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How do you apologize to someone who didn’t know there was something to be sorry for?
The words rested on the tip of his tongue, waiting to spill into the open. But the line that Jay had just licked up the side of Matthew’s face was still wet, and he wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. “Yeah, okay Bilzerian. You can go home now.” He had practically pushed him out the door.
How do you make right, something that the other person didn’t know was wrong?
He was always doing shit like this. Taking sweet, intimate moments, cuddled together on the couch after a movie, and making them immature and childish. Jay had whispered, “I have a secret to tell you,” and Matthew, a fool, had leaned in close enough for Jay to drag his tongue up the entire length of the other teen’s face.
“Jay, that’s disgusting,” Matthew had exclaimed, and Jay just sat back and howled in laughter at the indignant look on his lover’s face. Matthew had crowded him towards the door, and standing on the porch he had looked at Matthew with sickening sweetness in his eyes, lips upturned in a dopey smile.
“I love you Matthew. You know that, right?”
He knew it now.
~.-.~.-.~
Matthew was the last to arrive to the funeral, and the first to leave.
He waited in his car until everyone else had entered the funeral home, then snuck in just before an employee came to close the door. He sat in the back pew, far away from everyone else who claimed to have known him and what he wanted out of life. His family, who never deserved him. The people from their school, who never appreciated him. Even their mutual friends- Jessi, Nick, Andrew, Missy- what did they even know about Jay? His love of magic, his near constant levels of horniness, the efforts he put into making people see him, after spending so much of his short life ignored and cast aside.
It was Matthew’s choice to keep their relationship private. He was the one who told Jay not to go spouting off to everyone that they were together, that they spent their evenings curled up together on the couch watching stupid videos and shitty movies, their morning with their limbs sleep-heavy and tangled together under the sheets. He was the one who refused to hold hands in public, never wanted to loop their arms together or around one another unless it was in the near total darkness of a movie theater. Even then, as soon as the lights were up, Matthew’s hands were back in his own lap.
Jay never complained. He took what Matthew offered and never pushed or prodded for more than he was willing to give. Matthew could see that it was frustrating for the other boy- he would pull out of Jay's grasp and Jay would reach for the briefest second before remembering himself and letting his fingers fall back to his side. He would start to talk to their friends about his ‘partner,’ only to immediately clam up when Matthew gave him a stern look.
“Why don’t you hate me?” Matthew asked him one day. They returned to Matthew’s apartment after spending the day with their friends, Matthew constantly stepping just out of Jay's grasp, refusing to involve himself in the conversations that focused on love. “Don’t you want to be with someone you can actually… I don't know, be with?”
Jay had shrugged. “I want to be with you,” he had said, and pulled Matthew down onto the couch to play with his hair where he rested in the Bilzerian’s lap.
Lola was crying in the second pew from the front, Andrew Glouberman’s dad ( what? ) offering her comfort with an arm around her shoulder. “The love of my life,” she sobbed at the photo they had blown up of him, the photo that no one asked where it had come from. Matthew resisted the urge to take the photo back, regretted anonymously sending it to the funeral home
for the service. In it, Jay was smiling, a casual grin with a look in his eyes that told the viewer that he was happy, and that he was loved. Matthew had cropped himself out of the other half when he submitted it.
“We hope that Jay finds peace in his final resting place. Let us bow our heads in prayer.” As everyone in the room closed their eyes, Matthew crept out the door and back to his car. He pulled up the original photo from the service, the one that still had him in it, smiling happily next to Jay, and did not let himself cry.
~.-.~.-.~
He made time to visit Jerome, which was a mistake.
“Did you love him?” The old man had asked him, after Matthew had finally, finally gotten the happenings of the last two years off his chest. It had felt good to tell someone about the two of them until Jerome had asked that, and then Matthew was left with a heavy stone sitting in the pit of his stomach. “You wouldn’t have hidden him away if you didn’t, sweetie. You like to keep to yourself. It’s hard to bring vulnerability like that into the light, to let people know that there’s a person who really, truly knows you.”
“I never told him,” Matthew admitted.
“We never do,” Jerome said sadly, casting his gaze out the window at the constantly cloudy sky.
~.-.~.-.~
Jessi was the one who told him about the memorial at the school, even though she didn’t think he would want to come.
“Are you sure you’re okay, Matthew? It’s just… I don’t know, ever since Jay died you’ve been really out of it, and you never come to hang out anymore. We’re all upset, this is a really important time for us all to support each other, you know?”
