I heard my phone ring from my bag in the hallway, and I ran to get it. I assumed it was Becca asking me when I’d get to her house. But it was Leo. I forced myself to answer it.
“Hey,” I said.
He cleared his throat. “Hey.” Silence.
“How’s it going?” Lame. Stupid. Dumbass.
“Pretty shitty. You?”
“Much less shitty, I’m guessing.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
Was I supposed to be talking? When my dad died, people loved to regale me with their memories of him. It bugged the hell out of me. My dad was dead, and their personal stories seemed to belittle that fact, like, “He was your dad but I knew him first.” I wish people were forced to write their stories of the dead down, so when the living were ready to hear those stories they’d be there waiting. The only story I had about Jason was from freshman year. He was a senior, and I had no idea where I was going for first period. But I really had to go to the bathroom, so I ducked into the nearest one assuming it was a girls’. It was not. One lone pee-er straddled a urinal. I gasped when I saw him, which caused Jason to turn around, still peeing. “The fuck?” he asked. I said nothing and ran out, lucky no one else saw.
That didn’t feel like an appropriate story to share after someone’s death.
“Could you come over?” Leo asked hesitantly.
I didn’t know what to say. Becca was expecting me, and she’d be out of commission again soon. On the other hand, how could I say no when Leo’s brother just died and he wanted me to come over? But on the other hand—or, I don’t know, foot—my original plan was to break things off with him before his brother died. Now that death was involved, I only saw it as going one of two ways: I end it, or I become his intense, committed, we can never leave each other because we’ve survived death together girlfriend. I wasn’t sure I could handle that. Still, I wasn’t yet the world’s biggest asshole, so I told Leo, “Sure. I can come now if you want.”
“My parents are at my aunt’s house.” I didn’t know if he told me because parents being home was always awkward, especially grieving ones, or if he was telling me “my parents aren’t home.” “So can you park on the street?” he finished.
“Oh. Yeah. Sure.” It was a parking thing. “See you soon.” We hung up, and I went upstairs to change clothes. Not that I needed to look nice, but I smelled like ham. Or maybe I wanted to look a little nice. Show respect. Instead of a printed t-shirt, I put on a plain, black t-shirt with my jeans and Chucks. Pretty much what I always wore, which didn’t make it any less appropriately somber. I grabbed a few DVDs from my collection, just in case Leo, too, liked a little gore to keep his brain at bay. I also packed the cookies originally plated for a breakup. Now they’d look like a gesture for the grieving, which made me seem a lot nicer than I was. I called Becca to tell her of my change in plans.
“That’s disturbingly sweet of you, Alex. Don’t break his heart tonight, okay?”
“I’ll try not to,” I confessed.
“That’s all I can ask.”
“So what are you going to do now that your exciting plans fell through?”
“I had this idea of inviting Caleb over.”
“Really? Is he allowed to leave his house after dark?”
“Good question. But even if he’s not allowed, he could just sneak across our windows somehow.”
“Sorry I’ll be missing that.”
“I’m not. I mean, I am, but not if I get Caleb in my room, if you know what I mean.”
“You mean something sexy. That’s what you always mean. Even if you end up playing Parcheesi, it’ll be, like, strip Parcheesi.”
“Brilliant! Now I have a plan.”
“Details tomorrow, please. I promise not to ditch you again.”
“You’re not ditching me. You are performing a good deed.”
“What? I can’t hear you. The phone is breaking up.” I crackled and fizzed into the phone.
“Be nice!” she yelled, and I hung up.
As instructed, I parked on the street in front of Leo’s home. The house itself looked sad, the way the drapes hung, the newspapers piled on the driveway. I gathered the papers up and carried them to the door with me. Leo answered soon after I rang the bell.
I had never seen Leo with stubble. He seemed like one of those guys who didn’t grow hair quickly, and there wasn’t much on his face. Still, he looked older, worn. I stopped myself from touching his rusty shadow, not knowing if he wanted to be touched. He answered the question for me by wrapping his long arms around me and my backpack and holding on for what felt like minutes. I awkwardly clung to the random parts of his shirt I could reach in his tight grip. “I’m glad you’re here,” he whispered in my ear.
“Me, too,” I said because I felt like I should. At a loss for anything to say, I told him, “I brought cookies.”
He finally relinquished his grip and with a weary smile said, “Thanks. That’s pretty thoughtful actually.”
“You sound surprised.” I had no right to be offended, but I played the part.
“No, it’s sweet.” He held my head in his hands and kissed my forehead, a painfully tender gesture.
“It’s not. Really. I made them last weekend for the janitor for Becca’s Fuck-It List,” I blurted.
“Well, that part’s sweet, I guess. So you brought me week-old janitor cookies?” He hadn’t let go of my head yet, but leaned away to talk. We had never been this close except when we were that close.
“I brought DVDs, too. I didn’t know what you’d feel like doing.”
“Let’s go to my room,” he suggested, and took my hand. He led me upstairs, past even more family photos lining the walls. His parents obviously adored his brother, and the photos of Jason seemed to outnumber Leo three to one. Maybe it was just that Leo wasn’t a part of anything, like Jason was. Fewer photographic opportunities.
Leo’s bedroom was a mess. Not just a guy, throw-dirty-socks-on-the-floor mess, but scraps of paper, books, clothes, and even some car parts were everywhere. The single window was covered with taped-on cardboard.
“What happened?” I pointed at the window as I dropped my backpack on his bed.
“I guess I’m not so good at expressing my feelings,” he said mockingly.
“Looks to me like you’re quite good.”
“My mom would have preferred a nice journal entry. Or if it were my brother, shooting a gun at an appropriate target.”
“Do you want to talk? About your brother?” I said straight from the dead-relative handbook.
“No.” He sat on his bed and pulled me down next to him. It was forceful but not painful. I could feel his need for closeness in the way he grasped my arm. I was glad he didn’t want to talk because neither did I. If we talked, I might have said too much, told him about my dad just to make him feel better about his brother. Told him about Becca so we could both feel alive. But I thought that would change things between us. The more I said, the more we became something together, and I couldn’t do that. So instead of talking, I kissed him. At first, his reciprocation was hesitant. I wondered if a cuddle was all he craved, that maybe sex wasn’t the appropriate way for him to grieve. But soon he was on top of me, aggressively removing my clothes, sucking on my shoulder, squeezing my hips. I let him because I knew it could help, because I wanted the same thing. When we were together, inside and out, there was no death, no cancer, no past, no future. If his parents had been home, I cringed at the thought of what they’d have heard. We came together, so close we hardly moved. When we finished, we stayed wrapped around each other for five minutes. Ten minutes. I slept. I awakened. I slept some more. Only when my leg started tingling did I move. Leo snorted awake and repositioned himself to remain optimally close. I backed myself against him, and he encircled his arms around my stomach. I felt his breathing even again and assumed he was asleep. Then, in a faint voice, his mouth right up to my ear, he told me, “I love you, Alex.”
I jerked upright immediately, as though hit with a jolt of electricity.
“I have to go,” I said, already hunting for my clothes.
“What? No. Stay,” he pleaded, but I moved fast and was soon tying my shoelaces. “What the hell, Alex?” Leo sat up, the blanket covering his lower half. “Because I said I loved you? I thought girls love that shit.”
