Archive of Our Own ^beta

You up and left me for college and grad school thousands of miles away and now, like the prodigal son, you come back to the land of our fathers and forefathers and I don’t know what to do with myself anymore, Ted.

You told me that you wouldn’t leave me—that Albuquerque was only a couple of hours away and I could come up and visit you anytime while you were in college.

That ended up being a lie.

On my three on three off schedule, that would give us lots of free time to spend together. I told you this. You never understood how schedules worked in the law enforcement world, so you just nodded along and said, yeah sure, I get it. (You didn’t.)

But the little moments we stole together when you weren’t busy with your work study or your honors projects or that stint with the drama department you decided to do on impulse for only one semester, well, I loved every minute—every second—that we shared the same space and breathed the same air. (And swapped all kinds of bodily fluids even though we knew that it was risky.)

Me lying on your bed watching you seated at that dining room chair you picked up from someone’s curb, hunched over at your beat-up desk with all those dog-eared textbooks laid open on every inch of empty space in front of you. I loved those moments too, you know. I knew you were smart and handsome and charismatic and you’d go further in life than little ol’ Eddington could ever offer you.

And when that happened, I knew I had to let you go.

I didn’t think you’d come back.

You graduated with honors and told me you were going to grad school on the East Coast and I tried really, really hard not to cry. You kissed me on your shitty squeaky mattress in your apartment with five other roommates (who were either fine with us being together or were in denial that we weren’t just friends, but who cares about them). You laid your hand tenderly on my cheek and said that grad school was only two years—maybe even one year if you really hustled—and that you’d be back in Eddington when it was all done and we could be together again.

I kissed you back and said okay. I gripped your shirt sleeves so hard that I might’ve left marks on your skin. I could taste a bit of salt on the tip of my tongue. I didn’t know which one of us was crying.

You’d be gone for so long and you’d be so far away and I didn’t know how I could survive without seeing you and being with you and hearing your heartbeat when I fell asleep with your arms wrapped around me.

It ended up being three years too long.

You decided to apply for another master’s program (like the overachiever that you are) and I was frustrated with the long-distance and we fought over the phone the night before I was supposed to visit you. We yelled, I cursed you out, you called me selfish, I said that you didn’t care about us—about me.

Then you told me that we couldn’t be together because I was too much, too needy, too greedy. You couldn’t breathe. You needed space.

Maybe we shouldn’t see each other anymore, you said.

Then you hung up the phone and I never visited you and we never apologized and my life went on without you in Eddington.

But then you came back.

When you were in grad school, you told me that you missed the desert. It never leaves you, you said on the phone. It reminds me of you, Joe, you said so quietly that I could barely hear you from thousands of miles away. I miss you, you know. It gets lonely out here.

The dry heat that never bothered you (unlike the humid summers you were suffering through in grad school) and the cold, cold nights when we used to lie together underneath the Milky Way. We were so very young and stupid and I thought I was going to hell for fooling around with another boy.

We were teenagers then. Horny and foolish. Sneaking out of our parents’ homes late at night. The sheriff, my boss, could’ve caught us when he was out on patrol. The thrill and the desire made for a dangerous cocktail.

I picked you up in my old Ford Ranger and we drove all the way out to the middle of nowhere and we made a cozy nest out of old blankets in the back of my truck and we laid down and looked at the stars and the planets. You pointed out the constellations. But I only had eyes for you.

There was a meteor shower that night. Do you remember? You wanted to see it. I didn’t care about a damn meteor shower. I wanted to see you.

We passed a bottle of tequila back and forth. (You stole it from your dad’s stash). When we were buzzed enough, you slid your hand underneath my shirt and you turned to look at me and I grabbed your hair and I pulled your face towards me. I had no experience with boys (and barely any with girls) so I was sloppy and nervous. My hands couldn’t stop shaking. I whispered a secret to you, told you I was scared and that maybe I was going to hell for kissing a boy. You said you’d go to hell with me.

Do you remember that night? The first time we went to third base and hit a home run.

You touched me down there while you held me in your arms and you told me that everything would be okay. No one was going to hell because God wouldn’t condemn two people who cared about each other. Being gay isn’t a sin, you told me. But Sodom and Gomorrah, I started to say. You shut me up with a kiss and a painful (blissful) bite on my shoulder.

(You loved biting me and giving me hickeys. No one ever did that to me—for me. I never knew how to return the favor. I didn’t want to hurt you.)

That night, you made me cum so quickly and all you did was give me a handjob.

I laid there, my eyes wide open, staring into the night sky, the hundreds, thousands, millions of stars staring back at me, consuming me before the darkness started enveloping me. I saw God in Heaven in His infinite vastness before falling back to Earth—to you and me in your arms. You nuzzled my cheek and said you’d never leave me. That you wanted me. That maybe you loved me. And maybe we could be together for a while, if not forever. You confessed to me that this was your first time touching another boy.

Don’t go to Albuquerque, I whispered. Stay in Eddington with me.

You kissed my cheek, my ear, my neck, my forehead, and said okay, Sheriff Cross.

Don’t call me that, I said with a snort. I’m just a cadet.

Okay then, Officer Cross. Lieutenant Cross. Captain Cross. You said this while kissing a trail from my lips to my chest to my navel.

Now you’re just making fun of me.

Arrest me then, officer.

I’ll lock you up and make you mine and keep you here. (With me, in Eddington, forever.)

You don’t have to lock me up. I’ll stay with you. I promise.

You said this right before you swallowed me whole.

You lied to me for the first time that night. Did you know that?

I still remember it, even if you don’t.

And now you’re back. But you never told me that you were coming back.

A decade has gone by and then I see you at your father’s bar. I stop in the doorway and my heart skips a beat and I almost trip and stumble and I’m making a fool of myself like some damsel in distress. You’re busy reading a newspaper at the bar with a beer in your hand. When you finally look up, we stare at each other and I realize that I don’t know what to do with myself.

I came here for lunch. I’m not here for a reunion. I’m not ready for this. I don’t know if I want to see you again after so many years and so many miles and so many lonely nights without you by my side.

Why did you leave me and forget about me and are you still angry with me and I’m so sorry for being so full of want and need and loneliness. You said I was too clingy and we needed time apart. I said okay and then you left me and you never wrote back to me or told me your address or your phone number. You never even sent me an email. You said you’d come back to Eddington someday but I didn’t know if that was another one of your lies.

You called me one day and I almost didn’t recognize your voice but then you said you were seeing someone else (a woman) and I knew that it was over between us. You weren’t into men anymore, you confessed. You told me to move on and find a girl and settle down and forget about us because the world isn’t kind to men who love men. It’s for the best, you said. Then you hung up.

You’re sitting there at the bar, frozen in your seat, your bottle of beer halfway to your lips. You look at me. You aren’t smiling. You say nothing. Your eyes are dark and guarded.

We weren’t strangers way back when, but we’re strangers now and is it wrong if I tell you that I want to know you again like we knew each other when we were young and careless and horny and nothing else mattered.

I want to drown in you over and over again and never make it back to the surface alive. I want to grovel at your feet. (Please take me back. I’ll do anything to make it right.) I don’t want to be strangers anymore. I’m here if you want me again. I loved you, Ted. (I still love you.)

You put your beer down and you lick your lips and my name comes out of your mouth in a whisper and a choke.

And then I see the wedding band on your finger.