Birthday(24)
“Are you okay?” I ask again. “Look at me.”
Eric grimaces and opens his eyes. Our stares connect, and even though his gaze is marred with pain and alcohol, our eyes meet and something suddenly feels electric between us—adult and quiet—not like our goofy back-and-forth from before. Neither of us can break the stare. It feels like the world slows down and my universe zooms in to this one point. To just stoplights, and the warm asphalt, and us. To me and Eric.
I remember something I haven’t thought about in like ten years—we were in preschool and a girl got in trouble for chasing boys and kissing them on the playground. We hadn’t even known what kissing was, except a thing that grown-ups did sometimes. Eric and I were little and curious, so the next time I spent the night at his house, when the lights were off and the grown-ups weren’t around to get mad at us, I asked Eric if I could kiss him. And we did. And we were four, so it didn’t really feel like anything, and we laughed and curled up in bed and went to sleep.
How did I forget that? Now, looking down at him, it seems insane.
My heart won’t stop crashing against my ribs. I feel my lips parting, picture my mouth moving the same way Jasmine’s did. Was that tonight? How was it not a lifetime ago?
I’m just confused. I need to move.
“I … uh … I’m—” Eric starts to say, but the sound of tires makes him pause.
An SUV rolls up next to us and I look up, tense, as the window rolls down and the Garth Brooks song that’s blaring on the speakers is turned down.
“Everything okay, young lady?” a man says. I can’t make out his face in the dark. I start to say something, but then the fact that he called me a lady hits my sternum and fills me with light and I can’t bring myself to let him hear my voice. Luckily Eric sits up straighter and gives the SUV a thumbs-up. I smile and nod in agreement and that seems to satisfy him. The man wishes us a good night and drives off.
“Wow,” I say. I start to hook an arm under Eric’s to lift him. Whatever that mood was, thank god it got interrupted. He places a hand on my shoulder and I keep talking to quiet down my nerves. “That was weird, right? He thought I was—”
But then Eric’s left hand is on the back of my neck and his right is on my hip. There’s a breath where our eyes lock and orange light glints in his. I don’t really know what’s going on, except that I know, kind of distantly, that Eric is looking at me like he wants me, that we aren’t five this time, that this electricity in my tailbone, the bottom of my stomach, the back of my neck is how desire is meant to feel. Before I can process it, Eric parts his lips and brings them to mine. I shudder and touch his chest, expecting at first to push away, but then I stop understanding why I would, because his chest is so firm under my fingers and his lips are soft. I fall into him like a drop of wax, and I realize this is how a kiss is supposed to make you feel, and …
But …
An image fills my head. I see myself as I am: a boy with stringy hair and baggy clothes, a boy with peach fuzz on his lip, a boy with more brown hairs sprouting on his chest and stomach every day. My stomach turns and the image shifts and it’s just like that video I watched a few months ago, two bulging, veiny men growling as they take each other. Bile rises in my throat and I pull away with a furious wipe of my sleeve across my lips. This feels wrong, even with Eric. Especially with Eric. I pull back, my palms firmly on his chest as I push him away. His eyes are wide, and confused, and hurt, and I know in this moment that my face mirrors his—boyish and unsure—wary that everything is about to change.
A few things feel certain: I’m not gay. I’m not straight. I’m not made to connect to other human beings in that way, and I’m not sure I ever will. I’m just broken.
“What the hell, dude?” I say, and the way my voice crackles between deep and normal breaks my heart.
ERIC
“What the “hell, dude?”
I blink and slowly realize what I’ve done, the pain and sudden spike of embarrassment pushing me back toward sober. He stands, crinkles his nose, and shoves his hands in his hoodie.
“I…” I rub my temple and slowly rise to my feet. My knees threaten to give out, but I’m too ashamed to reach out for support. “I’m sorry. I’m drunk, and … and I was confused or something.”
“Confused,” Morgan says. He strides back to his bike. “Are you gay or what?”
“No,” I say. I stumble after him and feel naked down to my nerve endings. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I like girls, and just … without my glasses you looked…” Even in the dim light I can see his cheeks are crimson when I catch up to him. I think of my brothers and all the homophobic shit that they always say about Morgan. About him being a “sissy” or worse. But here he is and here I am, and maybe it’s me. I think back to all the times I saw him from the corner of my eye, or without my glasses, or in a moment of vulnerability, and how I felt a snap of desire in my chest, and how hard I’ve tried not to think about it, and … but … it’s only with Morgan. And Morgan’s small, and skinny, and he has long hair. Have I felt this way about Nate? Chud? Any of the guys on the football team? I think back, my thoughts unsteady and slurred, and decide that no, I haven’t. “I’m not gay.”