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Link has this dream over and over. In it, he’s standing on a subway platform. It’s the station closest to home, but not. Things will be strange—the platform goes on forever, or there’s more tracks than there should be, or he has to climb over things to get to the train. Or sometimes there will be a toilet on the platform and he has to go but he doesn’t want to do it in front of everyone.
Those details vary. What doesn’t change is that, in the middle of the chaos, he looks up and sees James.
For a moment, their eyes meet. A train pulls into the station. The doors open. James steps on, and always, Link stands there and watches him board, and he’s frozen. The train leaves, and he’s alone again, with whatever mess he’s made.
***
On this day in December Link wakes up from the dream and orients himself back to his small dorm room in New Haven. He’s tangled in the sheets and sweating. The old radiator clangs and wheezes but it also heats the room all too efficiently, and Link feels like he can’t breathe. He gets up and opens the window, and icy air rushes in. The place is quiet. Link has the place to himself these days, since his roommate spends most nights with his girlfriend.
Link takes a deep breath of the cold air, stretching as he did so. He slept wrong and feels like he spent the night on a bed of rocks. He wishes he could go for a run and work out the kinks, but he left a final project to the last minute and instead he has to go to the library. He’s finished all of his final papers and exams but one, and all of them at the very last minute. The temptation to skip all of his finals like he did in high school is real and ever present, but he always finds himself up at two or three in the morning, frantically finishing up an assignment. It’s not like it’s hard—he finishes everything quickly. Starting is the problem.
Link dresses quickly and grabs his laptop. He pulls on the heavy parka he bought after moving to New Haven. After a year the down is starting to get flattened and he can feel the wind teasing at the thinner parts. Shivering, Link hurries across campus to the library.
His father’s Yale was one of elite societies and supper clubs and important connections. Link has fallen in love with the campus for other reasons. The gloom and grandeur of the gothic buildings. The old cemetery, one of his favorite places to run. The dinghy shops and diners downtown.
And then there’s the library. The Beinecke sits like a misplaced modernist jewel in the middle of the campus. Link has spent a good deal of the past three years here. Walking into the rare book library and looking up at the tower of shelves encased in glass is like coming home.
The library is bustling with students rushing to finish their finals, some of them even asleep in their chairs, with books and papers surrounding them. Link walks past the seating area and heads to the research room. A student librarian is on duty and she helps him get set up with the manuscripts he requested.
His Latin professor had tried to talk him out of it when he suggested translating some of the library’s rare works for his final assignment. Didn’t he want to choose something more accessible? But Link likes the excuse to spend hours here, in a small, windowless room, with just the books and a pencil. They don’t even let him bring an ink pen because that might damage the books, and he likes the idea that he can’t leave a mark here. The books are beautiful and precious, and require taking his time, not tearing through things like he always does.
The project started as a simple translation, from Latin to English, but there’s so much more to study in the books than just the words. There are weird things in the margins. Some of his favorites are a knight fighting a snail, an egg with a face and legs like Humpty Dumpty, and a family of rabbits in clothes. He heard there’s a book with an illustration of a nun picking penises off of a tree but he hasn’t come across that yet.
He could have finished the translation days ago, even given the additional difficulty of deciphering antiquated handwriting, but he keeps coming back hoping to discover more secrets in the margins. He wishes he could copy them too. James would have been able to draw something like this. His art always had character, the same humor as the doodles here. For a moment, he allows himself to think about James’ hands holding a charcoal pencil, tracing the lines of a snail’s shell. He swallows dryly and carefully turns the page to continue his translation. The library is closing early today for the last day of term and he actually has to finish his project.
When he’s done, the student worker packs up the book and hands him a candy cane from the jar on the reference desk. “If you like the manuscripts so much, you should come back next semester and ask for a job.” He can’t tell if she’s joking or not, but it’s something to consider.
***
After handing in his translations he heads back to the dorm and goes to the basement for movie night. As he walks in several people call his name. Friends are a new concept to him. He and James met on their first day of high school and remained inseparable and impenetrable to anyone else. Here he’s been afraid of latching on to any one person and it’s led to a completely different experience, with a large group of friends from his dorm, his classes, and different clubs.
No one here gives a damn that he’s a genius. Most people are smarter or richer or better at sports and he simply doesn’t stand out, and it’s brilliant.
“Did you finish?” Mark, his roommate, calls from across the room where he’s curled up on the couch with his girlfriend Callie.
“It was due at five and I handed it in at four fifty one,” Link says with a grin.
Callie lets out a whoop. “Last Chance Link!”
Everyone applauds. One of his other friends, Anna, looks up from her notebook. “Want to finish my women’s studies paper too?”
