The State of Us

by Shaun David Hutchinson

  Dre stared at me deadpan. “Won’t be hard for me.”

  “It’s only going to be Tamal and his girlfriend, Astrid, and Mindy.”

  “Your girlfriend?”

  “Actually, I bet you and Mindy will have a lot in common.” I leaned my head against Dre’s. “You’re not mad?”

  “Why would I be mad?”

  I struggled with how to put my feelings into words without offending Dre. I was good at debating because I spoke from my brain, but not so good with people sometimes because speaking from my heart didn’t come as easily. But I really didn’t want to keep anything from him. “The truth is, I was scared.”

  “Of what?”

  I led Dre to the bed and sat beside him, leaving a little bit of room between us because I didn’t want to get distracted. “You,” I said. “Us. We talk on Promethean all the time, but we hardly get to see each other, so I feel like there’s this urgency to squeeze as much into the time we have as possible. Only, I need to take this slow, and I was scared you might not understand that—”

  Dre took my hand and held it, giving me those soft puppy dog eyes that melted my heart. “And you thought having your friends here would make sure I kept it in my pants.”

  “Something less vulgar, but yes.”

  “I care about you, Dean. Like, more than I thought possible. And, sure, when I see you, I want to rip your clothes off and do things to you that would give your mother a heart attack if she found out we’d done them. But I don’t wanna ruin us, whatever we’re becoming. So we’ll take things as slow as you want. I’ll court you like you’re a Victorian lady and I’m the charming son of a local lord desperate to win your favor.”

  I laughed. “We don’t need to take it quite that slow.”

  Dre pressed his hand to his chest. “Please, madam, cover your naked wrist before I lose all control of my senses.”

  “You are so weird.”

  “Good weird?”

  “Definitely good weird,” I said. “And, in case you were wondering, they won’t be here for a couple more hours, and I would very much like to kiss you, so—”

  Dre checked his watch and shrugged. “I mean, I suppose I could spare a few—”

  I pulled Dre to me and kissed him. It was everything I wanted. He was everything I wanted.

  Dre

  I WAS IN Dean’s bed with my head resting on his chest, listening to him breathe. His tie was gone and the top three buttons of his shirt were undone, and my T-shirt was somewhere on the other side of the room, flung there in the mad dash of roving hands and exploring lips. For someone who’d just said he wanted to take things slow, Dean had held nothing back. Not like we had sex or anything. All the action happened from the waist up. I mean, stuff was going on from the waist down, but it was stuff we couldn’t control and did our best to ignore. Neither of us was ready to cross that border yet.

  For the moment, I was content.

  “What do you think will happen after the election?” Dean asked.

  “Depends who wins.”

  “What do you think will happen to us?” Dean was running his fingers across my back, sending surges of electricity through me. “How will we keep seeing each other?”

  I was busy enjoying the present and Dean was trying to drag us into the future. “We’ll find a way.”

  Dean sat up on his elbow and looked down at me. “But how? If my mom wins, I’ll be in DC and you’ll be in Nevada—”

  “Until I graduate.”

  “If your dad wins, you will be in DC and I’ll be in Florida—”

  “Until you graduate.”

  “And if McMann wins—

  I clamped my hand over Dean’s mouth. “Then he’ll probably start a war with Russia or China or North Korea, and we’ll all die in flames and it won’t matter.”

  Dean peeled my hand off his mouth. “I’m attempting to be serious.”

  “I know,” I said. “And I wish you’d stop.”

  “You don’t want to plan our future?”

  Our future. He’d said “our future” like he was certain we had one. I wanted us to have one, but our lives were so damned uncertain, and I thought it was better to live in the now and let the future happen when it happened.

  “I do,” I said. “But, like, there’s so much that’s out of our control. Someone’s gonna win the election. It might be your mom, it might be my dad, it might be McMann, though let’s hope it isn’t. Either way, it’ll be way harder to see each other afterward. But then we get to go to college.”

