behavior for years

and they thought nothing of this sudden change in affections again.


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