by Amy Lane
Evan pulled his head out of his ass and looked Curtis square in the eyes. “Curtis, do you even want this? I mean, I don’t love you—not like that. If you’re waiting for the perfect guy—”
“No.” Curtis shook his head, some of his hair flopping sweatily in his eyes. “It’s not that.”
It was winter, and the house wasn’t that warm, and Evan pulled his head out a little further and asked the obvious question. “Man, what’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing!” Curtis snapped, and the cat underneath his hand turned around and batted him in irritation before stalking off. “I’m fine! I’m not some sort of freak!”
Evan jerked his head back. “I didn’t think you were,” he said, his voice rough. “I thought we were… you know. The same.”
Curtis put his face in his hands. “No one’s the same as me,” he said hoarsely.
He looked so disconsolate. Evan reached around to pat him on the back and Curtis leapt up, sending the cats hissing in six different directions, and Evan jerked his hand back.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
“Don’t touch me!”
“Curtis—I’m not going to hurt you!”
“Sure, you say that, but that’s what he said too! And he did! It hurt! And now I’m a freak and I want it!”
Evan dropped his hand and closed his mouth and tried to think.
“Curtis—were you….” And suddenly all of his shrink’s words came flooding back, but none of them sounded right. He couldn’t say “molested” or “abused” or “violated” to Curtis, because those words made Evan feel like all those things were true, and he didn’t want them to be true for his friend.
“Was I what? Did I take it from the guy mom hired to do the landscaping? Yeah. So the fuck what! You were going to do it to me too, so don’t get all high and mighty—”
“Curtis, what we were gonna do—that’s only good if you want it too! It can’t be bad for either of us!”
Curtis dragged in a terrible breath, one that sounded more like a sob, and Evan took one too.
“I….” Curtis swallowed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just… I’m not gay.”
Evan raised his eyebrows as high as they could go and shook his head. “Okay. Okay, fine. You’re not gay. My mistake. My bad. I’ll go. I can walk from here. I don’t need a ride.”
He stood up, hating both of them a lot, grabbed his backpack, and took off through the house.
“Wait!” Curtis sounded like he was going to cry, which was the only thing that stopped Evan when he got to the door. He turned around and felt awful, awful and helpless, because Curtis’s thin face was crumpled and blotchy, and his hair was sticking to his head with sweat. His eyes were red and swollen, and Evan knew—knew—this kid needed a hug more than any kid in the history of history, but that he couldn’t give him one.
“What?” he asked, his voice gentle.
Curtis looked at him with frightened, pleading eyes. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”
Evan laughed bitterly. “Tell them that I made a move on you and it freaked you out? No, Curtis, this isn’t going down under things I want out on Facebook.”
“Evan, I’m sorry! I just… it’s supposed to be secret!”
Evan grimaced. “Only if it’s bad,” he said, ten years on the shrink’s couch helping him out on that one.
Curtis cringed. “I didn’t mean… I mean, you weren’t—”
“A molester? Great. Good to know. Now if you’ll excuse me—”
“Wait—you’ll still hang with us at lunch, right?”
Evan grimaced. “If you don’t get all weird!”
Curtis’s nod was so eager, it was almost puppyish. “No. I swear. It’ll be good. It’ll be just like it’s supposed to be. Okay?”
Evan swallowed, and the lump in his throat was bitter and harsh. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure. Whatever.”
He blew out of there. The disappointment behind his eyes and in his chest burned so hot and painful, he couldn’t even think about calling Stottemeyer. Man, this much total suck could wait.
BY LUNCH the next day, Curtis seemed to have gotten his shit together. He was laughing at the girls and talking animatedly about their costumes, and for a couple of days, Evan relaxed and watched Curtis try determinedly to charm the pants off Brittany.
Literally.
And that disturbed him.
It disturbed Ryane too.
“Oh my God!” she muttered after Curtis grabbed Brittany’s hand during lunch and dragged her to the art room to check out some new anime displayed there. “Who does he think he’s fooling?”
“Fooling?” Evan asked guardedly.
