You've Never Seen the Sea

by Grayson Sydney

  Earlier tonight he learned he was officially single. Missy and Roy were together together. No going after a girl who’s moved on.

  Then he had to corral a bunch of nerds back to Roy’s house because he’d been sent to babysit, and he wasn’t doing a very good job of it since Mel decided to steal her brother’s car.

  And Johnny beat the shit out of him.

  So yeah, getting high sounds pretty great right now.

  He’s sitting against his headboard, watching the smoke of his first exhale swirl in front of him, growing lighter and lighter to reveal a surprised Johnny in his doorway.

  He invites himself wordlessly over to sit beside Connor on his bed, showing all his teeth as he plucks the joint from his hand. Connor doesn’t have the energy to argue.

  Johnny takes a hit. Holds in the smoke a long time. Does not cough, which Connor should have assumed about him by this point. Johnny’s a hardcore kind of guy. Of course he’s smoked before.

  They trade off hits until Connor’s limbs feel honey thick. His blood is a bottle of the stuff. Johnny is a buzzing bee beside him. He closes his eyes and starts dozing, halfway lost to dreams when Johnny snaps his fingers under his nose.

  “Hapstader. Snooze you lose. You fall asleep, I’m rolling you on the floor, taking your bed, and smoking your whole stash.” As if to prove it, he sucks down another hit. Pops his lips as he grins, letting the smoke escape him in a slow weave. Connor inhales out of habit. “You live a good life here, for a stupid loser.”

  Connor bristles, registering the word. He’s so sick of everyone thinking he’s stupid. An idiot. Foolish, for forgiving. For not wanting to fight. For dating the nice girl, who wasn’t so nice after all. For not having it in him anymore to play pretend.

  He shoves Johnny hard. Elbows him in the ribs. Gets him falling, ass off the bed with his arms grabbing at the first thing he can to gain purchase. Which happens to be Connor. He’s dragged down in the rush, so he braces himself up, refuses to go down. Johnny sees his chances and pulls himself back up onto the bed, getting Connor in a headlock.

  They wrestle. They fucking wrestle on Connor’s bed like angry middle schoolers. Johnny gives him a fucking noogie to top if off and Connor bucks wildly. Kicks at the air. Finally, takes the joint and barely brushes the end of it over Johnny’s forearm. He lets go with a little sound of shock. More that than hurt.

  Connor huffs and puffs, trying to catch his breath when Johnny lets him go.

  Then Johnny’s growling, rolling on top of him to pin him to the bed. Connor meets his infuriated stare head on. Takes another hit.

  Blows the smoke in Johnny’s face.

  “Problem?”

  “You think you’re such hot shit, don’t you, Hapstader.” He spits his last name like that’s what’s burned him.

  “No. That’s all you, Johnny.”

  Johnny’s eyes widen.

  He takes the joint and inhales. Tosses it in the ashtray on Connor’s nightstand.

  Then he’s moving in, closer and closer, so close. His lips brush Connor’s only barely, enough to set his blood hot, his face warm. His eyes flutter half closed as Johnny exhales into his mouth, down his throat, down into his lungs. Until he’s taking in all of Johnny’s breath, and it feels like a suddenly different conversation.

  He knows he’s about to be kissed.

  Then he’s faced with a wicked smile, tendrils of pot smoke curling outward as Johnny flips back on his side. He cackles, high and giddy with it.

  “Aren’t we the pair of fuckups,” he says.

  Connor doesn’t know how to answer that, so he doesn’t say anything at all.

  February 14th, 1982.

  "You have a secret admirer," Roy says, tapping the paper in Connor's hands.

  "Yeah, I see that."

  It's a Hartford High Dollar Valentine. An anonymous confessional fundraiser for a school that wants to enter into the rungs of the upper echelon via secondary educational competitive swimming. It's two weeks out of the coldest month of the year in Hartford. By all rights they're still in the middle of winter as far as Connor's concerned.

  It's a stupid fundraiser. Not only for the seasonal aspect, but also because Hartford High has less than a thousand students under its roof. Connor's bad at math, but he's not that bad.

  "Wonder who it's from," Roy says, picking in his Curious Voice. The one he learned from Missy.

