Chapter 10 #2
“In real life she only knocked me down.” I move sand aside with my foot like I’m uncovering the scene of a crime.
“I heard she had a crush on me and I said I had a crush on her too, so we met at the sandbox during recess and everyone watched us kiss. Then she pushed me down and never spoke to me again. Like a year later she came out as a lesbian.”
Christy turns. “Wait. Lauren?”
“Yes?”
She almost jumps with excitement. “She was my first girl kiss!”
“No.”
“We partied together in middle school.”
“Your first girl kiss was my first girl kiss!”
She laughs.
I put a finger up. “Who was your first boy kiss? I want to prepare myself.”
“You don’t want to kiss him.” She makes a laughing sound. “Although it would make so much sense if the first nice guy I ever dated turned out to be gay.”
I follow her to the end of the sandbox. “Hold on. What’s your sexuality?”
“Straight.”
“But you kissed Lauren.”
“For fun.”
“Maybe you’re bi or pan.”
“I’ve thought about it. I’m straight.”
She steps up onto the wood border of the sandbox and walks balanced along it.
“You know yourself best,” I say. I hop onto the border and follow her. “But if I kissed a guy one time why would that mean I’m gay? What if that was just for fun, or just to see?”
“It’s different for guys.”
I talk to the back of her head. “Is it?”
“Women are beautiful.”
“And men?”
“Are disgusting.”
“I don’t disagree, but—”
I slip on a broken piece of wood and stumble off. Arguing about boys kissing boys is probably not the best way to get a girl to kiss you. I hop back onto the border and say, “Like, is sexuality really different for guys or does everyone just think it is because everyone says it is?”
Christy stands on one foot with the other leg stretched out to the side. “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t want to date a guy who’s kissed guys.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not masculine.”
I laugh. “It’s the most masculine thing there is! Masculine means being like a guy, so how can there be anything a guy does that isn’t masculine?”
“Ha!” she says, and starts walking away.
“I just mean the words don’t really make sense when you think about them.”
She keeps walking.
I keep talking. “And guys especially aren’t supposed to want to talk about it. We’re not supposed to want to talk about anything.”
“You can talk about whatever you want.”
“As long as I don’t cry about it.”
“You can cry.” She tilts her head, considering. “Just don’t cry more than me!”
I immediately open the English homework and write out the conversation while Christy heads down the steep hill where we used to go sledding at recess. I didn’t own snow pants, so I’d always spend the rest of the day in wet jeans.
Christy shouts from the darkness at the bottom of the hill, “What is wrong with you?”
“Me?” I shout back. “Among other things! I’m too! Nervous! To have! Sex!”
“Intercourse,” she corrects at regular volume when I make it down to her.
“True.”
“You’ve had oral sex.”
“I have!”
“And you don’t have to want to do more.”
“I want to. I don’t know why I—” I take a deep breath, and let it all out in a burst. “I guess I’m a little sensitive.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing.”
A heaviness I hadn’t noticed eases off my face. My jaw unclenches. “Maybe it is.”
She takes my shoulders. Like a gentle detective, she tilts my face until it catches the yellow lights from the playground.
I laugh and pull away. “What?”
“Seriously, did you somehow get older today?”
I try to answer with something witty, but instead say, “Why?”
“You seem…I dunno.” She follows me back to the street. “This summer you were always so silly.”
“Tonight, however, I am boring.”
“No, no…”
All the houses around us are dark. I point at Christy. “Why should you never take a shower with a Pokémon?”
She rolls her eyes and keeps them up, exaggerating. “Why?”
“Because he’ll Pikachu!”
She shakes her head.
We walk back toward our houses, small-talking about what classes we have.
I try to hear if my voice sounds different and I feel like it does.
Slower, less worried about getting to the end of a sentence.
We stop in the middle of the road at the same corner we always stop at, halfway between our places.
“Thank you for a lovely night,” she says.
I want to say something but I don’t know what it is. I can feel it’s soft and I can feel myself running away from it. She puts her hands in her back pockets and frowns a little. How does she look so good under a streetlight?
“Thanks,” I say, and I realize I’m thanking her for letting me see how beautiful she is. I’m thanking her for being someone in my life. “Thank you for letting me see how beautiful you are. For being someone in my life.”
She takes a breath like she’s about to say something, then exhales. She leans forward and kisses me, holding her lips on mine.
When we separate, I hold up a hand. “Bye.”
She smiles. “See ya.”
The humidity wraps itself around me as I go. It holds me.
Mom’s car is still gone and the house is as humid inside as outside. The pignolis are still on a big plate on the couch. I take off my shirt on my way to my bedroom and lie down on my carpet, rolling over it slowly.
I take out my phone and open NEW STAND-UP.
It’s still blank, and I feel even further from being able to come up with any ideas for it.
I turn to my English homework, though, and I easily write down the goodbye conversation with Christy.
I know I already learned that I can open up when I first spoke to Elijah in the bathroom, but it’s like it takes several re-realizations to go against the way I’ve programmed my brain for so many years.
I message Christy, Thank you for talking about not making yourself small
I’m practicing being honest about how I feel
When we said goodbye I felt sad
I didn’t want you to go
She replies immediately. I didn’t want to go either
I write, I could say you should come back so you can get some pignolis, but I don’t want to joke or pretend. I want you to come back so I can see you
She writes, I want to come back
To get pignolis AND to see you
I write, Come back?
Coming, she writes.
I look around my room. There are my shelves of old action figures and LEGO sets. That’s okay. I don’t wonder where the condoms are because I won’t need them. I put on a quiet record and the room fills with warm, acoustic guitar.
A knock comes from the front door. Christy stands in the same clothes as a few minutes ago, but the firemark on her neck burns red. Her shirt moves with her breath.
“No words is probably best,” I say, “but I’d like to make sure it’s okay if we don’t have intercourse tonight. I don’t know why but I’m too scared.”
She stays outside the door. “That’s completely okay.”
“But if you’d be open to joining me for other things?”
I hold out a hand, she takes it and steps in, and I lead her to my room.
I close the door behind us and she stays still.
“Let’s see,” I say, and I step backwards, gently pulling her toward the bed.
I sit down and she stands in front of me.
I unbutton and unzip her jeans and she lifts off her shirt.
I slowly pull her jeans down as she releases her bra and lets it fall off her arms. She takes off her jeans as I unbutton mine, pull them down, and push them off.
I lie back across the bed and she follows and lies beside me.
We kiss and she takes off her underwear.
I pull my boxers off, and there I am, my penis, a part of me I’ve always had mixed feelings about, like it was offensive when erect and embarrassing when not.
Whenever it’s appeared between Christy and me, she’s always taken it in her mouth quickly like she knows it’s something to put out of sight.
Tonight she places her hand on my chest and we kiss.
We lie side by side. We don’t do anything we haven’t done before, but it feels new because I’m no longer worried about whether it’s enough.
When we’re done I feel so good I laugh, and she does too, pushing me away and then pulling me back and kissing me through her smile. It’s fun but not dishonest. It’s vulnerable but not sad. It’s something I don’t know how to describe. Something true.