by Kim Zarins
For the millionth time I don’t understand why Pard isn’t a writer. He’s never written a story, but in conversation, he’s so good I used to scribble down his little turns of phrase. I’m realizing now that Pard is very Pa-like, and it’s a weird thought, because one day, Pard might be a dad—a Pa himself. A great one. His own dad ditched him, as in, no contact. Zero. Apparently, Pard wasn’t manly enough. A father doesn’t ditch his kid because he’s not into the preschool sports scene. My dad’s had problems with depression, and he’s no hyper-affectionate Pa, but I can’t even imagine him leaving me. I mean, I can’t imagine my dad leaving me to live somewhere else on this planet.
I can imagine him leaving.
God, I want to claim my dad somehow. He helped build me my safe place, my sleeping box. If I could do one good thing in this life, I’d like to make a safe place for him. Here, on this Earth, with me.
Pard touches my sleeve like he senses something. I shake my head and try to laugh it off, because I’m not going there, but he’s not laughing. He’s giving me an avalanchey, Pa sort of look, and it’s like he’s asking me about the walls I’ve built between us. Asking if I choose to claim or abandon him.
If only it were that easy. Zac had all that unconditional love funneled into him from Pa. And I guess Pard funneled unconditional love into a dad who maybe saw a spark of gay in his kid and left. I want to be like Pa, not Pard’s dad. But this is different. I’m not a dad. Father-son love is so pure, so simple compared to friends like we’d become, with all that mess to sort out. Though right now, it feels worth it, mess and all.
But, no, I can’t. Instead, I turn toward Lupe and ask which ending she liked better, and I try, try, try to hear what she says, so I can get out of my own head, which keeps asking me, louder and louder, Why not?
BREAK: FALLING
With New York behind us, we’re in that weird zone of urban sprawl without a real city to claim it when we pull over at a pit stop. There’s nothing but the gas station convenience store, a McDonald’s, and a no-name coffee shop. Mr. Bailey disappears into this third store, no doubt to drink a gallon of coffee. We stand around outside with our coffees and divide in the predictable clusters of smokers and nonsmokers, popular and unpopular. Pard lingers for a moment, but when I pull out my phone and tune him out, he takes the hint and wanders off.
I use my sad strategy of lingering near the people I hope will notice me. Cannon has chewed me out for doing this, but I can’t just walk up to Bryce a second time and say Hey, got more pics of animals in people’s underwear? Too creepy.
With his arm territorially around Mouse, Franklin tells Kai and Briony that his parents are going to be in Paris next weekend, and he’s planning a little get-together.
“Cool, if the timing is right, but I have a robotics tournament next weekend. You know, the kids I’m coaching. It means another long bus ride for me, and I’m not sure when I’m free.”
Franklin winks. “You know you can drop that shit now that you’re into Yale.”
I love the way Kai’s face says there’s no way in hell he would leave those kids stranded without their mentor, but it’s Briony, with a hand on her perfectly shaped hip, who snaps that Kai has his priorities straight when he puts kids first.
Franklin catches me peeking over my phone. He smiles the way a feudal lord must when he sees the peasants toiling over his land, which is kind of what I’d been doing writing his papers for him. “Jeff will come, won’t you?”
“Aw, that’s sweet,” Mouse adds, because everyone knows it’s a charity invitation, the way popular kids invite a token social bottom-feeder for the sake of pecking-order diversity.
“Sure.” I hate how eager I sound.
Franklin looms over me and then ruffles my hair, and the circle of popular people shifts a little to conditionally include me, talking about me more than to me while I stand by. “There’s a party animal hiding inside this guy. Remember our end-of-summer party? Remember how he jumped from the top of the waterslide into the pool? Like, clear over five feet of concrete.”
Mouse nods, impressed. “That was a huge jump!”
I’d heard something about me jumping in the pool, but I didn’t know heights or concrete were involved. My coffee suddenly feels like it’s burning a hole in my gut. I know the layout of that patio, that huge, curling slide and all that space between the ladder and the water.
