Free A Tale of Two Trucks by Thea Nishimori Page B

back, because I felt so empty. But then again, my heart felt like it was being ripped into a million pieces, so it must still be inside of me, after all. Damn.
     
     
    I COULDN ’ T eat the spaghetti and meatballs I’d made for dinner. I tried, but it just tasted like so much cardboard. I gave up before I’d taken ten bites and sat in front of the TV, mending Joe’s shirt, but the scent of him still on the fabric made me ache for him so badly that I started sniffling. I hate to cry, because not only does it give me a headache and red, bloodshot eyes, but it also makes my face puff up, making me look horrible. So normally, I avoid crying if at all possible, but tonight it seemed unavoidable.
    I’d never intended to go to the bar tonight without Joe, anyway. The guys were nice enough to me, but I’d be so distracted about him—what he was doing, if he were going to spend the night with this girl, if he’d ever come “home” to my place again—that they’d catch on to my feelings right away. It was one thing for them to suspect I was in love with Joe, but I didn’t want it to become common knowledge. Things like that had a way of getting back to the people involved, and I would die of embarrassment if Joe ever found out.
    I had the comedy channel on but hardly heard a word, even when Jeff Dunham came on with all his puppets. I wondered and worried about Joe as much as I wanted to, since I was in the privacy of my own home, imagining him laughing and having a good time with his date. Maybe right about now they’d be heading to the theater. Now he’d be buying her popcorn and soda—maybe a soda to share?—and they’d find a place to sit together. She was sitting next to him in what was supposed to be my seat, watching the movie that I had asked him first if we could go see! She’d usurped my place completely, and I feared I could never get him back.
    I felt resentful toward her, although I realized she probably didn’t even know I existed! Then I started to get mad at Joe. Why hadn’t he explained to everybody that he was going to that movie with me, his roommate and best buddy, and used that as an excuse to turn down the date? Maybe he didn’t want to turn her down? Maybe, despite his reluctant attitude, he actually wanted to go on a date with her? So much so that he would rather go through the whole song and dance of apologizing to me for standing me up?
    Which would certainly make a lot of sense , I thought to myself, and then the tears began to flow. Once the dam broke, it turned into a flood, and I used up half the box of tissues on the coffee table, sobbing so loudly that I drowned out the laughter coming from the TV. It was bad enough to have Joe go on a date with someone else, under pressure from his family; it was infinitely worse to think he preferred her company over mine!
    But of course he does, a voice inside of me viciously countered. He’s not gay. He’s only interested in women, not in fags like you! It was my inner child, getting its revenge on me for having given it a time-out earlier. And besides, you’re a horrible person for wanting to keep him to yourself, when you know he won’t be happy with you—when you know he wants a wife. No wonder he’d rather go out with this chick. You really are just a possessive, selfish, crazy bitch! You don’t deserve a nice guy like Joe!
    I knew that was true. Joe was so kind and patient and nice… and I was just a pathetic, miserable black hole of emotional need. I didn’t deserve him. But I didn’t want to settle for another Brandon, either. So I would probably end up alone for the rest of my life and die as a bitter, lonely old man in a nursing home, with nobody to even come and visit me.
    Meanwhile, Joe would find a nice wife and have a nice family and live a nice, happy life, just like he deserved to. Happily Ever Afters were reserved for good people only! And Joe should get The Works: a big house with an even bigger yard, a white picket