by Val Emmich
We both look up and at the exact same time say, “Cotton.” It’s hilarious and we’re probably the only two people in the world who would find it so.
I kick off my frozen shoes and strip away my wet mismatched socks. I start to caress my feet. I’m cold but smiling.
Mac yanks off his hat and shoves it into his pocket. His hair is a beautiful mess. He lies on his back and stares at the ceiling as if gazing up at stars. His hood serves as a pillow. I want to be where he is. I cross my legs so my feet are tucked under me and I lie back parallel to him. We turn our heads and acknowledge each other’s sideways presence. It’s like we’re sharing the same bed. A very hard bed. At least I wiped down the floor earlier with a paper towel.
Mac reaches for the candle and slides it over so it’s no longer between us. It’s above our heads now. He raises his right hand off the floor. A shadow animal appears on the ceiling. A bunny. The bunny’s face keeps falling apart until Mac finally gets his hands shaped right.
“Hello!” Mac says in a high-pitched bunny voice.
I raise the hand that’s closest to the candle. A snail appears on the ceiling.
“No fair,” Mac says in his normal voice. “You’re not even trying.”
One advantage of having a hand like mine.
“What’s your name?” I say with maximum timbre. This is my snail voice, apparently. It’s super deep.
“My name is Bunny,” says Bunny, practically squealing.
“You have a very high voice there,” says Snail.
“I know,” says Bunny. “That’s because my owner fixed me. Is your owner mean like mine?”
“No,” says Snail. “I’m free to go wherever I please. I just move very… very… slowly.”
Inching closer, Bunny says, “Do you want to make out?”
I pause, wondering who should answer, Tegan or Snail. Out of an abundance of caution, I speak as Snail, saying “Okay,” which makes Tegan very jealous—of a shadow animal.
“I have to warn you, though,” says Bunny. “I’m an extremely aggressive kisser.”
“That sounds perfect,” says Snail.
“Here I come,” says Bunny. His shadowy shape becomes a tornado of smooching sounds. In seconds, he’s finished and resting on the ceiling. “That was amazing.”
“Sure was,” says Snail.
The. End.
The ceiling goes blank as we lower our tired arms.
“It’s not easy to get you to smile,” Mac says.
My cheeks hurt from happiness.
You never know someone until you know them. Maybe I still don’t know Mac, but I know him more tonight than I’ve ever known him. He used to be invincible, and now I see the flaws in him, but mysteriously, that makes him even more invincible. He still scares me, but in a way that’s more thrilling than frightening. My brain is doing somersaults and I’m trying to keep steady, but it’s useless, and maybe I don’t want to be steady, not in this moment.
I smile at him, with purpose and true joy. He leans in and I meet him halfway. The dark of the closet gave an unreality to our first time, and I do crave the unreal, the liberation of it, but now, seeing clearly who I’m kissing, again and again, is a high I know no match for. Being fully conscious of what’s happening, knowing this is a thing I can do, kiss Mac Durant, openly, repeatedly, is like prolonged astonishment, a feeling of surprise that never goes away.
I pull back, needing a breath. I want to touch his face to make sure it’s not fantasy, but the hand that’s free is the one I feel less free with. As much as Mac makes me forget myself, some things still seem unforgettable.
I speak in my true voice.
“Earlier tonight, you said most of the time when you’re talking to people, you’re not even there.” I pause, knowing the position I’m putting myself in. “Are you here now?”
He needs only a second. “I am.”
The candlelight ripples in his eyes.
“I said something else before.” His voice is low and present. “I said it’s simpler to pretend. But you were right—it’s not simpler.”
I stare at his lips as he talks.
“Tonight, when I walked away from my dad in the garage, I made up my mind that I was done. Done acting like everything is fine. I saw you here in the museum, and it was weird, it felt like you saw me back. Honestly, it freaked me out a little. That you could see me. I kept trying to do what I always do, brush things off or whatever, but it’s like you wouldn’t let me. You wouldn’t let me pretend. You’re like my brother.”