  In the months since he started dated Missy, Connor’s ex, they’ve learned to tolerate one another. He would even hazard to say they’re friendly.

  "Probably Benji messing with me," Connor says, grasping for who it could be. It's not Benji's handwriting.

  "He's still finding ways to get at you?"

  "Benji is a Smith through and through. Petty and vengeful."

  "I still can't believe your dad and his dad hate each other—”

  "Because of a girl. Yeah I know, she's my mom now, remember." He groans. "Whatever."

  "Oh, I hate when you say that," comes Missy's voice. Hers the voice of reason. She sets down her lunch tray across from them and smiles at the pink paper in Connor's hands. "You have a Valentine!"

  "I do not."

  "Then what is that?"

  "An ad for Tampax."

  Missy rolls her eyes, laughing lightly. She reaches over and plucks it out of his hands to read its message aloud.

  "You've been on my mind since day one. You're ugly like you're dumb, which is to say not dumb like the peasants like to say you are. I want to hear you say my name and wanna wear your coat. You're bad for me, but I can't stay away," she reads, mouth bent funny.

  Connor warns, "Don’t.”

  "Wish I could call you, wish a lot of things. Wish it could be different so I could call you mine. So you wouldn't hate me. But you'd kill me for knowing and I'm not ready to go out just yet."

  "Double entendre," Roy offers.

  "The ending," Missy wonders. "It starts so cheesy but ends kind of sad."

  "It's Benji," Connor insists. It's not Benji.

  And Missy knows that, because she's seen Benji's handwriting plenty too. But she doesn't say a word as she meets his eyes, serious and concerned.

  Connor snatches it back and stuffs it in his pocket.

  "Whatever," he repeats, pointedly in Missy's direction.

  Dollar Valentine goes on all week once the school realizes they should probably milk their student body for as much cash as they can rather than just the once. They really want that pool.

  So Connor isn't completely taken off guard when he gets a second Valentine the following day. They're passed out in second period, after being bought and submitted and organized before and during first.

  Missy is on the committee, because of course she is.

  She hand delivers the second one to him, another funny smile on her face.

  "Another from your secret admirer," she says.

  Connor frowns and waits to unfold it until lunch. Stuffs it in his polo's breast pocket for good measure.

  Behind him, Johnny Burns kicks his seat. Connor launches his heel right back. Misses and swears, because it hurts.

  Johnny laughs at him.

  At lunch, Roy reads the Valentine this time.

  "You're a fucking idiot," Roy reads and snorts.

  Connor shakes his head, frowning sour and displeased. "What? That can't be it."

  "Afraid so."

  Missy keeps eating her pudding.

  Connor takes the Valentine, flipping it over and over. It says what it says and nothing else. Same scrawl from the day before.

  "Maybe it is Benji after all," Roy says, shrugging.

  Connor shrugs too.

  Still not Benji.

  At the table behind Roy, Connor catches Johnny's attention. He's staring Connor down like he's got a problem, a whole new one. And Connor just isn't in the mood. He glares back and holds it, a challenge. Wants Johnny to back down.

  Instead, Johnny breaks into a smirk and eats his food without looking away. Blinks s
low and deliberate while he finishes his meal.

  Connor doesn't realize he's picked his sandwich to bits until the bell rings.

  "You've gotta be kidding me," Connor cries when Missy shows up again the next day.

  This time there's two Valentines. She smiles as she hands them off and then reaches behind him to hand another to Johnny.

  "And an admirer for you," she says, smiling still. Connor notices it's the smile she puts on when she's on the hunt for a story. Journalism class has really taken over her life.

  He hears Johnny croon a soft sound in thanks, all flirt. Missy raises an eyebrow and heads out.

  There's a finger prodding his shoulder so he turns in his seat, geared up to tell Johnny off, he's not in the mood.

  "What's yours say?" Johnny asks him and Connor balks. Johnny hasn’t gone out of his way to interact with Connor since their fight.

  Since the shared joint.

  "What about yours?"

  Johnny cants his head, licks his lips as he opens his. "Let's find out."

  He unfolds it and thwacks it in the air, a snap. Reads, "You're real cute chickadee. The diner tonight at ten. Be late."

