Boys Don't Cry

by Jennifer Melzer

  I can’t tell if she means to insult me, or if she’s just repeating her mother’s words. I’m thinking maybe a combination of both, leaning heavily on the former. If she hates Nate as much as he says she does, chances are she’s gonna hate me on principle just because I’m with him, but I’ve known a lot of bitches, and I can hold my own in their company.

  “I never had trouble finding work in Austin, but then the freaks are everywhere in bigger cities. I haven’t started looking for a job here yet, but I’m not sure if it’s even worth it at this point. I haven’t decided if I’m staying beyond summer, or not.”

  From the corner of my eye I see Nate’s face, impassive with the slightest hint of curiosity glimmering in his stare as he turns to look at me. Before anyone else can say anything, Cody asks, “College?”

  “I got into the Interactive Games Studies program at St. Edward’s in Austin.”

  “Game design?” Nate asks, but before he can answer he tells me, “I should have guessed. I’ve played a couple of your mods on HotD. I bet you’ll kill it designing games.”

  “What’s HotD?” Gretchen stares down at her fingernails, picking at the flakes of polish with disinterest.

  “An online game we both play.”

  “So, you met each other online, and then she moved in across the street from you?” Cody’s brow furrows curiously as he looks between Nate and me.

  “Not exactly,” Nate shrugs. “I mean, I’m sure we’ve thrown taunts at each other in PVP a few times, but it’s a marvelous coincidence that the leader of my rival guild is now my neighbor. I’m hoping I can hack into her system and steal her guild roster, maybe reroute some of her new recruits to the dark side.”

  “I just can’t get into video games,” Gretchen sighs. “My brother wastes so much time shooting at Nazi zombies, or whatever, yelling at invisible people on his little Bluetooth headset, and I just don’t get it at all. Like, go outside, or something.”

  Leaning over the arm of his chair, Cody nudges into me playfully and explains, “Gretchen’s idea of a good time is catching melanoma from the tanning bed and doing her nails.”

  She glares over at him beneath the knitted hood of her dark auburn eyebrows, then stretches her toe out to kick the sole of his sneaker. “Don’t show off in front of Nate’s little friend, Cody.”

  He’s smirking, but it’s so much more than that. It’s like a silent warning, willing her to shut her mouth before she embarrasses him, but Gretchen’s grin promises no such thing. I’m still stuck on the fact that Nate said my moving in across the street was a marvelous coincidence, and I wonder how marvelous, but my sudden brush with shyness and insecurity won’t allow me to ask. Especially not in front of strangers.

  Another truck comes bouncing along the passage, whipping in to park beside the motorcycle. Cody pokes his head up to see if it’s someone they know. “Meh, it’s just Brett.”

  “Brett Kline or Brett Forscht?”

  “Kline.”

  “Meh,” Gretchen agrees. “Why’d you tell him we were going to be down here?”

  “I didn’t tell him. It’s common knowledge, Gretch.”

  “Maybe if we ignore him, he’ll leave.”

  “That’s not rude, or anything,” Nate mutters, earning another glare from Gretchen, who then turns to Cody expectantly, but when he doesn’t defend her she crosses her arms and pinches her tight pink lips into a scowl.

  “You’re like the king of rude, so it surprises me to hear you say such a thing. Besides, after everything he did to Caitlyn, he has no business coming around. The last thing I need is to lose another friend over some stupid fucker who doesn’t know her worth.”

  I get the feeling there is something personal in that dig, and Nate stiffens in the chair beside me. His fingers curl into the mesh drink holder, wrist flexing and forearm bulging against whatever restraint he’s practicing right now.

  “Don’t fucking start, Gretch. Brett and Caitlyn’s relationship is nobody’s business but theirs.”

