Chapter 13

“I don’t understand,” Marc repeated. “How do I get back to the uh… the function thing?” He tapped another button and quickly pulled back as a flurry of animation happened on the screen. “This is too much, you need to simplify it. The animations take too long and it slows down what people will want to be a quick transition.”

The designer sighed and took back the tablet. “Understood. I’ll work some more on it. When’s the meeting again?”

“It’ll be next Tuesday. If you need any extra help come see me again. Again, keep it simplified okay?” Marc stated again. He finished up his day with that and went to Ariel’s school to pick her up.

He stopped in Brendan’s class at the end and sat in his desk chair while Brendan was helping a student. Brendan came over and mock scowled at him. “You’re in my chair,” Brendan complained, tossing a pen at Marc.

“It’s actually really comfy,” Marc commented, leaning further back into it. “I think I’ll stay here.”

Brendan rolled his eyes and opted for sitting on the corner of his desk as he flipped through some papers. “Artist statements,” he sighed. “I hated them in high school, and I can tell they hate them too. I’ve seen better… anything.”

“Why do you have them do it then?” Marc asked.

“It’s a curriculum requirement thing. They have to write at least two per semester,” Brendan sighed. “I mean okay there’s maybe one or two okay ones… but hell, no one likes actually talking about their art. Sometimes it’s too personal, or sometimes there’s not really that much depth to it and its just for fun.” He sighed again and tossed the stack down onto his desk.

“So, you got to see my yearbooks, what about yours?” Marc challenged, curious now that Brendan had brought him his high school years.

“You want to see me?” Brendan raised an eyebrow. “I told you all you need to know. I was the dark little depressing kid.”

“I don’t imagine you’ve aged much,” Marc snorted. “When I first got in here I was half surprised you weren’t a student.”

“Well gee, thanks. Why do you want to see them so badly?” Brendan asked. “Hell, I think I might have one from my senior year lying around, but…”

“I suffered my embarrassment, you should suffer too,” Marc tried to reason it.

“Mine was more just plain suffering overall, it wasn’t very embarrassing,” Brendan scoffed, turning his eyes down.

“Because of everything with your parents?” Marc asked, right as the bell rang.

Brendan just gave him another look without an answer, and went to dismiss his class and made them clean up. Marc ducked out and went down to Ariel's class and walked her back to the art room.

Brendan was still there with a student, though they were having a conversation. Brendan gave Marc a very stern look, and Marc got the hint, so he backed out with Ariel and went out front of the school. Most of the snow had melted off by now and it was almost like it had never happened. It wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t as warm as the summer and fall had been.

Marc sent Ariel on the task of trying to figure out which bike at the bike racks was Brendan’s. It was a long while of Marc watching people leave the school, but he was determined to see Brendan’s high school year book now. Brendan had been able to see it in Marc’s old photos, so Marc wondered if he would see the same in Brendan. And some of what he had said earlier only had Marc all the more curious.

Marc had always kept himself very well hidden with those kinds of things; even his ex-wife had never known, and they had been dating in high school.

He finally saw the student Brendan had been talking with leave, though he looked away quickly. Brendan came out shortly after, stopping when he saw Marc. “You’re still here?”

“Well I didn’t think it would take that long, I guess,” Marc admitted. “What was that about?”

“Things,” Brendan answered teasingly. “Does this mean you’re giving me a ride home?”

“What about your bike?” Marc gestured back towards the bike rack.

“I walked today,” Brendan informed.

“That wasn’t fair!” Ariel exclaimed. “I thought you had the purple bike!” It was one of the few bikes that was still left.

“You just wanted me to have the purple bike because you like purple,” Brendan countered.

“We’ll drive you,” Marc agreed, ushering Ariel towards the car.

Brendan smiled and took the front seat of the car. “What are you two doing for dinner?” he asked knowingly. “Or do I get to help on that?”

“Only if your yearbook is included in the deal,” Marc said.

“Shit,” Brendan hissed, before quickly looking over his shoulder at Ariel. “Sorry—I didn’t say that.” He turned back to Marc. “I was hoping you would forget about that.”

“We can stop by your place and grab it, then go grocery shopping for dinner, and then we’ll get home,” Marc suggested, earning another groan out of Brendan.

They swung by Brendan’s house where it was a good twenty minutes of digging around before Brendan found his yearbook. He refused to let Marc see it until later, so they stopped at the grocery store. Marc let Brendan do most of the leading through the produce department, declaring they needed to do something new again—not allowing Ariel to get her eggplant, just because it was purple.

