Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Truman wanted to launch himself into Ash’s arms and stroke his hair, his cheeks, his back. Hold him until he cried every tear he had in him and then could speak.
What actually happened, as he reached out a hand to squeeze Ash’s shoulder, was that something horribly wet and cold grabbed his ass, and Truman squeezed and jumped up.
“What the hell?” Greta said. “Are you okay?”
In the time it took Truman to get both feet on the floor, he realized what had happened.
“Yeah, uh, ice pack melt situation. Sorry. I’ll…um…”
He wiped at the wet spot, but that just succeeded in more of the freezing wet spot coming in contact with his butt.
He looked over at Ash and saw that the tears were now streaming down his face.
“Oh, god, Ash, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
Then he realized that Ash was laughing so hard he couldn’t speak.
“Hmph,” Truman said and held his wet sweats away from him. “I’ll be right back.”
In the bedroom, he stripped out of his wet clothes and rummaged around for dry ones. As he was pulling on the new sweats, there was a knock on the door.
“Yeah?”
Ash slipped inside.
“Are you okay?” they both said at the same time.
Truman said, “Fine,” and Ash nodded and said, “Yeah.”
Ash sank onto Truman’s bed and patted the spot beside him. “Do you really think there are people who I could trust who might wanna live with my mom?” he asked.
“Yeah. If that opportunity came up when I was in the situation of needing super cheap accommodations, I absolutely would’ve jumped on it. I watched this documentary about an experimental housing initiative that they tried in Sweden—or maybe the Netherlands? Shit, I don’t remember. God, I’m such an American monster. Anyway.”
Ash was smiling slightly and reached out a hand to tentatively stroke Truman’s back. Truman smiled his encouragement.
“Anyway, it was about this idea called intergenerational living where students who needed cheap housing got housed in a retirement facility, and in exchange for the rent cut, they had to give five or ten hours a week being ‘good neighbors,’ which really just meant, like, hanging out and helping the older residents work their computers or paint their nails or serve food or whatever. But what they found out was that it was this amazing boon for everyone involved. The elderly residents who were often lonely and felt cut off from outside life suddenly felt like they were much more connected and felt younger. The younger residents felt like they learned amazing life lessons from the elderly and got to have friends with totally different life experiences. Before they knew it, everyone wanted to make the change permanent. And now it’s sprung up all over the world because it’s so mutually beneficial.”
Truman felt himself getting choked up remembering the stories in the documentary.
“This one guy in his early twenties didn’t have any family support because he wanted to be a dancer, and he made friends with this woman in her eighties who had been a dancer when she was young, and they became—” Truman broke off to avoid crying and laughed at himself. “They became best friends, and she was his biggest support system and he showed her contemporary dance videos on YouTube. Oh god, I can’t believe I’m crying over dance videos.” He laughed and wiped tears from his eyes. “Anyway, the point is that I bet there are a lot of people out there who would be super into the idea, and it would help them out just as much as it would help your mom.”
Ash stared at him, and Truman found himself reaching out and stroking the tear tracks on his cheeks.
“Are you okay?”
Ash closed his eyes. His voice was rough when he spoke.
“Yeah. I never thought of that. Then when you said it, it was like the damn clouds parted and I thought I saw a ray of sun for the first time in so long. It’s like…like I’ve been so deep in this whole thing for so long that I honest to god stopped trying to think of any solutions and just figured this was my life now. I feel pretty stupid, actually.”
Truman caressed his cheek and his jaw and offered tentatively, “You know, that’s why it’s nice to have a partner sometimes. You can figure things out together. That’s what I hear anyway,” he hedged.
Ash grabbed his shoulders and looked deep into Truman’s eyes. “You have to understand what you’d be getting into,” he said fervently. “I couldn’t stand for you to leave your whole life behind and then end up here and expect things from me that I can’t give. I just…I’m no fun,” he concluded.
“I hate fun!” Truman exclaimed. “The shit most people think is fun, I mean.” Then Ash’s words registered. “Wait. What I’d be getting into. You mean…you’d want me to stay?”