Waiting for Clark (9 page)

“I don’t think I can eat all this,” I said. Clark grew up on a farm, eating giant breakfasts. The dining hall ladies all loved him at school. I grew up with a mother who preferred to lunch, not breakfast, and a protein shake usually did me till noon.

“See, I’m telling you. Sunday brunch is so big in this town. We open early. Clark tells me how to make these…” Charles helped himself to another waffle. “When do you go back anyway, Clark? We were so slammed last night you didn’t really get the full Gotham Coin experience.”

“You just want to try some recipes on me.” Clark laughed. Charles had long coveted Clark’s status as a supertaster who could discern minute differences in a batch of food— back in college, once Tony and Charles and some others moved into a campus apartment, he was always trying recipes on Clark. “And I’ve got a flight Tuesday, but—”

“You know, I really should get my costume on.” I drank the remainder of my coffee in one chug and pushed up from my stool. I had known Clark was leaving. I wasn’t stupid. I’d known he was leaving while we were making out and while we were fucking and I’d known it when I woke up, but somehow it still hit me like a medicine ball to the gut. Clark’s life wasn’t in Portland anymore, and I was no more ready to beg him to make a change than I had been five years ago.

“Thanks for the food,” I said on my way out of the room because both my parents would be rolling over in their graves if I didn’t make the barest of effort with manners.

“Bryce!” Of freaking course Clark came clattering up the stairs after me. “Bryce, wait.”

Was it really only last night that I’d loved the sound of my name on his lips? I hurried ahead to my room. “Gotta get ready.”

I stripped off my sweats without looking back at the doorway. I knew he was still there. I could hear his little huffs of breath and smell his soap.

“Can we talk?”

I made a noise that was just this side of “Go away.”

“Bryce.” Clark came closer, put a hand on my back. “Are you that upset that I’m flying back to Boston?”

“Nope,” I lied through teeth clenched so tightly, my dentist would be able to put his kids through Yale fixing all the cracks.

“Yes, you are. And we probably should have talked about this last night—”

“We both got what we wanted, right?” I said gruffly.

“No.” Clark surprised me with the firm reply. “Not if you’re going to pull away like this—”

“What did you think? We’d be all holding hands and announcing our coupledom to Charles and Tony this morning?” Oh fuck. I made the mistake of looking at Clark’s face for an instant, long enough to see his eyes turn a sad silver shade and see that, yes, he had been thinking something along those lines.

“No.” Now he was the liar. “But I figured we would
talk.
And I could tell you that I’m coming back in a couple of weeks.”

“Great. You and Charles can trade recipes.”

“I’m coming back for good, Bryce. I have to go back and do the graduation thing and pack up, but I’ve got a visiting professorship at Reed for this coming year—”

“Congrats. What’s happening after this year? Stanford? Caltech? Something in Silicon Valley perhaps?”

Clark sat on the edge of my bed while I pulled on the rest of my costume. “You’re still bitter, aren’t you? You’re bitter that I took the Rhodes—”

“Of course I’m not. You won one of the most prestigious awards anywhere. I was happy for you then and I’m happy for you now.” It was the right thing to say, but the words tasted sour.

“You could have spoken up, you know,” Clark said. “When I asked if you saw a way for it to work.”

“I didn’t,” I said bluntly. “And I don’t now either.”

“You seriously couldn’t do distance for a couple of
weeks
?” Clark held up his hands.

“No, I seriously can’t do a relationship with you.” I didn’t realize until the words were out how much I meant them. My insides felt like a shattered car windshield, barely holding together, one swift kick from caving into a million pieces.

“Why not?” Clark appeared genuinely befuddled, all wide eyes and upturned hands.

I attached my cape. This was already the single most bizarre conversation of my life. Might as well make it even more bizarre and add the mask. I jammed it on my head. “Because you were right the first time. We’re doomed to hurt each other. Maybe not now, but eventually we will.”

“So let me get this straight. You don’t trust me not to leave and you don’t trust me not to hurt you, so you’ve decided that this terrible, barely civil
acquaintanceship
we’ve had the last several years is preferable to trying for something real?” Clark leaned forward, elbows on knees, looking at up at me in my costume. It would not have been possible to feel more ridiculous than I did at that moment.

