Mayte #2
I turn to Auggie, and he stands and takes my hand, pulling me off the ground. We both dust off our pants and Auggie takes the ziplock bags and chocolate lip balm and puts them in his backpack before I can try to take them. He slips his hand into mine and smiles.
“Wait. Where’s your notebook?” I ask.
He tilts his head, like he’s thinking, then looks in his backpack. “Oh. I think I left it at home, actually.”
As we start to walk back to the car, I pull my hand from his, and run back to Aida’s grave. I grab Buttercup.
“I think it’s supposed to snow, and I think you’d hate me if I let her get ruined,” I say, and then run to catch up with Auggie.
On our way back, Auggie stops to get gas and I wait in the car while he runs inside. Before he gets in the car, he tells me to close my eyes as he stands with his hands behind his back. I do as he says.
“Now open your mouth.”
I do.
Red Skittle.
I smile as I chew and Auggie starts the car.
“Wow, you’re really trying, aren’t you?” I ask.
“Trying what?” he asks, a grin on his face.
“You know what I mean.” I point at him. “The sweater and the jeans. The red Skittles.”
“I also got Starburst and we’re going to share the pink ones,” he says. “You can add that in too.”
“And pink Starbursts?” I say. I lean my head on his shoulder and he shrugs me off. “You know how to make a girl feel like a princess. Which I guess is fair considering you basically write fairy tales.”
“I write fiction. It’s different than fairy tales,” he says. “But I guess fairy tales are fictional, so—”
“Hey, do you think it’d be cool if I came over?” I ask. “Hang out for a bit?”
There’s a rush of red in his cheeks, but he manages to keep his cool when he speaks. “Yeah, for sure. I bet my parents would love if you stayed for dinner.”
“Your parents are awesome,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says. “They’re a lot, but I love them.”
“I don’t know if I’ve had, like, an actual conversation with either of my parents since Aida died,” I say. “My mom mostly talks to her sisters and her mom, and my dad has just shut down. It’s kind of terrible at my house.”
“That really sucks,” Auggie says. “But also makes sense. I was wondering why I’d never been able to come over. Cuz, you know, you met my parents and stuff, and I never really met yours.”
He pulls into his driveway and plants a pink Starburst in my hand as we get out of the car. We say our hellos to his parents and Kate, then I announce I have an essay I need help with.
“Can we go up to your room for a bit?” I ask Auggie.
“Yeah, for sure,” he says.
“I’ll call you guys down when it’s time for dinner,” his mom says as we run upstairs.
When we get to his room, I turn on the lights, and when I look back toward him, he’s typing his password into his laptop.
“Did you send it to me already?” he asks.
I laugh. “I don’t have an essay.”
“Then why did you say you have an essay?”
I take a deep breath.
“Mayte?” he asks.
I’m not going to mess this one up. It’s not as scary. Or it shouldn’t be at least.
“Auggie, I like you,” I say. I close my eyes and then open them and then stare at the ground and then look up and stare at him.
“Like, I really like you. Like a lot. And, um, I don’t know if you feel the same way and it’s totally fine if you don’t because being your friend is amazing and I know this is kind of weird considering we were just talking to my dead sister’s headstone, and I’ve been thinking for the past few weeks about whether it’s just, like, trauma bonding since you were the one with me when she died and I’m sure part of it is, but part of it is that I’ve never met anyone like you and you’re such a nerd, but you’re so interesting, and I always knew you were kinda cute, but when we made you over I realized I’m really attracted to you and want to kiss you, but not just so I can have my first kiss but because I want to kiss you, Auggie Peterson, and I really, really hope I’m not fucking up our friendship by saying all of this.
” I try to catch my breath. “Okay, that’s all. ”
He stares at me in silence, his eyes wide.
“Auggie, you’ve gotta say something,” I say. “You’ve gotta say something or I’m going to freak out.”
He doesn’t say anything. He just keeps staring at me, and the longer it lasts, the more my heart starts to sink.
Have I been misreading everything? I know he’s a kind person, but I thought there was something more than that in the way he was looking at me.
Was I totally wrong? Is this just how he is with everyone? Is he—
Suddenly he takes my hands and pulls me gently toward him. I let him.
And then, “Augustine!” his mom calls.
I loosen my grip on his hands and look toward the door, but he doesn’t. He moves one of his hands to push my hair behind my ear and rest on my cheek, his thumb on my lip. He leans in.
“Augustine, will you come down here for a moment?” his mom says again. Then there’s the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs.
I start to laugh.
Auggie lets go of me and throws his head back. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he groans.
“Just go,” I say. “It’s fine. At least now we both know we want it to happen.”
He looks at me and smiles, nods without saying a word, and heads out into the hall, closing the door behind him.
I collapse onto his bed and stare up at the ceiling.
I’m going to kiss him. I’m going to have my first kiss. And it’s going to be with a guy I really like. A guy who genuinely cares about me. My first kiss isn’t going to be a throwaway. I’ve never been a romantic by any means, but in this moment, I feel only that.
Except now that Auggie has left before anything happened, I have time to obsess over the fact that this could be an absolute disaster.
One: I don’t look particularly cute today.
Two: Should I have put my hair up so it doesn’t get in the way?
