The Wright Way

Chapter 14 - The Wright Way

"You don't have a TV?"

"In the kitchen."

He disappears into the kitchen, and I hear him chuckle.

"Wow, a tube TV? Haven't seen those in a while."

"It came with the apartment," I say. "It's rented. Nothing here is really mine."

"I figured. Can I have water?"

"Sure," I say before cringing at the thought of him using my glass. The guy is gay. Drinking from a glass he drank from would be a bit like kissing him, even after it's been washed. I walk over to the kitchen door, intending to offer him a disposable cup, but it's too late. He turns around with a glass in his hand and smiles before bringing it to his lips. I sigh internally.

He empties the glass and places it on the counter. Then, brushing past me, he returns to the room and looks around. He's wearing his soot-stained jeans, and a colorful Hawaian shirt two sizes too big, contributed to him by one of the nurses from the stock of clothes left behind by other patients.

As I expected, it's weird to have him here. It's the first time I brought anyone around. It suddenly strikes me that my apartment must seem very bare to an outsider. Apart from my sheets on the bed, it looks as uninhabited as it did when the owner showed it to me for the first time.

"Very... minimalistic," Joshua says, turning to me. "I figure that's the couch I'll be crashing on?"

"No, you're a guest, so you should take the bed," I say, before remembering I don't have a clean set of sheets. It feels wrong to make him sleep on the sheets I've been using, leave apart that after he'd slept on them, I will have the same dilemma with them that I did with the glass.

"No, thanks," he says, to my relief. "I prefer the couch."

As if to illustrate his words, he walks to the shabby fake leather couch and plops onto it, stretching out. I remain in the doorway, watching him. It just feels so wrong to have someone in my apartment, let alone someone like him.

People are never simple. They carry with them the weight of what they do and how they live and what they represent. There is nothing about what Joshua represents that I would like to see on my couch.

What if he has AIDS? Could he transfer it to me by sleeping on my couch, or drinking from my glass?

No. I'm so tired I'm thinking stupid thoughts. He doesn't taint things by touching them.

I walk over to the window and open it, letting in some fresh air to dilute the stale, dusty atmosphere of the apartment. Along with it come the noises of honking cars and the footsteps on the sidewalk, and the voices, and the chirping of birds. I stand there for a while, my eyes closed, breathing deeply, then turn around. For everyone else the day might be beginning, but we need to get some sleep.

"I'll get you a pillow," I say.

"I feared you'd never offer," he says.

I head to the wardrobe and retrieve from the upper shelf the old flat pillow that probably belonged to the previous tenant. I walk over to the couch and hand it to Joshua who watches me, not making a move to take it.

"You look uncomfortable," he says.

"It's nothing," I say. "I'm just not used to having people over."

"Why did you offer me to stay with you, then?"

"Didn't want you to go with that other guy. He didn't seem reliable. I wasn't sure he'd treat you well."

"Will you?" he says, accepting the pillow. "Treat me well?"

I clear my throat. "Pardon?"

"I just kind of feel like you don't like me," he says. "It's confusing, the vibes I get from you. You've helped me, but it also feels like you hate me a bit."

I watch him in silence, taken aback by his perceptiveness.

"I wouldn't have saved you if I hated you," I say.

"That's what puzzles me." Slowly he puts the pillow on the couch and lies down on his side, all the while keeping his eyes on me. "When we met by the shop and you gave me that lecture, it really seemed like you hated me. Now you invited me to stay with you. As I said—confusing."

I wince at the memory. Somehow it felt like the fire erased the awkwardness of our previous encounter, but, apparently, he remembers it all too well.

"I don't hate you," I say, feeling a bit surreal, standing in my apartment, listening to the sounds of traffic outside, talking to someone I never thought would be here. The little room seems frozen in time and space and in this suspended state it feels like anything can be said. "I only hate the sin in you."

His eyes, already sleepy, regain their focus. "Sin?"

"Every person is good. It's the sin inside a person that we hate, not the person himself."

He watches me unblinkingly.

"We?" he says at last.

"People like me."

"What kind of people?" he says. "You're a freaking puzzle, Ethan. One moment you sound like a religious fanatic, then you save my life, then you're caring and sweet, then you're back to this weird talk again. What's the deal? What are you?"

"I'm tired," I say. "Why don't we just sleep?"

"I'm not sure I should sleep here anymore." Yet he remains lying on his side. Perhaps this whole conversation feels as unreal to him as it does to me. "Maybe I should run for the hills from you, Ethan. Should I be afraid of you?"

"We could decide on that tomorrow," I say.