The breeze was a killer.
The night air had already proven to be freezing here, but every couple of minutes this awful, bone-chilling breeze would sweep in and make me regret ever leaving my room.
We sat in the field across from campus, on a grassy hill where I could see the sun almost fully set in the distance. Soon street lights would flick on for the students walking home late and after that, if you were still outside you might just get eaten by native Indiana coyotes.
"Damnit," I muttered, pressing down on the side button of my phone again. "I thought I charged this thing."
"Who needs phones anyway?" Michael's eyes were red and unfocused. "We should all go back to the good old days. No phones. No internet. Living off the land."
I pictured Michael as an old farmer, dressed in some dirty overalls and boots. "You're weird," I said. He sipped his beer, staring at something in the distance. He'd grabbed two bottles on our way here, and out of courtesy I'd forced myself to endure a mouthful. I looked at my bottle then tossed it out into the grass.
Michael smirked. "Great throw, Benny."
"Shut up."
He laughed and tilted his head back to take another swig, making the remaining beer slosh inside the bottle.
"You sound like my dad. Walking around with his fucking can of beer and his fucking gut hanging out and saying, Why don't you ever go outside?" I muttered, adopting a scratchy voice. "Throw a football around like a normal boy?"
His smile dimmed. I twisted my loose shoelace between two fingers, begging myself to shut up.
Why would I want to talk to him anyway? The guy whose emotions ranged from happy to hungry to horny, and openly admitted to not putting thought into anything? Stupid.
I looked over, and Michael was studying my face carefully.
"You live with him?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"Where's your mom at?"
I tried to staunch the panic blooming inside my chest. Michael wasn't some counselor bothering me about a black eye or asking why I jumped every time the door opened unexpectedly. He was just making conversation and I could tell any lie I wanted and nothing would happen to me.
Or I could tell the truth, and nothing would happen to me.
"She's dead," I said.
I hadn't spoken those words in eleven years.
"Jesus," he whispered. "I'm sorry."
"It's fine." It made me sick to think about, to say, like I was giving away someone else's secret. I remembered when it happened, and how my dad started drinking more, and having to move to that awful apartment building because he couldn't keep a job, then meeting Sarah and Andrea, then the rest of my miserable life. "Can we just... talk about something else?"
"Sure." He was quiet for a long time, then chuckled to himself. "Tell me 'bout... the first girl you fucked."
I let out a choking laugh. "What? No."
"C'mon." He nudged my shoulder encouragingly. "Come onnnn."
"Um..." I took a deep breath. How did one begin to describe Patty Hartley? "She was short," I said.
"Big tits?"
"No," I said. "I mean, they were- they were normal. I guess."
"Normal," he repeated, squinting like he was trying to visualize them.
"Yeah. I don't know. Why does it matter?"
He sniffed a little and took a long drink, then wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. "Dude, you are really fucking gay."
Immediately I scowled. "Why really? Why not just sort of? Is there a significance to the really?"
"Oh, come on." He tilted his head to look at me, making the side of his neck crease adorably. "Admit it. I'll say it. I like dudes. I like chicks. Look at that. The world keeps on spinning."
"Okay then," I said. "You tell me about the first guy you fucked."
He scoffed and tilted the bottle towards me. "That's a goddamn horror story."
I grinned. I wanted it to be worse than mine. "Do it."
"Seriously?"
I nodded.
"Well, first of all, he was like forty. There really weren't guys in high school who were into that shit so I mostly found 'em online. You'd be surprised how many closeted dudes are running around the fields of Kansas."
I crinkled my eyebrows and conjured up an image of alien invaders, masking themselves as humans and blending in to be almost undetectable until their strike. Perhaps I had interacted with more of them than I'd thought.
But where? In school? I always hated locker rooms. The idea of everyone being in there together, naked, looking at me, looking at each other- it was all so disgusting.
"Did you, like, meet up with them?" I said. "The guys?"
Michael looked down. "Yeah. I would drive way out. Didn't want to risk running into someone I knew. Only did it a couple times."
It must be sad, being gay, I decided. Sad and lonely.
"Anyway," Michael said, "I ended up at the dude's mom's house. He still lived with her. He was a fat guy with all these red patches of skin he tried to wax or something. He told me to go up to his room and wait. I just remember there was this big fish tank and like twenty dogs running around. It took him a while to get all the dogs out. Then he asked if I wanted him to suck my dick and I was like, yeah, that's why I'm here. He kept saying how hard it made him to suck off a young guy."
"Oh..." I said. "So he's like a full-on pedo. That's fucked up."
"No shit. This part's the real kicker. After ten minutes or so he got up, pulled down his shorts and bent over the bed. I was just standing there and he was like, you gonna do it or not, I ain't got all night. So I go over and start putting it in. Next thing I know my dick's covered in blood."
