by Seth King
“Maybe. I don’t know. I just got off the phone with my mom.”
I sat down, staring up at him, my happiness crashing. “And?”
“And my dad came into the room while we were talking, and she put down the phone, and she didn’t know I could hear their conversation.”
“Do I even want to know what he said?”
He stomped over to his laptop and swiveled it around to show me a project he’d been working on – it was a beautifully rendered version of his living room, but it was decorated with what looked like professional eyes. It was chic, trendy, and very gay. It looked like some plunge into impossibility – the house he could be living in, if his life was what he wanted it to be.
“I’m doing an interior design project for an art class,” he said bashfully. “My dad was snooping around in my mom’s email and found the file.”
“And?”
He sniffled. “He said it was ‘too good.’ He said at this stage I might as well throw in the towel and become a hairdresser or a fashion designer. And it just makes me feel…”
His knuckles shook with all the frustration of someone who just couldn’t handle it anymore. For one white-hot moment he cracked. One seismic wave of angst, hatred, loathing, exploded upward from somewhere deep, rolled over him like Old Faithful. He turned away and let it hit, holding his face tight like it was going to break apart, and then with one quick jolt of a breath he swallowed it back down again. And that was it – it was over. It was almost admirable, how good he’d gotten at living in this world that wasn’t built for him. So he built other worlds. I did, too. We were all pretenders, actors, shape-shifters, and we were the best.
“Sunday School got our parents good, didn’t it?” I asked. I wanted to hug him so badly, but I knew I couldn’t. Even my grandpa, whom I’d loved more than anyone in the world, had kept an old newspaper article on his bedside table that called homosexuality a “deviation” and said gays should be banned from the military.
“Shit,” he finally said, sitting taller and wiping his eye, as if noticing where he was for the first time. “Just when you think you’re having a good day, your mother calls.”
“I’m sorry, Nicky,” I said. “I really am. It shouldn’t be like this.”
“I know it shouldn’t.” He reached over and took me by the shoulder. “I’m really glad I met you,” he said.
“Why’s that?”
“You know why. Even if I can’t say it.”
I smiled out at the room around us. Just because he was too scared to live in something as beautiful as his dreams didn’t mean I couldn’t do the work for him. “You know what? This room could use some gay. It needs to get gay’d up ASAP, actually.”
I jumped up and got to work. First I took a floor-length mirror from behind his refrigerator and set it next to a window. It made the room look twice its size immediately. Then I took a chic, colorful blanket that was wadded up in his entry hall and laid it across a love seat. After that I took some paintings from his kitchen and moved them to the living room, hanging them from tiny nails I found above the sink and banged into the wall using a big spoon.
“There,” I said, dropping back down next to him. “Next time your dad walks in here and makes a remark about anything ‘gay,’ take that sculpture I just put in your foyer and insert it into his anal cavity.”
He stared at me, and I stared back. “Wow, Coley.”
“What?”
“You’re just, like, redoing my whole life.”
I smiled. How I’d ever survived without him, I had no idea. His glory was breathable – just being around him made you feel like a different human, want to live a better life.
Before our fight we’d had this secret game where we’d just look at each other, not saying anything, just staring. Because I loved the way he looked at me. More than anything I’d ever loved, really. His eyes got all big and warm and soft and crackly and I just felt myself soar into them. The best part was that I knew he felt it, too – I could just sense it. Sure, the world could hate us and God could disapprove of us and everyone could be after us, but when he made those magic eyes at me...
“It hurt when you stopped talking to me, you know,” I said.
“Really?”
“Yes. Every time we get closer, you bump away. And I don’t understand why. Was it hard for you?”
He grabbed a string of my hair, his fingers shaking, then sighed. “Every day I don’t talk to you, I feel like I’m not me.” He smiled, and it looked like victory. “Thank you for letting me hangout with you again, by the way. I know I’m not much. But with you, I’m…more.”
