Karl’s been to the US before for work. To Missouri, even. He said he likes the barbecue in Kansas City. I said I’d never been there, but that there are three famous barbecue places where I live. “One of them’s really old. It was founded in the forties, I think.”
Of course, they laughed at me because there’s a ton of older shit in Iceland than that.
Every once in a while we’d hear animated voices or roaring laughter coming from the living room. I guess when Óskar and his dad get along, they really get along.
Eventually, Óskar and the old man joined us in the kitchen, and we ended up playing poker, which, of course, I suck at. And I guess Óskar’s dad was giving me shit about it, because he’d occasionally grin and grumble at me in Icelandic, then all his kids would laugh. Stonefaced Óskar won practically every round we played.
At dinnertime, Karl ordered some pizzas, and Óskar and I drove to the little town nearby to pick them up. On the way there, I thanked Óskar for stealthily demanding that one of the pizzas be plain cheese. It’s so stupid, but I liked having him look out for me like that. I sat with the hot pizza boxes burning my thighs and Óskar’s hand in mine again the whole way back.
Óskar’s dad went to bed pretty soon after dinner and then the rest of us watched Icelandic sitcoms on TV. Óskar asked if I minded staying the night there. He said I could sleep in his old bedroom and he’d sleep on the couch. And we argued about that for a while, because I was fine with the couch, but he insisted I take the bed. What actually happened, though, is that after everyone else was asleep, Óskar snuck upstairs and curled up with me in his creaky old twin-size bed.
“I want to leave early tomorrow,” he whispered. “Before Pabbi wakes up.”
“Okay.” I couldn’t quite breathe because I was still adjusting to the fact that he was next to me, pressed up against me, just in his pajama pants and no shirt.
“Your tent is shit,” he said. “It leaked on me all last night.”
“Sorry. But you are the one who picked it out.”
“Let’s go back to Reykjavik tomorrow. I’ll see about a refund and then we will drive to the Westfjords, maybe? See that little cabin of mine?”
I have to say, I was completely unprepared for the hand that slipped down the front of my boxers. I mean, I’d figured if something like that were to happen, I’d at least get a kiss first. Call me old-fashioned . . .
“Yes. Definitely. I would love to see your cabin,” I squeaked.
“Shhh.” He stroked me for a second, then pulled his hand back. “Sorry. We can’t do this here. But I had an overwhelming urge to know what you felt like.”
Of course we couldn’t screw around like that in his tiny, squishy bed with his little sister on the other side of the wall. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t having a few overwhelming urges of my own.
I rolled forward, shifting my weight on top of him. I growled, “Fine. Go back to your couch. But I want a good-night kiss first.”
He was tense at first; we both were. I got lost somewhere between trying to be all sexy and commanding or, like, playful. I grabbed a fistful of his hair with one hand and gently trailed my fingertips down his abs with the other. I’m not sure which worked, but his shoulders relaxed and mine did, too. I sank farther toward him, and—
Accidentally pushed him off the mattress. FML. He landed on his ass next to the bed and smirked at me from the floorboards. His hair was all messy, and there was a surprisingly large tent in his pajama pants. “Told you we couldn’t do this.”
I whimpered an apology while he whipped a bathrobe out of his closet and pulled it on.
“So sorry. How’s your ass?” I whispered.
“My ass?” he said. “It is hoping you have some better moves than that.”
Then he snickered and headed off to the couch downstairs. I lay on my back in his little boyhood bed and spent most of the night thinking about the impossibility of my mouth against his.
At the time, I didn’t think of you, but looking back, I can’t help but remember when we first kissed. Back when everything was new and sort of terrifying and intense. That intensity fades. Eventually, and with the right person, passion turns to stability. We trade lust for real love.
A leap and a swap.
I am not cut out for this. I am, despite the tattoos and sailor’s vocabulary, what some would call “boyfriend material.” Yes, I want sex. I definitely want sex. But I also want things beyond that. And every second I get closer to Óskar, the more I hate that I’ll never be able to have with him what I once had with you.
