kiss, and I was back in my car making the drive back to EC North. I left the radio off as I headed toward my condo. There was enough noise inside my head without me adding to the chaos by layering music on top of it.
I had always had trouble sleeping, so even though the busy day had left me feeling exhausted, I still lay in bed for hours, unable to shut off my mind. Eventually, I drifted into a restless slumber, which was par for the course as far as my sleep pattern went. Given the too little amount of rest, I should have been grumpy in the morning. But I wasn’t.
I woke up with Micah’s smile in my mind. It wasn’t his public smile, the one he shared with colleagues or clients. No, it was that soft, tender smile that made his eyes crinkle and my heart ache. In that moment, I knew that I would stick to my agreement to see where things could go with Micah. I simply didn’t have the strength to walk away from the opportunity to see him smile at me that way again.
My morning routine went by on autopilot. Shower, shave, clothes, two bowls of cereal, and I was at the door with my keys in my hand. There was a full-length mirror hanging by my front door, something my mother had bought when I moved in under the theory that it would create an optional illusion of additional space. I walked past that mirror at least twice a day, coming and going from my condo. But that morning I stopped instead of walking by, and I took a careful look at myself.
Thick, chestnut-brown hair, finger length on top, slightly shorter on the sides and back, styled in a fairly typical, traditional cut. Brown eyes, a straight nose, full lips, and a prominent jaw line. And that topped off broad shoulders, a muscular chest, narrow waist, and strong legs.
People had told me that I was handsome my entire life, and I didn’t disagree. I had enough problems to put a therapist’s kid through college, but body dysmorphia wasn’t one of them. I knew that I looked good on the outside. It was the clusterfuck going on inside my head that was on its way to giving me an ulcer.
I knew that I needed to deal with my issues, that I needed to make a decision about how I was going to live my life and stick with it, that I needed to find some way to feel as happy and content as my brother seemed to be. That thought had me closing my eyes and shaking my head.
My parents were wrong about gay people being lonely or depressed or rejected from society. Well, at least they were wrong about my brother, because Noah was none of those things. And his gay friends didn’t seem to have those types of problems either. For that matter, neither did Micah Trains. He was confident, well respected professionally, and I had heard him talk about various friends in passing during the time I had spent with him.
I wanted to know how they did it. How they managed to avoid the curse that I had always believed to be part and parcel of the gay lifestyle. Hell, I had never admitted to anyone that I was gay, let alone acted on it, and the curse seemed to be alive and kicking within me.
The obvious way to get an answer to my question was to ask my brother. But I didn’t have the energy to get ridiculed by Noah once again, and there was no doubt in my mind that that would be the inevitable consequence of going to him for advice. And it wasn’t like I could ask Micah, because that question would highlight for him exactly how clueless, inexperienced, and messed up I was. No, I would have to figure it out on my own.
T HE good thing about being swamped at work was that it didn’t leave any room for me to focus on my personal issues. Even though I was drowning in contract negotiations and deal closings, my brain felt like it was finally able to rest. Pretty pathetic, isn’t it? Believe me, you aren’t thinking anything different from what I had already realized about myself. I just didn’t know how to fix it. Then, around midmorning, I succeeded in making things worse.
Call the
I had always had trouble sleeping, so even though the busy day had left me feeling exhausted, I still lay in bed for hours, unable to shut off my mind. Eventually, I drifted into a restless slumber, which was par for the course as far as my sleep pattern went. Given the too little amount of rest, I should have been grumpy in the morning. But I wasn’t.
I woke up with Micah’s smile in my mind. It wasn’t his public smile, the one he shared with colleagues or clients. No, it was that soft, tender smile that made his eyes crinkle and my heart ache. In that moment, I knew that I would stick to my agreement to see where things could go with Micah. I simply didn’t have the strength to walk away from the opportunity to see him smile at me that way again.
My morning routine went by on autopilot. Shower, shave, clothes, two bowls of cereal, and I was at the door with my keys in my hand. There was a full-length mirror hanging by my front door, something my mother had bought when I moved in under the theory that it would create an optional illusion of additional space. I walked past that mirror at least twice a day, coming and going from my condo. But that morning I stopped instead of walking by, and I took a careful look at myself.
Thick, chestnut-brown hair, finger length on top, slightly shorter on the sides and back, styled in a fairly typical, traditional cut. Brown eyes, a straight nose, full lips, and a prominent jaw line. And that topped off broad shoulders, a muscular chest, narrow waist, and strong legs.
People had told me that I was handsome my entire life, and I didn’t disagree. I had enough problems to put a therapist’s kid through college, but body dysmorphia wasn’t one of them. I knew that I looked good on the outside. It was the clusterfuck going on inside my head that was on its way to giving me an ulcer.
I knew that I needed to deal with my issues, that I needed to make a decision about how I was going to live my life and stick with it, that I needed to find some way to feel as happy and content as my brother seemed to be. That thought had me closing my eyes and shaking my head.
My parents were wrong about gay people being lonely or depressed or rejected from society. Well, at least they were wrong about my brother, because Noah was none of those things. And his gay friends didn’t seem to have those types of problems either. For that matter, neither did Micah Trains. He was confident, well respected professionally, and I had heard him talk about various friends in passing during the time I had spent with him.
I wanted to know how they did it. How they managed to avoid the curse that I had always believed to be part and parcel of the gay lifestyle. Hell, I had never admitted to anyone that I was gay, let alone acted on it, and the curse seemed to be alive and kicking within me.
The obvious way to get an answer to my question was to ask my brother. But I didn’t have the energy to get ridiculed by Noah once again, and there was no doubt in my mind that that would be the inevitable consequence of going to him for advice. And it wasn’t like I could ask Micah, because that question would highlight for him exactly how clueless, inexperienced, and messed up I was. No, I would have to figure it out on my own.
T HE good thing about being swamped at work was that it didn’t leave any room for me to focus on my personal issues. Even though I was drowning in contract negotiations and deal closings, my brain felt like it was finally able to rest. Pretty pathetic, isn’t it? Believe me, you aren’t thinking anything different from what I had already realized about myself. I just didn’t know how to fix it. Then, around midmorning, I succeeded in making things worse.
Call the
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