Link shakes his head. “You should be in the library.”
“Whatever. Professor Brown gave us a midnight deadline, I’ll be fine.”
“She works best under pressure.” Callie hands Link a stack of movies. “You pick. And no foreign films allowed.”
He chooses Love Actually and they all give him shit when he admits that he’s never seen it, but soon they’re settled in for the movie.
At about 11:30 Link walks Anna across campus to hand in her paper. She’s the only one here who knows about James. They got into some cans of PBR one night and she told him about how her parents almost kicked her out after they caught her with her first girlfriend. In return Link told her about James and how he’s not gay but James is the only person he ever has those feelings for. She just said “oh, honey” and laughed and hugged him.
They don’t talk much on the walk to the Social Sciences building. Campus is quiet and peaceful, and they’re fine being together without speaking. After she leaves the paper at the professor’s door and they head back to the dorm, however, she asks him if he’s looking forward to the trip to Maine. She’s astute enough to know that he really isn’t, but he lies anyway.
“It’ll be fun. I love the cabin, and my sister will be there.”
Anna rolls her eyes. “And the rest of your family.”
Link just shrugs. The silence now is cautious instead of serene. Anna is going to visit a favorite aunt in Boston for the holiday, but he doesn’t feel like asking about it. He wishes he had a favorite aunt, but it’s always just been them, the insular immediate family sharing a house with no place else to go.
At the door of the dorm building, Anna pauses and unwinds the scarf from around her neck. It’s handmade, knitted in rainbow colors. She calls it her pride scarf. “Here. You should take this. Maybe it’ll help you remember your friends here if things get hard.”
“I can’t do that.” He shakes his head. “It’s your favorite.”
She chuckles. “Yeah, so you better give it back. I know where you live.”
“Anna, you know I’m not...”
“Not gay? Not sure? What do I always tell you?”
“Snape is innocent? Jar Jar Binks is secretly an evil genius?”
“You know what I mean.”
He sighs. “Sexuality is fluid and gender is a social construct.”
“Good.” She drapes the scarf over his shoulders. “Keep it under your coat. You don’t have to let your dad see it.”
“Fine,” he says, like a petulant toddler. It’s only because he knows she won’t give up. Then she reaches out to hug him, and he softens. Hugging is a new concept too, and he squeezes her tight before letting her go. They each head to their own dorm rooms, and Link starts to pack for the trip to Maine, placing the scarf at the bottom of his bag.
***
Maine is even colder than New Haven but one of the first things he and Ellen do after he arrives at the house is go for a run. It’s partly because he doesn’t want to deal with his parents yet, but he also wants to stretch his legs after sitting on the bus. He had taken the Greyhound to Portland—despite his father’s horror at the notion—and then Ellen picked him up and drove him the rest of the way to the house. He can’t believe his little sister is driving.
Running through the back woods of Maine isn’t easy, and Ellen has surpassed his running skills. “See, I always knew you were the brains and I was the brawn,” she jokes as she waits for him to catch up. She already has colleges poking around trying to win her over to the cross country teams.
Link is embarrassed at how much he’s sweating underneath his cold weather running gear, but he smiles. He wants to tell her that she is smart and that he’s always been a little jealous of her comparative normalcy, but by the time he catches his breath, he decides not to mention any of that. “You’re faster than me now. I guess Yale’s softened me up.”
She reaches down and grabs one foot, pulling it behind her to stretch her leg, and he can see her thoughts working on her face. “For the better, I think,” she says. “You seem…” There’s a cautious hope in her expression. “Happy?”
“I like Yale,” he says simply, not wanting to have a whole big conversation about it. They finish stretching, and then she bounces back to her feet.
“I promised mom I would help bake cookies,” she says, giving him a hand up.
“You go ahead. I’m going to stay out here for a while,” he tells her, and she seems like she’s going to say something else but then she just nods and walks back down the path to the house.
Link goes in the other direction, further into the woods. He and Ellen used to spend hours exploring the island, and he knows it like the back of his hand. Even now, with snow beginning to fall and dusk already approaching at four in the afternoon, he’s not worried about getting lost. After he met James, Link showed him everything he knew about the forest, telling him how to identify the different trees, explaining how to spot animals tracks, leading him around to his favorite secret spots.
They had a favorite place, a hollow with an old rope swing hanging from a tree. There was a creek running through it and they used to love swinging across it on the rope, trying not to slip and fall in. Of course they did a few times and then had to explain to Link’s mother why they were wet. They found the swing the first weekend James had visited here, not long after they met. They came here for Halloween and they had insisted on going into the woods in their costumes, James dressed in a wizard’s cloak and Link like the Mad Hatter. Link was thirteen and James fourteen; they were too old to play at pretending but still young enough to enjoy racing through the trees, laughing and letting go of pretension for a while.
