True Letters from a Fictional Life (11 page)

“OK. You got a lot of homework this weekend?”

“So, just to be clear: You
do
or you do
not
like talking about this stuff?”

“I want my lunch. Where's our food?”

“We literally just ordered.”

“I gotta pee.” I split for the men's room. When I returned to the table, I successfully steered the conversation away from me and kept her talking about sports, past summer vacations, and, in a desperate move, the future of NASA. I'd just read an article about the Mars Rover.

I spent the rest of the afternoon wondering if I should call Theresa and ask her to go for a walk so I could tell her everything. I was still debating the walk when it started to get dark and Derek called to see if I wanted to watch some hockey at his place. Before I left, I scribbled Theresa a letter.

Saturday, May 7th

Theresa,

I don't know how to end our half-cooked relationship. Can I just call it quits casually? “It's not going to work between us. Let's move on.” Or do I have to ask you to sit down, stare into your eyes, and get all weepy with you? I'm told that texting is not a good way to say good-bye. But I don't want to say good-bye to you anyway. I guess that's the thing. Everything between us works. Almost. I'd miss the way you fix my collar even when it doesn't need to be fixed. The way you fall asleep against me ten minutes into any movie. That perfume you wear. The way people brighten when they see us together. I wish you could be the one I can't take my eyes off of, the one I can't stop thinking about. I really do. If there were a way to say we're done and know that everything would stay the same between us, I'd do it in a second. I think that's why I keep letting you think there's still a chance that things will work out: if I say it all plainly, you're going to end up in tears, and I'm going to end up looking like a jerk.

There's so much to look forward to.

Love,

James

Monday morning, Derek and I
stopped to inspect the little shrine some girls had set up for Aaron just inside the school. Origami birds perched on melted candles in front of a collage of Aaron photos. In most of the shots, he was smiling in a way that he never did in school. Brown wilted carnations were taped to the poster board. “The flowers look terrible,” I said, and I started to yank the tape from their stems.

“What are you doing?” a girl yelled from down the hall.

I stood up. “I'm taking down these dead flowers. They're depressing.”

She marched toward me. “They're not yours to take down.”

Derek imitated a police loudspeaker. “Step away from the shrine. Step away from the shrine, please.”

I put up my hands and backed away. “I was trying to help.”

“You don't even know him,” the girl snapped.

I wanted to scream,
His pink alligator PEZ dispenser stares at me while I sleep!
But I didn't. “He's not dead,” I muttered instead.

The girl untaped the flowers as we left.

The same girl was there again the next morning, standing guard. She glared at us. Plastic daisies were now stapled to Aaron's photos. Derek stopped to sniff them. “The flowers are lovely,” he whispered to her. “They smell like new inner tube.”

That day I kept having these moments when I'd be having a normal conversation, but in my head I was on that hike, holding hands with Topher. Teachers looked right at me and called my name, and it felt like they were talking to someone else. No one but me could see the double image: the kid everyone thought they knew and the kid I really was. I knew what I had to do to pull the two images into one—I had to be honest with everyone—but I didn't know where to begin or even if I should.

Derek and I drove to the library to work on our history projects that afternoon. He was still in his AC/DC phase. Nothing anyone said to him could make it stop. He'd
subjected me to this band so much over the previous weeks that I didn't hear them anymore, even as they screamed themselves hoarse from the stereo. Now I was grateful that they provided a cover for my silence.

At some point, I knew, I would have to talk to Derek. But he made jokes about gay people, and I laughed at them. The Jesus he believed in, I was pretty sure, frowned upon gay people. Plus, I wouldn't just be telling Derek that I like boys. I'd be telling him that I'd led him along, persuaded him to be friends with a kid who doesn't exist. And once I told him, I wouldn't be able to take it back, even if I changed my mind. What if I ended up not liking Topher after all? What if I fell in love with some girl? It would be like after that walk with Hawken: I'd wish that I'd just kept my mouth shut. But all I wanted to do right then was talk to Derek about it. I cranked the front seat back as far as it would go and put my feet up on the dashboard. It was as close as I could get to curling up in the car.

