Riding with Brighton

by Haven Francis

  “The gear came off, and I spent hours on that board because I appreciated it so much more after not having it. I rode every day until the snow started falling and even then, I would practice my tricks in the garage. That was the year I joined 3rd Lair, and those were some of the best times of my life.”

  “So the river is my skateboard and you’re my padding?”

  He laughs. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe I was afraid. And you’re right: it’s better than I remember.” After a few moments of silence, I ask him, “You still skate competitively?”

  “No. Just for fun.”

  “Why’d you quit?”

  “I don’t know. I was winning all the competitions in my age division, and I just figured there was nowhere else to go with it. I wanted to spend my time getting good at something else, learning about something new.”

  “Jesus… makes me feel like I’ve wasted my life.” Not that this thought is new to me. It’s pretty much the only thought running through my head since I woke up yesterday. “I’ve spent hours playing baseball, basketball, and football. I could have been doing so much more.”

  “But you love it, right?”

  “Yeah, but what’s the point? It’s not like I’m gonna go pro. I mean, you’re right, once you reach the pinnacle of something, it makes sense to move on to something new.”

  “That’s just me. I think I have ADD. If one thing, or the same three things, just kept making me happy, I would totally stick with it. I wish I were like that.”

  “So what are the things you’ve mastered besides making Japanese cartoon figurines, hand-painted advertising, doodling, and skating?”

  “Mastered? I don’t know if that word applies to anything in my life. If we’re talking about things I’ve been obsessed with… that list is long.”

  He doesn’t seem like he’s gonna elaborate, but hearing him talk about himself, his life… I like it. I want to hear it. “I saw the guitar in your room.”

  “Yeah. The guitar’s a staple. I’m usually balls-deep into some instrument or process of making music.”

  “What instruments do you play?”

  “Umm… well, the guitar, obviously. Anything with strings, really. Piano, drums, sax. My dad’s a computer guy, so he’s been hooking me up with equipment so I can mix and record. We got our first synth last year, and that shit’s fascinating. That’s an obsession that could last for a while. You can always learn more about that. There’s always more equipment to buy. What about you? Did you ever play an instrument?”

  “Only when I had to. I played the trumpet in middle school. I picked it because it only had three valves; thought it would be easy. Which is the total opposite of how you operate.” I feel his boot gently nudging my shoe, and I crack an eye open to look. He keeps his boot next to my shoe and a shiver runs up my body. Because his shoe touched mine. Jesus.

  “I’m totally lazy. I only do the things I want to do. You didn’t want to play an instrument. It’s okay.”

  “I actually liked it. I was pretty good at it. I think my real problem is that I worry too much about what other people are gonna think about me. I quit playing in high school when it was no longer required because I didn’t want to be a band geek.”

  “I’m detecting a theme here as far as your little crisis goes,” he says with humor in his voice.

  “It’s not too hard to figure out. I’m sick of living this life I made for myself and am mourning the guy I could have become, the life I could have had, if I had just grown a pair and done what I wanted to instead of what people expected me to do.”

  “So what’s your plan when you go off to college? You’re gonna get a fresh start, be who you want to be…. Who are you gonna be?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He knocks his boot into my shoe again. “Yes you do. If you can’t even talk about the things you want to do, how are you gonna actually do them?”

  Shit. Does he know? Is he trying to get me to admit that I’m gay? Do I want to admit that to him? Am I ready to say that out loud? I suck in a long breath, and as I’m exhaling it the words I think I might be gay are running through my brain, but when the words come out they’re “I want to write.”

  I turn my head to Brighton. He’s staring right at me. His face is mostly blank, but I can see the confusion. Slowly, though, a smile creeps in. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s cool. I’ve always been shit at writing. What do you write?”

  I shake my head. “Nothing, really.”

  “Come on, Jay. You need to get over whatever it is that’s holding you back. You can say whatever you want to say to me. I’m not gonna judge you. It’s not gonna change my opinion about you. In fact if you’d open up and give me something… one thing… I might feel better about the fact that I’ve been talking about myself all day.”

  I want to talk to him. I want to tell him things. But the truth is that, for whatever reason, I care about his opinion of me more than anyone else’s. “It’s stupid.”

  “Is it time for the pep talk? Do we need to do a rundown of all your redeeming qualities?”

  “Umm… hell no….”

  He ignores my request. “You’re the most popular guy at our school; we’ve already established that you’re decent-looking and, with me out of the game, you could have any girl you want. Your body’s on point; I’ve heard you’re a pretty good athlete; you’re smart; you’re cool; you’re thoughtful; and you’re funny…. So where’s all this insecurity and self-deprecating crap coming from?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I’m not usually like this. I think it’s just… you.” Oh shit. Immediately I can feel my veins pulsing under my skin, and all my muscles go on lockdown at this confession. I feel like I’m going to have a panic attack, and I’m already regretting the words that just came out of my mouth.

  “Why would you feel insecure around me?” he asks.

  Okay. That’s not what I meant. I mean it is, but I thought the implications were obvious. But maybe they weren’t. So I hold tight to the out he’s given me. “Because everything about me is superficial and nothing about you is, so I guess I just naturally feel inferior around you.”

