Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Chapter 34

Cobain, Springsteen, Cash, Krieger—all too weak. No matter the musical genius Rivers tried to channel, his hands kept molding around the notes of that goddamn song. Fucking Leah. 'The lyrics are so romantic.'. What did Goo Goo Dolls even mean? But she hadn't been so obsessed since My Heart Will Go On and the Titanic phase. So week after week, she'd perfected the track at the expense of Rivers' sanity, and now that run-of-the-mill love declaration was seared in his brain for eternity, flowing to his fingertips against his will.

8:45. Fifteen more minutes, then he'd try to get some sleep. As if it was an option—nearly forty-eight hours without speaking or hearing from Samuel, and mediocre music was all he had to save him from panic. When the images in his head turned too painful to bear, he'd braved a heart-thumping peek through Samuel's door, but the room was pristine, as if nothing had ever happened. Relief was short-lived, though—no one had seen or talked to Samuel all weekend. If it wasn't for the waterfall of lies and deceit cascading on their lives, he would have called Cheryl.

Was the speech he'd given Samuel enough? All those colorful words that meant jack for the severity of their situations? Sure, nature was never wrong and Samuel was perfect whomever he jerked off to at night, but the real world didn't give a crap about that. Michael Rose's killer didn't give a crap about that. General Jones didn't give a crap about that, nor the Secretary of Defense; Clinton himself cared even less. Tens, hundreds, a million more bills could mandate their right to expression and freedom of self; Jefferson could rise from the dead and rewrite the entire goddamn constitution in glittery pink, starting with We, The Queer People and that wouldn't change the bullshit the gay community had to endure. It wouldn't fix the damage done on Samuel or bring Michael Rose to life. It wouldn't give him back Joel...

If something had happened to Samuel, somebody was going to pay. Anyone. It didn't matter at this point.

Maybe calling Cheryl wasn't such an outlandish idea. What was one more lie in the sea of fabrication? Lying came easy to him, after all.

Are you a homosexual or a communist?

No, sir!

Back in '89 he was still a hopeful moderate, but now there was no space left for half-measures. Joel had long turned to ashes, leaving nothing concrete behind—no meaning to his death, no lessons learned. Only the lies were tangible; the mechanism that kept his heart pumping like a conciliatory pacemaker. Michael Rose had told the truth and unplug his life support.

If something had happened to Samuel, the world would know true fag rage. Centuries of bottled up repression burned inside the pit of Rivers' stomach, ready to burst because fuck politically correct and coduuuct.

"Hey."

River's head snapped up, sending an E minor out of key. Samuel stood outside the bathroom still holding on to the door behind his back; his pristine Charlies didn't match his wittered face and swollen eyes glued to the floor.

"Hey." Rivers dropped the guitar on the mattress but didn't move. What if Samuel disappeared into thin air?

Samuel's lips quivered, and the deep inhale he tried to take turned into a choked sob.

"Sam? What's wrong?"

Glossy tears ran down Samuel's cheeks, dripping from his chin to stain his shirt dark brown.

Rivers got to his feet then halted; his thumping heart had welded his joint and made him stiff like a toy soldier. What if he scared Samuel away?

"Riv—" Samuel let go of the door and brushed his palm over his face, doing nothing to stop the flood. No other words followed.