14
“So, tell us your name and what you’re studying at Midway University,”
Theo said.
“Um, well, I’m…I don’t have to say my last name, do I?”
the girl asked.
“Not if you don’t want to,”
Theo replied.
“Okay. I’m Kylie and I’m studying English at Midway. Go Mountain Lions!”
Kylie replied.
Theo laughed.
“So…what’s something you want people to know about you, Kylie?”
“I don’t know,”
Kylie said. “I guess I didn’t think about this first.”
“Anything you want to say is fine,”
Theo said.
“Um, well,”
Kylie mumbled, “They really need tampon machines in the girls’ bathrooms at Midway!”
I swiped my thumb on the screen.
“Okay, Malik. What do you want everyone to know?”
Theo said.
“There are not nearly enough vegetarian options in the dining hall,”
Malik said. “Midway University needs to have better dining options for all of its students.”
I chuckled and swiped again.
“My name is Maya. I’m studying business here at Midway,”
the girl said.
“Hi, Maya. What do you want everyone to know about you?”
Theo asked.
“Well, I…”
Maya looked down, away from the camera.
“You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to,”
Theo said, offscreen. “But you can also say anything you want. This is a safe space. And I won’t post the video unless you say I can.”
I found that odd, since everyone Theo had made videos of had specifically stopped him and asked to be on his channel. However, I was glad he was making a safe space for everyone who might simply want someone to talk to about something.
“No. No. I want you to post this,”
Maya said.
“Okay,”
Theo said. “Take your time. Talk to me when you feel ready.”
Maya took a deep breath, stared down a little bit longer, then looked back up at the camera.
“I haven’t told my parents yet. But all of my friends know. I’m…gay. A lesbian,”
Maya said. “And I’m worried that they’ll stop loving me. That’s all.”
Maya looked down again, chewing at her lip, her eyes brimming with tears. Theo kept the camera on her, silent for a moment.
“Well,”
he said, finally, “welcome to the community. I’m proud of you for saying that out loud. I’m going to turn the video off and hug you. If you want?”
Maya gave a small smile and nodded.
The video ended.
I swiped my thumb across the screen. Some of the videos were short. Some long. But everyone who had asked Theo to put them on his channel had something to say.
“I’m Clark Rafferty and I’m studying economics at Midway University. Go Mountain Lions! Woot!”
Theo laughed. “Okay, Clark. What do you have to say?”
“I just want everyone to know that we’re going to take it at Homecoming! Don’t doubt the Lions, man! We’re bringing it home this year! Woot!”
Clark ran away from the camera, arms waving crazy, prancing all over the quad. Theo turned the phone to look into the camera, a confused, yet amused, look on his face.
I blew out a laugh and swiped again.
“Talk to me, Callie,”
Theo said. “What do you want everyone to know?”
“We have a book club every Saturday afternoon at the student union center. So, if you want to know which book we’re reading, and—”
I closed the Peepers app. Most of the people who stopped Theo and asked to be on his channel were not the serious type. While I was happy that people were generally being nicer to Theo and wanting to be involved with his social media, I was bothered by the quality of things they had to say. Not wanting to seem arrogant, I still felt that it began because Arthur had shared a genuinely poignant story about being marginalized, how he literally fought back, and the lesson he learned from it.
Students at Midway just wanted to be on Theo’s Peepers channel, for the most part. They simply wanted their face to be seen and their voices to be heard by a bunch of people for a few seconds. Aside from Maya, the lesbian, no one really said anything incredibly poignant. Not that tampon machines weren’t important, and showing school pride wasn’t awful—and making sure vegetarians had options was good—most of videos seemed to be of people without something deep to say.
Shaking my head, I laid my phone on my desk and stood. I’d have to forget about the quality—or lack thereof—in the videos Theo had posted over the last few weeks. Eventually, I’d get a chance to talk to him about possibly making sure he didn’t let every random idiot say something on his channel. He never went live on Peepers, so he didn’t have to worry about some idiot saying something deeply problematic on his channel. So, I felt he could take his time to curate his videos better.
