Authors: Megan Erickson
“I love you, but I gotta go. Bye, Jus.”
I heard a click but didn’t want to believe it. I yelled at the phone, screaming his name, asking the silence if he really loved me.
I sat and stared at my dark screen for half an hour. And all I could text back was,
I love you, too.
He didn’t answer.
I woke up clutching my phone on the couch. My teeth were fuzzy and my head whirled like I had a hangover. I blinked and my face felt tight, itchy, and swollen. I looked down at my body still in last night’s clothes and shoes, for God’s sake. I hadn’t changed or cleaned up, or even brushed my teeth.
Landry left, and I was a fucking mess.
I uncricked my neck and rose to a sitting position. I shook my head and gathered my bearings. Then I slipped off my shoes and stripped out of my muddy clothes. When I looked in the bathroom mirror, I barely recognized myself. Dark circles hung under my eyes, and I probably had a good dozen bug bites on my face. I looked like an acne-ridden teenager.
I scratched at a wicked bite on my nose and turned away, tempted to cover the mirror for the rest of the trip.
And I was going to finish this trip, I thought as I stepped into the shower. Even though my mom thought it was all about experimenting as a gay man, that was far and away not the intention of this trip. I’d never planned to make a confession, sleep with my best friend, and fall in love with him.
This trip was still about my dad. I still had his urn and some ashes and I swore on his grave I was going to fucking finish it.
Without Landry.
The thought tightened my throat but I held up my head because it was time to grow up. I couldn’t change the past, I couldn’t live saying
if only, if only
. That’s what Landry had said and he was right. But I could take responsibility for my future.
I braced my hands on the wall of the shower and let the water pelt my back. So the only benefit of Landry not being here was that I could use his water. And dammit, I was going to take advantage.
I stayed in the shower until the water ran cold, then dressed in a T-shirt and pair of track pants. I straightened up the RV, which had usually been Landry’s job. I pretended he’d be back to check over my handiwork so I took it seriously, rubbing the faded counter until it was sparkling, folding our—shit, just mine now—bedding and storing it in the overhead compartments.
As I cleaned up some errant popcorn under Landry’s—fuck, the passenger—seat, something silver came into my line of focus. I froze as my eyes settled on Landry’s laptop and sketchpad. I blinked and sank down onto the seat. He must have left them in his hurry to leave my asshole self.
I reached with tentative fingers and drew out the sketchpad first. He hadn’t shown me what he’d been working on, but he sketched at every spot. I leaned back and propped my feet on the dashboard as I flipped through. The first couple of pages were sketches of the view out of Sally’s windshield. Then there were a couple of me. My hands on the steering wheel. My face in laughter. I didn’t even know I looked like that. The way Landry drew me, I looked happy and free. I looked like I was where I belonged.
And then I reached pictures that were labeled along the top. September. October. November. Each month a sketch, and it took me a minute to realize he’d been replicating my dad’s calendar with his own drawings. I knew Landry. I knew he’d been drawing them for me.
Tears threatened but I held them back. I snapped the sketchpad shut and slipped it back into the basket beside my seat. I pinched the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger.
I didn’t know what picture he posted that my mom so disapproved of. I flipped open the laptop and turned it on. Then typed it the password he always used—
livetodraw
.
I took a deep breath and pulled up the blog on the Internet browser. The header was swirly and decorative but still masculine—
JusLan’s Road Trip for Charlie
ran across the top. Turns out he even created the hashtag #JusLan and encouraged blog visitors to tweet or post on Facebook about our travels. My cheeks ached and I realized it was because I was grinning so hard.
I scrolled down, reading Landry’s posts. When I reached the one from the B and B, my breath caught. I knew what picture my mom referred to now. I had held the camera out in front of us so I could get us both in the frame. Neither of us were facing the camera and I probably would have chalked it up as an outtake if I scanned the pictures quickly. But it was anything but. Landry looked at me, his mouth open in laughter and my eyes were on him, a small smile on my face. But my expression wasn’t just friendly. It was full of love and lust and any moron could take one look at that picture and know we were a couple.
