The Music of What Happens(86)

The color of purple he turns is almost comical. I stare at him, smiling. I’m trying to give him mental telepathy. To beam into his brain an important message. Which is, Just take the compliment. I mean it.

And the craziest thing is that for maybe the first time ever, he doesn’t say the self-denigrating thing.

I think to myself: Progress. We’re both getting better. Well, that’s something.





When Max finishes drawing me, he turns the drawing upside down and comes over to where I’m sitting and says, “You are so freakin’ beautiful.”

I giggle. Me. I’m beautiful. And hearing it makes me feel like I’m a giddy twelve-year-old schoolgirl, maybe, and that’s especially embarrassing because I’m like this homeless kid and I shouldn’t be feeling all giddy, and I know I turn super red because Max just stares at me and I can feel the color in my cheeks. And I have like a million Jordan-like comments, but I don’t say even one of them.

I point over to the drawing. “Can I see?” I ask, and Max shakes his head.

“Pretty please?”

“Nope,” he says. “I’m not ready.”

I groan. “I want to see what I look like through your eyes.”

I expect another no, but something about what I’ve said actually means something to him, I guess, because he goes over to the desk and slowly turns the piece of paper over.

I follow. And what I see shocks me.

He’s drawn a boy with life in his eyes. Green eyes, the color of spring grass. A slight grin on his face. And the weirdest part: handsome. I stare and stare until the picture blurs. I say, “Wow,” and he says nothing back, just lets me stare.

I’m staring at a drawing of a boy who is an actual being, like a … substantial person. Someone who makes choices and does stuff in the world. That’s all I can say about that, because it’s so weird to me. That I’ve never seen that in me before.

I hug him then, and I say, “Thanks. You’re a freakin’ amazing artist.”

He whispers the words right into my ear. “Thank you.”

And it’s like we float into his bed and lie down next to each other, which feels like a little bit of heaven.

We talk about my wives, and Max says he loved how they were right there with me when I texted them about Lydia. They must have come over in like two seconds, and Pam brought me a Ziploc baggie of yellow candy hearts, because she knows those are my favorites, and Kayla showed me the unsolicited lewd photo Shaun from Chess Club had sent her that made her decide to ghost him, and neither of them tried to dress Dorcas without her consent, and mostly they just loved on me, which was exactly what I needed. It was so weird to have them in Max’s house, draped across his mom’s gray fabric couch and love seat like they belonged there. One thing Max doesn’t know is that when he left for a bit, I actually talked to them about how I sometimes wish they didn’t Gay Best Friend me all the time, and how it would be okay to be serious sometimes too. And then Pam hugged the orange throw pillow to her chest and was like, “I’ll stop if you stop calling me one of your wives.”

That hit me right between the eyes. I had never even thought of that before, and I started to get all “Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” and she smiled, and shook her head, like, It’s fine, just saying, and we didn’t have to have a big, dramatic scene, which I guess is step one of me not playing the role of their Gay Best Friend (GBF), and them not playing the part of my Two Sassy Wives (TSW). So yeah. I guess that’s progress. That maybe not everything has to be a joke, just because it started that way. It was kinda amazing.

And then my thoughts turn to my mom, and when Max senses that I’ve gone dark, he hugs me tight, and I willingly roll into his chest and let him hold me and put his strength into me, and I wonder if I’ll ever be able to give him half as much as he’s given me.

“I sometimes think we’re like space dust,” he says as my head is cradled in his chest.

“Like our problems are small, all things considered?”

“What?”

“I remember you said that once. That our problems don’t amount to much.”

Max is silent for a bit. “Wow,” he says. “You really listen, don’t you? No. I mean, yeah, but I guess I’m saying what you said with your poem. Like that’s why we fit together so well. We were once particles of space dust, connected to each other, and then the Big Bang. And now all these millennia later, we’ve found each other. And Betts and Zay-Rod and Pam and Kayla. They were close by too, and now we’ve all found each other again.”

“Like space dust?”

“Like space dust.”

“Okay,” I say. “I like that.”

His mom sticks her head in the room and tells us she’s going to church. She’s all dressed up in a pretty, light blue skirt and yellow blouse. “You boys behave now,” she says, smiling, and Max says, “You too,” which makes her smile wide and wink.

We’re quiet for a while. A truck rolls by outside. I’m thinking about how we need to find jobs. And also about how lucky I am to know Max. He’s the best person I’ve ever met, and for some ridiculous reason, he’s chosen me.

“It is pretty incredible,” Max says again, shaking his head. “How a month ago I barely knew you, and now you’re, like, here.”