Elijah McCay and Me

Vol. 2: Five

VOL. 2: CHAPTER FIVE

     I've been cooped up in my dorm room all night. For the first few hours of the evening, I ate dinner, watched a few horror movies and patiently watched the hours tick by on the clock that sat just on top of my nightstand. But now—I was just plain bored. Jeremy hadn't come back yet from wherever he'd spent his day, and even if we didn't talk much, being around him was better than being alone.

A long and hallow sigh left my parted lips as I stared at the empty side of the room, an open textbook was left open on his desk with a few highlighters thrown across its spine.

A buzzing came from the front pocket of my sweatpants, eliciting an irritated groan from my chest. I dipped into the pocket, retrieving the soundly device. My heart stopped. All air left my lungs.

I hastily reached out for the remote of my tv, muting the large distraction. I watched my cellphone ring in my hand for a few more seconds, debating whether or not it was a good idea to pick up. Because if I did, I knew that he would only ask me tons of questions about what I was doing there on campus, how I was doing—all of the things that didn't matter.

On the last few rings, I press accept, holding in a short breath.

"Gage?" His voice is low and withholding, as if he himself has no idea what to say. But if he didn't know what to say, why call me in the middle of the night?

My fingers tighten around my cellphone, as I surprise myself by gaining to sudden urge to respond. "Elijah." When I say his name, it doesn't come off as a question, but more of a phrase. A phrase of relief. It's been so, so long since he and I have spoken one-on-one. I had no idea I missed him this much.

"God, it's really nice to hear your voice." He spoke clearly and smoothly, causing the ache in my heart to worsen. Just him saying a few words had me nearly right where I started—at his disposal, ready to sacrifice my own happiness just to know him.

I don't say anything at first, trying my best to conjure up a good enough response. "It's nice to hear yours too," my words are quiet, so quiet that I clear my throat before I say anything else. "Elijah, w-why did you call me?"

I'm sure the questions catches him off guard. I've never been one to dive right into confrontation, he knows this. "I can't call my friend to see how he's doing?"

I almost laugh. Because after eight months, no, no you can't just call me to see how I'm doing. "I'm fine, I've been fine."

He doesn't believe me, I can tell by the way he deeply inhales, and doesn't exhale for the next few moments. It's almost heart-wrenching, the fact that I know him so well. And it hurts even more to think that he knows me just as well. "This doesn't feel right," he says, "the fact that we haven't talked in months doesn't feel right. I-I've been trying not to be angry with you but it feels . . . It feels like—fuck, I don't even know what I'm saying?"

The conversation has escalated quickly, and his words are beginning to stir the pot of words I've been pushing down since last year. But if he wants to talk about this, then who was I to deny him?

"A-Are you mad at me?" I ask, at a loss for words almost.

Elijah huffs on the other end of the call, "yeah, Gage, I kind of am. What were you doing at the fraternity house? Who the hell do you know who lives there? What are you doing here? At MSU? Seriously, why the fuck am I so out of the loop—"

I interrupt him once his tone begins to get louder, my stomach beginning to turn in knots. "Don't yell at me," I speak firmly into my cellphone, "I-I didn't know that you'd even care that I went here, I had no idea if we were distant acquaintances, friends who lost touch, or—"

"That doesn't matter. What matters is that you've been going to the same school as me since the beginning of the year, and you haven't even made it a priority to reach out to me." I hate this. I hate when he speaks to me like I'm a child who doesn't know how to think for himself.

I'm not sure if he does this because he's always been so much older than me, and I've always been just a clueless little kid. But that is not who I am anymore, and I'd be damned if I let him treat me like I was. "Don't act like us losing touch wasn't a two-way street! You knew that I would be graduating from Wayland, you knew that I was applying to schools, you knew that everything was changing for me and not once did you reach out to me. So please, just spare me, Elijah."

He doesn't say anything else and neither do I. We stay on the line, listening to each other breathe and I try and wrap my head around the fact that Elijah called me at two o'clock in the morning just to yell at me.

We were both wrong. I know this, but still I stick to my point because he's sticking with his. I had my reasons for not reaching out to him when I started here at Michigan State—but what was his?

Could they be the same?

"I want to see you," he says so quietly that I almost miss it, "I need to see you. Like now." His words tug at my already aching heart. To go from yelling at each other to saying sweet things like that—how could I ever just be his friend?

I almost say no. I should say no. I can't let this happen again. I spent majority of the last year and a half completely heartbroken because of what he said at the seventeenth birthday party he'd thrown for me.

He knows I'm about to say no, because when I open my mouth to decline, he speaks again. "Please, Gage. Just a few hours. We really need to talk about this in person."

I inhale deeply, already being able to see the events play out in my head. We'll meet, we'll apologize to each other, we'll become friends again, I'll still be in love with him, and he'll always say we're just friends, then I'm broken all over again.

But still I say, "okay."