It was the best picture I ever took. I fucking loved it.
Anger swirled through me again. But this time it was at my mom. Because how could she look at this picture and see anything but her son gazing at the love of his life? Who was she to condemn this because he had pierced ears and tattoos and was . . . a guy? If I ever became a parent, and my kid looked at someone like I was looking at Landry, I’d know they found their soul mate. And I’d be happy for them.
“Fuck. Her.” I spat at the screen and slammed it shut.
I needed something to do with my hands. My left fingers twitched, seeking the smooth leather of a baseball, but I needed to focus. I ripped out a blank page of Landry’s sketchbook, dug for a pencil, and scratched “To Do” at the top of the paper.
I tapped the pencil on my lips, scratched at the bite on my nose, and kept writing.
1. Finish trip
2. Keep blogging
3.
My pencil hovered over the period I’d just made. This was just a to-do list, an idea of how to get my life back on track. Or actually, to decide if I wanted to take my life
off
that track and take it in another direction. A new direction I didn’t look at with dread but where the future shone bright like the sun.
A direction with Landry.
I knew that track wouldn’t be easy. It’d be a roller coaster but it would be worth it. I’d already careened down that hill. I had to keep going.
So I kept writing.
3. Come out. Guns blazing. Like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
4. Get Landry back.
5. Figure out what the hell to do come September.
I looked at the paper. It was only five items. Five lines. But they were huge and life changing and completely dependent on me. No one else was helping me with this shit.
Which, really, was for the best anyway. Time for me to get my head out of my ass and do something for myself.
Numbers one and two weren’t too hard. I could do those. And I knew how. But three, four, and five? Yeah. No fucking clue. How did someone even come out? I didn’t remember Landry coming out. All of a sudden, he just
was
. And everyone knew.
And how to get Landry back? Yeah, that sucked. And that was actually a little dependent on someone else. He had to take me back. And after my asshat actions, that was looking less and less likely.
As for five? I knew now, with a strong-willed conviction, that I couldn’t work for my mom anymore. She probably wouldn’t want me to when I confirmed the truth. And I’d have been miserable doing it anyway. I wanted to find something that made me feel. Something I was passionate about.
Fuck it. One thing at a time.
I cut a small square of duct tape and stuck the piece of paper on the dashboard. I wanted my goals front and center. Sally would hold me accountable.
Then I scooted over to the driver’s side, set the GPS for the next stop in New York, and put Sally in drive.
***
July 30
Hey guys. Sorry about the last couple of blog posts. I’m not sure why the font was so tiny. Landry was so much better at this stuff than me. You don’t have to rub it in, you know! I’m sure he’s laughing about it right now. Sorry he had to bail, but I know I wouldn’t have gotten this far without him.
Camel’s Hump Mountain in Vermont was gorgeous. I’d never been there. Dad talked about it a couple of times, told me he’d take me.
So I beat him to it, I guess. I took him.
I have one more stop—the Portland Head Light lighthouse in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. It was one of my dad’s favorite places in the country, in his favorite state. I’ve been there once, when I was five. Wonder how much it will look the same now, at twenty-two.
Signing off until then.
11 Down
1 To Go
—J
Comments
Mia: Call me!
I checked my phone one more time.
Nothing.
After every stop, I texted Landry a picture of the urn in its place. He never texted back. I knew he received it because my text message window said “Read.”
But that’s okay. I kind of deserved it for acting like a shit most of the summer.
I sighed and stood on the passenger seat of Sally, then raised to my tiptoes, digging in the overhead cabinets for the Maine atlas. I knew it was in there, and I wanted to check on my dad’s notes. I pulled down a couple that were shoved at the back and flopped onto my butt in the seat. Pennsylvania? Nope. South Carolina? Nope.