  “Do you know where you’re going yet?”

  “I know where I’ve applied.”

  “If you go to RISD and I go to Harvard, we could see each other easily,” Dean said.

  “I don’t know if I’m gonna get into RISD. You’ll probably get into Harvard, but do you even wanna go there?”

  Dean looked like I’d wounded him, but I didn’t know why. “Why wouldn’t I? It’s an amazing school.”

  “I’m not saying it’s not, but—”

  “Do you not want to keep seeing me after the election?” he asked abruptly.

  “Of course I do.”

  “Then why are you acting like you don’t?”

  I rolled over on my back and stared at the ceiling, blowing out a sigh of frustration. “Because I’m happy now, Dean. I’m happy right this moment, and I want to keep being happy, but talking about the future makes me think about all the shit that could conspire to keep us apart. I also applied to School of the Art Institute of Chicago, SCAD, MassArt, and Columbia, and I bet you probably have applications at all the Ivy Leagues. We could wind up in schools that aren’t a quick train ride apart.”

  Dean brushed a curl off my forehead. “We would still find a way to be together.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?”

  “I hope so, Dean, but I don’t know, and I don’t want to think about it until I have to because I don’t want to ruin today by worrying about tomorrow.”

  Dean leaned in and kissed me. “You win. Tomorrow can wait.”

  Dean

  IT WAS DIFFICULT to watch Dre arguing with Mindy or talking to Tamal and pretend I didn’t want to slide my arm around his waist and kiss him. It was painful to watch Tamal and Astrid holding hands, and to see Dre notice them holding hands, and not be able to hold Dre’s hand. I was used to being reserved, but I didn’t want to be reserved when it came to Dre. No matter how much we disagreed or what we disagreed on, I still felt like we spoke a language no one else spoke. That we shared a bond no one else shared. If a time traveler had arrived from the future and told me that I was considering basing my college plans on which school would allow me to see Dre the most, I would have laughed. But that’s exactly what I had been doing while I had held him in my bed. Dre might have been able to live in the moment and enjoy it without knowing what the future might hold, but doing so was more difficult for me. I couldn’t predict every possible outcome, but I could do my best to make sure as many of those potential futures as possible included Dre.

  “McMann’s going to win,” Mindy was saying. We were sitting around the patio table, eating pizza. The night was nice and cool and Tamal had been hinting he thought we should take a dip in the hot tub.

  “No way!” Dre said. “He’s like twenty naked mole rats in a saggy skin suit. He can’t win.”

  Mindy rolled her eyes. “Do you really think your dad is going to fix anything? He’s a politician just like the rest. Corporations control both parties. There’s hardly any difference between them.”

  I raised my hand. “I beg to differ.”

  “Thank you,” Dre said.

  “There are plenty of differences between the parties,” I went on, but Mindy cut me off before I could finish.

  “On the surface,” she said. “It’s all on the surface. One side wants to tell women what they can and can’t do with their bodies, the other side wants to tell people what they can and can’t say. Both sides are trying to play the victim, but neither
side is actually doing a damn thing to help anyone.”

  Dre snorted. “And McMann will?”

  “No,” Mindy said. “He’ll probably blow it all up.”

  “And you think that’s a good thing?” Astrid asked. “What about all the people who’ll be hurt? I was barely old enough to remember it, but my parents lost their house the last time someone blew it all up.”

  “Sometimes tearing a thing down is the only way to fix it.”

  Astrid fixed Mindy with a contemptuous glare. “Easy for you to say. Your folks are rich.”

  Mindy shrugged, unfazed by the anger directed at her. “When we tear the world down, money will be meaningless.”

  “Mindy Maguire, teen anarchist.” I shook my head and tried to diffuse the tension. “Pastor Duncan would be appalled.”

  Mindy rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

  “Besides,” Dre said. “McMann won’t win.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “My mom’s going to win.”

