For a rather long time, a disappointingly long time, actually, I couldn't bring myself to do much but stare at them. Probably fifteen minutes, and I simply stood there, staring from a distance, wondering, questioning, was this right? Should I continue? What would I get out of it?
As promised, in the overcast New York darkness, they had gathered at the corner. A wrought iron fence drew a long, undeniable liaison between us, a line I could not look past, bordering in the tables and chairs and potted plants of a small cafe. This time of year, it was shut down. Vic had planted himself between the spikes of the fence, one leg crossed over the other, speaking with his caramel-toned hands in a vibrant way. Kylie stood nearly on top of him, hopeless grin on her face, straightened hair thin and loose over her shoulders. Just past them, the tip of a cigarette lit up from a breath on it. I could smell it, pungent and sour from where I was, and I knew despite the lack of a streetlight who was on the other end of it. Gabe bounced on his heels, and I could hear him speak, slowly.
"Man," he howled, turning on one foot to face flannel-clad Sam and his smoke clouds, "why are we still waitin' for him? He's not gonna show."
He was talking about me. Which meant he couldn't see me, they couldn't see me, I was hiding amoung savannah grasses like a predator. It was in my hands now. I could run or I could go.
"If I had a dime for every time you were late," Sam mused, "how many houses could I buy?"
Do or die.
"At least I show up!"
Vic was the next to speak up, amusement showing readily in his face. "I just wanna get me a new snugglebunny."
Gabe's dark eyes rolled in the back of his head. "Will you please stop using that word?"
Hood pulled up over my head, I dug into my pocket, chewing two more little white tablets to bring down the stress I felt rising in my head, tensing my muscles. Then, as confident as I could muster, I strode toward them, chilly pink-tipped fingers and my rough nails ticking over the spikes in the fence. They were cold, metal, burning and smooth where it didn't have the paint chipped away, but it was sensation, it was something I could touch before I lost the feeling again.
"Sorry I'm late," I called, watching my breath escape in a cloud of white. "My brother was crying."
Clara, who out of all of them had dressed up in a darling little cocktail dress of pale turquoise and brown, looked up, her mossy eyes lighting up happily. One hand smoothed through her hair, leaving it to rest over her shoulder again. "Look, see, Gabe? Have a little faith." Then, she put an arm up in the air, tugging to keep her jacket on. "Hey, Colin!"
"Hey!" Vic laughed, turning to wave as well, offering a charming grin. Suddenly I was a friend. They knew me. They all knew my name. "Fresh meat!"
What the hell, how did they know me?
Still, I offered a grin in response, begging to stay cool. Don't make yourself look stupid, Colin, don't tell them about how lame your brother is and don't tell them your parents were pissed, don't tell them about the texts Jonny sent you, don't tell them anything. Just smile. No, no, not like that!
Don't smile. Smirk. Grin. Talk. Anything but that.
Something was tingling on my arm, a little itching sensation, but I ignored it, favouring the warmth in my stomach instead.
"What, did you think I was just gonna bail?" I tried once I had reached the group. They were all taller than me! I was the shortest one there, wearing a thin coat and a beanie, and though Clara had taken the liberty of already half-undressing herself, everyone else was wearing a thick coat, gloves, other late-autumn apparel.
"Let's just get going," Mark sighed, glasses glinting in the moonlight. He elbowed Vic, then started off in one direction. Quickly, bouncing, Vic followed, then Kylie, then Clara and Gabe. Sage, it seemed, hadn't showed.
Sam hesitated, smirking at me, almost proudly. He took a final drag on his cigarette, then dropped it to the ground, crushing it under foot.
"You showed."
What was that supposed to mean? Some sort of off-beat statement? Did he mean to say something else by it?
Was I signing on to a conversation of subliminal messages by responding to it?
"Yea," I breathed, tipping my head back to look at him. He wasn't that much taller than me, but all the guys in the mobster movies looked cool when they tipped their chins back. I couldn't let them -- him -- think I wasn't worth their time. "I did. Did you think I wouldn't?"
Then, quiet once more, his smile spread, breaking into a small grin, and he reached out. Patting my back, he started to walk, leading me to walk beside him.