I smiled. For the first time ever, I was being seen. He was the beginning and the end – everything went back to him. “You’re so wrong, though.”
“Really? What do you like about me?”
“How long do we have?” He laughed, and I gulped. “…And, what do you like about me?”
He sighed as the galaxies swirled in his eyes. “I can’t count that high.”
“Okay, what do you not like?”
“I’m still looking for something. But as of right now, zilch.” His eyes changed. “By the way,” he said, and I could suddenly see that he was semi-hard, “the other morning was…great.”
I stopped breathing again. “It was?”
“Yes. Sometimes I think about you…doing things to me…and it makes me…well, you can see how it makes me…”
I licked my lip as he leaned forward.
“Coley?” he asked, eyes bright.
“Yeah?”
“I think we should-”
His phone vibrated, and he turned away. “Ugh. Damn it.”
“What?”
“This totally slipped my mind. The boys’ll be here in, like, ten minutes. Schultz just Snapchatted from his bike from, like, three blocks away.”
“Oh. My cue to leave, I guess.”
He breathed. “I mean, not necessarily. Can you just…stay, and play along?”
“Why are you asking me that?”
“I’m asking you because I…because I want you to stay, I guess.”
“And…and meet your friends?”
“Yeah. But just, you know, like, as a buddy. Obviously.”
“A buddy,” I said, my voice sounding disgusted even to me.
“Don’t worry, though, it’s not the same dudes from FitTrax.”
How many friends did one person need? I thought. “Thank God. And obviously I’ll stay,” I said instead, trying not to think about how risky this was – for both of us, not just him.
“Hey everybody,” he said ten minutes later, to some assorted jocks. They were all hot, and I was trying very hard not to notice. I recognized Zack Frederickson, one of the nicer guys from the gym, but the rest were strangers. “This is my buddy, Cole, by the way.”
I stared at everyone, frozen, as they did the same. “Um…yo?” I said, and the room went silent. A few people grunted and then returned their eyes to the television. This was mostly a different crowd from the FitTrax goons, and (thank god) Ryan wasn’t there. One or two guys stared at me, confused and mildly irritated by my presence, but most ignored me, blissfully. So I sat in the corner and did my best to disappear into the couch cushions.
I was here…in Nicky’s house…with his friends…this was happening. I did my best impression of a “bro,” staring at the football on TV, but nothing clicked. Me watching sports was like how I imagined a Chinese-speaking person felt watching American movies: the colors moved and the sounds come out, but nothing registered. It was like I looked at the world through different eyes than these guys did. From time to time I felt that great sadness wash over me, that melancholy that told me I’d never be accepted into situations or fit in with crowds like this, not really. I felt pathetic for wanting the guys’ acceptance, but I still wanted it for some stupid reason, and I didn’t know how to earn it. With my own guy friends who suspected something was up with me, their approval felt conditional. Act like a bro or get
kicked out, because I’m not doing that faggot shit. Something I’d noticed over the years was that the general sense of male-ness of a straight guy was way more fragile than any gay guy’s.
But Nicky was good. So good that he had everyone fooled. I couldn’t believe how thoroughly I’d been fooled, too. This person he’d let me get to know – that person wasn’t real. This sort of bro-ish behavior had always made me a bit nervous and uncomfortable, mostly because of how frequently the act of spotting a group of fratty-looking dudes approaching me in the hall at school had usually ended in stares and whispers and laughs and maybe even insults. By nature, straight guys were always trying to one-up each other and become top dog, and whenever they were safely within their little mob, whoever picked on me the hardest became automatic alpha of the day. I was a deer, and they were the hunters – the only thing that kept them from pulling the trigger sometimes was happenstance.
During a break, one of the goons finally noticed I existed. “So…what’s your name, again, kid?”
