Love the One You're With by James Earl Hardy

right?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œAre you … all right?” I repeated, more solemn than the first time.
    He knew what I meant.
    He sighed. “I … I had a lump … on my back. Just below my neck. I … had a biopsy. Last December.”
    As my eyes grew large, I inhaled with dread.
    â€œNo, I don’t have cancer,” he assured me.
    I exhaled my relief.
    â€œBut just the idea … it scared the shit out of me. Still does.”
    â€œSo … you … had to go through it alone.”
    â€œB.D. and Babyface, they were around. And Carl … tried to be.”
    Ah … I’d finally get the lowdown on why they broke up. “He tried to be?”
    â€œYou know how I am. I can’t be the vulnerable one, the needful one. Even after I got beat up …” His voice drops and trails off whenever he brings up the night he was gay-bashed, two summers ago in the Vill. They caught the three punks who did it; they pleaded guilty to a variety of charges, including several counts of aggravated assault and assault with a deadly weapon (they took turns punching and kicking him while one knocked him out with a bottle of Coke he had just purchased at a store), and are each serving a minimum of five years. Because he suffered a concussion, a cracked jaw, a broken nose and right arm, fractured ribs, and a damaged left testicle, he had to take a two-month leave of absence from his position as a publicist at Simply Dope Records to recover. But I know the physical healing happened faster than the emotional.
    He heaved. “I … I let him in, but not all the way. But with something like that I had to and … I just couldn’t put my pride aside.”
    â€œYou mean your ego,” I corrected.
    He frowned. “Thank you for the clarification.” He sighed. “I pushed him away. So, yeah, I kinda went through it alone.”
    I took his hands in mine. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Gene.”
    â€œChile, why are you sorry? I’m the one who’s sorry. I let this motor run and almost lost you because of it. You were the one I needed, and when I needed you the most … I had no one but myself to blame you weren’t around, that you didn’t want to be around me. I realized just how much you mean to me. Not having you in my life … I don’t know what I would do.”
    We hugged. Tighter and tighter and tighter. Our shirts were soaked with the other’s tears.
    Then it hit me: This is why I haven’t seen a cigarette in his hand the last two days. He would’ve gone through three packs by now. Last night at dinner with B.D. and tonight at Anita’s, we sat in the smoking section but he didn’t light up.
    â€œDid you quit?”
    He pulled away. “Ha, sometimes you can be just as slow as that Brain Dense child.”
    I smiled. “How long has it been?”
    â€œExactly two months.”
    â€œDid you join a support group? Are you a patient at a clinic that helps people kick the habit?”
    â€œHell no. I just stopped.”
    â€œCold turkey?”
    â€œYup.”
    â€œGene, you’ve been smoking since you were fifteen.”
    â€œI know. I was there.”
    â€œYou just can’t stop like that.”
    â€œI can just stop like that. I can do anything, have you forgotten?”
    â€œYeah. I guess I have. But given how much you love it and how long you’ve done it … not having one for more than two hours is one thing, but two months? You should’ve exploded or something by now.”
    He giggled. “Yeah, spontaneous combustion. Hell, I ain’t cured. And I still get the craving. But anytime I get really weak, I just remember the pain of them sticking that needle in me.” He gently stroked the upper left part of his back. “No doctor or nurse is ever going to do that to me again.”
    â€œIt wasn’t malignant, but … are you out of the danger