Chapter 6 Freshmen
Freshmen
Josha
“Ithought Rachael was the party twin.”
Hannah elbows Gem’s excited frame out from between the front seats so she can back the Corolla out between the trees. “She is. That’s why you get me tonight. You need a DD for your first high school party.”
Gem throws himself back in the seat and doesn’t push it.
We could all crash at Cassidy’s. Her parents will take everyone’s keys in the way of Mendo parties—the unbreakable contract between parents of teenagers in an area where twelve inches of crumbling shoulder is all that separates the blacktop from an eighty-foot drop to death on the rocks.
They can’t stop us from drinking, but they can try to keep us all alive until graduation.
But Gem knows why Rachael can’t come too.
I spend as much time as possible at Big Top, but sometimes we have to hang at my place.
No one likes to leave Jeremy alone with my dad for too long, and my mom’s been picking up shifts at the ER lately to cover the bills.
At least, that’s why she says she’s doing it.
To be fair, since legalization sent weed prices into the gutter and my dad shut down our grow, he hasn’t been bringing home a lot of cash to help out.
In my less charitable moments, I think it’s really because she doesn’t like coming home before he’s passed out. They can’t fight when he’s unconscious. The peace is worth abandoning her children to each other’s care.
Both my twin sisters were adamant that Gem and I not miss the first party of the year now that we’re all in school together, so Rachael drew the short straw, and Hannah is covering like she always does, pretending that if she keeps the act together, no one will notice she’s the only grown-up in the room.
Cassidy’s house is one of those big redwood mansions, with glass everywhere and decks on two levels.
Hannah leaves us at the front door, beelining for her friends with a last “Don’t do anything too stupid” tossed over her shoulder.
Gem is bouncing on his toes, trying to take in everything from the kids leaning over the second-story balcony to the smoking crowd clustered around a keg in the yard.
Couples are making out in the Adirondack chairs on the front deck, and music pumps from somewhere deeper in the house.
“You came!” Penny flings herself into my arms, a tornado of spiky pink hair and elbows. “Hi, Gem,” she adds, as I disentangle myself. They bump fists, and she starts dragging us toward the kitchen. “This place is insane. Have you seen the rec room yet? There’s an eighty-inch TV.”
“We just got here,” I remind her.
“Lucky. My dad insisted on dropping me off early so he could talk to Cassidy’s parents. So humiliating. It was like me and four juniors for the first hour until people started showing up.”
There are only about sixty kids in the whole high school, and at least half of them seem to be here.
The kitchen is as huge as the rest of the house, with a central island covered in bottles and red plastic cups, and two coolers of ice slowly melting by the back door.
A group of upperclassmen sits around the breakfast table in the corner, playing some card game that seems to involve a lot of laughing and throwing cards.
Two of the girls and one of the guys have their shirts off.
No one is angry or sad or yelling with anything except youthful delight.
As if reading my thoughts, Penny asks, “Are we drinking?”
“You didn’t start without us?” Vague guilt tickles the back of my throat.
“I’m a little stoned.” She shrugs, exchanging a look with Gem.
According to Google, children of alcoholics are four times as likely as other people to become alcoholics themselves, but the odds are still only about fifty percent. Hannah once confessed she’s betting on Rachael and Jeremy.
“You and I are the control freaks,” she told me. “We’re probably safe.”
I don’t want to be a freak of any kind, and I don’t want to bet against my siblings. I want to have fun with my friends.
“I’m in.”
“Anything but vodka,” Gem says, slinging an arm around my shoulder. “Or Budweiser.” He’s helped me drag our overflowing recycling bin down to the road enough times to know my father’s preferred poisons.
Penny surveys the options and reaches for a bottle next to a bowl of sliced limes. “Tequila shots?”
“Body shots,” one of the girls from the card game crows, overhearing.
Within seconds, we’re surrounded as they abandon their game for ours.
The shirtless lacrosse player pours the shots while the two bra-clad girls demonstrate the rules.
Gem is bouncing on his toes again, but when I cut a glance his way, he leans his shoulder into mine and grins up through his inky lashes.
Penny goes first and stands on her tiptoes, one hand in my hair, to swipe a line of salt from my neck.
When I fumble the lime, she laughs and plucks it from my palm.
The girls argue good-naturedly over Gem’s turn, and he ends up doing two in a row—one from the first girl’s shoulder and then, emboldened, one from the other’s breast.
When it’s my turn, I freeze, a bolt of nervous panic crawling up my spine. Penny is the obvious choice, and she’s watching me with a small, expectant smile. But I’m not totally oblivious, and I try hard not to lead her on, so I avert my gaze.
“Here.” Misreading my hesitation, Gem licks his wrist and sprinkles it with salt, before offering it to me. “Get it over with. The first one’s the worst.”
Everyone’s eyes are on me, so I try not to think about the fact I’m putting my tongue where Gem’s just was, and act like the whole thing is no big deal.
I don’t grab his arm, afraid my fingers might betray my urge to sink into him and never let go.
Time slows as I bend my head to meet his waiting wrist.
Salt.
Skin.
Heat.
I don’t even taste the tequila going down, only the burn that travels all the way to my toes and has nothing to do with the alcohol. I shove a lime wedge between my teeth before anyone else can offer, coughing weakly while Gem pounds on my back and everyone hoots in delight.
“We should probably switch to beer.” Penny’s voice is slightly wavery, but I can’t tell if it’s from the tequila or the subtle rejection.
I drink two beers and then take one more shot and watch Gem and Penny fall over each other, dancing on the back deck.
