The Torment of Tantalus
by M. F. Luder
To reach for something that will always be out of reach. The everlasting, unending temptation.
10. years
Ryan leans forward on the counter and asks for a cappuccino. The lounge at school is loud at the change of the hour, some of the seniors talking about their prospects, their options, and Ryan pretends he doesn't hear a word they say.
The college counselor told him that he should think more about it, consider his options, chose a city at the very least. He doesn't know what he wants, he has to admit, if only to himself. The very thought of going to college overwhelms him. He takes the coffee, pays the guy and walks to the brown leather couch. He puts down the booklets the counselor gave him and tells himself he'll choose one. A city, if nothing else. He has to.
Ryan sighs, the sound of the engine roaring dulling in his thoughts, but unable to push them away completely. He glances to the passenger sit of the Rover, the booklets from three different colleges staring back at him. Berkeley's at the top.
He knows Seth has chosen Brown, knows Seth's happy with his decision, in love with the idea of going someplace cold where there won't be years of past humiliations. And he's happy for Seth, he is, he wouldn't love Seth if he didn't want to be happy.
But he can't stop thinking about two years ago, sitting before the TV set, only weeks after the adoption papers had been finalized, and Seth muttering about college. Back then, college had been nothing but a dream, a fantasy, when now Ryan can almost taste it, reach out for it and grab it. Seth had been babbling about dorms and now having a guy he actually wanted to spend the next four years with, in a small twenty by twenty room. He had talked about classes and knowing they wouldn't have the same major, but still, meeting in between classes, for lunch and going to the apartment together, sharing a car, knowing each other's friends.
It had sounded like such a done deal, that Ryan had let himself dream. He had closed his eyes and let Seth's words wash over him. He had imagined himself finishing school, going to college with Seth. He had imagined having to put up with Seth's babbling at night, reading a book that was due the following day, because Seth's a master at procrastinating. He had nodded in the right places, and followed Seth in his detailed explanation about having lunch together, to touch base, about how Seth sucks at doing laundry and that would be Ryan's responsibility and how he totally rocks the phone, he doesn't mind calling for take out every day.
He had let himself dream. Stupid of him, of course. Fucking stupid, because Seth's destined for Brown and Ryan can't even see himself leaving California.
He sighs, shaking himself from his mental pity party, and takes the keys out of the ignition.
He jumps out of the car, slamming the door closed. He agreed to pick up Marissa, maybe try and convince her to talk to the college counselor.
Clicking on the alarm ring, he turns around and walks toward the building. If there's one thing he's gotten really good at, it is forgetting about stupid dreams and unrequited feelings.
He sits at the kitchen table, calculus book opened before him. He frowns, because it feels like the more he studies for this thing, he less he gets.
"Hey."
Ryan looks up, watching Kirsten walk into the kitchen and pour herself a glass of orange juice. "Hey."
She smiles at him. "Doing your homework?"
He sighs, looking down at the erased page, only the header of the exercise left standing. "Trying."
She chuckles, making her way to the table. She turns the book around, reading the exercise out loud. She frowns, tilting her head. "I could have sworn I took Calc I in college, you know?"
"It's okay," he says, closing the book when she turns it back toward him. "I'll figure it out."
"I know you will."
Her confidence in him makes him blush and duck his head. Even now, after all these years, he can't help but be surprised at her certainty in his abilities, in his decision. It's like she actually thinks he can do anything he wants, anything he sets his mind to. He's never had that before.
"You're considering Berkeley?"
He looks up, surprised by the change of subject, when he sees Kirsten picking up one of the brochures. He blushes even more, and tries to come up with a suitable answer. "Hmm."
"Oh, Ryan," she says, her voice tight. The smile on her lips says more than any words she could give him, and Ryan will always feel this rush of emotion for her when she does motherly things like this.
She pulls back a chair, placing her glass on the corner of the table, careful of his books and notes and booklets.
"What other schools are you considering?"
He pauses for a moment, taken back. He hasn't even--
"You do know you're going to college, right?" She leans forward, reaching out her hand to take his. He can feel his heart hammering in his chest, his hands starting to sweat. "Oh, sweetie. I know we haven't talked much about this, but..." She sighs, shaking her head once. "No, there's no excuse. There isn't."
"Kirsten--"
"No, no, let me tell you this." Her eyes are crystal blue, like the pool, only a bit darker. Her eyelashes long and curved. Her skin pearly white and beautiful. She's a strikingly good looking woman, and she's more of a mother to him that his own ever was. "You're going to college. You can choose from any school you want. From Berkeley, yes, to USC or MIT or, even, Ivy League like Yale. I don't know if Yale has an architecture program--"
He ducks, trying to pull his hand away from her grasp but she holds on tighter.
