It Looks Like This (19 page)

He looks up.

He says, Kind of crazy how many stars you can see on the beach.

I look up too.

I say, When’s your birthday?

He says, May eleventh.

I say, You’re a Taurus, right?

He says, Yeah.

I scan the sky, and then point at a spot a little to our right.

I say, See those five stars close together in a small V formation?

He looks where I’m pointing. After a while, he finds it and says, Yeah.

I say, That’s your constellation. Taurus.

He says, No shit?

I say, Yeah. There’s more to it, but that’s the bull’s head.

He laughs and says, That doesn’t look like a bull’s head to me.

I say, I know, you kind of have to use your imagination.

I point a little ways away and say, That one’s easier to make out. It’s Orion. The three stars are his belt, see? Then the two stars above on either side make up the shoulders. Then two at the bottom to make up the corners of his tunic thing, and then over there are his arm and his bow and arrow. He’s shooting at your bull.

Sean laughs again.

He says, You know your stars.

I say, Yeah, I’m kind of into it.

Normally I think I would be a bit embarrassed by this. But this time I’m not.

Sean just holds me and we look up at the sky.

After a long time, his watch goes off, sending out tiny beeps.

He says, Oh shit, we only got a minute.

I’m confused for a second but then I understand. He reaches into his bag and pulls out a bottle of wine, a corkscrew, and two wineglasses. He works quickly, taking the cork out and pouring first one glass, then another.

He says, I couldn’t get champagne.

He hands me a glass and looks at his watch. After a moment he starts counting down.

He says, Five! Four! Three! Two! One!

At zero, he smiles at me.

He says, Happy New Year.

We clink glasses and take a sip.

Sean holds me tight again and we watch the ocean for a few moments. Far behind us we hear firecrackers popping every couple minutes.

Then he turns to me. I look back.

He leans in and closes his eyes and kisses me, and I kiss back, tasting the wine on his lips. It feels less weird this time, a bit less clumsy. My hands go under his jacket, around his chest and back, feeling everything.

Sean runs his hands through my hair, holding the back of my head.

Far away some car horns blare.

He pulls away for a second, breathing harder now.

Then kisses me again, pushing my jacket off my shoulders. His too. And then my shirt, lifted over my head, and I help him with his.

It’s cold and that makes us hold closer together.

We kiss longer and longer, hands running over each other, and then I hear another voice from nearby, deep, gravelly, so close my heart stops.

It says: Sean.

Sean pushes away from me, hard, knocking me back. I scramble to my feet looking for the voice, trying to get my balance on the soft sand, Sean already standing.

There’s a figure just a few feet away, around the corner from the short sand hill. In the low light I don’t recognize him at first, but then I do and my stomach drops.

Sean says, Dad!

His voice almost cracks. He’s already putting his shirt on. I just stand there, cold now, staring, mind blank.

Sean’s dad looks at him with an expression that makes me shiver.

Sean says, Da —

Mr. Rossini says, What are you doing?

Low, almost a whisper.

Sean pulls his jacket on.

He says, I’m not — we’re not doing —

Mr. Rossini says, Didn’t look that way to me.

Sean says, No! Dad! It wasn’t —

Mr. Rossini says, Shut up.

Sean walks toward his father.

He says, Dad, listen, we weren’t —

Mr. Rossini swings out of nowhere. His fist hits Sean square in the jaw, and Sean goes down, letting out a small cry. I jump back.

Mr. Rossini’s eyes are flaring now as he looks down at Sean in the sand at his feet. Sean’s lip is cut and bleeding, but he just looks up at his dad.

His dad says, I know what I saw.

Sean says, We didn’t —

Mr. Rossini says, I said shut up!

It’s the first time he shouts.

He reaches down and pulls Sean up by the arm easily, bringing him to his feet.

He says, We’re going home. Now!

Mr. Rossini looks back at me for just a second. I step back from that look, from those eyes that are so like his son’s every time I’ve seen them except now.

He drags Sean away. I can hear Sean’s voice fading as they disappear behind the bushes and into the yellow light of the streetlamps.