I blew out some air. Alpha guys were always calling me “kid” or “big guy” or condescendingly petting me on the shoulder, even when we were the same age. I think they noticed my inherent different-ness and wanted to assert the upper hand, just in case I ever forgot. Ever since freshman year of high school it had been the same: I was not taken seriously because of who I was. Even the smart, progressive girls at school had treated me like some kind of disposable pet. I was tossed aside as soon as they found a guy they liked, and then I was sent out to pasture to roam the halls alone, glaring at any other boy with suspiciously-good dress sense who knew my plight, too. The masculine football jocks, they were the real guys, and I was a flawed model, a monkey meant for dancing in the corner and not much else. My few guy friends ignored me at school and then called me to come over when they were bored, or feeling homoerotic and wanted to dance around the gay subject with me while their boners showed through their pants, or whatever.
“I’m Cole,” I told Nicky’s friend. He looked at Nicky as his face lit up.
“Oh, dude, you’ve told me about this kid before. A lot, actually.”
Nicky’s eyes became large and terrified as I sank into the deepest and warmest ocean in the world. Nicky talks about me. It made me feel like everything in my life was going to be okay somehow.
“Um, I have?”
“Yeah.” He turned to me again. “You do Honesty, right? That’s so legit. My sisters follow you. You’re, like, famous. I’m Trevor, by the way. People call me TJ. How do you guys know each other, anyway?”
My eyes caught Nicky’s from across the way as paranoia seeped into the room, cold and hot. I’d never expected being asked this. What could I possibly say? Oh, you know, just on a gay sex app. Would you like some Doritos?
“Fit, um, FitTrax,” Nicky finally stuttered, and the dude shot a weird, confused look at him. Thankfully, nobody else seemed to notice or care, and so he rolled his eyes a little and returned his attention to the game. I could feel Nicky’s relief from twelve feet away.
I sat for another hour pretending to like craft beer and know about line violation rules. Near the end of the game, a PSA-type commercial came on featuring a female reality star who had coincidentally identified as male the year before. “Faggot,” TJ said. “That queer should walk into this room right now wearing that dress and see what happens.”
And I stopped breathing.
At around eleven, the last person see-ya’d his way out of the living room, and Nicky and I were alone. I just stared at the carpet for a minute, unsure, but soon I felt our little world opening up. And like a magnet to a magnet, Nicky rushed over to me. Instantly all the fear, all the panic of the evening whooshed out of me, and all that was left was him.
We fell on the couch together. “God,” he smiled, the light dancing in his galaxy eyes. “Sitting there all night – having to stay away from you, was…hard.”
I smiled at him. I was trying so hard not to fall for him, and I was failing so massively. Touch me, I wanted to say, but instead it came out as “yeah.” Plain old yeah. If only he knew how much I wanted to run to bed with him and never leave. I know he felt it too, because he pulled his eyes away with what looked like more than a little effort.
He smiled. “Let’s continue question time.”
“Yeah?” I asked. He was like Bill Nye: I didn’t even know him that well, but I trusted him wholly.
He motioned at the air around us, then looked at me. The spirit hit, and I was alive. How could he not know that he was to be treasured? “Well, can this possibly…I don’t know. Can you really feel around me, like I feel around you?”
I didn’t know what to say. Being around him was usually like driving down a highway too quickly and being unable to see anything at all – he blurred the world, and it terrified me. I didn’t know you could like a boy like this. I didn’t know you could like anyone like this. And I know I was late. I know I was already supposed to have felt these things, this shimmery, teenagery love thing. But I’d never been allowed to have this. My whole life, my love had been kept from blooming by church and society and fathers who disapproved. But for the first time, I was letting it happen.For the first time in my life I was allowing myself to be young and in lust with someone, and it felt so warm. I wanted to pour water on possibilities and watch love grow, and I was starting to get there. Around him I felt, for the first time in my life, that I was enough.
