Dear Universe

by Florence Gonsalves

  “Welcome runners, students, parents, and teachers,” the announcer says. I spot the shiny 42 on Gene’s pinny and wave. He smiles in his short shorts and stretches out his hamstrings.

  “Wow, Gene has some nicely shaved legs,” Abigail says.

  I laugh. “He says they make him more aerodynamic.”

  Helga leans down and whispers, “He should make a rug out of his leg hair and sell his man carpet on Etsy. I just think he has such a bright future, you know?”

  “Ha,” I say, and Abigail laughs for real. What do you know about his future?

  “Runners for the four hundred, please take your mark,” the announcer’s voice booms. “Runners for the eight hundred on deck.”

  “Which one is Gene?” Abigail asks, craning her neck.

  “Uh, four hundred?”

  “Cham, you are the worst girlfriend,” Hilary says, suddenly adopting her British accent. “He’s the eight hundred, see?”

  She points to Gene, who is obviously not taking his mark at the starting line next to Doug. Instead he swings his hairless legs back and forth.

  “On your mark,” the announcer says, smiling giddily in his glass box at the top of the bleachers. “Get set. Go.” There’s a popping noise, and Doug and the runners from the other schools we don’t care about take off. Their legs chop the air, their hair slicks back, and their faces are strained with exertion, like they’re maybe giving birth to a win.

  “Is that a dick I see?” Abigail asks. She forms makeshift binoculars with her hands around her eyes and scopes out a dude in purple shorts.

  As I’m in the process of determining whether it is or is not a swinging male part, I spot Brendan way at the end of the bleachers. He’s alone, as usual, but he doesn’t actually look lonely. It must be nice to self-entertain for longer than four seconds.

  “What was the deal with Brendan’s brother anyway?” I say casually.

  Abigail takes her hands from her face. “It was really sad. He had leukemia and died when we were in fifth grade.”

  Hilary nods solemnly and lowers her voice. “Really tragic. Remember how awful the funeral was?”

  “Terrible,” Abigail says. “Brendan was always this quiet, normal kid, and he came back from that summer at the start of middle school just like singing all the time.”

  “But his brother had just died,” I say. Brendan’s tutu is lavender today. “He probably didn’t know what to do or like how to be.”

  “I know,” Hilary says, “and everyone felt so bad. But then he just got more and more obnoxious, and by high school it was like, okay, dude, I’m sorry your brother died, but you’re annoying AF.”

  I don’t know what’s going on with my face, but Abigail and Hilary look at each other, then look at me. “I know it sounds bad when we talk about it now, but when it was happening it was just, I don’t know,” Abigail says. “It’s hard to explain. I guess you had to be there.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” We’re silent for a minute as conversations continue around us. The runners on the side of the track are doing warm-up stretches, their butts in their tiny shorts pointed toward us.

  “Oh my god, did we not tell you?” Abigail asks me suddenly.

  “Tell me what?”

  She and Hilary grin and look at each other. “We decided to go to prom together!”

  “Wow,” I say, moving the chocolate cupcake box closer to me.

  “Yeah, don’t wanna go through the hassle of finding a date when you’re the person I like most in this school anyway,” Abigail says, looking at Hilary. “Except for you, Cham.” She adds the last part quickly and rests her head on my shoulder.

  I smile. “That’s great, you guys.” Sometimes I forget there were years before these that I wasn’t part of. Everywhere Hilary and Abigail went, they showed up on a bicycle built for two. Since I transferred, they cart me along in one of those sidecars most likely to get hit by a bus. Or an overeager cyclist. It’s like I’m constantly trying to get on their level and see over their handlebars.

  “Is that seriously it?” Abigail asks as we watch the runners cross the finish line within a few seconds of each other. There’s scattered applause around us.

  “That was fast,” I say.

  The next thing we know, the boys are walking back toward the bleachers, faces beet red beneath their sweat crowns.

  “Damn, that was kind of anticlimactic.” Hilary cranes her neck to see if anyone else is coming, or if they’re going to do another lap, but nope.

