Way Wedding

A Car Ride of Old Feelings, and Nostalgia

Straightening my shirt I shifted around in the passenger seat of the jeep like a child on the way to the doctor. Gerard carried on his rant about my lack of good cd's, as I tried to find a large sense of relaxation in the feeling of it's leather seat surrounding me, and the smell of sandalwood filling my nostrils. The warm spring air was filtering in though the open windows radiating around the car reminding me that it was just still cold enough to need long sleeves, but near as cold as it had been when I left and needed my bulky black jacket surrounding me to feel even a slight bit warm. I had spent the entire day chasing Miles, Cherry, and Lily around the park watching as their faces squealed in delight, the sight alone reminding me how much I loved being a father. As much as I loved having Gee around it was nice to miss him, nice to feel a surge of excitement as I rode in my uber back to the hotel hoping he would be back from his day scavenging around New Jersey. He had stopped and seen his parents, and dropped around his old favorite spots littered around town. I could tell how much fun he had the moment I saw him, his arms full of bags that we really had nowhere to put. None the less hearing about his day, and how he had made some people's day by dropping into comic book shops to sign his comics that lingered on the shelves. Peering back out the window I reached for his hand as a symbol of reassurance to my wavering thoughts of just how I was going to tell my parents about all of this. It wasn't embarrassment that has seeded itself deep in my stomach but fear was still filtering through my body the way narcotics do for days after.

"It sure has been a long time since we've been here, together."  Gerard winked referencing the first date we ever went on. I had been so naive at the time I didn't even realize that was what it was. He was just the lead singer of an amazing band I had just watched perform in a filthy basement my brain too high to have a concrete opinion on other than he was beautiful, and he was far too drunk to think of anything other than his stomach and dick. He had heard me play guitar and sing with my band Pencey Prep not even a week before, and I had stood on stage mesmerized by his greasy head bobbing to the beat. All the while I was supposed to be watching the door for Jamia to filter in after her job on campus. That was the first concrete time that would be followed by many others that I would overlook her for the love of my life. Which should have been my first clue, the same as the absence of his request for Elena's ring was supposed to be his. We had sat in that diner for hours talking about music we loved. His drunken lips sipping on mug after mug of coffee as I dunked greasy french fries in globs of ketchup. "Remember that night?" he asked pulling my hand up to his lips littering each knuckle with soft kisses before dropping it back down to his leg. "That night, from the beginning I knew you would be the rest of my life. Whether it be creatively or intimately." he added leaning over to peck my lips as he came to a stop in front of a worn down stop light. He knew just how to settle the nerves that fizzed under my skin like pop rocks on your tongue fighting a war with the little bit of lunch dwelling in my already fucked stomach. 

"I fucking love you. I smiled as we parted our tender moment interjected by a blaring honk behind us. Only causing laughs to fall out of our lips as we lurched the car forward, continuing to point at places that dwelled memories of our beginning. The places that had served as hangouts after our early practice sessions, and even the apartment we had kept our secret love nest hidden in. "You know I kept that place for a little over two years." I said without thought as my pointer finger sank back down into my lap. The building was so different from the last time I had been there, the paint now flaking away. I still remembered the day I had gone to clean it out. When it had become apparent that we weren't ever going to get back together, and probably never see each other again. The memory of him had faded from it's walls, his smell completely gone. I had ran out of his body wash month ago and there had only been a few sprays of his cologne left in the bottle to spray over the bed to remind me of him as I laid in the dirty sheets crying my eyes out until they stung. Shivering away the memories of that time I looked over into in his eyes wanting him to respond to that thought to give me a little bit of insight tot he person he had become. 

"Are you kidding me, I paid the rent up until like 2 years ago?" he asked slapping the steering wheel in a mixture of anger and laughter.

"You didn't ever realize notice when I cleaned it out?" I asked turning my entire body toward him. 

"I never went back, baby boy. I was way too afraid." he looked down focusing on his white knuckled hands on the steering wheel.

Feeling a pang of guilt to his shift in mood, I reached for his hand again. "Well now look at us, my love. Remember what you said, we were apart for a reason. We are better for it, our mental health it's self is much better than it was during that time. I wanted him to know that the past was the past. Our future is what I was more concerned about, the fact that I was never going to let him go. We rode the rest of the way in silence only accidentally making a silly face at one another.