Since Theo had made me promise to tell him what I felt he was doing right, and what he was doing wrong, I was going to exercise my voice. Even if it was kind of entertaining watching my fellow students say the most random things on Peepers. I mean, who doesn’t want to see the smarty-pants from their freshman Economics class draw a blank when asked to speak?
“I don’t know,”
Theo said as he pushed the door open to my dorm room. “I might have doomed us here.”
I turned in my desk chair to look at him. He’d put on his baggie red sweater with the appliqué woman in a white dress on the chest. Theo was holding the neck brace he still had to put on at his side. He’d teased his hair into a giant 80s mass of tangles and frizz, which he’d frozen in place with ozone-depleting amounts of hair spray. He didn’t have enough hair for a ponytail, so he’d done what he could to fit the part. I was wearing my electric blue baggie sweater, a paisley kerchief tied around my neck. My hair, short like Theo’s, was as crazy.
“No one is going to get this,” he said.
He gestured at his outfit.
“I think it’s brilliant.”
I shrugged. “And if people don’t get it, we’ll do the dance.”
“Okay.”
Theo leaned forward, as though speaking in confidence, though we were across the room from each other. “But what other twenty-one-year-old student at Midway University will get the Sixteen Candles Joan Cusack dancing at the high school dance reference?”
“We don’t make art to be understood!”
I declared. “We make art to be artists!”
Theo laughed and waved me off.
“You don’t have to be nice because I picked a bad movie reference for our couple’s costume,”
he said. “We should have gone with Romy and Michelle.”
“Look,”
I said, “if you’re going to go with obscure references about movie female friends who dance at a school event together, you should go with the deep cut. It makes me laugh. It makes you laugh. Who cares if no one gets it? The more people don’t get it, the more opportunity we have to do the dance and let them guess.”
“You think?”
“I know,”
I said. “And, when you post a video of you in your costume on Peepers, there will be tons of people who appreciate it. I swear.”
Theo eyed me. “You decide if you’ll do the dance with me for a Peepers video yet?”
“I’m considering it.”
I turned in my chair, hoping he’d drop the subject.
“Mmmhm,”
Theo said with a laugh. “You about ready?”
I sighed. “We should have gotten wigs.”
“I done been sayin’ that!”
Theo crowed and strapped the neck brace on.
Laughing together, we grabbed our room keys and wallets from my bed where we’d left them. Theo tossed his bag of supplies he’d brought to get ready for the Halloween bonfire together with me into the corner at the foot of my bed. With Collin noticeably absent from the dorm we shared—and my life—getting ready in my room had been easiest. Neither of us wanted to get ready in Theo’s room, in case his roommate was scenting the air with his special brand of stink.
When we got into the hall, we found it flooded with other students in various stages of getting ready to head out to the bonfire. Greeted cheerfully by almost everyone we passed, we exchanged fist bumps and high-fives with several of the students on my floor. By the time we got down to the elevators, my hands stung from all the slaps. Also, we found that there was a line to use the elevators to get down to the lobby. Everyone was crowding around, waiting their turn, socializing and comparing costumes.
I felt bad that nearly no one had even clocked that Theo and I were dressed up, let alone that we had come up with a great duo costume. Not that it would break my heart if no one liked the costume idea, I still felt bad for Theo. When he’d suggested that we dress up like Joan Cusack and her dance partner in Sixteen Candles, I’d thought it was hilarious. If it fell flat and no one “got it,”
he’d feel defeated.
“Come on.”
Theo grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the elevators, yanking me from my thoughts.
Silently, I followed him as he dragged me towards the stairwell. Once we’d pushed through the metal door and it had slapped shut behind us, I suddenly realized how noisy the dorm hallway had been. It was like being returned to the womb. Theo led me to the first landing and pushed me against the beige cinderblock wall.
“Excuse me?”
I stammered.
Before I could do anything, Theo had stepped back and pulled out his phone. A quick snap and flash later, and I was blinded.