When they found the swing James immediately grabbed on and flew across the hollow, grinning madly. Link had been more hesitant but James talked him into it and he ended up dropping his hat in the mud, but it was worth it. James had pushed him so he would swing harder and he could still remember how James’ hands felt thumping against his back. After they tired themselves out, they sat cross-legged on the dirt and dead leaves and talked for what felt like forever. In costume, in the middle of nowhere, it was easy to share thoughts, hopes, and dreams. The real world felt so far away. Link had never been much of a talker but James drew it out of him. James’ opinions were so interesting and he wanted to hear what Link thought, too. Link loved who he was when he was with James.
Link sinks into the same spot now, the damp, cold ground against his back as he lies down and stares up at the canopy of bare branches. The rope swing is gone now. The summer before senior year, they came here and Link jumped on the swing and it snapped instantly, sending him tumbling to the ground. His adult weight was too much for the old, frayed rope. James caught him, steadying him, and they looked at each other over the fallen swing.
“Are you okay?” James asked, and Link heard the fear in his voice. Was it just because he had almost gotten hurt?
“I’m fine,” he said, but James kept his hands on his shoulders, even though he had his balance now. They were inches away and Link had wanted to move in closer but then he jerked away, saying “Don’t look at me like that” and they never came back to Maine together again.
Willing the last memory to fade, Link stands up and brushes the leaves off his pants. He jogs back to the house, steeling himself for the rest of the evening.
***
They all sit down for a family dinner that night, and Link barely feels like eating, on edge the whole time. He doesn’t know how he used to get through these dinners every night.
“I heard from Alexander Millbank’s son that you don’t spend much time with the other legacy students,” his father says, halfway through the meal.
Link lets his fork drop to his plate with a clatter. “My friends worked hard to get to Yale.”
His father lets out a put upon sigh. “You’re making things so much harder for yourself.” He’s talking about the scholarship kids, but is he really saying something else?
“I thought you were going to join one of the societies. It’s not too late.”
“The societies can go to hell.”
His mother flinches, and Link glares at her. He hadn’t realized that words like hell and damn weren’t very bad until he got to college. Mark still ribs him about his inability to say fuck without squirming.
“Who’s paying your tuition, Link? For your room and board?” His father says. It’s well played, and Link doesn’t have an answer. For an instant, he’s back in that study, the smell of dust in the air as his father hands him extra allowance. It wasn’t just about the money, but what the cash symbolized. One wrong move and it could all be gone, the good school, the lessons, the books. He would have still had James, but would James have wanted him without everything else?
Now he doesn’t have a good answer to the threat so he does what he always does, which is get up and stomp to his room, slamming the door. Ellen sits there, staring at her plate, and it’s so so hard not to blame her for not standing up for him.
He lies on his bed for a while, seething. After a while, he hears the sounds of the house continue as normal. His father watching the news in the living room, the water flowing from the sink as his mother starts to watch dishes. Link turns over and moves the pillows aside, feeling along the headboard until his fingers close on an old notebook wedged between the bed frame and the mattress.
The notebook is a combination journal and exercise book, pages of mathematical formulas interspersed with the thoughts of fourteen year old Link. He left it here because it was less likely his mother would discover it in Maine than in his bedroom in New York, and he had been too worried she would see it in the garbage if he threw it out. He had almost forgotten about it, and he’s not completely sure why he wants to look at it now. Maybe to check and make sure that it’s true, he was never actually happy with his family.
He flips open to a random page. The paper is covered with numbers. Link remembers working through the equations, playacting at being a mathematician. When he solved as many as he could he would get bored and start scribbling in the margins. This page bears the same markings as many of the others. Swirling around the math, the name, written over and over: James, James, James.
Even now it causes him to burn with shame. At that age, he hadn’t even understood his own obsession. He still doesn’t. All he knew was that thinking of James pulled him out of the spiral he could fall into doing math, and so he wrote it like an incantation.
He flips to the end of the notebook, where he wrote something else. Incan’t believe he would do that to himself. Link had written that after James told him about sleeping with Mr. Wentworth’s friend. Link had hated James for laying that burden of a secret on him. He felt so disgusted and he hadn’t been able to talk to anyone else about it, not even Ellen. Not even James himself because Link had warned him never to bring up anything like that again. He couldn’t talk about how worried he was either, wondering what would happen if James was discovered, or what would happen if Link admitted to himself that he was jealous.
There’s a knock on the door and Link shoves the notebook back under the mattress. “Go away.”
“It’s Ellen.” When he doesn’t answer, she clears her throat. “I have cookies.”
