5a ****************************************************************** I woke up when Jake called around 2, and we chatted for a while. He had called me from the restroom at school, and he was talking in an unnaturally low voice which I had to admit I found a little sexy. He didn't dish up anything interesting from his conversation with Eric, though.
When school was out, Eric phoned from the diner on Baker and said he was heading over. I don't know why, but I was really dreading seeing him. I don't know what I expected, but I knew enough to know I didn't want to know more. It would be easier to leave things the way they were.
He didn't want me, or he didn't want me the way I wanted him to. The details were only going to make it that much harder to accept. I'd gotten comfortable with what I did and didn't have with him; I actually wanted that back.
I thought if we didn't have to have this particular conversation, I could make peace with him. It felt like I already had, but I knew it wasn't that simple.
We didn't go to my room, we went and sat by the pool instead. I let my feet dangle in the water and looked at the faint cracks in the tiles wavering under the surface. It was the water that was moving, not the tiles; but who could tell that just by looking? And what difference did it make?
Maybe I was the one who was cracked. Maybe I was seeing things the way I wanted to see them, not the way they were. Maybe Eric was being patient with me, too. He wanted to be with me, somehow, he just didn't want to go that far. I'd turned it all around in my head so many times. If you're underwater, looking up at the sky, which sky do you see, the one thousands of miles away, or its reflection, flickering in the water a few inches from your face?
He was sitting there cross-legged, a little behind me, so he couldn't see my face. I didn't really want to see his, either. It was better like that. I just wanted to get through the next few minutes without losing anything I hadn't already lost.
'I don't know what to say, Kevin. I know I owe you an explanation, but I'm not sure I understand it myself. I shouldn't have reacted that way when you ... touched me. I don't know why I did. I guess I hadn't prepared myself for that, so all I did was react. It had nothing to do with you. It was me.'
'It has everything to do with me. You fuckin' flip out when I 'touch' you, I wanted to blow you but you can't even say the word....you have to prepare yourself for me -- what the fuck does that mean? What am I supposed to think about that?'
When he'd come to see me at the hospital, he'd been all messed up, and I couldn't be angry with him. Now that we were actually talking about it, I knew he still needed a friend, but I couldn't be one. I wanted an explanation, but there probably wasn't any explanation he could have given that would have satisfied me. I wanted him to say it wasn't so, but it was.
'That's not what I meant, Kevin. I hadn't taken that step in my head. I wasn't ready, and I'm sorry about that. We should have talked about it a long time ago. You tried to, and I shot you down.'
'No shit.' I wasn't as angry at him as I was at myself. How could I have deceived myself like that? I'd just tagged along after him and lapped up whatever he dropped in my dish. How could I have been so weak?
'Look, I told you I was confused the first time we talked about it. You knew that. I know I shouldn't have dragged you into it, but I did. Now we have to deal with it.'
'Yeah, you were real confused. You were just confused enough to grab my ass and kiss me stupid every day in the pool. It's a good thing you were confused enough to get naked with me in the shower, or I probably would've been just as confused as you. Yeah, you're confused, alright.'
He was right; he'd warned me. I had to be stupid not to have seen it coming. He'd told me he was weirded out when Keith kissed him. I knew what Keith looked like: what other evidence did I need? It wasn't all his fault, but I had to be angry at someone beside myself.
'I know you're angry, but we still have to figure this shit out.'
'You figure it out. Make sure and tell me when you get it figured out.'
'I want to figure it out with you.'
'Been there, done that.' I hated the way I was talking to him, but I couldn't change it.
'That's pretty harsh, isn't it?'
I could feel him looking at the back of my head. I don't know what I'd have done if he'd touched me then; maybe he didn't know either. I think if he'd tried to, both of us would have found out something, but he didn't. He was kind of a coward. I sat there and choked on my pride, but I just couldn't swallow it. I couldn't make the first move. I'd been pushed away too many times.