Hannah collects us a little after one in the morning and shoves us both into the back seat with a warning not to puke in her car.
“Gem already puked in the bushes,” I inform her.
“Traitor,” he huffs, slumping into the seat and laying his head on my shoulder. “It was fun though, right?”
“It was fun.”
I drift all the way home, with soft curls tickling my jaw and the taste of salt on my tongue.
“When are you finally gonna hook up with Penny, anyway?”
We’re at Jughandle Beach a few weeks later, straddling our surfboards out past the breakers while we wait for a decent set.
The sky is low and ominous, but the rainy season hasn’t started yet.
In another month, it will be getting dark by the time school lets out, and we’ll be back to begging for rides on the weekends.
So far, high school with Gem has fallen painfully short of my fantasies, and I definitely haven’t told him I think he’s beautiful. Plenty of girls have, though, pressing their boobs against his arm and smiling up through painted lashes.
I’d never had a problem with the girls in my class before.
Most of them are pretty cool. The school is too small, and we’ve all known each other for too long to have mean girls or elitist cliques or even cheerleaders.
And it’s not their fault they’re growing into bodies the other guys—Gem—want to look at.
It’s not his fault he’s the shiny new toy everyone wants to play with.
It’s stupid to be jealous.
No one minds that he drags me along wherever he’s invited.
I’m too introverted to be popular, but people like me because I don’t make trouble and I’m nice to everyone.
The perfect guy to have in a group project.
The one who collects the trash from our tables and makes sure we leave a tip in the jar at the bakery after lunch.
So I tag along, and I sit in algebra and history and morning circle, watching him charm our peers with his antics and annoy the teachers with his inability to sit still for longer than five seconds.
And I learn to share.
Even now, there are three of our classmates chasing each other around the beach with a frisbee, waiting for us to get bored of the crappy surf and retreat to the driftwood fire burning at the base of the cliffs.
At least on the ocean, it’s just us.
Until he has to go and ruin it by asking stupid questions about Penny.
“Probably never,” I admit.
“Why not? She’s totally into you. You like her. It’s fun.”
Fun for him, maybe, dragging a new girl into the corner every week.
“I wouldn’t know where to start. Kissing, I mean.
” It’s a lame excuse, because at fifteen, my lack of experience should make me more eager, not less, but he doesn’t call me out on it.
We sit in silence for a while, stirring lazy circles in the swells with our feet until his board bumps against mine and our knees brush.
In his sleek, tight wetsuit, he’s like a storybook selkie ready to slip his skin and drag young men to their doom.
“How do you do it?” I ask, because now that I’ve brought it up, my brain won’t stop fixating on what it would be like to kiss a boy—not him, because I’m not totally delusional—but someone, someday. “How do you tell if they want to be kissed?”
“When they throw their arms around your neck or crawl into your lap, it’s usually a pretty good sign.
” He smirks at me sideways, and I shove at his shoulder.
When his board stops threatening to dump him into the surf, he continues.
“You can always ask. Consent is sexy, and girls are into that shit these days.”
I try to imagine asking any of the guys at school—even Cameron Hardy, who’s been out since sixth grade—if I can kiss them, and shake my head. “Too embarrassing.”
“Then give them the look, and if they give it back, you lean in and go for it.”
The look. I know the one he’s talking about. I’ve watched him turn it on a dozen girls and a few women in the year and a half we’ve been friends.
“Yeah, the look. You bat your soulful Rocket eyes at them and pout a little.” The full force of his charisma hits me in the chest when he demonstrates. A tiny gasp escapes me as my gaze drops to his mouth before I can help it.
“You got it.” His voice is miles and inches away. “Then like this.” And he closes the gap between us.
I know he’s not gay.
I know he’s only being my friend and giving me advice I probably need about kissing but definitely don’t about girls. But for the eternal second his lips are pressed to mine, my heart beats maybe, maybe, maybe.
He pulls back grinning, my reflection in his eyes like a secret he doesn’t have to share.
“A little salty, but see? Easy.”
“I’m gay,” I blurt.
“After one kiss? I didn’t even use my tongue.” He sticks it out at me while dipping a hand to splash water toward my chest, laughter bubbling from his throat.
Even the Pacific Ocean isn’t cold enough to stop the blush that races up my neck and sets my cheeks aflame.
“Wait.” His head cocks curiously. “You’re not fucking with me?”
I shrug, hot and cold and avoiding his gaze.
“Oh.”
I remember him fighting tears at my window when Shilo left and his furious denouncement of her relationship with Cheyenne.
Every casual intimacy we’ve ever shared flies through my head, suddenly at risk, and bright, clutching terror creeps into my gut.
My panic must show on my face because he reaches out, and a small, urgent part of me registers relief that there’s no hesitation when he clasps my shoulder.
“Rocket, chill. You know I don’t care, right? This doesn’t change anything about us.”
What if I want things to change?
No. I squash the thought with ruthless mercy.
“I know. I should have told you sooner.” I force a smile and shake my head. “Sorry.”
When I imagined coming out to Gem, an apology was never part of it. I wish I could take it back, erase the wrongness of it and go back to the moment before my confession.
There’s no going back, though. The truth hangs in the air between us, carried on the coastal wind back to the rest of our lives.
“You wanna head in?” he asks. “I don’t think the waves are gonna show up today.”
“Sure.”
I had my first kiss today with the boy of my dreams.
We paddle back in silence.
When we hit the break and stagger to our feet, he drags me into a rough hug. “You’re my best friend, Rocket. That’s not gonna stop because you like dick instead of pussy.”
It’s a lie. Everything changes.