by Kent, Julia
Had I really asked him to go to prom? Had he really said yes? How was that possible? I came out of the round after shaking hands with my opponent, reading his defeat in his eyes, and shifted all of my attention to that thumping roar inside me. I needed to find Sam, I needed to know that the kiss we had just shared was real—that it wasn’t going away, that it wasn’t ephemeral or something he’d done on a whim.
Finding truth in everything had become my singular pursuit over the past few years, and that included that kiss.
Sam
The blood pumped through my body like the most intense beat ever. It never varied. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Loud and hard, like a bass drum, with a searing edge of a snare, right around the fringe of the sound. It made me win—until it didn’t. The best debater in the entire region, the girl we knew would end up being number one, was Talia Sheridan. So far, she was undefeated, the only person in the entire tournament undefeated, and everyone had just assumed that of course she’d be number one and the rest of us would fight for the table scraps.
It was funny how being so wired for Amy made all of my normal anxiety seem like a joke. When your body’s on fire, and every nerve ending pulses with its own score, who gives a shit about the minority and majority rights? The resolution was important, it was everything, in fact, as my coaches and my dad kept pounding into me. But it paled when I caught a glimpse of that long, brown hair, her sweet skin, the way she was so animated talking to her friends.
I walked into the cafeteria and halted at the threshold. My stomach was churning. The room felt like it would spin if I gave it a long enough stare, and everything in my mind was pure, unadulterated chaos.
Boom, boom, boom.
Amy, Amy, Amy.
We had about fifteen minutes before they’d announce the pairings, and if Talia won, which was pretty much a given, then it was all about the power of opponent, and how many debates we’d lost. I didn’t know how Amy had done in this last round. The pairing sheets were pulled down already, so I had to ask her. Thank God I had to ask her, that meant breaking through what we’d just gone through. That meant reaching out, touching her, kissing her. My fingers itched to play. She would be the best instrument of my life if she would let me. My mind wandered as I stood there, and then suddenly she appeared, as if conjured by some sort of magic that lust taps into. Except, it wasn’t just lust – if it were that, I could have handled it. This was a chord that ran so deep inside me, I couldn’t find the beginning of the sound.
Amy. Her name triggered a flash of emotion that slid through my body from toe to head, but settled in between. Thank God for suit jackets.
“Can I talk to you?” she asked softly. Her voice was like a caress, like a stroke, as if her hand had reached down into me and taken me.
Something in her half-lidded eyes told me that for as sweet, and gentle, and smart as she was, something was waiting to be unleashed. I wanted to be the one to open that door. Maybe we could open each other’s doors and find the treasures inside. She reached over and took my hand, not palm to palm, the way you hold a friend’s hand, or a little kid’s, but interlacing the fingers like a promise of bodies entwined, all in the form of a simple hand. She didn’t have to drag me, I went willingly, and we went into a classroom. She was a little shaky in those high heels, but damn, the lines of her calves, the way it made her hips sway, made me feel like a man. They made me feel a lot of things that were new and old all at once.
“I meant what I said,” she said, bold now, her eyes blazing, “will you go to prom with me?”
We didn’t go to the same school, and at my school I wasn’t planning to go to prom. It seemed like a stupid ritual that a bunch of us had decided to forgo in favor of just hanging out, getting drunk, and then going to after-prom parties. But for Amy? “Yes,” I said, so quickly the word came out of me a grunt, “yes, of course.”
The tux, the limo, the flowers, the dinner, the ritual and the silliness, all started to make sense as I stared into her eyes, and then something inside me just rose up and I leaned down to take her mouth, which she gave freely. The resolution, the question of majority rights versus minority rights, the pairings, the tournament itself, all melted away as her hands, the same fingers that had intertwined with mine, wrapped around my back and my own embraced her, our lips hungry, our mouths making invitations that I hoped to God would be extended till the end of time.
“Hey,” a voice barked. Ross. We pulled apart. He shot us a what the fuck? look.
“How can you make out at a time like this? The pairings were just announced.”