My stomach churned. I regretted ever asking him for this story. "What the fuck?"
"He had hemorrhoids. One exploded on me."
"Fuck off," I said.
"I'm not kidding." He downed the rest of his beer. "He didn't feel a thing. Asked me why I stopped."
"That was the first?" I said, holding my hand close to my mouth just in case I threw up. "You kept meeting guys after that?"
He smiled, almost shyly. "Well, I knew I was bi and wanted to experiment. I didn't have many options. Until college, I guess. No one gives a fuck in college."
Great, I thought. Now I have to compete with guys and girls.
His hair was all messy, with little pieces of grass in it from rolling around, and I thought this. This was what I had wanted when I'd come out here with Rhoda. This was what I'd been missing. "Alright, now you tell me a story," he said.
I fidgeted and rubbed my lips together. "I don't have any stories like that."
"That's fine," he said. "Just tell me something."
I smiled. "I'm... really boring."
"I don't believe you," he said. I bit my lip and he grinned. "Tell me a story."
"What do you mean?"
"I want to know something about you. Tell me something."
I paused, my lips still pressed together, trying to think of anything I could say that wasn't completely pathetic. An average day in high school consisted of waking up late, meeting Sarah in the hallway of our floor, then long, boring classes I never did the homework for, lunch where I laughed along to jokes I'd hadn't been paying attention to, and finally going home to see if my father was conscious or not. On good days, he was not.
"I used to have a pet chipmunk," I said finally.
Michael raised his eyebrows. "Do tell."
I smiled a little and turned my gaze to the pitch-black sky above. "His name was Biscuit. I found him in the elevator." I laughed, trying to picture the fuzzy brown creature. "I think I was, like, ten or eleven. And he wouldn't let me get near him. But I trapped him. In my backpack. And I made this box for him in my closet and would feed him fruit and pieces of corn every day."
Michael snickered. "Did he live?"
"Oh yeah. I couldn't keep him long though. It was the middle of winter and I thought he'd freeze if I put him outside. And my dad, um..." I sighed, then leaned one arm up to scratch the back of my neck. "He really hates animals."
He frowned, only slightly but I could see a hint of sadness in his eyes. "I'm sorry."
"No, it's..." I cleared my throat. "I just kept imagining like... him storming in and seeing the box or something and crushing that little thing in his hand..." I breathed in shakily and sat up, raising my fingertips to brush over my mouth.
"Hey." Michael leaned into my shoulder, his forehead wrinkled. "It worked out, didn't it? What happened?"
"There was this really old lady who lived in my building," I said. "She had hamsters. Like a lot of hamsters." We both smiled. "And Biscuit, he kinda looked like a hamster, so. I gave him away."
"Aw." I looked down. "I'm sure he's very glad you found him," Michael said.
"Yeah," I murmured as he pulled me back down to the grass, this time lying on his chest. I felt a dull ache in my heart, a pain for everything I was living with and was only now slowly letting go of.
"Hey, Benjamin?"
I turned myself over on top of him, hoping to distract myself from my thoughts. "Yeah?"
"I think you're really cool," he said.
"What?"
He laughed. "I don't know. I mean, you're a little rough around the edges - well, maybe a lot- but... I'm really fucking glad someone stuck us in a room together. I'm glad to get to know you."
I felt my heart leap. "Me too."
He straightened up a bit, his curly hair tickling my temple as he rose, and I stretched forward, kissing him before he could kiss me.
"Can I tell you a secret?" I asked as he held my face with both hands, his thumb running from the corner of my lips to my jaw. He nodded. "You're, like, the only person I'm not scared of kissing."
He smiled, tilting his head to the side, and I continued clumsily.
"I mean, I was. Like, the first time I kissed you, that was like, the scariest thing I'd ever done. But now it just feels... um, nice, I guess. And with everybody else I just..." I took a slow breath. The deep knot in my gut loosened, like the panic-monster that always had its claws in me was suddenly letting go. "I felt like I had to, or I wanted to look cooler or... uh. I'm not making any sense."
"You are." He was looking at me, his eyes so soft and sweet and really looking at me, seeing me, and I wanted to just melt into his arms and have him hold me forever. "You are."
"I don't know what I'm saying," I mumbled.
"Then stop talking, dork." He reached behind me, tugging my cap off and slapping it back on my head the right way. I twisted away roughly and scowled as I pushed my hair up. When I had fixed it to see again he was pointing at the sky with one finger. "Look. Star."
"So?"
"Make a wish," he said.
I frowned. "Wishes don't come true."
He gave a lackadaisical shrug. "Never know."
"Fine," I sighed. "I wish for a trillion dollars and, uh, to grow five inches overnight."
