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You're such a doll and I'm a boy. Where did my parents go? They like vacation houses much more than they love me.
You're made of plastic, I'm just blood. When I was born you were produced.
Eddie’s old English teacher made them all read a poem in class once, the poems were pre-decided and the one he’d been assigned was ‘For M’ by Mikko Havey. It went like this: "the number of hours we have together is actually not so large. Please linger near the door uncomfortably instead of just leaving. Please forget your scarf in my life and come back later for it." He never really forgot it, because when he was young, he was trained to be a man. He was pulled aside by his father and ordered to grow up, and that meant he stopped being a little kid too soon. He was ten years old when he stopped hugging people, when he stopped going over to friend’s houses, when he stopped waiting for his mom to stop by his room and say goodnight.
Adriana had been a clingy child, always holding onto him when he’d put her down for a nap. She’d always beg for one more book, one more kiss, one more song, and maybe she was that way because Eddie would always give in. He’d give her one more kiss, and read one more book. He’d sing her ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’, and she’d sob and ask for another, and he would sing her ‘Old Macdonald Had A Farm’ too. The reason he always did though, was because after one more, she always listened. She would always lay down and begin snoring immediately, almost like she knew he would do it. Almost like she knew he wanted to do it. He was the oldest, there had been no one to swing him to sleep in their arms while singing him the softest lullaby. There’d been no one to read him a book, and while he was sure his parents kissed him, they stopped when he was old enough to remember it.
Sophia wasn’t clingy, because she’d been born so close to him that he hadn’t had a chance to raise her to be happy. He hadn’t been able to raise her differently than he’d been raised, and it killed him. When she turned fourteen and started drawing her eyeliner extra thick, and began hanging out with the bad kids at school, he blamed himself for her behavior. He lived in a world of “if only.”
If only he’d been able to help her when he was younger. If only he’d been able to hold her and hug her and kiss her. If only she hadn’t followed so close behind him.
Eddie grew up without hugs, and without his mom and dad, and he grew up taking care of his sisters when his parents left for the weekend. His dad was a realtor, so when he needed to travel for an open house, Eddie’s mom always went with him. Before Abuela moved to LA with Aunt Pepa, she’d come over and watch them, and she would pile all the blankets and pillows on the couch and they would all cuddle up and watch a movie. They’d always watch something that Eddie’s parents wouldn’t let him watch because it was for girls. They watched ‘Mulan’, or ‘Princess and the Frog’, and he always loved them, but there was always a voice in the back of his mind whispering, “this isn’t for you.” Then he would tear himself out of his Abuela’s embrace and sit on the other side of the couch, with his arms curled around himself and his face set like stone.
“Edmundo, what’s wrong?”
“I need to- I need to go do the dishes... Mama doesn’t like them to be left for long.”
“I can do them after the movie, Mundo.”
With the shake of his head, Eddie was off to the kitchen, pushing up his sleeves and grabbing the sponge off the sink. Abuela just turned around and watched him with a sad expression, but she didn’t say anything. She couldn’t, he was his parent’s faithful servant, and it was impossible to tell a servant to stop if you weren’t their master.
Abuela put them all to sleep that night and later, she wandered into Eddie’s room, where he was reading quietly to himself, and she stopped at his doorframe. “Adriana is asking for you.”
“Of course.” He stood and walked with her to Addie’s room, and he picked her up and rocked her back and forth and read her ‘We’re Going on A Bear Hunt’ (her favorite) and sang to her and she was asleep within minutes. Abuela was standing outside of her door when he crept out and shut it behind him, plunging Adriana’s room into darkness, and he looked up at her. “She’s asleep.”
“Oh, Mundo.”
He hadn’t known back then why she was so upset. This was how his world worked, how his life was. He didn’t get to have fun, he wasn’t a boy anymore, he was a man.
He had to grow up quicker, he needed to do the things his father had done. There were steps he needed to take, he needed to find a wife, and get a job. He needed to make money and be the man his parents wanted him to be.
So, he did. He found a girl, and he let himself be reckless one night, and they had thought nothing came from it, until three months later she texted him to come over for a moment. When she’d held up the pregnancy test he decided to never let himself be reckless again. Every moment of his life became painfully planned. Everything he did was what he was supposed to do and never what he wanted to do.
Until one day, his wife left him, and left his son, and he tried for 6 years. He tried to be ok with how life was panning out for him, he tried to keep his head above water, and keep his son above water too. He let his parents raise his son the same way they’d raised him, and he realized one night, when he was lying on the couch of his own house, that he only had three years before his son got the same talk he’d gotten.
He did the first reckless thing he’d done in years and he moved himself and his son across the country to Los Angeles. He put himself through school, and joined a fire department and he met Buck.