Yes. I had definitely agreed to a conversation of subliminal messaging, and I had absolutely no idea what I had said. It was like speaking in Pig Latin, but with a considerably smaller amount of knowledge as to how the hell to speak it.
That was a bad analogy, but it works, I guess.
The walk to the party took maybe another fifteen minutes, but I could hear it before I could see it. Just on the outskirts of the town, far enough that I could see the lights and glimmer of New York behind us in all its magnificent glory and sparkle, there was the thudding and thumping of a bass, the wild shrieking of a few girls, loud laughter.
Then I could see it, a nice two-story house that put mine to shame, four times as wide than it was tall. An array of colours flashed through each window, and already the outside was strewn with bodies and cars.
Inside my chest, my heart was skipping beats again, and my stomach, having accepted the growing warmth from within, was roiling with sickened nerves.
This was a party, alright.
Flashing lights, loud music, drunk kids.
Up ahead, Vic and Mark had started to tango. Clara had intertwined her arm with Gabe's. They were excited, laughing, smiling, picking up their pace. None of them seemed to notice the brown bottles strewing the lawn, the sprinkling of bodies giggling and laughing together, what I can only assume to be the occasional pile of putrefying vomit.
And once we were inside the door, I wanted to hold my breath.
Instantly, I no longer needed my coat or hat, because instantly I felt like I, too, was sweating as profusely as the crush and swell of the crowd in the living room. Music roared over the hooting and hollering of high schoolers, mixing fetid breath with bitter sweat and sour alcohol, thumping and thudding. Like anemones, the crowd moved with the sounds of the music, disappearing behind the flash and throb of kaleidoscopes broadcasted from the front of the room. Rays of green and white melded together, explained by Kylie's excited squeal, barely audible, of "Dave brought the light machine!" before she disappeared in the cloud as well.
I must have looked shellshocked.
From behind me, Sam moved out, gone in a matter of moments like the rest of them. With each flash of light, I could catch a brief glimpse of one of them. Gabe drinking. Vic dancing. Mark kissing a girl. Sam passing someone money. Clara bouncing. Kylie grabbing Vic to dance. Sam drinking. Mark getting slapped by a girl.
In a matter of instants.
A sweaty palm landed on my arm.
Glancing up, the girl it belonged to wasn't much older than me, and like Clara she had dolled up in a short dress. She didn't stop moving, dancing all the while in an unsteady, swaying way.
She tried to yell out her name to me, the music too loud, and after a few tries, neither of us could get our point across, instead just laughing. In the snapshots of light, her friend appeared beside her, glanced at me, and smiled.
Then I was being dragged into the crush, pushed and dragged between the two girls. Both of them reeked of alcohol, but the first girl was lovely. Her mascara running, she was still grinning, grabbing my hands to keep me dancing, head tipping back for a gentle laugh.
I could dance. I wasn't a bad dancer.
I just wanted to see her laugh like that again.
After a few moments, her friend disappeared, hands in her hair, and she came back, shoving a little plastic cup at me. Grin crooked, I tried to ask what it was, but she managed to mouth to me, "Just drink it."
So I did.
Oily and acidic at the same time, it burned the inside of my mouth like a bad soda, but I swallowed a few mouthfuls, cringing at the bitterness. The girls erupted into a bout of laughter again. And we kept dancing. I became part of the crowd, pulsating and distracting, losing individuality to the darkness and the flash of the lights, learning from touch and breath how to socialize. Laughter was a new language, flushes of pink and red danced over everyone's faces, and I was passed between girls, one, two, three, four...maybe six of them, before returning to the first one finally, her arms thrown around my neck, body swaying and sweating more than before.
Her back slammed to a nearby wall, ignorant to the decorative wallpaper behind her and the little wet marks her shoulderblades were leaving, pulling me along with her. Lipgloss smearing across my mouth, she pressed a heady kiss to my mouth, breathing intoxicated air at me.
After a few breathless moments, she tipped her head back, giggling and licking her lips.
With all the music, screams sounded like whispers.
"I like you," she said in a breath. "What's your name?"