  “Congratulations to all runners,” the announcer says with very little congratulation-ness in his voice. “Now for the eight hundred.”

  “Did you get your Nicaragua forms in yet?” Hilary asks suddenly. I shake my head, watching Gene approach the starting line with his eyebrows fiercely furrowed.

  “Ugh, they’re a bitch,” Abigail says. “They’re taking my parents forever.” She turns to me. “Cham, do you need us to remind you to get yours in? You’ve been known to forget important shit.”

  “Nope,” I say cheerfully. “I’ll remember because I want to go to Nicaragua. Nothing I forget is ever worth remembering.”

  “On your mark,” the announcer says. “Get set!”

  “Go, Gene!” Hilary calls, and as soon as the gun pops, Gene takes off with the six other guys next to him. I love how funny his face is when he runs: It’s strained and intense, and one of his eyes gets bigger than the other. The guys pass us in a flash of shiny material: red, purple, mustard yellow, white, and black. Within a couple of minutes of the muscles in their legs flexing past us, they cross the finish line, the guy in red followed by Gene followed by everyone else we don’t care about.

  “There you go, Gene!” a woman calls from the other side of the bleachers. I look over and wave to Gene’s moms, who are sitting next to each other in the new sweatshirts they got to alert the media about Gene’s college acceptance. I look around to see if my dad would be able to get into this place. Judging by the cement stairs coming out of every exit door, it seems the building was built before society grew a conscience.

  “Coming in second at two minutes and forty-five seconds, Eugene Wolf,” the announcer says. Gene jogs back toward the starting line, then faces the bleachers, looking directly at me with the tiniest smile playing on his lips.

  “Is he confused?” Abigail asks, and there are murmurs of the same question around us too. Suddenly he pulls his pinny over his head, exposing the sparse but determined happy trail beneath his belly button.

  “Ow owww!” someone on the bleachers calls.

  “Oh my god,” Hilary squeals. There’s a black question mark painted between the indents of his stomach, the shiny paint starting on his chest and ending by the waistband of his shorts. He tucks his wet hair behind his ear and my stomach drops. Sweat has smudged the paint a little, but it’s unmistakable. This boy is asking a question.

  “I’m gonna cry,” Abigail whispers. “Are you?”

  “I’m a little frozen,” I say with a grin. “And also like really overheating.” Gene hasn’t taken his eyes off mine, and my face is burning up in an exquisite fire.

  Doug jogs over and stands to Gene’s right. He takes his shirt off, revealing a painted M.

  “Is this what I think it is?” Abigail says. I’m grinning stupidly, and there’s a tingling in my body that goes all the way from my butt on these hard bleachers to my toes nestled in their knee-high combat boots.

  “This is the cutest thing ever,” Hilary says as Smith takes his shirt off, then Dan, and JJ, so that they’re standing there shirtless and smiling before the bleachers, spelling out PROM?

  A loud “Awwwwww” sounds from the bleachers all around us.

  “Um, wow, there’s a lot of you here,” Gene calls into the crowd, looking around, then laughs. “Will you go with me, Cham?” he asks, a pearl of sweat running down his stomach.

  “Yes,” I say, a frog in my throat as I’m smiling like a goof. The bleachers are all croons. Even the metal stairs are wetting t
heir pants over how adorable this is.

  “Okay, cool!” He comes running up the bleachers toward me, the muscles in his stomach flexing as he breathes.

  “Stand up,” Hilary hisses, pushing me from behind. With Abigail’s help I stand on my legs, now 98 percent water, thanks for asking.

  I walk down the stairs right into his eyes.

  “That was the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen in real life,” I say. His body pressing against mine smells like the armpit of an onion, but I like how raw he is. I even like the damp question mark he leaves on my coat when he pulls away.

  “Good thing you said yes,” he says, giving me a rather sweaty kiss on my lips. “That would’ve been awkward.”

