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Travis had to tell himself that it was enough just to be there. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to handle it.
He simply wouldn’t be able to take having to see Sal every day, eternally there, always just out of reach.
Travis had already done this dance before. He was tired of it - he was utterly sick of it, just ready for it all to be over.
Of course Sal had offered to be his friend, a few years before. That’s who Sal was. And Travis had cautiously let himself take that - looking back now, he cringed at how socially inept he’d been. All of the oversteps he must have made, all of the boundaries he didn’t know.
He let it die. He’d withdrawn, pulled back, and let whatever was budding there wilt.
The fact had always been simple: Sal was forbidden. Even now, two years later, looking at the boy from the back of the classroom, it remained true.
It did not help that Sal made it incredibly difficult.
Once upon a time, when Travis had the nerve to label Sal as his friend - if only in the safety of his mind - he was always plagued with what-ifs. There were the typical ones, for a boy like him:
What if my father finds out?
What if he hurts Sal?
What will happen to me?
And, there were the ones inherently associated with anything relating to Sal:
What might Larry do?
What will his friends say?
What if I fuck it up?
The last one rang particularly true, even now as Travis forced himself to avert his eyes as he passed Larry’s dark gaze in the hall. It was the logical reaction, for how Travis had let it all go to waste, but there had been no other option.
There had been no other option, when he’d feel the fire of jealousy roar inside him seeing Sal be open and happy with his friends.
There had been no other option when Sal would do things that would tow the line of whether or not it was friendly or flirty.
Sal was off-limits. Travis couldn’t bear to taint someone like Sal. He couldn’t risk what might happen to either of them if Kenneth found out. He didn’t want to find out what ways Larry - or even Ashley, for that matter - would kill him if it happened.
It was two years ago. Two years is plenty of time for things and people to change. It was plenty of time for Travis to reason to himself that they hadn’t ever really been friends, and it had just been wishful thinking. He’d just been clinging to anything and forcing himself to believe it for comfort.
But then, now, Sal would do things. Things you don’t do with someone you’re supposed to hate. Things you don’t do with someone you’ve heard bad things about. that you’re supposed to hate by association based on what your friends say.
Things like making a passing joke to him in math class. The first time it happened, Travis had nearly choked on his spit before rushing to his own seat. It reminded him of the exchanges they’d shared in Ms. Packerton’s class, two years before.
Sal would do things like check if it was okay to touch him while doing something as simple as working on a group assignment. Hell, he’d made a point to verify what Travis’ birthday was, for some fucking reason.
The same things that drew Travis to Sal in the first place. Travis had to remind himself, still, now, that Sal was off-limits. One day, it had been necessary for Travis to look himself in the eyes in the mirror and admit that he didn’t even know if Sal liked boys. As much as he’d teased Sal for being queer once upon a time, Travis only knew for certainty that Todd was gay, and that Sal had been - and maybe still was - smitten with Ashley.
Yet another reason as to why Travis absolutely could not afford to spend time thinking about Sal.
Easier said than done, when he’d catch himself staring at the pale slope of Sal’s neck or how his hair would brush its nape.
Easier said than done, when he’d wake up suddenly to dreams that got just slightly too close to what he wanted.
Dreams he couldn’t help but keep remembering.
There was the simple one, which was probably the one most aligned with reality: Happening upon Sal and his friends, engrossed in some game, and being informed something along the lines of, it’s too cramped, or, there’s no room for you here, or, it would just be awkward because we don’t even really know you.
That was the reality he knew, even if the sting of rejection lasted well into his waking hours.
There was the short memory of a dream, where he remembered just one fleeting moment, and the way the feeling sank into his core:
Sitting shotgun in a car. Leaning up against Sal, pressed against him. Fingers carding through his hair. Was it silent? Was someone murmuring something? Someone else was driving. Someone he knew. Where were they going?
It didn’t matter.
It was so quiet here.
It was safe.
Sal was playing with his hair like it was the most natural thing in the world.
And it really felt like it was.
Despite the seizing panic he felt the second he awoke, he’d been able to rationalize the dream away. He’d remember it at night, or when his focus drifted, but the treatment was simple: Eliminate the cause. The cause was Travis’ staring, his thinking. The cause was the existence of the boy himself.
He just had to limit all interaction. Easy enough. He’d done that before, and he’d do it again. Travis recognized that he was most certainly pushing another unspoken boundary - after all, it had been so long, Sal was probably only showing those small acts of familiarity to even a sort of playing field. It was fair enough. It all made sense.
There was just one dream of substance.
Travis dreaded having one like it again.
“Do you need a ride home after this?” Sal had asked, concerned. Travis had been feeling off, not knowing what, and despite not knowing he was going to get home, he shook his head.
“No, it’s okay. You have stuff to do anyway, right?”
It was true. Travis didn’t remember now, but they’d been setting up…something. Some other people were there too, but they felt more like ghosts than anything else. Not truly present. Even still, Sal had accepted Travis’ response and started chatting with someone - something - else.
Travis set down whatever he’d been holding. It was a cumbersome object, long and made of metal, yet it made no sound on the floor. Travis made toward the double-doored exit, but instead took up in a dark, dusty hallway of the unfamiliar, blue-walled building. He let himself lay down on one of the shelves - and really, looking back, what kind of a place had his brain been stimulating? - thinking about everything.
Something was wrong. He was wrong. The entire place was the color of melancholy, and rightfully so - it reflected his own emotions perfectly. He stared up into the blue-grey-purple nothingness, wishing to melt down into it and not be discovered again.
A gentle voice pulled him out of his thoughts. “You know,” it began, not offering a face but immediately recognizable nonetheless, “Most people don’t go to the most obvious place when they don’t want other people to know something is wrong.”
It follows logic, Travis is able to suppose now, that the people who are nothing but products of his mind would know everything about him. The thought alone is terrifying, but irrelevant.
“Do you need a ride home?”
Something about the aura, the essence, of this Sal, reminds Travis of his sisters. The way he glows with sunlight and has a sky blue presence.
The rest of the dream’s details are foggy and fuzzed. Travis knew there were more issues finding a way home, but that hadn’t been the point.
Travis wished, so badly, that he’d really been seen. That the fake version of Sal would materialize now and voice everything he’d been too scared to say. That he would help, that he would listen, that he would be there.
Travis caught himself staring at Sal again. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back down so that he’d be looking at his work when he opened them again.
What he wanted didn’t matter.
What he dreamed about did not matter.
The moments with Sal he had in real life were just misinterpreted, and they did not matter.
Sal was off-limits.