It seemed like I had forgotten how to think. I didn't want to, at least, instead giving another, smaller kiss to the side of her mouth and stepping back.
"Colin," I tried to give her, winking and continuing backward. Whatever she tried to say next was lost, my back turned in an unsteady motion toward a long line of unopened drinks. My nails dug into an irritated spot at my side, relinquishing it and my dizziness for a brown bottle and pushing my own back against the wall.
Forcing it open, I stood alone for a few minutes, sipping off the bottle and watching the arms flailing in the air above the people. We all seemed so old here.
Halfway through the bottle, I had to find my way to the bathroom for sake of a raging bladder, returning to find the party unfazed. Unaltered. Unchanged.
Except for one factor.
He was standing aside, flannel shirt unbuttoned and open, fanning himself with his hands as best as he could. At the sight of me, his face lit up, and though I was stopped dead in my tracks, staring stupidly at him, he stalked toward me, in the kitchen where only a couple or two lingered to kiss amidst the broken bottles, with a sort of drunken swagger to his usual slight hunch of height.
"You havin' fun?" He crowed as he came closer, into what would have otherwise been deemed my personal space. To hell with personal space, who created that abomination?
"Yea," I answered, unsure of what else to say. His eyes were red-rimmed, pupils dilated and wider like my own often were, and his grin was loose. Sam was swaying on his feet. "Man, are you on something?"
"Uh-huh." There he went, back to fanning himself again. Still, he grinned. "Couple o' somethings. Why? You want some?"
Oh.
Yet, I found it funny, laughing in turn and offering him a peek at the baggie in my pocket. "I'm covered."
His eyes shot wide open, cackling and clapping until he had to lean to one side.
"You're a junkie!"
"Shit, like you're any better! Look at you!" I retorted, gesturing to him. There was camaraderie in abuse, I suppose.
"I'm good! I'm good, I can handle my shit, okay?" Then, "Gabe and Clara hooked up."
"Yea, I saw," I lied. As if anyone hadn't seen that coming. I'd only gone to their meetings for a week and I already knew, by the way the ivory-skinned girl hung off the more serious of the group's boys, and the way he let her, it wouldn't take long. Granted, even if I had seen them go off, I wouldn't have remembered. "What about you? Got anything?"
Jesus, I swore, why was I asking? It's not like I wanted to know.
Sam shrugged, quickly putting to rest my nervous heart. "Nah, I got too many exes here -- word spreads like wildfire. You?"
I restrained a smirk, nodding and shoving my hands into my pocket. "Same. You know, too many...they all know each other."
For a moment, he stared me down, mouth sliding open before he burst into a laugh. He took a swing at my shoulder. "You little shit, don't l-- oh..."
He started to move to one side, swaying in an uncontrollable way, and just briefly, I saw terror flash into his eyes. Between my arms shooting out to grab him and Sam catching himself on the table, he managed to keep himself up, but he was grimacing. "I think I ought to lay down," he admitted. "H-help me upstairs. There's guest rooms up there." I gave him a skeptical look, receiving a sigh. "It ain't my first party here."
Poor guy, I couldn't help but think, with his blue eyes swimming. I knew by now not to overdo it. Too much ruined the feeling. Too little made it not worth it.
Nevertheless, I wrapped one arm around his middle, his elbow resting on my shoulder, and helped him up the stairs. Following his directions to a room, down the hall and to the right, next to the window, the room with the burnt orange walls and white sheets, I lead him there, half his weight resting on my side.
Inside the room, he stumbled to the bed, flopping down on it, and I closed the door behind him. Crossing to sit on the edge of the bed, I savoured the silence for a moment, the quiet drumming of the music below us.
A low hum spilled out from Sam's throat, his eyes still closed until he opened them to stare at me.
"S'great party," he drawled, smoothing his hands through his hair. "Lovin' your first party?"
I leaned back against the headboard, pursing my lips in a slow curl. "Yea. I think I'm buzzed. Bitch got all up on me, though."
Silence.
Digging into my pocket, I picked out two more tablets. After this long, I'd become used to their soapy taste, but I cleaned my teeth meticulously of the grains, shoving the bag back into my pocket.