Buck, who wasn’t raised by shitty parents. Buck, who wasn’t raised at all. Buck, who hadn’t been born like Eddie at all, but instead was created, was made in a petri dish and implanted into his mother’s womb like some kind of gruesome science experiment. Eddie had heard about IVF as a kid, and as a Catholic, he’d been raised to be against it, but when he’d left Chatolosim behind, he decided he didn’t think the things he’d been taught to hate were all that bad. Until he met Buck, and Buck talked about how he’d been born just to save the son that his parents had wanted.
Suddenly, Eddie wanted to murder two people he’d never met. The more Buck talked about how he hadn’t been told to be a man, and instead hadn’t been taught to do anything at all, Eddie burned like he was on fire. Eddie had been his parent’s servant his whole life, and he’d hated it, and then his best friend told him that being someone’s servant sounded nice.
“You earned their love?”
“N-no, not like that.”
“Oh. Well, I wish I could have done something to earn my parent’s love.”
Eddie was lying on the floor of a motel, after they traveled to Nashville for the dumb competition that was full of people asking if he was dating Buck. Every time he said no, a part of him died inside, and he could see the light fading in Buck’s eyes too. He wasn’t even sure they could be called friends anymore, they definitely weren’t lovers.
Somewhere along the line, Buck had stopped being his, and Eddie had stopped being Buck’s. Maybe it was because Evan Buckley wasn’t part of the plan. Maybe it was Eddie’s fault. He’d panicked when he realized how close he wanted to be to Buck. When he realized the last time he’d felt this pit in his stomach had been around Shannon.
Eddie couldn’t be gay, and he couldn’t be in love with a man, and Buck couldn’t be his. He really couldn’t. He pulled away and he pushed too, so that Buck didn’t follow after him like he knew he would. Buck would follow him anywhere, they’d promised that the first day they met, so he shoved him as hard as he could and Buck went stumbling back. Eddie didn’t watch him go, he couldn’t, so when Chimney decided to send Buck and Eddie down to Nashville, Eddie told Chimney that his truck needed miles, and he casually told Buck that they had to drive to the competition. Maybe Buck knew it was all because Eddie knew he didn’t like flying, or maybe he didn’t think anything of it at all. Maybe he still thought Eddie was a piece of shit friend, maybe Buck still laughed and cried and left Eddie behind too.
Eddie was lying on the floor of a random motel because they hadn’t realized there was only one bed, and he thought back to that poem. He thought about how the time they had with each other wasn’t as long as they thought it was.
Eddie knew that, he’d sat there for 3 minutes and 17 seconds and he’d wondered if he would ever hear Buck’s laugh again. He sat there and thought back to hugs, fistbumps, and Buck's eyes. For 3 minutes and 17 seconds, Eddie Diaz knew how short and very cruel life could be, and yet, here he was, lying on the floor of a shitty hotel room because of his rules. Rules that had been given to him by people he barely even talked to anymore, not since they took his son back and treated him the same way Eddie had been fighting against.
Eddie stood up and Buck’s eyes flickered open, locking on him where he was standing at the end of the bed. His face wasn’t tired, Eddie figured neither one of them had really been trying to sleep at all. Eddie stood at the end of the bed, brown eyes on blue and he took a deep breath.
“Buck.” Just the name, just four letters, like a prayer. He said them like he’d recited the Our Father all those years ago. Redemption was found at the altar, but freedom was found in Evan Buckley. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” One of Eddie’s hands flew to his face, and he managed to stop the tears from falling. He heard a noise, sheets crinkling, and then suddenly Buck was kneeling on the end of the bed, hands on Eddie’s shoulders, looking at him carefully.
“Eddie, what’s wrong? Are you ok? Did you get hurt today?” He was searching for visible injuries, and Eddie just stood there like an idiot. Well, half of an idiot, because the next thing he wanted to do wasn't wrong at all.
It hit him like a train going too fast. It hit him and he realized, standing there with Buck’s hands on him, that this was what he’d been made for. He hadn’t been made to be his parent’s. He had been made to be someone’s, and he’d thought it was Shannon.
But it wasn’t.
He wasn’t his mother’s boy, he was Buck’s.
He was Buck’s.
Eddie leaned forward and grabbed hold of Buck’s face and he pressed his mouth against his best friend’s, and like communion, he held his lips against the source of salvation. Buck kissed him back like he meant it, like he needed it just as much as Eddie did, and when Buck leaned back to fall onto the bed, Eddie followed him down.
He’d been told to be a man too soon, he’d been turned into something he wasn’t, but in the darkness of a motel room that night, between Nashville and home, Eddie Diaz was turned into something else. He was glorified, and loved, and wanted, and worshiped, and for those few hours, they learned each other's bodies, and they lingered and they loved.
And Eddie left his scarf in the soul of Evan Buckley and every day he came back for it.
I wish I was a toy, and you laugh, and I cry. Half of my heart is in your chest.
I'm not a mama's boy.