Franklin’s face lights up. “Look, he doesn’t remember! You were pretty wasted, dude. It was a great night. You know, it is April—I’ll have the heat turned back on, so the pool will be warm. You could do it again.”
I say “Yeah” and try to wait out this tightness in my throat, this terror clawing its way up, but I can’t, so I bow out to go to the bathroom. I’m pathetic, and I’ll probably get uninvited from Franklin’s party, but I have to get away. Somehow that wasted jump freaks me out, like I’m feeling the fall I can’t remember.
I splash water on my face and let the hot air dispenser mess up my hair. When I’m done in the bathroom, Pard’s leaning in the grimy McDonald’s hallway right by the door. “You okay? I saw you bolt.”
A flush from the ladies’ room gives me time to debate if and how much to tell him. We must look like sixth graders hanging out by the bathrooms, but it’s just us, and I really want to know. “What really happened at Franklin’s party?”
A middle-aged woman leaves the bathroom and gives us the stink eye, which Pard returns. “I don’t think she washed her hands.”
I won’t get sidetracked. “What. Happened.”
Pard fusses with a belt loop. “Well, you’ve heard by now. You did things you normally wouldn’t do. You must have heard about that jump.”
He’s skirting around the issue. “How come you drove me home? How were we hanging out at all?”
As I lean on the opposite wall, he stares at my shoes, and his face softens into something nostalgic.
It’s my feet, the nerdy way I put one sole on the ground and the other foot next to it, touching, but standing on its side. Like one foot wants to hug the other foot.
I put both feet down flat. “So?”
“I jumped into the pool and got you. I was worried you wouldn’t come up. You just jumped in and went straight to the bottom.” He shakes his head, crosses and uncrosses his arms. “Jeff. You’ve changed so much since you started hanging out with Cannon. All this partying. And then sinking like that. Just sinking.”
“Oh.” It’s an odd feeling, getting called out for changing. It’s striking how much Pard has changed—how wild and flirtatious he’s become. But Pard’s never done anything like jumping wasted into a pool. I’ve heard of people drowning, surrounded by their drunk friends. He wasn’t my friend anymore, yet he probably saved my life. Like he did earlier today with the albuterol. I should thank him. I should admit I’ve changed, but tell him I want to change back again to what I was, and that I want to find that guy I’ve missed knowing.
But that all sounds so gay, so I ask instead, “And then what happened?”
He waves a hand irritably. “Then we looked for towels and dried off.”
“And then?”
“Then I took you home.”
“And that’s really it?”
He doesn’t answer for a long time. He says, looking everywhere but at me, “There was some vomiting. And . . . you weren’t yourself. What’s the word? Uninhibited.”
My heart pounds. I can barely whisper. “What did you do to me?”
His face snaps up, his mouth open. “To you? Nothing. You threw yourself at me in Franklin’s bathroom. You tasted like puke, and I got you out of there before you did something even more batshit with me or anyone else. You tried something again in the car, and then you passed out cold. So you think I fucking molested you while you were out of commission? That’s your high opinion of me?”
He pauses as a mother drags her young son into the bathroom, the child all the while whining, “I don’t wanna use the girls’ room.”
My
ears ring with what Pard just told me, while Pard says brightly, for the kid’s sake, “Gee, I wish I could use the girls’ room. It’s a heck of a lot cleaner.” The mother and boy gape at Pard with wide eyes as they practically rush to the safety of the girls’ room.
I wait for the door to close, and then we just stand there, but my thoughts are scattered, unhinged. I imagine him with Greg, with the drama guys. With Parson just this morning. With me. I’m probably the only guy he’s ever turned down. For some reason that pisses me off. “I’m sorry, but look. How am I supposed to know what you’d do or wouldn’t do? You’re so forward, you’ve become this, I don’t know, this majorly flaming extrovert skank. So I thought, maybe . . .”
He mouths Wow like I’ve reached new depths, and he just has to stare at the creature that regretfully can’t be flushed down the toilet roaring behind the wall. I kind of cringe that I actually said that. It just came out that way from thinking about that asshole Greg, all that nasty kissing in the hallway.