So, that’s what we talked about today. Óskar woke me up at, like, four in the morning because old Icelandic dads tend to get up way super early. We left and ate breakfast in the car, drove back to Reykjavik, where Óskar worked his customer service skills and got me a refund on the camping equipment. And then we were supposed to drive up to his cabin, but we ended up sitting in my rental car in an empty parking lot facing the sea with mountains just on the other side. And, basically, I was like, Nope, can’t do this because: feelings. And he was like, Yeah, I’ve also got that complex emotion bizness going on, but long-distance relationships are bullshit, so please decide between ending this today or next week.
And I said today.
Then, in an empty parking lot facing the sea with mountains just on the other side, Óskar let me kiss him goodbye.
I don’t know what to say about that kiss, Vivian. Just like that time with Shannon when I said there aren’t words to describe how the harbor looks at night, I can’t tell you about kissing Óskar. Except to say that it felt like no kiss ever should.
It hurt. Everything does.
Afterward, he pulled a black marker out of his backpack and wrote the address to his cabin on an untatted part of my left forearm. Then he got out of the car and walked away.
And so now I’m sitting in some café reliving that awful kiss. Trying to decide if I want to rent another tent. Or maybe I need a hotel and some rest.
Or, you know, a little cabin by the water.
Because these Sharpie scribbles on my arm say that Óskar didn’t intend for our first kiss to be our last. And I’m not so sure I did, either.
Chapter Nineteen
Miles Away to Vivian Girl
June 20 10:13 AM
Hostel is such a scary word. So unwelcoming. But that’s where I am right now. Or rather, I just checked out, but I’m using the Wi-Fi in the café downstairs to gather my thoughts before I leave. It wasn’t exactly a horror show, but I’m not a fan of hostels, of sharing a room with three complete strangers. I had a hell of a time finding some privacy in this place, eventually sneaking into an unlocked janitor’s closet last night so I could call Mom without all these random strangers overhearing my neurotic gay shit.
Mamochka answered my Skype. She was in the kitchen, dripping wet. Water-balloon-fight day. “Hi, baby!”
“Hey, Mamochka. Where’s Mom?”
She frowned at me with that combination of hurt and worry—I didn’t want to talk to her? I needed the shrink instead?—but she went to find Mom anyway.
Of course, Mom was all wet and grassy, too. I felt a sting of jealousy, sudden homesickness for Camp I wasn’t expecting. I miss my campers, V.
“Where are you?” She peered into the screen.
“Broom closet in a hostel,” I said.
“Why are you in a broom closet in a hostel, Miles? What happened with the hotel?”
“Óskar broke up with Jack.”
I was afraid she’d try to play dumb or something, but she just busted out this big smile. “Did he? That’s wonderful news!”
“Mother,” I said, “I need to know your professional opinion of Óskar Franz Magnússon.”
“Miles,” she said, imitating my tone, “you know I can’t divulge patient information.”
“But . . . like . . . parental advice . . . ?” I couldn’t even form complete sentences. Ugh, she makes me so nervous sometimes, like everything I say is going down
on the permanent psychiatric record of me that she’s building in her mind. It’s so much easier to talk to Mamochka.
She could tell I was getting frustrated. She told me to take a deep breath.
I did.
“Now, tell me what’s going on.”
“Nothing,” I said. “I like him. I think I just broke up with him.”
She looked at me like I’d just announced I joined the Fox News anchor team. “You like Óskar?”
“Wasn’t that your plan? Send me somewhere nice with this super-hot guy to take my mind off of things?”
“What? No. That sounds like something your Mamochka would do. I didn’t have any ulterior motives. Óskar?” She paused and shook her head. “I didn’t even know you were interested in guys.”
“Mom!”
“Miles!” she said again. “You haven’t had a boyfriend since you were thirteen. To be honest—and you know I’d never, ever say this to anyone but you—I thought that was a phase.”
