STAYING OR GOING: CHAPTER ONE

JUSTIN:

I just couldn’t stay there anymore. I know that Melanie thinks that Brian and I need time and counseling to work our relationship out, but I’m just not sure it’s worth it anymore. I know that you- and everyone else- are probably wondering how Brian and I arrived at this point. Sometimes I wonder that too. I mean, one day we were fine and then it was like we just… just couldn’t be around each other. Between work and family and his friend, Brian and I just keep running from each other. I’ve been trying to tell him about the job offer I got for weeks, and every time I get up the courage to tell him, Michael calls or work interrupts for both of us. But if I’m being honest, mostly it’s Michael.

I thought that he and I had worked all of that out years before. I mean Rage took off like a shot. Although it was based on mine and Brian’s public life together, people seemed to want to read about it. Thankfully, the more private matters between Brian and I never made it to print. Not saying that Michael didn’t try to slip it in there time and again, because he did.

But the clause I put in the contract between us gave me equal veto power, which I used by refusing to draw the scenario. Sure it resulted in plenty of fights, where he tried to involve Brian, and stalemates when Brian would advise him that he didn’t have a say in the comic, but it didn’t change the fact that there were some things that people- including Michael- didn’t need to know. The real problems really began when I began spending more time out of town and less time being accessible for Rage, resulting in only four issues per year being produced. Because of this new job offer, depending on if I take it or not, my part in Rage may have to be stopped altogether. But then again, it may be anyway.

I’ve decided against going to the loft and make the half hour trip out to the house instead. The loft holds too many memories of the things I need to get away from right now. It holds secrets, which continually haunt me. It’s a place of misconceptions and misunderstandings; the land of constant interruption; the land of make believe; the life of grin and bear it or fake it until you make it; a life separate than what Brian and I have spent years trying to build, a life that existed before there was ever an us, and a place that will still exist if I am gone. But the house is ours.

It’s where he proposed. It's where we decided to design the life we want. Here is where we shared our hopes and dreams for ourselves. This house represents the commitment we made in front of a lawyer, signing paper after paper, joining our lives after Stockwell. It represents us.

As I walk into the great room, the place where he asked me to go to Vermont, as an outward show of what we’d already done, I remember the day like it was yesterday- the day I told him I would marry him. It was probably the second happiest day of my life that I could remember. The first, we don’t talk about anymore. We told everyone that we were going to New York for a few meetings, which we did, but flew to Vermont directly from JFK as soon as Brian finished up. The Eagle Inn was a quaint little Bed and Breakfast run by Daryl and Stephen Fuller.

I remember Brian had joked with them about being the only two queens who didn’t retire to Palm Springs, but Daryl loved the cold and so they stayed. It didn’t occur to me until that moment that Brian had known the pair for a long time. It turned out that Daryl was one of Brian’s first major clients, back when he had just started out at Ryder Advertising Agency and they had never lost contact, even when Daryl had sold his car motor corporation. Being there with Brian in the company of Stephen and Daryl was a magical time. The older couple even acted as witnesses to mine and Brian’s legal union within the state.

I wish we could return to that short-lived era of peace in our lives, where it was just the two of us, away from everyone and everything that would interfere with what we wanted.

After starting the fire, I take a seat directly across from it, hoping it will warm me from the inside as well as outside. The courtroom drama was not where I would ever have predicted Brian and I being that long ago day when I said yes. It was surprising when Melanie ordered us to attend counseling. Hell it was a surprise to see her on the bench in Pittsburgh period. Not because she wasn’t intelligent enough to be there, but because when she left Lindsay, she said that she wouldn’t be caught dead in this town again.

Since their split, Lindsay had been flitting from place to place, living the life of a socialite. Her new husband, Harrison, makes sure that Lindsay has everything she wants as long as she stays far away from Brian. Her obsession with Brian when they first met almost turned him away, much like it almost had Mel. It was Melanie that leveled with Harrison about what Lindsay’s fascination with Brian really was. So because he wanted her, he wooed her and eventually won Lindsay over.

I was surprised that Mel was so willing to let her go. After all, Mel had fought for Lindsay's love, as hard as I did for Brian's. But she had confided in me that it wasn’t working, and that Lindsay had cheated with a man again. So in her mind, the best way to love Lindsay was to let her go. I admired Mel for that, but I couldn’t be so fucking forgiving.

And yet, here I am sitting by myself in the unenviable position of having to make a similar decision. Just goes to show that one should never say what they wouldn’t do when faced with a situation. I love Brian… I really do. But I don’t like him very much right now, and I’m tired.

