“But—”
“No but, Matthew. Get out of here. I’ll try to get him to come out and talk some sense into him. You say he’s got a video?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. That’s what he says.”
“All right. Now go and let me deal with this.”
With a deep sigh I turn and start walking up the stairs.
“Oh, and Matt?”
I stop and look at her.
“Nice color,” she says, pointing at her lips.
“Thanks,” I reply with a wry smile.
* * *
Returning to my room feels like a punch in the stomach that knocks the wind out of me. Seeing Phil’s chair abandoned, the chair he was sitting on when we kissed just a few minutes ago, suffocates my anger at Greg under a thick, heavy blanket of anguish and despair.
I close the door behind me and throw myself on the bed. Burying my face in my pillow, I try to keep my head from spinning. What just happened?
I kissed a freak and I liked it.
I loved it.
But what is it about me and my sweet kisses turning sour within the blink of an eye? This isn’t even like a roller coaster. It’s more like a meteor that’s being blown to smithereens by the very same forces of gravity and friction that make it briefly light up as a shooting star as it hurtles through the earth’s atmosphere before it perishes.
Except, I still exist.
What also exists is a video of me kissing Phil.
All my self-pity aside, I’m feeling sorry for Phil. He trusted me. I made him feel safe enough to open up and do something he never would have initiated himself, and I ended up dragging him into a feud between me and Greg that has nothing to do with him. As if his life didn’t already suck enough without me contributing to his misery. I don’t know why I even care—or when I started caring, for that matter—but apparently I do.
Damn you, Phil!
Why do I suddenly like you? And why do I still not know where you live so I could at least come running after you and tell you I’m sorry about what happened and that I’ll make sure Greg deletes that video so there’s no need to worry about it. Which you probably won’t do anyway, because you’re weird like that.
I lift my head. The sound of two car doors slamming shut announces the arrival of my parents. I better get up and meet them downstairs before Greg does anything stupid. On my way down, I drop by Zoey’s room and return her lipstick and mirror. Just when I get downstairs, Mom is opening the front door, carrying a humongous grocery bag and ushering in my dad who’s carrying two more. Zoey is watching TV on the living room sofa in direct line of sight of the bathroom that Greg comes walking out of, his hands empty, the bulge in his pocket revealing where he’s put his phone.
“Hi, guys, we’re home,” Mom says cheerfully as she closes the door behind Dad.
“A hand?” he says. “Anyone?”
Zoey and I both rush to Dad and take his grocery bags.
“Thank you, guys,” he says, wiping the sweat from his forehead as we carry the bags into the kitchen.
Mom places hers on the counter top and asks, “Who’s down for some lasagna?”
My mom’s home-made lasagna is gourmet restaurant grade and usually very well received, but our reaction today is somewhat restrained.
“Wow,” Mom says, “don’t thank me all at once.”
Zoey puts her bag down and plants a kiss on Mom’s cheek. “Sorry, Mom. I’d love to have lasagna for supper.”
“Me too,” I say, forcing a smile, weary of Greg standing in the doorway, his hands buried deep in his pockets as he keeps glaring at me. I know his game. He’s trying to tick me off. He wants me to blow my top and pounce on him in front of Mom and Dad so he can play the victim card. But that’s not going to happen. Not this time.
“Much better,” Mom says and turns to me. “Will Philip be eating with us?”
Zoey casts a glance at me as she’s unpacking the bags, and I feel Greg’s smirk in my neck. “No,” I say, trying to sound as casual as I can, “he had to leave. Something came up.”
Mom opens the cupboard to get the casserole. “Oh, that’s too bad. Tell him he missed out on some really good lasagna.”
There is something in her voice that makes me think she’s not entirely unhappy that Phil’s already left, and I try not to be offended by that, so I just say, “All right.”
“Will you chop this up for me?” she says, placing a large Spanish onion in front of me.
“Sure.” I take the chopping knife from the drawer, casting an unambiguous glance at Greg. He keeps smirking his stupid smirk.