Is that a thing? Three: Should I have put on one of the lip balms or reapplied lip gloss or something?
I’ve eaten a few pink Starbursts and red Skittles, but I ate tuna for lunch.
Four: Auggie has kissed someone before and I have not.
What if I don’t know what I’m doing and it’s super awkward and he never wants to kiss me again?
I reach for my bag to grab my lip gloss and to see if I have an extra hair tie and realize I left it downstairs. Shit. There is nothing I can do about any of these things. I’m stuck just how I am.
And then a smile slips onto my face.
Just how I am was how Auggie tried to kiss me. He pushed my hair behind my ear. He was at the table for lunch today, so he knows I ate tuna. He very obviously knows that I have no experience with kissing. He wants me just the way I am.
Instead of trying to make myself more desirable, I decide to be just the way I am and change the background of Auggie’s laptop to something horrifying.
My primos and I used to do it to each other’s phones: change the wallpaper to creepy dolls or murder clowns as a joke when we saw that someone had left their phone unlocked.
I grab Auggie’s laptop from his desk and bring it with me to his bed, pulling up an image search and typing in “weird, creepy animals.”
Jackpot.
There’s what I believe to be a dry, wrinkled, naked mole rat rearing its bucktoothed head that feels like the absolute perfect move and I right-click, saving it to his desktop.
I minimize the internet window and click the image, saving it as his wallpaper, but as the naked mole rat appears, taking over the entire screen, I notice the name of a document.
Mayte.
My face breaks out into a smile again and I hover the mouse over the icon. I know I shouldn’t, but how could I not be curious? Did he write a poem about me? An essay? Just his thoughts?
I double-click and open the document.
And begin to read a factually inaccurate but emotionally spot-on version of the moment I found out my abuelita had cancer.
“What the hell is this?” I mutter as I skim through it.
But then I stop when something else catches my eye. A sentence wrapped in quotation marks.
“They didn’t paint her nails. They didn’t paint the nails on her seashell hand!” Mayte screams.
What. The. Fuck.
Why is he writing about my life?
The door opens and he walks in with two cans of seltzer.
“My mom was in the middle of making stir-fry but then she remembered she made sancocho last night and was trying to figure out which one you would want,” he says.
“Do either one of those—” He stops and looks from me to the laptop and then lurches for it.
I pull it back. “What are you doing with my laptop?”
“What are you doing with my life story?” I ask. I turn the laptop toward him. “What the fuck is this, Auggie?”
“Shit,” he says, and tries to grab for it again. “Shit, no, Mayte.”
I put his laptop on the bed and stand up. “What is this?”
“It’s… it’s… um… just a story.” He grabs the laptop and shuts it.
“It’s my story,” I say. “So why are you writing it?”
He’s silent.
“Auggie, why are you writing my story?”
He sighs and runs his hands through his hair.
“I… I’m applying to Creative Writing programs, which you know.
And all I had were those stupid stories about New York and stuff, and my teachers were telling me that I needed to write about something more real, more raw, something that showed courage and honor and sacrifice and all this stuff.
And, you know, they always say to write what you know, but my life is so boring, Mayte.
I have this perfect family and this perfect house and this perfect life and there’s nothing wrong or interesting going for me, but you… ”
“Auggie. What the fuck?” I say again, but this time it’s almost a whisper.
This time, I am realizing what’s been happening for months now.
“You think my abuelita’s cancer and my sister’s death and my fucked-up family and the way they’ve ruined my fucking life are interesting?
You think I’m some fucking main character, some fucking hero? ”
“Mayte—”
“You’re jealous of the fact that my family is all fucked up and I’m all fucked up and none of us know how to do anything about it because it makes a good story? Because it’s, what, some literary conflict?”
“Mayte,” he says again.
A tear slides down my face and I wipe it away, attempting to push back any others. I’m not trying to protect him from the emotional breakdown. This time, I’m trying to protect myself. “Is that why you’ve been hanging out with me? Just to collect ideas for your little story?”
His eyes widen again. “No!” he yells. “No! Of course not!”
“I don’t believe you!” I yell back. “You said you would never use that stuff against me! You told me you’d never use any of this against me!”
“I’m not using it against you! I wasn’t going to… to hide it from you forever. I was going to show it to you eventually.”
“Save it,” I say, starting toward his bedroom door.
“Mayte,” he says, grabbing for my hand.
“Let go of me,” I say, and he does.
“Mayte, maybe there was a part of me at the beginning that wanted to learn more about you for the story, but that’s not it anymore. It’s you now. It’s just you. It’s just how I feel about you.”
I open his door and run downstairs past his family in the kitchen.
“Mayte?” Auggie’s mom says, and I ignore her, flinging my bag over my shoulder.
“Mayte!” Auggie calls, running down the stairs. “Mayte, I’m sorry!”
I turn back to him. “No, you’re not, Auggie. You’re sorry you got caught.”
“I didn’t know it would hurt you,” he says.
“Yes, you did, or you wouldn’t have worked so hard to make sure I didn’t know it existed.”
“I was going to change your name,” he says.
I scoff. “Oh, yeah, that’s totally what’s wrong here. Using my name.” I throw open the front door and look back at him. “This entire conversation was off the record, by the way. And so is anything else I’ll ever say to you again.”