  “That’s such bullshit,” he says, his face turning intense, borderline angry. “I mean, come on, man. I just gave you a hella long list of all the reasons I think you’re cool. And you haven’t even opened up to me. If you did that, all it would do is make me like you more. ‘Inferior.’ That’s such a crap excuse.” He’s propped himself up on his elbow now, and he’s practically raging at me.

  I can literally feel my body temperature rising. I want to yell back at him; I want to get all this shit out of me. I want to jump on him and take all my pent-up aggression out with him. I want to grab his hair and kiss the shit out of him. And Jesus, now I’m hovering over him, sitting on my knees, my hands pulling on my hair. I close my eyes and try to rein myself in.

  “Just fucking tell me,” he says, and the tone of his voice, a painful whisper, snakes through my body and releases the hold that I’m keeping on all of the secrets inside me.

  “I don’t know who the hell I am,” I say, seething, my eyes still closed tight. “I wake up every morning in that fucking house and look in the mirror, and I don’t know who the hell I am. I’m scared shitless of the thoughts running through my head. I’m terrified of the feelings that erupt in me when I’m around you, and I don’t know how long I can keep denying the truth. How long I can keep lying to myself. But I know I have to. I know I’ll never get to be who I want to be. And the fucking truth….” I let out a long, exasperated breath and fall back on my hands, finally opening my eyes and looking at him. “Is that I think about you all the time.” I’m breathing hard like I just ran a marathon. My vision is blurry, but I can see that Brighton is sitting up now too. And he’s smiling at me.

  “Yeah?” he asks.

  I nod and let out another long breath, trying like hell not to pass out. “Yeah.”

  “That’s
cool. I mean, I’m flattered.”

  “Shit,” I mutter to myself, running my hands over my face before collapsing back on the ground. It’s like everything inside me just got ripped out of my body with those words.

  The longer I lie here, though, the more the panic and fear evaporate and something else is taking its place. Relief? Excitement? Happiness? I’m not sure. It’s something I’ve never felt before.

  “You okay?” Brighton asks.

  “Yeah. I think I am.” I can’t help but laugh.

  “I thought you were gonna go all hulk on my ass for a minute there the way you were practically vibrating.”

  “I can’t believe I just said that to you. It’s scary as hell.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  Jesus, no. “I think that’s about as much as I can handle for now.”

  “All right,” he says easily. “So, you want to get out of here?”

  I turn my head to him, cracking one eye open because it’s about all the physical activity I can handle at the moment. He’s propped up on his elbows, his legs kicked out in front of him, every part of him looking totally content. No signs of worry or stress on his face, which seems wrong, seeing how he’s sitting so close to me. How can this hurricane of emotions I’m in the middle of not be sending at least a little gust his way? “Can I have a minute?”

  “Yeah, take all the time you need.”

  I close my eyes again and try to put myself back together. It’s like a bomb just went off inside me and tore everything apart. Which sounds gory, but maybe I can dig through the gooey mess and assemble something better than what I started with. Maybe this time I can get it right.

  I lie there until my bones no longer feel weak and my head doesn’t feel like it’s completely covered in mud. When I open my eyes again, Brighton is gone, and I swear to God, a slimy vise clamps down on my heart. Shit. What the hell is that about? And when I see him, a little ways down the shore, skipping rocks into the water, I smile. Oh crap, am I giddy? For sure I’m nervous as hell.

  What the hell do I do now that he knows how I feel about him? I mean in my fantasies—because, yes, I’ve had a ton of them—I confess how I feel about him, and he immediately takes control of the situation and practically rips my clothes off. I mean, he totally rips my clothes off. But, dang, that didn’t happen.

  I search through the fog of my memories from the last however many minutes it’s been since I had my meltdown, trying to remember his exact reaction. He looked happy. But all he said was that it was cool and he was flattered. I don’t know why I assumed that just because I was into him he’d be into me too. Just because he’s gay doesn’t mean he’s gonna automatically want me. God, that’s a blow to the ego. And a total wrecking ball to my alternate fantasy world.

  I stay where I am and just watch him, trying to process. But all I can do is watch him and lust over him.

  He’s taken his sweatshirt off and the muscles of his back and arms are well defined under his threadbare T-shirt. His belted jeans hang low on his hips and pool into his combat boots. His sleek, black hair shines in the sun. The hand he’s skipping rocks with is covered in bracelets and rings. It never occurred to me that hands could be sexy, but Brighton’s big, jewelry-covered hands definitely are.

  Here’s something that maybe should have been a warning bell, alerting me to the fact that I didn’t want to be like him as much as I just wanted him: I have every one of his baubles memorized. It looks like he’s kept every piece of string and leather that anyone’s ever given him and tied it around his wrist. The rings he wears are all silver: one is a bull head, the other has a huge turquoise stone in the middle and one is just a thick band. I could never get away with shit like that—wearing jewelry—but damn, is it sexy on him.

  When I run out of details to distract me, I stand and go to him. When he hears me, he turns and smiles before getting back to the rock he’s throwing. I start searching for my own rock, then skip it across the water. We do this for a while and slowly my anxiety drifts away and I become comfortable standing next to him in his space.

