Nicole Bosiy
Fiction short story
What he despised most about Phyllis' were the crosses that were screwed into what felt like every wall in the joint. There were the somewhat smaller, twin silver crosses gracing the walls directly next to the oily glass doors, and then there was the longer cross that had each of its four ends outfitted with cheap metalwork meant to evoke leaves and hearts; he figured someone less concerned with the symbol’s sacredness could use it as decoration in some overgrown garden. Debatably, though, the crown jewel of the place was the large, scuffed up wooden cross that hung over the internal window that looked into the kitchen. He supposed its importance came from how it was meant to evoke the crucifixion, something that Phyllis and her husband had deemed so vital to the diner’s ambiance that it was the center of the wall rather than the clock, which was precariously leaned up against the coffee pot. He thought so loudly displaying an object past its prime was rather tacky.
Glancing to his left, he was met with a murky reflection of himself, dark hair shining under the diner’s golden lights. He looked down the string of windows, emptiness settling in his chest at the sight of the rest of the half full diner and eyes tripping over the metal cross when it came into view before continuing on. Even in this small slice of the universe that was comprised solely of the greasiest restaurant in town, they still wanted you to remember God was watching your left hand and listening to your impropriety. The last thing he wanted to be reminded of while picking at his too greasy hashbrowns an hour before midnight was just how much He loved His children but disapproved of sodomy.
It never felt quiet in there. He was exhausted.
He turned around to check the closed doors, and a few pairs of eyes whipped up to inspect him before forcing themselves to look down at their tables and resume their own conversations just a touch louder than before. Trying to exhale the emptiness in his chest, he turned back to his plate, pushed his hashbrowns around some more, and mused over whether he should pretend to eat his mini pancakes or scrambled eggs next. The sizzling coming from the kitchen paired wonderfully with the patrons’ muttering, and his head began to buzz from it all.
“On the house for you, lovebug,” the waitress said as she slid a small plate of apple pie across the counter.
He gave her a gentle smile. “Thank ya, Sherry.”
In return, she winked and refilled his coffee before slipping away. The chatter behind him became uncomfortable. Huddling over his plates, he decided to start picking at his scrambled eggs, shuddering at how the oil from the hashbrowns had clearly leaked under his pancakes.
“Hmm.”
His posture straightened upon hearing the rise and fall of that hum, skin heating up like a smoldering ember when a large hand rested on his shoulder. The two men’s faces began drifting toward each other when a light overhead flickered. They froze, and the beginnings of the genuine grins that could have graced their faces were replaced with stiff curls of lips. They opted to look at the pie slice instead of each other.
“Nothing like a dessert you hate to celebrate your birthday, hm?” Isaac tried to tease, but his tone was somber, and his English accent only served to make him sound even more dejected.
When they sighed together, the conversations around them altered—the patrons were seemingly undecided if they should speak louder or quieter—and he shrugged Isaac’s hand off with agitation, causing the other man to fly off as if he’d touched burning coals. Isaac then shuffled into the next seat, awkwardly crossing his legs in a rush to get comfortable.
“Hah, yeah,” he coughed in response to the chaff. As Isaac shifted about on the stool to bodily face him, he cleared his throat and checked the clock as the chatter around them returned to normal. “Well, it technically ain’t my birthday yet so maybe it’s not as pathetic as you’re makin’ it sound.”
“It’s close enough,” Isaac kissed his teeth and snatched a fork to break off a piece of pie. His face scrunched up at the taste. “I swear, though, I believe it’s just this pie. The way my nan makes that apple tarte tatin I told you about—it’s something beyond this realm. She got the recipe when she lived in France, and for all their faults, the French do know how to bake something delectable.”
“I’ve tried my ma’s pies, and they still tasted like shit,” he grumbled, expression softening as he watched Isaac struggle his way through the bite. “Doubt the French can do somethin’ she can’t."
“Well of course if you’ve only eaten nails your entire life and someone tells you that there’s other less painful options you’re not going to believe them at first,” Isaac rolled his eyes.
“Sure,” he chuckled as his eyes wandered down Isaac’s form, pausing to watch his wingtip shoe tap the air. “If you can get her arthritic ass over here,” he continued, counting off the beats of Isaac’s movements in his head, “I’ll be happy to be proven wrong. Till then, I’m gonna stay convinced that good pie is one of those lies in movies.”