And that was also the underlying problem, I suspected: we had no idea what we were doing.We were two boys, two children, unable to reconcile with the truth cresting around us. He wanted to stay closeted, and I had a father who would kill me if they knew about this, who would stop speaking midsentence if they saw this scene right here. So I took a photograph with my eyes. I scanned the room and took in his redecorated living room, his pile of dirty clothes in the foyer, this boy next to me who made me feel like my shitty little life was finally paying off. I remembered it all, just in case.
“What does it feel like to you?” I asked him. I sensed that he didn’t want to answer, but he still did.
“Fireworks are coming to mind. And explosions. And Paris. And all that stuff…”
“I know,” I said. “Paris doesn’t sound so stupid anymore.”
He shook his head. “But it’s not just that. Whenever I’m with you, I don’t really have to wonder about who I am. I just know. And who I am feels okay. Sometimes.”
I sank into myself. Nicky liked me. This was happening. “You don’t have to tell me. I know it all. I feel it. And I thought it was so cute that you…well, that you told your friend about me.”
He blushed, smiling at the coffee table. “Whatever,” he said softly. “And why wouldn’t I tell people about you? Something about you just makes me want to shout things. You’re like a book I want the whole world to read.”
My body stopped working. He looked away, his hair dancing in the air as his head moved. “But still…will we ever be out of the woods?”
“The woods?”
“The woods,” he said, pointing around us. “Friends. Religion. My parents.”
I winced. He was already trying to push me off, send me away because I made him feel dirty.
“Nicky. It’s the twenty-first century,” I said. “Who cares about them? It doesn’t have to be like this. We don’t have to sit ten feet away from each other in a room full of people, staring straight ahead all night. You know we have…options now, right, Nicky? Choices?”
For a moment he seemed to let the possibilities bloom in his eyes. Then he killed them. “No we don’t.”
I started to talk. He shut me down. “You’re living in a fantasy, Coley. The world pretends it’s accepting now – it’s not. We’d be outcasts. Jokes.”
“We’re not those things here,” I said, hating myself for being so desperate. “We’re safe here. Why not kiss me while we’re alone? What’s stopping you?”
He sort of smiled with his eyes in the way I suspected only he
could. “Kiss you, huh?”
“The idea isn’t as crazy as you’re acting like it is.”
“Yes it is. You know you shouldn’t kiss your friends, right?” he whispered, assaulting me with his sexy smell. “I hear it’s a slippery slope.”
“But we’re not friends.”
He smiled that victory smile. “Is that so?”
“Yeah, you-”
“Shh,” he said.
“What?”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I don’t want to talk about how we have to hide.”
I closed my eyes for just a moment. “Kiss me, Nicky. Just kiss me. I…I need you. I need you all the time, and you don’t even know how much.”
He looked down at my chest. “But I don’t know how to…I can’t…”
His words were leaving his mouth limply, as if they were being taken back before they could even escape. He wanted this. I knew he wanted this. I wanted it too. And we were going to get this.
I stood up. He stood up, too. I had no idea what I was doing, but I couldn’t stop. This thing was relentless. I pushed him against the wall by the window and forced my way into his mouth, daring him to pull back, and soon it was almost like we were fighting. I was punching above my weight like a reality singing show contestant attempting a Whitney Houston song, and I knew it. He wriggled a bit and then just stood there for a second, stiff and stupefied, as I licked my way from his ear down to his collarbone, which tasted salty and perfect. Holy Christ, I had never wanted anything like this before. For one triumphant moment his body crumpled and he gave into me, but then he froze, pushing back in a movement so overpowering, I almost fell.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Redecorating.”
And then it happened: he opened his eyes, and something glimmered and caught fire. There was something beneath what he showed the world – something else was there – and for the first time, he let me into that something. His eyes caved in, and everything he’d been hiding on his face showed itself.
“Ugh, Coley…”
He leaned in and kissed me hard, and the lights went out. I had never kissed a boy before, and it was…everything, really. His soft lips and coarse stubble felt like a poisoned daisy, just the wrong kind of right. Part of it felt so bad, worse than anything I’d ever done, but that badness felt beautiful, imperial even.