“I want to tell Jessi,” Jay said, about a year into their situation- they didn’t start classifying themselves as a relationship until six months later, when someone was hitting on Jay at a bar and Jay told them he had a boyfriend.
“Absolutely not,” Matthew responded, and besides a slight tightening of their hands clasped together on the couch, Jay didn’t reply.
He felt the sting of a lump in his throat, the burning behind his eyes, and still he didn’t cry. “I’m fine,” he told her, and she deflated at the obvious lie. “I’ve got a lot going on. I’ll try to make it to the memorial.”
Jessi didn’t tell him where it was, or what time.
~.-.~.-.~
He finally cried, three months after the accident, when he received a package in the mail.
He didn’t cry when he saw Jay's horrible handwriting spelling out Matthew’s name and address. The return address was marked as the Bilzerian household, which told Matthew that they had finally gotten around to cleaning out his room.
He didn’t cry when he read the letter taped to the front of the record sleeve, which was frankly a blessing- trying to read Jay’s chicken scratch through tears would have been a nightmare.
Matthew,
Happy anniversary! I know you don’t keep track of things like this but I do. I just wanted to get you something nice, which might be a little gay, but that’s alright. I hope you like it.
And in case you’re wondering why I shipped this instead of just giving it to you- I noticed you don’t get a lot of mail. What's up with that? I fixed it for you ;)
-Jay
Frank Sinatra, Past, Present, Future
They watched When Harry Met Sally, and Jay was being cheesy and singing the wrong words to every song that came on. Matthew drew the line at Isham Jones. “This is a good song,” he insisted, “and I won’t let you butcher it.”
Jay had finally sat quietly for a minute, before agreeing, “yeah it’s alright,” and Matthew scoffed.
“Listen to the original,” he said, and pulled out his phone to introduce Jay to the glory of Frank Sinatra. “I love this man. Isn’t this nice?”
Jay closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the couch, actually letting himself enjoy the song. As it faded out, he made eye contact with Matthew, who found himself unable to keep it and looked down at his hands. “It’s really nice,” he agreed, and then pulled Matthew into his arms. “You’re really nice,” he whispered, and Matthew hid his blush in Jay’s chest and wished that he wasn’t a coward.
He didn’t cry when he put the record on, until the song played.
Why do I do just as you say
Why must I give you your way
He stepped away from the dresser that acted as his TV stand, where the record player was set up. He let himself sway lightly to the music, like he and Jay used to do when they had a little too much to drink, courtesy of Jessi and Nick sneaking them some of Judd’s alcohol. Their faces pink, their arms and legs weightless in a way that only the slightly inebriated seem to possess. Their heads resting on each other’s shoulders, neither of them willing to voice what was actually between them. Neither of them willing to give the other up.
Why do I sigh, why don’t I try to forget
It must have been that something lovers call fate
He glanced at the couch, the location of so many of their memories, the setting of their last one, and finally felt the sting of tears that threatened to overflow, rather than eventually fade. In the soft music, as Sinatra’s voice trailed into the instrumental, Matthew fell to his knees in front of the couch and closed his eyes. If he tried really hard, he could almost hear Jay’s voice, his laughter echoing through the tiny apartment. He placed his head where Jay usually sat, and pretended that Jay was brushing his hair back out of his face, holding his head gently like Matthew was something precious to him, something to be cherished.
“I love you, Matthew. You know that, right?”
“I know,” he whispered into the fabric of the couch that was now wet with tears that he couldn't hold back. He sobbed until the last of Sinatra faded from the air, and he was left with the sound of himself gasping for air, and wishing that fate wasn’t so cruel.
“I know.”
He had always known.
~.-.~.-.~
When the memorial at Bridgeton high came around a couple nights after Matthew received the package, he wasn’t planning on attending. He didn't really have anywhere to be- he was just going for a drive, something that he and Jay used to do together, sitting in the car for hours at a time in easy silence and casual intimacy. But when he saw Jay’s name on the memorial board, he couldn't stop himself from pulling into the parking lot. He entered the school like a man under a spell, and realized that he hadn’t been here since they all had graduated. If he looked for it, he was sure he could find their graduating class photo, the one where Jay had reached over and held Matthew’s hand when the shutter clicked, the movement hidden behind three rows of people. He heard the drone of Lola’s voice coming from the auditorium, and followed it to the site of the memorial. It looked like their entire class was there, the seats filled with more people than had been at the funeral.
(He asked Jessi about it later, who told him that Jay’s family had only really invited those whose names they could remember. Matthew found his invite in the pile of mail he never read on the kitchen table.)