I nodded curtly. It was illogical. And I hadn’t really thought about it in those terms up until that moment, but trust Clark to cleave through all the rubble in my mind and find the stone of truth. I would have been perfectly happy to storm off and assume he wasn’t coming back to Oregon. But that was really just the excuse. Clark said once he “could” fall in love with me. But I’d been in love with him for years now, and how could I really trust him? How could I trust myself?

“You’re punishing both of us, and I’m not even sure you know
why.
” Clark followed me as I strode to the door.

He didn’t give up, following me down the stairs and into the kitchen as I tossed the van keys at Charles. “You can take the rental truck. I need to take my bike.”

Short of two hours in the weight room, riding the bike was the best way to shed this restless, almost ill sensation taking hold of me.

“Bryce. Stop.” Clark followed me across the back patio which overlooked the rest of the yard and the large garage. The patio was ringed by a low brick wall with a few taller brick pillars and Clark leaned on one. His feet were bare and I doubted he’d follow me along the rocky path to the garage. Which, ironically, made me feel sicker. Guilt lodged in all the places that should be occupied by a warm breakfast and easy conversation with Clark. “I think this is really about your dad. Bryce, I’m not going to die.”

“Don’t try to analyze me. You’re a mathematician, not a psychologist.” I sped up my steps to get away, but the image of Clark leaning against the pillar, face all reasonable and concerned, lingered even after I entered the garage.

I stuffed my cape and mask in the under-seat storage on the bike. I fumbled my way into my Kevlar motorcycle jacket and jeans over my costume. I was being a total and complete jerk. And truth was, Clark wasn’t that off base. The logical part of my brain knew he was being rational, and I was being crazier than a cartoon villain on the ropes.

I drove away, mind still reeling as I searched for the peace that always came even with a short ride. It didn’t come. Was Clark right? Was this about punishing him for his decision five years earlier? Or was this about me being scared of losing someone?

The wind slammed into my face under my helmet and the bike’s usual soothing vibrations felt like a dental drill, rattling my teeth and making me grip the handlebars tighter than usual.

Out of necessity, I had gotten damn good at being alone. Oh sure, I had the large circle of friends, but soon Tony would probably leave and move in with Karen. Charles seemed like he’d taken up permanent residence, but who knew when he’d find a cute little foodie to call his own and pack up? After my mother’s car accident, it had been just my father and me, but I’d had over half a decade to come to terms with his eventual leaving too. Everyone left in the end. I honestly didn’t know if I had it in me to take a chance only to have it ripped away when Clark too moved on.

****

Chapter Eight

Clark

I had no idea how long I sat on the brick wall of Bryce’s patio. Actually, calling it a patio was a bit like calling
Star Wars
“a movie” —technically true but completely ignorant of scope. It was more of an outdoor room with real furniture and a built-in grill. It was a space meant for parties, not moping.

“Bryce take off?” Charles came out onto the patio and sat in a padded chair near where I was perched. You’d never know it if you saw him take over a kitchen, but Charles was totally a “why stand when you can sit and why sit when you can lounge” sort of guy who didn’t expend a lot of energy for anything other than LAN computer gaming parties and cooking. That’s why it was a bit surprising that he followed me out here. Jesus. I truly was hard up if Charles thought I needed consoling.

“Yeah.”

“Guess sex doesn’t solve everything, huh?” Charles asked mildly, almost curiously. I was pretty sure Charles was asexual or somewhere close to it on the spectrum, with sexual relationships being more of a scientific curiosity to him than something he wanted in his own life. He had never dated, nor professed unhappiness about that in all the time I’d known him.

“No.” I groaned. “It doesn’t. And I knew that. We should have talked…”

“You guys have never been very good at that.” He stretched, crossing his feet in front of him.

“What do you mean? We talked all the time in college.” I drummed my fingers against the cool bricks.

“About games, yeah. And about projects and about everything other than the fact that you were in love with each other.”

