resent that ...” Dan began, but Donny cut him off.
“And now for the question du jour, Mr. Sharp. Apart from that little mishap on the boat between Bill and his dear friend Thom, do you still cling to the pathetic fiction that you have an exclusive relationship with Miss Doctor?”
Donny had never pushed him this far before. He seemed to be going for broke. Dan’s voice hardened. “I don’t hold proprietary claims to his body, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“It is what I’m asking and, no, you don’t, because if I told you the places I’ve seen him in, and the positions I’ve seen him in, and the men I’ve seen in him....”
“Okay, okay!” Dan interrupted. “Just tell me you haven’t had him.”
“I’m not that low that I’d steal a friend’s lover. Or that desperate that I’d fuck someone I despise.”
There was another pause followed by a long, slow inhalation. Dan could almost hear the nicotine seeping through Donny’s lungs and into his bloodstream. He wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of a response.
“You want to know what I’m thinking?” Donny said at last.
“No, actually I don’t, so I should probably hang up….”
“No — you’re right. You don’t want to know.” The voice remained cool, smoke trapped in ice — there was no stopping this boy. “But I’m going to tell you anyway. What I’m thinking is that maybe you like it this way.”
“Like what?”
“Your relationships. You date high-class losers to make yourself feel better. It’s why all your relationships are at arms-length. You don’t trust anyone and you don’t let anyone get close to you. And sooner or later, either they leave you or you dump them.”
Dan felt the lump in his throat. He felt flattened, as though his heart had been run over by a garbage truck. “Is that what you really think?”
“It is.”
Dan affected a lighter tone, but the strain came through. “What are friends for,” his voice cracked, “if not to beat up on you and tell you how screwed up you really are?”
“Well, then I hope you’re listening, Daniel, because I am your last friend.”
It was true. Dan thought of all the people he’d pushed away, ignored, or abandoned in the past few years alone. He thought of his father and how he’d cut off contact between them for the final decade of his life. He wouldn’t be surprised if the line stretched back through his entire existence. He felt annihilated.
Dan wanted the conversation to end, for the combatants to remove their gloves and shake hands, to prove themselves simply worthy opponents, neither with a desire to destroy the other. But Donny’s voice had taken on an edge.
“By your own admission, you seem to have run everybody else off. How do you like your island, Mr. Crusoe?” Just as suddenly, his tone softened. “You know, I keep waiting for you to snap on me and shut me out. I thought this little talk might do it, but I guess I haven’t crossed the line yet. Or dare I hope I’m exempt from your anger?”
Dan shut his eyes and leaned his head against the chair. He wasn’t willing to admit how close to home Donny had hit. “You’re too amusing for me to get rid of,” he said.
“I think it’s very clever how you avoid answering the real questions. Still — I think you like it when I challenge you, because everyone else is too scared to tell you off. Am I right?”
“Everyone but you and Ked,” Dan said, his voice too far gone for a joking tone. He pressed his thumb and forefinger against his eyes, making the darkness sparkle under the lids.
“The kid’s got balls the size of grenades. He’d have to, with a father like you.”
“Okay, enough!” Any farther and he’d say things he might never be able to take back. “I have to go,” Dan said, but kept the phone to his ear.
“Will I hear from you again?” Donny asked quietly. “Or is this the big flush?”
Dan felt the ice running in his veins, a dead cold that made him want to strike back. He wanted to put distance between them. There were things even friends shouldn’t say.
“Do you hate me now?” Donny asked.
“Why would I hate you?”
“Just answer the question.”
Dan opened his eyes, the sparkles slipping into a lacy-edged nothingness. “Maybe.” He waited. “And maybe I’d be justified if I did.”
“Justified.” Donny sighed. “I think you do hate me right now, even though you won’t admit it. You hate me for telling you the truth about yourself. I can hear that detached tone you WASP-y folk get in your voices when you talk about the people you don’t talk about any more.”
“I’m pretty angry about some of the things you said just now.”
“Good — anger’s fine. It’s okay. You can toss it right back at me. You’ve pissed me off plenty too. But I don’t want to lose your friendship, Dan. I respect you and, yes, I love you too. I really love you. And that’s the bottom line for me.” Donny took a drag and exhaled. Dan heard the sound of a cigarette being stabbed out with finality. “I just hope you know that.”
Silence stretched between them. Donny was right. How could you not hate someone who exposed your lies and contradictions, and left you defenceless against your carefully constructed fictions? “Thanks,” Dan said, politeness being the makeshift best he could do.
“For what? For pissing you off?”
“For challenging me. Maybe I needed someone to say those things.”
The haughty tone came back into Donny’s voice. “I guarantee you needed it. But if I have to,” the tone shifted again, “I’ll take back everything and we can just pretend I never said a word of it. So we can still be friends.”
“No. Don’t do that. Just give me time to think it over.”
“Okay.” Donny waited. “Talk to you soon?”
“Sure.”
“You call me or I’ll call you?”
“I’ll call you.”
Dan put the receiver down and stared at the wall. The room had shrunk over the last few minutes. He tried to ignore the nameless sorrow under his skin, the gnawing doubts that mocked his hope that life could be a fine thing or that happiness was possible. An acid loneliness came pouring in — the same loneliness that enticed him to drink and told him he had no friends except the one on the table in front of him.
He wished he knew someone he could talk to about the ache that never went away. Not just for the things Donny had said, but for all the times he’d given his best and life had short-changed him. All the times he’d wished for things to be different. And while he was wishing, why not wish for a partner who cared about him the