“Come in.” He sits up as she walks into the room, holding a plate of freshly baked Christmas cookies.
“I thought you might be hungry since you didn’t finish your dinner,” she says, holding it out, and she’s right. His stomach growls and he grabs a snowman cookie, taking a bite.
“Did you know,” he says, talking around a mouthful of crumbs, “That your parents are self-serving narcissist who never equipped us with an ounce of emotional intelligence?”
She stares at him, and he wonders if he’s managed to piss her off, but for now she just reaches for a cookie and takes a delicate nibble. “Did you learn that in college?”
”Yes,” he says, with mock seriousness. “You’ll understand when you leave the house. Or maybe you’ll be too busy becoming a jock.”
“Please, I’m majoring in Art History even if I’m on a sports scholarship.”
“Of course.” He doesn’t feel like talking about himself, so he turns the conversation back to her. “What have you read lately?”
They talk about books and films for a while, and then Ellen goes to bed. At least he still has one member of his family to rely on. He knows Ellen isn’t going anywhere.
***
Link resolves to be on his best behavior for the rest of Christmas week, even though every little thing his father does infuriates him and so does his mother’s refusal to notice it. He spends as much time as he can out of the house, walking and running all across the island. He and Ellen take long lunches at the cafe and she’s nice enough to mention the fight he and James had over a waiter here. They had so many arguments he can’t remember them all, but that one sticks in his mind.
On Christmas morning things are almost normal as they gather around the tree to exchange gifts. He gives Ellen a copy of The Secret History, his mother a framed print of one of her favorite poems in Latin, and his father a Yale alumni mug. His father shakes his hand and gives him an envelope with cash, which leaves a bad taste in his mouth, so he makes a joke that might be a little too true about their inability to choose presents for him.
The following days are a blur of movies and reading and too many leftovers, and Link is trying to amuse himself playing the piano when the phone rings. He ignores it while Ellen answers, and she carries the phone to her room so he figures it’s one of her friends.
After a few minutes she returns and slides onto the piano bench beside him, leaning in close. He doesn’t stop playing as she whispers to him. “That was James.”
His hands falter and he looks at her but the fear and wonderment that rises up in him only make him continue to play Edelweiss with a renewed frenzy. “He’s in the city for Christmas,” she continues. Their parents are in the kitchen making dinner, and surely can’t hear them over the music. “He invited us to come see him.”
“Us?” He hits a wrong note and frowns.
“You don’t have to go,” she says hurriedly. “But I want to see him.”
He has so many questions, but they can’t have the conversation here. He finishes the song and simply nods. Ellen goes into the kitchen to ask if they can drive back home for New Years, to go see the ball drop with Adena and Laurel. “Good, it’ll keep your brother busy,” he hears his father say. And so it’s decided.
***
They have more than enough time to talk about James on the drive up to New York, but much remains unsaid.
“Did you stay in touch with him?” Link asks Ellen.
“He sent me a few letters. Less as time passed. He hasn’t been back to the US until now,” she says. They stop at a red light and she looks over at him. “I think I’m mostly over him—over the relationship anyway. I still love him, I always will, but I was so young.”
Link doesn’t want to tell her that he’s not over James so he doesn’t say anything. Ellen turns her attention back to the road. They listen to audiobooks to pass the time and fill the silence.
“I’m surprised you agreed to come,” Ellen says after a while, as the last chapter of a Jeeves and Wooster story plays.
“Maybe I just wanted a ride to New York,” he says, and that’s the end of that. There’s more traffic soon and Ellen has to focus on the road, and Link finds it hilarious how hard she’s trying not to swear at the other drivers.
Link can’t say why he agreed to this himself, other than simple selfishness. He misses James, and wants to see him one last time. Is that really so bad?
***
They get to New York late and order pizza before crashing on the couch to watch a movie. Ellen picks Miracle on 34th Street, and Link can’t concentrate at all so it’s a good thing he’s seen it a million times before. Ellen gets a little teary-eyed at the end when they open all the letters, and it makes him think of the letters James sent her. Does she still have them somewhere? Were they love letters to her?
They’re both tired from the drive so they go to bed early. As he’s getting into bed, Ellen knocks on the door and he lets her in, just like when they were little kids. She always slept in his room the night before a big event, and it seems they’ve both decided that seeing James is a big event.
They had arranged to meet James at the Rockefeller Center ice rink. They arrive early, both of them nervous although they won’t say it. Ellen occupies herself watching the people skate, probably trying to remember enough to draw later, so Link is the first one to notice James. He had almost forgotten how objectively, heartbreakingly good looking James was.