I stand there for what seems like hours. Just staring.

This is what I see:

• Patterns in the sand where Sean fell.

• Wineglasses knocked over, one of them broken.

• Bottle on its side, still dripping wine into the sand.

My shirt is still off and I’m freezing now, shivering hard. Slowly, I reach down and get it, shaking out the sand, and pull it over my head.

Every now and then there’s a sound like popcorn off in the distance. Kids setting off firecrackers.

Then I hear someone laughing, very nearby.

I jump again, looking around.

There’s some movement in the darkness of the bushes, and then Victor steps out. He tries for a second to keep it in but he can’t, and just lets it out, sort of bent over, laughing really hard.

I stare at him.

He catches his breath after a minute and says, Hey, Mikey!

Sort of in between gasps.

He straightens up. Takes a deep breath, still grinning.

He says, Man! Look at you.

That sets him off and he laughs again.

I stare at him, shivering so hard it makes me sway a bit.

He says, Sorry to ruin your New Year’s. I just saw you two heading down the street and followed you. Just ’cause you seemed a little close.

Victor steps out a bit more into the moonlight. I can see his phone in his right hand.

He laughs a bit more and says, Anyway, yeah, I called Sean’s dad and told him his son was making out with some dude at the beach. Jesus! Didn’t think he’d actually punch him, but that was something else, right?

Something in my stomach gets hard.

He says, Goddamn, all those times I called you a queer, I didn’t
really
think . . . I mean, I could sorta see it, but damn.

My hands close into fists by themselves, slow.

Victor shakes his phone and says, Got it all on video. This is, like, YouTube gold.

I take a step toward Victor.

He says, Oh, hey, maybe your dad wants to know too. Should I give him a call?

I stop, and the hard spot in my stomach loosens.

Victor laughs again. Easy, like he just heard a joke.

I run.

I run past him, through the bushes, into the street. I run as fast as I can, houses blurring by.

I feel nothing, hear nothing. At some point I remember my jacket, still lying on the beach, but I don’t care. I’m just thinking about getting home.

The streets pass by and I turn here and there without thinking.

I start to think of Sean but see only his head snap back as his father hits him, his legs giving out under him, blood streaming from his lips, and I shut it out.

I slow down on my block, and now I can feel the cold again, hear my panting, feel my sweat dripping down my forehead. My lungs itch from the cold air. At the front door I stop, catching my breath, wanting to be quiet. It takes a minute. My stomach cramps.

Slowly, I open the door.

Mom and Dad are sitting at the dining table. They look up as I walk in.

Mom puts a hand to her mouth, lets out a small noise like a whimper. She wants to say something but won’t. So instead she lowers the hand and wrings it with the other. She looks helpless. It is the worst feeling, watching her look helpless.

Dad’s stare is blank and dead.

He says, Go to bed, Toby.

Toby is in the living room. She gets up immediately, walks out of the room, glances at me only once. She looks scared.

I look back at Dad, listen to Toby’s steps as she walks upstairs. The close of her bedroom door. Then just silence.

Dad says, I got a call from a boy at your school.

I was waiting for this but still hoping for something else. My stomach drops. I want to throw up.

Dad doesn’t say anything for a while. His mouth works but no words form. He stares into space. Finally he looks back at me and says, quietly,

Why don’t you go up to bed too?

I say nothing. I just go.

I’m in the bathroom, staring at the counter. My toothbrush isn’t in its usual place and I can’t figure out why. I stay that way, almost totally still, staring helpless at the empty toothbrush holder for almost ten minutes before I remember I brought it with me to the beach.

Then I turn and leave the bathroom and head back to my room.

We don’t talk all of New Year’s Day, or the day after. I stay in my room the whole time.

I think about the night before.

Sean holding me tight on the way to the beach.

The sound of the wine bottle opening.

His dad’s voice. Sean pushing away from me, hard.

Victor’s laughs.

Just that, over and over.

School starts the next Monday.

Dad tells me the night before that I’ll be staying home. He’s going to write me a note.