“Jesus, Ev—he’s so gay, he makes the guy from Glee look straight. Why’s he trying to front like that?”
Evan thought for a moment. “He’s not comfortable with who he is,” he said hesitantly. “He thinks he can change it by—”
“By what?” Ry snapped. “Toying with poor Brittany? She’s so desperate for a boyfriend, any boyfriend, she’ll let him feel her up just to prove she can get one!”
Evan remembered Curtis’s obvious excitement when looking at the pictures of Starfighter. Hell, when they were talking about their costumes, it was like the guy forgot completely about that afternoon. He pretended—almost convincingly—that Evan didn’t know he was terrified, down to the very marrow, of the images in that story. Curtis wanted to be Abel—he might have been going as Praxis, but he wanted to be Abel. He wanted to be the submissive, the guy on the bottom, except Curtis wanted to have the balls to beg for all those things they both saw on the screen.
Brittany’s soft, doughy body didn’t enter into any of those fantasies.
“I don’t think he’s toying,” Evan said. “He—he really loves us.”
“Yeah, well, is he that afraid of coming out?”
“It’s not easy!” Evan snapped. “Do you think I’m going to be coming out before I’ve got a job and can pay the rent? Jesus, I’ll be in therapy for the rest of my fucking life!”
Ry stopped picking at her bad cafeteria salad and looked at him, stunned. “Uhm, Ev? Something you want to tell me?”
Evan almost groaned. “No,” he snarled, picking up his hamburger and then putting it down. School cafeteria food. Gross. “Nothing. Nothing I want to tell anybody. Jesus.”
He sat there for a moment, bad hamburger clenched so tightly between his fingers that he was denting the bread, when he felt a shiver of movement over the back of his hand.
“It’s okay, Ev,” Ryane said, and her voice was rough. He looked up and saw that with her other hand, she was carefully fixing her makeup, scraping the wetness under her eyes before it had a chance to run the thickly smeared eyeliner everywhere.
“What’s okay?” he asked, feeling dense. God. He’d just wanted to be hugged.
“I mean, I’ve had it bad for the last few weeks. I just… I didn’t know—”
“That I was bi?” he said to give her hope. He hadn’t noticed her either. It was easier, he thought with a swallow. It was easier to say he was bi.
“Bi?” She perked up. “So, you and Curtis—?”
He shook his head and clasped her hand. “Not working out,” he told her, and her smile was so sweet, and for a moment, he could pretend he was bi just like Curtis was pretending to be straight. His group had symmetry again, and they had peace, and he figured between the group and Ry, he was going to get lots and lots of hugs.
HE WENT over to her place to work on the costumes. Her parents smoked, which sucked because the smell was everywhere, but her mom was donating all of the fabric and her sewing machine—and her time.
So the two of them cut out patterns and then cut out fabric and cut out fabric and cut out fabric and then pinned for acres and yards and gave the results to Ryane’s mom, Candy. Candy had a wide face with low cheekbones and narrow eyes, and if you didn’t watch her smile at her daughter and give her clear, encouraging directions, you’d be afraid of her as, like, a rej
ect from a white-trash housewife show. She was especially scary when she was pushing the stretchy jumpsuits through the sewing machine, squinting through the smoke of the cigarette dangling from her mouth. Evan had learned to look past that—she always had milk or soda in the refrigerator, and food too, although Evan couldn’t eat with all the smoke.
Evan would go home and shower and throw his clothes in the hamper and then go downstairs and eat leftovers from the fridge, and tell his mom he was at his girlfriend’s house.
He told his shrink the truth.
“So,” Stottemeyer said, having trouble with this, “you’re bisexual?”
Evan grimaced and held his hand level, then wobbled it. “Uhm, sort of?”
“Why?”
“Because this way my mom won’t cause a big stink and my friends won’t lose their nut, and Ry doesn’t have to feel so alone.”
Stottemeyer grunted. “That’s not a good reason to go out with someone, Evan. What does it feel like when you kiss her?”
Evan thought about it, truly. “Like I’m kissing my sister, except it doesn’t make me want to puke.”
“Think you can get a woody when you’re doing that?”