Lola was on the stage, her phone in her hand that was connected to a projector as she flipped through photos of Jay- at wrestling tournaments, doing magic tricks, and sitting with the Sorcerers of the Square table. He looked happy in all of them, but Matthew couldn't stand it. He hovered in the back where no one could see him, as Lola swiped through more photos.
“As you all know,” Lola started, “Jay and I were very close throughout school. Did I do a revenge porn in middle school when we broke up? Who can even remember that far back.”
Matthew remembered. He and Jay had just become tentative friends, and Jay had been devastated by Lola’s betrayal. They didn't talk at all in high school, so where was she getting that they were ‘very close?’ Matthew was the one that Jay was the closest to, and the opposite was also true.
“As the love of Jay’s life, I did know the most about him and I would like to say that anyone who has any questions should direct those questions to my social media accounts. His loss has truly hurt all of us, but most of all, me. And- what the hell are you doing, Matthew?”
He hadn't even been aware that he was moving until he was standing on the stage with her, white-hot rage piloting his body. Looking out over the crowd of people, he couldn't see a single face, but he knew they were all staring, knew they were judging and wondering what exactly was going on. “I…” He trailed off, and Lola made a face at him.
“I’m trying to do a eulogy here,” she said, trying to wave him off the stage as she swiped her phone to show the next photo, and it was the one from the funeral. The one Matthew had sent in, had cropped himself out of because it was a good photo, damn it, and Jay looked fucking happy because they were together. That was all he had ever wanted from Matthew, to make him happy, and to be able to show other people that they were happy. Was he going to be a coward forever?
Lola started bitching when Matthew took her phone and unplugged it, gently wrestling the microphone she held away from her. He plugged his own phone into the projector and pulled up his hidden album, before addressing the confused group of old classmates sitting in the dark
“I’m Matthew Macdell,” he started, “which most of you know. And I’m a coward and an idiot.” He started flipping through photos that displayed on the big screen- photos of he and Jay together, bunched under the blankets in Matthew’s bed or his couch, Jay covered in flour trying to make Matthew cookies for his birthday. “Jay and I were together. For the past… almost three years,” he realized, and fought to speak past the lump in his throat. “I was his boyfriend, and I wouldn't let him tell anyone about it or show anyone. We didn't go out in public together that often, unless it was under the guise of hanging out with other friends.” There was a rippling murmur amongst the crowd, and Lola finally stalked off the stage, upset that her spotlight had been stolen.
“All that Jay wanted was to be upfront about our relationship, and I wouldn't let him because I was afraid of what people would think. Not just about me, but about him. That people would think there was something wrong with us. There was something terrifying about letting people know that he knew me,” he said, recalling Jerome’s words. “I was afraid for both of us, but it was wrong and I know that I can't take it back but I can apologize, for lying to everyone and making him lie as well.” He finally showed the original photo, the selfie that had both of them in it, smiling at the camera and looking for all the world like they were the happiest people on the planet.
He took a deep breath, finally not fighting the tears that pooled and fell from his eyes. “I loved him,” he said shakily. “And I never got the chance to tell him because I was scared. And he died not knowing that I loved him, and I’ll never forgive myself for that.” He tugged his phone from the projector cord and took off, off the stage, down the stairs, and back into the empty school hallways. He made several turns, a route he used to remember but couldn't recall where it led, relying on his muscle memory to keep him from running into a wall. The tears in his eyes blurred his vision, and he finally collapsed against a wall. He sat in silence, wondering what the fuck had come over him, when he heard footsteps. He looked up to see Val Bilzerian, of all people, coming towards him, an expression close to sympathy covering his face.
He had heard stories about Val in high school, but he was too tired and defeated to do anything more than sit on the floor. “What do you want? Are you gonna beat me up for giving your little brother ‘the gay?’”
To Matthew’s surprise, Val sat on the floor next to him. “I knew about you and Jay,” he said, and Matthew whipped his head towards him so fast his vision blurred. “I’ve known since like, a year into your relationship. He told me one night when he was drunk after drinking some of our dad’s shitty kid brandy.” He grimaced at the memory, and Matthew remembered how sad Jay had been when the shed that held all of that brandy had caught fire. “He loved you, too. He told me that night, that he felt ‘super gay’” Val said with air quotes, “but that he loved you and would do anything you wanted to make you happy.”