“Just in case you decide I can put you in my Halloween Peepers video.”
Theo grinned.
He handed me his phone and exchanged places with me.
“Take one of me,” he said.
Shrugging, I took a picture of Theo against the wall. In the dimly lit stairwell and with the flash on, the picture was dark. Only Theo and his costume seemed to stand out, everything else around him was in darkness. I surreptitiously swiped to check the photo he’d taken of me and found it to be of similar quality. I looked ridiculous, but nothing I could actually protest against.
“I don’t care if you keep this picture no matter what,”
I said, handing the phone back to Theo, “but you won’t post it until I decide if I want to be on your channel, right?”
“Of course not.”
Theo rolled his eyes with a chuckle. “I never post anyone unless they say it’s okay.”
“I know.”
We stood there on the stairwell landing for a moment, me looking over Theo’s arm as he scrolled through the pics he’d taken while getting ready for the bonfire. When he accidentally scrolled too far and a photo of him in his boxer briefs in the bathrooms popped up, I squeaked out an “oop”
sound and he chuckled nervously and locked his phone. Sliding his phone into his pocket, he turned to me with a rosy-cheeked smile.
“In case I haven’t said it yet,”
he said, “and, in case I forget to say it later, thanks for doing this.”
“I mean,”
I replied, “I was going anyway. May as well get all gussied up and have fun with it.”
He nudged me in the arm playfully.
“This means a lot,”
he said. “This costume really is stupid.”
I nodded. “It truly is. I love it.”
“You mean it?”
he asked as we turned and started down the stairs.
“I mean it,”
I said. “Even if nobody gets it, it feels special. I guarantee that not one single person tonight will be dressed like us. And all the duos who did couple’s costumes will be sexy, freaky, weird things. We have class.”
Theo guffawed.
Down in the lobby a minute later, we found a crowd of people milling about, checking out each other’s costumes. Theo grabbed my hand as we exited the stairwell and yanked me through the flood of bodies. We got stopped several times by people who desired to tell Theo they wanted to be on his channel. Polite and amiable, he made promises to record more people and their thoughts in the coming days and weeks. However, he made it clear that tonight was all about Halloween and the bonfire. Fortunately, everyone took that well. Of course, there’s nothing like Halloween and an impending party to make people friendly.
He continued to pull me through the crowd by my hand until we got through the glass doors leading out to the path. Once we were clear of everyone and had turned on the path towards the parking lot, I slid my hand from his. Theo looked down at the movement, as if he hadn’t been aware he was still holding my hand. He gave me a quick smile and shoved his hands in his pockets.
I studied him for a moment as we walked, until my eyes drifted up to his hair.
“Your hair looks so dumb,” I said.
“You think so?”
The sun was fully behind the horizon and darkness was creeping in, though the sodium lamps had buzzed on and cast us in an orange glow. People raced by and around us as we walked the path, giggles and laughs and screams filling my ears. The bonfire was going to be held in the giant empty field next to the north parking lot, and it seemed as if the entire campus was going to participate.
“Absolutely,”
I replied.
“Thank you.”
“I’m glad you realized it was a compliment.”
Theo looked over at me, his eyes lingering on mine for a moment before they drifted up to look at my hair.
“I think your hair looks really dumb, too,” he said.
“Thanks!”
We laughed and continued on our way. All of the people running around us on the path forced us together out of sheer self-preservation. If we were going to get knocked down, we were going down together. I hoped that if one of us got shoulder checked or bumped in some way, the other one would be quick enough to grab them and keep them upright.
I couldn’t blame the students of Midway University for their excitement. I’m a pretty big Halloween guy myself. Candy, costumes, spookiness, pumpkins, a nice hayride—what’s not to love? Desiring a little more care and safety wasn’t too much to ask of my fellow college students, though. Either way, I was glad that I had Theo to buddy up with for the bonfire. With Collin still not talking to me, or even acknowledging I still existed, I was grateful for the friendship.
“So,”
I said, glancing over at Theo briefly, “I think a brief dance video in costume for Peepers isn’t totally out of the question.”