I couldn't believe this was happening. I thought I could still be his friend, but now that we had to deal with what had happened between us, something was stopping me. I tried to make myself move, but the anger kept welling up in my chest. My fists were clenched so tightly I could feel my bitten-down nails cutting into the palms of my hands.
We sat there for a couple of minutes and didn't say anything. Maybe there wasn't anything to say. I had a terrible sinking feeling in my stomach. The friendship was wrecked. We'd wrecked it with sex, and we hadn't even had any. How fucked was that?
After a while, he got up and left. I didn't try to stop him.
I sat there and stared at the sloping bottom of the pool. The slope was just for show. If you dove in at the right angle, you'd break your neck. Whoever had designed the pool hadn't bothered to put it in the right place. There was no conceivable reason for the slope other than to keep you from breaking your neck, and it wouldn't do that where it was. You wanted to be safe; what they pawned off on you was this dangerous illusion.
I went back to my room and tried to watch television. Then I turned it off and went into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. I stared at myself for a minute. I turned out the light and looked into the black hole where the mirror had been an instant before. After a while, my eyes adjusted to the darkness, and I could make out the shape of my face in the mirror again. I tried to empty my face of everything I was feeling. I imagined myself disappearing again in the absolute blackness a fraction of a second after the light was turned out.
******************************************************************* I went back to school a few days later, but things weren't the way they used to be. I really hated myself for what I'd done, but I couldn't see any way out. I'd already followed my anger too far to turn back now. I wanted to be alone. I couldn't deal with the person I'd allowed myself to become.
I ate lunch with Jake and Heather and her fan club a few times, but that was so depressing I couldn't take it on a daily basis. I didn't hate Heather; she was fine in small doses, but I wasn't in the mood after all the shit I'd been through lately. She was the only girl who had lasted more than a couple of months with Jake, so maybe I was threatened by that. Whatever it was, I could look at her face or I could eat, but not at the same time.
Heather and I used to train with the same swim team when we were kids. She used to be sort of roly-poly, but all that had changed. She looked like she could take Jake in a fair fight if it came to it, but I guess she was reasonably hot. She was probably the first girl Jake had been with that I hadn't already test-driven. Not that I hadn't tried, because I had, way back when, but she'd totally shot me down. Maybe that's what Jake saw in her.
She wasn't actually a Valley girl, though she certainly knew how to talk like one. She usually exaggerated it when I was around because she knew it irritated the hell out of me. I didn't like her much, and I guess it was mutual, but I had a certain amount of respect for her. She wasn't stupid. In fact, for all I knew she was fucking brilliant. Either that, or she'd cheated on every test she'd ever took. Take your pick.
I spent more quality time with my dumbass friends for a change, which was probably a good thing. Mostly I hung out with Ben and Will. I think I'd forgotten how clueless they really were. I knew they couldn't help it, they were raised that way. At least they took my mind off the things that really mattered. I just thought of it as therapy. There were a lot of things I wanted to forget.
Ben and Will were twins, and Jake and I had hung out with them when we were little. They were aggravating as hell, and I'd gone out of my way to avoid them for the last couple of years, but in a way I was still comfortable with them. Unlike most of the people I hung out with, they weren't spending all their energy trying to live up to someone else's deluded notion of what it meant to be cool.
Talking to them was a sort of low-tech version of time-travel. The last few years had just washed over them without leaving a trace. They were still in the same place. They still had the same life. I kind of envied them. Girls didn't even exist for them. They still cared about comics. They were obsessed with video games. They wore whatever clothes happened to be easiest to reach in the closet. They'd somehow kept alive the same language they spoke when they were twelve. It was a little bit creepy.
I felt kind of bad about hanging out with them now after more or less ignoring them for so long, but they didn't even mention it. They acted like I'd gone out for a coke. That meant something to me, even if I still wanted to strangle them sometimes. I had to pretend I gave a fuck what Captain Picard and his clueless crew were up to that week, but it was a small price to pay.
