I Will Be Okay

by Bill Elenbark

  “The key to life is this, kid. Only one person in the world knows what’s right for you, and that’s you. No one else gives a shit.” He pours some more wine into his cup and it spills onto the table. “Maybe your parents do but they don’t know shit. I known your father since he was your age and he didn’t know shit then. Still doesn’t. You can take their advice, but they don’t know you. That’s on you.”

  I don’t know what to say so I just stare, and he glares at me but I’m too afraid to speak. He sets down the jug and lifts himself from the chair. I pick up my phone.

  “Like I said,” he says, shaking his head and limping away. “Useless.”

  The messages are jumbled between multiple responses—Stick and Cara then Kepler and Cara then Stick and Cara looking for me. Willie straightens his back and moves for the stairs. I start to type.

  Sorry. Family party. Cornered by my uncle. What did we decide?

  “Are you okay, Matt?” Mom says, stealthy approach and lower voice than I thought she was capable, standing near me in front of the window. “What was Willie talking to you about?”

  She reaches out to touch my elbow, and I recoil at the touch.

  “You know, I’m still your mother,” she says. “I never said anything about what I saw and I said we don’t need to talk about it until you’re ready so you really need to cut this silent treatment because it’s getting tired. Real tired.”

  I can smell the garlic on her breath, or the onions, the Spanish cooking seeping out of her pores as she speaks. I don’t respond.

  “Mateo Luis?” She touches me again and I pull away, shooting back my best impersonation of Willie’s glare, all this mothering is more like smothering since she discovered Stick and me. It’s not helping. “You’re being incredibly rude to me right now.”

  “Cannonball!” Dad shouts as he dives into the pool, splashing water onto the concrete. I look up at Mom but she’s distracted by the screams. I just want her to leave me alone. Why doesn’t she understand?

  We’re meeting them at the concert, Stick says. I can’t wait.

  Mom’s still hovering and I’m not sure when it began, my need to keep secrets from her. It’s not just Stick. It’s everything.

  Can you believe we’re seeing The World is next weekend. Holy shit!

  I check the text and I was right, Stick sent the message just to me.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, not because I mean it but because I want her to leave. And I am being mean. “Would a garbage bag really work?”

  Her face brightens and she pulls back from the window. “Yeah, I think so,” she says. “Let me see where your grandfather keeps them.” She taps me on the elbow and I’m back at my phone, texting one-handed as fast as I can.

  The world is a beautiful place but we have to make it that way, I say, quoting the lyrics to our favorite song. To Stick. Then I wait, as long as it takes. He replies with the last line of the track.

  And if you’re afraid to die, then so am I.

  EIGHTEEN

  “WE’RE AT THE TRAIN STATION,” Stick says, jamming the phone into his ear to shield the sound of his mother’s voice. “I don’t know, late.”

  Stick’s mother is fighting for custody so his sisters would have to go to court to contest it, which is super expensive and maybe not worth the effort because his mom is likely to win. Especially, now that she’s moving in.

  “Mom, Mom, just stop! Jesus Christ stop talking.”

  This is the last weekend of summer and my last weekend of freedom, like for the rest of my life maybe—Mr. Burton got back to me about the job and I’m already assigned to work next Saturday, which sucks, it totally sucks, I won’t be able to see Stick as much so this is it, my last chance to convince him about us.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake, don’t even start with the ‘Lord’s name in vain’ crap. Is God cool with you cheating on Dad?”

  He hasn’t mentioned Staci but he was quiet the entire bike ride to the station and he’s been on the phone since we arrived. I need him get off the phone and be with me. It’s been so long it’s killing me.

  “No. I’m not sorry. Were you sorry?”

  The train was leaving the station as we sprinted up the stairs, clattering along the tracks away from us. We’re alone on the empty platform and the wind sinks into my clothes.

  “I’m not having this discussion. I told you how I feel. It’s how all of us feel.”

