JUNE 2018
“Walker!” Elliot called from the porch. Oh shit, I thought; I’d forgotten about the camping trip.
“Hang on!”
I threw my shirt on and ran down to let him in. When I opened the door, there he was looking up at me and shaking his head. Orange rays peeked behind him over the trees.
“I thought you were supposed to be the responsible one,” he said. He huffed before giving me a grin.
“Eh, we all make mistakes,” I said, shrugging it off. Elliot followed me up to my room and sat on my bed while I casually tossed some clothes into a backpack.
“Why’d you sleep in, anyways?” He fiddled with the strap of his duffel.
“I dunno, I guess I just forgot we were leaving today.”
“Oh.” He looked down at his feet.
“Sorry, man. But, hey! We’re still going, so that’s good,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s true,” he said, looking up at me with a smile. I zipped up my bag and walked over to my bed.
“Let’s head out,” I said, clasping a hand on his shoulder and giving a light squeeze.
We left my house and started walking behind it on the hiking trail that stretched across the thousand-plus acres that my family owned. The sun was still barely up, and the birds and insects were crying their morning love songs. I kicked a stone on the dirt path and watched as it rolled over a dozen times or so, before stopping. Elliot ran up and kicked it as hard as he could. It launched off into the high grass a few hundred feet away and we laughed as he clutched his foot.
As I looked up into the canopy of the trees, it seemed to me that the world was never as green and beautiful as in that moment. Red flashed as a cardinal launched from one branch to another, the twigs, and leaves dancing as they brushed against each other. On my right, I saw Elliot cast his eyes toward the trees, grinning. He cupped his hands and issued a plagiarized birdcall. I rolled my eyes, secretly wishing I could figure out how to do that.
We walked along for a while, passing faithful landmarks on the farm, picking ticks and burrs off our legs.
“Y’know I’m gonna miss you, man…” said Elliot. He picked up a stick and twirled it so that his hand had something to focus his eyes on.
“Hey, it’ll be okay, I’ll be home every other weekend.”
“Yeah, well what about when you can’t? Or what about when you’re too busy with your family to hang out with me?” he asked in a harsh whisper. He gripped the stick tightly in his hand, snapping it. He dropped it and brushed his hand against his shorts. I stared at him for a moment.
“You are family to me,” I said, “I’ve known you for like ten years now, and I ain’t letting anything change that.”
“I just don’t get why you chose UK. It’s so damned far.”
“C’mon, we both know it’s the best school for me to have a shot at becoming a doctor.”
He sighed. “I just don’t want you to forget about me.”
I said nothing.
“You won’t, will you?”
“Of course not,” I whispered.
He smiled slightly, and then we both set out again, making our way off the path now, over to the creek where we were gonna spend the next few days camping out.
The water was a dull trickle, flowing in the carefree way of a child playing with his first puppy. And yet, I also noticed the ancient, deliberate way the water moved over the rocks, providing habitat to countless organisms. The sun filtered between the leaves overhead, then through the water, illuminating the crawdads dancing their elusive quickstep. That’s okay, though, because Elliot and I always fished for bluegill out by the creek, which traced its way all the way up to the Green River.
We set our duffel bags onto the cool grass shaded by a wide oak. I set about building a fire in the small pit we used when we came camping, while Elliot tossed his line out to catch our lunch. The woods were quiet now, the heat lulling the birds. Only the squirrels were out now, chasing each other across the branches and dropping nuts that thudded against the hard ground. There was a splash as Elliot caught the first fish, which he strung along beside him, staking the stringer in the ground under a heavy stone.
“That’s how it’s done!” he said.
“Yeah.” I grinned and shook my head at his enthusiasm.
Once he had caught several more bluegills and I had the fire up to a roar, we each worked on cleaning and gutting the fish before spearing them on thin sticks and spitting them over the fire. We ate each one, peeling back the scaly skin and picking apart the meat from the bones until all that was left were the vestiges of skin and bone. We piled the carcasses up into a pile which I buried about a hundred yards from our camp. There were a few bluegills left over that I cut up and cooked, either to be eaten later or used as bait for bigger fish at a later point.