It was easier to be around them than to be around Eric or even Jake. I was tired of living on a see-saw. I wanted to put all of that shit out of my mind. I couldn't live that way. I just wanted to wake up in the morning without feeling sick about whatever I'd said or done the day before. I'd had enough of the turmoil. I didn't want to be angry anymore.
Gradually things returned to normal. My ribs healed. My stomach settled down, and I started to swim again. I was feeling better about things, even though I knew they still sucked. I think I was trying to see how little I could settle for. I still wasn't sure about that.
One day I happened to be eating lunch alone with Jake, and I glanced over and noticed that Eric was looking at me from across the room. He had a strange look on his face. I looked back at Jake, and he was watching me too. A few seconds later, Eric sat down in the chair next to me and turned it toward me so that his knees were touching the side of my leg.
I knew I'd been set up, but I wasn't angry. I went on eating and didn't say anything. I figured it was up to them. Jake had stopped eating, he was just sitting there watching me eat. Finally Eric cleared his throat. I passed him my glass of water, but I didn't say a word.
'We need to talk.'
'So talk.' I didn't look at him. I still hadn't decided how I wanted to respond, but my body did it for me. I was so tense I couldn't move an inch either way.
'Not here. Somewhere else.'
'I'm fine where I am.'
'Kevin, I just want to start over. We don't have do it all at once. I don't want to lose you as a friend.'
'Funny, I thought you already had.'
'I guess that's partly up to you, isn't it?'
'Sure looks that way.'
'I know you can bend a little, I've seen you do it before.'
'That was back when I was an idiot. I was weak.'
He put his hand on my shoulder, and I almost jumped out of my seat. He didn't try to hold on to me, I think he was afraid I was going to hit him. That was the furthest thing from my mind. I looked across at Jake. He was half out of his chair. He had almost stood up.
Suddenly I couldn't face it. I got up and started to walk away. I felt Eric grab my shoulders, and then he pulled me around to face him. He hugged me, and I let him do it. I didn't hug him back, but I didn't push him away either. My whole body relaxed, and my arms were just hanging down there limply at my sides as if I didn't know what they were for.
I could feel the side of his head pressing against my skull. My ears were ringing. When my eyes focused again, I could see that a lot of people at other tables were looking at us, but I didn't give a fuck.
Finally he let me go. He put his hand on my cheek and looked at me, but I couldn't meet his gaze. Then he turned to walk away. I just stood there and hung my head. I was frozen in place. In the corner of my eye I saw Jake vault over the table. He grabbed me and started pulling me toward the door. I was in a daze; all I could do was put one foot in front of the other.
I followed Jake to the gym, and Jake grabbed a basketball and started to shoot hoops with me. I couldn't focus enough to shoot, so I just stood there under the hoop and fed the ball back to him. He didn't say a word to me, and gradually I started to feel better.
We slipped out the back entrance to the gym and jogged toward the parking lot. Then we ran across the street into the park. About halfway through the park, I opened up my stride and started to really sprint. I don't know what came over me, I just wanted to run. Usually it was a chore, but for a minute there I felt like I was made for it, it made sense to me, it was the only thing that did. My heart was pumping like crazy, but at least it had something to do. It felt the way it did when the kick and the stroke slipped into synch when I swam butterfly; usually it wasn't quite right, and a little part of you would be working against itself, but sometimes it all fell into place. There was no extra effort involved, it just happened by itself.
At the far end of the park I eased off, and slowed to a trot. I was pretty winded. A couple of seconds later, Jake flashed past me and then dropped to his hands and knees on the grass. His chest was heaving. He was even more winded than I was. I had no idea how he'd managed to keep up with me. I dropped down on my butt beside him and tried to catch my breath. I looked at him. His face was almost on the ground. His little love-necklace from Heather was hanging down in the grass. Then he lifted his head up and looked over at me.