Theo didn’t break stride, but he gasped and turned his head to look at me.
“Really?”
“Sure,”
I said with a shrug. “Arthur will absolutely lose it when he sees it. That makes my inevitable humiliation worth it, I suppose.”
“Let’s do it now!”
Theo said, stopping in his tracks.
“What?”
I asked, suddenly nervous.
Theo spun around, looking at our surroundings.
“Yeah,”
Theo said. “If we wait until we get to the bonfire and there’s a lot of people around, you’re going to chicken out. If we do it now when there’s not a huge crowd, you won’t feel so self-conscious about it!”
I couldn’t argue with Theo’s logic, but he was wrong. I could easily feel ridiculous about anything I did, wherever I did it. I’d seen me do it. It was a gift.
Before I could think of an argument, Theo had grabbed my hand again and was pulling me towards Midway Roasters. I hadn’t noticed that we were passing the coffee shop since I’d been thinking about the bonfire and the video Theo wanted to do.
Theo dragged me over to stand under the exterior lights of the coffee shop, which had closed in preparation for the bonfire. Since the shop was dark and empty inside, all of the outdoor seating was empty as well. Students weren’t going to be sitting around if they didn’t have a coffee to drink. I stood by the table Theo stopped at as he pulled out his phone and used a napkin holder on the table to prop it up.
Nervously, I shuffled my feet as I watched Theo tap the screen and prepare Peepers to record the video for us. As I waited, I began to have second thoughts. Being on Theo’s channel on Peepers was different than letting a random friend include me in a video they made. Most of my friends got a few likes and reposts from other friends. Their reach was small. With Theo, millions of people would see me doing a dance with him and judge the two of us.
Not caring what people thought was a pretty decent skill I had, though I hadn’t perfected it. However, I’d never dealt with practicing it on a large scale. Not caring what a classful of students thought was one thing. Millions of people? That was a completely different ball of wax. But then Theo grabbed my hand once more and was pulling me away from the table, and I no longer had time to think about it.
“Okay,”
Theo said as he pulled us ten feet away from the table. “Let’s do this.”
“When?”
I asked nervously. “How? Do we need music? What’s going on?”
Theo laughed.
“We’re just going to do the dance,”
he said. “Then I’ll cut and edit and all that stuff later. And add music. Peepers is already recording.”
I looked over at the phone on the table quickly, nervously.
Theo reached up, grabbed my chin, and pulled my face back to stare at him.
“It’s no big deal,”
he said. “It’s just a silly video. We’re supposed to look dumb doing this. The dumber we look, the better the video.”
A shaky breath escaped my mouth.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
Theo smiled.
I nodded.
“You go back, I go forward first?” he asked.
I nodded again.
“Okay,”
he said. “One, two, three.”
I shimmied my shoulders and leaned back slowly as Theo mirrored my movements, but leaned towards me.
Then we repeated the action with me shimmying and leaning towards him as he leaned back.
We repeated the dance twice to make sure we got enough video for him to edit.
However, when we went for a third back and forth, we misread each other’s body language. I thought Theo was stopping, and he thought I was going to continue. The end result was us bumping heads.
Actually, my forehead bumped his chin due to our height disparity, but heads still collided.
Laughing, Theo grabbed onto my shoulders as I reached up to rub my forehead with a laugh.
He gave my forehead a rub when I pulled my hand away and stared down into my eyes, smiling widely.
“That was dumb,”
I said, looking up at him.
“It was.”
He agreed.
He chewed at the corner of his lip for a moment, then his arms slid from my shoulders.
He jogged over to the table and grabbed his phone.
I waited for him to end the recording and save it before he slipped his phone back into his pocket.
Theo came back over to me and nudged my arm with his.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Just,”
I cringed, “try to make me look not stupid.”
“Oh,”
Theo said, lacing his arm through mine and pulling me back onto the path, “you’re going to look absolutely ridiculous.”
“I expected as much,”
I said with an amused sigh as we continued on to the bonfire.