I am kissing Ben in the passenger seat of his car when I realize I’m starting to fall for him. Being only human, I snap my head back so suddenly that it smashes against the window, momentarily blinding me with lightning bolts of pain. To his credit, Ben at least asks if I’m okay and checks to see if I’m bleeding before he bursts out laughing.
“What the hell was that?” he asks. I shake my head, jostling my already scrambled brain a little more.
“Nothing,” I say. “I just… nothing.”
“No, tell me,” he presses, but I just shake my head and tap the clock on the dashboard.
“It’s nothing. I just thought we should, you know, go in. The bell’s going to ring soon,” I say. Ben shoots me a doubtful look, but kills the engine and pockets his keys anyway. I meet him around the front end of the car and sling an arm across his shoulders, pressing a kiss to the top of his head as we set off towards the front doors of the school.
“Hey, Travis,” Logan calls to me from the front steps where he is sitting with a few of his friends. “Do you date guys who wear makeup and girls’ jeans because you like to pretend you’re still straight?”
“No,” I say, “I date them because the tight pants accentuate their dicks.”
“I’m sorry, but did you justcheck?” Ben says, squinting at Logan.
“No, I-”
“Please refrain from staring at my junk. It’s kind of gay,” he finishes. He heads up the steps, lacing his fingers through mine to tug me after him. We separate to go to our lockers, which are in different wings, and meet up again outside my homeroom.
“Are you nervous about tonight?” I ask. He shrugs.
“Trying not to think about it,” he says.
“Come on. You’ve had a week to prepare.”
“And you’ve had four. It’s not my fault you took three weeks to get around to telling me I had to have dinner with your parents.”
“I know,” I say quietly. “It’s just that… these past few weeks have been great. It’s the first time I’ve felt really normal with somebody. Not just since I came out, either. I mean ever. It’s the first time I haven’t been lying to at least one person. And I don’t want to lose that, so I figured if I could put off this ridiculous meet-and-greet, maybe I could keep everything all perfect for a while.”
Ben wraps his arms around my waist and burrows into the circle of my arms, burying his face against my neck. “Everything can be however you want it to be. For as long as you want it to be.”
I am definitely starting to fall for him. Fuck.
The bells rings right above our heads, and Ben makes a muffled sound of protest. I laugh and kiss his forehead.
“I’ll come to your locker after the last bell,” I say. “If you start to get too nervous about tonight, you can always talk to Alex about it. I’m sure he’d be willing to talk you down.”
“Will do,” Ben replies. “I’m about to get marked absent, probably, so I’ll see you at two o’clock.”
I nod. He leans up to kiss me on the cheek, then pulls up the hoods of both our sweatshirts, just like he does every morning. I roll my eyes a little, and he sticks out his tongue at me, nudging my shoulder - or, more accurately, the middle of my bicep - with his before setting off towards the senior wing.
“Mr. McCall, as vital as I’m sure kissing Mr. McCutcheon is to your education, I need you to be in the classroom before the bell rings from now on,” Mr. Beckford says in a bored tone, not looking up from his attendance sheet. There’s a chorus of snickers as I sit down.
“Sorry,” I say. He returns to taking attendance, then passes it to Corey to bring down to the main office. As he draws level with my desk, Corey stoops down to put his mouth next to my ear.
“Isn’t it funny how Mr. fucking Beckford knows more about your life than your supposed best friend?” he mutters. I want to turn to stare at him, but I can’t make myself move. Instead, I just sit there, frozen, through the morning announcements, the Pledge of Allegiance, the bell signaling the transition to first period. I stand very slowly and make my way to Precalculus. Corey is already there, slouching in his seat and scribbling notes off the board. I don’t get why he bothers; he can never read his notes anyway, and always ends up copying mine on the machine in the Guidance office two hours before the test.
“Cor,” I say. “Can we talk?”
“Apparently not,” he says flatly. “The last time we did was when I called you, back in February, and made you go call some of the seniors you hang out with now. Christ, aren’t I glad I opened that fucking can of worms.”
“I’m sorry. Things just got… hectic. I had a shitty February break, and then I’ve been busy. I-I’ve had homework and my job at the Grind, and that’s pretty much always monopolized all my time. But then I’ve also been trying to spend time with Ben now that-”
“Now that you’re going out? Yeah, I heard. Shelley told me a month ago, she heard it from her sister. It’s obviously not a secret, so I don’t get why I didn’t hear it from you,” Corey snaps.