"Not architecture, then."
He doesn't have to look up to hear the smile in her voice. His eyes glued to his lap, he mutters, "I was thinking about Civil Engineering--"
"Oh, sweetie!"
He smiles, looking up at her, and she's grinning back at him, her hands letting go of his and going to her mouth in surprise. He loves making her happy, making her, dare he say, proud. He wants nothing more than for her to be proud of him. That's his first goal, first and foremost.
"Well, then Princeton. Yale doesn't have a CE program. Princeton, of course. MIT, at the very least. Berkeley, if you really want to--"
"Kirsten--"
"Ryan, I want you to hear me out." He opens his mouth to speak but she shakes her head. "No, no. Hear me out. You're going to college. We're paying for it and we'll make so much noise during your graduation, you'll tell all your friends that you don't know us, have never met us."
His eyes soften and he has to clear his throat before speaking. "I'd never do that."
She smiles, nodding her head as she does so. "I know. But you might want to, the way I can imagine Sandy screaming about you being his boy, so, yes." She stands up. "Now, print a couple more of those application forms, because you're going to need them." She stands up straight, nothing but pride in her face. "I want to see at least five filled by the end of the week. Princeton and MIT are a must."
He wants to complain, to tell her that he doesn't want to impose, to cost her money, as much as Princeton and MIT possibly cost, but she shakes her head once and he is reminded that she used to deal with business men, to talk them into giving her checks and the keys to their properties. He really is no match for her.
"Yes," he says, finally, and she smiles at him.
"Good. Now, I'm calling for Thai. What do you want?"
Two days later, after Sandy has announced that the ambush -- dinner with an old friend from Berkeley, Sandy says, but both Seth and him know it's an ambush -- is planned for this evening, Seth leaves for Summer's house, decided to make it work, one way or the other. Ryan stays back, reading the paper and finishing his coffee.
"Have you finished the forms?"
His heart goes up to his throat at Kirsten's words and, for a moment, cowardly, he doesn't look up from the Arts & Leisure section. He hears her laughing quietly as she moves around the kitchen.
"At least five, Ryan."
"Kirsten, Berkeley is fine," he says under his breath, not looking up.
A moment later, when her gaze on his head is too much for him to bear, he looks up at her. She's standing with her hip against the kitchen island, one eyebrow raised. "Really? Is that your first choice, or your default?"
That's a question he can't answer.
She shakes her head. "I know... no, that's not right, I can't possibly understand this. I was raised with nothing but the certainty that I'd be going to the best colleges, so I can't know what doubting that you'll finish school must feel like."
If there's one thing he always liked about her, it was that she never pretended to understand him.
"And though I can't change that, I can change this: your perception of the future. Your future is bright, Ryan. I can see that. Sandy could see that the day he met you. But most importantly, your future is out there, right now." She pauses, letting her words sink in "You can either decide to reach out for it, or let the past drive you. It's your choice."
She gives him a small smile to wash out the seriousness of her words and walks out of the kitchen, leaving him with his thoughts.
Sitting in the waiting room of the hospital's fourth floor, he can't help but glance at Marissa, sitting next to Chili, only six feet away from him and yet miles from his reach.
He should be sitting with her. He should be comforting her, whispering sweet words. He should want to, at the very least. And yet he doesn't. He learned long ago not to question his desire to spend the night at home, sitting before the television set, controller in hand. Prefer to do his homework at the kitchen table, his elbow bumping against Seth's, than in the study room at school with Marissa. Look forward to lying down on Seth's bed and hear him babble on, the words a mixture of soothing and familiar.
His preference has very little to do with his choice. They never did, they were never conditional on one another. Marissa is safe and acceptable and expected. Seth isn't. Seth is everything Marissa isn't. Seth is familiar and home and right and powerful and deep and unconditional. Seth is the first person he ever looked forward to seeing, the first person he ever cared about hearing and being heard by. Seth is... Seth is Seth, defying definition. And even at this moment in time, and all the ones that will follow, Seth marks his life, his very decisions.
He glances at her, not seeing anything but her own sadness and sorrow, and wishes he could reach out and touch Seth.
"With regards to this reluctance to leaving question," Paul Glass asks as they are sitting alone, "is there a serious girlfriend component?"
Ryan sighs, leaning forward on his chair, elbows on his knees. "Oh, boy."
He smiles encouragingly. "What?"
"It's..." he says, doubtful if he should say anything at all. "It's complicated."
"Leaving for college always is." He nods as if remembering past decisions. "The question is, do you love her?"
The answer is easy and it comes without hesitation. No. But he can't say that. He could never say that out loud. "I'm not sure."
"Are you willing to change your future for her?"
No, of course not. For Seth, that's another question entirely, but not for Marissa. "There's this person--"
"Not your girlfriend?"