  I laugh and catch Hilary and Abigail staring at us. Hilary’s phone is pointed at us, which I pretend to roll my eyes at, but really, thank god for iPhones and friends willing to capture moments like this. “I have something for you,” I say. I grab the cupcake off the bench and hold it out to him.

  “What’s this?” he asks.

  “Open it.”

  He undoes the tape and lifts the top off. I got my ask-cute. It’s now or never. I love you! I LOVE you! I loooooove you! I love… “I love chocolate cupcakes,” I blurt out.

  “Me too!”

  I take the cupcake from him and swipe my finger over the frosting and lick it. I think I drool a little bit.

  He laughs. “You’re so hot,” he says, and then he rubs some of the paint off his stomach. “Did I do okay? I wanted you to like it, and I wanted to do it here because I just love that you get running, you know?” He stuffs the cupcake in his mouth. “Damn, this is good.”

  “I loved it, thank you.” Okay, let’s try this again. “Really loved it, just like I love chocolate cupcakes.”

  He kisses me, the chocolate on his lip meeting the chocolate on my lip.

  “I love chocolate cupcakes too,” he says, then looks up at me shyly. “And you. I love you.”

  I triple in size to accommodate my heart. It’s big and beating so fast. “That’s what I meant,” I say, looking at his lips because I can’t quite look into his eyes. “I love you too.”

  Dear Gene,

  I want to break the world record for longest kiss while running. I want to shower with you. I want you on top of me when your parents aren’t home and whoever we really are comes through in the dark. I want to wear all your T-shirts. I want to redefine happiness using your name. I want to dance with you in the middle of the room on the best night of our lives. And then I want to be naked side by side until we fall asleep, curled together like we’re meant to be, sharing the same dream.

  Days ’til prom: 57

  After something like that happens, things change weather-wise. There’s more sunshine, regardless of the cloud cover. And every dormant plant in my mom’s garden wakes up feeling alive. I’ve placed my ticket from the track meet into my senior year time capsule, on top of the unopened condom. I don’t think it’ll be unopened much longer now that I know Gene likes me enough to risk public nudity and public humiliation, all for his public declaration of love.

  Text exchange with Gene after I drop some heavy hints that things should get heavy soon:

  G My parents are gonna be gone Senior Night

  G Like overnight

  G Idk how much you were looking forward to sleeping on the floor of the gym with 100 other people…

  Would anyone notice if we left at like 11? C

  G Doubt it.

  Should we? C

  G Do you want to?

  Do you? C

  G lol obviously

  lol same C

  lezzzzdoit C

  G wish it were tonight

  one more week ;) C

  9

  {MARCH}

  Days ’til prom: 51

  WHY IS IT THAT WHEN YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO LOOK forward to, time passes even more slowly? In the days leading up to the day that I am probably going to finally do it, every single clock limps toward the end of the day and gets more crippled with every hour. It gets to the point where I start avoiding any and all time-telling devices because no matter what the numbers say, I’m always disappointed. When we did some more dress shopping after school the other day, Abigail said that in preparation for Friday night I should watch some stuff online and then do some practicing. Hilary said that was TMI, and then Abigail yelled at her for stigmatizing female masturbation when boys “like win a Pulitzer when they wax poetic on their dick sessions.” My theory on the whole thing is that practice makes perfect, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.

  “You’re awfully smiley,” my mom says when I come downstairs on Friday with a bag packed and new underwear on. “What’s so great about Senior Night?”

  “It’s just one of those things. Dance team puts on a show, Student Council has a raffle with stuff you’d actually want, we get to make sundaes and take pictures and do karaoke and yeah. Plus, Gene asked me to prom,” I blurt out. Then I hear something. “Is that Elvis?” I look around for the source of the music and catch a glimpse of myself in the window. It’s true, I am awfully smiley. I just can’t help it.

  “Dad, is that you?” I call through the sliding door. “Turn it up!”

  My dad wheels in with his speaker, and I grin. It’s been so long since he’s played music after dinner.

  “Cham got asked to prom!” my mom tells him in a voice second graders use to convey crushes to one another while furiously nose-picking.