  “You feeling okay?” he asks, glancing at me while doing the one-eye-closed thing.

  “Yeah, actually I am. Sorry I flipped out on you like that.”

  “Flipped out on me? You didn’t flip out. You got some shit off your chest. And can you please stop saying you’re sorry? You don’t have anything to be sorry about.”

  “Yeah, I’ll try. But can I apologize for one more thing?”

  He laughs. “Sure. Go ahead.”

  “I got what you were saying when I first showed up at that park—I’m not the first sexually confused kid who has sought you out. But I just want to say that I didn’t come to you because you’re the only gay person I know and I needed a soundboard, or I wanted to test the waters, or I needed someone to talk me through this.”

  “Okay,” he says a little apprehensively. “Why’d you seek me out, then?”

  “Because it’s not guys. It’s just you. And I needed more time with you. I wanted to be around you longer than the hour I have in history class.”

  He stares at me for a few uncomfortable moments, his face giving no indication of what he thinks about what I just said to him. “What does that mean? I’m the only guy you’ve ever been attracted to?”

  I clear my throat. God, it’s weird talking about this shit. Admitting it to myself, even. “In real life, yeah.”

  He snickers before saying, “The Internet’s great, right?”

  I laugh, partly because I didn’t have to say what I do with my spare time for him to know, and partly because he’s right—it is great. Especially this one guy’s Instagram page. “Yeah.”

  “So what do you think that’s about—your attraction to me? You think it’s just because I’m the only gay guy you know?”

  “No,” I answer without hesitation. “If all the guys I’ve ever known were gay, you’d still be the hottest and most intriguing one.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yeah, Brighton, I am,” I say, skipping my last rock and then turning to him, because suddenly, knowing what he thinks about me is an urgent matter that needs to be sorted out. As I stare at him, it hits me that if he tells me, “I think you’re cool, but…” I might just be completely devastated. Shit, I will be completely devastated. For sure.

  He throws his last rock, brushes his hands over his jeans, then turns, and takes a step closer to me. He stares at me, and it makes me nervous as hell. Eventually, he cracks a smile and shakes his head. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” He slaps me on the shoulder, then starts walking toward the Bronco.

  Wha… wha… what the hell is that? What the hell does that mean?

  “Brighton,” I call out after him.

  He stops walking and turns to me. “Yeah?”

  I don’t know what to say, so I raise my hands in a what-the-hell gesture, and I can feel my eyeballs threatening to pop out of their sockets so they can go kick his ass.

  He just stares at me.

  Can he not see how pissed my eyeballs are? “Can you give me something? Anything?”

  He laughs. “You’re cute and sexy. I like you, Jay, but you got a girlfriend.”

  Girlfriend? That’s the last word I expected to come out of his mouth. Who gives a shit if I have a girlfriend? Obviously I’m not into her like that. Right? I made that clear when I told him that I wanted him… right? No?

  “Come on,” he says, turning again and walking away.

  I follow him and get in his truck. I’m waiting for him to say more, but he just starts it up and pulls back onto the road.

  “Where to now?” I ask.

  “You ready to see The Farm?”

  “Ooh, the elusive farm. You’re actually gonna take me there?”

  “Yeah, if you want to come with me.”

  “Of course I want to come with you.”

  I half expect him to take advantage of the word that, yeah, maybe my subconscious bullied me into em
phasizing, but he just glances over and smiles. My returning smile is way too big and toothy, but now that he knows, now that I don’t have to try and suppress all this shit, I can’t help but set the gums and all thirty-two teeth free.

  “So, you got any more awesome guesses?” he asks.

  “About what?”

  “The Farm.”

  I settle back into the seat, stretching my legs out as much as I can. “It seems kind of lame that it’s not an actual farm. Why would you name something The Farm if it’s not a farm? Unless… is it farm with a ph, as in pharmacy? Jesus, Brighton, please tell me you’re not taking me to a meth lab.”

  He raises an amused eyebrow. “I guess you’ll find out when we get there.”

  I look down the dirt road we’re traveling on that doesn’t appear to be going anywhere, and I’m legitimately afraid now that we’re going somewhere I don’t want to go. “Your dad wouldn’t send you to a meth lab. I mean, what kind of supplies would you be bringing to Abe?”

  “That’s a stupid question. Meth labs need all kinds of supplies. And you met the guy; he’s totally open-minded.”

  “He’s not gonna let Cooper go on a date till he’s sixteen. That seems pretty by the books.”

  “We gotta keep up appearances, you know, try to maintain a little normalcy so people don’t get suspicious.” I stare at him for a minute. He sounds convincing, but then the crinkles appear at the corners of his eyes, and he can’t hold back his smile.

  “Shut the hell up. You’re such an asshole, I almost believed you.”

  “Seriously? Man, you’re gullible. You gotta work on that.”

  “I’m not gullible.”

  He looks at me again. Every time he looks at me, the whole heart/jackhammer metaphor makes sense for the first time in my life. “I bet you are. I bet you’re one of those guys who believe that Bigfoot, krakens, mermaids, and werewolves are real.”