by Adam Silvera
“Maybe that’s true. But I never knew. And I’m basically a toy without batteries because of you guys.”
“Your boys will take care of you, A.”
“Even if I’m gay?” I say the word out loud, about myself, because even though I never chose this, I can choose to accept it before it’s too late.
Brendan says nothing. I have my answer. I head back up the stairs and hope one day Brendan will find his happy ending. I really do want this for my very confused, former sort of best friend.
15
THE BOY WHO WON’T MAN UP
I’m about to sit in the alleyway between the meat market and flower shop and maybe flip through one of the comics I brought for Collin—Issue #7 of The Dark Alternates, the big finale—but community service do-gooders are painting over the spray-painted black-and-blue world Collin and I made.
And then he’s here.
“’Sup,” Collin says, nodding at me. He looks around, probably for spies with cameras, and finds the community service team in our spot. “Hey, what the hell are they doing?”
“Community service,” I say.
“Where can we go instead? You need to go buy a condom too because Nicole was finally in the mood last night and I used mine.”
Of course he uses a condom after she’s pregnant.
“Don’t need them.”
“You want to do it without . . . ?”
“Look, our graffiti is gone.”
“Yeah. That sucks. Oh shit, you got the last issue! Let’s go read it.” I hand the comic over to him. In another life, this could’ve been cool. He speculates on what might happen: “Who do you think the redhead in the scarlet robe is? Do you think the Faceless Overlords will go through with the siege? Shit, they have to, don’t they? Man, this is going to be insane.”
I sit down on the curb and ask him to join me. “I can’t keep wrecking things, Collin. The way I feel about you has changed, and I don’t think it’s because there are still some memories of our good times hidden in my head or something.”
“Wait, you for real did that Leteo thing?”
“Yeah. I forgot everything that went down with you.”
“Are you fucking with me again?”
“I’m not.”
“Seriously, you no joke had your mind wiped?”
“Don’t you feel bad that Nicole has no idea you’re with me?”
He doesn’t say no or admit to how little he gives a shit.
“Well, I feel bad,” I tell him. “This makes us different. I don’t think you suck as a person. I legit believe you’ll be better than this one day, but if you want to continue faking out your family, that’s your unhappiness, not mine.”
Collin shrugs, hiding his pain poorly. “So, what, forget we ever happened, right? I don’t want you coming at me tomorrow or the day after.” He gets up, pacing back and forth to give me enough time to take back my words.
I don’t.
“Okay then. I’m going.” He’s holding on to the comic, in no way about to give it back, and crosses the street to retreat back to his safe life built on lies. But then he freezes. He turns and rushes back over to me. “Are you sure about this?’
I can almost forgive him now. “I can’t screw anyone over anymore, Collin,” I say. “Look, I loved you, but now isn’t the time for us.”
Collin flips me off and walks away.
I lean forward on the curb to flip through the comic when I realize it’s not in my hands. I look around to see if I dropped it before realizing what’s happened.
16
THE GIRL WITH THE
UNFINISHED PAINTINGS
I forgot what happened with Collin. And I hope to God he’ll change and that it’ll be something worth missing. I just hope I remember everything with Genevieve because she’s the one I would’ve been lucky enough to share a happy ending with.
She loves me in a way that’s not fair to her. And it’s shitty times two because I know the feeling.
Before I knock on her door, I ask Eric to wait downstairs for me. I extend an arm to pat his shoulder. He must think I’m trying to hug him because he leans in and it’s awkward and I recover by hugging him for the first time since we were kids.
“Uh, thanks again. I feel like you’ve been my seeing-eye dog or something.”
“Forget it. You owe me one now. But don’t forget—” He slaps his hand over his mouth. “Forget I said ‘forget.’ Um. I’ll be downstairs.”
“Okay.”
I knock on the door, trying to remember everything I have to say while I still have the chance. Her father calls from inside the apartment, asking who it is, and I tell him it’s me. He opens the door, studying me up and down. I can smell his beer breath.
“How you doin’, Aaron?”
“I’m okay. Is Gen home?”
“Still in her room, I think.”
Other fathers wouldn’t let a boy into their home the way he does.
Her door is cracked open and I peek in and see her on her bed surrounded by wet paintbrushes and open paint bottles and sketchbooks. She tears a page out of one book, crumples it up, and throws it onto the floor, the graveyard of failed drawings. Then she grabs a new brush.
I knock and let myself in, tensing up when she looks at me.
She drops her paintbrush and bursts into tears.
I rush to comfort her, but there’s no room for me to sit with all these open sketchbooks and unfinished paintings on her bed. There’s one of a girl talking to a boy made of leaves; another of an ocean monster destroying a girl’s sand castle; a third of a girl falling out of a tree while a boy sits idly by eating an apple. I shove them aside. I’m not just wrapping my arms around her to make her happy or to lie to myself; I have to stop her hurting, and for once it’s so real I forget my own forgetting problems.
“I know better than to ask if you’re okay,” I whisper.