In the next instant James sees him and he smiles, making his face even more beautiful. He walks towards them, unhurried. For a second it’s just the two of them looking at each other across the crowd and Link can’t breathe so he nudges his sister, and she turns and lets out a little shout of joy. “James!” She runs at him, and he pulls her into a big hug while Link continues to stand there, staring at the two of them. It occurs to him that it’s not too late to walk away and act like he was just dropping off Ellen, but then James closes the last few steps between them.
“Hi, Link.”
“Hi.” Link searches for some hint that this meeting is as momentous to James as it is to him, but James seems so cool as usual.
“I’m so glad you called,” Ellen says, picking up the slack. “I can’t believe it, the three of us together again.”Except it’s really more the two of them because for the first time ever, Link can’t think of anything to say to James. Or more like he can think of a thousand things but none of them come out of his mouth. “How’s your art going?” James asks Ellen.
“I still practice every day,” Ellen says. “Look, I was just getting some ideas.” She takes him by the hand and points to the people she had been watching. She babbles about the group of children learning to skate and the old couple holding hands, saying it would make a good juxtaposition for a drawing.
“You have a good eye,” James says, and Link finds himself growing annoyed, which at least quashes some of the nerves.
“Okay,” Ellen says, seeming a little embarrassed by her exuberance, and she leads the way down the steps to the rink. “I didn’t know you liked skating so much,” James says, falling into step beside him. “We always went on the second Sunday in December,” Link says. James knows this already, but it’s something to talk about. “I’m actually terrible at it, but it was a fun family outing.”
“I was always jealous of your family at Christmas,” James tells him candidly. “We never had any traditions. My mother came to see me in Germany last year—without Dad—so this year it was my turn to come here. But it’s boring.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone call Christmas in New York boring.” They’re next in line for the skates and he grabs James a pair without thinking, size 10.
Once they’re on the ice, it’s less awkward, mainly because Link has to concentrate very hard on not falling. James, of course, is good at skating and leaves them for a moment to speed across the ice, turning in a circle before returning to them. Ellen looks starstruck and he worries that this meeting is just going to make her be not over James again.
To be fair he isn’t much better. He never let himself pay much attention to James’ body, but now Link admires James as he skates, his graceful legs, his strong arms, the sharp planes of his cheekbones, how his face still looks good even under the floppy knit hat he’s wearing. Skating doesn’t give them much chance to talk, but maybe that’s better. This way he can take in James’ presence without conversation, basking in it.
James swoops back and takes Ellen by the hand, leading her across the ice while Link toddles after them. They look good together—everyone probably thinks they’re a couple, the same way they used with James and Link. The thought irks him enough that he loses his balance and his feet slide out from under him, and he lands right on his rear end.
“Link!” James skates back to him, offering a hand up. Link takes it with a firm grip and allows himself to be pulled to his feet, but then he can’t let go, because he can tell he’ll fall again if he does. “Are you ok?”
“Sorry. I’m a little unsteady.”
“You can hold on to me,” James says, and Link nods, even though he thinks James might have been half joking.
Ellen is hovering nearby and Link waves at her. “You go on ahead. You’re still faster than me, I can’t catch up.”
She looks between them before nodding and skating away, into the crowd. James moves back a little but keeps Link’s hand on his arm. “Okay?” he asks again, and Link shoots him a look.
“I told you I was bad,” he says, and James laughs, sounding relieved. They start skating again, slowly this time, and it’s nice. No one gives them a second chance, thinking that Link is just incompetent, which is a first in more than one way. “So how do they celebrate Christmas in Germany?”
“Lots of markets, and lots of drinking. It’s fun. I wish you could try gluhwein, it’s delicious,” James says.
“How is Germany, overall?”
“It’s alright,” James says, pausing for a moment. “I was really homesick at first, and I still get lonely. I don’t know the language, and I’m not a polyglot like you. I listen to English radio sometimes just to hear something I understand.”
Link had imagined James thriving in Germany, because that’s what he always did. Now he pictures James sitting home alone, tuned in to the radio, and it melts some of the anger in him.
“But the art, Link!” James perks up again. “I get to be around art every day, and I’m making some really good work. There was a student show a few weeks ago and I won first prize.”
“Of course you did,” Link says. “Your drawings have always been beautiful.”
James actually blushes a little. “What about you? How’s Yale?”
“It’s good,” Link says guardedly, not wanting to brag about how much he loves college after hearing that James’ experience wasn’t the best. “I made a few friends. The classes are interesting, more challenging than Cedar Hill. I’m learning Latin this year, and I’ll take Greek next semester.”
“I’m glad to hear that, Link, really.” James gives him that glowing smile again, and Link softens a little more. Then his smile turns mischievous. “Do you trust me?”
