by Daryl Banner
Maybe I’m as much of a pussy as Brant. Or just as much of a dick as Clayton. Or just as much of a wishy-washy homo as Eric.
Maybe I have no right to resent any of them.
When the act ends and the lights come up for an intermission, my phone buzzes with a text message. I glance down at it.
CLAYTON
Is Brant still being weird?
I smirk, then twist around in my seat to catch a glimpse through the glass of the light booth, but all that meets my eyes is the glow of faceless computer lighting up there.
I decide to honor Brant’s wish and fib up a little white, sugary lie for Clayton. I tap my response:
DMITRI
It isn’t too bad.
You know him.
I think he’s bowling.
Hey, you do realize
I’m in the audience tonight,
right?
CLAYTON
Yeah, of course.
Hope you liked act one.
There’s two more.
Get ready for some #feels
I smirk. This is so typical of them. Brant ignores what’s happening and slaps a bunch of bandages over the real issue. Meanwhile, Clayton remains so hyper-focused on the play that he pretends he isn’t bothered by staring at Dessie, his girl, onstage right in front of him.
My jaw set, I mash out another message:
DMITRI
You should talk to her
after the show.
I stare at my phone after hitting send, but I don’t get a response back. I shrug and let out a long, deep sigh from my lips. I’ve done all I can do. If Clayton wants to keep ignoring what’s going on, that’s between him and the gods of love and the gods of best friends. I’m convinced lately that they’re the same damn gods.
Figuring I have at least ten more minutes of intermission, I get up to suck in some fresh air. I feel like I’m going to suffocate in this crowd full of laughter and chatter and stuffy voices.
The lobby can’t find me fast enough. But I can’t tell if the lobby is better or worse. Still unable to catch a breath, I make my way over to the glass doors.
When the cool outdoor air rushes over my skin and I take my first deep breath, I feel great and incomparable relief.
Fresh, beautiful, tasty air.
Staring at the starry sky, I honestly consider not returning to my seat. Will Clayton know if I stayed for the whole show? Will Eric? Will either of them even give two shits? I’ve read the play for a lit class last semester; I know how it ends. Among the plays we read, True West was another of them—a sweet, totally-not-volatile play about brotherly love. Taste my sarcasm. Suddenly everything about that play feels incredibly relevant, considering how Clayton and Brant almost killed each other when I wasn’t there. Sometimes I feel more like their mother than their roommate, mediating between them in the aftermath of their fights. Were they like this with their past roommate, whoever he or she was?
I collapse into a nearby bench, thankful it’s there to catch my ass.
That’s when the doors open and that hot girl with the short hair steps out into the night. She’s without her guy, which I find an odd relief. She’s wearing a green dress with a modest slit up the side and tennis shoes.
Tennis shoes. I can’t help but smile. Odd and quirky fashion makes me intrigued. It’s adorable, even.
She looks my way, appearing quite frustrated.
I squint, staring at her face. There’s something …
She meets my eyes. They flash.
My jaw drops when realization crashes over me like high tide.
“Sam?” I blurt out.
She’s completely frozen in place. Somehow, I’ve frozen Sam to the spot. She doesn’t even appear to be breathing. In one instant, Sam has become a very convincing, lifelike mannequin in a store modeling a pretty green dress.
I rise from my bench and approach her. She still doesn’t move with the exception of her eyes which follow me—her deep, pretty hazel eyes.
I’m standing right in front of her for the first time since the end of last spring. So much time has passed.
And she’s a new person.
I can’t close my mouth.
“H-Hi,” she finally says, though it’s in half a voice, a whisper, a light feather in the cool night breeze.
“Hey.” My voice matches hers in softness. I keep my eyes connected to hers, despite my strong desire to glance down at the amazing thing that tight green dress is doing to her cleavage.
“Enjoying the show?” she asks me.
“Yeah. My friend’s in it. You?”
“Mmm-hmm. My roommate’s in it. Who’s your friend?”
“Eric,” I get out, the name tasting sour. “Who’s your roommate?”
“Dessie.”
My eyes widen. It’s funny that my first thought is: There’s two Dessies in this show? I stare at Sam for the longest time, questioning whether I heard her right. Maybe she said another name. Maybe I misheard her.
“Dessie,” she repeats. “The lead. The one playing Emily.”
“Y-Your roommate is Dessie? Dessie Lebeau? Are you serious?”
Her face wrinkles. She looks so cute when she’s working something out with that brilliant mind of hers. “Well, I did say it, so I must’ve meant it. Why?”
“My roommate is Clayton.”
Now it’s her turn to lift her eyebrows in surprise. “Dessie’s—?”
“Yep.”
Her mouth forms an O. She shakes her head. “How did I not—?”
“I don’t spend a lot of time around Dessie,” I explain.
“I’ve never met her friends. Or him. At least, not face-to-face.” Her eyes drift down to my forearm where she tilts her head. “You got ink.”
“Oh. Yeah. This is new to you, huh?” I twist my forearm to give her a better look. “Red and blue serpents. They’re—”
“Ooh, like fire and water,” she murmurs thoughtfully.