Maybe it was the pills. Maybe it was the beer. Maybe it was just me -- and this I sincerely doubted -- and I'd finally gotten an ounce of courage, but in the silence, I was getting an idea. A horrible, awful idea that I shouldn't have gotten, but I relished it, adored it and rolled it over in my mind until I could no longer think of anything else. Though the minutes passed quickly, and Sam was making his way slowly up to a pillow, I was trapped in a slow process of thought, a repetition of what I wanted.
"Hey, Sam?"
Finally, he managed to rest his head in the soft fluff of the pillow, crystalline eyes glimmering up at me. "Yea?"
Courage, drugs, alcohol, whatever you wanted to call it, I savoured it. I took it in my hands and wouldn't let it go before it left and I was actionless again, taking my opportunity here and now. He wouldn't remember it anyway, he was too drunk, too high. At least I knew how to pace myself.
Hesitation gone, I sat up, leaning over the space between us as if it was nothing, and just as fervently, if not more, as the girl downstairs, pushed our lips together. Instead of what I expected of flailing limbs, punches and kicks and pushes, angry reactions, I received instead a pair of palms to my cheeks, warm where his fingers were cold, and he pulled, keeping me close in his attempts to sit up.
This was unexpected.
There was a need in his kiss, and I couldn't even bring myself to focus on the marvelous thought that we were kissing, just the needy way his lips clung to mine and the taste of cigarettes and alcohol.
I was the one to break it off, letting out a quiet breath. He didn't let go, instead a worried sort of searching in his eyes, tongue sweeping over his lips.
"You sure about this, freshie?"
And here we went with the subliminal messaging again!
I bared my teeth in a grin. "What wouldn't I be sure about?" He was attractive. He was letting me kiss him, which meant he didn't mind. What on earth wouldn't I be sure about with that?
"I'm trouble," he tried, slurring through his smile. "Nothin' but trouble."
Trouble. Right, like I believed that, leaning in to his kiss again. My other hand moved to press into the bed on his side, close to situating myself over him.
I thought briefly about my parents.
With Sam breathing heavy against my mouth, his hands moving from my cheeks down to my hips, it was an awful thing to think about. I couldn't stop, I didn't want to, wiggling awkwardly to help when he made the motion to turn, making it so that he was the one leaning over me, hips cradled between my knees, then between my hips, denim jeans pressing against one another. I forced myself up on one arm, struggling off my hoodie and letting it fall off the bed, then landed back to the pillow again, my hands smoothing between his face and neck.
I thought about all the things my dad said to me. All the times he threatened that I had 'better not be a faggot,' and that it was a decision, and that if I chose it, he would disown me.
It was worse to think about with my shaking hands snaking up the shirt of another young man. Gasping against his mouth, I helped Sam's shirt off, first the flannel and then his tee-shirt, leaving him in just his jeans once we kicked off our tennis shoes. He did the same for me, and, disconnecting our mouths, I studied his blank chest for a warm moment.
Over the muscles and the new, flushed and nervous sweat to his skin, there were burns. Against perfect skin, he had little round circles dotting his sides, dark and silvery burns the circumference of a cigarette. He let out a breath, covering them up with one hand.
"Don't look at that."
I thought about all the times my mom, who had once been a blemish herself, she'd been a dirty little mistake like me and Evan, didn't help me, didn't defend me. She would agree with my father that it was wrong to be gay.
"I won't."
Sam had twelve tiny blemishes against his skin. Cupping his face with one hand, I pushed my knuckles into his shoulderblade, meeting his eyes instead. Another kiss, each one deeper than the last, and like a fire, I could feel his skin pressing against mine. His hands burned in a pleasant way over my sides, mouth taking needy, thirsty drinks from my mouth like he wanted something from me, like he expected something good from me.
I thought about Evan, and Lord, that was the worst. What were they teaching him? I tried my best to tell him all the things they said were wrong, but someday, my little brother would hate me for who I was, like our parents did. He would lose his blemish status and become perfect. He would become a lion, predatory and evil.