And then there it was on the bottom of the stack. Maine. The atlas was the most worn-out of all of them, because my dad visited Maine all the time.
My next stop was the Portland Head Light—a lighthouse in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. I flipped through the atlas, humming Coheed and Cambria to myself, hearing Landry’s voice like a ghost backup singer.
I turned to the page that detailed the lighthouse’s location and a lined yellow piece of tablet paper slid from its home in the binding and fluttered to the floor.
I recognized my father’s scrawl right away—his heavy, all-caps handwriting. I’d tried to tell him that meant
yelling
in text-speak but he told me he was yelling when he wrote. I bent and picked up the piece of paper, then caught my breath at the site of my name at the top.
It wasn’t a letter, but a to-do list of sorts, with random notes written scattered all over the paper in random angles. But this note was for me. About me. And my eyes eagerly scanned the page, soaking in this private last declaration of sorts.
JUSTIN
The words blurred as I realized my hand was shaking, the paper rustling. I laid it down on my knee and kept reading.
TELL HIM TO BE HONEST. TELL HIM TO TRUST HIS OWN FOCUS. AND MOST OF ALL, THAT YOU LOVE HIM.
“Focus” was written darker than everything else on the page, like he had traced the letters over and over again with the pencil lead.
And my heart lodged in my throat.
He knew.
I had to believe that my father had known. Because what else would he have been referring to? And it didn’t matter to my dad. He wanted me to be happy. He must have planned to talk to me and written these notes to himself. When? I turned the paper over, like he’d thrown me a bone and placed a date somewhere, but no such luck. I stared at those dark words, imprinting them in my mind.
Fuck, was I really crying again? I never cried and this summer was like one huge water park. I swiped at my face, tasting the salty tears as they ran down my lips and spread into the seam of my mouth. I licked them away and took a deep breath.
He would have accepted me. He would have helped me get out from under my mom’s rule.
My life could have been different.
I stared sightlessly out the windshield. It still could be different. And the gears shifted in my head, like I turned on the all-wheel drive and I knew the steps I needed to take. To get Landry back. To take control of my life.
“I love you, Dad,” I whispered out the windshield.
He didn’t have to answer this time. I knew.
***
I opened up Landry’s laptop to search for tattoo shops in the area. I read a couple of reviews, but ultimately said “Fuck it.” I wanted something really simple, so unless they jabbed me with a dirty needle, I figured I was safe.
While browsing, a notification popped up, announcing a new e-mail in Landry’s inbox. My finger hovered over it. I shouldn’t. I really shouldn’t look but it was right there and I was curious so . . . I clicked it.
And as I started reading, my body flushed hot.
It was an e-mail to Landry from Lamar Crabtree—a name I recognized as a friend of my father’s. He worked as a freelance sports photographer. I scrolled down to the bottom—to the first e-mail in the chain.
Landry,
Thanks for letting me know about the blog. I’m happy you and Justin are honoring Charlie. He was a great photographer and above that, a great friend and a good guy.
Looking through the photos . . . you said Justin took these? The composition is great. Is that what he wants to do? Photography? Does he have any sort of online portfolio?
Let me know and best of luck to you two.
L.C.
***
Mr. Crabtree,
Hey, thanks so much for the well-wishes. Justin is doing well and we’re having a great time traveling the country. I bet Charlie is watching us and cracking up.
Justin does have an online portfolio, and I included the link at the bottom of this e-mail. He’s really talented, as you can tell.
Thanks, and let us know what you think.
L
***
Landry,
Thanks for that link and WOW. I wanted to see how he did with subjects in action, not just landscapes. Does he have an idea on what he’d like to do in the fall? Because I have to say, I’ve been looking for an assistant. I’ve been reviewing applications and I just don’t see that natural talent I’m looking for. And Justin has it. It’s in his blood anyway, right?
Would you mind passing along my information to him? I’d love to talk to him. I couldn’t pay much, but enough to live on. He’d only have to eat ramen a couple days a week.