“It’s like you don’t even know me, calling me something like that.” Pard lets that thought sink in. I’m working up the courage to apologize, because calling a gay guy “flaming” is just wrong, when the door swings open and the lady comes out with her son in tow. Pard lets me have it. “I mean, calling me an extrovert. Me. Maybe I’m a healthy introvert, ever think of that? You have everything so backward, it’s amazing you can find your own asssaahhh—your own derriere.”
He glares at the woman as if it’s her fault he said “derriere,” not “ass,” and he storms off, which is awkward with the woman and kid walking beside him, like they’re a weird family. And maybe it’s because they’re ruining his exit that he spins around to chew me out one more time, right after he insincerely tells the lady to have a nice day.
“You know that story with Zelda and Henry? Doesn’t she seem familiar? You’ve got Cannon pushing your buttons, and you’re smiling so hard you don’t even know what a tool you are. You just let everything good in your life get slaughtered, because he likes it that way. You suspect the people who really care about you. You have changed. To you, everyone’s part of some stupid scheme, just like the world Cannon lives in. I’m the good guy, Jeff. One day you’ll wake up and see you’re that damned doll, and when Cannon feels like he needs a new toy to play with and dumps you, you’ll come looking for me, for anyone. But then you’ll remember that you killed us off long ago.”
Then he’s gone.
I don’t run after him. I’m still on overload just thinking about the things I can’t remember but are real just the same. The pool. Coming on to him. I don’t know if I’m relieved I can’t remember it or not. Of course Pard wouldn’t take advantage of me. Why was I worried about that? What’s wrong with me? All this time Pard was protecting me from a really embarrassing story. And here I thought he was sex crazed, and I was the one coming on to him after puking. Disgusting. He must loathe me. I tasted like vomit. After Reiko, it’s the second most humiliating thing someone’s ever said to me about my cursed attempts at kissing. If I want to write about love, fine, but I need to stay away from it in real life.
PARD’S TALE
Back in the bus, Mr. Bailey draws another name: Pard.
Briony smiles like she’s sharpening knives. “Good! Now he can see how hard it is to tell a story.”
“Fine,” he snaps. He’s still raging mad at me. “My turn. What kind of story do you guys want?”
Reeve blurts out, “Not a gay story! Puh-leese!” He holds his clipboard like a shield from gayness.
“Let him tell whatever he wants,” Alison counters.
Alison rolls her eyes and smirks at me. I can’t believe we’re sitting together. It’s all thanks to Pard and Rooster’s rivalry. Pard asked Alison to sit with him, again, and she agreed, but Rooster convinced Alison that since she’d already sat with Pard, she should sit with me this time to spread the fun.
She agreed. It’s like I won the Chair Lottery.
So Alison and I share a seat. Behind us, because Rooster did this last second and had no strategy, Pard and Rooster sit squished together like the odd couple in so many ways.
“I’m not homophobic like Reeve,” Cece says. “But I’m sick of romance. You’d think we have nothing better to think about.”
“We don’t,” Rooster declares. “And I think little Pard here should give us some Harry Potter–Draco Malfoy erotic fan fiction.” I wonder if Rooster just wants to remind Alison that Pard is inherently not interested in her.
“Sorry to disappoint, but my story isn’t about Harry Potter or being gay. But before I tell it, I’ll give you a little personal story. One of my most romantic moments.”
He glances at me, but I make myself small and telepathically say, Don’t you dare. His pause gives me time to worry. He could be thinking of any millions of things we did together before sophomore year, twisted around like we were lovers, not friends.
It would have to be the night Greg took me to prom, just last week.
Okay, then. I’m in the clear. But I’m puzzled how Greg is Pard’s Exhibit A for romance. Pard said he was over Greg, which is a good thing. They were gross together. Plus, Greg is the kind of guy who would make his boyfriend show up to every performance of Oklahoma! just because he’s in it, and then they’d have to analyze all the footage together. Pard doesn’t need Greg’s narcissistic crap. I’m glad that’s over.