Brendan picked out some mushrooms, which even Marc was a little skeptical to that, but Brendan promised it was all about the preparation. He bought a few other things to go with it and snuck some candy along with the load, and let Ariel pick something out for herself.

They got home and Brendan threw everything into a frying pan. Marc supervised, but after a few stings of oil on his skin, kept his distance. Brendan mixed everything in with some spinach and egg, and a number of other small chopped vegetables.

Eventually Marc couldn’t tell what the mushroom was in the mix anymore, and Brendan served it out in some bowls. Ariel was all too excited about it, and happily ate it all up.

“She must be one of the few kids that likes vegetables,” Marc remarked.

“Maybe because you took her out to eat too much, and so now she has an appreciation for real food,” Brendan waved his fork over at him.

“I like the mushrooms,” Ariel chimed in, earning a smug look out of Brendan.

They finished eating and cleaned up, and Ariel went to plant herself in front of the TV for a little while. Marc set up the yearbook on the kitchen and gave Brendan an expectant look. Brendan rolled his eyes and sat down next to Marc.

Brendan’s yearbook was a lot thicker, and filled with a lot of extra stuff that Marc’s had never had. “Why do you only have your senior year? Why not the rest of them?” Marc asked as Brendan flipped through pages.

“Because the rest of them are with my parents,” Brendan answered. “And when I turned eighteen it was just before my senior year, so this was the only one I got and kept with me.”

All of the underclassmen had their pictures lined up in stationary rows, and the seniors had special portraits taken for themselves as a special senior privilege. Brendan finally found the page he was on and pointed himself out.

His hair was just as black but longer, and he had a number of piercings; at least one in his lip and another in the septum of his nose, from at least what Marc could see. “What are these for?” he took another closer look at Brendan, trying to see if he still had any piercings.

“My aunt said I could get some piercings, or one tattoo, after I moved in with her. I think it was her way of letting me have some freedom after my parents,” Brendan explained. “So I got a couple of piercings, because I figured impermanence was better. But now I’ve got more tattoos than piercings,” he snorted. “I mean technically I’ve still got all my piercings—I had them for so long that I doubt they’ll close.”

“That would be interesting to see,” Marc said. “I think they really suit you, actually.”

“Yeah, but the school doesn’t exactly fly with all of that,” Brendan chuckled. “I mean I could probably get away with putting my septum back in since I can hide that easy enough.”

“So you don’t talk to your parent’s anymore?” Marc questioned. He was still waiting for his dad to call at some point.

Brendan shrugged stiffly and flipped aimlessly through the rest of his yearbook. “They try and talk to me. It always goes the same way though; am I dating anyone, no? Well there’s this nice girl that they know… and then it just winds up in a fight about you can guess what.”

Marc ground his teeth together. “How did they even find out about that?”

“Internet history, easy as that,” Brendan answered sourly. “I was too young to figure out how to erase it, and didn’t think they had any reason to go looking.”

They fell silent for a moment, and then Brendan cleared his throat as he shut his yearbook. “Anyways, I’ve got artist statements to suffer through, so I should be heading home.”

Marc nodded and broke Ariel away from the TV long enough to take Brendan home.

Brendan had been the one to tell him to cut his dad out; but even then Brendan still tried talking to his parents. It wasn’t that easy, not that Marc ever thought it was, especially if Brendan was still trying to hold something together with his parents.

Marc was also just grateful that his father had never caught on well to technology—Marc had grown up as it had just been coming out and changing, but his father had been left behind.

***

“You spend a lot of time with Brendan,” Dr. Sterling commented.

“So?” Marc couldn’t help but answer defensively. “I figure if it’s something a teacher and parent shouldn’t be doing, then he’d say something about it. It happens sometimes, doesn’t it? And it’s not like we’re dating.”

He could see the last bit got her attention, and Marc instantly regretted it. “Does that come up often?” she asked.

“Only twice,” Marc admitted. The second time had bothered him less. “And it’s not like it’s going to ever happen either.”

“And why do you say it like that?”

“Brendan just started dating someone new, first off. And then I don’t think he would see me like that—he never gives me those long looks you know, like if someone has a crush on you,” Marc explained, fairly reasonable.

“But you’re not saying why you yourself wouldn’t like him, just why he wouldn’t like you,” Dr. Sterling pointed out.

Marc stalled and gave her an affronted look, and so she continued. “How was your relationship with your ex-wife?”

“Whitney?” Marc paused. “Fine I guess. I mean I thought we were fine, but she thought otherwise.”

“Do you still love her?” Dr. Sterling prodded.

