Chapter Two #2
“Cool.” His phone buzzed, and he laughed softly as he read the message. The question hovered on the tip of my tongue before I swallowed it roughly. Is that him? Is he still your boyfriend?
Did you ever think of me?
I’d only ever seen the boyfriend once. Beginning of junior year, before that night at the pizzeria made everything worse. As Charlie’s thumbs flew and he texted whoever it was back, traffic crept to a near standstill. We inched along, and the memory stubbornly filled my mind.
Brad and Paul were talking about the football game, but their grumbling washed over me in a series of grunts as I watched Charlie hurrying down the steps toward the curb, his head low like usual.
A Jeep with the top down waited. The blond guy behind the wheel looked like a senior, but I didn’t recognize him.
When he spotted Charlie, the guy smiled brightly and lifted his chin. He tapped the steering wheel, keeping time with the beat of a song I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t see Charlie’s expression as he climbed in, but then he tilted his head and they kissed.
They actually honest-to-God kissed, right there by the curb. Charlie kissed another guy. A guy who wasn’t me. My lungs constricted, and I was going to explode or pass out or maybe die.
“Earth to Gavin?”
I managed to suck in a rush of air as Candace linked her arm with mine and bumped our shoulders together. It shouldn’t have hurt, seeing Charlie with that guy. I shouldn’t have cared. But wow. Charlie was really gay. And he wasn’t hiding it.
He wasn’t a coward like me.
Candace must have followed my frozen gaze. “Oh, I guess that’s his new boyfriend. Tim something. Nina said he goes to Jefferson.”
I couldn’t shove the words past my tight throat. Couldn’t even nod. Charlie and his boyfriend were laughing about something as this Tim person put the Jeep in drive. I hadn’t seen Charlie laugh in so long.
What did I expect? He sure didn’t owe me anything. We didn’t even know each other anymore. And I knew that was my fault, and the low hum of regret I lived with constantly crescendoed as my eyes burned. I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted the metallic copper of blood.
Candace was still talking. “He’s going through so much with his poor sister. I’m glad he found someone. And before you say it, shut up, Brad. Yes, I can read your tiny mind.”
I watched them drive away, the Jeep joining the line of vehicles leaving school. I was inside out, my guts hanging there raw and bloody.
“Gav?” Candace elbowed me, and I managed to turn my head and focus on her frown. “What’s wrong?” She screwed up her face. “You’re not some secret homophobe, are you?”
“Of course not.” My voice sounded alien to me, but Candace’s brow smoothed out. “It’s great for him. Really cool. Awesome.”
And why shouldn’t Charlie have a boyfriend? I should be glad, since the idea of him lonely hit me with a deep pang—even as the thought of Charlie and Tim—or someone new—sent jealousy boiling through me.
As we inched along the interstate, Charlie put his phone away in his pocket. He turned up the radio and hit the scan button, listening to each station for two seconds before continuing on, never seeming to find what he was looking for.
Charlie
I wasn’t sure if it was the crick in my neck or the drool dripping down my chin that woke me.
Inhaling sharply, I jolted up straight. It was dark, and I blinked at the red glow of taillights.
Beside me, Gavin turned down the radio, which had been playing a bad cover of “Santa Baby.” I rubbed my eyes. “Where are we?”
“We passed Wells, Nevada, a little while back.”
The green display on the dashboard said it was just after eleven p.m. I pulled out my phone and read a text from Mom.
How’s it going? You and Gavin be careful on those roads. Don’t drive too fast. Christmas will be whenever you get here. Xxxxx
I tamped down the swell of emotion. Most people did “xoxo,” but when I was little my mom always kissed my forehead, chin, both cheeks, and then the tip of my nose before I went to sleep.
She did it with Ava too. I guess it’s our family’s thing, although my dad was always big on the bear hugs.
He and Mom are kind of perfect that way. Yin and yang, Aunt Wendy says.
“Everything okay?”
I glanced at Gavin, who looked over with a concerned furrow between his brows. “Um, yeah.”
I went back to my phone and opened my map.
Why was Gavin being…nice? He hadn’t deigned to pay me the slightest bit of attention in years—aside from that day in the pizza place, the thought of which sent a prickly rush of anger and shame through me.
But earlier when he’d asked about Ava, he’d seemed sincere.
I shifted in my seat, uncrossing my legs. When I’d woken up that morning from my uneasy pre-airport sleep, I’d expected to be back home in Norwalk by now. But here I was in a car in Buttfuck, Nevada—with Gavin Bloomberg. It was so goddamned weird.
