Page 20 of A Friend in the Glass

“Are you happy? I mean, with me.”

“Because I got mad about Lew?”

“I’m really asking.”

“Yes. I wouldn’t mind not having Pauly as a neighbor, but other than that….” He shrugged.

Rufus looked toward the left wall at the mention of his perpetually drunk and stoned neighbor in 4C, who didn’t sound like he was home at the moment. “So you like living with me?”

“What are you asking me?” Sam got up and moved over to the sink in the tiny kitchen. He ran the water, stared at it for a moment, and turned it off. “If you’re asking me if I’m happy with you, the answer is yes. I love you. If you’re asking me if I like living here, I mean, Jesus, Rufus. Does anyone like living in Manhattan?”

Rufus winced. Without realizing it, Sam had just confirmed what he’d been sensing, fearing,dreading. Into the quiet, Rufus answered, “I do.”

“Of course you do.”

“You think it’s bad that I like it here?”

“No. Not—” The light from the low-wattage bulb left shadows on Sam’s face. “I mean, this place works for you. Of course you like it.”

Pushing off the fridge, Rufus said, “Yeah.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, I think you’re full of shit.”

“Excuse me?”

Rufus had been halfway to the bathroom before he stopped and turned around. “I only like Manhattan because Manhattan is all I know, is what you want to say. And I think it bothers you that I’m not—I don’t know—worldly. That if we left the city I wouldn’t be able to survive.”

“Christ, Rufus. Where did you get that from?”

“It’s true,” he protested, walking back to Sam. “What the fuck would I do for a living if we ever left? I have no education, no job experience, my skills include lockpicking and petty theft, I mean, what the fuck. And so you stay here because, maybe you do love me, but mostly because you know if you left, I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.”

Sam shook his head. “What am I supposed to say to that?”

Rufus wiped his face on his shirt. “A few weeks ago, I told Dr. Donna that when I feel like shit, when I can’t get out of bed or I can’t breathe, I always think about you. Thinking about you makes me feel a little better—a little more sane. Then I started worrying that that’s probably not healthy and I should figure out a better coping method because it puts too much expectation on you. That thought turned into disappointing you, which snowballed into you being unhappy with me, and now I can’t stop thinking about how I’m probably making you miserable because I’m being selfish—asking you to live in a place with too much noise and too many people when I know you actively despise both.

“I just… I don’t want to go to therapy tomorrow. I don’t want to talk about how scared I am to lose the one good thing in my life, but how it feels inevitable and I should sabotage my relationship now so it hurts less later.”

The radiator gurgled. Sam wiped his mouth. Then he came across the room and wrapped Rufus in a hug. “You’re not making me miserable. I love you. I don’t know what to say about the rest of it; we’ll figure it out.”

Rufus put his arms around Sam’s neck and said against his shoulder, “I thought therapy was supposed to feel good, but every step forward feels like three steps back.”

“Maybe every step forward is three sideways.” Sam smiled against the side of Rufus’s head. “That would be about right for us.”

“Sounds like a dance move white boys do at prom.”

“Good God,” Sam said and huffed a laugh. Then he turned Rufus’s face up and kissed him.

“I’m sorry. You’ve got enough to think about. I didn’t mean to let all the batshit crazy out.”

“We carry each other’s batshit crazy.” Sam tugged on the hem of Rufus’s shirt. “That’s kind of the whole point.”

Rufus smiled. It felt a little out-of-body, but he hadn’t had a panic attack. A few months ago, hell, a few weeks ago, he probably would have. He molded himself to Sam’s body, breathed when he breathed. “I thought that was some weird kink we shared.”

Chapter Eleven

The next day, the Javits was even busier. People thronged the atrium, shouting to be heard over each other, with enough cologne and perfume in the air to make Sam think a brothel had exploded inside a Bath & Body Works. It was so overwhelming that he barely felt his phone buzz.

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