Derek glanced at me, turned the radio down just low enough to ask, “What's happening there, Liddell? You about to give birth? You're pregnant?”

“Twins,” I groaned. “I don't know how I'm going to tell my parents.”

“Your parents are pretty chill. I'm sure they'll be loving grandparents.”

“I don't know. I think this news will come as a bit of a shock to them.”

“Does Theresa know yet? Have you told her?”

“No. And she's not going to be happy about it either.”

“What? She loves babies. And she'll be impressed that you're doing all the work.”

“Sure, sure. The thing is, she might not be the mother.”

“You're the mommy. She's the daddy.”

“I'm the daddy. I'm like a sea horse.”

“This is scandalous and strange! Tell me the mother is not Kim.”

“It's not Kim. Jesus.”

“Gina DeAngelo?”

I punched him. Gina DeAngelo is a Spanish teacher at my school who is widely regarded as hot.

“Dude, there is no reason to punch me. I would've been impressed if Gina DeAngelo were the mother slash father of your twin babies.”

“Her husband might be upset.”

“Well, you never know,” shrugged Derek. “He might be impressed, too. His woman knocking up a good-looking high school boy. He might be into it. He might ask to watch next—”

“This conversation's done,” I interrupted. We were pulling into the library parking lot anyway.

“I was just saying,” he sang as he slipped the car into a spot between enormous pickup trucks. And then he cranked the emergency brake and turned to look me in the eye.

“For real, dude. Are you sleeping with someone other than Theresa?”

“No,” I said honestly.

“Did something happen to turn you into a basket case for the first ten minutes of that drive?”

I slid down in my seat again. I was cold and wanted to go inside, but I wanted to spill it all to Derek, too. “Things have been sort of intense,” I began. Here we go, I thought.

“Did Theresa call it quits with you?”

“No . . .”

“Good. Then don't screw it up.” And he got out of the car.

Topher and I exchanged a couple of quick notes when I was washing dishes that night.
How's it going? Good, you?
It was weird texting with him right in front of my parents. It's not that I'd never kept a secret from them before, but this time I wasn't just being a little dishonest. I imagined sitting them down and telling them everything that was rattling around in my head. But they were dealing with Rex, who was getting picked on by some kid at school, and they sounded really tired.

At lunch on Thursday, Derek announced that his parents were going back down to Boston that weekend. “We're keeping it very small. Don't tell anyone. I swear I'll turn people away.”

My brain began an internal argument with itself. I wanted to hang out with Derek and Hawken, but I wanted to see Topher, too. The thing was, Theresa would be there. I wasn't even dating her, I reminded myself, so why was I worried
about it? Because everyone would wonder why I'd invited Topher along—unless I wasn't the one to invite him.

When Derek left the table, I turned to Theresa. “Hey, why don't you invite Kim along to Derek's?” Part of me felt bad about setting this trap.

“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.”

“I don't know why he's so shy about asking her himself. Do you think she'll be able to come?” It all sounded so innocent.

“Sure, if she can get over here. Usually her brother brings her and I don't know if he'll be around.”

“Oh, right.” I pretended to think hard. “You could invite Topher along, too.”

A little gasp. “Smart, James!” She talks to me like I'm a puppy sometimes. “Good boy!” She scratched behind my ear. I smiled and shrugged.

Topher called me later that
night. “So, Theresa invited me over to Derek's tomorrow night. You okay with me coming along?”

“Yeah, of course! I was the one who suggested it.”

“Oh.” He sounded confused. “Why didn't
you
just invite me?”

“Because,” I said. I figured it was obvious why and I didn't want to have to spell it out. “Because it's better if she did it. Just come along. I want to hang out.”

Silence on the other end. Was he, like me, standing with one hand on his head, eyes closed?

