Real Life(13)

“Why did you leave like that?” Miller asked. “Was it me?”

“No,” Wallace said. “I’m just tired.”

Miller searched his eyes for the truth. He was worrying the corner of his lip. “I’m sorry about the bathroom.”

“Why? It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. I shouldn’t have. I feel like I took advantage of something.”

“Oh,” Wallace said.

“I’m not into guys,” Miller said. “But I see how you look at me sometimes, and it’s like, does he hate me? Does he like me? And I hate the idea of you hating me. I do.”

Wallace was silent. He could still see the water from here, the way it was lighter in the distance and darker near the shore.

“All right.”

“I don’t know what to do about it,” Miller said, balling his fingers into a fist. He looked like he was about to cry, but it was only the moisture from before.

“There’s nothing to do.”

“Is that true?”

“It’s okay,” Wallace said again, meaning it, wishing it to be true. “We just held hands. It’s junior high.”

“I don’t know. God,” Miller said, stepping toward Wallace and then away.

Wallace sighed. “Do you want to come back to my place?”

Miller regarded him suspiciously. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“Well, I’m tired and I’d like to go home.”

“I’ll walk you there.”

“Great,” Wallace said. The desire to be at home in his bed was overpowering. They walked the block down the street, passing a large circular apartment building, and a small bar on the corner, which was bumping music loudly. Some white people were out front smoking. He felt their eyes follow him up the street. Miller walked close by, their elbows and then fingers brushing occasionally, which made Miller look down at him. Wallace, to his credit, did not return Miller’s gaze. What was this life, currently? What was this strange place into which he’d been thrust? He now regretted walking to the lake. He now regretted going with his friends. Not because Emma had told everyone about him, but because now something that had previously seemed simple had turned messy, difficult, complicated.



* * *



? ? ?

HE TOOK MILLER up the stairs to his one-bedroom apartment. The window had been left open, so the apartment smelled like the lake and like summer evening. It was cool because of the fan going in the bedroom. Miller sat at the counter and watched as Wallace made them coffee in the French press, which was a minor novelty to Miller.

When there was no avoiding the topic, Wallace climbed up onto the counter and sat with his legs crossed, coffee warm in his hands. Miller was picking at the edge of a piece of paper.

“So what’s this all about, Miller?”

“I feel bad,” he said. “I feel bad about the bathroom, about that thing I said in April, about all of it. I feel like a shitty friend. A bad person.”

“You aren’t.”

“I just wanted to be clear. I’m not into guys. I’m not gay, or whatever. I just, I don’t know.”

“It’s okay. You were being a good friend.”

“I’m not so sure I was. I was being stupid. I saw you kiss Emma, and I thought—well, you know.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure if I get what you mean by that,” Wallace said. He drank from the coffee. His sink was full of dishes from earlier in the day. “You saw Emma kiss me and thought—what? Well, if we’re all kissing people we’re not attracted to, maybe I can try it?”

“No . . . yes. I guess it was something like that. And then you got up to leave, and I thought, Oh fuck, I’ve done it now.”

“That’s very kind of you.”

“I do want to.”

“You want to what?”

“Kiss you,” Miller said.

“Oh.”

“Is that wrong?”

“No. It’s not. But you know, you just said you didn’t.”

“I do. I want to. I shouldn’t. But I do.”

“Okay,” Wallace said.

Miller squinted at him. The apartment was dimly lit by the kitchen light and whatever light came in through the broad living room window that overlooked an alley.

“That easy, huh?”

“What can I say, I’m easy.”

“You’re so bad at jokes,” Miller said, rising from the stool and coming toward him. He blotted out the kitchen light, and so Wallace was completely in his shadow. He could feel the warmth of Miller’s breath on his cheeks. Miller reached up with the tips of his fingers and pressed them to Wallace’s lips, used his thumb to make space between them. Miller was looking down at him intently, not nervous or shy. He had done this before, that much was evident, been in such a position of power, control. Even so, there remained a bit of restraint, an awkwardness. There was a hitching quality to the way he drew his thumb back across Wallace’s lips. Wallace closed his mouth around Miller’s thumb and sucked the salt from its rim slowly, tenderly. “Why are you like this?” Miller asked.

Wallace did not answer. He pulled on Miller’s shirt and sat more upright so that their bodies touched. Miller standing between his legs, bending just a little, and then, their lips coming into contact, the passing friction of it, the heat, the flicker of dampness. Wallace had been kissed only twice now, but he couldn’t understand why it had taken so long to get to this point of intimacy, which felt so good that he was afraid of losing it.