“I’m not so sure it was mutual.” I didn’t dispute the love part, but judging by Bryce’s reaction that morning, I wasn’t at all certain about what, if anything, he felt.

“Look, if even
I
could see it, you have to trust me. You both fell in love freshman year, and then spent the next three being giant idiots. Did you at least tell him today that you love him?”

I made a sound not unlike the geese that populated the canyon in the middle of campus at Reed.

“I’ll take that as a no. You probably went for
logic
and reason.” Charles shook his head woefully. “
Math majors
.”
He said the last like one might say “Shania Twain fans.”

“He’s the one being illogical. He wouldn’t even let me explain my five-year plan…” I trailed off realizing exactly how ridiculous I sounded.

Charles raised a bushy eyebrow. “Really, Clark? Your five-year plan? The dude is still reeling from the death of his dad, has never gotten over you leaving, and has a martyr complex the size of the metro area. Logic is supposed to help that?”

How Charles could see everything so clearly was baffling to me. “So what? I’m supposed to beg? Apologize? Grovel?”

“It’s not a multiple choice test, Clark.” Charles held up his hands. “How about you try speaking to him like it’s a volcano scene?”

“A volcano scene?” He’d lost me.

“You know, in the movies. The scene where one person of the couple is dangling over a fiery pit or has a gun pulled on them or some other danger. And then they both spill their guts and say everything they haven’t been able to before.”

I blinked. Rapidly. Swallowed hard. “You’re really quite brilliant, you know?”

“I know.” Charles smiled serenely.

Now the only challenge was finding that courage without dragging Bryce to Mount St. Helens and hoping for another volcanic eruption to trigger truth
-
telling.

****

Instead of praying for cataclysmic events, I put on my Superman costume, got my hair into official Man-of-Steel style and headed for the con with Charles. Charles, bless him, made the choice a bit easier by telling me he didn’t know about parking the big rental van. I’d learned to drive using a half-ton pickup, so very few driving challenges fazed me.

Parking in the crowded convention center garage really wasn’t that big a deal. However, the withering look Bryce gave me when I approached the booth made me feel like I’d rammed a cement pylon.

“I’m here for the pictures,” I said a bit too testily in lieu of actually greeting him.

“Thanks,” he grunted.

Damn stubborn caveman.

“I’m going to get more shirts from the van.” Bryce moved out from behind the counter.

“Need help?” I couldn’t resist asking.

“No, thank you.” Bryce strode away.

“You two are impossible.” Tony rolled his eyes. He was full of good humor this morning. Someone had clearly gotten laid last night judging from how he kept cuddling up to his Wonder Woman girlfriend. No side of awkward for those two.

That’s what I want.
I’d never seen it so clearly before— I wanted to be a couple with Bryce. A long-term, forever sort of thing. And Charles was right. There was nothing logical about that at all. It wasn’t about giving Bryce a list of reasons why we should be together— it was about telling him how I felt, something I hadn’t really done five years ago or this morning. I’d been waiting for Bryce to move first, Bryce to say the words, but Charles was right— that wasn’t going to happen.

I could bemoan that fact about him, or I could accept I loved him despite his inability to articulate his feelings. Bryce had good reasons to keep his feelings close to his chest. If there were a fiery lava flow separating us, would I really wait for him to admit his feelings first? Did I want to spend the rest of my life with my feelings for Bryce being my kryptonite— my biggest weakness— instead of taking the risk of making them the bedrock of my life?

“I’ll be back,” I said to Tony and the others. I dodged through the Sunday morning crowd— passing Captain America, The Hulk, Ironman and many small cartoon characters trailing their noncostumed parents.

I want a family with Bryce.
The surety of that thought guided my steps. I didn’t just want him to give me a chance— I wanted to give him my heart. And in all the words I’d said trying to get Bryce to listen to me, that intent had been missing. I wanted to talk schedules and trans-continental moves, but I hadn’t said the three words that mattered most.

I caught up with Bryce in the parking garage. He was looking around, and his blank expression seemed totally lost. I figured only part of that was our argument— he’d stalked off without checking with Charles to see where we’d parked.

“Need help finding the van?” I asked. “Or the keys?”