Unraveling Josh

by Edie Danford

  After I slipped into my flip-flops, I ran my hand over my head and approached the bed. “I’d offer to shake your hand, but it looks busy.” I bent down to kiss his smiling mouth—fast, so I wouldn’t be tempted to change my mind. “Thanks for the good time, Cinder,” I said.

  “You’re not gonna stay for the grand finale?” He tipped his chin toward his weeping dick.

  “Not this time.”

  He narrowed his eyes, cocked his upper lip. Moody-broody looked a bit hard to put on at the moment, but he was making a good effort.

  “Okay,” he rasped. “I’ll be thinking of you…”

  “Think of someone better,” I said. “I’m lousy fantasy material.”

  I headed toward the door quickly. Too fast for my foot. My grunt of pain echoed in my ears loudly.

  “Josh…”

  Obviously my ears were messed up. He didn’t know my name. He wouldn’t gasp it as he came. I heard another sharp intake of breath, a groan. I didn’t turn around to see the visual.

  When I entered the cush-quiet of the hall, letting the door snick shut behind me, I stood there for a moment. I felt disoriented. Lost. Like really lost. I could have been in another city. In another country. My eyes latched on to a small brass sign on the wall that said Elevator. Heaving a sigh, I headed that direction.

  Chapter Four

  Nick—six years ago

  THE IMAGE ON the screen was fuzzy. Or maybe my eyes were fuzzy. Or my brain. I couldn’t tell. What I could tell is that the image was of me—or parts of me. Specifically, the parts between my belly button and my knees. My dick featured prominently in the photo.

  My gaze kept bouncing from my friend Pete’s face, to his laptop’s shiny silver cover, to his hand holding the case. I wanted to shift perspective, get a fix on what was real, but couldn’t seem to manage it. Life as I knew it seemed to have narrowed down to a bunch of pixels on a screen.

  “There’s no way that can be you!” Pete had an annoying laugh. When he was nervous or upset or confused, his laughter turned into a high-pitched giggle that made my molars ache. “I mean look at the size of that thing! Right? It’s so fucking photoshopped.”

  The Coke I’d sucked down was on the verge of eruption. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to react. My head felt like it was floating around somewhere at the top of the family room’s cathedral ceiling—I couldn’t tell if I was feeling agonizing pain or total numbness.

  I looked down at my geometry workbook and tried switching to autopilot. “C’mon, man. Let’s get this shit done before my mom and Jessica get home.”

  Pete grunted and immediately began clicking away on his keyboard. “No way. How can you concentrate at a time like this? Do you realize the power Tyler Griegson has? And did you read what he wrote?” He squinted at the screen. “He says, ‘Check out the wondrous wood that freshman faggot Nicholas McQueen was sporting in gym. I think his new name should be Dickolas the Queen’.” Pete made a strangled laughing noise. “That shit is not only wrong, it’s stupid. And it must be stopped.”

  “Griegson is fuckin’ hilarious,” I mumbled. “I don’t care what he says. Ignore him.” Yeah, my focusing problem must be because of my eyes. The numbers on my homework assignment were all blurry too. Shit. I’d never passed out before, but it seemed like a possibility. And maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to check out right about now.

  “Oh my God!” Pete hollered loud enough that my schnauzer, Lady, made a growling, gurgling sound at him from her spot on the far end of the couch. “He just posted it ten minutes ago and already there are twenty-three comments. This is something you can’t just sit back and ignore, dude!”

  “What am I supposed to do, Pete? It’s not like I have any control over what gets posted on a private list. I don’t even have access to it.”

  I hated the listserv—the super-secret site run by the cool kids and that was totally unsanctioned by the school. When I’d tried to join up my first week at the high school, my “gayest loser in middle school” rep must’ve preceded me because a day after making the request I’d received a rejection: The list is full and no longer taking any members. I’d suspected it was a lie and had been proven right when all my friends got accepted as list members first try. Pete was a year older than me and he’d been giving me full reports on list drama (whether I wanted to hear it or not) for the last year.

  I blinked and watched his fingers move rapidly over the keyboard. “What are you doing?” I croaked. The air in the room was too damn thick to breathe.