Marc shrugged. “I don’t know. The more I look back at it all, the more I wonder if that’s what it even was, or if she was just someone I enjoyed spending time with so that I labeled it as love.” He’d thought over that long and hard since he’d left. He wasn’t sure he could even define what ‘love’ felt like in his mind—Ariel was one thing, but that wasn’t romantic. “Sometimes you can just like spending time with a person,” Marc added on the defensive again.

“Has there ever been anyone else you feel like you might like or have liked in the past?” Dr. Sterling wanted to know.

Marc had to think about that. It had been too long since he’d thought of anyone in anyway. “I had a crush on someone before I started dating Whitney,” he admitted, though it was a far off memory. “But I changed that quickly.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Marc gave her an owl-eyed stare for a while. “It—“ shit, he hadn’t even gotten this far with Brendan. “His name was Lucas.”

Dr. Sterling nodded and waited for him to say more. Marc wasn’t sure there was much more to it though. “I think I did anyways. But then my dad would always go on these rants about those kinds of things, and then he would… hit me, so it was always a huge no in my mind. And then Whitney showed an interest in me and I went with it.” Since then he’d been very careful to not think about another guy that way.

“What do you feel like when you’re with Brendan, then?” she asked.

Marc had to think about that. “Awkward sometimes. He has a sense of humor that sometimes goes over my head. But other times…” Was he allowed to say what Brendan had told him? “His parents sent him to those gay-to-straight camps when he was in high school. He doesn’t really talk about the details, but I’m pretty sure he got abused there too… so in a way, there’s an understanding with him.” Marc shrugged again, because he wasn’t sure how to phrase it really.

Dr. Sterling nodded. “So you’re comfortable with him?”

“He made me come out of my shell a little,” Marc went on. “I didn’t spend time with anyone except Ariel until he kind of made me. Since then I’ve been a little more open to spending time with people, like sometimes my co-workers and the mom of one of Ariel’s friends. It’s not a long list, but…”

“Quality over quantity, right?” Dr. Sterling chimed in with a smile.

“That’s what Brendan was saying once,” Marc remembered. “but about Ariel. She only has a few friends too.”

“You should try getting to know Brendan more, then. Talking with him,” she encouraged.

“I did, actually.” Marc was proud of himself for it. “He talked a little bit about high school and his parents. But I think in reality he’s just as closed off about it as I am sometimes. He first told me what happened in general, but he doesn’t really talk about the details. He keeps those to himself.” Marc wasn’t sure if it was an equal trade thing anymore, because he was sure he’d shared more at this point with Brendan—or at least Brendan understood more of him—than Marc did about Brendan.

“But you don’t think you’d be open to seeking a relationship with him?” Dr. Sterling asked. “It could be good for you.”

Marc only swallowed hard. “I wouldn’t even know what to do.” His marriage had ended in divorce, so what could he even know about dating?

“Sometimes things don’t have to change. Sometimes it could be that everything you have in a friend is also everything you might want in a partner,” she explained. “The support, the understanding… it just has a little something more special to it then.”

“It would go so terribly,” Marc forced a laugh, sinking down in the seat. “He’d look at me and probably say something like ‘it’s supposed to be the other way around, the gay guy falling for the straight friend,’ ” Marc theorized out loud. Though at this point it didn’t really make him straight then, did it? It had been one little maybe-crush in high school.

“You think he couldn’t be interested in you?” Dr. Sterling tried.

“He’s going on dates with people. And like I said, I don’t get that vibe off of him really.” Not that Marc was any good with ‘vibes’ about people.

“Not everything is so easy, there’s a lot of grey area with feelings. Just because he’s going on dates doesn’t mean that he might not feel at least something for you, or he could be avoiding it because he doesn’t think it could happen,” she sounded like she could go on.

“Or it could be that I’m not his type, or who even knows. I’m not just going to go assuming he likes me because he’s gay.” Brendan would get upset over something like that.

“Put some feelers out there,” Dr. Sterling suggested. “Test the waters, maybe drop some hints and see what happens.”

“I don’t even know if I’d be ready for something like that. I don’t know how to be gay,” Marc groaned.

“You don’t have to be anything. Just focus on the person. If you think you want to be with Brendan, focus on that. He sounds like he could help you through a lot of it too. Just try talking to him about it.”

It was a lot easier said than done, in Marc’s mind. He wasn’t even sure how to bring things up sometimes.

They finished up the session shortly after, and Marc left her office. Hell, Brendan still didn’t know he was going to counseling yet—much less admitting to maybe coming out in some way.

He didn’t even see why things had to change—couldn’t they just stay as they were? Aside from the fact he really hoped that Brendan hadn’t been on too many more dates… and shit, that probably said enough right there.