'What the fuck was that about?' He looked like he'd have lost his lunch if he'd eaten more of it in the first place. Then he demonstrated his classic time-release smile that took about five seconds to fully materialize.
I smiled back at him and started to laugh. It wasn't funny, but I couldn't help it. He started laughing, too, and then he started to ask me a question. It took him a minute to get it out, because he was still laughing.
'What are you laughing about?'
'Just tell me, do you think I was outed back there?'
'Nah, I don't think so. At least not all the way out. Not unless you wanna be. It's not like he kissed you or anything. I think probably Julie knows, and maybe Mark, too. But not everybody else. They know something's up with you guys, but they already knew that. If you want, I'll tell them your goldfish died or something, and he was just trying to make you feel better. I think they'd understand that.'
'Maybe you should tell them he was apologizing for not letting me give him a blow job.' I didn't say it very seriously, but there was a long silence after I said it, so I'm pretty sure he took it that way. 'I mean, as long as they're gonna be so understanding.'
'Is that what happened?'
I waited a few seconds before I answered him. I had to think before I crossed that bridge.
'More or less.'
'Maybe he's not gay.'
'You mean bi.'
'Whatever.'
'Yeah, maybe not.'
'He definitely cares about you. I can tell.'
'I know.'
'So how do you feel?'
'I don't know anymore. I guess I had a crush on him for a while, but when I actually got to kiss him and shit, it wasn't all I thought it would be. I was excited at first, but then it wouldn't go anywhere. Maybe it wasn't just him, maybe it was me, too. Sometimes when I wasn't thinking about it, it would feel right, but then I'd start to think, and I'd realize he wasn't really doing anything. There wasn't any natural progression, so I tried to force it, and then he'd push me away.'
I paused for a minute.
'Fuck, why am I telling you this? You don't want to hear this.'
'Maybe that's not it, Kevin. Maybe I'm fine with it, and you're the one who hasn't accepted it yet.'
I didn't say anything. He was right. It wasn't that I thought he didn't want to know who I was, it was that part of me still wanted to be the person I used to be to him. I took a deep breath and continued.
'Ok. So we showered together a lot, so I knew he wanted something from me, but I guess I got frustrated, and I tried to make it happen with him on my own, but maybe not in such a nice way. I wasn't really paying attention to what he was feeling. I thought I wanted to make him feel good, but maybe I didn't. And he reacted really badly. It was ugly. I don't think I can get past that now.'
'Do you want to?'
I didn't say anything. I didn't know how to answer that, not even to myself, much less to Jake. It was too confusing. I just wanted to be a little happier than I'd been feeling lately. I'd spent the last few years avoiding thinking about what would truly make me happy. If I started to think about that now, I'd really be miserable. I couldn't live that way.
'I don't know, Jake. I want to be his friend again. But I don't want to have all this shit hanging over me all the time. I want to forget about it. I just don't know how to let it go.'
'Maybe you should ask yourself why you wanted to be with him in the first place.'
'Yeah. It seems like years ago. I used to ride behind him on the bike, and he was larger than life. I felt close to him, and I wanted to get closer. I guess I didn't really think too much about what that meant.'
'If you don't know what you want, maybe you need to back off. Be his friend if you can. Cool it with the other stuff for a while. If you both want the same thing, it'll happen.'
I thought about that for a minute, but I didn't say anything. I couldn't help hearing that last sentence in more than one way. I stood up and looked across the park. It was too late to go back to school. We'd have to blow off the rest of the day. I held out my hand and pulled Jake to his feet. We started walking toward the mall.
********************************************************************* This is a long chapter in three parts, moving into a new phase of Kevin's high-school experience. You gotta hope the 'out' phase is more fun than the 'in' phase was.
Thanks for all the comments and encouragement. Don't be shy about emailing me. I wouldn't have put it out here if I didn't want to know what you think. Jay