Genevieve pulls her hands away from her face. Now probably isn’t the best time to point out the fingerprints of paint across her forehead and cheeks. “Seeing you with Collin really messed me up, Aaron. I have no idea if you were at the track field to see Thomas or if it was a coincidence, but it brought back everything I had to pretend never happened.”
I turn away. “I’m sorry about that. And about him. I’m really, really sorry I led you on before the procedure. And even sometime after it. I wasn’t fully ready to be this guy who liked guys, and needed a girlfriend to protect me.”
She strokes my face, probably getting paint on me. “I know. Even after our first kiss, I knew.”
“Only a guy who likes guys wouldn’t want to kiss you,” I say. “I’m sorry for being such an asshole.”
Genevieve traces my scar, left to right and right to left, like I have countless times, like she might have too, if I could remember. “I could never hate you for being gay, but when you came back to me, I loved forgetting you were.”
“We made a pretty cool faux-couple when I thought it was real,” I joke.
She rests her head on my shoulder. “If I could do it over, I wouldn’t have lied to myself that it was real. I wouldn’t have dated you and I definitely wouldn’t have had sex with you.” There’s a moment where I think she’s going to say something more. She sighs and adds, “So you didn’t go through with the procedure. What made you change your mind?”
I can’t comfortably tell her how Thomas made me okay with myself. I can’t tell her how I want to spend my days taking on the world with him and watching movies and drinking Blue Moons late into the night while we draw on each other.
“The procedure promised happiness but it wasn’t real. About Leteo, actually . . . my mind is kind of messed up, which is why I really had to see you today. I’m going through this thing called anterograde amnesia which means—”
Genevieve pulls away. “I knew it.” Her bloo
dshot eyes are wide, searching. “It was in the video we watched before, the one about side effects. You also . . . when I spoke to you the day after you woke up, you forgot something I said to you. I thought you zoned out or were trying to hurt me.”
I can’t be selfish anymore. “Are you and Thomas happy together?”
“We’re nothing right now. Honestly. Just hanging out, but I like it. I think I need something real after everything . . .” It stings and burns and kind of kills me too, but I don’t take it personally. “I’m sorry this is happening. I’m sure it’s not something you’re particularly excited to remember.”
“Two of my favorite people being happy? Sure it is.” While it isn’t 100 percent genuine, it’s not a lie either. Not by any stretch. As long as Thomas is telling the truth about who he is. She would be lucky to have him and he would be damn lucky to have her.
I glance at her crumpled drawings on the floor. “Maybe you’re drawing the wrong things. You should try painting what you want your life to look like. It could be a map of your future. I’m sure Thomas would love to help you with that as long as you don’t let him get too carried away with it.”
“Or maybe you can help me,” Genevieve says, scooting over.
“I can’t.” I swallow and choke out the last two words, suddenly remembering my brother is downstairs waiting for me. “You’re beautiful.”
“Beautiful enough to turn you straight?” She wipes a tear away and laughs a little. “A girl’s gotta try. I love you, Aaron. I don’t mean it in a weird way.”
This is probably the last time we’ll stare at each other like this. I lean in and kiss her, and it’s genuine and happy and all final kisses should be like this.
“Genevieve, no matter what . . .”
She rests her forehead on mine.
Without having forgotten I said it before, I keep repeating, “I love you in a non-weird way too. I love you in a non-weird way too. I love you in a non-weird way too . . .”
17
THE BOY ON THE ROOFTOP
My senior citizen illness keeps getting the best of me.
I’m going to lose my job at Good Food’s. If I become a bus driver, I’ll forget my route. If I become a teacher, I’ll forget my students’ names and lesson plans. If I’m a banker, I’ll have no money in my safe after I keep handing over cash. If I’m in the army, I’ll forget how to use the gun and get all the wrong people killed.
The only thing I’ll be good for is being a failed lab rat.
I doubt I’ll be able to concentrate enough to finish my comic, but I’ve made peace with that. It’s okay how some stories leave off without an ending. Life doesn’t always deliver the one you would expect.
I’ll never be in a relationship again. If I met someone new only to forget him later, it’s not fair.
So now there’s only one apology left to make.
It takes some convincing, but I do it. I get Eric to back off and let me head over to Thomas’s house by myself.
Once Thomas knows about my condition there’s no way he’ll let me wander the streets alone. I just don’t want to rush my time with him.
Now I’m slowly climbing up the fire escape. I’m getting used to these jump-cuts in my life. I don’t scramble up the steps with the thrill I had all summer, but with the fear of someone marching to his death. When I reach his window, the curtains are drawn. But I can still see a sliver of Thomas leaning over his table and writing. I bet he’s journaling.
I knock on the pane and he jumps.
And then, like Genevieve, he blinks a few times, fast. His eyes fill with tears. I shake my head.
“Meet me on the roof,” I tell him.
He nods.
I head on up and just wait, reminding myself again and again what I’m doing and why I’m here. I check out the streetlamps turning on below, glowing orange as evening kicks in, and then up at the few stars hanging out in the sky. I see him step off the fire escape, and all of a sudden he’s sitting on the ledge.