“Suit yourself,” Isaac chided, leaning his cheek on his hand. “I’ll be the only one to know the truth until we go over there to visit her arthritic arse.”
“Guess we’ll see, then,” he drawled, eyes lazing up Isaac’s body until they met his tired eyes. He swallowed and looked at the pie slice for a breather. Isaac’s eyes always appeared so glassy and fragile under the diner’s light—blue illuminated by warm gold should have given them the appearance of a bright spring day, he always figured. Yet every time they found themselves in Phyllis’, there was that sorrow manifesting—growing and festering until it drowned out any zeal at all and left him with no other option than to look at anyone or anything else other than Isaac to stop the irritating lump in his throat from ripping open his esophagus.
“Um,” Isaac shifted in his seat and dropped his tone. “So did you think about tomorrow night after everything’s over? Or?”
When there wasn’t an immediate response, Isaac began filling the void himself, as if the more he talked, the more likely the answer produced would be the one he wanted: “I thought about it and I can have you home in about an hour if I go a bit over the speed limit and I’m sure—”
“Don’t think it’ll work out,” he interjected.
Isaac blinked. “Why not?”
“Ma barely let me out tonight, and we’ve got mass the next mornin’,” he sighed, eyes fixed on the clock, “and she’s gonna be up all night coordinating the flowers for it so she’ll be wanderin’ around the house the whole time—she’ll hear if I try to sneak back in.”
“But she won’t.”
“She might.”
He finally looked at Isaac to see his jaw puffing out from his grinding teeth and his glassy eyes pinning him with a hard, aggravated stare. He figured there wasn’t anything to do but breathe in deeply, glance down at Isaac’s now still feet, and scratch at his scalp as a substitute for an adequate response.
“So what then?” Isaac’s voice was a croaking whisper. “We haven’t been together in weeks other than these stupid, awkward fucking… things.” His nails scraped across the grainy fabric of his pants as he pressed his lips into his palm.
There was heaven to thank for the fact that the waitress was joking rather loudly with a gaggle of patrons while Isaac stewed. The circumstance was horrid, but at least their unhappiness wasn’t the center of the diner’s attention at that moment—in that way they could catch a break.
“You’re still gonna come by during the day to the party, though,” he reminded gently, placing his hands onto his lap in an attempt to keep them from cradling Isaac’s face. This was always the hardest part for him—watching Isaac attempt to keep himself in a full piece even as the exhaustion pierced through his skin and veins, making him bleed all over. Isaac’s legs began shaking, the tips of his shoes thumping like a heartbeat against the counter. “Right?”
Isaac didn’t appear to acknowledge anything.
“Look, man, I know it’s not what we’ve been wantin’ to do, but I’m just tryin’ to—”
“—Be cautious, right,” Isaac finished, body still jittery as he spoke into his hand.
“Yeah,” he confirmed, voice stiff as the tightness strangled his throat. “But I don’t think it’ll be so bad tomorrow, ya know? Ginny and Kate’ll be there, and you know they’ll keep my parents busy for a while. We’ve just gotta keep it friendly for—”
“We’re not friends,” Isaac hissed, slapping his hand down on the counter.
Both men jumped at the harsh display. Despite the shock, Isaac’s wet eyes held onto the exasperation that had plagued them since he’d sat down, but now flecks of something far more despondent underlied it all. Isaac took in a shaky gulp of air, and the two men stared at each other, wondering if either of them would ever speak or move again, or if they’d remain suspended in that hellish chunk of the universe forever, watching each other barely breathe as they waited for anything other than them to fall apart instead.
When the waitress returned to the kitchen, the other diners seemed to then notice the tension between the pair. Isaac straightened his spine, cleared his throat, and struggled to turn his way off the stool. Each thwarted attempt to remove himself from the stool caused exponentially increasing panic to swell in the man next to him—the shock and horror was being slapped onto his face, but his hands were like lead in his lap.
Once Isaac had managed to shuffle to his feet, he exited the diner without another word. He stayed, though, and the wooden cross above him seemed to thump along with the heartbeat in his ears each time he looked at it. It never became loud enough to drown out the uneasy chatter around him.
***
It was an unusually bright day, though the clouds floated at a level that made him think he could reach out and push his hand through the white mist. He almost had the energy to chuckle at the mindlessness of the moment as he readjusted himself on the grass. There was no reason to think about anything until it was absolutely necessary he figured, so he simply continued watching wispy tufts of cotton travel through the air as indistinct conversations died and rose up around him.