Sadly, Ryan shakes his head. "No, not her."
"Okay. Go on."
Ryan sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "There's this person. I... I thought we'd made plans. I thought we knew what we wanted. But it's not like that. It's changed. We've both changed, I think."
Paul nods, not saying anything, and Ryan feels encouraged to continue.
"He wants to go east, I don't know if I can leave the west coast."
"He?"
Oh, shit. It feels like he's blushing to the roots of his hair as he ducks his head and clenches his hands together. "I, hmm. I--"
"It's okay," he says, nodding as he does so. "It's okay. I'm not judgmental. My brother's partner is a teacher at Berkeley, did you know that? He's Head of the Mechanic of Soils department."
Ryan blinks, recognizing the name as one of the Civil Engineering subjects he read about in the information booklet. "Really?"
"Yeah. Very smart man. Amazing engineer. Mark, my brother, is one lucky son of a bitch." Paul grins. "I take it Sandy and Kristen don't know?"
He swallows past the tightness in his throat before shake his head. "Up until I couple of months ago, I wasn't even sure."
"It's okay."
"It's not." If there's anything he is certain about, it's that. It's not okay. It will never be okay.
"They'll understand--"
Ryan shakes his head. "It doesn't matter. It doesn't--" He sighs. "It doesn't matter. He's going east and I'm staying west, so there's nothing to it."
For a moment, he wonders if he's said too much, if Paul will be able to put two and two together, but he doesn't. He only tilts his head and stares at Ryan. Paul doesn't know enough about Seth to know that he hates the idea of staying on the west coast.
"But he is a pretty important part of your life, isn't he?"
Ryan can't help but nod. "Yes. Ever since I got here, he's the only one who's always accepted me for who I am, from the moment I met him. I don't know if I can--" He pauses. He's not the one doing the leaving this time. This time, he's being left behind. "I don't know if I can lose that."
When Marissa arrives, calling out for him, Ryan turns around to look at her over his shoulder.
He excuses himself, finding it too easy to fall back to his façade, to his persona of boy in love with a girl. He pretends not to notice what Paul wishes he could say, but the man seems to understand that Ryan's decisions over the matter are that, his decisions, and doesn't say a thing.
It's easy to follow her and be who she wants him to be, even if guilt is still present in his mind, pulsating around him, like the pain he feels with the knowledge that Seth will leave, and this time it will be him watching Seth walk away.
By the weekend, when college applications need to be sent out, Summer's words still ring in his mind.
"You and Seth are gonna have to do the long distance thing."
They hit a bit too close to home for his comfort, but Ryan played it well. He joked about it, and then ate the snacks they took to Seth's bedroom.
Still, he remembers them, the bitterness he felt, even now he can feel inside him, in his blood.
Seth's words from years ago, two years ago as they laid down on Seth's bed, staring up at the ceiling well past midnight, seemed to be whispered soft in his hear.
I wanted to go to a boarding school. The only reason I didn't end up talking my parents into sending me is because you came along, Ryan. I just want you to know that.
But people change, priorities change. Every day. Every moment. Every second. Ryan was Seth's only link to a society he hated, and so he clung to Ryan with both hands. That first year. Then he met Anna, who liked Seth; Summer who kissed him and Marissa who could put up with hanging out with him. Seth's world broadened, and Ryan became just one person in Seth's world, even if still a bit small.
And Ryan loves him, he knows. He loves with Seth with everything he is that can love, but the knowledge, the very emotion, is not enough. It's not enough to keep Seth on the west coast, certainly not enough to even be spoken of. It's not enough. It will never be enough.
Ryan looks up at Kristen and Sandy, here with eyes wide and happiness radiating from them, in this pivotal moment.
He gives them a tight smile, looking down at the Berkeley application sheet, at his information neatly filled out, his essay printed and attached, and sighs. It's one of five before him, all already filled, waiting for nothing but his signature. This is his life in front of him, his future, deprived of a boy with brown eyes and curls that can make him smile even when he doesn't want to, that turned a house into a home, that turned his life into living.
Ryan's life was changed two years ago, and is about to be changed again now.
This is the life he's been dealt, and Ryan's taking it, as alone as it may seem.
He nods, swallowing as he does so, and pretends his chest doesn't ache, his blood doesn't turn cold as he chooses the one thing he can reach out and touch, over the one he's destined to only look at from afar.
Ryan picks up his pen and signs the admission application. He looks up, watching Seth nod at him, grinning from ear to ear, and as usual, he can't help but smile back at Seth, if with sadness laced around him.
He watches Seth do the same, Brown printed in bold letters on top of the paper, and feels a heaviness in his heart he's very familiar with: loss.
October 2nd, 2006. 12.22am - 2.19am