More Happy Than Not (22 page)

But we don't watch the game.

I chase him up the staircase to the top floor and, out of breath, I ask him, “Why me? And don't try and shrug your way out of this one, or tell me I'm cool.”

He shrugs.

I fake going downstairs.

He grabs my arm. “Because I could tell you were different without it being obvious to everyone else you were different, okay? Someone would have to sit down and get to know you to actually figure it out, if that makes sense. And I like what I've seen so far. That do it for you?”

“Sure, even if that speech was a bit much.”

“Asshole. Your turn: Why me?”

I shrug, get in his face, and tell him he's cool. We both look downstairs at the same time to make sure no one's coming up, and then we turn and kiss.

(AGE SIXTEEN—NOVEMBER, EIGHT MONTHS AGO)

“I'm teaching you how
to ride a bike,” Collin says as he wheels over a beat-up ten-speed with a popped chain toward me. “You're sixteen and officially ten years too old to wait around for your daddy to teach you.” He kneels over and fixes the chain; I can see the skin of his lower back.

“Maybe I'm too old to learn.”

“No, you'll never get a driver's license if you can't even ride a bike. Come on, you can act like it's Scorpius's broom. The Red Sprite, right?”

“Sold.”

I get on and Collin tells me the basics. I expect him to hold my back or my shoulder but we're in his neighborhood and his friends are around. I pedal and fall over, almost banging my head into a fire hydrant. He extends his hand to me and asks, “Any chance I'm forgetting a broom with training wheels?”

Collin has already lost
both of his virginities.

He got it on with this girl Suria when he was fourteen, after she gave him a hand job under the bleachers in the gym. Then he let this guy plow him last year when he was vacationing in the Poconos.

I still have both of my virginities to lose. I've only gotten as far as groping with Genevieve. I want to take it to the next level with Collin.

We recently tried doing it in a nearby building's staircase, but didn't get very far undressing ourselves before we heard someone coming down. The same deal with this abandoned porch up on the balcony a few nights ago, which was really risky, but worth risking, I think. We've ventured far away from my block and stumble on to a hiding space behind a wired fence, in-between a meat market and a flower shop, businesses of death and life.

“It smells like dead cow,” I say. “But kind of nice too. Weird.”

“Jesus, do you want me to go get you a flower?” Collin asks, flipping me off. We always flip each other off because it's how we remain guys, you know. Collin steps over a rusty bike without wheels, leaving me to wonder the next time he'll try and teach me how to ride a bike, and he wrenches the bottom of the fence until it folds back enough for us to crawl through.

It's dark out and we're so far away from our friends on the block and our girlfriends at home. I bet the fucking moon can't even see us right now. I shove him and he shoves me back. I tackle him against the wall, unbuttoning his shirt, and it's all condoms and awkward memories from there.

It's chillier today, so
we can't have sex when we go to our spot. We decide to leave a physical mark instead. I borrowed some cans of spray paint from Genevieve she had left over from an assignment a year ago. I was happy as hell when Collin agreed to this because it meant we shared something beyond sex.

Collin sprays a black-and-blue world onto the dirty wall. I hear police sirens so I have to think quickly in case they're coming for us. I streak a green arrow over the world. It looks like the universal icon for boys, which makes sense because we're men no matter what we do together. Collin adds a crown and makes us kings.

The sirens fade into the distance so we hang around and keep decorating—for lack of a straighter word. He sprays some weird, shapeless creature on the other wall. “Hey, can I borrow a kiss?”

“Nah.”

“Okay, let's try this again: kiss me or I'll spray you,” Collin threatens.

I smile. I walk toward him and he aims the can at me. “Don't fucking do it, Collin Vaughn.” I back up and a spray of blue hits me in the chest. “You motherfucker.” I pick up a can and spray green all over his back while he runs around. The war goes on for ten minutes until we're both covered in blue and green and black and I have no idea how I'll even begin to explain this to my parents.

(AGE SIXTEEN—DECEMBER, SEVEN MONTHS AGO)

Kenneth was fucking gunned
down yesterday and it's all Kyle's
fucking fault. Kyle couldn't fucking help himself and just had to fucking fuck Jordan's fucking sister, even though we all fucking knew Jordan is the kind of fucking guy who would fucking kill someone if you fucking crossed him. Those bullets were fucking meant for fucking Kyle but no, they fucking found their way into fucking Kenneth when he was fucking innocently coming home from his fucking clarinet lessons at school. We will never get the fucking chance to see Kenneth on a fucking stage, playing us a song we would fucking call him a little bitch for, even if we are so fucking proud of him for fucking making something of himself.

Thankfully I have Collin here. He is being a real fucking champ and letting me cry into his chest. He promises distractions, like movies and comics, but the best fucking distraction of all is having someone who will hold me whenever I'm fucking lost and defeated.

Collin and I were
pumped to see the new
Avengers
movie together—until our girlfriends invited themselves to join us. But like good boyfriends, we let them tag along. Genevieve fought to sit next to Nicole so they could swoon and stuff over Robert Downey Jr. but Collin argued this was a dude's movie and the dudes should get to sit next to each other. Collin even faked jealousy over them wanting to talk about other guys. Crazy.

An hour into the movie, I reach for a handful of popcorn from the bucket on Collin's lap, slyly brushing his arm. I think pretty little of myself for being such a dick with Genevieve directly to my left, and even when she's far away, but Collin makes me happy and that's that.

“Best. Fucking. Movie. Ever,” Collin whispers to me, pressing his lips against my ear for a second. This double date is kind of a turn-on, but there's a big hole here: we won't go home with each other.

“I've seen better,” I whisper back.

“The hell you have.”