Evan had tried the night before. They’d been standing outside her house, and he’d bent down and kissed her, doing all those things he knew he was supposed to. He parted her lips with his tongue, framed her face with his hands, closed his eyes, and tasted.
And thought of Cain and Abel and Starfighter, and Abel’s asshole stretched wide, dripping with Cain’s come, and his stomach coated in his own.
And yep! Wood!
He’d ground up against her, and her soft sigh and giggle let him know she approved as well. So far, the situation was looking like win-win. Ry was planning to go away to college, both of them had talked about how their peer group would split up in two years when they all graduated, and he could get through high school with a girlfriend and a family that wasn’t any wiser.
And he might get sex.
“Yes,” he told Dr. Stottemeyer levelly. “Already have.”
“What were you thinking about at the time?”
Evan looked down at the teddy bear, who was starting to get all judgy just sitting in Evan’s lap. “Starfighter.”
“Great, Evan. Do you think she’d be flattered?”
“Hey—you’re the one who said find friends, okay? I found them! I just didn’t expect this other bullshit to complicate it, okay? I would have been perfectly fine gay and whacking off in my room, but Curtis had to send me all those weird-assed signals and—”
“How is Curtis?” If Evan doubted Stottemeyer was all professional—in the good way—the concern in his voice would have cured any doubts.
“He’s cutting himself,” Evan said, depressed. Curtis could hide it from the girls, but Evan had gym with him. He ran into the bathroom stalls to change, but Evan had seen the symmetrical little blood stripes on the sleeves of his T-shirt.
Dr. Stottemeyer sucked air in through his teeth. He usually paced during Evan’s sessions, and now he paced to his desk and came back with a card. Evan took the card and put it in his pocket.
“So I slip this in his backpack?” he supplied, looking at his shrink for guidance.
Stottemeyer shrugged unhappily. “Yeah, sure. Or tell him about me. Or… I don’t know, wrap him in cotton wool and bring him to me so I can fix it and make it all better.”
Evan’s chest hurt, and he had to swallow. “Jesus, Doc, you can barely help me and I come here willingly.”
Stottemeyer sighed and flopped into the couch at Evan’s feet. “Yeah, Evan, but you worry. I worry. Curtis is not in a good place. I mean, you and Ryane, I don’t see that ending well, but Curtis? Just let him know I’ll talk to him, okay?”
Evan patted his arm reassuringly. “Yeah, Doc. I promise.”
Stottemeyer turned his head and smiled warmly. The room was dark because the shadows through the window had gotten long with evening and the lights hadn’t clicked on, but oddly enough, even though Stottemeyer was probably gay and definitely a hottie, Evan didn’t feel romantic. He felt… intimate, but not romantic.
“You’re a good kid,” he said quietly. “You’re a great kid. I have faith, you know? That you’ll sort this stuff out for yourself? But we’ve been talking for a lot of years—I hate to see your friends in pain too.”
Evan sighed. He didn’t like it either.
BUT it couldn’t be denied that there was pain.
The week before Sacanime, Evan and Ry were left alone in her house for three hours. Ryane had condoms and a lock on her door, and by the time her parents got home, Evan and Ry had showered and neither of them were virgins anymore.
They giggled a lot and experimented. “Does this feel good? How about this—ouch! What are you doing with your arm? Okay, lay it like—oooh… that thing, with your tongue, in my… uhm, ladyparts… yeah, nice. Okay, here, let me do the same thing—damn, Ev, that thing’s huge! Think that’ll… ooh, yeah. Like… like… yessss!”
And when it was over, Ry wrapped her arms and legs around Evan and hugged him all over, naked limbs, bare body, all of it meshed together, and his skin drank it in like flowers drank sunshine and Italians drank wine.
He kissed her neck, and her cheeks, her shoulders, because if he was kissing just the bare parts, it was a friendly thing to do, a skin-to-skin thing, and there was no lie in it—it was all joy.
They kissed on the porch before he left, and made plans to meet in the morning. Margot and Jessie were going on their own, but Curtis, Brittany, and Evan were all getting dressed at Ry’s house.
