Work Text:
“Easiest decision of my life.”
The funny thing about saying this, Patrick realizes later, is that it never actually felt like a decision at all.
He saw his parents off early the Sunday after his birthday, and as he was driving home (alone—David, hearing that the alarm would be set for 7:30, had insisted that he couldn’t possibly infringe on precious Brewer Family Time and said his goodbyes the night before) he passed by his old hiking trail. He hadn’t visited it much in the past couple of years, but found himself driving this way more and more lately. He supposed it was nice to be reminded of how far he’d come since the days when he’d needed this place so much.
When I propose to David, he thought, I’ll do it there. That was how the idea first entered his mind, not with an if but a when.
It was as if introducing his parents to David, to who he was with David, removed the final brick of a subconscious dam that had been holding back the plans he’d already made for the rest of his life. With that out of the way, it was just a flood of logistics. He would need to plan a picnic (the only thing, he knew, that would lure David up a long trail), he would need to ask Stevie for her blessing, he would need to find someone to custom make four gold bands to exact measurements. He would need to do all of this without David getting suspicious.
The rings proved to be the trickiest part to pull off. He knew none of the shops in Elmdale would be up to David’s standards, so finding the right jeweler involved a lot of time in front of his laptop, in private browser tabs and a burner email account he always remembered to log out of. He kept an Excel sheet ready to pull up in case David walked in unexpectedly. If he asked what he was doing, Patrick responded, “I’m filing paperwork for the store. Why, are you offering to help?” Even the hardest part was almost too easy.
When he’d asked Rachel to marry him, the ring had been the only easy part. He’d been buying a new guitar strap from a vintage shop in their neighborhood when a green glitter from beneath the glass counter caught his eye. It was a silver band engraved with Celtic knots, set with a single, square cut emerald. He knew instantly Rachel would love it and he wanted so badly for her to be happy.
If I propose to Rachel, he thought, would that make me happy?
He bought the ring before he could settle on an answer, and spent the next six months trying to make a decision. He hid the ring in his sock drawer and pulled it out now and then, passing it from hand to hand as if weighing it. Some days he forgot it was even there, and flinched when his hand brushed the velvet box while reaching for a pair of socks. In the end, he gave up trying to decode whether this was something he wanted to do or something he felt he should want to do. He took Rachel out to a nice dinner and hid the ring under her napkin because he couldn’t think of a good reason not to.
The week after David’s rings shipped, Patrick checked the FedEx link at least six times a day. Even though they were still hundreds of miles away, he couldn’t bear to keep them out of his sight. He felt something churning inside him and knew it would refuse to settle until he could get that box into David’s hands, where it belonged.
The email that his package was finally ready for pickup at the post office came around ten in the morning, and he stared at the clock like he could will it to be noon. He practiced some Cabaret footwork to cover his jitters.
“You know I’m happy for you, and I say this with love,” David said, stepping around him to get behind the counter. “But I can’t wait until this show is over and I get my boyfriend back.”
“Oh, you think you’re getting your boyfriend back after this, huh?” Patrick asked, spinning away to hide a smile he knew was too wide to pass as innocent.
“Don’t joke about that! I do not need yet another person to leave me for a life in show business.”
He told David he needed to run to Elmdale at lunch to pick up a very important prop (“Don’t tell your mother—I should have gotten it weeks ago.”) and swung out the door as soon as he could. The package didn’t even make it out of the post office before he tore it open. Once he wiped the tears from his eyes, he could see the rings were perfect.
His fingers brushed velvet as he snapped the lid closed, and he was reminded of the emerald ring he’d abandoned with his socks for weeks at a stretch. He wondered, with a twist of guilt in his gut, if Rachel had been as excited to find that box under her napkin as he was to pull this one from his hiking bag. The worst part about getting it wrong all those years was knowing he’d been getting it wrong for both of them.
He scrounged in his bag for paper and pen and jotted down a note before he could think about it too hard:
I’ve spent the last two years wishing I’d known myself better years and years ago. For my sake, but also for yours. I never meant to hurt you. I’m sorry.
He couldn’t think of a good way to sign it, so he didn’t. She would know his handwriting. He pulled an envelope from a stand nearby, wrote down what he hoped was still her address, and went back to the counter to post it.
The sun was out when he stepped outside, and he couldn’t resist opening the box again to watch the rings shine. He tilted them in the light with one hand and typed a text to David with the other.
How about one last day with your boyfriend before opening night? Tomorrow. I’ll pack a picnic.