Page 89 of Rat Park
“No, you didn’t,” Dominic repeated, not being able to put into words how desperately he had wanted this and for how long and that Flor had just been the one brave enough to drag Dominic out of his paralytic fear.
“Well, whatever. Point is, if all goes well with the MCAT, I’m coming back here, so…no more phone sex, I guess,” Flor said mournfully. Dominic snorted.
“I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”
Flor lifted his hands to stroke gently at Dominic’s face, tracing the slope of a cheekbone, the curve of an eyebrow. There was something in his eyes that Dominic couldn’t quite place.
“Dominic,” he said, “you know I love you, right?”
When Dominic was seven, he borrowed a neighbour’s scooter after school. They went to the steepest hill in the area and looked at the long, not particularly well-maintained stretch of tarmac. Their grins dared each other. Dominic didn’t hesitate. He pushed himself once and hurled down.
He still remembered that feeling. The way his body suddenly came completely alive even as his brain blanked.We are going to die, every cell of his body screamed at him. Somehow, the fear was exhilaration. The scooter wobbled under him and a car honked and still he went down, down, down, a screaming smile splitting his face.
When he made it to the bottom, panting but unscathed, heart pumping so hard he was about to choke it out, he knew that had been the stupidest thing he’d ever done.
He immediately wanted to do it again.
That drop, that mindless, fearful joy, was exactly what he felt as Flor looked at him, soft and open. Loving.
“Flor,” he said, the word like the wind rushing past him as he got to the bottom. He wrapped his arms around him, burying his face against that slender neck.
“Flor,” he said and then, “I love you.I love you.”
Flor squeezed back so that they were pressed so close together, it was as if they’d never part. For once, Dominic almost, almost, almost believed it.
**********
Life went on until summer was upon them again.
Flor took the MCAT at the end of April. Dominic calmed him down afterwards over the phone, using his steadfast belief in Flor to reassure him that, no matter what, Flor would get accepted into his post-graduate college of choice. Dominic didn’t have a single doubt.
At the shop, Fiona revealed she had a new girlfriend, and Dominic caught her with a dreamy look in her eyes more than once. They all discovered Alfie did ceramics and had a shop on Etsy, and they bought his pots and put them around the shop, the green of the plants and beautiful ceramics making an odd juxtaposition with the tables of tools and cars with their mechanical guts hanging out.
Dominic worked with Captain on Cat’s campaign, which was set to be held in the early autumn. Dominic felt real hope she could win, the reaction from the community far more positive than anything else.
By early June, the results of the MCAT were in. Flor called Dominic, and Dominic had to untangle Flor’s shrieks before he understood that Flor was telling him he’d gotten a high enough score to get into the college nearest Dominic.
“Yes! Fuck, yes, Flor! I knew it. I knew it!” Dominic crowed, ecstatic.
When Flor came back for good, they celebrated at his house with Cat and Esteban.
Dominic couldn’t quite believe this was his life.
**********
Flor’s return initially felt like he was just back for summer. The heat had come with him, and the blistering air and ice-pop season lent a sort of suspended period of time to get accustomed to the fact that Flor wouldn’t be leaving in a few months.
It would hit Dominic suddenly every once in a while, though. Flor was still living with his parents, but he spent a lot of time at Dominic’s, fitting seamlessly into his life. Dominic gave Flor a copy of his keys, prompting Flor to gape at him incredulously for a moment.
“Really?” Flor said, staring at the keys in his hand.
“Yeah. You’re around here a lot, so. You can use them whenever. That way you can get in if you want to be here and I’m at work,” Dominic said, shrugging.
Flor looked at him for a moment longer before lurching forwards to kiss Dominic, wrapping his arms around him. Dominic smiled into the kiss, the worry that had been building up since he got the keys cut diffusing.
Dominic would come back home to Flor already there, or he’d spend his evenings cooking with Flor, eating with him, sprawled on the couch with all the windows open as Flor tried to tease him away from whatever they were watching with his fingers and his mouth. Dominic would look at Flor and, in an instant, he’d realise all over again that this wasn’t just going to disappear. All those touches and looks and moments spent together weren’t leading up to a goodbye.
The sudden, elated panic that hit him in those moments made it obvious that the fear of losing Flor hadn’t disappeared like he thought. It had simply been replaced by the act of parting every season. Now that Flor was there to stay, his insecurities had nothing tangible to cling to and would claw around the hollow chambers of his mind at night. Learning to quiet them, to discuss them in therapy and challenge them with the presence of Flor’s warm body in his arms, was a struggle.