James takes his lack of answer for a yes and puts an arm around Link, tightening his hold as he speeds off across the ice. He spins around, twirling them both while Link gasps, his heart pounding. This was what being James was like. Exhilerating.
“Don’t scare me like that,” Link says when James slows down again. He releases the vise grip he’d kept on James, even though he feels slightly dizzy from the spin. He looks around, but people are mostly ignoring them or just impressed by James’ skill on the ice. “You owe me a hot chocolate after that.”
Ellen joins them again and they turn in their skates before going to a nearby cafe. She doesn’t seem to mind having to skate alone, and she chatters happily as they order hot chocolate and pastries. “That was so fun! Mom and Dad always made us stick together and be careful.”
“Being careful is overrated,” James says.
Link thinks of the boisterous children on the ice and wonders if he and Ellen were ever like that. “They never let us just be kids,” he says. “They treated us like little adults. It was messed up.”
“At least you had parents looking out for you. Mine let me get into all sorts of trouble because they weren’t looking,” James says.
“We were all messed up,” Ellen remarks, and it might be the smartest thing anyone has said all day.
James lifts his mug of cocoa. “I’ll drink to that.” They all clink mugs, and then they talk until the waitress starts to give them disapproving looks for the empty mugs and plates in front of them.
“I have to go meet my mother for a fancy dinner,” James says finally. “But what are you doing for New Year’s Eve? I’m going to a party in a hotel overlooking Times Square. My parents aren’t going, but I accepted the invitation. You should come.”
“We’re going to a party at Adena’s house,” Link says, but Ellen nudges him.
“Link doesn’t want to hang out with a bunch of high school girls. You should go with James.”
James looks at him expectedly, and Link nods. “Sure, I’ll go.”
“Great. Don’t forget to dress up. I’ve got to run, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I’ll walk you out.” Ellen stands up and Link lets them have their own goodbye, content that he’ll be seeing James again tomorrow.
***
Link hadn’t been planning to dress up on this trip so his New Year’s Eve outfit is a suit from high school that thankfully still fits, although it’s a little tight given the freshman fifteen. He steals a navy blue tie from his dad’s closet, and borrows a chunky gold watch from Ellen. He and Ellen eat a quick, early dinner of leftover pizza, although he has no appetite. Then he sees Ellen safely into a taxi to her friend’s house, and he hands her fare for the way back with a warning to leave if anything makes her uncomfortable. “It’s just Adena’s house, and her dads will be there.” Ellen rolls her eyes and he knows she’s perfectly capable, but acting worried for his sister lets him cover up his own nervousness. After she drives away, he walks to the subway and takes it to Times Square.
It’s absolute chaos on the ground and Link is glad to duck into the hotel. James meets him in the lobby, looking incredibly dapper in a grey suit with velvet around the lapels. For a second he’s not sure how to greet James—do they hug now? Should he shake James’ hand like his father? What did they used to do before things were awkward? But James is so excited he doesn’t even take the time to any of those, shepherding Link into an elevator and hitting the button for one of the top floors.
“I’m so glad you could be here,” James says. “This party is really dull so far.”
“Who rented this suite?” Link asks.
“One of my father's friends from work.” Seeing Link’s expression, he shakes his head. “Don’t worry. It’s some old, respected lawyer lady and her husband.”
James is right, the party is not what Link was expecting. All of the women are in glitzy cocktail dresses, and the men are in suits or tuxedos, so he’s glad that James told him what to wear. There’s wine and canapés, and someone is playing a lackluster version of Clair de Lune on the piano. What kind of hotel suite has a piano? Link had always been peripherally aware that James’ family was even better off than they were, especially given the tax-free allowance, but moments like this serve as a reminder.
“Let me take your coat,” James says, and Link is relieved to hand over his out of place, worn parka. Then he remembers the scarf, and he tries to hide it in a coat pocket, but James notices.
“Nice scarf,” he says, and he goes to hang up Link’s coat in the closet. He returns a moment later with a plate of fancy crackers and cheese to share, and they take up residence on a pristine white couch in the middle of the room.
For all of his nervousness, James is right. This is incredibly boring. When they’re surrounded by people, they have to stick to safe topics, like books and movies, and their classes, but the conversation flows easily. A few other people come up to talk to them, and Link manages to work in some networking to rub in his father’s face later. Even though James is the one that was invited, everyone seems more interested in Link’s Yale credentials, and a blankness falls over their faces when James mentions art school in Germany.
Finally, he’s had enough of the questions. When the pianist gets up to take a break, James sets down his half-eaten plate of cheese and stands up. “I’m going to play.”
