Page 24 of Hamartia
“Politeness or you,” she clarifies. “Only one way to find out which it is.” She gives me one last easy smile and heads down the hall in the opposite direction.
I have about four seconds to make the biggest decision of my life, it seems.
“Haven?” I call out after her. When she stops and turns back, I say, “Do me a favor and tell him to check his Instagram DM, in about ten minutes?”
She beams at me and gives me a salute. “Roger, that, soldier.”
I don’t bother telling Crawford I’m leaving. He’s cozied up with some blonde influencer out by the pool. I’m in an Uber five minutes later with my finger hovering over the small paper plane.A heteronormative case of a guy having a crush on another guy.
I shake my head at that as I hit send.
If he doesn’t show, then I can move on. That’s what I tell myself in the thirty minutes it takes to get from Haven’s place in West Hollywood to Manhattan Pier. It’s what I tell myself as the word ‘seen’ pops up beneath the picture and maps link I sent him. A picture of the pier—one I’d taken myself about a year ago—and the words:I’ll wait until 1 a.m.
If Haven was right; if wehadbeen looking at each other the same way, then he’d come. And if he doesn’t show then this has all been purely on me and I can move on, finally. I can marry Camille and live a life where his name is just something I hear occasionally and experience a rush of confused emotion about. Like Finn’s is.
He doesn’t reply to the DM. I stare at the screen of my inbox for ten whole minutes after he sees it, but he doesn’t respond. I slide my cell back into my pocket and try not to think about what that means.
The beach isn’t empty, it never is. It’s the reason it’s my favorite beach in LA. Even at this late hour there are people walking their dogs. A few joggers. A small bonfire surrounded by a group of laughing teenagers. The pier itself is well-lit and almost empty except for me, a couple kissing on a bench, and a guy sweeping the well-worn tread boards of The Pearl of LA’s South Bay.
The sea is a melodic lull against the night air. It’s not cold. It rarely ever is in LA, but there’s the mildest of breezes skipping over my cheeks and ears and nose, cooling down my overheated skin.
There’s a whole catalogue of feelings tumbling about inside me as I lean over the railing and stare down at the choppy black waters. Nerves and excitement, guilt and terror, but the worst, I realize, is the idea of him not coming. The idea of never seeing him or hearing from him again at all.
My thoughts slip to Camille, asleep and oblivious, and I decide right then that I need to tell her everything regardless of what happens tonight. She deserves to know where my thoughts have been the last few months, years. We’re supposed to be getting married. We love each other.
And yet…here I am. Waiting at the end of a pier in the middle of the night for someone else. Waiting to find out if this mess of desire taking up prime real estate in my heart and soul means anything. If it’s reciprocated. It’s fucking insane.
What am I doing? I’m drunk. I’m high. And I feel part-way invincible because our band just won record of the year.
I should go home. Sleep it off. Next to my girlfriend. Fiancée. When I turn around to do just that, I freeze.
He’s standing a few feet away watching me, black woolen cap pulled low over his ears, oversized duffel draped over his lean frame, and his hands shoved deep in his pockets. He’s wearing a face mask along with his glasses which, coupled with the hat, make him almost unrecognizable. I wonder if it’s a disguise of some sort.
There’s something about his stance that makes it look like he might have been standing there a while. I’m not sure what time it is but I’m certain it’s after 1 a.m.
He takes a small step closer, then another, then offers me a small nervous smile.
“Your favorite beach in LA,” he says and all the second thoughts I’d been having the moment before I’d turned around tumble to the back of my head, discarded.
I nod. “I’d rather have shown it to you at sunset or sunrise but it was the best I could do at such short notice.”
Too fucking late I realize how that sounds. How…romanticit sounds, but I can’t find it in me to regret it. Jaehyun continues to stare at me. His expression is completely inscrutable. He says nothing. Barely moves. But his breathing looks calm and even, unlike mine.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” I say and realize it’s true. I didn’t prepare for it. Not sure what to do or say now that he has.
His expression turns searching. “But you hoped that I would.” It’s not a question.
“Yeah.”
“Why?” He moves closer and then past me, to lean a hip against the railing of the pier. Pulls down his face mask. “Why am I here, Raphael?”
I shift slightly and mirror his position, staring down at him. His nose and cheeks are slightly flushed, his lips a strawberry pink pout against pale skin.
“You’ll have to ask yourself that one.” I dare a smile. “But I hoped you’d come because…I’ve been wanting to have this…to talk to you like this for a while. Since I saw you in September, but I guess since Paris, if I’m being honest and I guess tonight I’m beingrealhonest. But we’ve been in a room full of people all night and tomorrow you go to New York, and I didn’t want to do this over Instagram and fuck…I don’t know what I’m even saying right now.”
I let out a groan and turn my head toward the black waves instead. Except, I can feel his stare on me and it drags my eyes back to his.
“You wanted to talk to me since Paris?” Jaehyun says carefully, a perfect little crease appearing between dark eyebrows.