Autumn Fire (17 page)

The color returned to Kyle’s face, increasing into a blush. His eyes watered as he turned and sat on the edge of his bed to rest his face in his hands. Kyle breathed deeply, the sound of his breath quivering at the end.

A desire to comfort him overwhelmed Dustin—to hold him in his arms and rock him until he felt better. He resisted because those were actions for a couple, not for two people who...well, who didn’t know what they were. Since he couldn’t stand there, doing nothing, he settled for the middle ground and sat next to Kyle, resting a palm on his back, patting lightly. Whereas all touches between them before sizzled, erotic and electric, he offered warmth and tenderness with his gentle hand.

“I’m sorry,” Dustin repeated.

“I don’t want to fall in love with you.” Kyle’s voice was weak, but clear. He wasn’t crying, just...overwhelmed, perhaps.

“So you keep saying.”

“It’s true.”

Dustin removed his hand and rested it in his lap.

“I know. But what does that tell you? If you have to fight the act of falling in love with me, then doesn’t it tell you there’s something there?”

“I can quash the feelings.” He studiously avoided looking at Dustin.

Dustin sighed and looked down at his hands, clasped in his lap. They were surprisingly calm, not fidgeting or tensing. “I’m not going to beg. Part of me wants to, but I know it will get me nowhere and, even if it did, I wouldn’t feel right about it.”

Kyle turned his head slightly, to glance at Dustin without really looking at him. “So...where does this leave us?”

“Wherever you want it to be left. It’s up to you.”

Dustin held his breath in anticipation of Kyle’s answer. He knew it would likely be negative, but he hoped he would be proven wrong.

“One day, I might be ready for this.” Kyle’s voice stayed very quiet. “But right now I’m just starting the process of learning who I am. At this moment, I’m not even ready to contemplate dating a man, much less a relationship with one.”

Dustin let it sink in. In leading up to this, he half-expected this ending, but he’d always pictured himself feeling totally mortified and devastated in the wake of this very personal rejection. But, rather, he felt nothing. No sorrow, no depression...certainly no joy. Nothing.

“I’m sorry,” Kyle said.

“It’s okay, Kyle. It’s okay.” Dustin stared at the posters on the wall opposite them. “I have to put myself in your shoes. If you had come to me when I first began this journey—hell, if you came to me two weeks ago? I would have flat out rejected you. So, I know. I know what you’re feeling.”

“Are you okay with it?”

“Honestly?” Dustin considered for a moment. An unexpected aura of calm infused him. Seeing Kyle hurt revealed something deep in his care for the man—he wanted Kyle happy, even if it meant it was not with him. “No. But broken hearts do heal. With time, they heal.”

“How do we proceed from here? I mean, do we avoid each other?”

“I think it’s impossible to avoid each other, given we go to the same school. I’d like to say we could continue on with some semblance of a friendship, but we all know how that works out. You broke up with your girlfriend—would you want to see her as a friend?”

“No.” The sadness in Kyle’s tone wasn’t a balm. “So, I guess this is goodbye?”

“More like, see you around. We will pass each other in the hall from time to time, but in terms of any sort of personal relationship, yeah, I guess, it is goodbye.”

“You’re a nice guy, Dustin. You’ll make someone very happy,” Kyle finally looked up and held out his hand.

Dustin stared at the proffered hand. A handshake seemed formal, given the nature of how they met and the time they’d spent together since. Instead of taking it, he grabbed Kyle, pulling him into a hug. Kyle’s initial rigid non-response quickly melted and he wrapped his arms around Dustin.

Hurt and pain started to make themselves known. It didn’t feel like his heart broke, it felt crushed. His tensed his jaw and struggled to hold back any emotions, striving to hold it together until he left.

Dustin disentangled himself and stood up. “Goodbye, Kyle.” His voice faltered.

“Goodbye,” Kyle whispered.

Dustin let himself out of the dorm room and walked out of the building. The whole time, a constant stream of
hold it together, hold it together, hold it together
ran through his mind.

The late November evening offered darkness and cold at this still-early hour. He wandered aimlessly across campus in the general direction of his building. His feet took him through the school’s central green-space, eventually slowing and stopping in front of the bench he sat on with Stefenie just a few days ago.
Only a few days? It feels more like weeks.

He sat down. His eyes were watery, but no tears came. Lost in with a hopeless blend of depression, anger, self-hatred, and embarrassment, he wanted the nothingness to return, to feel no hurt and pain.

“Dustin?”

He startled, when a figure interrupted his misery. “Hi, Stefenie.”

Her head tilted several degrees. “Are you okay?”

He shook his head. “I will be. Eventually.”

She considered him for a few moments before joining him on the bench. “I asked Angela about you earlier today. I hadn’t heard from you, so I wondered what’s up. I hope you don’t mind, but she told me a little bit about what’s been going on.”

“It’s okay. I’m sorry I led you on.”

She leaned back. “You didn’t lead me on, Dustin. You were in the middle of discovering and understanding who you are.”

“So you’re not upset with me?”

“Dustin, how can I be upset with you? I’m happy for you. You should be happy, too.”

He looked away.

“Dustin...I know we don’t know each other all that well, but please tell me what’s wrong.”

He wanted to tell her nothing, to not burden yet another person with his problems, but the words spilled out of him. He told her about coming out, the appetizers with Jason, Angela—even about Kyle and the discussion.

She patted his arm. “I’m sorry, Dustin. Maybe he’ll come around one day.”

“I doubt it. If he’s just recognizing now he might be gay, it’ll probably be a few years, at least, before he’s ready for something like a relationship.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “So, what’s the plan from here?”

