Page 126 of When Ben Loved Tim

“No! What’s the point of playing this game anymore? You’re gay! Or bi, at the very least.” He’s already shaking his head, but I press on, because I’m so tired of dancing around the subject. “Can we please face reality? I mean, how many times have you sucked my dick?”

“Would you shut up?” Tim hisses while glowering at the dark and silent houses that surround us.

“No! How can you still pretend that you’re straight? I don’t get it!”

“I can’t be gay!” Tim snarls. “It’ll make everything worse.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t have that luxury.” I start walking back to my house.

Tim sprints in front of me to block my path. “Wait!” he says. “You don’t understand.”

“Oh really? Let me take a wild guess: You can’t deal with anyone not liking you. Because you’re not sure if your dad does, and that makes you needy, so you look to everyone else to give you the love that he doesn’t. Am I right?”

Tim looks wounded. “It’s not that simple.”

“Of course. There are also religious reasons. Which is ridiculous because it’s all made up. You aren’t going to Hell, Tim.”

“My mom thinks I will.”

I look skyward and groan. “I’ve heard all of this before!”

“But you don’t get it,” he growls. “It’s going to break her fucking heart! Until her dying day, she’ll be convinced that I’m gonna burn in Hell.”

“Or maybe, when learning that her own child is gay, she’ll be forced to reevaluate her beliefs and recognize that what she’s been taught doesn’t add up.”

Tim scoffs. “This is exactly what I mean. You don’t get it! They aren’t going to change their beliefs for you or anyone else. Including me.” He shakes his head in disgust. “I never should have let you lure me into this.”

“Are you kidding me?” I splutter. “I didn’t lure you into anything! This is who we are, Tim! If you want to talk about things that can’t be changed, take a long hard look in the mirror. The only choice you have is if you’re going to let superstition and fear rule your life.”

“You’re wrong about that,” he grumbles. “I do have a choice. I can be with a woman.”

The fight goes out of me. I shouldn’t have to convince someone to love me. Not the right guy anyway. “So choose,” I tell him, jutting out my jaw. “Right now. What’s it going be?”

Tim’s scowl disappears. His face becomes drawn, like he’s contemplating losing me, but I’m honestly not sure if that’ll be enough to make him stay. “I need you,” he says at last, taking my hand. He stares down at it and toys with my fingers, seemingly lost in thought. Then he looks up. “And you need me. Isn’t that enough?”

I search his eyes, my own desperation mirrored there. “I want it to be,” I croak. “But you’re not making it easy.”

“I know,” Tim says. “I’m sorry.”

“Just not enough for anything to actually change.”

“I don’t know what to do,” he says, sounding genuinely lost. “I think about it all the time, but I can’t figure out a move that doesn’t… I love my mom.”

“What about me?” I ask, my voice wavering.

“You know.” Tim says. He places his hands on my cheeks, his earnest expression promising so much.

But he still can’t say it.

I gently wrap my hands around his wrists and hesitate, knowing that it might be the last time I touch him. Then I pull down, moving his hands off my face.

“I don’t know if I can do this anymore,” I tell him.

Tim swallows. “I can’t walk the same path that you did. We’re not the same. Our families are too different. But there’s got to be some other way.” He takes my hand and brings it to his lips, silver eyes wavering at me from over it until a couple of tears break free. He’s crying. For me! “Please, Benjamin,” he says after lowering it again. “I don’t want to lose you.”

The thought alone is enough to make my heart ache. Even more than it has been already. “If you really want to have a future together, we need to start planning.”

“Okay,” he says. “Tell me what to do.”