Page 100 of The Build-a-Boyfriend Project

Without meaning to, he puts his sleeve-covered hand to his mouth, chewing on his thumbnail softly. He breathes in the fresh scent of Peter’s hoodie, and something coils in Eli’s stomach. There’s that heady aroma, that warm tonic scent, the earthiness. It reminds Eli so much of the approaching fall, the bright orange-and-red leaves of the trees straight out of a Hallmark movie crunching under his feet.

He closes the article, his eyes catching the list of things he’s written, the pieces that he’s poured his heart into only for Michael to reject them outright under the excuse of “not meeting the brand.” And any chance of selling them elsewhere was gone with the noncompete clause he signed upon accepting the job at Vent. Hours upon hours, days, weeks, months of researching, writing, editing, all totally and completely useless.

He scrolls further, his fingers moving quickly as the tiles come across the screen the deeper he goes.

Unhoused Numbers on the Rise, Many of Them Queer Youths

Tax Increases Doing Nothing to Help City

Shelters Are Meant to Protect the Unhoused, So Why Do Most People Feel Unsafe Staying in One?

California Governor Signs Trans Protection Bill Amidst Country-wide Attacks on Trans Youth

Five years given to Vent, given to Michael, all under the promise that someday, he’d achieve his dreams. He’d get that chance he wanted, finally be able to prove to himself and to everyone around him that he accomplished something.

But how can he tell Peter to follow his dreams when he can’t do the same for himself? It’s so easy to tell Peter to go for it, to take that leap. Submit the book to agents, let them sell it, give the book the chance to find the readers that so desperately need it.

Why can’t he do that for himself? Why can’t he leave Vent? Why can’t he take that leap, leave behind this place and this team that he knows is holding him back? If he left Vent, of course things would be rough for a while; he’d have to budget hardcore, make sure he had enough savings set aside, find a part-time job to work while he focused on sending out his articles and essays.

So why can’t he do it? Why can’t he leave this bubble? Why can’t he follow the very advice that he gave to Peter?

Because he’s afraid.

Because he’s a hypocrite.

He considers the article for a moment, staring at it until the blue light starts to sting his eyes and he finally blinks. He exits the article, going to Google and typing in “what to do with my life?”

In an instant, he’s faced with article upon article about “Finding the key to life!” How to find your passion, your friends, your perfect job. How to align your chakras, how your life is already decided depending on your zodiac sign or the time you were born. There are life-improvement classes where someone will take your money just to give you advice you could get for free, and thousands upon thousands of self-help and lifestyle books.

Eli just sighs, closing the laptop. He slips it between the couch cushions before he turns the movie off just at the scene where Charles Hallahan’s chest opens up and rips off Richard Dysart’s arms, walking into the bathroom and leaving his glasses on the back of the toilet so he can wash his face.

Just be happy.

That was what his father used to tell him when Eli was younger. He’d meant it not in a “just get over it” sense, but more that Eli should pursue the things that made him the happiest.

So long as you’re happy, that’s all that matters in this life.

It was a familiar mantra, one that Eli kept close to his heart. Because those were the last words that his dad had said to Eli, when he’d dared to come out to his father just hours before he finally passed away.

He couldn’t live with himself, knowing that his father would die believing that Eli was someone he really wasn’t. Of course both of his parents saw the writing on the wall for years.

He’d asked his mother to leave the room, just so he could tell him the truth.

Eli’s father had smiled at him. A smile that Eli never wanted to recall ever again, not with the breathing tubes in his nose, not with the sickly pale yellow his once-golden skin had turned. But it stuck in his memory like the tumors that slowly sucked the life out of his father, cursing him with an image that he felt desperate to forget.

“My boy . . .” his father had said. “Do you have a name for me?”

“Eli,” he said slowly. “Because of Elijah Wood.”

It was embarrassing, but shame wasn’t an emotion Eli was capable of at the moment. The Fellowship of the Ring was the first movie Eli’s father had taken him to see in theaters, way back when he was far too young to understand even a fraction of what was happening. Elijah never felt right, but Eli . . . He’d loved that name for years before he’d chosen it.

His father looked at him. “I love it, my boy, my Eli . . .”

Eli had tried his best not to cry, but that was the moment that he broke, when he fell to the bed with his father, resting his head on the very same pillow.

“Promise me one thing, Eli?”

“Of course.”