I nonetheless take into consideration the evening earlier than I left Los Angeles — the best way Matt and I lastly stopped pretending we had been simply pals and the way his pit bull, Jesus, slept curled on the fringe of the mattress whereas we held one another, totally clothed, figuring out we had been out of time. It wasn’t a grand ending. There have been no fireworks, no cinematic declarations. Simply the quiet hum of town outdoors and two individuals making an attempt to stretch a single evening into eternally.
I had met Matt years earlier, again after I first moved to Los Angeles and town appeared decided to interrupt me. I’d been condo attempting to find months, a course of that had devolved right into a sequence of small humiliations. Landlords’ smiles would fade the moment they noticed my brown face. The first rate flats — ones with working showers or a fridge — had been all the time “simply rented.” Those I may really get had been darkish, smelly or unsafe.
I used to be beginning to suppose I’d made a mistake leaving New York. Then my good friend Shannon despatched me a Craigslist itemizing that appeared —miraculously — regular. “Hollywood/Little Armenia,” she learn. “Centrally positioned. Two blocks from the 101.” The lease wasn’t outrageous. The photographs didn’t make me shudder. I pulled out my Thomas Information, traced the path to Lexington Avenue and drove there with extra hope than I wished to confess.
The constructing exceeded my expectations. It was white, mid-century, with quirky castle-like touches that gave it persona. The road was alive with Armenian markets and mom-and-pop bakeries. For the primary time since arriving in L.A., I may image myself residing someplace that felt like a group.
Then Matt appeared.
He was tall, clean-shaven, reddish-haired, with heat brown eyes that made you are feeling instantly seen. “You’re right here concerning the condo?” he requested. I braced myself for the standard letdown. As a substitute, he smiled and mentioned, “Let me present you round.”
He was the constructing’s superintendent, however that felt too small a phrase for him. He was additionally a documentary filmmaker who’d studied at UCLA, was fluent in three languages and had a simple charisma that drew individuals in. His canine, Jesus, a putting black-and-white pit bull, adopted him in all places, tail wagging like a punctuation mark.
The condo itself wasn’t good, nevertheless it was a palace in comparison with what I’d been by way of. It was a studio with an enormous kitchen and precise daylight. I signed the lease that week. Shannon warned me, solely half-joking, “Don’t fall to your constructing tremendous.” I promised I wouldn’t.
That promise lasted about two weeks.
The primary evening I moved in, I spotted my bed room window was damaged — not simply cracked, however open sufficient to make me really feel unsafe. I knocked on Matt’s door, in all probability sounding sharper than I meant to. I’d been by way of too many slumlords to anticipate a lot. However he listened patiently, nodded and had it fastened the subsequent day. That small act — his professionalism, his steadiness — disarmed me. It was the primary time in months that somebody on this metropolis had made me really feel cared for.
We had been each people who smoke then. The constructing had just a little patio the place residents would collect, and earlier than lengthy, Matt and I began operating into one another there. These encounters was conversations about movie, queerness, artwork and the unusual loneliness of being transplants in a metropolis obsessive about desires. He instructed me about Costa Rica, the place he grew up, and about how he cherished and resented Los Angeles for its contradictions. I instructed him about New York, about the way it formed me and why I needed to go away it.
Our connection deepened slowly, marked by cigarettes and laughter, and people lengthy, suspended silences when neither of us wished to say goodnight.
By the point the vacations rolled round, I’d stopped pretending that I didn’t look ahead to seeing him. As a thank-you for all his assist that first yr, I purchased him two bottles of Gray Goose: lemon- and orange-flavored as a result of I’d observed he preferred citrus. He invited me to assist him drink them on New Yr’s Eve.
We spent the evening speaking about every part and nothing: music, journey, ambition. Midnight got here. We hugged. And in that lengthy, lingering embrace, I felt the spark we’d been making an attempt to disregard. However we let go, cautious to not cross the boundary that had quietly turn out to be sacred between us.
For years, we danced round it. We’d share a beer, a smoke, a late-night discuss and retreat once more to our corners. I revered his professionalism; he revered my area. However beneath all that restraint was one thing undeniably alive.
Then got here the accident. A driver T-boned my Volvo on my means residence from work at E! Networks, and I used to be left with two herniated cervical discs and a terrifying warning from my physician: one unsuitable transfer, and I might be paralyzed. I made a decision to maneuver again to New York to recuperate.
The evening earlier than I left, Matt got here by to say goodbye. We knew it was our final likelihood to cease pretending.
“I really like you,” he mentioned quietly.
“I really like you too,” I instructed him.
We kissed, lastly, with the form of tenderness born from years of self-restraint. However we didn’t take it additional. We simply lay there, spooned collectively, holding on as if stillness may save us.
After I moved again east, we stored in contact for some time, then drifted aside. He finally married a Frenchman and moved to Europe to make movies. I stayed in New York and wrote my tales.
Generally I take into consideration that damaged window — the one he fastened the day after my first evening within the constructing — and the way it set the tone for every part that adopted. Love doesn’t all the time announce itself with drama. Generally it’s within the quiet restore of one thing damaged, the small acts of care that construct into one thing profound.
Matt taught me that. He made a metropolis that after felt hostile lastly really feel like residence. And even now, years later, after I consider Los Angeles, I don’t consider the rejection or the battle. I consider him.
The writer is a contract author. He lives in New York Metropolis and is engaged on a memoir. He’s additionally on Instagram: @thebohemiandork.
L.A. Affairs chronicles the seek for romantic love in all its superb expressions within the L.A. space, and we need to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a printed essay. Electronic mail LAAffairs@latimes.com. You could find submission tips right here. You could find previous columns right here.