I know it’s not for me; it’s for him.

I sleep in. Half awake I can still hear Mom and Dad moving around, getting ready. Then Toby.

Then after a while it’s quiet.

I wake up fully and walk downstairs.

Mom has left a note: She went to run some errands. Bank, shopping for new reading glasses for Dad, taking Charlie to the vet for his annual checkup and shots. There’s Frosted Mini-Wheats for breakfast and she left a sandwich in the fridge for lunch.

I pour myself some cereal and milk and eat it at the dining table.

The only sound is the crunch from the Mini-Wheats.

I don’t really do anything all day.

I watch some TV, but there’s nothing on ’cause it’s during the day.

I can’t take Charlie out because he’s at the vet. I don’t really want to go out anyway.

It’s pretty boring.

And when I get bored my mind wanders, and I start thinking about New Year’s Eve.

Or worse, I think about what’s happening at school. Victor’s probably told everyone by now. Tristan and Fuller and his other friends. Has he shown them the video? Who else knows about it? What about Ronald and Jared? Or Mr. Kilgore or Miss Rayner or Mrs. Ferguson or Madame Girard? What’s Sean doing? Did he skip too? It kind of makes me anxious, knowing that stuff has happened but not really knowing what.

So I try not to think about it. But it’s really hard.

Finally I can hear a car in the driveway. Mom. And she probably picked Toby up on her way home.

I go upstairs before they get inside and close the door to my room.

I turn on the computer for the millionth time and go to Facebook.

I have a message.

It’s from Victor. We’re not friends but you can message anyone on Facebook.

The message has no words — it’s just a YouTube link.

My heart starts beating, but I click on it anyway.

The video is really dark. You can’t see much, and for a second I’m almost relieved.

But then it zooms in a bit and the light shifts, and it’s me and Sean making out. It’s hard to tell, but it’s definitely us.

Then Mr. Rossini’s voice: Sean.

Sean saying, Dad!

The sound of one of the glasses breaking as he gets up.

Sean and his dad talking back and forth.

Very quiet but very close, muffled laughter. The camera shakes a bit.

Then a sharp smack and a cry: Mr. Rossini punching Sean.

Quietly:

I know what I saw.

We didn’t —

Then loudly:

I said shut up!

Some movement, then:

We’re going home. Now!

Mr. Rossini pulls Sean up into the moonlight, and then they both get out of the frame.

The camera tries to follow them a bit, and then it swings to the right.

It’s me, standing still, staring after them, my shirt off.

My shoulders are slouched and even in the dark you can see how wide my eyes are. I look really stupid just standing there. I hate it. I think I hate that part the most.

The muffled laugh gets a bit louder and then Victor stops trying. There’s just a split second of loud, hard laughing and then the video ends.

I lean back in my chair and stare at the screen.

The video has 124 views. I tell myself that’s not a lot for YouTube. I don’t really know, though.

After a while I turn off the computer.

I don’t go to school Tuesday either.

Wednesday.

I’m sitting at the breakfast table. Dad and Mom are sitting across from me.

Lying in front of them are a few pieces of paper, which Dad now slides over to me.

They are printouts from some website. At the top is a blue banner with the word
INNERPEACE
next to a small picture of a tree. Below that is a heading that says
ALL TRUTH RESIDENTIAL PROGRAM
, and then a few paragraphs.

I look at this, then up at Dad.

He says, It’s a one-month program.

I don’t say anything.

He says, You’ll be just outside a small town a little ways west of here. You stay there the whole time, in the dormitories they have. You can’t have visitors during the program, but it’s not that long when you think of it.

I look at Dad during all this. He speaks in a flat voice. I try facing Mom for a while, but she looks like she’s about to cry and that’s worse, much worse, so I look at Dad.

Dad says, It’ll be like camp.

I don’t really think so but I don’t say anything.

He says, Your mother and I have decided that we won’t make you go. It’s your decision, but you need to think long and hard about this.

His voice is a bit firmer for the last part.

He says, You want to change, don’t you, Mike?

I think about this for a while. Dad waits.