As I chop up the onion, the inevitable tears start rolling down my cheek, and even on a good day Greg wouldn’t be Greg if he didn’t take that as an invitation to taunt me.
“Hey Matt, why are you crying?” he says in a whiny voice. “Did your girlfriend walk out on you?”
Before I get to lunge at him and very slowly stab him in the face twenty-seven times, Mom steps between us.
“Are you bored, Greg? You can help us, or you can get the heck out of my kitchen.”
“I’m gonna leave you girls to it,” Greg says, strolling toward the living room where he goes to watch baseball with Dad.
The family evening ends in a truce between me and Greg, simply because Greg has too much leverage over me, and I’m finally beginning to learn how to pick my battles. He’s never going to delete that video if I beg him pretty please with a cherry on top, and I can’t force him to do it without coming out to my parents, and that is something I want to do on my terms and when the time is right. Today it is not.
After supper I retreat to my room and call Alfonso. I don’t want to be alone with my ugly thoughts of retribution and revenge, so I tell him everything that’s happened minus the lipstick, because in the grand scheme of things it’s really secondary how exactly I ended up kissing Phil. Secondary and, quite frankly, too embarrassing.
“Nice going,” Alfonso says when I’ve finished.
“Uh-huh.”
“So what are you gonna do?”
“The way I see it, there’s only one viable course of action: sneak into Greg’s room in the middle of the night, smother him with a pillow, and destroy the phone.” When my game plan is met with dead silence, I add, “Dude, I’m joking.”
“Funny,” Alfonso says in a deadpan voice. “Seriously though.”
I sigh. “I don’t know, you tell me.”
“I don’t know,” he says, “maybe you should just … you know …”
“Maybe I should just what?”
“Consider a preemptive strike. Come out to your parents.”
“I want to come out because I want to, not because I have to. And besides, there’s still a video of me kissing Phil. Even when I’m out, that’s still kind of embarrassing.”
“Why?”
‘Because he’s ugly’ is the obvious answer, but for some reason I can’t bring myself to say it. “I don’t know, it just is.”
“Right. Well, one thing’s for sure: your options are limited.”
I sigh again. “I guess.”
We say our good-nights and hang up. I keep the phone in my hand and dial Sandy’s number. I tell her the same story, again minus the lipstick, and she’s ecstatic.
“You kissed Phil?” she shrieks. “That’s awesome! I’m so happy for you. Both of you.”
“Yeah, hooray,” I say with a wry smile she can’t see, “but that’s not really the point here, is it?”
“Even so, you have to focus on the positive things.”
“That’s easy for you to say. What am I gonna do if that video gets out?”
“Do you really think your brother would do that?”
“You don’t know Greg. He’d do anything to humiliate me.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Sandy says. “But for the sake of the argument, let’s say he shows that video around, what’s the worst thing that could happen?”
“Are you kidding me? Everything
would be the worst.”
Sandy laughs. “No, it wouldn’t. What I’m asking you is, would the situation be any different if it was a video of you kissing Chris and not Phil? And if so, why? I think you know what I’m getting at.”
I know exactly what she’s getting at, but I don’t want to go there. Getting dragged out of the closet by your dipshit little brother is one thing, but it’s probably not life changing if coming out is something I want to do sooner or later anyway. And the lipstick? Heck, I could probably survive the embarrassment of that, too. It’s just lipstick. It’s not like I’m wearing a skirt and fake boobs or anything. It all comes down to the guy I was kissing. I’m not sure I can handle the embarrassment of that. I’m too self-conscious, plain and simple. Even with Chris I always worry what people will think of us when they see us together, tall and handsome Chris and a distinctly average-yet-probably-perceived-as-less-than-average guy like me. I hate to imagine how the world would react to me having a boyfriend like Phil, how they’d probably be thinking I couldn’t get someone better. But what does that even mean, someone better? Is someone who lets someone else get into my pants while they’re making out with me better boyfriend material than a kind, sweet, considerate, freaky-looking weirdo? And if so, does that make me a superficial, self-pitying jerk?