  “I’m telling him it’s not you. I’m telling him to take his photoshopped dick pic and shove it up his—”

  My lunge for his Mac was violent enough that the couch pillows shifted and Lady started barking. Objective achieved, I closed the laptop and shoved it behind one of the puffy leather cushions. “You can’t,” I bit out. “Think about it, okay? If you comment, they’ll ask how you know it’s not my dick and then they’ll call you a fucking faggot too. My life is living hell because of Griegson and his idiot entourage. I don’t want my best friend’s life to be living hell on top of everything else.”

  He stared at me for a few seconds, his blue eyes going wide. He shifted his gaze away. Lady whimpered at him, her little body all quivery. He rubbed her ears and said, “I don’t care if they call me that. I am a fucking faggot. It’s the truth.”

  I nudged his knee. “You haven’t exactly nailed the fucking part yet.”

  His smile was weak, but I appreciated that he’d tried to acknowledge my lame attempt to be funny. “I’m working on it,” he muttered.

  “I know. And since I also know how hung up you are about the truth, I can’t let you make that comment. Because…” I cleared my throat. “Because that is my dick in that picture.”

  He stared. “No. Way.”

  “Why would I lie?”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “What?” I asked. “Do you want me to show you?”

  His stare transferred to my crotch. He licked his lips. “Um…”

  I rolled my eyes. “Never mind,” I said. “I take back the offer. Just believe me, okay? Some parts grow faster than others.” I exhaled a disgusted laugh. “At least that’s what my dad the overly helpful pediatrician says.”

  “Did you—” His voice cracked and he started over. “Did you really get hard at gym today? I mean, why would you take off your boxers, man? Or even stand where they could see—”

  “None of that happened at gym class today.” At our school, freshmen and juniors had to take PE. We frequently did units together, and I was hyperaware of the extra stress of sharing athletic feats and locker-room bullshit with a whole other class. Mostly I tried to make myself invisible.

  “Well, then how…”

  “That picture was from winter break. Tyler must’ve gotten it from Austin Harmon. Me and Austin…” I curved my fingers tightly around my workbook. “We kind of messed around. A couple times.”

  “You.” Pete’s eyes were gonna bulge right out of his head. “You and Austin. Austin Harmon?”

  I couldn’t really blame Pete for acting like it was an impossibility. Dweebie gay freshmen and stud-jock juniors getting it on? Not in our world. But I knew Austin outside of school. Austin was—or used to be—one of my few for-real friends.

  “Yeah,” I told Pete. “You know how our folks are all friends from the club?”

  He was nodding like crazy, literally on the edge of his goddamn seat. This is why I never told him any details about winter break. I knew he’d be too interested. Too interested for the wrong reasons. His family didn’t belong to the same country club. They didn’t belong to a club at all. I hated the damn place, but for some reason Pete clung to gossip about it the same way he clung to his new MacBook. Status and social standing and looks really mattered to Pete.

  “Well,” I continued, sighing. “The Lake Woods Country Club did this group vacation deal with a resort in Sanibel. A bunch of families went. The Harmons and my famil
y vacation all the time together anyway, you know? Austin and I shared a room like we’ve done the last couple years. But this year things felt different. He said…” I took a breath. My heart was thudding, my mouth was dry and my pits and my lower back were damp with sweat.

  I was used to my body’s reaction—memories of winter break had been tormenting me for weeks now. I’d swiped a bottle of my mom’s Xanax—the ones she kept in her purse. They’d helped, but they were gone now and there was no way I was going to explain to my parents why I thought I needed to see a doc so I could get a prescription of my own. Yeah, that would go over really well…

  I cleared my throat and continued my confession. Maybe it would be good to finally get it off my chest. “Austin said he wanted to experiment. Like try to figure out if he’s into guys or whatever.”

