Khalifa and Ali are drinking Red Bull in the toilets before a quiz that neither of them have studied for. No one's around, everyone's in the Cafeteria where you're supposed to be if you're eating. It smells like boys and public toilets, of cheap soap and sweat, and things Ali would rather not be thinking about as he's drinking. It's cold, too, the way it only seems to be in toilets. He moves his legs around, stretches them out, and crosses his arms over his chest.
"I want to get high," Khalifa says.
Ali's leaning against one stall and Khalifa's leaning against the door to the one in front of him, and Ali's feet occasionally bump into Khalifa's thigh.
"You do?"
"Yeah, like, smoke weed and watch a horror movie."
Ali sets his empty can of Red Bull beside him. He entertains the idea. "Which one?"
"I don't know. Something old. Maybe in black and white."
"Dracula?" Ali crawls on the floor, sits beside Khalifa, and the cold tiles dig into his palms. "Can I have some of yours? I finished mine."
Khalifa hands him the can. "Yeah, or maybe Frankenstein."
"Or Edward Scissorhands."
"That's not scary. Or black and white."
"Yeah, well, Frankenstein isn't scary either," Ali finishes Khalifa's can. "Wait, you've seen Edward Scissorhands?"
"Yeah, saw it last night."
"Really?" Ali asks. "And you weren't going to tell me?"
"I didn't want you to get excited."
"Why?" Ali whines.
"Cause you start going on and on about the movie and the colors and the costumes," Khalifa pulls a face.
"Okay, but the costumes are insane."
Khalifa shrugs.
A boy walks into the toilet. Ali and Khalifa stare him down until he stumbles into a stall and then quickly rushes out. They grin, and then it's quiet again.
"I don't like Alia, just so you know. Not like that anyway."
"I know," Ali says. "Why are you bringing this up all of a sudden?"
"I just want you to know, so you don't have to ask."
"You said you liked someone else," Ali chases the wet residue that slides from the can. "Who?"
Khalifa bumps their shoulders together. "You."
Ali presses the empty can against the floor and watches as it slowly starts to crinkle.
Kahlifa presses harder. "Do you like me, too?"
"I like you, too." Ali looks up at the toilet ceiling. It's clean, surprisingly. "So much. It hurts."
"Really?"
"Yeah, like, I would die without you."
"Wow, that much?" And there's that smile.
Ali nods. "My heart just squeezes in my chest when I see you. Like this."
Ali squishes the can.
"Wow," Khalifa's smiling slightly. "So, you liked it when I kissed you?"
"I thought that wasn't a kiss."
Khalifa leans in, and Ali can smell Khalifa's sharp cologne, so expensive Ali would never think of buying it himself.
"What are you doing?" Ali's voice sounds like he hasn't used it in decades, but his lips turn to form a faux smile. This is simply one of Khalifa's little games.
"What do you want me to be doing?"
Ali has to hold his breath.
Khalifa's fingers touch Ali's chin lightly, and he carefully steers his face to the side.
"Will you let me?"
Khalifa's mouth is open and burning hot on him in an instant, and he tastes like Red Bull when you've only had a few sips, and something else that Ali's never tasted in his life before. He thinks, he can't imagine never having felt this way before.
Something almost feverish takes a hold of him, and he's shaking, and his bones are quivering, and his whole body feels as if it's frail, and he's only a thin branch on a shivering tree.
At least, he thinks, he can feel his fingers shake as he twists them into fists around the can of Red Bull, hears it crinkling, while his lips slowly, carefully, hesitantly move. His heart's beating right out of his chest, and he can feel Khalifa move even closer to him, a hand twisting in his hair, while his other fingers remain on his chin, as if holding him in place. As if Ali would even consider pulling back while Khalifa's tongue brushes against his teeth, and plays tricks with his tongue. Ali wonders what it's like for Khalifa, what he tastes like to him. But really, there's no time to think at all when Khalifa lets go of his chin (certain now that Ali can't move away, too tangled up against him. He's in far, far too deep) to touch his waist, to trace Ali's bones, and skin, and heartbeat. The thin, almost transparent material of their school uniform allows Khalifa some little room for imagination. He traces his skin through that, and then underneath it, and then almost through it. Ali can't breathe, as if Khalifa's reached through his chest, and his fingers are now a solid, warm grip around his weakening heart.
And that's a kiss, Ali knows, when they pull back and he can breathe again. Even though he's never had one before.
-
Ali thinks he fails the quiz, because he's not only late to stumble into class (Khalifa a few steps in front of him, both looking like they'd torn at each other with their bare hands. It's almost too obvious, so much Ali's just waiting for someone to call them out), but he's also too fucking busy being ultra-aware of Khalifa sitting there right beside him. Ali has no idea what he writes, he's half-afraid he's written Khalifa's name on the top right corner of the page instead of his own. He wants to kiss him again.
They sit a few inches apart, a few inches too far apart.
Except when Ali gets off his high, this feeling he's had like he's floating (he wonders if this is what Khalifa was talking about in the toilets), just after they break apart when the bell rings for class. And now that he's off that high, something sharp and bitter and dark fills its void and Ali sinks low in his seat. He feels like shit, like he wants to cry and doesn't give a fuck that everyone in this room probably thinks crying is for girls, because fuck them. And fuck Khalifa, who thinks they can kiss like it's normal for boys to kiss boys, like it's okay, like it's fair. Like it's normal to hold hands afterwards, to see each other differently, to notice the way Khalifa's hair curls at the nape of his neck, or how his many lashes curl closely together they could get tangled. And he wants to, so fucking desperately, to brush them gently with his fingers, feel and watch them flutter against his fingertips.
Khalifa had looked at him, then (after the kiss. Now everything's "before the kiss" and "after the kiss". So much that if Ali has to draw his life on a timeline, the kiss would be the main turning point, the middle dash, and everything that comes before it is irrelevant, and everything after is a terrifying void), like Ali's ethereal, a character from another Tim Burton film.
But Ali can't help but remember the harsh, bone chilling lines that shape Khalifa's father's face. The way he'd looked, so fierce that Friday afternoon underneath the unforgiving sun. Ali wants to slide off his chair and disappear, let the Earth swallow him whole.
He can't look at Khalifa. He looks at him, and then he looks away. Then he looks again, can't look away.
Even when Khalifa finds Ali's thigh beneath the table, tracing letters and shapes that don't make sense. Ali feels his face flush, but he does nothing. He doesn't look down, or look to the side. He trains his eyes at his desk, a middle ground, a safe space, and that's all he can do.
Hi, warning: next chapter is the last (ik im crying too)
SO, to make up for that (or make it worse, it's really subjective), here's a terrible drawing of what Ali's timeline looks like in his head (like me, he's not very good at drawing, especially digitally, but we combined our weaknesses and came up with this):
You're welcome, and thx for reading xx