Sebastian had to help his dad with something so he left a bit ago. I’m alone with Lennon.

I kind of want to know why he treats Sebastian the way he does. Maybe understand how Sebastian is feeling, and what he’s dealing with. But I don’t think I could start a conversation with Lennon.

I’m sitting at the counter. Lennon is washing dishes at the sink, “So Heath?”

I nod, then realize he can’t see me, “Yeah?”

He leans down putting a dish into the dishwasher, “Did you only do it cuz of Baz, or were there other reasons?”

No, not this again. Let me be wrong about what he’s talking about.

“Do what?” Maybe I’m wrong, maybe he’s talking about something else.

“You know, cut yourself,” He rinses another dish.

Oh no.

“It was mostly because I missed him..,” I answer, feeling sick.

“Mostly?”

I really don’t want to talk about this.

He glances back at me, “Then wha-”

“Why do you treat Seb like that?” I cut him off. Not to be mean, just to change the conversation.

“What do you mean?” He sounds genuinely confused.

“Why do you touch him when he doesn’t want you to?” I elaborate.

“I don’t do that?”

“What are you getting at?” He says accusatively.

Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up.

“Sometimes Seb seems less happy when you touch him like he doesn’t really want you to,” I don’t want to make him mad. I just want to know what’s going on.

A long pause...

Lennon puts the dishes down and turns around, “I know...”

“And I need to work on realizing when he doesn’t want me to touch him..”

He rubs his face with a sigh, “ugh, and sometimes I get excited and can’t help myself.”

He looks down, “I feel awful about it..”

He looks back at me, “Has he said anything about it to you?”

I shake my head. “Not really, he said some stuff that made it sound like he maybe kind of regrets marrying you.”

“And back three years ago when he’d talk to me about you he told me… You were… Sort of…. Um- uh forcing yourself on him…” My voice gets small with the last few words, they're hard to say.

Lennon stares at me stone-faced, “yeah..?”

“You think he feels that way again?”

I fidget in my seat, “I don’t know”

Lennon looks down, eyebrows knit, “Should I talk to him about it?”

I shrug.

He exhales deeply, “I just never know with him, one minute he’s saying ‘yes let’s do this the next he’s throwing up cuz we went too far.”

Throwing up? What are they doing together?

“He says no a lot too, so when he does say yes I always take it as an actual yes-” He shakes his head, “-But most of the time, once we actually get into it he starts gagging or faking it or whatever”

“I kind of feel like he never wants to be intimate with me,” Lennon looks as if he’s about to cry, “Even when he says he does, he really doesn’t.”

He puts his hands on the counter leaning against it. “I kind of wish he actually loved me.”

What?..

“I wish he actually wanted me, desired me.”

“It makes me feel like shit sometimes,” He looks back at me.

He blinks, “Fuck, I’m rambling.”

“Forget everything I said.”

He pauses, “We’re supposed to be talking about you..”

I look down at my hands on the counter, “I don’t want to talk about me”

He sighs, “Well, I don’t want to talk about me.”