“What do you mean?”
“Talia took number one, she was the only one undefeated, but there are four people, two debates, to square off for spots two and three. I’m not one of ‘em, obviously,” he said, bitter, “but you two are.”
Amy looked at me, eyes wide. “Oh! Sam, Sam, Sam!” She started jumping up and down in those spiked high heels, boobs bouncing hypnotically. I could stare at those all day. “We did it, we did it.”
Ross cut us off. “Don’t get too excited,” he said, “you two are squaring off.”
Her face went slack and based on the way my muscles felt, mine must have, too. We both came to a dead halt, her hands frozen on my forearms. I just stared at him, horrified, unable to look at her eyes. “What?” we both said in unison.
“It’s you two against each other. Only one of you is going to Nationals.”
Now I turned, a magnet pulling me to her face. Ross disappeared, probably off to feed the gossip mill and tell them about what he’d found. I didn’t give a shit. My mouth went dry, my body froze.
“Oh, Sam,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.
I could handle anything but this. Not Amy crying. “Don’t cry, don’t cry,” I said, my voice feeling like it came from an echo chamber. All I could do was reach for her and pull her into my arms. She smelled so sweet, and her body was so lush.
She said something muffled into my chest, and I felt her face wiggling against my shoulder. She pulled back. “I don’t know what to do.”
My Dad’s voice echoed inside my head. ‘You come home a winner. You come home a winner.’ What if that meant something other than what my dad thought? I could mind fuck her right now, and it would be easy. She wanted me, she invited me to prom, I wanted her back and I wanted all of this just as much as she did. I could string her along, I could make an allusion to not dating her if I lost, – she was that ripe. I had that much power. It was sickening.
The only way someone has that kind of power is if you give it to them. Maybe Amy was giving it to me out of a totally different sense than I gave it to my father. I just had too much chaos in my mind to know. Some core of decency sprang up and then, with a clarity I didn’t know I possessed, I knew exactly what I needed to do.
I pulled her back from me, hands on her shoulders. Everything turned into a pinpoint. My hands on her, the soft swell of her body, my tight legs, my stomach in knots, the air between us was like its own little atmosphere of excitement, and confusion, and wanting.“You’re going in there, and I’m going in there, and we’re going to do our best. Nobody’s pulling any punches, nobody’s holding back. Do you hear me?”
Relief. That’s what showed in her eyes. Relief. “Yes,” she whispered.
I pulled back and got on my neutral debate face, which wasn’t all that different from my regular face. I extended my hand, she took it, smiling, wiping her tears away with the other.
“May the best man win.”
“Woman!” she interjected.
“May the best debater win.”
Amy
We walked like we were part of a funeral procession, out of that classroom, our hands clasped, Sam taking the lead. The pairing sheet was taped in front of the cafeteria, and I felt people clapping me on the back, heard my name said a thousand times, saw my coach’s face as he spoke to me, animated and joyful, and then concerned and intense. The cacophony around me was like a cloud or a pillow full of v
oices, and faces, and people. What grounded me was the feel of Sam’s hand in mine, and then he slowly, finger by finger, inch of skin by inch, let go, leaving me floating in a soup of overwhelm. He faded off into the crowd, one last look at me with a sad smile.
The voices went from being muffled sounds to specific words. My name, the resolution, ‘oh my God’ over and over. I heard girls saying “oh my God” and “what if?” But I had to beat Sam. Sam. What did this mean? What would this do? Would he hate me if I won? Would I hate him if he won?
He was so laid back and mellow in some ways, but I’d faced him before in a debate. He was sharp. Not in that weaselly way that Joe Ross could be, but sharp like a hunter, who could sit for days fully camouflaged and utterly silent, waiting for that one perfect moment to pounce and win. That was Sam’s style. I’d seen it over the years and learned to adapt. My own strategy against him was to match it, stay calm and cool, not aggressive, and absolutely use no sarcasm. Smile, fake as much confidence as I could, and meet him, mature mind to mature mind, with analysis, facts and the superior argument.