“OK,” he said eventually. “OK. I'll see you tomorrow night.”

Half an hour later, I got a text from Kim:
Are you kidding me?

Hawken saw me check my fly and adjust my woolen hat when we heard Kim and Topher climbing the long wooden stairs up to Derek's deck. He tilted his head at me, and I glanced at the others to see if they'd noticed. Hawken and Derek were perched on the railing with beers. Theresa sat in a wooden Adirondack chair with a Diet Coke. To my relief, Mark was working at the restaurant all weekend, so he couldn't make it.

“Topher, right?” Derek shook his hand.

I gave them both hugs of equal length. Two seconds each. I counted.

“What do you think of Derek's haircut?” Hawken demanded. “Don't you think he should grow an Afro? We're deciding tonight.”

“You could have a sweet one by next year, right in time for graduation,” Topher said.

“That's what
I've
been saying!” cried Hawken.

“Who needs one?” I asked, sliding open the glass door to the kitchen.

Derek put up five fingers.

“Everyone's staying over, right?” Derek asked when I came back out with a six-pack.

“I'm not drinking,” announced Kim. “So I can drive Topher home, but I have to leave at ten thirty. Unless, well, Topher, unless you want to stay and someone can give you
a ride tomorrow? Or Theresa, are you going to stay? Or are you both staying—?” She looked over at me, and I telepathically told her to shut up. She went silent.

The haircut debates resumed. Hawken defended the mohawk he had when he was eight, and he threatened to bring it back that summer. We all vehemently opposed this plan, and Derek disappeared inside to find a photo of it. He came back with a whole album and a bottle of rum. We had an easy match the next day, I didn't have all that much homework, and I didn't have to worry about getting home. Hawken and Theresa were grinning and flipping through the photos of us all in elementary school, and Topher and Kim were cracking up at one of Derek's stories. The stars were out, and for some reason, for a little while, it seemed like everything would be okay.

I'd never had rum before. After a quarter of the bottle was gone, Derek was making Topher recite lines from
Hamlet
so that we could yell them to the sky in pirate voices. If Derek had neighbors closer by, they would have heard him holler a dozen times
“It harrows me with fear and wonder!”
Pretty soon we were just shouting phrases that sounded vaguely Shakespearean in seadog voices. I hadn't dared to sit next to Topher when he arrived, but now I sat right next to him on the porch rail, our legs touching. Hawken was taking photos of everyone, and I didn't even care.

At one point Derek looked me in the eye and growled, “This is a mud season disquieting and . . .” He frowned,
searching for a second word.

I swigged from the bottle, winced, and gasped, “Fine. Disquieting and fine.”

After Kim, Topher, and Theresa left in a flurry of hugs and high fives, and while Derek was out on the porch gathering bottles, Hawken and I chugged water in the kitchen. Leaning against the counter with him, the night we'd gone for a walk in the snow seemed long ago, but it'd only been a few weeks earlier.

“Your boy's cute,” Hawken whispered.

I smirked at the linoleum and then pounded the rest of my water. “Don't say that,” I said, wiping my mouth on my sleeve. “Don't say that out loud. Not around anyone.”

“Tell me when you've told Derek,” he said, just as Derek slid open the door from the porch, and I banged my glass into the sink.

“You guys can pull the bed out from the couch. You know, the foldy bed or whatever.”

“No, it's cool,” I said. “Hawken, you take the couch. I'll take the floor.”

“Just pull out the bed,” cried Derek. “It's a big bed. It takes like thirty seconds to set it up.”

“No, it's fine,” I insisted.

But he disappeared into the living room, and I heard him pushing aside the coffee table and throwing cushions across the room. Metal hinges squealed as he yanked the bed out of the couch. I glanced at Hawken. He smiled and ruffled my
hair. “It's okay, Liddell,” he whispered. “I sleep naked, but it's okay.”

“There!” Derek yelled from the living room. “It's done! Ten seconds! I timeth't it!”