  The ice in her stare as she glares over at Cody promises a long night of tension between them, but then he gets up from his chair and starts walking out to meet the newcomer, leaving us alone with his angry girlfriend. Gretchen stews for a minute, her nostrils flaring visibly while she continues to pick at her nail polish. I understand now why Nate gave me the warning, and every time she breathes it’s an epic sigh of malcontent that’s going to get old real quickly.

  At our backs, I hear Cody chatting with this Brett guy, and I look over to see them walking toward us as they talk. I recognize this new guy’s face as they draw closer. It’s Not-Steve Henry, the kid I saw standing on the sidewalk the day we moved in, and I wonder how close he lives to our houses.

  “Does he live in our neighborhood?” I ask Nate.

  “Nah, but Caitlyn does. Why? You’ve seen him over there?”

  “The day we moved in.” Right before I spotted you and lost all sense of connection to the rest of the world. Only I don’t say that, because who says things like that? Though, given my track record lately, it’s surprising that I don’t.

  “He was probably over there groveling for forgiveness. Some people do that, you know?”

  With a perturbed breath huffing through her loose auburn bob, Gretchen pulls her legs up, stands and starts walking through the grass toward the river. I watch as she disappears, heading down the hill overlooking the dock floating on blue plastic barrels below, and it isn’t until her head’s out of sight that Nate leans over and says, “Sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “She’s a little…”

  “Mean?”

  “I was gonna say abrasive, but yeah, little bit. She has no filter. Whatever pops into her head, she just says it without much thought for the people around her.”

  “You weren’t kidding when you said she wasn’t exactly fond of you.”

  “Yeah,” he nods, but doesn’t elaborate for a long time. Finally he leans forward in his chair, elbows on his thighs and hands laced together between his knees. “She’s not exactly the best first impression friend. Makes the rest of us look like assholes.”

  “The only person she’s making look like an asshole is herself,” I say, then add, “and maybe Cody, but just because he’s dating her. For the most part he seems like a nice guy. Have you known him long?”

  “Since the fifth grade.” He sighs, then shakes his head and says, “This was probably a bad idea for a first date. I mean, I haven’t seen these guys in forever, but I thought… I don’t know, I guess I thought it’d be more comfortable with other people around. More welcoming and less like I was a creep.”

  I can only assume he has no idea the number of times I’ve been to the grocery store since I discovered he works there. There’s a spark of lightness in my gut, excitement tingling through me as I mimic his posture and lean forward to tilt my head toward him.

  “So… this is a date then?”

  Warmth flushes his cheeks, coloring them pale pink as he swallows hard and gathers his courage to confess, “I sort of wanted it to be. Since the first time I saw you standing in the window of witch house, I wanted to know who you were, and I thought…”

  He saw me in the window. I mean, I know he saw me, I felt it, but hearing him say it makes me feel giddy to a point bordering on nausea and I suddenly don’t care much about why Gretchen hates him.

  “You know how weird it is when you guys call my place of residence the witch house?” I chuckle. “Like, seriously, I’m not going to want to go back home if you keep it up.”

  “I guess I’ll have to keep you out all night then.”

  I grin, but as if his words just struck him, the corner of his mouth that starts to follow my lead falls slack. “I guess I’m not very good at this stuff anymore.”

  “What stuff? Going on dates?”

  His shoulders crawl slowly toward his ear as he turns his eyes down to the hands folded in front of him. “I used to be…” He stops himself, shakes his head and th
en rolls his back into the chair, sitting up straight and stiff, as if he’s not sure what to do with his body. “Look, we can go somewhere else if you want.”

  “I think I’m okay here, if you are, I mean, but maybe for our next date?”

  The second half of that sentence is hopeful, laced with tentative curiosity, and then he is laughing, though not boisterously, or anything. It’s just a scuff of amusement through the back of his throat, his face lighting up as the blush fades and he nods his head. “Yeah, definitely for the next date.”