I blink. I’ve never not had to explain my tattoo to anyone. It always felt like this with Sam, like we shared the same brain, like we ride the same creative frequency. It’s so refreshing, being near her again. “Yeah. Something like that.” I give her a nod. “You … changed your hair.”
She sucks in her lips, turning bashful in an instant.
“I like it,” I add quickly. “I really, really like it. And your glasses …?”
“Dessie kind of went all makeover on me.”
I give her an appraising nod and a smile. “Well, I thought you were pretty before.”
The bashfulness disappears from her face quite suddenly. Her eyes turn indignant in the space of seconds as she furrows her brow.
I’m thrown by the sudden storm happening on her face. “Did … Did I say something wrong?”
“You pick now to tell me that.”
“What?”
“Now you want to tell me how … how pretty you think I am.”
“I said I thought you were pretty before. Because you were. And are. I just meant—”
“Well, I’m here with someone,” she says suddenly, folding her arms and biting her lip. “He’s …” She speaks with the corner of her lip bitten, her words coming out around her teeth. “He’s a musician. Like me.”
“Oh. Right.” That boring plank of wood I saw earlier, the person she’s here with. Fuck. “Is he your boyfriend?”
Her folded arms turn into a self-hug as she tightens her grip on her own torso. After a pinch of hesitation, she answers, “W-Well, not really. Not at all, actually.”
“Not at all?”
“I mean, he could be,” she says with a defiant lift of her chin. “What does it matter to you anymore? You missed your chance to … to be with all of … this,” she says, sweeping a hand down her body demonstratively. “Now that I’m all, like, hot and stuff.” Then she adds under her breath: “Thanks to Dessie’s credit card …”
I’ve missed her sense of humor. Quite suddenly, I’m having a very, very hard time keeping my ha
nds away from her.
“Sam …”
“Intermission’s about over,” she decides to announce.
We’re alone out here in the cool night air. The whole lobby is walled with glass, but it’s so bright in there and so dark out here, I doubt anyone can see a thing.
I step toward her. “I’m sensing another chance.”
She doesn’t move an inch away from me. She stands her ground, her arms folding tightly under her boobs, which seems to lift them at me even more enticingly. It’s becoming a dare. Touch them, Dmitri. Reach out and make me feel like a woman. That’s what Sam’s saying, I’m sure of it. And if her tightened breaths and frustrated face is any indication …
“Ship has sailed,” she whispers, not even able to speak anymore.
“You’re so sexy, Sam.”
Her eyes melt, staring into mine. I’ve shattered her defenses with those words.
But I have more. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you. It’s been driving me crazy. Your hands …”
“Don’t you dare think about kissing me,” Sam whispers.
“I want to so badly.”
“Don’t.”
“Please, Sam. Fuck. I’m dying here.”
Then she jerks forward and, her arms still squeezing her body tight, her lips connect with mine in one furious, slippery instant.
I wrap my arms around her, pulling her against me as our mouths open onto one another.
All I hear is her breath and the night breeze in my ears.
She smells and tastes so good. Every part of her that my hands grip is a treasure.
My fingers rush up her back and tangle in her short hair. I grip it tightly, inspiring a groan of pleasure from her as I direct her face onto mine. My mouth twists and turns with every pucker, with every smack, with every opening and closing of her perfect, wet lips.
I’m so hard, it feels like every time I flex my cock, I could literally bust my pants open Hulk-style.
“Oh God, Dmitri,” she moans against my mouth.
At the sound of activity at the glass doors, she pulls away from me so fast, I nearly lose my balance and fall forward. I catch her shocked gaze as she spins to face the person who’s come to join us outside.
It’s the guy she came with. He stands there staring at us. There is a total lack of expression on his face. I have no idea what he saw, if he saw anything at all.
“Tomas,” she murmurs quietly.
“Intermission is over,” he says back, his voice lofty and faraway.
Sam swallows. “Oh.”
I’m trying not to appear like I’m still catching my breath. I might have a boner showing in my pants that I’m not even trying to conceal. I’m too stunned by the headlights of this interruption to check.
Sam flattens out her dress, then asks, “Have they shut the doors?”
“About to,” he says. “But, um …”
“Yeah?” she prompts him, taking a few steps toward him.
Those few steps send a chill of coldness through me. I shouldn’t feel rejected, but I do. He’s not really her boyfriend, right? Isn’t that what Sam implied? Can’t she just ditch him and spend the rest of the night with me? There’s nothing there between them. I can see that as plain as I see her beauty, which I doubt he even appreciates.
But maybe I never appreciated it either.
“I’m not feeling that well,” Tomas says suddenly. “I think I’m gonna call it a night.”
She swallows again. She’s having a hard time concealing her guilt, which is all over her face. I see it. You have nothing to be guilty about, Sam.
“Tomas. I …”
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says, then walks away without another word, the program half-crinkled in his too tight grip as he vanishes into the night.
Sam stares after him, her lips parted with unspoken words.
I take a step toward her. “Sam?”
