The Bucket List [boyxboy]

Chapter Seven

I don't think any of this lasted for more than a few seconds, so I don't think anybody really noticed, and Byron sort of tilted his head towards the space next to him so I worked my way around the other armchairs towards him and dropped down beside him and he shuffled closer to me until our arms we touching and said, 'Hey.'

But I couldn't say anything back.

Anita passed him a joint and he toked a couple times before offering it to me, but my brain was still misfiring and being completely useless, and I just kind of stared at it for a second, and then turned my head to stare at him, and he was looking at me too, and there it was again, that stupid, powerful, overwhelming urge to kiss him. Which I know I can't do.

Byron toked again and held it in and I dunno, I guess I was operating on autopilot, because I sort of let my mouth drop open and he leaned in a few inches and breathed out as I breathed in and I've done this before with my friends but just for a laugh, never like that, never in a way that felt... Intimate.

And he smiled at me and passed the joint to Lewis and I don't even know if the others noticed because I couldn't stop staring at him.

Later

They noticed.

Later Later

Anita cornered me by my locker this morning and was all, 'We need to talk.'

And I thought it was about not getting Carly a birthday present which I had already rectified and had a couple of massive share-size bars of chocolate in my backpack to give to her at lunch, as well as a mix-tape I made specifically for her yesterday, because she loves that hipster shit, and can I just say, that it is not easy to find cassette tapes on short notice, so I started trying to defend myself and Anita was looking at me like I was the idiot instead of her so I shut up and was like, 'What, then?'

And she was like, 'This thing with you and Byron.'

I obviously tried to plead ignorance and was all, 'What thing?'

But she's a pitbull terrier when she really wants to get under my skin and was like, 'Uh, how about nearly kissing him at Carly's on Saturday????' I tried to tell her I did no such thing but she wouldn't listen to me and was like, 'We all saw it. You went stupid as soon as you saw him and he totally took advantage of that and shotgunned you stupider.'

I made a face at her because, um, no, I'm not stupid and even if I was he wasn't TAKING ADVANTAGE of me. I was like, 'You're tripping still. Have you been to a doctor yet?'

I read on the internet that when toxic people in your life refuse to drop subjects you've already told them are off-limits, you should just disengage. So from now on whenever Anita tries to talk to me about Byron I'm just going to walk away from her.

Or spray her in the face with a water bottle, like a disobedient cat.

More Later

Today's doodles:

A marijuana leaf.

A tent in a snowstorm.

The word "boy".

And another infinity symbol.

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

I should really know better by now than to bitch about Anita to my mom.

'Oh, Charlie, stop. You know, someday you're going to say something like that and we won't think you're joking anymore.'

??????? I'm never joking! She's literally the worst.

I don't know why my mom can't co-operate and be like the moms of gay kids on TV. Like, we could go shopping and get lunch together and talk about celebrities.

Except that I would never voluntarily be seen in public with her.

But, like, aside from that.

Thursday, March 10, 2016

Today's doodles:

Two stick figures sitting on top of a mountain.

A snowflake.

"Ice cold, but I freeze up when I see you."

Friday, March 11, 2016

So we're gonna do the camping thing next weekend. For a hot second we considered doing it last minute this weekend to add to the sense of adventure but then Lewis was like, 'I haven't said it to my parents about borrowing the tent yet,' and Carly was like, 'I need to ask my mom if I can even come,' and Abby was like, 'Me too.' And Anita and I were like, 'Single working moms, yo!' again.

Saturday, March 12, 2016

I messaged Byron last night and asked if he wanted to come over today. I couldn't ask him in school because even if I hadn't done it front of Anita it would have gotten back to her somehow and she'd have made a big deal out of it and, like, turned up as well, or something psycho like that.

Not that it did much good because all he wanted to do when he got here was talk about her. I was like, 'Do you have a crush on her or something?'

And he looked at me SUPER INTENSELY and didn't say anything for a couple of seconds and then was like, 'No, Charlie. I don't have a crush on Anita.'

Which made me feel squishy and warm and squirmy and weird in a bunch of good ways and I wasn't equipped to deal with any of it so I said, 'What do you want to know?'

And he said, 'I dunno. You guys have the weirdest dynamic of anybody I've ever met. I just kind of want to see inside it.'

So even though I'm not really big on talking about my origin story with Anita I decided to tell him, because I think I can count on him to literally take it to the grave.

So I was, 'Okay, so basically my mom like fucked around with some guy when she was twenty-one and was too much of a moron to use protection so, you know, me. Except as soon as she told him he skipped town and we've never heard from him. You should see how much that shitstain owes me in child-support. Anyway my mom was like a mess and my grandparents weren't super pleased about the whole bastard-child thing, so she went to some support group thing for single expectant mothers and that's where she met Anita's mom. Anita's dad did pretty much the same thing mine did - she likes to joke that her dad and my dad ran away together and my gayness is proof. I mean, this is the kind of shit she comes up with on the regular - you can see why I have no patience for her. So they moved in together for a while and then Anita came along and then I came along and for a while we all lived together and they were, like, pseudo-lesbian co-parents or something until we were about five and they were both doing well enough to get us our own places. So that's why I'm still friends with her - because we took baths together and she's seen me naked and my mom like loves her or something.'

And Byron was nodding and looked like he had a couple of lightbulbs going off around his head and was like, 'Wow. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense of some things. So you guys are like siblings then?'

And I shrugged and was like, 'I guess. Why?'

And he said, 'I guess I just wanted to know if underneath all that teasing you were secretly in love with her.'

Which is usually something that would make me want to take a bath in bleach, but instead of thinking about being in love with Anita (gross) all I could think about was why Byron would want to know if I was.

I think maybe Anita was right the other day, because my brain went blank again and all I could do for a couple of seconds was stare at him. I think he does make me stupid.