  He hums, proud of himself.

  Connor finds it suddenly repulsive. "So what?"

  "Somebody wants me to meet 'em at the diner after closing is what." He leans in, bites his lip. "Whatever could that mean, you think?"

  "Some girl wants to suck you off?"

  "I love it when you talk dirty, Hapstader."

  "End me."

  "Come on, now yours. What's Happy Hapstader get sent in the mail, huh?"

  Connor narrows his eyes at Johnny, one, because he's Johnny and two, because he's inexplicably a morning person. Unfathomable.

  "Fine." He unfolds his third Valentine. Reads, "Your hands don't get the credit they deserve. They're big. Bet they would—” Connor clears his throat, reads ahead. Glances at Johnny. Johnny nods his head as if to say, and? So Connor goes on, speaking so quietly only Johnny will be able to hear him. "Bet they'd feel so fucking good wrapped around me. Inside me. On my waist as you pulled me onto your—”

  Johnny lets out a breath. Licks his lips again. Says, "Go on."

  "I can't!" Connor hisses, feeling flushed.

  "Sure you can. It's just words," Johnny reminds him and he's not wrong, but then, it's not a note about him is it? Johnny’s got no skin in this game, and it’s embarrassing for nobody but Connor.

  But still Connor huffs. Says, "Cock."

  He's red from his stomach all the way to his ears. He can tell.

  Johnny's scanning his face, looking in parts amused and searching. "Some mouth on that one. Looks like the former king of Hartford High still has plenty of peasants at court, doesn't he?"

  Connor can't think straight. He wants class to start so he doesn't have to talk about this anymore.

  "Girl's don't usually—I don't know anyone who—“

  Then Johnny's eyebrow lifts, arched devilishly.

  "Maybe it's not a girl," Johnny wonders, and effectively upends Connor's entire thought process.

  “I—I don’t—I’ve never, I, uh, I don't know any—”

  Johnny's tongue flicks out on a laugh as he leans back, shrugging leather covered shoulders.

  "Just because you don't know any, doesn't mean there isn't," Johnny tells him, sounding much too much like Missy for Connor to feel comfortable with.

  He's not in the mood for having wisdom imparted on him, he's in the mood for school.

  "Whatever," he mutters, pathetic and freaked out and red as a goddamn firecracker.

  Missy doesn't ask to see the note at lunch. But she is smiling through the whole hour like she knows.

  Connor doesn't need to ask her to confirm to know that she does.

  Before class the next day, he finds her at the Dollar Valentine booth.

  He’s at the front of the line, and she looks surprised to see him.

  “Connor! I didn’t know you were interested in anyone.” She is not smiling.

  “I need to know who it is, Missy.”

  Now she smiles. “Can’t do that.”

  A freshman pushes by and hands Missy a dollar, gets a pink slip and a pen with a paper heart cutout taped to the end. It flaps as he scribbles a misspelled love note to some girl in Connor’s year.

  Missy notices it too when she accepts it back, folds it up.

  The kid leaves smiling and Connor sighs. “Poor chump.”

  “Hey,” she admonishes him. “Let him live.”

  “Missy.”

  “I can’t. It’s against school policy.”

  “You mean Dollar Valentine policy.”

  “Exactly. You got it.” She grins at something behind him, saying, “Now, unless you have a dollar of your own, I’ll see you at lunch.”

  “Missy--”

  Her eyes shift to him and she goes from smiling to fed up in a moment. “Go! Get to class on time for once. That fashionably late thing doesn’t work, you know.”

  Connor shrugs, knowing he’s failing not to pout. “It worked on you.”

  “Ha ha,” she deadpans. “Go, Connor. Before—”

  Connor says, “Yeah, yeah.” Turns around and bumps into Johnny.

  Johnny, who’s reaching into his wallet.

  They stand there, wordless.

  “Don’t you say a fucking word,” Johnny breathes, trying to sound threatening, Connor’s sure. It comes out wary.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he sighs.

  Connor wanders off but not before hearing Johnny ask Missy, “He send one in, or…?”

  Connor rounds the hall corner before he can hear the rest.