  TEN

  By ten o’clock there are eleven of us huddling around the fire. The majority of Nate’s friends are more welcoming than Gretchen, but I notice the other girls eying me with the same disbelieving curiosity she had when she first saw me standing by Nate in front of his car. I wonder what that’s all about, which of course results in me over thinking what Nate said about not being very good at the whole dating thing—anymore.

  Did he maybe have a girl before that they were all friends with? And now I’m some new skank trying to weasel her way into their circle of friends to take that girl’s place? Was that what Gretchen meant about losing a friend because of some guy?

  For the most part they’re all pleasant enough. They’re curious about where I came from, how I get my hair to look the way it does, and whether or not I’ve seen any ghosts in the witch house. Their interest grows when I start talking about my dad’s weird visionary affliction for desperate historical homes in need of love and restoration, and more than once someone remarks, “How does someone even get into something like that? That’s pretty cool.”

  Nate doesn’t make any sort of moves at all. He doesn’t try to hold my hand or touch me, though as more people arrive he moves his chair much closer to mine, and a few times he leans casually across the armrest between us, nudging his shoulder into me while gesturing as he talks animatedly about some dirt bike incident that landed Cody in the hospital when they were twelve and resulted in fifteen stitches and three weeks without his phone because it shattered inside his pants pocket.

  A few people help themselves to beers, but not Nate, and when a girl named Kayla asks me if I want one, I politely decline. No one pushes it, or mocks me for it. They just shrug and go on with the night without judgment, which is kind of nice. I’ve been to a lot of drinking parties where the drunk kids get the majority of their kicks trying to bully everyone else into getting just as shit-faced and stupid as they are, and while I’m sure it’s a real blast, it’s not really my scene.

  I like to be in control of all my faculties, control-freak level self-regulation, thank you very much, and since I’m an observer here I need all my senses to clue me into Nate’s vibes. He relaxes a little as the night wears on, but he’s still wary, occasionally leaning forward in his chair like he’s prepared to bolt at the first sign of conflict. We talk a little more, but not much. It’s kind of hard for two people to have an ongoing conversation when you’re surrounded by so many others.

  Sometimes while the rest of them are laughing he stares into the fire, the gold flames lapping at his beautiful irises until he feels my eyes on him and turns to look at me.

  We stare into each other for a long time, and I wonder what he’s thinking about, but I’m not sure that’s a first date question because it’s obviously pretty deep, whatever’s going on behind those eyes, so I just smile and he does too, and the more I study his lips I wonder, not for the first time since I saw him on the porch, what it might feel like to kiss him. We return our attention to the current conversation as his friends pull him back from the edge of the abyss with a memory of some gym coach who used to make them run laps when they failed math quizzes.

  I learn that most of them are a year older than me. They graduated high school last June. Many of them are home from college until mid-August and looking forward to a no-pressure summer with picnics and drive-in movies and fireworks and trips to the county fair. And beer… Cody says this right before raising the neck of his bottle and relaxing back into the chair with a smirk that makes everyone laugh but Nate.

  Their camaraderie makes me long for Austin, the friends I left behind and the comfortable familiarity of finishing each other’s sentences and understanding personal jokes they’ve been throwing back and forth for years. I wonder if I could ever feel like that anywhere else, or if I’ll never feel like that again because high school’s over and there won’t ever be another experience like it for the rest of my life. It makes me think about Art and all the things he’s going to miss out on if our dad doesn’t find his happy place and stay there long enough for my little brother to know what it’s like to grow roots and establish those kinds of friendships.

  Everyone is distracted when Cody goes into the camper to get hot dogs and buns, and that’s when Nate leans in closer than he’s gotten to me all night, his shoulder rubbing against mine. I almost feel the warmth of his face, the pulse of his breath against my cheek as he asks, “What are you thinking about?”

  Apparently he doesn’t share my proclivity for appropriate first date questions.

  “Me? I was just thinking about my friends back in Austin.”

  “You miss ‘em?”

  “A little.” I watch his eyebrow arch in challenge. “All right, a lot.”

