Boys & Things

Sure enough, nine-thirty sharp I wake up, fully energized and not tired a wink. The house is quiet save for the sound of the TV coming from the living room. Dad’s either watching it or he’s fallen asleep in front of it. At least, that’s what used to happen. Now that he’s started fucking Kelly, they’re probably be back in his bedroom or on the couch playing tonsil hockey. Yuck.

I pull the covers over my head and stay under until it gets too stuffy. Then I stick my head out and inhale clean air rapidly but it still isn’t enough so I get up and open my window. Cooper is sitting at his dining room table playing solitaire with actual cards. After a few minutes, he sighs and cleans it up before dealing a new hand. It’s pretty sad when you play solitaire by yourself and with real cards, too, not the easy computer version. He doesn’t win like five times in a row and then I think he’s going to but he folds. I want to yell at him because I can see a move but I don’t. I pick up my laptop and sign into Facebook. My notifications have exploded.

I have three messages of people asking me if I’ll help them figure out if they’re gay. One even offers me money. Jason Roth has gone ape-shit on my wall and has pretty much called me every name under the sun. People have even gone on Ben’s wall and preached to him about how being gay is wrong. But even he got a few offers like mine. And what I posted on Jason’s wall is gone but you can tell by the onslaught of comments that he didn’t delete it fast enough. Peter Frank, who is openly gay, has sent him multiple Wall posts about how he wanted to get together sometime. I’ve started a war but it’s so amusing that I don’t care. I grab my phone and turn it on. I have four missed calls from Ben, one voice mail (also from Ben), and five texts. Three are from Ben, telling me to stop this now because look what I’ve started, one is from Greg, apologizing, and one is from Kelly. She asks me if I’m okay. I ignore all the messages and listen to the voicemail from Ben.

“EJ, this is stupid. Why did you start all this? You just couldn’t leave it alone, could you? God, EJ, it’s already hard enough to be gay and you just had to go and make it worse. Typical selfish EJ. End of message.” I hang up and throw my phone onto my bed. I feel bad for Ben because he really deserves better but I can’t muster up any more than a few seconds of sympathy. It’s only been a few hours since he dumped me for another guy.

I pace my room a few times. My stomach growls a little. I hope that Dad’s gone to bed and that Kelly isn’t here since I’m starving. I wait a few more minutes but my stomach is calling to the monster under my bed and I can’t take it anymore. The house is dark which hopefully means that they’re not in the living room. I’m only half right. Dad is asleep in front of the TV and there’s some infomercial playing. I don’t turn it off. This is my fuck you to him. Make him pay a higher electric bill.

We don’t have much in the way of snacks but I manage to find a faded box with a granola bar in it in the back of the cabinet. It’s questionable because I don’t remember us ever having granola bars but it’s not too bad so I eat it and drink some apple juice. It isn’t very filling. I grab a cheese stick, the last one, and eat the strings slowly, peering out the kitchen window. It looks out into the street and tonight, the street isn’t empty. At first, I think it’s Colin but then he moves under the street lamp and I realize that it’s Tate. He’s on his skateboard. I wonder what he’s doing out here because he lives four streets away and if Cooper saw him, there would most definitely be a fight.

I watch Tate for a while. He’s just cruising up and down the street, hopping curbs and doing fancy tricks. For someone so tall, he’s much more graceful than you’d think. That’s part of his appeal. Graceful, attractive Tate Armstrong with his dark hair and green eyes. He has a tattoo of a star on his wrist. Kelly used to fantasize about kissing that tattoo. She’d go into details if she get really into it. I’d always stop her before the big finale, right before she’s about to say, “and then he uses his love stick to pene—” Poor Tate. He never got laid in her daydreams, not with Courtney Cockblock here.

Tate is about to jump up a curb when the front of the board hits the cement and he goes down. It’s like in slow-motion. He stretches out his arms and catches himself easily but he lays there in the road for a little while. Headlights shine down the street but still Tate doesn’t move. The car is getting closer and closer and I’m just wondering, why isn’t Tate moving? Then I can’t stand the thought of watching someone die so I run outside and scream his name.

The car roars passed and I stare, open-mouthed at the spot where Tate used to be. But then he’s still there and he’s completely okay. “Oh my god,” I cry. I lift my hand to my mouth and bite down on my knuckle because goddammit, this day has sucked and I almost just saw someone become road kill.

“Are you okay?” Tate asks. He gets up and walks over to my yard. He leaves his skateboard on the sidewalk. It isn’t like someone is going to steal that thing, not in this neighborhood. I shake my head. If I talk, I’m afraid I’ll cry and I’m not a crier. Not ever. And especially not to someone like Tate Armstrong who’d probably use my emotional turmoil to get into my pants. It’s probably a tried and true tactic. He puts his hands on my shoulders and I think that yes, he’s going to make a move on me. My whole body tenses up and he drops his hands immediately, probably thinking the worse.

“What the hell are you doing?” I snap because being mad is easier than being sad. “You were almost killed!”

Tate shakes his head. With the streetlamp backlighting his face, I can barely see his features. He just looks like a big shadow which helps because then I can’t see how unbelievably hot he is. “That car was a few feet away from me,” he says. “I was fine.”

I can’t look at his shadowy face anymore so I turn around and show him my back. It’s only now that I realize how unattractive I am. It’s eight-thirty and I’m still in the same clothes from this morning, all wrinkled with dried sweat. My make-up is probably either gone or smeared around my eyes and my sunburn just adds to my overall feeling of ugly. It still doesn’t hurt but I dread tomorrow. I run my hands through my hair and wince because it’s greasy and tangled and gross but I don’t have a hair tie so I just let it fall back into place.

“Are you okay?” Tate asks again. I’m not. I am so not okay. But I don’t say that. I turn back to face him and hope that it’s too dark for Tate to notice my general ugliness. “Holy shit,” he says. “What happened to your face?” Fuck you, universe. I cross my arms over my chest and glare at him.

“It’s a sunburn, dickwad,” I say.

“How the hell did you manage that?” Headlights swing around the corner and I’m aware that we’re standing in my yard where anyone can see us. It isn’t a good thing when Tate’s at your house. It means that you’ve become the most recent conquest. I don’t want people to think that I’ve become a giant slut since Ben broke up with me all of seven hours ago. It’s one thing to hook up with someone to make yourself feel better. It’s another thing completely to hook up with Tate Armstrong the day that you get dumped. There’s a grace period, y’know? And this town is full of gossips. I just hope that none of them drove by.

“I fell asleep outside.” I don’t like my arms across my chest so I drop them. This feels weird, too, so I shove them in my pockets. But these jeans are stupid and the pockets aren’t deep enough so mostly I look retarded. I go back to crossing them over my chest.

Tate raises an eyebrow at me but doesn’t say anything about my adjustments. “Don’t you put on sunscreen?” he asks.

“No,” I say, even though I do. I just want Tate to leave. “Listen, it’s late.” I try to be nice. But the words feel awkward in my mouth and I do the whole readjusting my arms thing again. Tate just watches me. “Okay, yeah, that was me telling you to leave.”

Tate’s eyebrows shoot up but instead of getting offended, he just smiles at me, like we have a secret. “Goodnight, EJ,” he says, hopping off the curb. He jogs over to his skateboard and steps on the edge so it pops up. “See you soon!” he calls. I sincerely hope not. Then he hops on the board and rolls off down the street. I hate myself for it, but I watch him go. Even when I can’t see him anymore, I still stand in my yard and stare off in the direction he’s gone.