Without asking, he sits down at the piano. Everyone is too busy talking to notice at first. There’s a songbook with holiday classics at the piano, but Link doesn’t need that. He starts out messing around, playing a riff on the cheesy Christmas song from Love Actually, then Deck the Halls, and then he starts on the Nutcracker Suite. By then, the pianist has come back from break but he doesn’t interrupt, and people start to listen to him.
He looks across the room and sees James watching him, riveted, while the party continues around him. James had always loved to hear him play not because he was skilled, but because it was beautiful. Link barely has to look at the piano to continue, moving from the Nutcracker suite to the black swan’s pas de deux from Swan Lake. No one seems to care that it’s not a Christmas song. When the song is finished, he stops and a few people clap.
“Are you sure you don’t want to take over for the rest of the night?” the pianist asks. He seems like he might have been dipping into the eggnog on his break. “It’s all yours,” Link says, and goes back to James.
“Tchaikovsky is my favorite,” James says.
“I know.”
James leans in close. “Someone told me you can take the elevator to the roof. Let’s go up.”
They put their coats back on and take the elevator to the top floor, then sneak up the fire escape stairs. The door is open, and they step out onto the roof. James goes to the edge immediately, hanging over the railing. “Hello down there!” he shouts to the crowd beneath them.
“Careful,” Link says, following him over to the railing.
“Come on.” James pulls him closer. “It looks amazing.”
With James holding on to him, he knows he won’t fall, so he leans over as far as he can. The sea of people seems miles away. It’s a clear night, and the lights of Times Square wink back at them. “It’s beautiful,” Link says, and he knows how lucky he is to be here.
After a while James steps back and pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, offering one to Link.
“I quit,” Link says.
“Really? I’ve done the opposite. Everyone in Germany smokes.” But James puts the pack back in his pocket.
Link almost wishes he had accepted the cigarette just to have something to do with his hands. He settles for shoving them into his coat pockets.
“Does this remind you of sitting on the roof at school?” James asks. “We’ve come a long way, haven’t we?”
Link looks back across the night sky, not sure how to answer, thinking of those long lunch hours sitting side by side, talking about everything and nothing, right next to each other but not quite touching. Sitting next to James, he had longed to close the small distance between them, to let their shoulders brush, to put his arm around James and overlap their legs, but somehow that was as frightening as the thought of having sex.
“So, have you outgrown me?” he asks, instead of voicing any of that.
The corners of James’ mouth twitch in an almost smile. “Never.”
“But Ellen’s outgrown you.”
James tilts his head. “Let’s not talk about Ellen.” They stand facing each other, close but not touching again. “The painting I won first prize for this semester? It was a portrait. Of you.”
“Oh.” Just that one word, because his breath has been taken away again. A warm glow suffuses him. “In the portrait, you’re sitting at a piano, not looking at the audience. You’re there, but inaccessible. Absorbed with something else. That’s how I always see you.”
“James, I—“ Link takes an infinitesimal step forward. He wants to scream at his own inability to speak the right words. “Everything I did in high school was about you. About how much I loved you. My father used to say this quote, the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. You should know how I feel.”
“Hurting someone isn’t loving them, Link.”
“I know that now. I’m learning. Do I need to get on my knees and beg you to forgive me?” Link holds his hands out, beseeching. “Because I’ve forgiven you.”
For once, James is the one who doesn’t seem to be able to speak. He just stares at Link. Then he says “I wish you could see the painting.”
Link feels exhausted by his confession, but also lighter somehow. He goes back to the edge and stares at the crowd, and Link comes up beside him and puts an arm around his shoulder. They stand there for a while, huddled together in the cold, before James whispers in his ear. “We should go back to the party. The ball is going to drop soon.”
Back downstairs, things have loosened up a little, or maybe that’s his own feelings making him see things differently. A few people have started singing carols, and then someone stands on a chair and starts counting down.
“Ten, nine, eight…”
As the clock strikes midnight, James hugs him and kisses his cheek. It could just be two friends playing around, but no one else knows how Link’s heart starts beating as fast as it did when they sped across the ice.
“Let’s get out of here,” Link says, and they slip out while everyone is still cheering.
It takes a long time to get out of the tangle of people around Times Square, and there’s no chance to talk. They have to hold hands, sometimes, not to be separated, and Link can feel the heat between them even through his heavy winter gloves. Finally, they reach Central Park, which they had decided on without saying it.
It feels different than it usually would at night, with plenty of other people wandering around with them. “Ellen and I used to come here almost every day to run,” Link says. “It’s one thing I miss about New York.”
“What else?”
“I miss the theater. And how alive everything always felt. How you could sit alone in a restaurant and no one would care. I can’t get a good bagel in New Haven either. I don’t miss the summer heat or how fast everyone moved on the street, or subway delays…or home, I don’t miss being home.”