That speech did not end up where I expected. I’m humiliated beyond measure. “Wow,” I say. “Thanks.”
“No,” Mac says with a laugh. “Not like that. I mean you remind me of him. The way you can’t fake it. It’s a good quality. I promise.”
The vile burn in my gut spirals up my chest, polluting the pleasure I should be feeling right now.
“All that time we were living under the same roof, James and I, there was something blocking us. But now that he’s not around, I don’t know, I feel closer to him than I ever did. I feel like I finally understand him.” He looks up. “I feel like I understand you.”
Me too.
“I feel like you understand me,” Mac says.
Me too.
“I’ve never felt like that before.”
Me neither.
“I’m used to, just, feeling alone most of the time.”
Yes! But how is it possible? How can someone like him and someone like me share that same feeling? “You said when you saw me at the assembly there was something familiar.”
“After what you told me about your dad and what happened, it makes sense. I think I saw you from afar, and I felt some of that.”
I thought he was as “normal” as a person could get. As strong and confident as a person could get. That he had more answers than questions, more solutions than problems. The whole time he was more like me than I could ever imagine.
“Were you telling the truth before?” I say. “Am I really the first girl who’s ever been in your house?”
“I swear. I’ve dated girls, and yeah, I just never had them over. Never felt comfortable enough.” Mac walks it back. “Not that we’re dating, but you know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Obviously.”
“Don’t say it like that. Why obviously?”
“Oh, come on. I’m clearly not like the other girls you’ve…”
He looks up at the ceiling. “When you asked me point-blank what happened with my hand, I don’t know, for the first time, I told the truth. Not all of it, but enough. I realize I don’t want to keep this shit inside anymore. I just don’t. I think I’ve been more honest with you tonight than I probably have been with anyone, ever.”
The candle trembles, motioning like water. We’re deep under the sea, safe in our enchanted home. His perfectly imperfect nose calls out for an Eskimo kiss. He inches closer and a sudden flash illuminates his skin. He stops, pulls back, his eyes searching. Mine search, too. The candle’s waves have stilled. We’ve been wrenched from the ocean. The lights are back on. Power restored.
A loud musical noise emerges from the front room.
“What was that?” Mac says, sitting up.
“Just the computer, I think. It’s turning back on.”
He rises to his feet. “I’ll check.”
I wish he wouldn’t. What could be more important than what we have going on right here?
I sit up, suddenly aware that I’m lying on the floor by myself. The back room is bright and sterile. The harshness of a dream interrupted. Like when a movie ends and you resurface in the loud and busy lobby. Our movie cut off before it was over. I blow out the candle.
That’s one fire put out. Another still rages inside me. I’ve had enough: I can no longer endure the burn rising up from my core. The sooner I douse it, the sooner Mac and I can move on. What we have is too important to let this stand in our way. It’s a misunderstanding, that’s all. Compared to what’
s going on in the present, the past is just that—a misunderstanding. Something otherworldly has happened between us tonight, a forging of souls—seriously, it feels that grand and unfathomable—and now that I’m convinced it’s not only me who feels it, that it’s not imagined but rather the realest kind of real, I know what I have to do. Mac made it clear that it’s not the video getting leaked that hurt him, but the backstabbing of his teammate, his friend. I refuse to do the same to him. Enough lies. Enough pretending. I’m not fake. Neel knows that. Mac knows that. Mac understands me. He trusts me. I have to trust him back. If I can explain how this all happened, the reasons behind it, he’ll get it. It was a mistake. A series of mistakes. We all make them. Mac can appreciate that as well as anyone. How badly our best intentions get mucked up. Our mistakes shouldn’t have to define us. Mac knows the true me. He’s seen past my hard exterior. He knows my heart. It’s time to come out with it—the truth—all of it.
