More Happy Than Not (32 page)

14

THE SORT OF BEST FRIEND

I
t's a dead giveaway where we can find Brendan; we spot his client go into the staircase. I want to see Brendan first, not because he lives closest to me, not because I've known him the longest, but because he needs to see the damage he's done. I'm about to go into the staircase when Eric stops me.

“I shouldn't have let you have sex with Genevieve,” he whispers.

I'm so confused that I almost laugh. “That had nothing to do with you.”

“I knew the truth. That's enough to put me at fault if you got her pregnant. I didn't stop you because I thought your life was going to be easier when you weren't gay. It didn't matter to me if you unknowingly led someone on.”

And then Eric is pacing from wall to wall in the lobby.

“That had nothing to do with you,” I say, and immediately after I say it, I can't get aboard the train of thought that brought me to those words. “I don't know what's going on.”

“It's okay,” Eric says. He recaps the conversation. “It's crazy how you still turned out to be gay. You must really like that dude you kept hanging out with.”

Now this is so awkward I actually
do
want to forget it. “I have to go take care of this,” I mumble. “Wait here for me.”

I hand him the comics I want to give Collin and run into the staircase before he can protest. I don't hear Brendan or that girl Nate running off so I keep jogging down. Brendan looks like he's seeing a pissed-off ghost when I turn the corner. I swing at him and he ducks, which is fine because I was really hoping to kick him in the balls, which I do.

He crumples to the floor. Nate picks up the weed and runs away. No doubt she lost a dealer after stealing, but she won't give a shit while she's high today.

Brendan holds his crotch, his manhood, and groans. “I had that coming.”

I almost have sympathy pains for him because getting hit in the balls sucks hard. Almost. “You fuckers fucked up my fucking brain!” I shout, ready to pounce on him all over again. “Major fucking memory loss and there's a chance I'm going to fucking forget this fucking conversation but I'll never fucking forget how my fucking friend almost fucking killed me because he fucking hated me.”

No matter how many times I say it out loud or to myself, I can never wrap my head around the fact that Brendan could've gone to jail forever for killing me.

Maybe it's okay to forget. I'll never play cards in his hallway again whenever it's snowing outside or too chaotic to hang out in his house. I'll never throw popcorn at his grandfather while he's snoring in front of the TV again. I'll never sleep over again and kick at the top bunk where he almost got this girl Simone pregnant before he learned the magic of condoms. I'll never sit at his computer with him and write crude customer reviews on insane products, like a banana slicer and dog-shaped dog whistles. I'll never leave his sneakers outside the window so his room won't smell like feet.

“I don't hate you,” Brendan says. “I just don't understand why you're being gay.”

“I can't change that,” I say. Except for that time I could, and even then, I still kind of couldn't.

He sits up and rests his elbow on his knee. “You chose that Thomas kid over us. We're your blood, not him or anyone else.”

“Maybe that's true. But I never knew. And I'm basically a toy without batteries because of you guys.”

“Your boys will take care of you, A.”

“Even if I'm gay?” I say the word out loud, about myself, because even though I never chose this, I can choose to accept it before it's too late.

Brendan says nothing. I have my answer. I head back up the stairs and hope one day Brendan will find his happy ending. I really do want this for my very confused, former sort of best friend.

15

THE BOY WHO WON'T MAN UP

I
'm about to sit in the alleyway between the meat market and flower shop and maybe flip through one of the comics I brought for Collin—Issue #7 of
The Dark Alternates
, the big finale—but community service do-gooders are painting over the spray-painted black-and-blue world Collin and I made.

And then he's here.

“'Sup,” Collin says, nodding at me. He looks around, probably for spies with cameras, and finds the community service team in our spot. “Hey, what the hell are they doing?”

“Community service,” I say.

“Where can we go instead? You need to go buy a condom too because Nicole was finally in the mood last night and I used mine.”

Of course he uses a condom
after
she's pregnant.

“Don't need them.”

“You want to do it without
. . .
?”

“Look, our graffiti is gone.”

“Yeah. That sucks. Oh shit, you got the last issue! Let's go read it.” I hand the comic over to him. In another life, this could've been cool. He speculates on what might happen: “Who do you think the redhead in the scarlet robe is? Do you think the Faceless Overlords will go through with the siege? Shit, they have to, don't they? Man, this is going to be insane.”

I sit down on the curb and ask him to join me. “I can't keep wrecking things, Collin. The way I feel about you has changed, and I don't think it's because there are still some memories of our good times hidden in my head or something.”

“Wait, you for real did that Leteo thing?”

“Yeah. I forgot everything that went down with you.”

“Are you fucking with me again?”

“I'm not.”