  My fingers unfurled over the thick paper. My workbook was never gonna look the same, but whatever. I wasn’t gonna be the same after today, either. I’d been hoping Austin would come around, that he would at least speak to me again. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

  “So you messed around?” Pete’s voice squeaked. Lady tipped her head. “Did you do more than kiss, or…”

  “We didn’t kiss or make out.” I swallowed. God. I felt like I was gonna puke. “We got naked. I blew him a couple times and I jizzed all over myself. That’s all there was to it. I thought…” I ran my hand over my hair. It didn’t feel attached to my head. I’d been experimenting with different looks, trying to get out of my funk. I’d buzzed it on one side and bleached it white, then royal blue. Hadn’t made me feel any better.

  My hand fell in my lap and I stared at my friendship bracelet. One of the family activities the resort in Sanibel had put on was making jewelry and bracelets and shit out of beads and leather. Austin and I had gotten a kick out of helping the little kids and, when he’d tied a bracelet he’d made onto my wrist, his blue eyes as clear and warm as the Gulf, I’d felt like one of the seabirds soaring and flitting over the water.

  I looked up at Pete and said, “I guess I thought we’d talk about it eventually. Or maybe pretend it didn’t happen and go back to being just friends. But we got home and he ignored all my messages. When he finally responded he basically said, ‘Stop contacting me, and if you tell anyone about what we did, you’ll be sorry.’”

  “Oh man.” Pete reached over and took my hand. “I’m sorry, Nicky. That sucks. So much.”

  I squeezed his fingers, grateful for his touch. “Yeah. There wasn’t really much to say after that.” I shrugged. “It’s obvious now that he was making fun of me the whole goddamn time. Experimenting. I can’t believe I fell for that, you know? And now, despite the fact we’ve known each other since we were born, it’s like he pretends I don’t exist. It’s like he’s turned evil or something. Doing awful shit like sharing pictures with guys like Tyler Griegson.” My voice broke and I took a gasping breath. “Fuck.” I dropped his hand and swiped at the tears forming in the corners of my eyes.

  “Oh my God, Nick. That’s… I’m so sorry, hon.”

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  We sat there for a few minutes and then Pete nudged my knee and asked, “Do you want me to go all Mean Girls on his ass? Start nasty rumors, infiltrate his posse and then take down his power structure?”

  I gave him a look. He smiled hopefully. I had to laugh. “Nah,” I said. “Let’s not do that.”

  “Maybe you just need to concentrate on the good parts of the experience? Twist that shit around in your brain to your advantage. Because wow. You blew Austin Harmon. That has to count for something. That guy is fricking hot as—”

  “Jesus, Pete! Really? My dick is exploding the listserv and my life is fucked. Concentrating on Austin’s hotness doesn’t seem like a thing I can do, you know?”

  “I know. I know. I’m sorry. It’s just he and his friends are like the gods of high school and you, a freshman, have gotta feel good about getting a piece of that.” He grabbed my forearm and his eyes went wide. “Oh, hey,” he croaked. “I didn’t ask. Did the Pahlkes go to Sanibel too? They usually do the country club things, right? Was Josh there?”

  My cheeks went crimson. Josh was the college guy I’d been hung up on since last summer—a crush I’d been stupid enough to confess to Pete.

  Josh Pahlke had graduated from Lake Woods High a while back, but he was a legend in more than just my mind. He’d been the best kind of Mr. Perfect. Valedictorian. Record-holder for a bunch of athletic feats. Super nice. Volunteer at the homeless shelter, the youth LGBTQ center. Drop-dead gorgeous. And gay.

  When Pete found out Josh was one of the soccer camp’s coaches, Pete had shown up on campus—with his camera—even though he hated soccer more than I did.

  “No,” I said. “The Pahlkes went to Honolulu. With the football team for the bowl game, remember?”

  Josh’s dad was the head coach at the local college. He was a former NFL star, a big community hero, and he’d turned the once-loser Lake Woods College team into a contender for their division title.

  Yet another reason why Josh Pahlke had legions of friends and hangers-on who still talked about him all the time despite the fact he’d blown off a scholarship at Lake Woods College to go to fancy-schmancy Ellery College instead.

  I was signed up for soccer camp again for the coming summer. In three short weeks I’d be seeing Josh every day. The thought of it had kept me going through the spring. Now it was looking like I might die from humiliation first.