He laughed a little, but something sounded off about it. Sad. I looked at him, squinting in the dark. He'd woven his fingers to cross over his fuzzy jacket and closed his eyes. "What are you doing?" I asked.
"Making my wish."
I looked away from him. The blades of grass shrunk and expanded before my eyes. I didn't like how I felt. I just wanted to get drunk and pass out.
"It's creepy here," I said.
He laughed. "Why?"
"Uh, 'cuz it's dark. We're in the middle of a random field and if you get murdered I can't even call 911 'cuz my damn phone's dead."
"I'm too tough to get murdered," he said, and the most disturbing part was I couldn't tell if he was kidding.
"Well... then I'll get murdered." I shivered.
The tip of his index finger drew circles around my knuckles. "Then I'll just have to protect you, won't I?"
I smiled for a flashing second and leaned into his chest until I could feel his heartbeat against my ear. It was so much slower than mine, steady, controlled. I couldn't remember the last time my heart had pounded like this. It was always a little off, I was always anxious, but something was wrong with me. I couldn't calm down.
"What's the matter?" he whispered, his hands winding around my tense body. "Are you actually scared?"
"No," I said slowly. "I just feel crazy right now."
"Crazy how?" he murmured, like a nurse to a little kid.
"Weird," I said. "Like tired but not, but weird. Like..." The dark blot of trees blurred in the distance. "I don't know. Weird."
"Look at me," he said, turning my jaw with one finger. I met his gaze, half-lidded and calmer than I could ever imagine being. "Yeah..." he said finally. "Your pupils are definitely dilated."
"What does that mean?" I said.
"Lots of things. Could be having a stroke."
I had no idea what a stroke entailed. I vaguely remembered watching a TV show when I was a kid about an old woman who had a stroke. She forgot everyone in her family and couldn't talk right after.
"Let's get wasted," I said.
He was silent, and I couldn't make out his facial expression, but I guessed that had concerned him. "You sure that's a good idea?"
I snorted. "Definitely not."
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Fifteen minutes later, I stood by his car while he dug around in the backseat, muttering to himself. "Somewhere in here..." I tapped my foot impatiently. "Aha." He straightened up and turned to face me, presenting a mini bottle of Fireball.
"I stole this from Hugo," he said proudly. "Or maybe he gave it to me. Horrible man, by the way. Crafty, shifty little piece of shit. He owes like five hundred bucks at this point."
"Do I owe you money?" I asked nervously, thinking of how much he'd spent buying stuff for me.
"Nah," he said. "You're basically my sugar baby at this point."
I frowned as I chugged the whiskey. I'd never had a job, never had a real pet, never left my state before this. Never been in a school club, never participated in class, never had any talents. I'd spent my whole life missing out.
I choked all of a sudden, and doubled over to keep myself from puking.
"You should slow down," Michael said.
"I wanna get high for real," I said. "Like, actually high, not old pills Rolph stole from some blind grandma. Like where you're seeing colors everywhere and you're floating - I wanna do it together."
"It's not like on TV, dude, you get really sick," he said.
"I don't care." I flicked the zipper of his jacket back and forth with one finger. "My life's pretty much pointless anyway."
He furrowed his brow, as if about to assure me it was not, but I didn't want to hear it. I didn't want to hear anything. I was sick of thinking so much. Sick of feeling anxious and ashamed and scared of everything.
"Hey," I said, pressing close to him. "Let's go upstairs, hm?"
He chuckled. "And do what?"
I was too tired to lie. I said the plain truth. "I want an escape."
"An escape?"
"I thought it could be drugs," I said pointedly. "But whatever Rolph gave me didn't do shit except make my heart rate go nuts. So... I want you."
The way he smiled. Damn him. "Want me how?"
"Like this." I shot up on my toes, crashing my mouth to his so hard the cut on my lower lip split open and he knocked against the car door. I could taste beer and the sharp metallic tang of my blood. His hands moved to my waist, holding me still, trying to steady me as I forced myself closer.
I couldn't breathe without him. I couldn't think without him. It was as if his pounding heart controlled the beat of mine and we were entwined together, cutting off each other's air.
And as we raced up the stairs, tackling and overtaking each other, all I could see was him: through the view of my hazy eyes, him. And to me it was the only sight I would ever need.
Inside our room, I stripped my shirt off with ease and leaned back to let him look at me, two thumbs hooked in my pants so the white band of my Calvins showed. I told myself to be confident, though it was foreign to me, because it didn't matter how tall I was, it didn't matter how strong I was, it didn't matter if I still had no clue what I was doing.
He wanted me.
And for as long as he continued to want me, I was willing to let myself love him, and maybe, in a way, that would be the first real thing I'd ever done.