Mac reappears, holding his phone. The screen is lit. His eyes are glued to it. His attention was solely on me. Now it’s been hijacked. Damn the electric current that charged that device.
“I can’t believe what time it is,” Mac says. “Talk about Insomnia Squad. It’s after three already. That’s insane.”
The mention of time hardens the atmosphere around us.
“Should we head home?” Mac says. “I mean, I don’t want to but…”
His phone commands his attention. He taps away, typing or searching or commenting, who knows. It’s a mystery to me. He is—again. Maybe I’ve overestimated our connection. He might be this way with every girl, despite what he claims. I have no experience with this scenario and there’s a decent chance I’m being delusional. Perhaps in his mind this was a one-night thing and come Monday at school we’ll be strangers again.
Here I go, losing all the strength I had just built up. I close my eyes and imagine the voice of my guru: Be bold. Be brave. Be honest. Be Tegan.
“I have this sort of random story to tell you,” I say.
The insanely late hour doesn’t faze me. I’m focused on preserving what we have here and now.
Mac slips his phone away. He walks up to me and steals a kiss. When he pulls back, he makes wacky eyes like a goofball, and I can’t help but smile.
“Okay,” Mac says. “Tell me.”
“Should we sit?” I say, gesturing to the bench.
It’s a bad suggestion. It encourages tension. Mac seems on guard suddenly, and that’s not what I want. As we sit, I consider reaching out my hand to his, but all my courage is reserved for what I’m about to say. I look into his eyes, golden and inviting.
“We were talking before, a minute ago, really, about pretending. And it made me realize that I’ve sort of been doing that, a little, with you, pretending.”
There’s no way out now. But that’s okay. There’s a way in—honesty.
“Before tonight, I had this idea about you. About people like you. And I thought there was too much separation, maybe, between that type of person, your type of person, and the other type, the ordinary people, the rest of us. I mean, it felt like that. To me. That’s what I kept noticing.”
“Are you cold? You’re shaking.”
“Am I? No, I don’t feel cold. Not at all,” I say, pressing Mac’s coat against my body.
“Okay,” Mac says, unconvinced. “Go on.”
“Yeah, no, this is good. It feels good to say this. I just, yeah, I should slow down maybe. Or speed up? Am I dragging this out? Maybe I’m not saying this right, sorry.”
He laughs, relieved, it seems, by the return of my shyness. “For the record, I reject that I’m not an ordinary person.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay. Really. Whatever it is.”
Yes. It is okay. Being real is okay, always. I knew that once, deep in my soul, but I forgot it somehow. I remember now: It’s always okay to be honest. Even with people who scare you. Especially them.
“I was wrong. I’ve been wrong about everyone. Even myself. But you, wow, I was as wrong as you can get.” I touch his knee with my right hand. “How are you even here? Somehow you are.”
He bows his head, trying to remain patient. I pull my hand away.
“I’m pretty sensitive—my friends know that—and maybe I take stuff more personally than I should. But I grew up dealing with certain things, and that puts me on guard sometimes, and I know that’s not the best way to go, but I can’t help it. Maybe that’s my own fault. I’m not trying to say what I did was right, because it’s not. I thought it was fair, but only at the beginning. I was upset and I started something and then I stopped. Deep down I always knew it was wrong. But I didn’t really know, like, truly, until tonight. Until you came here and made me realize how wrong I’ve been.”
His eyes are hourglasses and I’m running out of sand. “Sorry,” Mac says. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.”
“I know, sorry, I’m rambling. I’m going to tell you. I just hope that when I do, you won’t forget what happened between us tonight. That would kill me. Like, I’d be—”
“I won’t forget,” Mac says.
“You promise?” I say, staring into his kind eyes.
“Yes. I promise.”
I believe him. I believe.
“You know that video of your dad that went around? Well, it was me, actually, who posted that.”
He half smirks, thinking it must be a joke. “Okay?” he says, waiting for the punch line.
