Second Chances in New Port Stephen - Chapter 18

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Second Chances in New Port Stephen - Chapter 18

Nick lifted a hand but hesitated to place it on the plane of Eli’s back. His fingers curled into a fist
in the air, then unbent. Comfort was friendly. He wasn’t crossing any lines. He put his palm
against Eli’s sweaty shirt and rubbed a few soothing circles there. “Memory is a funny thing. I’m
sure there’s lots of stuff that we remember differently if we compared it one to one.”
“Yeah, but this is kind of a big detail to forget. I really, really thought I was the one who broke up
with you,” Eli said to the ground.
Nick thought for a second. His hand moved to Eli’s shoulder, kneading it carefully. “Does it
matter?” he asked.
“It does to me.” Eli lifted his head enough to look Nick in the eye. “I thought I had a streak going.
I’m always the one who ends all my relationships, starting with the very first one. I was never
the one getting dumped; I was the dumper. Fuck, I even had a bit about it in the first hour of
stand-up I ever did!”
Nick made a mental note to try to find that on YouTube. “You’ve dumped every boyfriend
you’ve ever had? Except me?”
“Yeah. They all sucked.” Eli dropped his head again.
“Huh.” Nick couldn’t lie to himself: it was kind of an ego boost to know that he was the one guy
Eli hadn’t ditched. Even if Eli himself didn’t remember that. He realized his hand had stilled on
Eli’s shoulder, so he got back to rubbing. “Is being the guy who always bounces really that
important to you?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Eli said. “I can’t commit to anything. Not even the gender I was assigned at
birth.”
“Was that from an old stand-up routine too?”
“Why? Was my timing off?” “No, it’s funny—” “You’re not laughing.”
“I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you,” Nick said. He hesitated but figured it was
better to be honest than let Eli wonder. “If it makes you feel any better, breaking up with you
was the hardest thing I’d ever done.”
Eli turned to him, his eyes huge. “Really?”

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“Yeah, of course. It meant losing you and your folks, and they were like family to me. But I didn’t
know what else to do. You weren’t happy. I could tell, even if everyone else couldn’t. It felt like
there was this huge thing going on that you didn’t want to talk to me about, and I didn’t
understand why. Now it’s obvious, but back then…” Back then it felt like he was losing his best
friend and his first love, and it was all his fault.
Eli sighed. “Yeah, I was really going through it.” He reached for one of Tianyi’s lush red hibiscus
bushes, plucking a bloom and worrying the stem between his fingers. “Kind of amazing I’m
going to make it to forty, honestly.”
Nick didn’t feel almost forty, sitting here with Eli. He felt like he was eighteen again, sixteen
again, ten, seven, and here they were, still having their heaviest, most important conversations
with each other. (At eighteen: What do you think we’ll be doing when we’re older? Sixteen: Can I
take you out on a date? Ten: I think it’s harder to make someone laugh than it is to make them
cry. Seven: If dinosaurs were real, what’s stopping them from coming back one day?)
Eli let the flower flutter to the ground with a short bark of laughter. “Well, it’s a good thing you
broke things off with me back then. Can you imagine if we’d tried to stick it out?” He looked
over at Nick, then looked away just as quick.
Nick had imagined. Lately, when he was alone in his dark house with nothing to do but brush his
teeth and go to bed early, he’d wondered what might have happened if they’d stayed together.
Eli might have dumped him at some point in college, but maybe not. Maybe things would have
fizzled out when Eli went to New York, but maybe not. Maybe the relationship would have
crumbled when Eli finally realized he was trans.
But maybe not.
“I’m sorry.” It was the best Nick could do. “I know I hurt you.”
“Listen, it’s nobody’s fault,” Eli said. “Teenagers fall in and out of love all the time.”
“Eli.” Nick swallowed. “I was still in love with you.”
He wasn’t sure why he said it, only that he was compelled to say what was true. The idea that
Eli might think, even for a minute, that there was a time Nick hadn’t loved him was—it was just
wrong. And as the words left his mouth, Nick realized something that should have been obvious
since the moment he ran into Eli at the Wine Barn.
He’d loved him then. He loved him still. He would never stop loving him.
Fucking shit-hell ball sack. He was in love with Eli.

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