“Who’s Shelley?” I ask.
“Shelley is the person who I’m dating. You’d know that if you had returned any of my messages,” he says, turning back to his notebook. “Look. It’s obvious you’ve got some new life that I don’t get to be a part of. Ben’s your new boyfriend, Alex fuckin’ Baker is your new best friend, Jeremy-”
“You’ve got it all wrong! I don’t-”
“Mr. McCall, Mr. Copicetti, if you could save your conversation for after school, I’d like to get started,” Mrs. DelMino says loudly. She peers at us over the rim of her glasses and turns back to face the board. “Now, if everyone could look at the graph on the board, who can tell me the sine of three pi over two?”
“Corey,” I whisper, edging my desk towards his. He glances at me more out of instinct than genuine desire to keep talking to me, but I’ll take what I can get.
“What?” he mutters. I pause as Mrs. DelMino glances over her shoulder to make sure we’re all copying the work off the board. She turns around.
“After this class is over, do you want to blow off the rest of the day? Go hang out?” I say. He blinks at me for almost a full minutes, and I can’t tell if he’s amused that his National Honor Society best friend is suggesting blowing off school, or pissed that I’ve changed enough to suggest it. But eventually, he nods once.
“Yeah. Sure,” he says. Even after I return my focus to my notebook, I can feel his eyes periodically darting back to me throughout the rest of class, but I try not to pay attention to it. When the bell finally rings, he and I both stand up.
“I’m going to go drop my stuff off in my locker. Meet me in the parking lot?” I say. He shrugs and heads for his own locker. Instead of following him to the junior wing, I bolt up to the senior one to find Ben. He is standing on his toes to peer into the top shelf of his locker, and jumps when I touch his hip.
“Hi,” I say quickly. “I just wanted to let you know I’m skipping the rest of the day, so I won’t be at lunch.”
“Skipping?” he echoes, and I nod.
“Corey is… pissed at me. To say the very least. I guess things have been weird for a while, because we used to be best friends, but… you know. First there was Garen, and then there was me moping about Garen, and now there’s you-”
“Got it,” Ben says, nodding sharply. “Text me or something if you’ll be back at two o’clock so I know whether or not I’m bringing you home. If not, then I-I’ll see you tonight.”
“Don’t be nervous,” I say, pecking him on the cheek. I manage to bite back the words before I let out the next sentence, but I can’t stop myself from thinking it. I love you. Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Hold the fucking phone. I what him?
“I’ll try not to be,” he says, with a small upward flick of his eyes that tells me he’d be speaking sarcastically, if he didn’t always speak in one shade off from monotone. I try to smile, but instead, I let out a spastic, stuttering laugh that sends Ben’s eyebrows towards his hairline. I press another tight-lipped kiss to his cheek and bolt, calling a goodbye over my shoulder. I can’t even begin to relax until I’m outside, sitting on one of the benches near the main parking lot.
This isn’t supposed to be happening. I’m not supposed to be falling for someone else. As much as I want to get over Garen, I know I can’t. Or at least, I shouldn’t. What if he comes back? I grip the edges of the bench and squeeze my eyes shut. I should be blocking these thoughts out, should be trying everything in my power to make this horrible hopefulness go away, but it’s too late, because I’m already thinking it. What if Ben was right weeks ago, when he said that Garen would never be able to stay away from me? I can’t have him come back to me just to have him leave again. But if he’s not coming back, I can’t wait for him forever. Can I?
“Where do you want to go?”
I jolt, and my eyes fly open. Corey is hovering awkwardly nearby, gesturing with his keys. I jump to my feet.
“Anywhere,” I say. “I mean, we could… the park? If you-”
“The park’s good,” Corey agrees. I follow him across the lot, but he stops to unlock a dark red pick-up truck. I blink before climbing into the passenger seat.
“You got a new car?” I say. He nods.
“A few weeks ago. I left you a voicemail,” he says. I slip a hand into my pocket to touch my cell phone, trying not to think of the tiny voicemail icon that’s been blinking in the corner of the screen for days. The rest of the car ride passes in awkward silence, and I’m grateful for the crisp, cool air when we finally arrive at the park and get out. Corey jams his hands into his pockets and heads for the playground. After a few seconds of hesitation, I jog after him. He pauses near the jungle gym.