The next week flew by in a blur of classes. I buried myself in homework, and Topher had play rehearsals every night, so we barely even spoke until the following Friday afternoon, when we went to Wilder Dam to let his dog run. He picked me up at my house, and on our way out to the highway, I saw Theresa's car waiting at an intersection ahead of us. I pulled the seat recliner lever and fell flat on my back.

“Whoa!” Topher yelled. “What's happening there? Was that intentional?”

“Yup, that's Theresa's car up there. Keep your eyes ahead.”

“Oh, boy,” was all he said.

I watched treetops zip over us for a count of ten. “We're past her, right?”

“We passed her,” he confirmed.

I pulled the lever and sat back up. “Sorry. I just don't want to have to answer a whole bunch of questions from her or make up a crazy story if she sees us together. I told her I wasn't feeling well and couldn't hang out.”

Topher didn't say anything for a minute or two. “This is a really crazy idea, I know, but you could just tell her the truth.”

“I will one day,” I promised. “Not today, though.”

“Why not just talk to her about everything? Tell her you like boys. It's not your fault, and she might be relieved to hear that she's not the problem.”

“It's weird to talk about.”

“It'll get easier.
I like boys.
Practice saying it.
I
like
like boys
.” He laughed, and I grinned but shook my head at him. “Sorry, I know this isn't funny for you.” He coughed to get serious again. “You have to talk to her.”

“Maybe I'll send her a text or something.”

“James. Do not send her a text. Are you kidding? Talk to her, for God's sake. She's your friend.” We were pulling into the dirt parking lot. It was a nice day, but there were only two other cars. “Awesome. The place is empty.” Angus was scrabbling in the back of the old Subaru before Topher had even turned off the engine.

“That dog loves to run, huh?” I said, grateful for the chance to change the subject.

“My dad runs him five or six miles a day. He's out of town on business, so Angus didn't run yesterday.” When Topher opened the trunk door, the border collie shot from the back, sprinted along the tree line a hundred yards ahead of us, then bounced into the bushes and disappeared without warning.

“Your dog just ran off the planet, dude.”

“He comes back—soaked and salty from the oceans, perfumed from the Orient—but he comes back.” He was quiet for a moment, then confessed, “I stole that line from my
grandfather. And this.” He produced an empty cigarette case from his pocket. “Well, he gave me this before he died. I wish smoking was less deadly.”

“I have Aaron Foster's PEZ dispenser. He gave it to me—well, he traded it for my sweater—the day he got punched.”

“Yikes. I don't know Aaron. I know
of
Aaron, but I've never met him.”

We were walking slowly, the squishy fields still yellow and brown.

“How are things at your school?” Topher ventured. “I mean, since all that happened?”

“No one talks about it all that much,” I said, pulling up my hood. “We had small group discussions about ‘social choices' one afternoon, and some of our teachers talked with us about it in class, but one of the weirdest parts about the whole thing is how quickly everything has gone back to normal, you know? Now it's almost like it never happened. Like Aaron was a character we saw in a movie once, and he disappeared when the screen went black, and we all went on with real life.”

“Yup, I remember that feeling. A kid in my middle school died of leukemia. It was sort of like that.”

“And Mark, he acts like nothing happened. He doesn't seem to notice that kids are scared of him.”

We were approaching a boat ramp. We'd seen only a few people in the distance across some vast meadows, and there were only a couple of kayakers far upstream.

“Yeah, but Mark's a pal of yours, right?”

“I used to be better friends with him than I am now, but yeah, he still hangs out with us. Hawken looks out for him.”

“What about Aaron? How is he?”

“He's not back at school yet. Evidently, he's having nasty headaches.”

“Have you talked to him?”

“I tried calling him once. I don't know him all that well,” I muttered. I didn't want to get into it.

“Not your type?”

“I feel sorry for him. He's not all that smart in terms of blending in, you know.”