Different voices told me that I was on the affirmative, and that was my stronger case. I knew that Sam was weaker in the negative. It made me sick to my stomach that I was thinking about him this way.
Two weeks ago, I would have reveled in it. I’d have been torn, but I’d have known that this was about the superior mind and who, under controlled conditions, could come out the victor. Now? Who won in this scenario? It felt Pyrrhic; it felt impossible. For the first time in all my years of debating, in all my years of speech, even, I thought about throwing a debate.
Sam’s words echoed in my head. It would be dishonorable to do that. Even worse, it would cheapen him in addition to cheapening me. Throwing the debate would say that I didn’t have the confidence that he was my equal or my better, and that’s what I wanted. That true confidence, right?
A keening rose up inside me as my coach opened up his portfolio and went over some key salient points in my case. All I heard was the voice of the teacher in those Charlie Brown specials that my mom made us watch in her nostalgia for her own childhood. Mwah mwah, mwah mwah mwah mwah. that’s what I heard. What I felt, though, was a whole other universe. Sam’s fingers, his mouth, his lips, his tongue, his everything. That heart and that desire. I could feel it pounding into me like his drumsticks on my heart.
Something in me would have to shut down in order to look him in the eye, to read my case, to cross examine this man I had just kissed, who had just kissed me. How was I going to do this? That thought, how was I going to do this? made my throat ache, made me blink furiously trying to control the tears and focus, or at least pretend to look like I was focusing on what my coach was saying. He closed the portfolio, clapped me on the back and I took that as a sign that whatever he had been saying was over.
Debaters filed out and I knew what they were doing. These final runoffs were open to anyone who could get a seat, as long as they were quiet during the debate. Half the girls from my team were going to come in and watch, I knew. A few of them had an inkling that I was interested in Sam, and some of them simply wanted to watch him. He wasn’t exactly unpopular, and for a hot guy who was quiet and shy, he had a little bit of a following of girls crushing on him, me included, except none of them had just gotten a kiss.
When I got to the door he was already in there, his head down, reading over his papers. He looked up and gave me a closed mouth, tight smile and a nod. I returned it. Here we were, everything in my life coalescing in one point. I had to debate the one guy in the whole wide world who made my soul sing, and if I didn’t give it my all, I’d let myself down. Even if it meant I had to lose Sam, being true to me would, ironically, have to be the ultimate sacrifice.
Sam
From the minute her opening words were out of her mouth, “Resolved: when in conflict, the rights of the majority ought to supersede those of the minority,” I knew it was over.
Over.
Her opening case was brilliant, my cross examination was perfect, my opening case was outstanding, and it was like volleying a ball back and forth, to and fro, as if we were performers in a play, unscripted like an improv. Something sparkled between us. I could feel it. There was a high to it, the way you get when you’re on a sports team, like you’re playing basketball, and everyone’s smooth, and the passes are perfect, and the dribble, and the motion, and the jump, and the release – it all just flows.
That’s how it was with me and Amy. The words were perfect, the intensity was high, the analysis, the intellect, the give and take, the back and forth, was all lockstep. Dead on. She was in the affirmative and had her case down cold, and because I was in the negative and had my case down cold, what it came down to was the stronger argument. She was more confident on the affirmative, and I was less confident on the neg, no matter how hard I tried. Because we were equals, it was going to come down to a loss for me. I tried. I did.
But at the end when we shook hands, I knew. I just knew. Her eyes were confused, brilliant and alive, but perplexed because our emotional connection had deepened enough that she could read me. It made my pants tighten. My free hand twisted to a fist. My jaw clenched. An impulse to pull her into my arms and kiss her almost overrode the sense of polite decency that was expected of us. Besides, I had no desire to get expelled.
“Want to wait together?” she said.