I rolled out my sleeping bag beside Elliot’s and we lay there watching the afternoon clouds rolling along the sky opposite the direction that the creek flowed. I read a paperback western that my grandpa always loved, one of the many Louis Lamour’s that he’d given me over the years. Elliot was only a few inches away, and for some reason my heart seemed to beat faster at the thought of him being near me. This feeling swept over me so suddenly, and when I looked over at him, he was dozing off of the food and the heat. His long black curls shifted each time he moved his head, which I had the urge to cup to my chest. I imagined what it felt like to run my fingers through that thick hair of his, and my thoughts began to enter a new frontier that they had never explored. I looked at Elliot in the newest light of adoration and knew that my love for him was growing beyond that platonic, brotherly love that we had always shared. Fear bubbled deep inside me, as I felt my sinful thoughts emerge; those thoughts of kissing Elliot that I had locked away for so long, finally coming out.
“You okay?” asked Elliot.
“Oh, uh, yeah.”
“You had me worried, just staring out like that,” he laughed.
“Sorry, just thinking, y’know.”
“About what?”
I looked at him, the thoughts of kissing him at the forefront of my mind.
“Just school and stuff, I guess.” He didn’t look like he believed me, a slight frown creasing his forehead and his eyebrows knitting together.
“You know that you can tell me the truth, right?” he said.
“I know, I’m sorry,” I said, “I just don’t know how to talk about this one.”
He laughed, which hurt at first, but then he said, “That’s okay, too. I’m always here for you though.”
That was the thing about Elliot that I didn’t have inside me, the universal ability to defuse my anxiety and make me feel like I’m floating. Maybe I am floating, I thought as I looked at those fluffy clouds.
We stayed there, laying a ways away from the creek but still able to hear the ebb and flow, the splashes of fish along the current.
I looked over and thought I caught Elliot looking at me with the same admiring look that I cast upon him when I thought he wasn’t looking. He threw a pebble at me.
“Hey!” I shouted with feigned indignance.
“Quit the staring,” he said. He tossed his hair over his shoulder and mirth filled his face, lighting the way from his full lips on up to his hazel eyes. In so many ways, I couldn’t help but stare, because he was more beautiful than any of the girls I ever found myself crushing on. I think he knew that too. He smirked at me.
“I’m gonna take a nap,” he said, rolling over so that he faced away from me. I blushed as I saw him twitch as he got comfortable. My thoughts were going back to that place that felt so wrong and right at the same time. Soon, I fell asleep too.
#
When I awoke, the sun had turned the golden color of sunset, and I heard rustling near our campsite that stirred my mind from sleep. I looked over to where I heard the noise coming from, about fifty yards away, and saw a doe and her two young fawns rummaging about for an early dinner. Few things are more naturally beautiful than a mother doe and her children shining in the gold and green of a summer sunset. I looked at Elliot and saw that he was watching them. We sat there in our silent awe, thankful to the universe for putting both of us there, together in that moment. Eventually, the small family wandered away, which only saddened me a small bit, because I knew it was the way of animals to wander toward what they need.
“I haven’t seen a fawn in a while,” said Elliot.
“Me neither,” I said, still staring at where the deer just were.
Elliot stood and began putting some more kindling and twigs on the embers of our fire from earlier in the day. I wasn’t hungry yet, but we both like having a fire going so that it doesn’t feel like we’re all alone in the dark woods. Somehow, fire gave us company as we watched the sparks fly towards oblivion. I watched him as he built the fire I created back up; there was something intimate between us, building fires for the other. I knew then what I denied for all the years I had known Elliot: I loved him beyond what we had been taught was acceptable.
I watched as he bent to blow on the flames, his back to me. I watched the muscles in his legs, his arms, his back, all twitching with the effort of feeding the fire. Watching him, I felt the fire burning inside me, and I wanted nothing more than for him to be close to me, closer than he’d ever been.
“I know I’ve got a nice ass, but y’ain’t gotta stare at it,” said Elliot. He looked over his shoulder at me, that same stupid smirk marrying him.
“In your dreams,” I said, turning so he couldn’t see my flushed face. Gotta stop this, I thought.
“Walker,” he said after a moment.
“Yeah?”
“What’s up with you?”
I turned toward him and saw the genuine concern on his face. He had a small pout to his lips, and I once again thought of them pressed against my own.
“It’s nothing.”
“No,” he said, “It’s not nothing.” He stepped towards me, reaching up for my shoulder, the same way I normally reached down to clasp his.
I looked at him for a moment.
“You can tell me what it is, man.”
“I can’t tell you,” I said.
Elliot looked at me a moment, first with anger behind his eyes, then a slight recognition. He pulled away slowly, but carefully, as if he wanted to keep his hand there. I stepped around him, towards the fire, and watched as the sky turned from burning orange down to the bruised color of dusk.
“I know,” he finally said.
