Jackson stops walking. “You know I don’t hate you either, right?”
I stop too, but I don’t face him. I look everywhere but at him, counting: eight bars on the sewer grate; six piles of dead, crusty leaves that make the shape of a frown; two lit lampposts (I make a mental note to myself to find a second broken lamppost to account for the broken one up ahead); two adults approaching . . . and I’m guessing they aren’t in the midst of the impossible situation Jackson and I are now miraculously confronting—maybe even embracing.
“You wanted Theo to stop talking to me.” I don’t mean it as an accusation. This is a legit conversation, guy to guy, broken heart to broken heart. It doesn’t do me any good to make everything a showdown; it doesn’t make me a winner.
“Well, I hated your history with Theo, too,” Jackson confesses. “I hated how often your relationship with him made me question if we would actually survive. You know, I wasn’t actually supposed to come with him to New York in February. My mom’s birthday was the day before, and we always spend it together. Breakfast at her favorite diner, then a movie, then back to the diner for lunch, then another movie, then back to the diner for dinner, then another movie, then back to the diner for milkshakes, and finally a movie at home.”
I almost interrupt to tell him how much I appreciate his mother’s symmetry—four movies, four trips to the diner—but shut up and let him go on. I never once got the impression he wasn’t always a part of your visit home.
“But I blew her off because I knew Theo would be here and that he would see you.” Jackson lowers his head. Now I look at him. “It’s the whole out of sight, out of mind business. I swore if I didn’t take that trip with him, it was a sure bet Theo would call me and tell me you two were getting back together.”
I’m ready to turn away when he catches my eye.
“I thought maybe next year Theo would be able to join me and my mom for the celebration.” He shrugs, which I know he doesn’t mean as a dismissal. He’s doing that thing I’ve done before where I try to shrink my own feelings, try to make my problems sound smaller to others because sometimes people just don’t get it. But I do, and he should know that.
The first troll tunnel is just ahead. We continue standing there.
We don’t hate each other. We shouldn’t hate each other’s histories, either.
I can’t shake away all of those feelings. Not immediately, at least. I doubt Jackson can either, especially here in Central Park, where I’m acting as a guide on a tour you should be leading. Our situation is like some rigged card game, and the hand the universe laid out for us is made entirely of jesters; we’re some cosmic joke. But maybe we don’t have to fold so easily. Maybe we can keep playing the game and make kings of ourselves, in spite of it all.
I step to Jackson, look him in his strained eyes, one still redder than the other because of that popped vessel. I hug the hell out of him. I hug him for him, because he knows firsthand how love and heartbreak can turn someone crazy and suspicious. I hug him for you, so you’ll be proud of me for doing the right thing instead of turning my back on him like I did the other night. I hug him for myself because his brutal honesty is somehow saving me from feeling worthless and defeated. I hug him for all of us because we’re no longer forces battling against one another.
“We’re finally doing something right,” I say, taking a step away from him.
“Too bad we couldn’t be this mature when he was alive,” Jackson says. “Maybe we would’ve gotten there eventually.”
I nod. “I hate that we complicated his life the way we did . . . and I hate that maybe it would’ve gotten to a point where Theo would’ve felt forced to say goodbye to me or you—or even both of us since we couldn’t get along.”
It’s one of many reasons I’m sorry, Theo.
“Yeah.” That’s all Jackson can say.
I pat him on the shoulder and turn away, inviting him to follow me. The stories I’ll tell him about you are good for him to hear and good for me to talk about. It’s okay that he’s not as forthcoming tonight. I sort of like being in the pilot’s seat, flying us through the skies I know. I think Jackson and I risk crashing if he’s in total control.
“This is a better send-off than I was betting on,” Jackson says on our way out, through the very exit where you and I once took turns pissing, late at night, keeping watch for each other. “I didn’t even think I’d get to see you again. I wanted the chance to say sorry for trying to cut Theo out of your life.”
I know I have plenty to apologize for too, but something deeper is clawing at me. “Do you have to leave tomorrow?”
You heard that right, Theo: I, Griffin No-Middle-Name Jennings, have asked my former nemesis, Jackson Wright, if he can stay in New York.
“I can’t impose on Theo’s family anymore. They need their space,” Jackson says.