Thanks and I hope to hear from him soon,
L.C.
***
My eyes stared at the words on the screen, wondering if I was imagining this whole thing. Wondering if I stared long enough, the words would change into something more believable.
This didn’t happen to me. The only thing in my life that fell into my lap that mattered was Landry. Everything else I had to fight tooth and nail for.
It’s in his blood.
I read the words over and over again. I didn’t know how much of that was true, if I had even an ounce of the talent my father had.
I stared at my camera on the dashboard. The worn dials and frayed strap. I reached out and grasped it with my hand, loving how my fingers fit right into the grooves where my father’s fingers had gripped it. I closed my eyes, and the future came into focus behind my closed eyelids.
A future with a better life. A life for me. And a life that included Landry.
If he took me back.
I snapped my eyes open and held the camera out in front of me, the lens facing my face, and I clicked the shutter in what I hoped was a self-portrait of determination.
I didn’t look at the back of the screen. I knew I captured it.
I needed to trust my focus.
***
My favorite part of Maine was no billboards. For real. The highways were lined with endless stretches of beautiful greenery and landscape. No massive metal structures with fast food advertisements or insurance agency ads.
The sign on the door of Ames’s Tattoos proclaimed the tattoo shop open, and the
O
was a colorful sugar skull, flowers for eyes and a heart for a nose above white skeletal teeth.
The guy behind the counter raised his head over the computer, and I didn’t mean to stare, but his eyes were purple, eyelids lined in thick black eyeliner. His hair was dyed black and was slicked straight up about two inches from his head. And he was gorgeous—high cheekbones and full lips, which stretched into a smile as I walked closer.
I swallowed and stopped at the counter.
I could objectively say he was one of the most attractive men I’d ever seen.
But he was no Landry.
“How can I help you?” A flash of silver caught my eye and I focused on the labret piercing—a stud above his chin.
“I’d like to get a tattoo. Are there any appointments available today?”
He turned and yelled behind him. “Hey, Ames, you got time this afternoon?”
A petite woman with straight black hair and Asian features walked into the lobby of the shop from a back room, sipping on the straw of a pink smoothie.
She wore a flowy white top, black leggings, and leopard-print shoes. A red flower tucked behind her ear matched her red lipstick. Her gaze started at my head, traveled down my white T-shirt to my dusty shorts and Chucks, and then back up to my face. She set her smoothie on the counter next to Smiley Hot Receptionist.
Without taking her eyes off of me, she said, “Sure, Jay. I got time for a blank canvas.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Blank canvas?”
Another sweep of my body. “Yep, tattoo virgin.”
I frowned. “How do you know that? I could have a whole fucking eagle on my back or something.”
She laughed. Threw back her head and cackled like I was the funniest person ever. Then she eyed me. “And do you?”
I huffed in the back of my throat. “No. But I could.”
She blew out another laugh and then reached out her hand. “I’m Ames.”
“Justin.”
“So, what would you like to get?”
I held out my arm, palm up, and rubbed the spot on the underside of my forearm where I wanted to get the tattoo. I hesitated but figured that of anyone, a tattoo artist would be one of the least judgmental people. Plus, fuck it. This was all going public soon. “I want an equal sign here.” I glanced up at her, but her eyes were on my index finger where I rubbed my forearm. “Just black.”
Her eyes rose slowly this time and she tilted her head to the side, eyeing me. Finally those red lips parted. “That all, Justin?”
I nodded.
A soft smile, then she jerked her head behind her and turned around. “Follow me.”
When I looked back at Jay, he still smiled. I returned it. He winked. I didn’t return that.
We discussed the size and she printed out an equal sign from her computer so she had the correct distance between the lines and straight, even edges. Then she shaved my arm, even though I didn’t see any hair there, and transferred the image onto my skin. I stared at the blurry purple lines of the transfer as she tinkered beside me, snapping gloves, gathering ink.