“Know what?”
“What’s got you so fucked up.”
I spun. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Don’t talk to me like that. I just think I know what’s got you acting so weird.”
“Well, let’s hear it then.”
“You’ve got a crush on Sarah.”
I had to hold myself back from facepalming. I didn’t know how he could be so close, yet so far from the truth. I laughed.
“Nope, not even a little bit.”
He knitted his eyebrows together, deep in thought.
“Huh,” he said, “I could’ve sworn that’s what it was.” The slight tension fizzled out between us, as it always seemed to do. Even when we thought we hated each other at times.
We each lay back on top of our sleeping bags, staring at the stars and sparks rising among the lightning bugs. I remember on our first couple of camping trips, how we would catch them in jars and watch as their lights dimmed, before we finally let them free again. Is that what he’s doing to my heart? As he began to doze, I shifted my bag closer to his, just close enough to listen to his breath and try to imagine how it felt on my neck and ear lobe.
“Walker,” he whispered.
I didn’t think I actually heard him, so I held my breath, listening to my heartbeat faster.
“Mhmm?”
He moved towards me, dragging his sleeping bag until they were overlapping edges. He laid down close enough to me that we felt the warmth of each other. We’d slept in the same bed for years, so it was normal. That is until he put his head on my chest.
“Elliot?” I murmured.
“Call me Eli.”
I looked down at him and he raised his head, our noses almost touching. Without thought, it happened. We each leaned together for our first kiss. I cupped his cheek in my hand, and I deepened the kiss until it felt like I could never let go. He moved himself on top of me, and I wrapped my arms around his back, pulling him closer. Eventually, we stopped kissing and he just laid on top of me. We were both still catching our breath.
I looked at him a moment, and he looked at me, the same hysterical looks in our eyes. We started laughing and couldn’t stop, nearly crying from the love and the fear.
Eli held me tight, and I let him. My shoulder was soon wet with his tears.
“I’m sorry,” he sobbed.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. I rubbed his arm, massaging along to his shoulder blade.
After a little bit longer, we were both laying in each other’s arms, watching the fire glow alongside our warm bodies.
“Eli,” I said.
“I like the way that sounds.”
“Eli, what does all of this mean?”
“I dunno,” he said. He lifted his head to look at me and he planted a kiss on my lips.
“I guess we should keep it a secret, right?”
“Yeah…” he said. I could tell it hurt him.
“It’s for the best. At least for now.”
We stayed laying there like that before he finally moved back onto his own sleeping bag. I entwined my arms and legs with him, and it felt like all of the world melted away to reveal what life was really about. Suddenly, I didn’t worry at all about what the world thought about us, what our families would think. All that mattered was him.
Eli. I liked the way it sounded too.
The night gathered around us; the fire was the only thing giving our little world any light. I felt Eli shift next to me, pressing himself closer to me, his warmth feeding my internal fire.
I looked toward the night sky and thought of all the memories that we shared, the times when we were still young when Eli and I would race on our bikes down the street where Eli lived. He and his parents had this house in town that made it easy for us to get to anything across the small city limits. The bike rides through the summer heat to the shop that sold shaved ice, or to the boat launch where he and I would swim and fish and sizzle in the sun. My dad would take me to Eli’s house for a week at a time, my bike thrown in the bed of the farm truck; then, he would come to pick both of us up to stay at my house for the next week. And so, we alternated for damn near every week of every summer that we knew each other.
As I stared at the painted sky, the fire burning down to its barest coals, I saw how few stars there were. It seemed to me that there were never as many stars in the sky as the previous summers when we would lie on our backs and talk about the universe. We always had the naivety of the feeble young, but now it seemed we had added some sort of deep love.
I looked over at him again, the coals of the fire lighting his face, which was poking out of his sleeping bag just for air. Sleep had tightened its hold on him, and he let out the lightest snores. I leaned over towards him and kissed his forehead, my cool lips on his warmth. His hair smelled of the woodsmoke from lying next to the fire. I leaned back on my sleeping bag for a moment, before deciding to add some wood to the fire and stoked it until it was bright enough for me to read by. The guns and the cowboys and the horses, gallivanting to save the day alongside a few choice friends. I just wanted something to tell me that being in love with a man was okay, and I never knew if I would find it in a book. Eventually, I gave up on reading and laid my book down, choosing to look at Eli and think those nighttime thoughts. Is it wrong of me? I thought, it can’t be, it can’t. I rolled over, away from him, and continued my thoughts long into my dreams.