“Wanna?” he says. At first, I think he’s talking about climbing it. Then I realize he’s gripping a plastic Bic lighter and a pack of Newports. When he tips it upside down over his palm, however, a joint comes out. I stare.
“Since when do you smoke pot?” I ask. He shrugs.
“I probably started around the same time you started getting wasted and letting Alex Baker put it in your ass,” he says.
“He didn’t ‘put it in my ass.’ Why, is that what you heard?” I ask.
“Really not the point,” he says flatly. I flush and look down at the ground. I expect him to light up, but he sighs and tucks the joint back into the cigarette pack. “Which do you want to talk about first?”
“What do you mean?”
“Who do you wanna tell me about first? Alex or Ben?” he presses. Neither. I can’t say that, though, so I sit down on one of the swings and tighten my hands on the chains until decades-old rust digs into my palms.
“There isn’t much to say about Alex. We hooked up at this party he had over February break, but it was only because he was drunk. He’s straight, actually,” I say. Corey snorts and sinks down onto the swing next to me.
“Uh, no, he’s not. Trust me. If he was straight, he wouldn’t hook up with dudes,” he says. “I mean, he’s ‘straight’ like you were ‘straight.’ As in, not. He isn’t straight like I’m straight. ‘Cause I’m sure you’re real, you know, whatever in bed, but it’s just not my thing. Just… not for me.”
I laugh.
“But anyway… so you hooked up with Alex, yeah? Yeah. And now you’re hooking up with Ben McCutcheon-”
“I’m dating Ben McCutcheon,” I correct. “He’s my boyfriend.”
“Oh?” Corey says. “How’d that happen?”
“I’m not really sure,” I say, shrugging. “I think it was sort of inevitable. We’re a lot alike, and… I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like he wasn’t even a part of my life before November, and then he was suddenly so deeply ingrained in it. Even when I was with Garen, Ben was just in my face all the time. He was always there, hitting on my boyfriend, or hitting on me, and it was really obnoxious, but then once Garen left-”
“If you say there was a hole that needed to be filled, I might throw up,” Corey says mildly. I shove him off his swing.
“Fuck you,” I say, laughing. “No. I just mean I couldn’t act like he wasn’t there, because he was, just as much as before, but then I suddenly didn’t mind it. It was nice, even. And it all happened pretty fast after that.
“If Garen had never come to Lakewood, would you have gotten with Ben from the start? If you met him on your own, that is,” Corey says. I laugh softly.
“If Garen had never come to Lakewood, I would’ve remained deeply in the closet until I was like, thirty,” I say. Corey rolls his eyes, though, so I shrug. “I probably would’ve gotten with Ben eventually, yeah. If I’d met him on my own, if I’d figured it all out before he graduated. It would’ve been a lot slower, probably, because Ben’s not like Garen at all. He wouldn’t have kind of… I don’t know, pushed me into it, like Garen did. Not that Garen forced me or whatever, he just made me take the leap I was barely ready to take. But Ben’s like… shy. Really, really shy, actually.”
“Weird. ‘Cause when I walked by his car this morning and saw him with his tongue in your mouth, he didn’t look too shy,” Corey says, but he’s standing a few feet away now, so I can’t hit him.
“Fuck you. He’s shy. But it would’ve happened anyway, because… there’s just always been a spark, I guess. You know? We’ve always had some chemistry,” I say.
“Like with Garen.”
“No,” I say. “Not like with Garen. Because with Garen, it was more than inevitable, it was like this huge thing that was so fast and so right. It was intoxicating, it was… well, he called us a force of nature. Right before he left. So I guess that puts things in perspective. And it’s not like that with Ben, because everything is so much more… I feel normal, Cor. For the first time in years, I’m just honestly, genuinely happy, and it’s amazing, but it’s scary as shit, too.”
“It shouldn’t be scary,” Corey protests.
“It is, though! The last time I was this happy, a trust fund kid obliterated my heart under his steel-toed combat boots. I don’t want a repeat of that event with an emo kid in Converse,” I say. I kick at the sand and wait for a reply. I wait a while. I finally glance at Corey. He’s staring back. I gesture for him to speak.
“Hang on,” he says. “Are you, like… do you love him, or whatever?”
I shrug and kick the sand again. “I don’t even know, at this point. It’s hard to figure out what’s real and what’s not real. I-I think I might, I think I do, but it’s not like it was with Garen, and that’s all I have to compare it to. So I don’t know if it counts as love if I don’t want to spend every waking second with him, fighting with him, yelling at him, getting screwed senseless by him-”
“Dude.”