  Stick is wearing his World Is T-shirt, the one with the black-and-white trees on the front, and I’m wearing the fat black-and-white cat with the ink fading and the edges frayed and I thought it might be lame to show up dressed in their shirts but Stick says it’s fine. You’re supposed to even.

  “No, what I’m saying is if you take Sherry and Aileen to court, me and Michaela will stand before a judge and say you’re an unfit mother. Is that what you want?”

  Stick balances the phone on his shoulder and pours a long pour of rum into his energy drink, some into mine. He swiped the bottle from his brothers and said he wished he took another. He plans on getting wasted tonight.

  “No, I won’t be at the house tonight. I’m staying at a friend’s.” He nods at me and I’m not sure if he means it, if he’s lying just to avoid her or he really plans to spend the night with me. Unless he means Staci?

  “Now all of a sudden you give a crap what I’m doing?”

  Stick’s eyes are watering under an open-backed baseball cap, black with “NY” in blue letters on the edge. He doesn’t wear hats so he must have known about the wind, kicking up all of a sudden like a hurricane is forming. My hair’s a ratty trap of tangled curls, and the clouds thunder in the distance.

  “Fine, Mom, whatever. You’re right. You’re always right.”

  The heat wave has broken so it’s cold on the platform with the sun hidden by clouds. I already know Dad’s going to make me set up the tent for Labor Day.

  “It doesn’t matter, I don’t care,” Stick says, clicking off the phone mid-sentence—I can hear his mother screaming—and he takes a deep drink from the tall metal can, wincing as he swallows. I’m still holding mine.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “You shouldn’t have had to hear all that.”

  “It’s alright. What was she saying?”

  “She wants me to come home after the concert. She didn’t give a crap about me for the last two years but now all of a sudden she can tell me what to do.”

  He rips open a pastry we grabbed at Quick Chek and texts someone who isn’t me.

  “That sucks, man,” I say. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I just can’t deal with her at the house right now—especially with her boyfriend there.” He chokes down the snack with a pull on his drink. “I don’t want to go home.”

  “You could stay over,” I say but I want to take it back as soon as I speak. “Like sleep on the couch or whatever, you know, just so you don’t have to be home.”

  He turns a bit with the wind in his eyes. I don’t know what he’s thinking.

  “Yeah,” he says and I don’t know what it means but it’s all I get and I have to be okay with it. All of it. We can’t start the summer again—before his father died and his mother moved in and my mother caught us touching in the basement. It seems like forever ago.

  “Hey, so I have something to show you.”

  He reaches into his jeans and pulls out a baggie filled with blue and white pills.

  “What is that?”

  “Adderrall,” Stick says, lowering his voice even though we’re the only ones on this side of the station. “Jarrett left them behind by mistake and he’s getting a new prescription sent to school so he said I could have them. I heard they get you high.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, I mean, it’s not anything amazing but it helps get you up, or pumped, almost like Molly but not as out of control as that. David and Marcus snorted it one time and got super high but I’m not doing that.”

  “No,” I say. Stick never drank as much as he’s been
and now he’s got drugs that get you higher than we’ve been. I don’t know what it means.

  “You want to try?” he says, eyeing the pills through the baggie. I shake my head because I don’t really want to, I liked when we stuck to the glue.

  “Yeah. Maybe we’ll see how the show goes,” he says and sneaks them back into his jeans. His phone rings but he clicks off the ringer when he sees that it’s his mother.

  “When are we meeting them?”

  “7:30. There should be another train soon,” I say.

  Stick throws down the rest of his drink and skips the can across the tracks. “So what’s going on with this Cara chick anyway? You think she’s into you?”

  “Noooooo.” I flex the fingers under my wrist, beneath the weight of the cast. “She’s a senior, isn’t she?”

  “I think so. I mean—” A few other passengers step up the stairs on the other end of the platform. “Would you ever consider dating a girl?”

