24 Years (MxM)

Chapter 3

I slogged through the next month, going to school, and going home. Even though Marla still had to work at the department store, and she had classes too, she would come over to spend time with me every day. I was a complete wreck. Life seemed to have no purpose anymore. The world had gone from full color to bland shades of gray. I lost hope. I gave suicide some thought on more than one occasion. If Marla hadn't been there to make sure I ate, I probably would have just given up.

"Listen, it's been a month. You need to get out, baby. You can't just sit around this house moping all day," Marla says to me.

"Don't wanna," I say.

"Why don't you go out with us tonight? You're single. There are a lot of amazing guys waiting to meet you," Josie says, with the best of intentions, of course. But it still hurt.

So, for the next four months, I tried to get into the dating scene. I'd never done it before. The one thing I realized quickly is that Matt was right, in a way. I was still a kid that had no job, no car, and no life. I was embarrassed to tell any prospective date that the only two things I do is go to school and play video games. I talked to mom and got a part-time job at our restaurant, working some nights as needed and then the weekends. Dad bought me an affordable car and I arranged to make payments from every paycheck. I was going to prove to Matt that I am not a kid and I can be a responsible adult.

Marla, Josie, and I went barhopping every weekend. I met all sorts of guys at the bars, and quite a few of them I had seen at school, and most all of them that were my age had one thing in common: nobody wanted commitments, just sex. At first, it was kind of fun. I had never had sex with any other boy but Matt. But it wasn't long that I became tired of guys who were just trying to get into my pants.

There were some who I went out with more than once but soon after, they either flaked out or ghosted me. I heard every excuse in the book. I'm too short, too Asian, not athletic enough, a bottom, and the two I hated the most: too young and too immature. I got fed up with no call, no shows. And, as always, Marla would be there when I started crying after being rejected for the nth time.

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After another month of dating failures, Matt's number came up on my phone as an incoming call. I fall into the sofa in my living room, staring in shock.

"Hey, how you doing?" he says over the phone. I don't know why I answered his call. I don't even know why I still have his number in my cell.

"I got a job and a car." For some reason I had the urge to impress him.

"Yeah. How's school?"

"You know. The computer science is the easy part. It's all the rest of it that's annoying."

"How's Okaa-san?" Suddenly my heart aches hearing him call her that. He didn't just call her mom, he said it in Japanese. It was a term of endearment they shared. He was her son as much as I was. Part of me is angry, the audacity of him thinking that he still has the right to call her that.

"Fine. She doesn't understand why you don't come around anymore. I told her you moved away."

"I see."

"How's Zack?" My mind becomes numb, but I had to ask this question. I don't know why.

"Good."

My heart sinks realizing that Matt isn't calling me because he wants me back. Then my anger flares up again. "Why are you calling me?"

"Come on, don't do this. We've been best friends for so long. I just missed you and wanted to know how you were doing."

I shut my eyes. All of the pain of the past six months was assaulting me. "You hurt me," I say as some tears work their way out.

"I know, I'm sorry."

"Sorry? Sorry!" I don't want to hear that useless fucking word from him.

"Yes! I am sorry!"

"If you are sorry, you'd come back to me!"

"You know I can't. I'm with Zack now." Fucking ouch!

I start sobbing. "I got a job now. I got a car. I'm not a kid anymore! Why won't you come back now?" I beg plaintively.

For a minute, nothing was heard over the line but his sigh and my sniffles.

"I love Zack now. I'm sorry."

I became angry again. "Then fuck off!" I exclaim as I hit the End Call button on my phone.