“Sorry. But… you know what I mean. Part of me is just absolutely certain that it doesn’t count as really being in love if I’m not getting hurt someone. Like being hurt is proof that I really care enough about him. And then the rest of me thinks that one part is retarded, because how could I not fall for Ben? I mean… okay. He’s too short, and he’s sarcastic as hell, and he’s such a fucking train wreck-”
“His stock is really plummeting in this conversation, Travis…”
“-but he’s funny, and he’s smart - like, painfully smart, smarter than me - and he’s so goddamn cute-”
“You lost me.”
“-and he gets me. As stupid as that sounds, it’s true. All the shit I could never explain right to Garen, I don’t have to explain to Ben. He just knows,” I say. Corey digs back into his pocket for the Newports, taking out an actual cigarette this time. He lights it, takes a drag, and glances at me.
“It’s like with me and Shelley,” he says carefully. I lean back on the swing and start to turn myself around so I’m trapped beneath the twisted chain.
“Tell me about her,” I say.
“She’s a sophomore. Her sister’s on the girls’ cross-country team, so she goes to practices sometimes, and we just started talking one day. She’s pretty and fun to hang with, so I asked her out a few weeks ago. She doesn’t… okay, I get that I’m kind of stupid, right? It’s not like I think I’m Einstein or whatever, I know I’m an idiot. But Shelley doesn’t even care about that. She likes me anyway. And she doesn’t care that I’m sort of weird, either. I don’t have to explain why I hate double-chocolate chip cookies-”
“You think they’re boring and lack gustatory variety.”
“Or why I hate when Faye makes us watch anything with Johnny Depp in it-”
“You’re jealous of him. He got to be a pirate, and also, you can’t grow facial hair.”
“Or anything stupid like that. She just kind of takes it all in stride, and isn’t… she’s not embarrassed by my quirks and shit, like most girls are. She likes me for me,” he says.
“I’m happy for you, then. She sounds cool,” I say. He nods his thanks, and I smile slightly. Several minutes pass in silence. Finally, he grinds out his cigarette and gestures across the playground.
“You wanna see who can run up the slide the fastest?” he asks. I look up at him, see the carefully measured look of caring and uncaring. I stand up.
“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, let’s do that.
Previous Chapter Next Chapter
“What the hell was that?” he asks. I shake my head, jostling my already scrambled brain a little more.
“Nothing,” I say. “I just… nothing.”
“No, tell me,” he presses, but I just shake my head and tap the clock on the dashboard.
“It’s nothing. I just thought we should, you know, go in. The bell’s going to ring soon,” I say. Ben shoots me a doubtful look, but kills the engine and pockets his keys anyway. I meet him around the front end of the car and sling an arm across his shoulders, pressing a kiss to the top of his head as we set off towards the front doors of the school.
“Hey, Travis,” Logan calls to me from the front steps where he is sitting with a few of his friends. “Do you date guys who wear makeup and girls’ jeans because you like to pretend you’re still straight?”
“No,” I say, “I date them because the tight pants accentuate their dicks.”
“I’m sorry, but did you justcheck?” Ben says, squinting at Logan.
“No, I-”
“Please refrain from staring at my junk. It’s kind of gay,” he finishes. He heads up the steps, lacing his fingers through mine to tug me after him. We separate to go to our lockers, which are in different wings, and meet up again outside my homeroom.
“Are you nervous about tonight?” I ask. He shrugs.
“Trying not to think about it,” he says.
“Come on. You’ve had a week to prepare.”
“And you’ve had four. It’s not my fault you took three weeks to get around to telling me I had to have dinner with your parents.”
“I know,” I say quietly. “It’s just that… these past few weeks have been great. It’s the first time I’ve felt really normal with somebody. Not just since I came out, either. I mean ever. It’s the first time I haven’t been lying to at least one person. And I don’t want to lose that, so I figured if I could put off this ridiculous meet-and-greet, maybe I could keep everything all perfect for a while.”
Ben wraps his arms around my waist and burrows into the circle of my arms, burying his face against my neck. “Everything can be however you want it to be. For as long as you want it to be.”
I am definitely starting to fall for him. Fuck.
The bells rings right above our heads, and Ben makes a muffled sound of protest. I laugh and kiss his forehead.