  “No.” I don’t hesitate, even though it’s something I never said out loud before, or even really thought about, but I tried it one time and I wasn’t buying so I’m pretty much settled on liking boys exclusively. I want him to know. “I don’t like girls like that.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “Okay.” He pulls the cap down, shielding his face from the light, but there isn’t much light and his empty can is rattling around the tracks. His phone beeps with a text.

  “Is that Staci?”

  “No, it’s Sherry.”

  I can hear the train approaching but I don’t want it to come. I don’t even want to see the band anymore, I just want to talk to him. I sip at my drink and shake my head from the aftertaste.

  “What did she say?”

  “Nothing, I was just bitching about Mom and she’s not really listening. She doesn’t think they’ll win custody.”

  He sneaks the rum from his pocket and takes a drink straight from the bottle. I force a longer gulp down my throat. I don’t want to wait.

  “Are you and Staci dating?”

  He looks over and he doesn’t flinch, his hands tucked into his shorts and blinking. My mind’s in thirty-eight places and the alcohol isn’t helping.

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” His face starts to break and I start to break. He tilts his head toward the train down the tracks.

  “How do you not know?”

  “It’s complicated.” His face is tucked low beneath his cap and the wind is blowing curls into my face. “I shouldn’t have let you see us together. I didn’t want you to see that.”

  “Yeah, well I did,” I say. I can’t let it go. The train roars into the station but on the other side, on the way to New York. “I like you, Stick, and I thought you liked me, too, but if you’re back with Staci I don’t know what that means.”

  Stick watches as the passengers on the platform board the train before the doors close and the train lurches forward.

  “I’m sorry, Matt,” Stick says. “I don’t know what it means either.”

  “Really?” I say.

  I wait for him to speak but he doesn’t speak, his head still low. The rain begins to fall in blustery gusts, slamming against our skin then stopping for an instant before starting again. The other passengers rush under cover. We just wait.

  “I wanted to try, Matt, I wanted to try this. But it’s not going to work. You know that, right?”

  “Why?” My can is half full, but I suck up the rest in a single gulp and toss the can across the tracks like Stick did.

  “It’s too big a secret to keep hidden—it’s just not possible. Your mom walked in on us on our first date, for fuck’s sake.” He’s louder now but the platform is empty and there’s all this noise from the wind and the rain. “And you said we could go back to being friends. You said you were fine with us being friends.”

  “Yeah I know,” I say, jumping on his words. “But that hasn’t happened. You stopped texting like you used to and we don’t hang out anymore. That’s not back to being friends.”

  He opens his mouth like he wants to fight back, but he doesn’t say anything. Another train lumbers toward the station on our side.

  “You’re right,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

  The rain picks up again and I shield the cast beneath my shirt to keep it from getting soaked.

  “You are?” I say. I need to know.

  “Of course, Matt. I am. I’m just freaked out, you know, I don’t even know where I’m going to live next week let alone this school year and what happened with your mom really freaked me out and I’m sorry I reacted like that but I did.” The train slams to a stop in front of us. “I just, I could really use a friend right now, that’s it.”

  The doors slide open and Stick steps inside from the rain, but he sees I’m not following so he reaches out and pulls me by the elbow. We stumble up the stairs and I stumble on top of him, my butt in his lap in a seat on the aisle.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, pushing off.

  “It’s okay.” He laughs. It’s so strange that he laughs. “Matt?”

  “Yeah?”

  He reaches out and wraps his arm around my shoulder to pull me closer.

  “I’ve been a horrible friend and it’s not even fair to ask you for this, but I want to go back to being friends again. If you can.” He hesitates. “I miss you.”

  The engine kicks up before the brakes reset and we surge forward, or sideways, and Stick falls against me—again against me, turning to face me like he’s about to kiss me. More perfect than perfect.

  “Friends?” he says, inching away.

  The train winds up to speed and Stick slides over on the seat.

  “Okay,” I say. I don’t have anything left to say.