“Oh my God!” A practicing psychologist who specializes in adolescent sexuality actually trying to tell me it’s just a phase.
“I’m sorry.” She said how at the time it made sense for me to try to emulate the happiness of my parents . . . or something like that. “Obviously I was wrong. You know I’m fine with it, and you don’t need a label.”
“Oh my God,” I said again. “Yeah, Mom. I’m not thirteen and confused.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I’m eighteen and confused!”
She laughed and then I laughed. My face felt so hot.
“I REALLY like him. It’s like this big stupid crush, and I hate it. And he wants me to go stay with him at this cabin, but he also said he doesn’t want to do a long-distance thing, and, like, I don’t know what’s worse. Is it worth it to go hang out with him for ten more days and be that much more into him so that it’s that much worse when I go? Or just, like, spend the next week and a half trying not to think about him and what could have been and—holy shit, I am just miserable. Like, when do I get to stop being miserable?!”
“Okay,” she said. “Let me preface this by stating that I by no means want to present you with false hope—I’m saying this so you’ll understand that I have been in your situation before. You know that when I met your Mamochka, she was married to someone else and living in another country.”
“Yeah.”
“So.” She threw up her hand. “It was worth it. For me it was. I went forward understanding that it would be only a temporary thing, but I would rather have had a day with her than a lifetime of wondering what I’d missed with that pretty little Russian girl, you know? But Óskar doesn’t strike me as a liar, and if he’s telling you this is all you get, then you have to fully understand that risk. And it seems like you do.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re overthinking it. I can tell. All right. Okay. This is going to embarrass both of us, but you’re forcing me to say it—”
“Oh, God!”
“Go find that pretty little Icelandic man and, well, just promise me you’ll use protection, okay?”
“Mom!”
“That’s it. That’s my professional opinion, Miles. HAVE. FUN. You can’t expect to marry every person who looks up at you through their eyelashes. It’s okay to be a part of someone’s story and not their happy fairytale ending.”
“Fuuuuuuck.”
“Miles, we need to talk about something else.” Her tone changed drastically, and everything in me clenched up.
“Uh?”
“I called the hospital last night, and Dr. Morris told me Vivian has pneumonia.”
“Shit.” Not good. Very not good. “I’m coming home.”
“Son, there is nothing you can do, here or there, to help her. You can pray, and that’s about it.”
“Fuck that. Pray!”
“I know you’re having trouble with faith, but it helps, Miles. It does. Even some scientific studies—”
“Fuck that,” I said.
There’s this Chinese fable that I’ve always liked, this theory that certain people you meet are connected to you by an invisible red thread. The two people connected by the red thread are destined to be lovers, regardless of place, time, or circumstances. This magical cord may stretch or tangle, but it can never break.
Mom told me to pray, and all I could do was picture that red thread, follow it in my mind. Across an ocean of black waves, winding halfway across the United States. I found the thread and followed it all the way back to a hospital, down the corridors of medicine smell, to a room with a body, boyish again from over a year without her hormones. I tugged at the cord, gathering up the slack and saw it feeding into the body like an IV.
Mom wanted me to pray, but all I could do was tear at our red thread. Rip it out of your arm.
Miles Away to Vivian Girl
June 21 12:45 PM
When I got to Óskar’s cabin—
Yes, of course I went to Óskar’s cabin. What did you expect?
He said, “What took you so long?”
And I shrugged, speechless and shy. I stood there for a moment in his doorway. Behind me, the most gorgeous scenery you can imagine. This blue, blue lake and mountains, all this green. And in front of me, the most gorgeous guy you can imagine. Blue, blue eyes and a T-shirt that fit him just a little too tight.
He reached for me, pulling me into the cabin by the waistband of my jeans.
I took a breath. I put you out of my mind.
“I baked you a cake,” he said. It was a St. Louis gooey butter cake, which he was disappointed to learn I’d never had before. “Not many Missouri-specific dessert recipes to be found. But it is vegetarian.”