“I’ll come to your locker after the last bell,” I say. “If you start to get too nervous about tonight, you can always talk to Alex about it. I’m sure he’d be willing to talk you down.”
“Will do,” Ben replies. “I’m about to get marked absent, probably, so I’ll see you at two o’clock.”
I nod. He leans up to kiss me on the cheek, then pulls up the hoods of both our sweatshirts, just like he does every morning. I roll my eyes a little, and he sticks out his tongue at me, nudging my shoulder - or, more accurately, the middle of my bicep - with his before setting off towards the senior wing.
“Mr. McCall, as vital as I’m sure kissing Mr. McCutcheon is to your education, I need you to be in the classroom before the bell rings from now on,” Mr. Beckford says in a bored tone, not looking up from his attendance sheet. There’s a chorus of snickers as I sit down.
“Sorry,” I say. He returns to taking attendance, then passes it to Corey to bring down to the main office. As he draws level with my desk, Corey stoops down to put his mouth next to my ear.
“Isn’t it funny how Mr. fucking Beckford knows more about your life than your supposed best friend?” he mutters. I want to turn to stare at him, but I can’t make myself move. Instead, I just sit there, frozen, through the morning announcements, the Pledge of Allegiance, the bell signaling the transition to first period. I stand very slowly and make my way to Precalculus. Corey is already there, slouching in his seat and scribbling notes off the board. I don’t get why he bothers; he can never read his notes anyway, and always ends up copying mine on the machine in the Guidance office two hours before the test.
“Cor,” I say. “Can we talk?”
“Apparently not,” he says flatly. “The last time we did was when I called you, back in February, and made you go call some of the seniors you hang out with now. Christ, aren’t I glad I opened that fucking can of worms.”
“I’m sorry. Things just got… hectic. I had a shitty February break, and then I’ve been busy. I-I’ve had homework and my job at the Grind, and that’s pretty much always monopolized all my time. But then I’ve also been trying to spend time with Ben now that-”
“Now that you’re going out? Yeah, I heard. Shelley told me a month ago, she heard it from her sister. It’s obviously not a secret, so I don’t get why I didn’t hear it from you,” Corey snaps.
“Who’s Shelley?” I ask.
“Shelley is the person who I’m dating. You’d know that if you had returned any of my messages,” he says, turning back to his notebook. “Look. It’s obvious you’ve got some new life that I don’t get to be a part of. Ben’s your new boyfriend, Alex fuckin’ Baker is your new best friend, Jeremy-”
“You’ve got it all wrong! I don’t-”
“Mr. McCall, Mr. Copicetti, if you could save your conversation for after school, I’d like to get started,” Mrs. DelMino says loudly. She peers at us over the rim of her glasses and turns back to face the board. “Now, if everyone could look at the graph on the board, who can tell me the sine of three pi over two?”
“Corey,” I whisper, edging my desk towards his. He glances at me more out of instinct than genuine desire to keep talking to me, but I’ll take what I can get.
“What?” he mutters. I pause as Mrs. DelMino glances over her shoulder to make sure we’re all copying the work off the board. She turns around.
“After this class is over, do you want to blow off the rest of the day? Go hang out?” I say. He blinks at me for almost a full minutes, and I can’t tell if he’s amused that his National Honor Society best friend is suggesting blowing off school, or pissed that I’ve changed enough to suggest it. But eventually, he nods once.
“Yeah. Sure,” he says. Even after I return my focus to my notebook, I can feel his eyes periodically darting back to me throughout the rest of class, but I try not to pay attention to it. When the bell finally rings, he and I both stand up.
“I’m going to go drop my stuff off in my locker. Meet me in the parking lot?” I say. He shrugs and heads for his own locker. Instead of following him to the junior wing, I bolt up to the senior one to find Ben. He is standing on his toes to peer into the top shelf of his locker, and jumps when I touch his hip.
“Hi,” I say quickly. “I just wanted to let you know I’m skipping the rest of the day, so I won’t be at lunch.”
“Skipping?” he echoes, and I nod.
“Corey is… pissed at me. To say the very least. I guess things have been weird for a while, because we used to be best friends, but… you know. First there was Garen, and then there was me moping about Garen, and now there’s you-”
“Got it,” Ben says, nodding sharply. “Text me or something if you’ll be back at two o’clock so I know whether or not I’m bringing you home. If not, then I-I’ll see you tonight.”