  “Ha! My dad’s got this.”

  “In his dreams.”

  Tamal raised his hand. “Can we talk about anything else?”

  Astrid perked up. “Yes! I actually want to hear more about Dreadful Dressup. How did you even get into doing monster makeup?”

  The attention turned to Dre, and there was a moment when it looked like he might panic, but that wasn’t his style. They were as charmed by him as I was. I wondered what, if anything, would change if they knew Dre and I were together. Would they treat him differently? Would they treat me differently? I knew Mindy wouldn’t care; I think she already liked him more than she liked me, which I had expected. It was Tamal I was concerned about. He had never indicated that he had a problem with queer people, but I was his best friend, and I didn’t want that to change.

  “We had a tradition in my family that I got to pick the theme for our Halloween costumes. One year we all dressed up as warrior princesses, another year we were superheroes.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Somewhere out there is a picture of you, your mother, and your father all wearing princess gowns?”

  “And tiaras,” Dre said, smiling. “Anyway. When I was nine, I decided we were going to be mermaids, but creepy, freaky mermaids. Only, my mom didn’t know how to do that kind of makeup and my dad was clueless too, so I spent weeks on YouTube watching makeup tutorials, and I fell in love with it.”

  “Why?” Tamal asked. “I mean, it’s cool, but you can do all that stuff on computers, right?”

  Dre nodded, a little wistfully. “There’s something special about the physical transformation. When you’re standing there, half your face torn off, blood leaking out of your split lip, and you really start feeling your inner zombie, it sets you free in a way I don’t think computer-generated effects will ever duplicate.”

  My phone vibrated, and I pulled it out while Dre continued telling the others about Dreadful Dressup. There was a message notification on Promethean, which was odd since Dre was the only person I talked to. I assumed it was a message he’d sent earlier that had been delayed, and I tapped the icon and opened the app.

  Pyrogue: Hello, Dean Arnault.

  I stared at the message, unsure what to do. Time seemed to stretch, and the room melted at the edges. Someone had found out who I was on Promethean. That shouldn’t have been possible, but they had addressed me by name.

  PrezMamasBoy: Who is this?

  Pyrogue: A friend.

  PrezMamasBoy: What do you want?

  Pyrogue: To send you a message.

  PrezMamasBoy: What message?

  Pyrogue: I know.

  I had received a fair amount of emails trolling me since my mother had become governor, and the number had only increased after she had become the Republican nominee for president. Usually, I deleted them and moved on with my life or forwarded them to a member of my mother’s staff if I thought they warranted further scrutiny. Whoever this Pyrogue was hadn’t said anything threatening yet, nothing worthy of my fear, and yet there was an icy knot in my stomach I couldn’t ignore. I should have simply blocked Pyrogue, but I foolishly took the bait.

  PrezMamasBoy: What, exactly, do you think you know?

  Pyrogue: I know about your relationship with Andre Rosario.

  I dropped my phone. It hit the thick glass tabletop with a clatter, calling the attention of the others down upon me. “Shoot. Sorry.” I scrambled to stand and grabbed my phone. “I have to . . . go . . . inside for something. A drink. I need a drink.”

  Dre began to stand. “I could use one too.”

  “No! I mean, I’ll get it for you. Stay and talk. I’ll only be a minute.” I rushed inside before I could make the situation any more awkward than I already had. Instead of going to the kitchen, I locked myself in the downstairs bathroom, where I could read the messages without worrying about anyone seeing them.

  Pyrogue: Don’t bother denying it.

  Pyrogue: The truth will come out.

  Pyrogue: Pay close attention to the news.

  PrezMamasBoy: I’m sorry, but I believe you have me mistaken for someone else.

  PrezMamasBoy: I am not now, nor have I ever been, in a relationship with Andre Rosario.