  Pete was going on and on about the Pahlkes and Hawaii. “Can you imagine hanging on the beach with all those guys? I’ll bet Josh got a great tan. His skin is the most perfect shade of—”

  “Pete! Shut up. I can’t deal with your one-track brain right now. You have to promise me you’ll never tell anyone about this stuff with Austin and Tyler, okay?”

  “I won’t tell. I got your back. But I don’t think you should give up on Austin. I bet if you gave him time—”

  “I just want to forget about it. Austin is a lost cause. He took pictures of me. He showed them to douchewads like Tyler Griegson. Now my dick is on the goddamn listserv! There’s no way to come back from that—”

  “Nicholas?” My mom’s voice broke on the second syllable of my name. My voice had been crescendo-ing as I spoke. I hadn’t noticed that she and my sister Jessica had come into the family room.

  “What in God’s name are you talking about?” she asked. “Austin took pictures of you?”

  Oh fuck my life.

  My sister covered her mouth with her hand, a move that only seemed to amplify her giggles.

  I stared down at my math workbook. My life had been in the shitter. And now it was about to get well and truly flushed.

  Nick—present

  THE ALARM ON my phone dinged. I rubbed my hand over my face and sat slowly. I’d been awake for over an hour, but I hadn’t felt like starting my day for real. The pipes in the walls had been hissing and groaning, louder and more insistent than any alarm. My numerous housemates had been in and out of the shower since seven and I’d been waiting for silence. I didn’t really feel like talking to anyone this morning.

  My finger hovered over my phone’s screen. I should probably be social and comment on Pete’s latest post. His tale about nailing a Zac Efron look-alike and the accompanying pictures were pretty damn hilarious. But I couldn’t come up with anything to say that matched Pete’s snarky tone or the gung-ho razzing of the other guys’ comments. I couldn’t come up with anything to say at all.

  The chat group where we posted updates about personal stuff (okay, it was essentially a fuck diary) was private. Just me, Pete and a couple other guys. It had started as a joke—a funny way to stay in touch and put our own twist on some of the crap we’d put up with in high school. We called the group “The Notch Spot”. Every time we hooked up with someone new, we’d post about it. And it wasn’t just the good shit that happened, the hookups we were proud of. It was all of it—the good spews, the barfishly bad blows, the
embarrassingly ugly rejections.

  But after Pete and friends graduated from high school the purpose of the group gradually changed. Through a family connection, Pete landed a sweet gig as a production assistant on a hot sitcom in L.A. Our friends Jonathan and Mike were roommates in a rad pad in Boystown. Over time, the posts got a little bit…competitive. As Pete liked to say, “The ugly ducklings have shed their dull, drab feathers and are now sprouting peacock finery. And, honey, we’re gonna crow about it!”

  Pete started hooking up with models and actors—some of whom the rest of us had actually heard of. Mike’s exploits as a bartender at one of the trendiest nightclubs on Halstead Avenue were epic, and Jonathan scored awesomely as his trusty wingman. There had been more than a small edge of competition to our posts in the last year.

  Over the summer I’d picked up my game, and a couple weeks ago the other guys had voted me the “winner” of the season. But now, as I stared down at the phone, looking at the bubble butt on the guy in the photo Pete had posted, I wasn’t sure what the hell I’d won.

  I’d been blowing off Pete for a few days, ever since I’d “broken the rules” with my last post about my last night in Boston. I’d been too vague with the info I’d provided about Josh, and Pete had freaked out. He cared, of course, because he knew my history with Josh.

  Pete had gone ape shit when I’d casually dropped the bomb on the group—Hey, remember Josh Pahlke? I ran into him at a party in Boston and hooked up with him.

  Mike and Jonathan remembered Josh too, and they were almost as impressed with this addition to my “notch list” as Pete had been.

  When Pete pushed me for details—Oh my God! How did it feel to fuck your teenage dream?—I’d responded with something that I hoped would shut down more questions: It felt fucking good, of course. He was prime, I was a god and we were both supremely satisfied.

  Of course, the reality of that night had been different. The time I’d spent with him had made me feel anything but godlike. I’d been more like a punk human kid who’d been off his game. More than off. More like off my freaking rocker.