“Maybe that was never really your home, then,” James says.
“What about you? You’re not going to stay in Germany, are you?”
“I still have two years. After that, I don’t know. I love New York, but maybe I’ll try someplace different. Anything could happen.”
They find an empty bench and sit down, facing each other, their knees touching. “Link, what do you want?” James asks, and he isn’t sure if James is asking about the future or right now.
He can only answer one of those, and so he leans forward until their lips touch, testing to see if this is okay, and then James pulls him in to deepen the kiss. The kiss says everything they can’t say, and Link thinks this may be a form of communication he’s overlooked. When they finally stop to breathe, his only regret is that he’ll never be able to do that for the first time again.
The world comes back into focus again, the cold and the dark and the other people going about their New Year’s Eve. His mother always said that the way you spend New Year’s is a model for how you’ll spend the rest of the year, and he’s not sure what kissing his best friend on a park bench means.
James is staring at him like he expects Link to be the first one to say something, which is never a good idea. “I have a train to catch in a few hours.”
“You’re leaving so soon?”
“I don’t want to be here when my parents get back from Maine.”
“Can I come with you?”
“To New Haven?”
“No, home, and then to the train station. I’ll see you off.”
“I’d like that.”
They catch a taxi back to Link’s place, and the driver jokes about what they must have been up to all night, two boys on the town. The house is silent when they walk in. Parents still in Maine, Ellen at Adena’s. They’re alone.
“Remember how you used to have to sleep in my sister’s bedroom?” Link asks as they walk into his room.
“No guests on the couch.” James chuckles. “I could sleep there tonight.”
“I don’t think Ellen would like that.” Link starts pulling off his uncomfortable suit. Undressing in front of each other isn’t that big of a deal, after years of changing into swimsuits at the cabin and gym classes at school, but getting in bed together? That feels more intimate than sex. It might be easier to be back on that park bench, kissing, than it is to lift the covers and slide in beside James.
They lie facing each other, and Link focuses on small details. The curl of James’ long eyelashes, the curve of his smile. He reaches out and smooths the hair back from James’ face, his gaze darting to James’ lips. James leans in, but Link moves back.
They could have sex, fuck, make love, whatever, right now, but he’s too scared to do it in his childhood bedroom, surrounded by the ghosts of old fears and anger. Not as a desperate last chance. He thinks they have time, now, and if they’ve already waited this long, it’s nothing. “Not here.”
James nods and settles for putting an arm around him. They fall asleep like that, although Link doesn’t actually sleep much, too aware of James’ touch and his breath and his heartbeat, beating alongside his own.
***
He catches a few hours of sleep early in the morning, and is awoken by his alarm warning him that he has to be at the station in an hour. James is already up, and Link is worried that he left, but he’s in the kitchen drinking coffee. Link changes and packs up his bag again. Ellen still isn’t back, and he feels bad not saying goodbye, but he’s also not ready to talk about what happened with James. Maybe he’ll invite her down to New Haven for a weekend.
He writes her a note and leaves it in the kitchen. Ellen- thanks for everything.
“Ready?” James asks.
Link suddenly feels shy again in the light of the morning. “You don’t have to go out of your way to take me to the station if you don’t want to.”
“I want to.”
They take the subway to Penn Station, and it’s weirdly quiet. Everyone else is probably still home sleeping. Link almost regrets leaving so early, but the thought of his peaceful dorm room and not having to explain anything to his parents is enough to keep him from changing his ticket.
He wonders if he should thank James for inviting him to the party, say something like he had a nice time last night, but that’s never been their way. They just sit together in the waiting area, not talking much.
“When do you go back to Germany?”
“In a week. I have to put up with my mother until then, she has a whole roster of bonding activities. I think she’s trying to make up for lost time.”
“Good luck with that. You should send me your address when you get back.”
“I will.”
Maybe he’ll write James a letter to say everything he still hasn’t been able to. He’ll even put doodles in the margins. “I was thinking of studying abroad next year. I want to go to Greece.”
“I’ve always wanted to see the Parthenon,” James says.
“I guess you’ll just have to come visit me.” The board is showing his train, and he stands up. This time, they do hug, and Link holds James tightly before letting him go. Goodbyes aren’t their way either, so he doesn’t say one. He can feel James watching him until he descends the steps to the platform.
Link takes his seat on the train. He feels all sorts of things, and he can’t put a name to all of them yet. Before, he had never fully allowed himself to miss James, but now he will. Until they meet again. As the train pulls out of the station, he closes his eyes and lets himself imagine what will happen the next time they see each other. The possibilities are limitless.