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On nights like these, I find it impossible to shut my eyes and fall asleep. The sounds and bright lights from another one of Jay Gatsby’s parties invaded my bedroom, a place I had always known to be a peaceful retreat from the stressors of my life. I recall times when I was little and the world seemed to be too much; I would dive under the covers and pull them tight over my head until everything went away. And yet, tonight, I couldn’t escape the world, both the one around me and the one inside me.
Gatsby’s parties were a spectacle, and even then the word doesn’t do them justice. People from many social classes and parts of New York came to his parties, most of them uninvited and yet all of them cherished guests. The sounds of music and drunken laughter always extinguished any hope of having a conversation, and yet, it seems like I can still remember Gatsby’s words that night. He had asked me to come into his study to speak privately, away from all the noise. I still remember how the moonlight reflected in those eyes, as green as precious emeralds worth more than I could ever afford. His smile, so characteristic and unique to him, gave me a warmth that no summer night could provide. As he guided me through crowds of twirling women and chatting men, I nearly reached for his hand so as to not lose him.
The world seemed to blur as I focused on Gatsby. Even from behind, he was indistinguishable from Apollo, Greek God of the sun, with the way all light seemed to come from him. I stared at his back as I stumbled through the crowd as I, as many other people in attendance, had gotten more than a little drunk from my time at the party. When we got to his study, he gestured for me to come in, shutting the door behind me. Suddenly, I felt even warmer than I do now, cheeks flushed just thinking of the moment we shared. He looked at me as if I were the only thing worth looking at. I could never think of myself in that way, not a million years, but Gatsby has always had a way of changing how I see things. He walked up to me, hands folded politely behind his back in a way that commanded respect. His silence was meaningful as he observed me, his eyes trailing up and down my body. I wondered what he was looking at, but my eyes were too trained on him to bother to glance down at myself.
“You’ve been enjoying the party, old sport?” He had asked me, meeting my eyes once more. Goodness, his gaze seemed to be almost hypnotising.
“Yes— yes, I have. It’s been nice.”
He began to wander his study, glancing at paintings on the walls with no particular thoughts behind his eyes.
“I’m glad that you’ve been showing up lately. I was wondering for the longest time when you’d finally come over. Seems my invitation was what you needed.” He turned back to me.
“Never been much of a person for these things.”
“Ah, really?”
He started to walk back over to me.
“What makes my parties so different, old sport?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out but a strangled noise. What was I supposed to tell him? That I came here not for the drinks or music or dancing women, but him? That every time I came I looked for him with each minute not spent talking with a person I’d never see again? Gatsby stared at me, patiently waiting for an answer that I did not have.
“I don’t know.”
“Hm.” He responded, pursing his lips together as if he knew what lingered behind my lips, at the back of my tongue, the sour taste never leaving my mouth.
Gatsby stepped closer, and I swore I could feel the heat coming off his body. He bit his bottom lip, a nervous habit he only ever seemed to do around me. He walked over to his desk after a moment, his steps slow and meaningful in a way. It seemed that everything he did had thought behind it, it all had a purpose. As I stumbled and struggled through life, he prospered.
“Come here, old sport.”
I followed behind him, walking up until I was standing before his desk with him. He looked down at papers scattered along its surface. I wondered what it was on his desk that he wanted to show me. He took some of those papers, moving them to the side. He held them in his hand, soft and gentle enough to hold a newborn bird yet tough enough to stop armies. I always wondered what they would feel like in mine. Our hands had brushed before, yes, but I had never had the chance to truly hold them, study them, feel them in mine. He looked through the papers, biting his lip once more as he flipped through a small stack before finding one with fold marks and handwriting neater than his usually was. He smiled, hummed softly, and handed it to me.
“I wrote this when you first moved in next door.”
I could hardly read the letter, my vision tunneled just from being next to Gatsby. I could make out a few phrases, which included some warm welcomes and invitations to come to his parties or on his hydroplane with him.
“Why didn’t you ever send it?”
He took a breath, and I could tell there was more than he was going to say to me. It was obvious in how he avoided my gaze. He was hard to read to many, but alone with me, he was like a book.
“Well… I don’t know. I just never got around to it.”
“I truly wish you had.”
His eyes flicked back to mine, widening a little. I began to elaborate.