“The plan? I have no plan.”

“You can’t wallow in this depression for too long, you know. It’ll eat at you from the inside.”

He sighed. “I know. I know. I just, I don’t know what to do. Though I’ve known for several years I’m gay, I’ve only been out for a couple days now. I don’t even know how one finds guys to date.” He didn’t want to tell her about the hookup websites. While he could meet someone online, the primary interest of most men he found wanted sex and only sex.

“The same way straight men meet girls. You go out and meet people, you be yourself, and see where life leads you.”

He sighed again, leaning back against the bench. “You’re right. I mean, I knew the answer before you even said it, but I think I needed to hear someone else say it.”

“But one of the most important things,” she said, carefully, “is to get over this Kyle person. Dating with any kind of baggage—a bad break-up, an unrequited love, or whatever—dooms most relationships to failure. You should get over him before you start looking for a new guy; the shadow of Kyle will only make other potential suitors turn away.”

“I think,” he said slowly, “now that this ‘thing’ with Kyle has come to a complete end, I’ll be able to move on. It’ll take a while—I don’t know how long—but it should be easier than if he hadn’t ended it and it was left in limbo.”

They lapsed into a quiet silence as they both enjoyed the cool evening. Like last time, a rabbit hopped by them, exploring the remains of the garden. After the rabbit hopped off, Stefenie glanced at the time on her phone.

“I should really be heading off. Are you going to be okay?”

“Yes,” he said, truthfully. “Not right away, but yes.”

“Everyone knows this takes time,” she said. “So don’t worry about it. The heart will heal and then you’ll find a new guy who makes it melt.”

He smiled. “We’ll see.”

She gave him a quick hug. “Be nice to yourself, okay?”

He nodded and she continued on her way.

Sometime later, after the most intense of his negative emotions faded, he got to his feet and continued wandering back in the general direction of his dorm.

He found his room mercifully empty. He wasn’t quite ready to face Jason and tell him what happened. Dustin collapsed onto his bed and pulled out his phone. It buzzed a few times throughout the evening as texts and emails came his way.

In his email inbox he found a notification from the hookup website, a new message from someone called hornycockslut69. Dustin rolled his eyes.

The appeal of the whole hookup scene died this past week and finally cremated tonight. While he’d been infatuated with Kyle, and concurrently experienced one disappointing encounter after another, he slowly disengaged himself from that aspect of his life. Anonymous sex no longer felt like him anymore; it had no place in his life.

And if he had any interest in finding a boyfriend, a hookup site was the wrong place to look. He needed to make a choice, one he would have previously found difficult, but now found incredibly easy and obvious.

He reached over to his desk and grabbed his laptop, firing it up. In minutes, his browser loaded the hookup website, pictures of cocks and asses filled the screen. Within seconds of logging in, he had three chat requests and two more private messages in his inbox.

Logging on and receiving the immediate attention confirmed the tentative feelings of moments before.
I’m done with hookups.
All of these guys hit him up because they liked his profile pic, not who he was as a person. His muscles and cock were the only thing they cared about. They wanted to get their rocks off and nothing more.

He clicked the
User Preferences
tab and scrolled to the bottom. He hovered the pointer over the ‘
Permanently Delete Account’
button, running it all through his mind again, confirming at the last moment he made the right choice.

He wanted Kyle—or at least wanted
someone
in the way he wanted Kyle—and he would never find it here on this hookup site. The men on this site wanted to use him, nothing more.

He clicked the button.

Profile has been scheduled for deletion. We’re sorry to see you go. If you change your mind, your account will still be available for 24 hours. After the time elapses, you will have to create a new account.

Dustin flushed his browser history and cache and deleted the site from his bookmarks. He didn’t want to go back. Eventually, he might be lonely and horny, so he didn’t want to leave any of these avenues open—the further it was from his mind, the less likely he’d give in and return. He knew if he did ever return, he’d only be disappointed and depressed with the outcome.

Even Kevin, the one guy he’d felt any sort of connection with, only used him. Their last encounter proved it. If Kevin was a friend, he would have been sympathetic to Dustin’s predicament and would have wished him well. Instead, he met his confessions with jealousy and anger because he saw Dustin as a tool for getting off. Further to this cleansing of his old life, he picked up his phone and deleted his chat history with Kevin, along with his email address. He didn’t yet delete Kevin’s number from his contact list, but he had no intention of texting him. The only reason he left his number in there was in case Kevin should text him in the future.

Satisfied with his course of action, Dustin shut off his computer and phone and put them both aside. Though it was barely ten o’clock, he was exhausted. The day had been long and the evening draining. He shut off the light, doffed his clothes, and snuggled under his blanket. He fell asleep instantly and didn’t wake up until morning, unaware of Jason having returned.

Twelve

Wednesday

Dustin awoke on Wednesday with a strong sense of inner peace, stronger than he could remember feeling in a long time. The past few days had been torture, but if a few days of torture led to this overwhelming peace, then perhaps it was worth it.

As he proceeded through his classes, he concentrated on the lectures, with thoughts of Kyle no longer filling his head. In his break between morning classes, he pulled out his linear algebra, managing to get several questions correct on the test review sheet, recalling the lessons he got from Kyle, but free of the flushed memories of his body.

At lunch, he wandered into the cafeteria, purchasing a sandwich at the till, looking for Jason and Angela, who’d texted him first thing in the morning with a lunch invite.

“Hey, guys.” Dustin sat down.

“You look happy.” A mischievous smile formed on Angela’s lips. “Things go well last night?”

“Actually, no. Kyle rejected me.”