Sam's fingers were plucking at my belt. Nervous, unsteady fingers that made mine shake as well, they trembled between our hips, and I could feel no shame for the ways I returned his kisses, knuckles still pressed into his shoulders. Every sound was louder than it was supposed to be, every sweep of skin over skin and sigh we let out, but I barely heard the sound of a zipper.
"Turn over," he breathed.
"Huh?"
And I thought about God, actually. Why would He make me if He hated me? Satan didn't make me gay. I'd never prayed to the devil.
"Colin," Sam whimpered, almost pathetic through his ragged breaths, "please?"
No one made me gay. I just was. I didn't make me gay, God didn't make me gay, devil worship didn't make me gay. No, I realized after a while, I wasn't gay. I was normal. I liked boys, but I was normal. You don't ever think of yourself as gay until someone uses it against you and says you don't deserve it.
My fingers ticked at Sam's belt as well, gratefully taking one last indulgence from his mouth.
Leviticus 18:22.
"Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination."
--
I woke up on the floor.
Not that I had fallen asleep on the floor, but rather that I woke up having been thrown from the bed, knees clanging against wooden floors, still in nothing more than briefs and whatever bit of the sheet that followed me. Nausea began to settle into my stomach. A headache was raging in my skull, tiredness in my legs, and my eyes took their sweet time to choose to function.
Once they did, I could see an older kid was staring down at me, a sneer on his lips. Judging by his build and buzzcut, a football player.
"Dude," he hissed out in a breath, shaking his head. "I don't even wanna know why you two're in here together."
Two?
Oh. Sam.
Thanks to my headache, I spoke before I could think about the words. "Then don't ask."
Stepping back, he started to retreat from the room, sighing reluctantly. "Be out in ten minutes and I won't tell anyone I saw this."
My eyes watching him, suddenly, from the top of the bed came a projectile pillow, slamming into his face. With a curse and a growl, he stalked from the room, slamming the door shut behind himself.
On shaking knees, I stood, leaning over the edge of the bed.
I didn't even remember sleeping in them, but the sheets were soft under my palms, cushioned and cool. Half-covered by them, Sam was yawning, rolling to one side, continuing to do so until he tumbled off the bed.
I was staring at him.
Was there a vague way to say it? I wanted to bring it up. I wanted to talk to him about it, about the night before, us -- you know. Sex. The proverbial it that we'd done. Like I need a filter to say that, like it was bad thing. People seemed to think it was. I wanted to ask if it meant anything to him. I wanted it to mean something to me. What did it make us?
Instead, watching him grope indiscriminately for his clothes around the floor, I let out a sigh.
What a sick, horrible feeling, disappointment. I wasn't disappointed in him, but myself. What did I do that he wasn't going to talk to me? What if he walked out without saying anything? Was I just a way to get his rocks off and he never talked to me again? He didn't want to talk about it right now at least, I gathered, quickly slipping into my own clothes and sitting back on the bed. I watched him for just a moment longer, where he stumbled with his jeans, and chose instead to pay attention to something else.
Lingering beside my throat, against a dark bruise that had formed on the side in an irritated purple and red circle, the monster was back. I could almost hear it, chattering away like the sounds of metal clanging on metal, drawing sharp teeth over my skin to agitate it. It felt heavier this time, like its weight could bend my shoulder down, and it did. With its long fingers pressing into my hands, I gave in, opening up the baggie from my hoodie's pocket.
I took out two little tablets, then a third, popping them into my mouth and sealing it up. I would need more soon.
"Colin?"
Oh, there was my heart!
Skipping a beat at the sound of his voice -- no, that wasn't needy anymore, that wasn't desirous, but instead sad, tired -- my heart was thudding again, and I whipped around to look at him, bringing a displeased pounding to the space between my ears. It couldn't be called a brain anymore, now that the sunlight was trickling in through the little gap between the window and curtain, now that I'd indubitably killed half of the cells in it.
"Yeah?"
Distraction.
I pulled out my phone, flipping through the new texts. Ronny, Ronny, Teresa, some girl who got my number, my mom reminding me my math grade was approaching a D, Teresa, Ronny, then, Jonny.
Are you free tomorrow
Tongue caught between my teeth as I read it, I chomped down on it in my distraction, flinching as I did so.