“Don’t be nervous,” I say, pecking him on the cheek. I manage to bite back the words before I let out the next sentence, but I can’t stop myself from thinking it. I love you. Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Hold the fucking phone. I what him?
“I’ll try not to be,” he says, with a small upward flick of his eyes that tells me he’d be speaking sarcastically, if he didn’t always speak in one shade off from monotone. I try to smile, but instead, I let out a spastic, stuttering laugh that sends Ben’s eyebrows towards his hairline. I press another tight-lipped kiss to his cheek and bolt, calling a goodbye over my shoulder. I can’t even begin to relax until I’m outside, sitting on one of the benches near the main parking lot.
This isn’t supposed to be happening. I’m not supposed to be falling for someone else. As much as I want to get over Garen, I know I can’t. Or at least, I shouldn’t. What if he comes back? I grip the edges of the bench and squeeze my eyes shut. I should be blocking these thoughts out, should be trying everything in my power to make this horrible hopefulness go away, but it’s too late, because I’m already thinking it. What if Ben was right weeks ago, when he said that Garen would never be able to stay away from me? I can’t have him come back to me just to have him leave again. But if he’s not coming back, I can’t wait for him forever. Can I?
“Where do you want to go?”
I jolt, and my eyes fly open. Corey is hovering awkwardly nearby, gesturing with his keys. I jump to my feet.
“Anywhere,” I say. “I mean, we could… the park? If you-”
“The park’s good,” Corey agrees. I follow him across the lot, but he stops to unlock a dark red pick-up truck. I blink before climbing into the passenger seat.
“You got a new car?” I say. He nods.
“A few weeks ago. I left you a voicemail,” he says. I slip a hand into my pocket to touch my cell phone, trying not to think of the tiny voicemail icon that’s been blinking in the corner of the screen for days. The rest of the car ride passes in awkward silence, and I’m grateful for the crisp, cool air when we finally arrive at the park and get out. Corey jams his hands into his pockets and heads for the playground. After a few seconds of hesitation, I jog after him. He pauses near the jungle gym.
“Wanna?” he says. At first, I think he’s talking about climbing it. Then I realize he’s gripping a plastic Bic lighter and a pack of Newports. When he tips it upside down over his palm, however, a joint comes out. I stare.
“Since when do you smoke pot?” I ask. He shrugs.
“I probably started around the same time you started getting wasted and letting Alex Baker put it in your ass,” he says.
“He didn’t ‘put it in my ass.’ Why, is that what you heard?” I ask.
“Really not the point,” he says flatly. I flush and look down at the ground. I expect him to light up, but he sighs and tucks the joint back into the cigarette pack. “Which do you want to talk about first?”
“What do you mean?”
“Who do you wanna tell me about first? Alex or Ben?” he presses. Neither. I can’t say that, though, so I sit down on one of the swings and tighten my hands on the chains until decades-old rust digs into my palms.
“There isn’t much to say about Alex. We hooked up at this party he had over February break, but it was only because he was drunk. He’s straight, actually,” I say. Corey snorts and sinks down onto the swing next to me.
“Uh, no, he’s not. Trust me. If he was straight, he wouldn’t hook up with dudes,” he says. “I mean, he’s ‘straight’ like you were ‘straight.’ As in, not. He isn’t straight like I’m straight. ‘Cause I’m sure you’re real, you know, whatever in bed, but it’s just not my thing. Just… not for me.”
I laugh.
“But anyway… so you hooked up with Alex, yeah? Yeah. And now you’re hooking up with Ben McCutcheon-”
“I’m dating Ben McCutcheon,” I correct. “He’s my boyfriend.”
“Oh?” Corey says. “How’d that happen?”
“I’m not really sure,” I say, shrugging. “I think it was sort of inevitable. We’re a lot alike, and… I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like he wasn’t even a part of my life before November, and then he was suddenly so deeply ingrained in it. Even when I was with Garen, Ben was just in my face all the time. He was always there, hitting on my boyfriend, or hitting on me, and it was really obnoxious, but then once Garen left-”
“If you say there was a hole that needed to be filled, I might throw up,” Corey says mildly. I shove him off his swing.
“Fuck you,” I say, laughing. “No. I just mean I couldn’t act like he wasn’t there, because he was, just as much as before, but then I suddenly didn’t mind it. It was nice, even. And it all happened pretty fast after that.
“If Garen had never come to Lakewood, would you have gotten with Ben from the start? If you met him on your own, that is,” Corey says. I laugh softly.
