For One Last Night

WYATT'S HOUSE 1:57 AM

george

"Are you sure your mom won't mind if we stop by?" I heard Oliver ask Wyatt as we approached his house. Wyatt lived a couple of blocks away from Cassandra Bowen's house, on a block where the houses were closer to the size of the pool house at Cassandra's. Paloma's family lived on this block when we were younger, in a tiny, ancient house two streets over from this one and as we approached the house, I looked down the street, hoping that if I stared long enough, Paloma might reappear. I couldn't believe she'd left. She was the one who said no disappearing with cute strangers. What a hypocrite.

I snuck a glance at Gus. His eyes were red and squinty, and he reeked of weed. He was so stoned. Gross. I hated it when the boys were stoned. They were never quite themselves. We walked up the driveway of the small, run-down house, and Wyatt gave us a wide smile.

"Yeah, it's fine. Just be quiet in the hallway," he answered, unlocking the door and ushering us inside. Gus gripped my hand and I looked down, surprised. He was so high, I wasn't even sure he'd noticed that he'd done it. Somehow, that made it better. Like maybe it was his subconscious that was reaching for me.

"To the left," Wyatt said as we came up on two doors, and Josie slowly opened the left door. She already knew which one was his room.

I took a minute to glance around the room, and suddenly, I felt like I couldn't breathe. I'd been here before. So had Josie. I glanced at her, trying to see if she realized but she was busy, whispering something to Oliver. Maybe she didn't remember that night at all. Maybe I was the only one that it stuck with.

When I had seen this room for the first time on that one weekend near the end of April, I had instantly hated him more for it.

It was always a revealing thing to see someone's room for the first time. It was a lot like meeting someone from school's parents or siblings ­– just one of those things that make these people, who pretty much just existed around us, seem like real people with families and interests.

That night, as drunk as I had been, I noticed a lot. The room was small and cramped, and there was a double bed in the middle of the room. He had posters, those small, fratty posters of things like a guy holding a beer and those tin signs that said things like, Beer! Helping ugly people have sex since 1862 and Alcohol! I only drink to make YOU interesting. That night, they made me cringe but I didn't say anything about how much I hated them. I wanted him to like me. To tell other people that I was cool. I couldn't help it, I always cared so much about what other people thought of me.

Wyatt grinned at us and nodded as he shut the door behind him and without thinking about it, I moved closer to Gus than I meant to, awkwardly leaning against the wall in the corner of the room. I hated being here. Again.

Wyatt pulled out an old, stained wooden tray and a plastic bag with a clump of dark green, moss-like weed inside, a multicolored glass pipe, and a little metallic grinder from under his bed, laying it down on the navy blue duvet. I always liked that people who smoked always had accessories for it.

He beckoned us over. I didn't move. Not this time.

The last time we came here after a party, in the spring, I had followed Josie towards the bed when he had beckoned us over. I had been so careful to not touch any single part of his body. I had been so scared that he might think I liked him if I touched him or maybe that I wanted him to kiss me if I even looked twice at him. My whole life I had learned to be careful about the way I behaved around boys, careful to never do anything that might mislead them into thinking that I wanted something from them. I was always being careful, so fucking careful, around boys. Tiptoeing around them in order to survive.