Birthday(27)

As I stare down the four girls from my class in the makeup aisle of a Kmart like a sheriff at high noon, I tell myself I’ve had it worse. But all the same, I feel my most shameful self laid bare for them to pick at. I hold my shopping bag to my chest and cross my arms over my heart.

“No, I’m not stealing,” I say to Kaleigh. “I’m. Buying these. For my. For a girl.”

“You’ve got a girlfriend?” She flips her hair and looks thoughtful. “Is it that Mexican girl?”

I want to throw my bag at her and yell that Jasmine has a name and she was born in Georgia but I can barely move.

“I always kind of figured you and that blond football kid with the glasses were a thing.”

I flinch. That stings way more than I want it to. It brings up the idea that our kiss last year might have unlocked something more in me. In some of my fantasies, we’re grown up and we have a home together. Maybe he’s a famous musician and I’m on the road with him. I know it’s so stupid, and I always feel dirty after, but I also suddenly hate Kaleigh for tapping into something I was so sure people couldn’t see. Eric is untouchable. And me—I’m nobody.

“We aren’t,” I say. My mouth feels so dry. “And the makeup isn’t. It’s not for me.”

“Okay, whatever,” Kaleigh says with a shrug. I back away until I’m out of the aisle then practically run to the self-checkout. I feed bills into the checkout machine with trembling hands, praying that they’ll all be accepted and I won’t have to ask the attendant for help. My prayers are answered, just this once, and I walk out of the store as fast as I can without actually running, the makeup clinking in my backpack like so many priceless jewels.

The sun breaks through a slate-gray cloud canopy as I mount my bike, and once my blood is up from pedaling and I’m on the road, the girls’ laughter feels distant, just another hurt among a hundred that’ve already scabbed over. It doesn’t matter. I’ll barely remember them tomorrow.

I adjust the shoulder straps of my backpack to make sure the makeup is secure, then zip onto a side street, not exactly happy, but vibrating with the knowledge that at least I’m finally doing something.





ERIC



Sweat courses down my back and chest as I make my way to the locker room after football practice. The showers are blessedly empty when I trudge in, panting and weak-legged, though the air is still thick with humid, sweaty stickiness.

I check my phone and don’t find any messages from Morgan, which is weird, since we’re supposed to have birthday plans tonight.

I turn the shower tap to full cold and rush in. After the initial shock, the chill seeps into my muscles and loosens up all the knots and kinks.

I like to sing when I shower; the acoustics on tile are good, and since I’ve basically stopped playing guitar, it’s the only time I really do it. I sing “Sing Me Spanish Techno” by The New Pornographers, off their album Twin Cinema—the last CD I bought before sort of losing interest in music. I’m on the line about listening too long to one song when I reach up to shampoo my hair and, not for the first time, consider trimming at least a little bit off. It’s getting long enough that my helmet fits weird, but it’s one of my last little acts of rebellion against Dad, now that I’m his perfect football prodigy at just fifteen.

Maybe things would be better if Peyton hadn’t left so suddenly. He fell in love with a train kid who’d floated through town on her way to Bonnaroo, and he ditched the end of his senior year to run away with her. Peyton hasn’t contacted us since, not even Isaac, and Dad’s made it clear that my brother won’t be welcome home under any circumstances.

Now Dad’s gaze is on me 24/7, as if he’s watching for whatever went wrong with Peyton to sour in me too. I didn’t even have Isaac to lean on over the summer. Apparently, he wanted to stretch his wings before his last year of college, so he got an apartment in Knoxville. I asked if I could see it back in June, just to escape Dad’s eagle eyes for a weekend, but Isaac hemmed and hawed about the gas cost to drive out and pick me up. I know enough to know when I’m not wanted.

Usually I’d have spent the summer glued at the hip with Morgan, but … well, it hasn’t been great between us, so it’s not a total surprise that I haven’t heard from him yet today. When we hang out, he spends more and more time staring off into space with his knees pulled to his chest. I feel like I should press him about what’s wrong, but when has that ever worked before with him? At this point, he’ll tell me when he feels like telling me, right?

The shower’s water pressure dies. With a heavy sigh, I cut the song short, finish washing up quickly, and get dressed.

Nate and Chud come charging toward me from the parking lot when I step outside the gym. Chud’s grown into his mass in the last year, leaving him a wall of meat with no rounded edges—the perfect linebacker.

“Happy fuckin’ birthday, faggot!” Chud says, pulling me into a headlock and tousling my hair. The word hits me like a bat to the head. Every time they yell that something’s gay or I’m a fag I get a little jolt of panic. I flash back to a year ago, to that kiss in the street, and then I squeeze my eyes shut, fill my thoughts with static, and chase those feelings away. The only people I’ve ever been attracted to besides Morgan are girls. I was drunk. I’m not gay.