Chapter 10: Aortas and Escape
Raymond and Kai continue struggling with happiness and where their relationship is headed.
It had been days since Raymond and Kai had seen each other. They never went this long, but Raymond had a sense of dread creeping in since their last failed night together. He went to work and tried to lose himself in spreadsheets and emails.
Texted Kai that he was staying late, that he was so busy he could barely think.
Now, sitting across from each other in Raymond’s cramped Bushwick apartment, he finally told Kai about Karter and Isabella’s failed date. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Kai’s jaw drop so far.
“This might be the juiciest tea you’ve spilled our entire relationship,” Kai said when Raymond was done.
“That might be the biggest compliment you’ve ever given me.” Raymond laughed. Kai came alive for a good story. He didn’t see it as drama—he wasn’t in the business of spreading gossip, nor in seeing his friends hurt. But he regularly expressed that he didn’t understand why anybody acted the way they did, that he was fascinated by the choices others made that he couldn’t fathom.
“Come on now.” Kai slid forward, grazed Raymond’s neck with his lips and whispered in his ears, “You know I’ve given you better compliments than that.”
Raymond laughed and playfully pushed him away. It was so warm between them in this kitchen. All of his anxieties and questions seemed to melt away. He felt like he was in college again, only a half-adult who couldn’t stop losing his hours to Kai. This was why they were together. He reminded himself. All that love that bundled under his ribs.
“Drink some ice water tiger, I don’t need Kendrick seeing this.”
Raymond loved his roommate, but since they’d moved in together it was clear that Kendrick was lonely. He became frustrated with Raymond when he saw outward affection. It had started as an odd series of moods that Raymond couldn’t correlate. One night after he texted Raymond that Kai took too long in the shower and he could no longer spend the night at their place, something clicked.
Of course, Raymond had told him that his boyfriend would be spending the night whenever he pleased, but after that it was apparent how the air shifted whenever Kai was around.
He was thinking about this when Kai rolled his eyes and backed away. “Of course you have to kill the fun.”
Raymond scrunched his brows. “What are you talking about?”
Kai left the kitchen and threw himself down on Raymond’s bed. A deep breath, a beat to offset the annoyance that bubbled up. Then Raymond followed.
“What?” He closed his door.
“You just always do this. I feel like you’re punishing me. I don’t want you enough, but when I do want you it’s at the wrong time. I can’t try, because it will make you sad, but if I don’t try, then I’m not invested and you go all distant on me—”
“When have I gone distant on you? When have I said any of this? All I’ve asked you to do is put in work to try to fix whatever issue you’re having—”
“You don’t say it, Raymond, you show it. You know, there was a time when you would have started kissing me back out there. You used to love doing it. You remember how hard you used to get whenever you had to keep quiet around roommates?”
Even hearing Kai say it made Raymond shiver.
“I don’t know, Kai. I don’t know. I don’t feel like there’s ever a way for me to be right with you.” Kai was right, Raymond knew in the back of his mind. He did used to find that hot, it used to make him hard just thinking about the times they’d stifled sighs and tangled in each other. But he… didn’t anymore. Was that a crime? A problem? “We were just having so much fun. I feel like you get insecure, you get in your head, and then you just pull it all back down. You didn’t used to think about everything like this—”
“You didn’t used to fight with me about everything.”
Raymond ran a hand through his hair. As a child, his parents had never fought in front of him. In fact, he’d never even heard them having fights. He was sure it happened, late at night behind closed doors, but they’d committed to giving him a childhood without cacophony. He was exhausted by the nights with Kai that kept turning into… this.
“I think it’s time for you to go.”
“Raymond!” Kai shouted. Raymond stepped back against the door and pointed.
“Lower your voice.”
“You’re just—it’s so frustrating that you don’t even want to try. You won’t entertain these conversations, you won’t bother understanding my perspective.”
“I have understood your perspective,” Raymond said through grit teeth, sharpening his words into a scythe, “for the past year. I have given you time. I’ve let you stop fucking me, I’ve let you stop laughing at my jokes, I’ve understood what you were going through and given you time to get better. But I’m allowed to want something different! I’m allowed to want to see you happy and all over me, to crave the warmth that I used to feel with you.” Maybe Raymond was saying too much. There were too many changes in Kai’s face to tell, too much sitting in the air between them.
Raymond continued, “The only reason I don’t ‘entertain these conversations’ is because I’ve explained it hundreds of times before to you. And all you do is… this. Every time. Make us rehash it, pretend like this is a new fight. I don’t know how else to tell you! I want to start over with us. Get back to the things that were so good for so long. But if you don’t put in the work…”
Kai bit his lip on the bed. “What does that even mean anymore? Why are we fighting so hard to go back?”
“Because I love you,” Raymond said, and Kai’s shoulders seemed to sag as if that was what he was waiting for. There were so many emotions fighting inside of Raymond he could have thrown up. “And I want things to be good. I want you to be healthy. I don’t want either of us to suffer.”
There was a long pause. Raymond didn’t bother trying to work out what Kai was thinking. If he did, they would stay like this forever. Frozen, no words, just an odd tension.
He said, “Listen, Isabella is working at her roommate’s event in Gowanus on Friday. Come with me? And can you just, think about what I’ve tried telling you? Let’s just try to have a date night where you don’t worry about sex and I don’t have to think about all our shortcomings.
“We can just be.”
Kai looked like he wanted to say more, but he sat up and shook his head. “Sure.” Outside, the freezing breeze of the city came in through Raymond’s window. He felt that cold, so different from the iciness Kai gave off as he got his coat and turned toward the door.
He wasn’t sure if he was right, he wasn’t sure what he wanted. Raymond knew he was tired, he knew he was cold, he knew he was soaking wet with a bone deep chill from Kai’s ever-changing moods.
As Kai reached for the door, Raymond reiterated: “You know, I do love you though? Seriously.”
Kai nodded. “I know. I love you too. I wish it came across more.”
And they were left with that in the air, that odd sadness, their love fermenting.
Raymond, now alone, walked back to his nightstand. He picked up a book and cracked the spine. Before he could think anymore, before his chest could burst and his aorta could splatter onto the floor, he escaped into a story.