Aiden Deis: My Subset of Reality

cont.

10/28/15

I woke up yesterday morning. And while I had given up, because of my failure to commit to the truth and telling R he was the reason I needed to have this conversation at all, I still felt a lack of closure. It felt like a lot had gone unsaid. So I decided I would end it how it started.

One day during my first semester, on our way back from the cafeteria, two of my roommate wrote something on the dry-erase board the R kept on his door.

I don't recall with certainty whether it was that same night, but within that time-frame, R invited wanted to expose me to the wonders of real sugar coca-cola and a particular kind of donuts that he gets in Houston. On the drive there he played music. He discussed the music as he chose it. It was "Have you heard this?", "Do you know this band?", "What about U2?" That sort of thing. Point being: his music choice was deliberate. I remember that it was raining as we were driving, not pouring, but raining. He played one song, I don't remember the name of it, the artist, or really even what it sounded like, but what it was was a love song. And he sang along. And as the song came to an end he said something along the lines of "So yes, you're my everything.." I can't remember the excact words. But I what it was was a paraphrase from the song meaning he loved me. I was very quite confused and so I asked him what he meant and said "What else is there to say?" I was getting more confused. He said "after what you wrote on my door, I mean you said you loved me" At this point I at least knew the stem of the confusion. So I told him I saw my roommates writing something on his door and walk off laughing, but I didn't actually read it. I asked him what it said. I can't remember if he answered me. I don't think so, because I remember asking my roommates about it when I got back.

Driving on, the topic of conversation changed as soon as he was satisfied that I didn't know about the message on his door, and I talked enduringly about my crazy wacky roommates causing mischief until I thought it was clear to him that I either somehow didn't notice the direct advance, or otherwise chose not to acknowledge it.

The rest of the night went by smoothly we couldn't find the donuts that he was sure we would find at that store (Kroger), asked some employees, none of them had ever heard of the particular brand of donuts. We got the Real Sugar sodas, I got a Coke and he got two-or-three different flavors.

When we got back to the dorm he wanted me to taste mine, so I could tell him what I thought. I tasted it and didn't particularly think it was great. It wasn't any worse than the usual thing, it just wasn't as much different as I had anticipated. All of this I told him, along with the disclosure that I don't regularly drink sodas so I might just not know what I'm tasting.

R got surprisingly upset at my answer. To be clear, upset is too powerful a word here, but given that we are talking about my preference in soda here, his reaction was of a magnitude un-proportional to the subject. He said I didn't appreciate hard it is to get real sugar soda. And I told him that didn't affect the flavor in any way, and I wasn't going to say I like it, just because it's hard to come by. I told him I really did appreciate him taking me to get some, since it was a good experience either way. And that was that.

It's only in hindsight that I find myself considering the possibility that he wasn't upset about the soda at all. He was just upset that he had done this difficult thing on the way to get the soda, and I didn't appreciate it, or even acknowledge it.

Even if I had been comfortable with the possibility of being, you know... back when this happened. I don't think I would have handled it much different. Now I would, I would pretend I wrote the message on his board and sing along to the love song. But back then, for the first two semesters, as wonderful as he was, his eyes were always bloodshot. For some reason that was a big deal to me, I couldn't look him in the eyes, because all I could see is the red irritation. It looked painful and unhealthy.

During this past summer, I grew slowly used to the idea of being gya, the thought bothered me less and less. When people would joke about me being gya I wouldn't deny it. It would have felt like lying, though I didn't acknowledge it either.

When I got back to college this semester, the first time I saw R I distinctly remember noticing that his eyes were not at all bloodshot. And as I spent more time with him I learnt that the are in fact quite beautiful.

All that being said. Yesterday morning, I drove to Kroger, on the way there I noticed how I wasn't the passanger, there was nobody singing along to the music, it was daylight, and it wasn't raining. I bought a Real Sugar coke and fanta and went back to the dorm. I knocked on his door at least three times throughout the day to give him this cursed gift, he wasn't in his room all day as far as I could tell.

I walked to the park, spent some time. On my way back I saw the walk-the-dog-teach-about-jesus guy that me and R discussed the previous day after shifting the conversation from homosexuality. Since we talked about him, I found myself feeling somehow guilty for not actually knowing what he was "about". So I approached him as he was walking his dog, and we talked religion for a good hour on the corner on University Oaks Blvd. and Munson.

I finally got back to the dorm and T told me R came by wanting to know if I wanted to run in the morning. So I went over to R's room and T came along, since he is part of the running crew. There were three residents from the room next to R's there to play Super Smash Bros. We briefly told him we were up for running and that we'd see him at 6:15 in the morning. R invited us to stay and play, T said had something else to do and R already knew I wasn't about to join. I'm not an avid gamer or even gamer, by any standard. So me and T went back to our room.

I decided the gift would only hold meaning if it was given while our conversation was fresh. So I grabbed it and walked back over to R's room. I didn't want him to ask me about it with a room full of residents so I put the bag down on his countertop beneath his microwave as I walked in, telling him I got him a "thank you for putting up with me" gift. I didn't want it to be obvious that I had come just to give him the gift, so I sat down and played for a while. When someone said they had to leave, R said he also had some homework to finish, so after a last match everyone left. I was the last to leave, before I was out, R asked me "So what did you put on the counter?" I told him it's just a gift "a surprise".

I got to my dorm and took a shower, and thought I should tell him about meeting Charles. More accurately I thought I could use talking about Charles as an excuse to see him one more time tonight. So I put on pajamas and headed over. I knocked and in one motion opened the door a crack and said "It's me". When no answer came, I felt guilty for having opened his door, so I closed it and knocked again. A pause. And then he said "Give me a second" from inside. He opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. I couldn't help but notice for the first time since last semester, His eyes were bloodshot. I didn't think anything else about it. We talked about Charles out in the hallway for a few minutes. I didn't want talk too long, since he wasn't inviting me in, but he didn't let me cut the conversation short. He asked some questions, told me he had also talked to Charles one day. And then the conversation was over. And he never said a work about the Real Sugar Soda. I went to my room, happy at the conversation, then thought about why he took a while to answer the door, and how his eyes were bloodshot. And then I was sad, and I wished above anything else that I had known earlier what his bloodshot eyes meant, so that when he opened the door and I noticed them-- I could have asked him "What's wrong?"