Pathways - Jeri Taylor [65]
He entered quietly, in case George was asleep, and indeed the room was darkened. But he spotted his roommate sitting in the window seat, staring out at the trees in the quadrangle of which their dormitory was a part. George was silhouetted against a sky that was illuminated by a half-moon.
“George? You all right?”
George didn’t turn his head to answer. “Fine,” he said unconvincingly. Harry looked at him, reminded of his earlier behavior at the gallery.
“I thought you might not be feeling well,” Harry said. “You left so abruptly.”
George finally turned toward him, and in the moonlight Harry could see naked anguish in his eyes. “I’ve been a fool, Harry, and it’s a little tough to admit that to myself.”
“What are you talking about?” Harry was genuinely puzzled. There was a long silence in which Harry could hear George breathing, as though he weren’t quite getting enough oxygen.
“When I saw you with that woman tonight, it was clear how you feel about her. And—I just didn’t realize.”
“Realize what?”
A sound of exasperation emitted from George, half a laugh, half an ironic expletive. “Are you so dense, Harry? Do I have to spell it out?”
Harry felt trapped and confused. He couldn’t imagine what was making his friend act like this, couldn’t wrap his mind around whatever it was George was trying to say. “George, please, I honestly don’t understand.”
George stood up, the moon catching one side of his face while the other remained in darkness. His one visible eye looked immeasurably sad. “I love you, Harry. I’m in love with you. And I thought you felt the same way.”
Harry stared at him, suddenly understanding everything, realizing that he was the one who’d been a fool. It had never occurred to him that George had made this assumption about their relationship. And he blamed himself for not seeing the obvious.
“George, I’m sorry. I’ve been pretty stupid.”
But George was shaking his head. “I made assumptions because I wanted to make them,” he admitted. “You didn’t date women, you seemed to enjoy my company, we did everything together . . . I interpreted those things in the way that made me happy.”
“But there was never anything romantic between us . . .”
“I wanted there to be. But I told myself it would come with time. And I liked being with you so much that I didn’t want to take the risk of pushing it.” He shook his head ruefully. “If I’d been honest with myself, I’d have known I was fantasizing. But I didn’t want to admit it. I loved you too much.”
An immense wave of friendship, of caring and concern and, yes, of love, swept over Harry. He went to his friend and put his arms around George, who responded in kind, and they stood like that for a long time, locked in a healing embrace. Then George pulled away. “I have to request a change of rooms,” he said quietly. “It’d be too difficult to live with you now. I hope you understand.”
“Of course I do.” Ineffable sadness enveloped Harry, and he felt a palpable sense of loss, the only such pain he’d experienced in his life since Mousie had died years earlier. “I want to be your friend, George. Can we still have that?”
George took a breath, looked away from him. “I hope so. In time. But not right away. I have to . . . to get over you.”
Harry would have done anything at that point to take George’s pain from him, to suffer himself rather than see his friend anguish. But he knew George must walk that path by himself, and could only hope that when he was done, they could be friends again.
Three years later Harry stood with his classmates in the stadium of the Academy, listening to Admiral Brand inform them that they had now graduated and were setting forth to represent Starfleet throughout known and unknown space. It wasn’t a particularly inspiring speech, at least not to Harry, who was simply glad to be finally out from under Nimembeh’s tutelage. In the four years of his college experience, Nimembeh had been unchanging: flinty, impervious, exacting. Not once had