Some of my courage drains out. I look down at the floor.
“You didn’t post the video,” Mac says. “Nightshade did.”
I nod. He’s almost there. Half right.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know you at the time. Not that it matters. But now, especially now, I would never do that. I would never purposely hurt you.” I find his eyes. “You know that, right?”
His forehead folds. “I don’t understand.”
“So, okay, I started the Nightshade profile on a whim and it just kept going from there. It was a joke, really. Not a joke, sorry, that’s not true. It was a way to, just, fight back. To make things—shit, I’m not saying it right. A lot of people, I guess, connected with it, and they started writing me, and I got attached to it. It’s like they needed me or something. And that felt good. I know that’s horrible to admit, but it’s the truth. It felt good.”
His smile is gone now.
I cross my arms, hands hidden, pressing my elbows into my gut. This isn’t going as I’d planned. How can I begin to explain everything?
I unravel myself as best I can and face him. “I want you to know… it’s important that you understand… you are… like, you really… I care about you… a lot.”
His jaw tight, he says, “But?”
“There’s no but. No. It’s just—I’m sorry. That’s really the main thing I’m trying to say here. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that it happened. I really am. I’ll answer any questions you have about it. Anything. I just want you to, like, really understand where I’m coming from.”
His eyes wander. His mind searches. He scratches his face.
“I guess it was one of your teammates who sent it to me. I never got the name of the person. Like I said, if I knew you, if I knew your situation, I never would have posted it.”
He looks up, and matter-of-factly he says, “Nightshade is you.”
I nod.
He turns away. A tangible swerve.
“People started sending me stuff,” I explain. “Stuff they were too scared to say. So I posted it for them. Your teammate, I guess, was using me to send a message. I’m sorry he did that to you.”
“He?” Mac says.
“Well, I know it really upset you, what he did.”
He grips his head, stands up. “Oh my god.”
The burn inside shoots embers into my throat. The fire spreads. Making it hard to speak. Hard to breathe. And yet, I’m shivering. I can’t stop shivering.
Mac paces around the room, d
etermined to put all the fragments together. “So that asshole troll? That Gossip Girl wannabe? That’s you?”
“No, that’s not me.”
“It is you. That’s what you’re telling me.”
“It was me. But not anymore.” The shivers reach my brain. I have to massage my temples.
He pulls back his hair and holds his head tightly, as if trying to keep his mind from coming apart. “We’ve been together this whole night. You didn’t say anything. You just—”
He grinds his teeth, his disbelief becoming anger. The only right answer here is the truth. That’s how you reach Mac. He stated that clearly. It’s all he asks of a person. Of me. As hard as it is to get across, it’s the only way.
“I thought you were like them,” I say.
“Like who?”
“Like everyone else. I didn’t think you… that people like you felt pain.”
He doubles over, exhausted, sick, both.
“I would have told you sooner, but I didn’t know if I could trust you,” I say. “But that was before. I realize I can trust you. Because you know me.”
He laughs in a cruel way. “No, I don’t.”
“Don’t say that. Please, don’t say that. Yes, you do. You really do.”
“I have no idea who the fuck you are,” Mac says.
I shut my eyes, keeping the dream alive in my mind. I shake away the shivers, turning my head from side to side. “I’m the same person who’s been with you all night.”
“How can you say that?” Mac says. “You were lying to me the whole time. Right to my face.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes!” Mac says.
“Everything I said to you tonight, everything, I meant. You said you came here and that I saw you. I did see you. In a way I never have before. And you saw me. Nobody sees me, not all of me. But you did.”
He covers his face. His bruised knuckles stare back. “All the things I told you. About me. About my family. You were in my house. You said nothing. You just kept quiet.”
Keeping quiet is all I’ve known. But I’m speaking up now. Doesn’t that count for something? Please say it does.
I stand and go to him. “Mac.”
My voice used to move him. No longer. “I have to get out of here,” he says.