“You’ll get bugs in your hair, you know,” Ginny’s voice snarked from beside him.
“Might be lucrative for me to be a landlord,” he replied as he heaved himself to his feet. Before he could finish straightening himself out, Ginny was shoving a crudely wrapped gift into his stomach.
“Happy birthday, buddy,” she drawled as he meekly took the gift and offered her a polite smile in exchange. “Here’s hopin’ it’ll be another good year.”
He scrunched his mouth to one side of his face, looking at the just-arrived party guests chatting and laughing with his parents and brother.
There was a notable absence.
“Isaac didn’t come?”
“Mm, well, he didn’t meet up with us before we started headin’ here so I figured he’d already be over.” She checked over the guests, but her survey was brief. “Might be runnin’ late.”
He swallowed. “Thanks for the gift, Gin.”
With a final nod from Ginny, the pair peddled toward the rest of the party, which quickly erupted into raucous applause and cheers upon seeing him ease up to them. The hugs he doled out were distracted and weak, leaving his friends to examine him with knit brows and offer awkward congratulations when they pulled apart. He managed a few “thank ya”s and polite laughs before his attention was diverted to the vacant street despite his friends’ attempts to hold his concentration. With every passing second, there was nothing but emptiness aside from scraps of trash flowing across the asphalt. As realization set in, his voice muffled behind his tongue and his ribcage compressed around the icy stab in his chest.
The various voices around him were discussing the day’s plans, which weren’t particularly elaborate, but he supposed his friends needed a way to distance themselves from his bizarre silence and wide eyed concentration on a near desolate street. A prayer repeated itself ad nauseum in his head—an endless, unyielding chant asking God to put His reservations about him and Isaac aside to just allow them to indulge in their warped but still comforting sense of normalcy. He promised Him any degree of love and devotion He could want in exchange for this one leniency. It was booming—all the mental praying that began leaking silently onto his lips with a bleary desperation for any sign at all to come down from the sky cycling over and over and beating against his cranium and wringing his core until Isaac’s red hair came into view.
He nearly choked on his spit and wiped his sweaty palms on his pants, but he remained silent as the group turned to see what he was gawking at. Another round of cheers began, and Isaac flashed them all a bright, dramatic grin that eased into a mild smile when their eyes met.
“Happy birthday, mate,” Isaac said, proffering a small card.
He exhaled and accepted it.
“Thanks for comin’, man.”
***
Purple and golden nightfall found him away from his party. Instead of partaking in the celebration, he was leaning against the siding of the shed, nestled in between the crooked fence and hydrangea bushes, acknowledging the view he had of his father’s pickup truck. The clouds from earlier had dispersed, leaving the sky to take on an unobstructed gradient that led to the pinhole sun.
“Hiding over here?” Isaac teased as he slid down next to him.
“Clearly not,” he joked, clasping his hands together to run his thumb along the side of his forefinger. Isaac raised a hand with trepidation over his two clasped ones until the muscles in his arms relaxed enough to offer a palm. The hold was anything but delicate—it was sweaty, and the creases in Isaac’s hand were still sticky from multiple spilled margaritas, but it was tender and soothing in a way that allowed his legs to feel like they could stop preparing to run off.
“I’d like to apologize for storming out last night,” Isaac said after a moment of silence, expression downcast as he gazed up at the horizon. “I’d gotten a bit overwhelmed with everything and just wanted to do this sort of thing for longer than a few minutes, you know?”
They both exhaled through parted lips, breaths catching in the backs of their throats. “But I know we can’t really,” Isaac continued, “so I’m trying to figure it all out.”
Isaac met his vulnerable gaze and reached his free hand up to cup it around his companion’s neck and jawline. Under the setting sun’s rays, Isaac looked beautiful—freckles on one side of his face faded from the glow while the other half remained artfully stippled, a faint blush on his nose and cheeks coming partially from alcohol, partially from feeling, with his eyelashes framing the understanding blooming in his eyes. Isaac moved his thumb to brush it against his love’s bottom lip.
“It’ll be okay, Nicky.”
Nicky nodded slowly and then pressed his lips against Isaac’s, remembering that where love was concerned, He would never compare to him.