The best part was getting dressed up and Greg looking so nice on my doorstep and then pulling out of the apartment complex in a limo. And the drive, with the music blaring and the limo packed with all the theater people. But the dinner was boring. Greg and his theater friends talked shop the whole time. Boring. The dance wasn’t any better. I wish I didn’t suck at dancing, but I do.
“But you’re gay,” Rooster says, brow furrowed.
Pard stares his signature asshats surround me stare. “Sure. Because all gay people can dance. Why are you not valedictorian?”
“But there’s your gay walk.” Rooster sashays in his seat. “That’s kind of like dancing. And you dress gay. Clothes like—what is that? Velvet? Those pants were made for a gay dance fest.”
“Hey. Respect the pants,” Saga counters. Her fingernail scritch-scratches Pard’s thigh, like her shoplifter fingers are feeling the itch of sartorial lust. “I. Want. These. Pants. I’d sleep with you, babe, just to steal your pants off the floor when we were done.”
I don’t know what’s gotten into everyone, but no one can keep their hands off him today.
Pard looks scared Saga will steal his pants while he’s still in them, and Bryce laughs nervously and pops his knuckles. Everyone knows Saga is a fiend about clothes and would do anything for a sweet pair of pants.
Pard looks from Bryce to Saga. “You could always just ask to borrow them. But . . . could we all get back to my love story, if you don’t mind?”
So, after getting fed up with my uncoordinated moves on the floor, Greg danced with just about everyone but me. I think it was payback for me playing on my phone during dinner.
Alison looks puzzled. “This isn’t sounding so romantic.”
Pard holds up one finger.
But then I saw someone special hiding by the punch bowl.
Pard doesn’t look my way, but I freeze. I know where this is going, and I’m terrified he’ll say my name.
We say “hi,” which is pretty much the most we ever do, sadly. But then we chat about dancing and being bad at it. It’s one of those times you complain about dancing, but you’re dreaming he’ll ask you to. I don’t dare ask him though. I don’t dare tell him he looks nice, but he does. No, “nice” isn’t the word. He’s beautiful, and he doesn’t even know it. So very kissable.
Pard flashes me that rare but overpowering look. My belly flip-flops and twists from something so private being spoken aloud. He’s bringing up the very word that ruined our friendship three years ago.
It was the August before sophomore year, and I finally told him why she broke up
with me. Reiko didn’t see me as a boyfriend. She didn’t think I was mature. I didn’t kiss right—I was too awkward. What do you say when a girl tells you that you can’t kiss right?
Pard exploded with righteous anger when I told him this. “Sounds like she can’t appreciate a great kiss when she gets one. Jeff, don’t make a face. I’m being honest. You’re a preeminently kissable boy.”
The room was warm, the air was thick, and we were sitting on his bed with his hand on my shoulder and that declaration of my kissability soft on his mouth. That Balrog look on his face—it was like he was trying to look angry at Reiko just to hide what was underneath, but his cover slipped. Or he let it fall.
I stood up and said I wasn’t feeling well, said I’d call later. I never went back to his place. I ignored his calls, his texts, and when school started up again, I offered to help Cannon with his English essays (meaning, write them for him) and worked to make a new circle of friends. For a long time, when I saw Pard, I cut to the opposite direction or walked past him like he wasn’t there. I never explained, but I’m sure he figured it out.
And now, in revenge, he’s messing with me on an all-day bus ride, where I can’t run away, where everyone will be his witness. I try to hold on to that word. “Revenge.” That’s all this is about today.
This is war.
I know from Pard’s calculating smile that he can see my guts squirm, but then the smile softens as he retells last week’s prom.
I rarely spoke with this boy, but I wondered about him, about kissing him, and wondered if he wondered about me, too.
I roll my eyes. He’s laying it on so thick he’s lost his power over me—not that he has any, or ever had. I concentrate on his oily hair, his arrogant eyes with the stubby blond lashes. I’m not attracted to this person, and I’m definitely not interested in anyone who would parade my life like this.