  I will be okay. Somehow. Everything.

  NINETEEN

  THE WONDER BAR is named for the horseshoe-shaped counter that fills the room at the entrance, long and imposing and shrouded in mirrors, crowded with people queuing up to order drinks we can’t drink since we’re underage. The guy scanning our tickets said the opening act would be on any minute so we’re in a rush to find Cara and Kepler—already inside but in some separate space outside past the stage and we can’t quite figure out how to get there. We walk straight for the mirrored walls circling the bar and I nearly smash through the glass before Stick stops me and laughs, we both laugh, it’s back to normal between us. Sort of.

  “Drinks?” Stick says, pointing at the collection of taps behind the counter. We finished the liquor on the train—well Stick did mostly, but I can feel the buzz setting in.

  “Funny,” I say.

  “I’m serious. Maybe they don’t card.”

  The rain stopped and the sun returned on the walk from the station so my shirt is dry even if my jeans are wet. The opening act is setting up on the stage, tuning guitars and performing mic checks over the sound system.

  “Twenty-one to stand at the bar, boys,” the bartender tells us.

  “What?” Stick shouts, like he can’t hear.

  “Away, away,” she waves, her head half-shaved and severe as her grimace, shrouded in purple lips.

  “Come on, hook us up on the DL,” Stick says, sliding a twenty across the counter. She closes her eyes for an extended second before spinning to another customer, further down the horseshoe.

  “Shit,” Stick says. “What a bitch.”

  “Excuse me?”

  She wheels back and waves for security and I grab Stick by his shirt, yanking him away from the mirrors around the bar and then we’re fast-walking past a bouncer suddenly looming, so we crouch low against the metal barrier separating the bar from the club, pushing through the crowd until we find an opening to outside, under the covered patio, laughing. It’s more crowded outside than inside and there’s a DJ playing beneath a big-ass tent. Like the Puerto Ricans took over.

  “Mateo!” Cara sneaks over and smacks my chest before I can even react. She might be a ninja. Kepler comes up next to her, his hair shorter and pinker than last time, beneath the lights da
ngling from the tent.

  “Hey Cara,” Stick says. I glance behind us for the security guard.

  “Hey Stick,” she says, her hair sprouting bangs now on her forehead, the red streak on the side less purple than before. “And you are?”

  She’s looking at me with that smug smile—or the opposite of a smile, I guess. She’s wearing a plunging blue tank with a silver necklace.

  “Hey Cara.” I reach out to shake her hand. She does not reciprocate.

  “So why are you boys all furtive and sweaty?” Kepler says.

  “What?” Stick says.

  “Furtive. You know, to ‘furt’,” Kepler says and Cara laughs, then they’re both cracking up over what I guess was a joke, but I don’t get it.

  “We pissed off a bartender,” Stick says.

  “How?” Kepler says.

  “I may have cursed at her for refusing to serve us,” Stick says and I take a ‘furtive’ glance around the perimeter, but I don’t see any bouncers.

  “Yeah. No,” Kepler says. “There’s no way you’re getting drinks here. You’re what, sixteen?”

  “Fifteen,” Stick says.

  “Of course,” Kepler says, taking a sip from his cup.

  “How’s your arm doing?” Cara says to me. “Any word from the doctor?”

  “No. I haven’t been back yet. Supposed to go next week for an X-ray.”

  “Well it should come off soon.” She reaches out to examine the cast. “It looks good.”

  “Thanks,” I say, it’s a weird thing to say but I’m not so good in these situations—hanging out with girls who are maybe into me, or guys with pink hair that are totally gay. A roar springs from inside, the opening act coming onto the stage.

  “You guys psyched about The World Is?” Kepler says. He’s got long sideburns that extend into a thin beard around his chin, light brown not pink, and I think Cara said he’s in college.

  “Oh my god, yes,” Stick says. “I am going to lose my shit. We’ve been dying to see them forever.”