  Pyrogue didn’t reply with words. They sent me two photos. The first was me walking into the janitor’s closet at the second debate. The next was Dre walking out of the same closet a few minutes later. Both were time-stamped. I leaned against the sink, unable to breathe. My chest hurt and my vision was dim at the edges. I thought I was having a panic attack. Someone knew the truth about Dre and me. Someone had found out. What had Pyrogue meant about watching the news? Had they already gone to the press? If that happened, my life as I knew it was over. My parents would find out and it could hurt my mother’s chances of winning the election. It would have been bad enough for her having to explain a queer child, but one who had been dating her opponent’s son? This was bad, and I didn’t know what to do.

  I opened the door to the bathroom and ran into Tamal.

  “Dude,” he said. “You all right? You’re looking sweaty.”

  I wiped the sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand. “Yeah. Fine.”

  “That Dre’s a trip. I can see why you like him.”

  “Like him? Who said I like him? I don’t. He’s annoying and loud and I only invited him here because it was the polite thing to do.”

  Tamal held up his hands. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Great,” I said. “Everything’s great. Couldn’t be better.”

  Dre

  DEAN WAS DRIVING me back to my hotel. I’d called my mom and dad and told them that Dean had invited me to hang out with his friends, and they’d told me I had to be at the hotel by nine. I could’ve spent all night with Dean, but I didn’t want to push Mom and Dad.

  “Mindy’s wild,” I said. “I think she and Mel would get along if they didn’t murder each other first.” Thinking about Mel threatened to put me in a mood, and Dean seemed like he was already in one, though I didn’t know why.

  “You’ve been quiet. Everything all right?”

  “Fine,” Dean said.

  “Sure sounds like it.”

  Dean kept his eyes on the road and both hands on the wheel and he never drove over the speed limit. It was like driving with a driving instructor. But even at stoplights, he wouldn’t look at me. I reached across to rest my hand on his thigh, and he flinched. He hadn’t flinched when I’d touched him earlier.

  “Maybe I’m being paranoid, but are you mad at me? Did I do something wrong?”

  “I’m not mad at you.”

  “Are you just stressed out from having to pretend you didn’t totally want to smother me with kisses while your friends were around?” Walking the line between friendly and too friendly had been difficult. I’d catch myself smiling at Dean, thinking about kissing him, and I’d have to look away and think about baseball or cat vomit or Jackson McMann so that Dean’s friends didn’t see right through me.

  “I need to concentr
ate on driving.”

  “Then why do you keep looking at your phone every time we stop?”

  “Can you just not right now?”

  “Fine.” I crossed my arms over my chest and turned to look out the window. I didn’t care what Dean said, there was definitely something wrong, and he wouldn’t tell me what it was. Maybe I should’ve taken him more seriously when he’d brought up college and what we were gonna do after the election. Maybe Dean, with his lists and his plans, was incapable of living in the now and not planning for the future, and he’d spent the whole night getting worked up about it. I shouldn’t have blown him off like that. I should’ve talked it out with him and found a future where we could still be together after the election, no matter who won.

  We pulled into the parking lot in front of my hotel, and I reached for the door to get out. I wasn’t angry, but I was confused and I didn’t know what to do if Dean was gonna shut me out.

  “Did you tell anyone about us?”

  “What?”

  “Someone knows,” Dean said. “They sent me messages saying they know about us and that we should keep our eyes on the news, and they had photos of us going into the closet at the debate.”

  “That’s not possible,” I said. And it shouldn’t have been, but Dean was firing off questions and accusations faster than I could respond, and he was so angry.

  “Obviously it is. Obviously someone saw us. Obviously Promethean isn’t as secure as you said it was. But none of that matters because someone knows and they’re going to expose us!”

  I couldn’t think. I needed to think. “This isn’t that bad. If all they’ve got are those pictures, then so what? It’s not like they’re pics of us making out.”

  Dean slammed his hands on the wheel. “We don’t know what else they have, Dre!”

  “Then we’ll deal with it,” I said. “We’ll tell my parents—”