And as I focused on the map, I realized I was going to be in a car with Gavin for a long-ass time. “We’re, like, six hours behind schedule. At least.”
“Yeah, it sucks. It really took forever getting out of the Bay Area.” He yawned widely.
With a stab of guilt, I realized he’d been driving since that morning. “I can drive now. Sorry, I didn’t mean to pass out for so long.”
“It’s okay. Should probably get more gas too. At the next station we can switch. There’s a town coming up.”
“Cool.” I fiddled with the laces on my sneaker. This part of the interstate had two lanes in each direction, and white headlights passed by on the other side of a grassy median. The land looked flat as a pancake, but it was too dark to see much. “You ever driven across the country before?”
“Nope. You?”
“No.”
In the ensuing silence, broken only by that incredibly annoying Paul McCartney Christmas song on the radio, I stared out the window, trying to see beyond the flat scrub that disappeared into inky blackness.
I racked my brain for something to say. That first summer, Gavin and I would talk for hours and hours about nothing.
Comics and movies, and just…stuff. Now we could barely handle the kind of small talk you’d make in a taxi or on a plane.
“How’s Tim?”
Whoa. I swiveled my head to gape at him. “What?”
“That’s his name, isn’t it? That guy you were seeing from Jefferson High?” Gavin adjusted one of the heating vents, casual as anything.
“Yeah. That’s his name. I didn’t…how did you know?”
He laughed uneasily. “What, you thought it was a secret or something? Everyone knew. It wasn’t a big deal. It’s not like you hid it.”
“No one mentioned it to me.” I wrapped one of my laces around my index finger, cutting off the circulation.
It wasn’t that I cared about people knowing I was gay—he was right, I hadn’t hidden it.
But the idea of Gavin actually talking about me and Tim (probably with Candace) torpedoed bile up my esophagus.
“Seemed like you never really talked to anyone at school the last couple years. You always had your earbuds in, and outside class you didn’t join in anything.”
“I was a little busy with my dying sister.” I tugged the lace harder.
“Oh, I know. I’m not saying…you just seemed…”
“What?”
“Angry.” He shrugged. “You intimidated people.”
I released the lace and let the blood back into my fingertip. “So? I don’t care what people think.”
“I know. I always admired that about you. Most guys I knew in junior high wouldn’t have spent so much time playing with their little sister. You never worried about being ‘cool’ or whatever.”
The flush of pleasure that warmed me was beyond stupid and annoying. “Well, Tim was a cool guy, but we weren’t serious. He’s been at Penn State since last year. Having a good time from what I see on Facebook. Bagging a lot of hot guys.”
“Oh yeah? Cool.” Gavin cleared his throat. “What about you?”
How was this real life? Sure, just talking about banging guys with Gavin.
NBD. “Sure, college has been fun. Plenty of guys to hook up with at USF. For a Jesuit school, the party scene is pretty wild.” I’d fooled around with a few students, but that was it.
Sex was fun, but I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend.
“I was wondering about that. Not the party scene, but the religious thing. I didn’t think you were a big believer?”
I laughed. “Oh, I’m not. But they take heathens too. I wrote an essay about how cancer kills faith, and they gave me a full ride. It would have been an in-state school for me if they hadn’t. I guess they figure they can save my soul. But I haven’t actually met any Bible thumpers. It’s been chill.”
“That’s good. What’s your major going to be?”
“No idea. I’m taking a bunch of stuff this year, and we’ll see if anything sticks. What about you?”
“Engineering.”
“Nice.” I should have known he’d be doing something super smart. His dad was a civil engineer, and I still wasn’t really sure what he actually did, but it was probably hard.
“How are your parents?” he asked.
“Good. Better now. It’s been hard with Ava and everything.”
“Yeah, I bet. Is your dad still at the same firm?”
I smiled briefly. “He just made partner, actually. It was a pretty big deal.”
“Cool!” Gavin’s face lit up, a grin pushing the dimples into his cheeks and making my stomach flip-flop like a fish on the bottom of a boat. Do not go there, Charlie. Get a grip. “Is your mom going back to work now?”
“Not sure. I think she’s gotten her fill of hospitals, you know? But she might do some private nursing or something. We’ll see.” I cleared my throat and stared out the windshield at the red lights. “How are your folks?”
The bright-eyed remnants of his grin vanished, and Gavin sped up to change lanes and pass the car in front of us. “They’re fine. Oh, there’s the exit for that town.” He accelerated more to get back in the right lane.