She wheeled beside me, and the smell of latex, ink, and metal wafted under my nostrils. “You ready?”
I almost started laughing. Was I ready? What a loaded fucking question. Was I ready to change the course of my life? Throw everything out the fucking window and come clean? Be true to myself? This was permanent. The Internet was permanent.
But this is what I wanted. I wanted a permanent life as myself. Sure, I wanted Landry back, but even if he didn’t take me, the truth had to come out. I couldn’t go back to before. No matter how hard this was. No matter how scared I was.
I licked my lips and raised my head. Her perfectly sculpted eyebrows were furrowed and a frown marred her face.
I smiled and watched as her lips tilted up to match mine.
“I’m so fucking ready.”
Her smile beamed. “Then here we go.”
The buzzing filled my ears like a swarm of angry bees. I didn’t tense until the first dip of her needle into my sensitive flesh. I gritted my teeth as she outlined the two rectangles. The ink pooled on my skin and she wiped it away, her hands steady. It was a simple tattoo, which made it all the more important she didn’t fuck it up. Couldn’t cover the mistakes with a flower or something.
She smelled good, like coconuts, but the smell wasn’t Landry’s, and that’s what I craved right now. But this was taking me one step closer to burying my nose in his neck and wrapping him in my arms. So I had to focus.
Before long, the pain faded in the background of my brain and a fuzzy feeling took over, like my body was filled with cotton. She glanced up at me as she dipped the needle in her little vial of ink and smiled. “The endorphins are kicking in.”
“What?” My voice was groggy and slow, like I was drunk.
She bent back to her task and began circling the needle to fill in the rectangles. “The endorphins. Make you feel a little drugged, huh?”
I shook my head. “Yeah, damn, that feels weird, like I could fall asleep.”
She laughed and looked pointedly at her arm—covered in tattoos. “I slept like a baby after every session of this sleeve.”
I stared at the swirls of color on her arm. Flowers and parasols and a geisha beckoning to me with a red-lipped smile.
My phone rang in my pocket. I pulled it out and stared at Mia’s name. I’d been avoiding her calls. And texts. And that was rude, but I hadn’t been ready to talk to anyone yet. Now with the endorphins rushing through my system, I felt a little giddy. So I answered her call.
“Miiiiiiiaaaaa,” I sang into the receiver.
There was a growl on the other end. “Don’t you dare ‘Mia’ me, Justin. Don’t you dare! Why haven’t you been answering your phone? I freaked out when I saw Landry wasn’t posting on the blog.”
I stared at the top of Ames’s dark head as she bent over my arm. “Yeah, I sort of fucked up.”
When I finished telling her about my fight with Landry, there was a sigh on the other end. And when she spoke again, her voice was softer. “Oh Justin.”
“But I’m fixing it!” I insisted. “Or, I’m going to try my best.”
There was a pause, then. “What’s that noise?”
I glanced at the ink on my arm. Ames was filling in the second rectangle. “Um.”
“It’s a buzzing sound.”
“Um.”
“Oh my God, are you getting a tattoo?”
“What are you, a ninja? How the hell can you tell that over the phone?”
“I don’t know!” she cried. “It was a guess but now I know, and what the hell?”
I took a deep breath. “I’m getting an equal sign. On my arm.”
Another pause. A long one. “Justin.”
Ames pulled the needle away from my skin and eyed the tattoo. Into the phone, I said, “Hey, I gotta go, Mia.”
“Jus—”
“Watch the blog for a post later.”
And then I hung up.
Ames turned off the machine so the buzzing stopped. My ears rang a little as they adjusted to the quiet. She wiped the tattoo with the stained paper towel in her hand, then squeezed a bottle of liquid on it, wiping it down with a clean towel. She took a small bit of salve and rubbed it over the area. “Okay.” She leaned back casually, as if she hadn’t heard me spill my guts to Mia on the phone. “All done. How is it?”