Evan walked home feeling pretty good about himself, about his plan, about life in general. He’d been touched, and he couldn’t think of a single thing wrong with that.
Curtis was waiting for him on his porch.
He was pacing, sweating in the early March chill, and Evan could see blood from his latest cuts seeping through his sweatshirt.
“Did you fuck her?” he asked, his voice high and thready as Evan approached.
Evan shushed him frantically. “Jesus, Curtis—my mother is home! What did I ever do to you?”
Curtis got close to him, and Evan saw his eyes dart, his pupils constricted in the darkness of early evening. He didn’t smell right, and Even felt a solid punch of fear for his friend.
“Nothing,” Curtis whined. “You didn’t do anything to me, and I wanted you… I wanted you to so bad!”
Evan swallowed and reached out to put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Curtis, what happen—”
“Don’t touch me!” Curtis screamed, and Evan backed up hurriedly.
“Okay,” he said, his eyes large. He felt stupid. “Uhm, Curtis, I’ve got someone I want you to call, okay?”
He’d never gotten rid of Stottemeyer’s card—in fact, it had been burning a hole in his brain. In the past weeks, Curtis and Brittany had been all about the hearts and the flowers and the oh-so-American-Musical-Theatre relationship, and Evan had known—known—what Curtis wanted, and what he was afraid of, and the way he’d looked at Evan had just set off every alarm bell under his oh-so-sensitive skin. He fumbled for the pocket of his backpack now and pulled the card out. By now he had more than one.
“Who’s this?” Curtis asked, his voice cracking. “Oh my God, is this a shrink?”
“Yeah, I’ve been seeing him since I was a kid,” Evan told him earnestly. “Curtis… you don’t sound right. You’re… you’re hurting yourself, and you’re on something, and—”
“I’m fine,” Curtis snapped, and for a breath Evan thought he was going to throw the card away. He didn’t, though. He tucked it in his pocket and paced frantically across the porch.
Evan shrank into himself, hating all that activity, hating that anxiousness. He was okay, he was centered, he was content—oh holy fuck, couldn’t people just settle down and let him be?
“You don’t look fine,” Evan muttered, but he didn’t want the confrontation either. He was done with
confrontation. Passive aggression was totally the way to go. He’d set Curtis up with the shrink and walk away.
“Well, I’m pissed. Did you really sleep with her?”
“Did you sleep with Brittany?”
Curtis stopped short and rubbed his stomach uncomfortably. “I… I don’t want to touch Brittany.”
“And you don’t want to touch me,” Evan snapped, bitter. “I get it. You don’t want to touch any of us, so wonderful. Why don’t you not touch us and stay out of my business.”
Curtis had a long, slender neck, and the arch of it as his head dropped to his chest was so vulnerable. Evan had another punch of fear.
“I….” Curtis gulped air. “I’m so confused.” The face he turned to Evan was wrinkled and blotchy and tear-wrecked. “I don’t want to touch anyone. What if I’m bad? What if I’m just like him?”
Evan closed his eyes. “You’re not,” he whispered. “Being gay doesn’t make you like whoever fucked you up like this.”
“I’m not gay!” Curtis screamed, and then he turned and ran. He thundered down the porch and into the silver shadows.
Evan sank down onto the porch, holding his backpack like a teddy bear and shivering. He gave Curtis an hour to come down and then tried calling him at home. And then he tried again.
The next day, Curtis still wasn’t answering, not even when Brittany called him frantically from Ry’s house, begging him to pick up because they were going to have to leave without him.
They did—they left without him, and they did their skit without Praxis, and they won honorable mention for the costume contest. They came off the stage exultant and spent the next three hours running through the vending floor, spending all their allowance, watching the anime music video winners, and trying to track down their favorite artists to sign. The crowds were ferocious for the little hotel, and they got stopped a lot to pose for photos. If it weren’t for Praxis being MIA, they would have been having the time of their lives.
They took turns trying to call him, on his cell phone or at home, to see what had happened. They were beyond the pissed phase and right into worried when finally Evan, who was calling from the men’s bathroom, had someone pick up.