Back at the farmhouse, Zach thinks hard about what he wants. The summer has gone by so quickly and so much has happened, leaving much on his mind. He never dreamed he could be so happy. Shane did that, this place did. He clutches his heart and decides that one day soon he will ask Shane the question that has been on his mind. When he hears the answer, that's when everything will be perfect.
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A car passes on the road just out of view. Zach was once so nervous about being here with Shane but he is confident they won't be seen here. Today feels different somehow and his desires seem to well up from deeper inside him than ever before. As he touches Shane's face, cradling his jaw in his palm, the boy seems to hum with delight.
Despite the security he feels while he's with Shane, his fingers tremble with excitement and nerves. He decides it's a feeling he's never experienced for himself until now. Longing to know if what is in his mind matches what is in the mind of the boy in front of him is matched by the fear that maybe...it doesn't.
He has to know. And now feels right. His whole body is prepared, no matter the answer. At least, everything but his voice.
"Shane?" His throat shakes hoarsely as the culmination of his thoughts transforms into words.
Without noticing the tremor in his touch, Shane takes Zach's hand from his face to rest a kiss on his palm and wrist. Then he settles both of their hands on his bare chest and asks, "Yeah?"
Zach looks down at their interlacing fingers, at Shane's torso rising and falling calmly with each breath. "Why..." He stops and begins again, "Why do you think it is...that you've kissed every one of your friends?"
It's such an honest question; Shane knows this. He could never take offense but still says, "When you say it like that it sounds a bit weird, huh?"
Zach stares intently, waiting for his answer.
"Because...I always wanted to, I guess. That's all."
Zach knows he needs to be more specific. "And every single one of them has rejected you but remained your friend. So why do you keep doing it? What were- what... are you looking for when you do that?"
Shane answers immediately, as though the question is a simple one. "Well, for the one who doesn't turn me down, of course."
Of course? It truly is that simple. Zach tries convincing himself of this. But that isn't what he wanted Shane to say. And somehow that simple phrase changes everything. Shane's words seem to cut short the moment like a cork in a bottle. The waterfall inside him has been reduced to a faucet turned tightly closed by Shane's hand. His body, the one he thought was prepared either way, feels numb and limp. He wonders if his arms could hold him up if he were to attempt to rise. But mostly, it's his heart that takes the biggest hit.
Ask him again! Be more direct, you dummy! His head fights back, but no, it's done. And the boy before him doesn't even realize that his heart was just torn to pieces in front of him by his own thoughtless hands.
As if grabbing an escape rope, he somehow halts the last ounce of his courage from fleeing his body and he asks with a trembling voice, "Shane?"
Shane looks at him properly now, realizing there more going on behind those suddenly moist and unsure eyes. He sits up, moving Zach onto his lap with hands tensed behind the boy's back, holding the quivering boy tightly. He observes Zach with confusion as he searches his face and brings a hand up to hover above the source of the unshed tears, scared to touch the fragile thing in front of him. He gives up, pulling the boy closer instead. "Yeah?"
Zach doesn't want to ask anymore. He can't do it but he has to. He has to.
"Do you love me?"
Shane realizes now that he must think carefully and answer honestly. It's not as though he had never asked himself the same question, but things between him and Zach seemed so perfect as they were that he always pushed the thought away, not wanting to complicate his feelings with loaded words and worldly labels.
After a moment, he replies, "Yeah...I mean..." His heart skips a beat at the serious look on the face of the boy who means so much to him. "What is love, ya know?" He chuckles and rubs his hands along Zach's back, attempting to lighten the mood, turn it all into something humorous and within his control. "I feel like we've gotten to that stage. Am I wrong?" He brings a thumb along Zach's cheek. "Is that the sort of thing that needs to be discovered out loud?" His mind becomes distracted as he sees the boy's eyes growing more and more distant.
Zach shakes his head. "I don't know, either. Do you think...we're together like this, that this summer happened only because I didn't turn you away like the others? Because...you and I are different from them?"
Shane understands where this is going and he argues back, "Isn't that okay, though? Isn't that normal," struggling to find the right words, "how it usually works?"
Zach's tears are falling now and he is more unsure than he has been in his life. "I don't know!" he insists, bringing a desperate hand forward as if the space between them holds the answer he seeks. "If it is, then shouldn't I feel more at ease with your answer?"
"What, with the friends thing? Is it because I said something stupid? I take it back! I didn't mean what you think I meant."
"How do you know?" Zach's tears are halted now, apparently done with their outburst. He isn't sure which is more shocking, the tears starting, or how quickly they stopped. "How do you know that if someone else comes along who doesn't refuse you, you won't like them more than you like me?" He wipes his eyes in aggravation of his own words. He knows how foolish he must sound but his concerns are all-consuming. "How do I know whether or not there's someone out there who I'd like to pursue just like you did me?"
Didn't we pursue each other? "Is there someone else?" His heart falls.
"No," Zach corrects calmly, wiping his eyes. "I've never kept a proper friend, let alone someone more. You've probably learned, I'm a pathetic homebody who's never even tried getting a girlfriend."
It's unlike Zach to talk this way, and Shane doesn't know how to respond.
"I...don't understand." He releases his grip behind the boy's back and takes Zach's hand, pulling it down and entrapping his fingers under his in the grass, willing him not to do what he is about to do. Telling him not to. Begging him. He stares hard at that hand, everything riding on it. And when Zach pulls his fingers away from his weak prison, he knows it is already done.
"I have to go back to school next week, so I'll be leaving anyway. And I think..."
Shane turns away, feeling betrayed now, hurt, distracted, everything he hates. He cannot face the boy he spent so many hours, so many days staring at so insistently until a few short moments ago.
"I think we should go our separate ways, maybe reflect on all this."
Reflect? Shane tries to understand the meaning of the words Zach is saying in this context. Why are you being so formal, so uptight, now, after everything? He thinks he nods in agreement but isn't sure. He has no control over his body and feels like his insides have been replaced by a giant boulder to weigh him down.
Shane has experienced rejection time and time again, but this is something completely different. He realizes now that he never did expect a yes from anyone in the past. All his friends? Naw. He was foolish and hopeful but he knew that was all they were and ever would be: friends. He couldn't just give up on trying, but deep down he always suspected.
Still, with Zach? He really believed...no, he wanted to be accepted. And he assumed he had been.
Zach is standing now, patting off the grass from his pants.
So is that it? Am I someone so trivial I can be patted off like a piece of dirt? He follows wordlessly as they make their way back to the house. Zach immediately heads into his room and packs his few belongings.
You're leaving now? Stay. At least till tomorrow. You can't catch the bus this afternoon; where will you sleep tonight? Please answer me. He can't seem to find his voice or move his lips to ask.
"I'll...stop back by in the morning to say goodbye to Granny and thank her. And Maddie, of course."
When did he get there in front of me? Shane wonders. Then Zach is reaching for him and takes his hand into a firm shake. A handshake? Why? What is that? This morning we were kissing and now you won't even hug me goodbye? You're not leaving me anything, an address? A contact? Nothing? Why won't you answer? Please answer.
"Goodbye...Shane." And he leaves.
Don't use my name as your punctuation. You always start your sentences with my name, not end them.
Attempting to reign in his emotions, trying frantically to fix whatever it is that suddenly feels broken inside his head, he finally raises his eyes and opens his mouth to reply.
He's gone...