  “But it’s just for the summer, right? You’ll see them all again when you go back for college.”

  “If I go back.”

  “Why wouldn’t you go back? It sounds like a great opportunity. There are a lot of solid game companies with offices in Austin, or so I’ve heard.”

  “We just met and you’re already trying to get rid of me. Way to give a girl a complex.” I edge my knee into his playfully.

  “No, I mean… I just meant… It sounded like you were planning to go when you were talking about it earlier. I figured you were just here for the summer.”

  “I’m not fully decided yet, I guess. I keep thinking about my little brother. How hard this is for him every time we do it, and me leaving…” I bring my legs up in front of me, toes stretching toward the fire. “He’s the only reason I came along. I could have stayed, but I didn’t.”

  “Maybe he’s not the only reason,” he says coyly, and I wonder if he’s talking about the same weird sense of fate I felt the first time I saw him on his front porch. I highly doubt it, but for a minute that’s what it sounds like.

  “We’ve moved so many times since he was born, and I know this won’t be the last one. I just feel like it’ll ruin him a little if I’m not here. At least until he starts to make friends, starts to feel comfortable, you know?”

  Contemplative, he pulls his lower lip between his teeth and worries it for a second, then says, “You must really care about him to be thinking about giving up the college opportunity of your dreams.”

  “I hate his guts, actually.”

  Nate laughs, and I feel sort of triumphant.

  “And it’s not giving it up, so much as it’s postponing it. It’ll still be there, and besides, there are other colleges…maybe. Who knows?”

  “I guess since you’re here now, you should make the most of it until you figure out what you’re doing.”

  “Oh, I plan to,” I smirk.

  “Maybe by the time summer’s over, you’ll have enough new friends here that you won’t want to leave us either.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Hey, you want a soda?”

  “Sure. I think I’m gonna make myself a hot dog. You want me to make you one too?”

  “Please?”

  We walk toward the camper together. I skewer two hot dogs onto the metal fork and return to the fire. While I stand there letting them sizzle over the flames he walks toward the cooler. I watch him, grinning a little to myself as I replay our conversation over in my head. We spend a couple of hours together, and already I’m thinking about how hard it might be to leave this place come summer’s end. And not just because of Arthur.

  Cody slaps Nate on the back, then draws him aside with
some other guy named Hunter. They’re laughing and smiling, and for a minute the two of them stare over at me, still talking quietly amongst themselves while Nate draws his shoulders up around his ears and hunches down a little when he shrugs and toes his shoe through a patch of grass. He doesn’t follow their stares, and when they realize I’ve noticed they look away.

  Self-conscious tingles trickle along the length of my spine, but then Sydney is standing next to me holding a forkful of marshmallows and I don’t realize she’s talking to me until she nudges into me a little and laughs.

  “Sorry?”

  “I asked how long you’ve known Nate.”

  “Oh, uh, we just met.”

  “See, what’d I tell you. She has no idea.” Gretchen leans over from the other side of the fire pit, blocking my view of Nate as she lowers her voice conspiratorially. “She has no fucking clue.”

  “Gretch, don’t.”

  “He shouldn’t even be here, and you all know it. He has a lot of nerve coming around, even more so bringing her with him. No offense.” She cocks a nasty look in my direction, and I’m pretty sure she means to offend me with that statement.

  “Cody invited him.”

  “Yeah, he’s invited him twice since we’ve been back, but he’s always too busy to come around. I think he’s actually avoiding me because he knows I’ll call him on his bullshit. Do you have any idea what kind of person he is?” This last bit is meant for me, her blue eyes widening in anticipation of my reply.

  “Gretchen,” Lauren hisses. “Stop it. That is not cool at all. It was not his fault what happened.”

  “Wasn’t it? Then whose?” she bites back. “He doesn’t exactly look like he’s suffering, not like the rest of us. He’s not even broken up about it, is he?”