“I mean… I would have loved to have known you sooner… y’know, I value, er, this, and I…”
I began to trip over my words, struggling to speak. I gave up when Gatsby took a step towards me, our bodies nearly pressed together by that point. He looked down at me, the small height difference between us feeling much larger.
“I’m glad to hear that, old sport.”
Before I could think, as I had stopped thinking long ago, my hand was on Gatsby’s waist and my lips were pressing against his. He froze momentarily, and while I am still unsure if it was me imagining in the heat of the moment, I felt him begin to kiss me back. His hand reached up and tangled itself in my hair, keeping my lips pressed against his. I wondered if he could taste the alcohol on my breath, or feel the trembling of my body as his other arm wrapped around me.
“Nick…” he murmured against me, but I was too far gone to hear what he was saying. I was kissing him harder now, desperate to have him against me, desperate to get closer. He pushed me against his desk, sitting me on it as he kept kissing me. His hands moved to grip the sides of my waist, while mine moved to grab the strands of his black hair. My legs opened to wrap around him, pulling him even closer in an almost animalistic way. I was clinging to him as if I would fall off the planet if I did. He was kissing me harder, and I could hear his breath become erratic as our lips remained together. Kissing Gatsby was nothing like kissing Jordan. Jordan’s lips were soft, yet the kiss felt almost as routine as getting up each morning, or eating on a satisfied stomach. Kissing Gatsby felt different. He felt like salvation, he felt to me how food would feel to a starved man, how fire would feel to a person on the brink of hypothermia. His lips were strong and intentional against mine, and for a moment, I could convince myself that he shared the feeling I had kept hidden in my chest for so long. Seconds turned into minutes, and the world fell away so it was just us. There was no music, no shouting coming from outside Gatsby’s study. It was him and I, no one else.
And yet, the time seemed to pass too fast. Within just moments our lips parted again, the connection broken entirely. Cold reality seemed to hit as Gatsby pulled back, my eyes opening to see him looking at me. Hard to read. He was hard to read again, and it felt as if the perfect, drunken fever dream I was just in shattered, the broken pieces falling atop my head and bringing me back to reality.
“Gatsby…”
He wasn’t mine. No, Gatsby couldn’t love men. I knew this. He loved Daisy, my cousin, a person who deserved him more than I ever could. He could never love me, his neighbour living in a much smaller house than him, who could never walk and talk and carry himself like he does. I would never be good enough for Gatsby, and it was foolish to believe that kissing him would end in anything positive. I realised my position, legs parted as I sat on his desk, gasping for breath, staring into Gatsby’s eyes. What had I done?
“Nick-”
I stumbled off the desk, standing on shaky legs as a cold pit of dread formed in my stomach.
“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have. I… I must go home now! I apologise again. I… goodnight, Gatsby.” I stammered as I walked quickly to leave his study, staring at Gatsby’s expression hoping to pick up some clue as to how he felt. I heard him shout out something along the lines of “old sport” before I left, but I couldn’t hear him, my heart pounding in my ears.
I ran out into the party, and it felt as if everyone knew. Everyone could see Gatsby’s fingerprints on me, and I felt like both the crime and the criminal as I walked past everyone, head down and murmuring apologies. I hoped with all my heart that this news wouldn’t get out, and that Gatsby would forgive me for my drunken actions.
And now, I lie in my bed. I haven’t seen Gatsby in weeks, avoiding him whenever possible. I haven’t gone to his parties since that night, no matter how much I wished to go back and say something. I pull the covers off my head and see the light from his house flooding into my room through the open window. I had forgotten to close it, and now there were likely several bugs in my bedroom that I would find crawling across my face in the morning. I get out of bed, heading over to the window. Gatsby’s home looked like the sun. I am a moth, and he is the sun. I can do nothing but admire his light, fearing I would burn up in smoke if I got close. I reach up, my nightshirt lifting as I grab the window to pull it shut. And yet, as I do that, I notice a figure standing on a balcony, staring out at my house. I can’t tell who it is, as they’re too far for me to make out the fine details, yet I hope deep down that the figure is Gatsby, staring at my house. It is impossible for him to want me in the way I want him, but I can hold onto hope that he isn’t as upset as I believe him to be.
I shut the window and head back to bed, wishing I had the chance to kiss him again so I could do it right. If only it were another time in which we would be safe to do so, where it would be safe for me to scream out my love for him into the night, his name a poem on my lips. Until then, I suppose I will hear my heart breaking tonight, and every night for the foreseeable future.