With a sudden rush of anger, she spins on me. “Why did you have to go and do that, Dmitri?”
I flash my eyes open. “Wait. You’re the one who kissed me!”
“You just turn up here out of nowhere,” she says, speaking to my chest because I guess she can’t look me in the eye, “and you put your lips on me, and you put your hands on me, and you think you can just take over my life again?”
“I’m not trying to … ‘take over’ anything. I like you, Sam.”
“It doesn’t matter that he wasn’t my boyfriend. He could’ve been. Maybe I need a musician in my life, someone who knows music and who knows me … instead of a poet. You’re just all … fake pretty words and empty dreams.”
“Wait. Take over your life again?” I lift an eyebrow. “You mean … I took it over before? Have you been thinking about me?”
“No. Not a single thought. Not every day. Not every time I try to sleep and dream about somebody else. That’s ridiculous. I have other things to … worry about.”
She folds her arms again, her boobs pushed up invitingly. That’s where all the trouble began—somewhere between her body and my stiffening cock and our drumming hearts.
“I’ve been thinking about you, too,” I tell her.
Her eyes are stinging with resentment. I don’t want her to look at me that way. How can I make this right when I’m not completely sure what I did wrong?
“I’m going back in to watch the rest of the play,” she says. “I’m here for Dessie, after all.”
“I can come in with you. Sit with you. We can … We can just behave and support our respective friends. I won’t do anything with you if you don’t want. I just—”
“I think we should do our … respective friends … a favor. I think we should pretend none of this happened,” she tells me. “To them, we do not know each other. We just met today. Samantha and Dmitri never wrote poetry together, nor did they kiss outside the theater on Dessie’s opening night. It’s our secret that never happened.”
“Sam, c’mon …”
“It’s our secret that never happened,” she repeats. “And you’re welcome to stay or to go. It doesn’t matter either way. We are strangers, you and I. I’m a totally new person to you anyway, aren’t I? Look at me. I don’t even look the same.”
“You’re the same to me. I know you, no matter how short you cut that hair or what pretty dress you put on,” I assert, determined to win her over. “You can’t hide from me.”
“The New Sam,” she says quietly, “is going inside to watch the rest of the play.”
“The New Dmitri is going to sit next to her.”
We reenter the theater and approach the auditorium doors, only to find the ushers blocking the way. “I’m sorry, but the second act began four minutes ago,” the tall one with brown messy hair and freckles explains. “You can come back another night or hang here in the lobby until the third act, but I’m afraid that’s all we can offer.”
And so that’s how Sam and I end up sitting on a bench in the lobby next to each other in a perfect, tension-filled, wordless stupor. Ten minutes goes by. Then twenty. Then thirty. I’m clinging to the edge of the bench with white knuckles. Sam is hugging herself and staring at the floor, lost in thoughts.
I watch her for a long while, unsure if saying anything will worsen the situation or make her even more angry with me. Is she even angry? Is she excited? Does she just need a little time to compromise the utter lack of contact we’ve had since last spring? It feels like ages ago when we were talking over a table in the library and laughing at the poems we dug out of old tombs.
“Wanna know how the play ends?” I ask her, finally breaking the piercing silence of the lobby.
“Not really.”
I kick at the lobby carpet and chew on my lip for a moment. Then I turn to her again. “I read the play before. Last year. The end is sort of a bittersweet thing.”
“Isn’t everything?”
I watch the side of her face for a moment. “You know, you’re one of the coolest people I know. Even if we haven’t really … be
en friends.”
She doesn’t reply, but I can tell she’s listening. Her eyes sparkle with caution, like she’s equally excited and afraid of whatever I want to say.
“Maybe that’s the issue,” I ponder aloud. “Maybe that’s … why you don’t trust me. Because we never really learned how to be friends to each other. We were just partners on a class project, and then things got really confusing really fast.”
“I was kind of childish, blowing up about that poem.”
The sudden sound of her speaking cracks all the ice off of my spine. I slouch with relief and find myself breathing again. “I wouldn’t say you were childish, really …”
“I was.” She shrugs. “I just wanted that poem to be about me so badly. I built up this whole love story in my head, and when it didn’t pan out the way I wanted, I threw a tantrum.”
“A tantrum that resulted in a kiss by the fountain.”
She sucks in her bottom lip and turns away slightly. I know she’s thinking about the kiss just as potently as I am right now. We could reenact that scene right here in this lobby if we wanted.
“Maybe you’re right,” she says. “About how we never learned how to be friends.” Sam turns to me. “We should start there.”
I blink, confused for a moment. “Start where?”
“As friends.” She folds her hands in her lap. “Your roommate is going out with my roommate. It’s only a matter of time before we start getting pushed into each other’s social circles. We need to learn how to be friends.”
I don’t want to be your friend. I want to be your lover. The frustration I’ve cultivated over the months is growing heavy in my chest, but even still, I fight it for the sake of not saying the wrong thing and screwing this all up. I want Sam to respect me, and I want her to follow her heart, even if it leads me straight into the fire.