“That's what I hear.” We stopped where the grass turned to sand and stones near the water's edge. “Do you make a real effort? To blend in, I mean? To make sure no one knows that you like boys?”

“No,” I said too quickly. I looked out across the fields and behind me, looked up and down the river. “I mean, I guess I don't have to try all that hard, apart from keeping quiet about it.”

“You're just this great without trying, huh?” He put his arm around my back and pulled me close to him.

I didn't answer. I could feel his hand on my waist, his arm around me, feel the rise and fall of his chest next to mine as I held my breath, and I wished the sun would drop out of the sky. My back was as rigid as the old gray jetty posts leading in a sinking line from shore to black water. Chewing the
string of my hoodie, I squinted over my shoulder at a trailhead thirty yards behind us, and Topher dropped his arm.

“I'm making you nervous.”

“Little bit.” I grabbed a flat stone from the ground and tried to skip it across the river. It splashed twice and careened into a post. I shuffled through the sand, searching for another good rock, and Topher walked behind me, kicked my leg.

“Let's go feed the ducks,” he suggested. “I know where they hang out.”

“You know where the ducks go in the winter?”

He put out his hand, and I tried to smile at him as I took it in my own. “It's freaking broad daylight, dude,” I muttered.

He swept his arm across the empty, open fields. “It's not like we're walking down the middle of the street, man. You can keep your hood up if you don't want to be seen with me.”

I pulled the hood off, and Topher grinned, mussed up my hair, then leaned over and kissed my cheek.

“That was our first kiss, huh?” I laughed nervously as we headed for the ducks.

“That doesn't count as a kiss, James.” He stopped walking, wrapped his arms around me, and really kissed me. Later, I'd wonder and worry about who'd been watching, but for a minute or two, I stopped thinking, stopped fretting, even as his hand slid into my back pocket and I slid mine into his. He tasted like spearmint. He brushed his cheek against mine, kissed my ear and breathed into it, “That was our first kiss.”

I put my head on his shoulder and, after a second, said
flatly, “I just kissed a boy.”

“Yup,” sighed Topher, putting his hand on the back of my head. “You did. And not even very well.”

I held him tight and rubbed a knuckle against his ribs.

“No!” He pushed me away, laughing and holding his side. “That's terrible! Never do that again! The ducks are going to hate you.”

When we reached the little cove packed with mallards, Topher clapped his hands. “Right where I left them.”

“I think they recognize you.” Even the ones far out in the river quacked maniacally and raced to the shore.

“Oh, sure, sure. I know them all by name.” He pulled half a bag of stale bread from his coat pocket. Within thirty seconds there were as many ducks at our feet, demanding loudly to be fed.

“Topher, feed them quick! They're getting upset.” My raised voice made the birds quack louder.

I expected Topher to tear off bits of bread and throw them to individual birds, but he seemed unnerved by all the noise as well. He grabbed the entire loaf, ripped it into four big pieces and threw one in each direction. The nearest ducks and I looked at him, confused, but he shrugged. “They have to learn to share.” Ducks fought viciously on three sides of us, and the chunk of bread that had plopped in the river was sinking. A few irritated-looking birds stuck their heads underwater to peck at it, then glared at us.

Topher leaned against me.

“You're really good with animals, huh?” I said, sliding my hand nervously to his waist.

“Just ducks. I'm like the duck whisperer.”

Angus bolted out of the trees just then, dripping mud, and the ducks exploded. Five or six of them nearly hit us as they took off in a flapping panic. Topher screamed and tackled me to the ground. We lay there in each other's arms, cackling, as Angus ricocheted around the little clearing, leaping at birds slow to take flight. “Holy smokes!” Topher panted, and then Angus jumped on top of us, sending us into hysterics again. “We nearly got killed by mallards!” Topher gasped. “It was duck apocalypse!”

By the time we got back to the car, the only other two cars in the lot had disappeared along with most of the daylight. “Dude, you are a mess,” said Topher. “How did you get mud on your face while going for a walk?”