“Seriously, you no joke had your mind wiped?”

“Don't you feel bad that Nicole has no idea you're with me?”

He doesn't say no or admit to how little he gives a shit.

“Well, I feel bad,” I tell him. “This makes us different. I don't think you suck as a person. I legit believe you'll be better than this one day, but if you want to continue faking out your family, that's your unhappiness, not mine.”

Collin shrugs, hiding his pain poorly. “So, what, forget we ever happened, right? I don't want you coming at me tomorrow or the day after.” He gets up, pacing back and forth to give me enough time to take back my words.

I don't.

“Okay then. I'm going.” He's holding on to the comic, in no way about to give it back, and crosses the street to retreat back to his safe life built on lies. But then he freezes. He turns and rushes back over to me. “Are you sure about this?'

I can almost forgive him now. “I can't screw anyone over anymore, Collin,” I say. “Look, I loved you, but now isn't the time for us.”

Collin flips me off and walks away.

I lean forward on the curb to flip through the comic when I realize it's not in my hands. I look around to see if I dropped it before realizing what's happened.

16

THE GIRL WITH THE
UNFINISHED PAINTINGS

I
forgot what happened with Collin. And I hope to God he'll change and that it'll be something worth missing. I just hope I remember everything with Genevieve because she's the one I would've been lucky enough to share a happy ending with.

She loves me in a way that's not fair to her. And it's shitty times two because I know the feeling.

Before I knock on her door, I ask Eric to wait downstairs for me. I extend an arm to pat his shoulder. He must think I'm trying to hug him because he leans in and it's awkward and I recover by hugging him for the first time since we were kids.

“Uh, thanks again. I feel like you've been my seeing-eye dog or something.”

“Forget it. You owe me one now. But don't forget—” He slaps his hand over his mouth. “Forget I said ‘forget.' Um. I'll be downstairs.”

“Okay.”

I knock on the door, trying to remember everything I have to say while I still have the chance. Her father calls from inside the apartment, asking who it is, and I tell him it's me. He opens the
door, studying me up and down. I can smell his beer breath.

“How you doin', Aaron?”

“I'm okay. Is Gen home?”

“Still in her room, I think.”

Other fathers wouldn't let a boy into their home the way he does.

Her door is cracked open and I peek in and see her on her bed surrounded by wet paintbrushes and open paint bottles and sketchbooks. She tears a page out of one book, crumples it up, and throws it onto the floor, the graveyard of failed drawings. Then she grabs a new brush.

I knock and let myself in, tensing up when she looks at me.

She drops her paintbrush and bursts into tears.

I rush to comfort her, but there's no room for me to sit with all these open sketchbooks and unfinished paintings on her bed. There's one of a girl talking to a boy made of leaves; another of an ocean monster destroying a girl's sand castle; a third of a girl falling out of a tree while a boy sits idly by eating an apple. I shove them aside. I'm not just wrapping my arms around her to make her happy or to lie to myself; I have to stop her hurting, and for once it's so real I forget my own forgetting problems.

“I know better than to ask if you're okay,” I whisper.

Genevieve pulls her hands away from her face. Now probably isn't the best time to point out the fingerprints of paint across her forehead and cheeks. “Seeing you with Collin really messed me up, Aaron. I have no idea if you were at the track field to see Thomas or if it was a coincidence, but it brought back everything I had to pretend never happened.”

I turn away. “I'm sorry about that. And about him. I'm really, really sorry I led you on before the procedure. And even sometime after it. I wasn't fully ready to be this guy who liked guys, and needed a girlfriend to protect me.”

She strokes my face, probably getting paint on me. “I know. Even after our first kiss, I knew.”

“Only a guy who likes guys wouldn't want to kiss you,” I say. “I'm sorry for being such an asshole.”

Genevieve traces my scar, left to right and right to left, like I have countless times, like she might have too, if I could remember. “I could never hate you for being gay, but when you came back to me, I loved forgetting you were.”

“We made a pretty cool faux-couple when I thought it was real,” I joke.

She rests her head on my shoulder. “If I could do it over, I wouldn't have lied to myself that it was real. I wouldn't have dated you and I definitely wouldn't have had sex with you.” There's a moment where I think she's going to say something more. She sighs and adds, “So you didn't go through with the procedure. What made you change your mind?”

I can't comfortably tell her how Thomas made me okay with myself. I can't tell her how I want to spend my days taking on the world with him and watching movies and drinking Blue Moons late into the night while we draw on each other.

“The procedure promised happiness but it wasn't real. About Leteo, actually
. . .
my mind is kind of messed up, which is why I really had to see you today. I'm going through this thing called anterograde amnesia which means—”