“Matt?”
I snap out of my labyrinthine thoughts. “I’m here, I’m here. It’s just … everything is getting too much at the moment. I think I’m getting a headache.”
“You know what,” Sandy says, “you don’t have to answer that question right now. Sleep on it. The world will look different in the morning. It always does.”
I sigh. “I guess. Anyway, thanks for listening, Sandy.”
“Anytime. Night, Matt.”
“Night.”
I put my phone down and pull my pillow over my face. It feels nice not having to see anything and to have the noise of the world around you muffled, but it makes breathing difficult, and for a brief and silly moment I wonder if anyone’s ever succeeded in smothering themselves with their own pillow.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I wake up from the sound of Greg repeatedly bouncing a ball off his bedroom wall. On a normal day I would walk over to his room, grab the ball, and toss it out of the window, but this is not a normal day.
There are no more normal days.
I schlep myself into the bathroom for a shower and then down into the kitchen where Greg is already sitting at the table, unshowered like some feral creature, devouring his cereal. His phone is sitting right in front of him on the table, another deliberate violation of our house rules which I choose not to point out to Mom, because I don’t want her to make Greg put the phone away and out of my reach.
“Good morning, honey,” she chirps, hovering over the sink rinsing cups as I take my seat opposite Greg.
“Morning,” I say in a raspy voice and pour Cheerios in my breakfast bowl.
I reach for the milk, briefly startling Greg because he thinks I’m making a move for his phone. Glaring at him, I pick up the milk carton but it’s empty. “Mom,” I say, “somebody left garbage on the table.”
She makes a step toward me, takes the carton from my hand and throws it in the trash. Not the reaction I was hoping for, Greg knows, casting me a smug grin.
I get up and walk around the table to get a new carton of milk from the fridge. When I pass Greg, he makes sure to shield his phone with his body. Zoey joins us as I return to my chair and pour milk over my Cheerios. She takes her seat next to me, looks at Greg, then at his phone, then at me, and, bless her, she immediately knows what’s going on.
“Where’s Dad?” she asks casually.
“He had to be at the office early today,” Mom says, drying her hands on a towel. “Some team meeting or something. Ugh, that towel smells funky. Greg, finish your breakfast. I’ll throw the towel in the washer real quick, then we’re good to go.”
“Yes, Mom.”
As soon as Mom’s left the kitchen, Zoey gets up and walks over to the fruit bowl on the counter. She picks up a tangerine and turns around.
“Greg? Catch!” she says and throws the tangerine Greg’s way. The moment he raises his hands to catch it, I jump up and lunge across the table, reaching for his phone, but Greg is quick. He grabs the phone before I can reach it. My hand grasps at nothing, I lose my balance and literally belly-land in my Cheerios, toppling over the bowl and soaking both the table and my shirt in sweet, sticky milk.
Sneering at me, his phone safely in his hand, Greg says, “Nice try, asshole.”
Alerted by the noise, Mom comes rushing back into the kitchen. When she sees the mess, she throws her arms up in the air. “Oh for crying out loud! Can’t I turn my back for a minute without you guys wrecking my kitchen?”
“Hey,” Greg says, raising his hands in defense, “I didn’t do anything.”
Getting a rag from under the sink, Mom says, “Go get your backpack and meet me at the car. Matthew, go change your shirt, you’ll be late for school. Zoey, help me clean up this mess.”
Zoey shrugs at me apologetically. ‘I tried,’ her eyes say. I acknowledge her with a nod and make my way upstairs to change my soaked shirt, admiring how my day is off to a great start.
I make it to school just in time, and I manage to intercept Phil as he’s about to enter our classroom. When he sees me coming, he averts his gaze and looks at the floor.
“Hey,” I say.
He looks at me bashfully. “Hello.”
“Look, um … I’m sorry about yesterday. About what happened. It was—”
“It’s okay,” he interrupts me. “Never mind. I get it, it was a mistake. Let’s just forget it ever happened.”