I punch his arm and elbow him. (Tip: your girlfriends won't suspect you're sleeping with your guy friend if you're hitting them.)

“Get a room,” Nicole hisses after some popcorn flies on her. (Or maybe they will.)

Genevieve calls my name right as Collin leans in to whisper something else to me and I turn to him. I laugh at his dumb joke about a monkey and a dragon in a bar, pissing off others in the theater. Genevieve included, probably. I want to ask her what's up but I can't expose myself for ignoring her in favor of my undercover boyfriend—or whatever we are—so instead I lean in on her and whisper, “I cannot wait for later tonight, Gen.”

Genevieve pulls my belt
and drags me to the edge of her bed. Her father is out of town until tomorrow, for a reason I can't remember, and it's obvious what her intentions were after the double date. If I want to keep what I have with Collin, I have to play along so she doesn't get suspicious. She climbs onto her bed and relaxes on her knees, pausing in front of my face.

“You want this, right?”

I should tell her something like “Not really” and just walk away and call up Collin. Instead, I grab her shoulders and pull her to me, kissing her neck, face, and lips. “You're beautiful,” I whisper right into her ear.

These seem like all the right things to do.

She takes off my shirt and throws it across the room. “Unbutton my shirt,” she says, tracing circles into my chest with her fingers. Every time I rip a button off, she breathes this low moan that seems artificial, but it's crazy to think we're both faking our way through this. I drop her shirt and we study each other's bodies. She's in a green bra she probably bought for tonight while I'm in the same boxers as yesterday.

Genevieve falls to her back and turns off her bedside lamp. “Come here.”

Hopefully the moonlight doesn't expose the dread on my face that I'm disguising with suggestive eyebrow bounces and smirks as I crawl toward her. I grip her waist and before I can kiss her, I slap a hand on my bare stomach and groan. “I feel like I might puke
. . .
I think it was the popcorn. Too much butter.”

This sensual Genevieve that confuses me switches off and the real Genevieve is back. “Do you want me to go get you something from the kitchen? I have some ginger ale and bread—”

“I think I should try and sleep it off. That usually does the trick.”

“Okay, but
. . .
Babe, are you sure you don't want to stay awake and see if it passes? Tonight's the only night we can finally do this until who knows when.”

“I know. I want to do this but—” Whatever lie that follows doesn't matter because I already told her the truth for once: I don't want to do this.

(
AGE SIXTEEN—JANUARY, SIX MONTHS AGO)

This was a bit
of a shock, but Collin got me something for Christmas: a twenty-dollar gift card to Comic Book Asylum.

I've been begging Mohad, the big boss man at Good Food's, for a job and he said he might need a cashier soon. I did a few chores for Dad, like washing his car and running out to get him sandwiches from Joey's, and he gave me fifteen dollars to buy something nice for Genevieve. But I didn't spend it on her.

Okay, I spent four dollars on a blank pad and created a flip book for her, but I spent the rest of it on two copies of
The Dark Alternates
, Issue #1 for Collin and me. It's the start of a new Marvel series where all the heroes are combating their dark counterparts in a medieval landscape of fiery storms and dead warriors. We read them both in his hallway the day after Christmas.

I go to Comic Book Asylum when they reopen for business on January 2. I head straight to the counter before I'm tempted to spend the gift card on some comics I'll never find in the dollar cart. I catch up with Stan about his holidays and then ask, “Could I get a monthly subscription for
The Dark Alternates
?”

“Have you read the first yet? It's epic, bro. When that tornado destroyed their headquarters I lost my head.”

“That was my friend's favorite part too,” I say. He rings me up for the New Year's promo and it comes out to twenty-four dollars. I use up the entire gift card and pay the difference. “So there are seven issues, right?”

“The magic number. Once a month.”

I have six more comics to read with Collin.

Awesome.

I've been throwing myself
into a new project lately to distract myself from several things, like Kenneth's death, Kyle's distance from all of us, and my guilt over playing Genevieve. It's a comic book about a hero I've made up, Sun Warden. I once had this dream where I was so hungry I ate the sun and my bones were really hot, but I didn't blow up or melt or anything like that. Seemed like a decent enough idea. I think once I finish the comic, I'm going to give it to Collin as a gift.

(
AGE SIXTEEN—FEBRUARY, FIVE MONTHS AGO)

“Aaron, you can tell
me anything.”

I'm sitting across from Mom in her bedroom, and my heart is pounding like crazy.

“Since you were a kid, I've told you this. Remember when you didn't want to tell me that—”

“I like guys, Mom.” I spit out the words. I stare at dirty laundry on the floor. “Sorry. I just
. . .
yeah.”

She steps to me and lifts my chin, but I still don't look at her. “Baby, there's nothing to be sorry about.”

“I've, you know, lied and been a dick,” I say. She holds my hand and I almost start crying what Collin would call little-bitch tears because guys don't cry. “I can go stay somewhere, I don't know where, but somewhere if—”

“Aaron Soto, you are going nowhere. Not until college. Then you get your ass out of here, graduate, get a job, and pay me back all the money I've spent on you since giving birth.” She smiles and I force a smile back.

“So, what? You going to tell me you always knew or something like that?”

“I'm better than that, my son.”

“Thanks. I owe you one.”

“You owe me about a million dollars, but that's beside the point. I'm happy you're ready and you seem okay with it. That's always been my biggest worry, that you wouldn't understand it.”

I know what she means. I've been hanging out less with Brendan and my friends, and they've seen me crossing the street to meet with Collin. He does come over and hang sometimes, but I try to keep Collin all to myself for the most part. I just know they won't be so accepting of what we're doing, and everyone's mood has been off since we lost Kenneth.