I’m tired of the best friend being put before me; tired of the sly innuendoes and putdowns; tired of being afraid to fight back because I would be making Brian choose between me and someone who he has a long and varied history with. But it’s also because I love Brian that I can’t ask him to choose… And honestly, he shouldn’t have to. Michael has done everything in his power to separate Brian and I. It hadn’t worked for many years, so one would think Michael would have given up by now, right?

No, the tenacious little bastard just steps back, and regroup. Then he discovers new ways to drive the wedge between my husband and me. The sad thing is that I can’t even put this ball firmly in Michael’s court, because Brian made the choice to follow Michael’s edicts. And so I’ve made the choice to stop fighting them.

My phone is buzzing again, and I refuse to answer it. I don’t want to talk to Brian right now. There’s nothing that we haven’t already said to each other that needs to be stated again. He knows how I feel and it still doesn’t seem to matter, so why bother beating the dead horse? Mel ordered us to counseling so I’ll adhere to going, but it doesn’t mean that I have to participate when I do.

I don’t believe in exercises of futility, and this is apparently becoming one. After the phone buzzes for the umpteenth time I finally look at the screen. I can’t help the eye roll as I look at the caller with the number sixteen beside it. Against my better judgement, I answer. “What do you want, Michael?”

“I want to speak to Brian. Pass him the phone.”

“So let me get this straight… you called my phone to speak to him?”

“Well duh...Yeah.”

“And you find nothing wrong with this?”

“Look, Justin, just give him the fucking phone!”

“Sure,” I say, just before hanging up.

Of course he doesn’t take the hint and stop calling, even when I don’t answer the next several calls. The twentieth time in a row that my phone buzzes, I answer without looking at the screen. “Michael, go fuck yourself and stop ringing my damn phone! Or better yet, go home and try to fix your marriage since you’ve already done enough damage to ruin mine.”

The silence on the phone is deafening, until I hear the slight wheezing from the deviated septum that I know so well.

“Is that what you think, Justin? That our marriage is ruined?”

I swallow hard before asking, “Why are you calling?”

“I was wondering where you were. I arrived back here a little while ago, and you’re still not here. Where are you?”

“I’m at home.” The words pass my lips, before I have a chance to stop them. I didn’t mean to tell him. I don’t want to see him right now; not when I feel so… so… “I’m at the house, Brian. And I would appreciate it if you don’t come here right now.  I need some space.”

He’s quiet, as he often is when he has to digest something I’ve said. “Is that what we really need right now, Justin? Space? I think there is enough space between us even when we occupy the same room.”

“Then you won’t mind staying away then, will you?” I couldn’t help the sneer that entered my voice just then. He just makes me so fucking angry. I guess I do the same to him.

“Look, I just called to tell you that Alex would like to meet with us tonight at the Penn. He’ll be there at seven. Hopefully you will be, too.”

He leaves that hanging in the air as he hangs up. Why? Why does Alex want to meet us there and why that particular hotel?  We haven’t been there since… No, I won’t think about that. I won’t discuss it.

I won’t let it throw me into a panic attack. That part of my life is over; I won’t let it rule me again! I made so many fucked up decisions during that time and all because of… NO! I won’t think about it, won’t discuss it, won’t be ruled by the things I still can’t remember, or the things that Brian wishes he could forget.

It’s not the sum of who we were, who we became or who we are now.

I get up, crossing over to the bar and pour myself some Maker’s Mark. I always find that it calms me when I’m facing something that I don’t want to. Well this and Brian, but my husband isn’t here so… One drink becomes two and then three, four and five but it’s still not helping. Although I’m not nearly drunk enough, I still know that I can’t drive. As soon as I pick up my phone to call the car service, the phone buzzes in my hand again. I open the text message.

Hey Baby, I just wanted to check on you. I know today hasn’t been easy… Well, not for any of us really. Drewsie and I are barely speaking, and I know that he’s ready to walk. I don’t know what I can do to stop this. But maybe Mel’s idea will give us a chance. Maybe it will give ALL OF US a chance to fix what’s broken. I hope you give Brian a chance… There is so much more to this than you know and that I can tell you. Fight for what you want for a change, Justin. Well that’s all I wanted to tell you.

Luv Ya, Em.

I read the message a few times, allowing my semi-inebriated brain to take in the words and process them. Had this been seven years ago, hell even twelve years ago, my answer to what I want would have been simple. It was Brian, it had always been Brian and it will always be Brian. But things change. I’m not the clueless young man they all thought me to be anymore. I’m a man, full grown with aspirations more than just to be with Brian; to be fucked by Brian; to be loved by Brian. Sometimes love- such as it is- just isn’t enough.