“What?” I look at him, and it takes me a few moments to realize we’re not talking about the same thing. “Oh, no. No, no. That’s not what I meant. I’m not talking about … what we did. I’m sorry my stupid jerk of a brother walked in on us and, apparently, took a video.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Sometimes he behaves like he has a turd for a brain. But don’t worry, he’s not gonna show that video around because he knows I’m gonna kill him if he does.”
“No, you’re not.”
“What?”
“You’re not gonna kill him over a video.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Of course I’m not really gonna kill him. It’s called hyperbole, okay? What I’m saying is, he knows I’m gonna make him regret it if he doesn’t delete the video. I already tried to get my hands on his phone to delete it myself but that didn’t work, but I’ll make him delete it today, okay? So don’t worry about it, okay?”
“I don’t.”
“Good,” I say. “And sorry again.”
“Thank you,” he twangs. “But it’s not your fault.”
“Well, it kinda is, isn’t it? It probably wouldn’t have happened if I’d just closed the door.”
“It’s okay.”
I’m still not convinced that it really is, though. His face is so incredibly difficult to read, and I’m not sure if it’s because of his cleft lip or his stoic personality. Either way, we’re gonna have to figure out how life goes on after our kiss, because we can’t just leave it at that, can we?
“Listen,” I say, “I was wondering, maybe you want to hang out later?”
He frowns. “Hang out?”
“Yes. I mean, I have track practice after school, but I’ll be done at around four, so I thought maybe we can grab a milkshake or something? I know a place—”
“I can’t.”
I frown at him. “Why not?”
“I have to do the laundry.”
That’s probably the weirdest excuse I’ve ever heard, but I have to accept it for now because Mr. Ulbright is standing in the doorway, his hand on the doorknob.
“Gentlemen,” he says, “if you want to grace us with your presence, the time would be now.”
Without another word Phil turns on his heel and walks into
the classroom, and I follow him because I have nowhere else to go.
* * *
Things start getting weird when after the second period I’m on my way to my Biology class. I used to like Biology in Junior High School. In High School I’ve come to hate it because it’s the only class I don’t share with any of my friends because apparently everyone else was more interested in Physics. So I have to walk to my classroom all by myself, and I hate wandering the school corridors by myself because I’m too self-conscious and I constantly feel being watched. Except today I feel being watched even more than usual, and not just watched. Today people are unabashedly staring at me, smirking, covering their mouths with their hands as they whisper to their friends, and giggling as they pass. The strange behavior continues into the classroom, and I’m beginning to get a really bad feeling. Deep down inside I seem to know what this is about, but I spend the entire period trying to convince myself that I’m being paranoid and probably just seeing ghosts.
On my way to forth-period Math the ghosts are blowing me kisses and openly pointing fingers. Marking the finish line of my gauntlet run are El Niño and Hurricane Sandy, standing outside of Mr. Singh’s classroom, holding their phones in their hands and sporting concerned looks as they see me approach them. They don’t have to say a word to confirm my worst fear when Alfonso hands me his phone.
On the screen, running in an endless loop, is a six-second Vine video posted by user Gregstan2k3. Two guys wearing lipstick, kissing. Then one of them notices he’s being filmed, jumps up from his chair, and lunges toward the camera. Repeat. It’s my most successful online appearance to date, with over four hundred likes, eighty-five shares, and rapidly approaching ten thousand loops.
“I’ll kill him,” I say matter-of-factly as I hand the phone back to Alfonso. “I’m gonna have to kill him.”
“Calm down,” Alfonso says.
“Oh, I am calm. And I’m gonna be perfectly calm while I rip his beating heart out of his fricking chest and eat it with fava beans a nice Chianti.”
As Alfonso slides his phone back in his pocket and Sandy sympathetically squeezes my arm, some sophomore I’ve never even seen before walks by and says, “Hey, Dunstan! Where’s your retard boyfriend?”
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