I remembered taking freshman Jade Torrence to Homecoming my sophomore year, hugging her waist and keeping a smile frozen on my face while we stood in our tuxes and dresses as the parents took picture after picture of our group. She was chill and funny as hell, and we had a great night, leaving the stupid dance in the gym—where everyone was grinding to heavily censored music—to go smoke pot in the woods and drink. After a lot of vodka, she tried to kiss me, shoving her tongue between my teeth and reaching for my crotch, but I stopped her and took her home, held her bubblegum pink hair while she threw up on the sidewalk. When her friends found out about my “heroic deed,” they started flirting with me in the hallway at school, and I humored them because they were young and silly and freshmen.
And then, there was Kellie Velez…but no, I would never go there.
“No,” I answered. “Not really.”
I remembered seeing porn for the first time at ten years old, in a friend’s basement with a group of boys. We watched a video of a busty blonde going at it with a vibrator, her mouth open and pouty like the lips of a doll. All the boys watched boggle-eyed and laughed and cracked jokes and said things like “Nice!” and “Yeah, that’s it, baby!” and I said those things too because I thought that’s what you were supposed to do. But the whole time I kept staring at her eyes that looked so empty, like something sad was buried inside her.
“Jack, it doesn’t matter.”
Connor’s lips interrupted my memories, and they slipped away as his kisses grew deeper and our bodies pressed into each other and moved as steadily and rhythmically as the beating of the fan above us.
28.
I had no desire to see the guys that day, so I didn’t go to the lockers in the morning. I took a quieter route out of the building and was almost in the clear, but right in the parking lot they caught up with me.
“Hey, man!” Max called out. Toby was trailing behind him, hands deep in the pockets of his dark-washed jeans. They stood in front of me, expectant, waiting for me to be my usual self, but I wasn’t feeling like that lately.
“Hey,” I said, nodding and forcing a smile. The only thing on my mind was getting to Connor’s place, being with him in that private, secret space where I could finally take off the mask and let myself just be.
“You coming tonight?” Toby asked.
“To what?”
“Uh, the BMX race, man. Remember?” Max asked. “It’s tonight on Pine Street.”
“There’s gonna be an assload of hot girls there,” Toby said. He smirked.
“Oh, right,” I said, feigning disappointment. “Shit. I can’t. I’ve got plans with Connor.”
Toby and Max both frowned. “You guys are always doing stuff together,” Toby said, but it sounded more like a question than a statement.
“What are you guys, like, secretly fucking?” Max joked.
I forced a laugh. “You’re sick. We’re going to this thing his uncle’s throwing.”
“What thing?” Max asked. I wanted to hit him.
“Um, just this art show thing,” I said. I started walking away and they followed me, still waiting for something.
“Art show?” Toby asked, the tone in his voice shifting.
“Yeah, it’s like an exhibition or whatever. There’s probably going to be free drinks there, so…” I shrugged.
“Yeah, listen man,” Toby said. “We’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”
My heart hit a road bump, and I stopped walking. “About what?”
“Well, I mean, Connor’s cool and all, don’t get me wrong. But…there’s something about him. Something off. And well, he’s kind of…” He let the sentence trail off purposefully, waiting for me to fill in the blank.
“Kind of what?” I asked. I thought I knew what he was getting at, but I didn’t want to find out. “He’s chill. He’s down for anything. Isn’t that like us?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Toby said. He squeezed my arm a little too hard before releasing it, then stared me down like he was studying me, trying to see through some gap in my façade. Or was he? “Connor’s definitely chill, sure, but he’s a little…?”
“He’s a little what? What, you mean…weird?” I snorted.
“Well yeah, kind of,” Toby said. “Now that you mention it.”
“How is he weird?” I asked, a little too defensively. Chill out, Jack.
“I mean, think about it, Jack,” Max said. “He’s secretive. He’s always doing his own stuff, always kind of in the background until something crazy goes down. He got into it with the Rudoy brothers at the assembly. I mean, who’s dumb enough to do that? There’s just something odd about that guy.”
Toby leaned in close to me again, giving my shoulder a pat. Something in his big brown eyes flashed a warning before softening again. “We’re just looking out for you.”
Even I had to laugh at that. “You guys are such assholes.”
But Toby was serious. “Just think about it, Jack.”
“Listen, I’d love to stay and discuss this thrilling topic of kind-ofs and maybes…but I got to head out. Alright?”
We said goodbye, and I unlocked my bike and rode the hell out of there, tasting relief in the air. But once I’d pedaled far enough down the road, a thought popped into my head.
What if they knew?
No, they couldn’t. How could they know? They were just jealous, jealous and pissed I wasn’t spending so much time with them anymore. But those thoughts didn’t calm my mounting anxiety as I rode down familiar streets, letting the spring breeze fill me up with smells of freshly cut grass and blossoming trees, trying to calm my nerves. I took some deep breaths, pushed it all to the back of my mind and finally parked in front of Connor’s place.
Lately it was the only place that I felt safe. I wondered how long that would last.
29.
I
