Two Boys Kissing(42)

Ryan walks over and puts down his own invisible ball. “I hope you don’t mind that I took the pink one,” he says.

“I don’t mind at all.”

Ryan swings at the ball. They both watch it rise and fall.

“Not bad,” Avery says.

“At least I didn’t hit a gator.”

Ryan thinks Avery will stop then, will want to leave this desolate place. But he heads right over to where his ball is and makes the putt, then steps out of the way for Ryan’s turn. Ryan follows his lead, but misses the shot. He gets the next one in.

Avery makes a gesture of gathering the golf balls, then walks to the next hole.

“Your turn,” he says. “What’s the story?”

The story Ryan tells is that this green is riddled with troughs of chocolate; if your ball falls in, it will taste better, but will also slow you down. And actually, the golf ball is no longer a ball. It’s a golf-ball-size gobstopper.

The story Ryan feels is a different matter. The story Ryan feels is the one that’s being written with each minute, this confounding and enjoyable story of the two of them finding a good time in what he now sees is a remarkably dire place. He’s always appreciated how derelict it was, but that was when he was feeling pretty derelict himself. In the past couple of years, there was some catharsis in seeing his childhood so visibly trashed, as if there was some confirmation here about what growing up should feel like.

But with Avery, a little of that old wonder returns. Ryan plays along, and it’s a relief to be playing. By the fifth hole they’re not even golfing anymore; they’re just describing all the things they don’t really see. Avery erects the Taj Mahal on hole five, and Ryan presents the world’s first antigravity mini golf on hole six. At hole seven, they start walking hand in hand, surveyors of an imaginary landscape. Instead of solemnly holding hands, they swing them back and forth, stretch out and pull back together. The sun isn’t shining, but they don’t notice. If anyone were to ask them later, they’d swear that it was.

It is not as simple as Ryan looking at Avery and feeling they’ve known each other forever. In fact, it doesn’t feel like that at all. Ryan feels like he is just getting to know Avery, and that getting to know Avery isn’t going to be like getting to know anyone else he’s ever gotten to know.

There’s a wishing well in the middle of the ninth hole. This is not imaginary—it is sitting there, largely intact from its glory days. Avery reaches into his pocket and pulls out a penny.

“No,” Ryan finds himself saying. “Don’t.”

Avery shoots him a quizzical look. “Don’t?”

“I’ve thrown pennies in that well all my life. And not a single wish has ever come true.”

As a kid he wished for money or fame or toys or friends. More recent wishes were for so many other things, all of them synonymous with love or escape.

He worries he’s ruined it now, by suddenly being serious. That’s always been his problem, his inability to live in false worlds for that long.

Avery doesn’t ask him what he wished for. He doesn’t need to.

“Here,” he says. “Maybe you didn’t do it right.”

Avery takes the penny and moves it to Ryan’s lips. Ryan holds there, not really knowing what’s happening. Then Avery leans in and kisses him, kisses him so that they are both kissing the penny. When he pulls back, the penny falls, and he catches it in his palm.

“Now make a wish,” he says.

And Ryan thinks, I want to be happy.

“Got it?” Avery asks.

Ryan nods, and Avery tosses the penny into the well. They both listen, but neither hears it land. Then Avery returns to him, comes closer again, and now they are kissing with nothing between them. Lips closed, then lips open. Hands empty, then hands entwined.

A minute or two of this, then Avery pulls back and says, “We’re only half done!”

They walk, fingers still woven together, to the tenth hole.

“It’s a cloud,” Ryan says. “The whole thing is a cloud.”

They become so caught in their discussion of golfing within clouds that they don’t hear the footsteps, don’t hear the laughter coming their way. Then the voices are too loud to ignore.

Ryan turns and sees who’s coming.

“What?” Avery asks.

And Ryan says, “Oh shit.”



Harry is crying. He is in so much pain that he’s started to cry. His legs are seizing up, and his bladder feels like it’s full of rocks, and he isn’t choosing to cry, but his eyes are crying nonetheless. He’s lost control of them. He’s lost control of everything, except for his lips. All of the control that he has left, he has to put there. Even as his body is shouting surrender. Even as his mind is telling him there is no way to last another five hours.



There are four of them. Avery has no idea who they are, and neither do we, but just like us, Avery has some idea of where this is going. It’s the sneering looks, the swagger in the walk, the almost aimless spite in their laughter. It’s a particular brand of asshole, easily found in teenage boys traveling in packs.

“What’s up, Ryan?” one of them taunts. “Who’s your boyfriend?”

Ryan lets go of Avery’s hand.

“What do you want, Skylar?” he says.