Sam crossed the room to stand in front of me, forcing on the loose overshirt he had been wearing previously. His brow had furrowed in a strange way, now into an expression I couldn't recognize. Somewhere between worry, sadness, and confusion – it made me sick.
"Can we...not..." Oh, God. I closed my phone, sitting it aside. Nervousness tangled up in my stomach. "You know...tell anyone?"
He was ashamed.
Of me, of himself, I don't know. But he didn't want anyone to know.
Taking in a steady breath, hearing it shake far more than I hoped Sam heard, I nodded. What was I agreeing to? Not to cry, I decided, because crying was not cool.
"Look, um..." A hand pushed through his hair, smoothing back the darkness of the short waves. His eyes, still just as electric blue as they had always been, still just as enchanting, studied me, as if he had forgotten what I looked like. He probably had. I was forgettable. "You wanna...come over sometime?"
And, slowly, I tried a smile, forcing myself to stand.
He wanted me to come over!
I must have been dreaming. Or, maybe, this was better than I had hoped. My parents couldn't tell me no.
"Sure."
I typed quickly into my phone's keyboard:
No, sorry. Y
--
We took to staying after school, as we never saw each other in the hallways. Mid-November chilly weather made walk homes tiring, but it was nothing we couldn't handle, walking together. I told my parents persistently I was staying after for study groups.
My grades never went up.
After a while, the drama club no longer had to have practices in the cafeteria on a makeshift stage. They were allowed to move to the auditorium. We stayed even after the drama club meetings were over.
Sometimes we kissed. No one ever saw. No one ever mentioned it. Once in a while, I remembered Jonny, and his sudden lack of involvement in anything. I never heard from him anymore. Barely a word, as I'd learned a few other guys around the school that traded filched money for little orange pills.
About three weeks, Sam and I managed this. In a passing glimpse in the hallway, I saw him for once, sitting on the edge of a bannister focused on his phone. With Teresa in tow, I could hardly stop elbowing her, gesturing to him until she noticed.
"That's him!" I had whispered, eyes wide.
She had given me a little hum, unimpressed, unamused. "He doesn't look evil."
"He's not evil, I just slept with him. I've known him for a week!"
Her only answer had been a roll of her eyes.
Thus I learned to stop including Teresa in things I was worried about. I learned to stop including Teresa in a lot of things, after she stopped including me. Ronny didn't text me half as much after that, and neither did his brother.
I got to know Sam better than I had expected. I had yet to go to his house, in these last three weeks, but I learned things about him. For the badass front he had about him, he was far from it at times. He had a certain expression to his face when he didn't want me to know something, when he was letting me know something he didn't want anyone else to know in the fear it would ruin his reputation. His eyes would roll up and off to the side, his chin would tip away, and he would speak in sighs, pursing and relaxing his lips in different directions.
For example, he loved kittens. He wanted to work in a pet shop so he could deal with kittens all day. He loved Disney movies, especially Beauty and the Beast, and he had once even whispered that he cried, every single time, when Simba's dad died in The Lion King. He liked watching those reality shows where the only thing that happened was a "yes" or "no" on a paternity test and guys would get in fights. He said if he couldn't be a veterinarian, he wanted to go to culinary school and be a chef.
Sometimes when I came in late, I would catch him sliding around on stage without his shoes, humming to some old song from the 80s. The first time, he'd just grinned at me and said he did that at home all the time.
He was more cute than intimidating, I thought.
Somedays we didn't do anything but sit close and talk about anything. Everything. Nothing. Just sit in silence and breathe.
Today, we had decided that was all we were going to do. Laying down on the stage, my legs hung off the edge, dangling precariously into the pit. There was nothing he hadn't seen already, and I felt plenty comfortable without my hoodie, left in a grey shirt that felt as if I was swimming in it.
My fingers were messing with the underside of the red curtain, a horrible contrast to the beige walls and brown carpeting, even worse against the awkward brown seats in the auditorium.
I wasn't talking about much.
"I dunno, I guess she has the right to feel underappreciated, you know?"
"I think so," he mused, simply smiling at me. Then, his voice took on a whining tone. "Gabe called my cat ugly."
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