I’m trembling a little bit. This is another forever moment. “So something crazy is happening,” I tell him. I lie down on the ground. The stars don’t shift, and I’m very appreciative. “There’s been a trauma in the part of my brain where you store your memories. It’s only partial right now, but my doctor thinks there’s a chance it’ll take full effect at some point or another. If I don’t remember something you say, I’m sorry.”
Thomas is now down beside me. For a while we don’t say anything else. Or maybe we have an entire conversation I don’t remember.
What I have is this:
He asks, “Do you think there’s a chance you were someone really awful in a past life? Like a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away you were Darth Vader? I feel like you can’t catch a break.”
I laugh and quickly repeat it in my head several times.
“Sure feels that way,” I say. “I honestly don’t want to live anymore, Thomas. I think it could be freeing to just get up and fly off this rooftop . . .”
“If you love me, Stretch, you won’t leave me with the memory of you jumping off this roof now, or ever. Okay? If there’s one thing I’m begging you to remember from this conversation, it’s that promise.”
“Okay, but in exchange you have to promise to never die. I can’t stand the pain of someone telling me every day that you’re dead. You need to always be alive and happy, okay?”
He laughs through his tears. “You got it, Stretch. Immortality. No problem.”
“And happy too,” I say.
He props his knees up and cracks his knuckles. “Okay. I need to come clean about something. I suspected you liked me after you came out with Side A. You understand me in a way a lot of other people don’t. If I’m being one hundred percent honest, I think our friendship even confused me a little, but I’m also one hundred percent sure that I’m still straight because I would’ve been chasing after you if I wasn’t.”
I try to say something, but I can’t.
“We can’t ever be together,” he finished. “But I always want to know you, even if we’re in the same room and you’re just saying hi to me over and over again, I’ll be perfectly happy. I’ll always want to be sitting across from you.”
So now in this moment I have this fantasy: Thomas is straight—which I now believe is either very real or who he needs to be right now—but he goes to Leteo and convinces them to give him a procedure so he can forget he’s straight. Once he’s gay, he finds me just like he said he would and we build a life of happy memories together.
But like with everyone else, I know better. I can picture Thomas and Genevieve making each other happy. Genevieve will glow whenever he leans in to her to whisper a joke that isn’t my business. He’ll sweep her off her feet, as if they’re newlyweds, and carry her into a world I can never share with either of them.
“What would Thomas Reyes do if he were in my situation?” I ask.
Thomas sits up. “I would do my damn best to be more happy than not. You’ve already experienced so much bullshit so you can always look back on how things could be worse. That’s my two cents.”
I may never get to see the person Thomas grows up to be. If he becomes a director or wrestler or deejay or set designer or gay or straight, I may be too lost in the past for it ever to click.
“I don’t want to forget, Thomas.”
“I don’t want you to either. Just remember that I love the hell out of you, okay?”
I repeat it over and over because there are so many memories crowding my head that don’t need to be there. “I don’t want to forget, Thomas.”
It shocks me when he starts straight-up sobbing, but it’s even more shocking when he holds my hand. But there is the happiness he promised, too. He loves me without being in love with me and that’s all I can ask of him. I don’t even need to hear him say it to believe it.
&nb
sp; “No homo, Stretch.”
“I know.” I smile, and squeeze his hand back. “Hell of a happy ending, right?”
PART FOUR: MORE HAPPY THAN NOT
THE DAY
WE START OVER
The Leteo Institute, or more specifically, Evangeline, is able to get me short-listed for a reparative procedure they’ve been developing in Sweden.
In exchange, I’m going to help them out with some of the safer experimental science. The hope is to find a cure for amnesia one day. It may never happen in my lifetime, but maybe someone will figure it out eventually and I’ll have played a part in that. Funny how I once turned to Leteo to forget and now I’m counting on them to help me—and maybe millions of others—remember.
My mom considered moving us all upstate to get away from the sucker-punching memories, but we’re done running. Instead, we’re painting the walls white and starting over. I’m helping Mom with the bedroom. I know it’s hard. My father was the one who chose gray.
I ask her what color she’ll paint her new room.
“I think I’ll leave it white. It’s pure and reminds me of a rabbit I used to have. It’s nice to reflect, sometimes.”
THE DAY I LOOK AHEAD
Eric and I take a break from painting our living room green with a round of Avengers vs. Street Fighters. He chooses Wolverine, of course. I choose Black Widow because I’m tired of going easy on him.
He sucks his teeth when I win.
There is no judging. There are no jokes made.
He challenges me to another round.
I remember enough to remember that this is the first time we’ve really had fun in a long time, like we did when my father wasn’t around.
THE DAY I MOVE ON
During the cleaning, I find a bunch of my old composition notebooks. I leaf through the childhood drawings, not caring about how I didn’t have a good eye for color or how careless I was with my shading. I just laugh over and over at the memories there. I haven’t thought about that funny villain I invented, Mr. Overlord King, in years. He and Sun Warden will likely live in harmony in my character’s afterlife world. Either that or they’ll fight to the death over and over again.