  “Oh?” my dad says, turning Elvis down.

  “Gene painted his chest after his track meet and it spelled out PROM?”

  “Romantic,” my dad says, with just as little eagerness to stay on this topic as I’m feeling. “But I doubt this guy is as smooth as I used to be. Have I ever shown you the go-my-man, Cham? Mom and I used to do it. Show her.”

  My mom dances toward my dad, moving like a train, chugging her arms back and forth. He does the same thing with his arms, and then she kisses him loudly.

  “Ew, you guys!” I say, but honestly I’d like to put this moment in a snow globe because a time is gonna come when I’m gonna need to hold something and remember.

  As Elvis plays and my parents move around each other, there’s a wheelchair between them, and it is just a chair with wheels, with none of the other things attached.

  “Dance with us, Cham,” my dad says.

  “You know I hate dancing, Dad. And Gene’s gonna be here any minute to pick me up. We can’t be late, ’cause Abigail’s dancing first.”

  My dad sticks his lip out, which he used to do when I pouted as a kid. Now I complain instead of pout. “Please? Make your old man’s night!”

  “Fine, one move.” I crouch down like a frog, then spring up with my arms spread wide. “Ta-da! Amphibian-themed shooting star! Okay, now I leave you to have a romantic Elvis Christmas in the beginning of March.”

  “We want to meet this boyfriend sometime,” my mom calls after me. My dad is fiddling with the speakers, and the result is an eardrum-crushing static avalanche. “You said it wasn’t serious, but it’s starting to seem a little serious. You’ve been dating for what? Five months now? I think we deserve an introduction.”

  I scoot toward the stairs. “Ummmm—Anywho, Abigail’s gonna drop me off in the morning.”

  “Have fun, love you,” my dad says, waving me off. “And wish your mom luck at the dentist.”

  “I have work tonight, not the dentist,” my mom says gently. Just when I thought everything was back to normal…

  “We love you, Cham,” my dad says, and I turn around to kiss him before I open the door.

  “I know,” I say, because I do. “I love you too.”

  QUESTIONS FOR THE UNIVERSE

  1. How long would it take to shave my whole body?

  2. Is there one right way to do it for the first time? Should I aim for glorious? Awkward? Mind-blowing?

  3. On average, how many bubbles are in a liter of Coke?

  4. If the world were endin
g, how long would you stay?

  5. When I was doing sit-ups in gym class, something started to feel really good so I kept going, and then it felt really good and I kind of peed a little, and I just want to know IS THAT NORMAL?

  6. Does rolling admission extend into my twenties?

  7. I know it’s not Father’s Day anytime soon, but what would mean the most to him?

  8. What gift can I give Abigail after Senior Night to prove that I’m a much better friend than Hilary while acknowledging that Abigail is an underappreciated genius who better win valedictorian?

  9. Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable?

  10. Does anyone else spend as much time thinking about me as I do?

  11. I can answer that last one for myself: no.

  G I’m here!

  G And I parked at the top of the street like you asked

  haha thanks see you soon C

  As soon as I’m out of the house, I sprout lovely invisible wings. I fly across the muddy lawn that’s starting to grow new versions of itself. When I open the door to Gene’s car, I close myself into its box of Bob Dylan music.

  He kisses me. One hand is resting on the steering wheel, and the other finds my leg. I settle into the seat and rest my feet on his spare sneakers and extra sweatshirt and half-empty Nalgenes. His hand travels toward the pocket of my jeans. Then my zipper. But before he crosses those several inches where the material is stretched between good and really good, my breath catches in my throat.

  “Come on, we can’t miss Abigail,” I say.

  “I know.” He brushes a hair out of my face, then tilts his head toward me and kisses me harder, his tongue swirling in my mouth, and my tongue swirling back in his. He moves the seat belt across my arm and unbuttons my shirt. His fingers are warm on the skin beneath my collarbone. “You’re so beautiful,” he says. It ignites the pilot light in my deepest furnace.