I said I appreciated the effort.
He responded by pinching a chunk off the corner of the cake and cramming it in my mouth.
“It’s really, really good,” I said. I grabbed his wrist and licked his sticky fingers clean one by one. “Let’s save it for later.”
The cabin was pretty dirty and dusty. Óskar said his family used to go there every summer, but no one had been since his mom died five years ago. And there were cardboard boxes scattered around, Óskar’s things. He told me later that he’d gone to see Jack—to have a real talk, a final one, and to get some of his stuff. He didn’t tell me much about it, just that Jack was aloof and cold.
Sorry to change the subject like that. I’m in this little café and I feel weird about this, like someone’s going to peek over my shoulder and see this intimate stuff. And I feel weird about you, about saying this stuff. This very vivid and alive stuff that I did with a very vivid and alive person while I’m ignoring the message on my phone.
I will say that I enjoyed it. And he enjoyed it. We enjoyed ourselves. More than once last night.
In the break between the first and the second time, Óskar brought the whole cake pan and a pair of forks and we lay in bed together and had dessert.
Gay sex, followed by cake in bed. “Óskar, I think this is the definition of hedonism. You’re going to make me fat again.”
“Fat again?”
“Yeah. I looked kind of different a year ago.” I felt around on the floor for my pants and got my phone. Skimming through my photos, I saw your face again and again, but I swiped at them until I found a photo of only me.
“Aww. You look like Andy from Parks and Rec. He’s thinner now, too.” And then we had a brief conversation about Jurassic World, and I realized—happily—that it’d probably still be at the theater when I get back home. Until that moment I hadn’t been thinking about anything that might happen when I got home, not even something as mundane as sitting in the theater with Brian, trying not to get caught by the grouchy old theater manager when we put our feet up on the seats. I hadn’t been thinking about the future at all, actually.
Óskar pinched me on the hip and brought me back to the present. To him. “I’m jealous. It won’t be here in Iceland for many more months.”
I had to b
ite my lip to keep myself from inviting him back with me. Shut up, Miles, shut up.
A few minutes later, Óskar put the cake aside and retrieved a tablet from his boxes in the living room. “I looked different a year ago, too.”
I waited while he angled his screen away from me and flipped through his camera roll. After a moment, he laid the tablet face-down on his chest. “You can’t laugh. You have to understand that I’m doing the mirror selfie ironically.”
“Okay. Yeah, I won’t.”
But he showed me the screen, and I did laugh. “Oh my God, what is this? What am I looking at?”
The boy—and let me stress the word BOY—in the picture was frail, stick thin, all ribs, and sunken chested. And—“You little fraud. You’re a ginger.”
He shrugged and plucked at a strand of platinum hair. “Björk’s doing.”
“Wha—How, I mean . . . ?”
“I’ve been changing my landscape,” he said with a little laugh. “To see how Yak would react if I looked a little more . . . mature. He hates it.”
“Oh.” I looked at the photo again. The shirtless boy in the mirror selfie was nineteen, but he could have easily been twelve. “That dude really is a pedophile.”
“Sorry to bring him up.”
I reached past him and set the tablet on the nightstand next to his side of the bed. Then we curled up together. I traced my fingers over his tight little abs, buried my face in his blond locks. Óskar smelled like vanilla and Ivory soap.
He told me he hated working out, hated how his long hair got in the way, and the hassle of all the bleach.
Funny thing, isn’t it? Both of us with our bodies in this state of flux. We probably look better than we have in our lives, but it just doesn’t feel right. I’ll go home and start eating again, gain back most of what I lost. And he’ll quit exercising, cut his hair. A year from now, we’ll probably look like different people all over again. Not who we were before, but a sort of hybrid formed between now and then.
A little bit later, we were all over each other again. I mean, there’s not much else to do in a cabin with no Wi-Fi, no electricity.
Miles Away from You Page 18