Something inside me gave way. I knew it was over. I knew that I was fourth or fifth, which to my father meant that I might as well have been 1,117th. He would consider me dog shit; I considered myself a king. As we walked back to that quiet classroom, where everything had turned on a dime, before we knew we were debating each other, the hard reality sank in, seeping through every muscle, making me feel like a walking bag of concrete. I’d lost. They didn’t have to announce it for me to know. I’d lost.
My fingers played a mindless beat against my leg, my other hand twisted with Amy’s. She was so alive and trying to cover it up. I didn’t want that. Nobody wants to see an angel clip their wings. Nobody wants to take away someone else’s drive. Nobody except my dad, that is. I wasn’t going to be like him. I wasn’t going to crush her just because I could, or because it served some bigger purpose in my life. Selfish motives weren’t my thing. If I was going to be great it would be because I was great, not because I pushed other people down.
Amy stood there, holding my hand, looking at me as if she were chronicling my entire life with those brown eyes. She hadn’t needed to push me down in order to rise above me. All she’d needed was to be my equal and then to do better. I have to admit, as a guy, and a fairly competitive one, it crushed me. I won’t lie. Losing a game of mini golf on a date was one thing, but losing a full ride and knowing what I had to go home to was a whole other situation.
Was I perfect? No. Was I mature? Not really. And so, when I leaned down and took that ever-so-sweet kiss, I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. Why did everything have to happen at once? My mind raced as our lips touched, as I tasted her pleasure and her energy. It gave me some sort of fuel for my soul at the same time that a fire was tamping out inside. How could so many good things happen and one horrible thing cancel it all out?
I would go home to a father who would come as close as humanly possible to killing me. Not with his hands, not with a weapon, but with his mouth. How could I take so much enjoyment from one person’s mouth, Amy’s pure connection, and yet, experience so much pain from another’s? It was funny, a mouth’s a mouth, but it’s how you use it that turns it into an instrument of the divine, or a tool for destruction.
Too many thoughts raced through me, too many feelings pounded through me, too many drum beats out of sync made my brain hurt.
“Get a room,” growled a familiar voice.
Amy pushed me back, turning. Her turn to wipe her mouth. “Joe,” she whimpered.
“It’s final ceremonies,” he said, looking at both of us and then just shaking his head, turning away.
&nb
sp; It felt like being an inmate on death row, and being told it was time. I knew what they were going to say. Amy wanted to hold my hand walking back, and I knew I should, but the part of me that wanted to be a dick was starting to come out. The part that needed to go and sit with headphones on, and blast music and drum along, and drown out the world, was starting to emerge. I wished I had time, I wished I had space.
I wished I could go for a twenty mile run, or drum for three hours, or take some kind of drug that would just get me out of my own mind, but I couldn’t. I had to walk, step by step, next to her down the linoleum floored hallway. I had to turn and step on the carpet in the auditorium and look at the expectant faces of my teammates. I had to break contact from her, and nod and pretend everything was going to be okay, even as a knot formed in my stomach and my skin buzzed at the thought of going home.
My phone rang. I ignored it. I knew it was my dad, calling to find out. If he really cared he’d be here, right? Right? What he cared about was the surface, not the depth. Amy could be deep. Right now I just didn’t give a fuck about anything anymore. I wanted it all to go away. All of it.
Mr. Feehan whispered something about what I thought the final rankings would be, and I turned to him and said, “I think I lost.”
“Everyone thinks that,” he said back, bright blue eyes twinkling, bags under his eyes a swollen pink. I know he was trying to make me feel better, but it just added to the cacophony.
The final ceremonies dragged on, the Lincoln-Douglas results toward the end. If I had been sitting next to Amy, by the time we got to the announcements of our names, well, her name, I probably would have had her in tears because I was shut down. You could have gotten more emotions out of a slab of granite.
Talia Sheridan’s name was first, Mike Zendo was second, and when they went to announce number three my team looked at me expectantly, everybody holding their breath, the freshmen with their fingers crossed. So much energy erroneously focused on me because I knew, God dammit I knew. When the coach who gave the announcements said “Amy Smithson” I stood up and walked out, scores of eyes on me. Including Amy’s.