Matthew brought his phone up, the screen still displaying the photo of them. “He told me,” he whispered, his voice quivering as he remembered, once again. “He said he loved me but he had- he fucking licked my face and I was being petty. He told me he loved me and I told him to go home.” The tears threatened to spill again. “He got into that accident leaving my apartment, because I had told him to leave. I should have just-”
“Hey,” Val said sternly, grabbing Matthew’s shoulder. “You weren’t driving the car that hit him when he left. He would have come back the next day, you know he would have. He knew you loved him.”
Matthew looked at Val, eyes rimmed with red and looking a mess. He couldn’t find it in himself to care. “He did?”
Val shrugged. “Of course he did. He talked to me about the two of you, you know. I think he felt better just being able to tell someone, even if it was just one of his shitty older brothers. I know that wasn’t what you wanted,” he added, but Matthew waved him down. “Anyway, we talked about it. Leah- Nick Birch’s sister, that’s my girlfriend,” he said with pride, “says that since we’ve been dating I’ve become a really good listener. And I listened to Jay when he talked about you. He said he knew you loved him even if you couldn’t say it, and that he wasn’t gonna try to force you or get upset about it.”
Matthew wiped his shirt sleeve against his eyes. “I don’t even know what I was doing,” he said. “I never meant to hurt him, and I didn’t mean for this to happen. I wish…”
“That he could forgive you?” At Matthew’s incredulous look, Val puffed his chest and said, “yeah, Leah says I'm pretty intuitive for a guy. Or maybe just for a Bilzerian.” Matthew laughed, a rough chuckle that tumbled unbidden from his mouth, but it was the first time in three months and it felt good. “Look man, there’s nothing to forgive. He knew you, and he knew what you wanted and didn’t question it. Jay's accident wasn’t your fault, so you gotta stop beating yourself up. You loved each other. That’s what matters. You’ll live.”
Matthew turned away from Val, focused on the door in front of him, and realized it was the only class that he and Jay had shared their sophomore year. Where everything had started, Jay hanging back after class to talk to him, the eventual invitation to hang out, which led to their first kiss, shy and awkward in the front seat of Matthew’s car when he dropped him off at home. It all could have been so simple, but Matthew was the one who made it complicated, who made him keep it a secret.
He took a deep breath. “You really think that he would forgive me?”
Val nodded, his dark hair bouncing against his forehead. “Totally. And what you did on stage there, calling Lola on her bullshit and telling your entire graduating class that he was your boyfriend and you loved him? I’m pretty sure he would have been fucking ecstatic .” Matthew started to laugh, considered asking more about the things that Jay had told him, when there was a commotion around the corner. Val sprung to his feet and offered a hand out to Matthew. “Looks like my lady couldn’t hold off the cavalry anymore.”
Jessi, Nick, Andrew and Missy appeared, a sheepish-looking Leah following behind them. They all crowded Matthew as he stood up, offering their condolences and shock. “You should have told us,” Jessi said, “or at least me.” Nick and Missy were both saying that they couldn't imagine going through what Matthew was going through, while Andrew leaned closer to Leah and told him that he, of course, had always known there was something between the two of them (Matthew would call bullshit on him later, but he’d let it slide for now).
Val stayed at his side, a hand on his shoulder to reassure him, and surrounded by his friends that supported him, despite three years of being dishonest with them, forcing Jay to be dishonest with them, he felt more at peace than he had in a long time.
~.-.~.-.~
A couple days later, after spending time with his friends and Jay’s family- who were surprisingly welcoming and tolerant of Matthew, likely at the insistence of Val- Matthew made the trip alone to the cemetery where they had buried Jay. He found the headstone easily, and wondered which member of Jays family had chosen the epitaph that was engraved in the stone under his name- his shortened name rather than his full one, as he was sure Guy knew you had to pay by the letter.
Jay Bilzerian
March 27 2004- June 9 2021
“Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
He sat on the ground, uncaring about possible grass stains on the seat of his pants. He pulled his phone out and put on Frank Sinatra, just so he wasn't sitting there in total silence. He had never really seen the appeal of talking to a headstone, and he wasn't planning on starting now. He just sat quietly, letting the song play low enough for him to hear and not carry through the cemetery. He thought about everything that had happened over the past three years, the fact that he and Jay had seldom fought, that Jay never complained about keeping them a secret, that he had loved Matthew and been loved in return. He trusted in Val’s words, that Jay had known how Matthew felt and respected his choice not to speak the words aloud. He had known. That was what mattered.
“I love you, Matthew. You know that, right?”
“I love you, too,” he whispered, finally speaking aloud what he should have said the night that Jay had left, the night that he had died. The Sinatra faded out, and Matthew stood and left the cemetery. There was a smile on his face, and the sun was shining.