  Second period comes and Johnny is already in the seat next to Connor. Connor sits, feeling not unlike a deflating balloon.

  When the kid who usually sits next to him arrives, Johnny snaps his teeth at him. Needless to say, the kid finds a different seat.

  “I’m gonna call you Cujo,” Connor tells him without looking up from the homework he rushed the night before.

  “Woof woof, baby,” Johnny replies, instant, all salt and well meaning vinegar.

  Missy walks in and with it, a small stack of pink paper.

  She sets the pile in front of Connor.

  Everyone is staring at him.

  From the far left of the room, Benji sneers, calling loudly, “Who the hell did you knock up, Hapstader!”

  And it’s Johnny who snaps back, “Shut up, you fuckin’ meathead. I don’t see your girl, Grace, walking around with any notes or flowers.”

  Benji sinks down in his seat to sulk.

  Connor hears them, hears what’s going on around him. But mostly he hears the blood rushing in his ears, drowning out any useful thought.

  “Missy, what is this?” he asks, toneless. “There’s gotta be—”

  “Ten,” she and Johnny say at once.

  “I counted,” Johnny clarifies. “Somebody must really be into you, man.”

  “This is crazy.”

  “I think it’s sweet,” Missy says. “Very thoughtful. Wouldn’t you agree, Johnny?”

  That gets his attention. He looks over and sees Missy looking a little too buddy buddy with Johnny. Like they’ve got some kind of rapport with one another. When did that happen?

  “They’re numbered,” Missy tells him. Points at the top one. “See? There’s an order, so don’t mix them up.” She switches to pointing at him. “Don’t mess this up, Connor. Do you hear me?”

  “Yeah, geez,” he gripes. Can’t help but laugh a little. Missy nods and turns on her heel. “I...Johnny, man, this is nuts.”

  “Somebody’s got the hots for you.”

  “I don’t know.” Connor puffs his cheeks out.

  Johnny hums and reaches to lift the first one. Flips it over with deft fingers before unfolding it.

  “Open me now, open the second at lunch, and the third much later, the others as they say. Instructions to follow in each.”

  Connor swears. “This is too m
uch. I’ve never—This is a whole system.”

  Johnny sets the Valentine back on top of the stack.

  “I don’t know,” Johnny murmurs, thoughtful. “Seems more than a crush.”

  “Whatever it is, they’re helping Hartford High get a pool before it’s stopped snowing outside. Whoever it is, guy or girl, they need to be stopped.”

  The bell rings and Johnny laughs and laughs.

  He’s the first at their usual lunch table. Missy and Roy sit down and Connor waves the second pink Valentine in the air.

  “It says, ‘I wanted to kiss you when I saw you smoke after promising to quit. You bummed one off me that day. In a way, I’ll always be the first to have stuck something new in your mouth.’” Connor flags it through the air, frantic. “Missy. Who is it.”

  Roy huffs into his hand.

  “Don’t know,” she whispers, biting her lip.

  “At least tell me if it’s a girl or not?”

  Because no, it wouldn’t make sense if it was a girl who’d written that, but Connor kind of needs it to be. Needs it to be someone like Betty or something so he can laugh this whole thing off. So it doesn’t become real, something to contend with.

  Something he has to reconcile with the way the vague picture it’s put in his mind has his neck going hot.

  Roy’s eyes go wide at that.

  Missy doesn’t give anything away. “Who’s to know, really.”

  “Despicable, Missy.”

  “Though,” she offers, and Connor hangs on the word. “I will say, be open to it. I think it makes sense.”

  That just confuses him more.

  He bummed a lot of cigarettes off a lot of people that first day back smoking. He’s quit now, but a year ago was a different story. A year ago, he thought cold turkey and a hard semester would be a good combo for kicking the habit. It was not.

  Behind him, Connor notices Johnny looking their way again. He looks down before Connor can catch his eye.

  He’d bummed a cigarette off Johnny here and there. But he can’t remember. Why can’t he remember?

  “I’m gonna go crazy trying to figure this out.”

  “You’re only on number two. What does it say to do next?”

  Connor sighs, drags his eyes away from Johnny picking at his mashed potatoes.