“If Garen had never come to Lakewood, I would’ve remained deeply in the closet until I was like, thirty,” I say. Corey rolls his eyes, though, so I shrug. “I probably would’ve gotten with Ben eventually, yeah. If I’d met him on my own, if I’d figured it all out before he graduated. It would’ve been a lot slower, probably, because Ben’s not like Garen at all. He wouldn’t have kind of… I don’t know, pushed me into it, like Garen did. Not that Garen forced me or whatever, he just made me take the leap I was barely ready to take. But Ben’s like… shy. Really, really shy, actually.”
“Weird. ‘Cause when I walked by his car this morning and saw him with his tongue in your mouth, he didn’t look too shy,” Corey says, but he’s standing a few feet away now, so I can’t hit him.
“Fuck you. He’s shy. But it would’ve happened anyway, because… there’s just always been a spark, I guess. You know? We’ve always had some chemistry,” I say.
“Like with Garen.”
“No,” I say. “Not like with Garen. Because with Garen, it was more than inevitable, it was like this huge thing that was so fast and so right. It was intoxicating, it was… well, he called us a force of nature. Right before he left. So I guess that puts things in perspective. And it’s not like that with Ben, because everything is so much more… I feel normal, Cor. For the first time in years, I’m just honestly, genuinely happy, and it’s amazing, but it’s scary as shit, too.”
“It shouldn’t be scary,” Corey protests.
“It is, though! The last time I was this happy, a trust fund kid obliterated my heart under his steel-toed combat boots. I don’t want a repeat of that event with an emo kid in Converse,” I say. I kick at the sand and wait for a reply. I wait a while. I finally glance at Corey. He’s staring back. I gesture for him to speak.
“Hang on,” he says. “Are you, like… do you love him, or whatever?”
I shrug and kick the sand again. “I don’t even know, at this point. It’s hard to figure out what’s real and what’s not real. I-I think I might, I think I do, but it’s not like it was with Garen, and that’s all I have to compare it to. So I don’t know if it counts as love if I don’t want to spend every waking second with him, fighting with him, yelling at him, getting screwed senseless by him-”
“Dude.”
“Sorry. But… you know what I mean. Part of me is just absolutely certain that it doesn’t count as really being in love if I’m not getting hurt someone. Like being hurt is proof that I really care enough about him. And then the rest of me thinks that one part is retarded, because how could I not fall for Ben? I mean… okay. He’s too short, and he’s sarcastic as hell, and he’s such a fucking train wreck-”
“His stock is really plummeting in this conversation, Travis…”
“-but he’s funny, and he’s smart - like, painfully smart, smarter than me - and he’s so goddamn cute-”
“You lost me.”
“-and he gets me. As stupid as that sounds, it’s true. All the shit I could never explain right to Garen, I don’t have to explain to Ben. He just knows,” I say. Corey digs back into his pocket for the Newports, taking out an actual cigarette this time. He lights it, takes a drag, and glances at me.
“It’s like with me and Shelley,” he says carefully. I lean back on the swing and start to turn myself around so I’m trapped beneath the twisted chain.
“Tell me about her,” I say.
“She’s a sophomore. Her sister’s on the girls’ cross-country team, so she goes to practices sometimes, and we just started talking one day. She’s pretty and fun to hang with, so I asked her out a few weeks ago. She doesn’t… okay, I get that I’m kind of stupid, right? It’s not like I think I’m Einstein or whatever, I know I’m an idiot. But Shelley doesn’t even care about that. She likes me anyway. And she doesn’t care that I’m sort of weird, either. I don’t have to explain why I hate double-chocolate chip cookies-”
“You think they’re boring and lack gustatory variety.”
“Or why I hate when Faye makes us watch anything with Johnny Depp in it-”
“You’re jealous of him. He got to be a pirate, and also, you can’t grow facial hair.”
“Or anything stupid like that. She just kind of takes it all in stride, and isn’t… she’s not embarrassed by my quirks and shit, like most girls are. She likes me for me,” he says.
“I’m happy for you, then. She sounds cool,” I say. He nods his thanks, and I smile slightly. Several minutes pass in silence. Finally, he grinds out his cigarette and gestures across the playground.
“You wanna see who can run up the slide the fastest?” he asks. I look up at him, see the carefully measured look of caring and uncaring. I stand up.
“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, let’s do that.
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