“No wonder these bitches won’t talk to me,” he says. “Bunch of lesbians.”
Kepler’s friend Teddy lives here, or that’s the story he told us outside the Wonder Bar, out with the crowd on the street too hyped from the night to go home.
Stick followed Kepler and Cara up to the rooftop and they better be taking care of him while I’m stuck in the longest line in history for the only bathroom in Teddy’s apartment. Apparently.
“Not that I mean to offend—I mean some of my best friends are gay but Jesus Christ, the chicks at this party won’t even acknowledge you.” He attempts another sip but the liquid dribbles onto his shirt. “Like make eye contact, bitch. You know what I’m saying?”
I have no idea what he’s saying but he won’t let go of my neck and he’s speaking so loud that the girls in the bathroom must hear him. I shift my weight between my feet to keep the pee from running down my jeans.
“But you got to be ‘politically correct’,” he says, releasing his grip for the air quotes, spilling more beer on the tiles in the hallway. “I mean, excuse me for liking women because this is America, you know, and I’ll be the one who’s ostrich-sized”—I think he’s trying to say ‘ostracized’ but he doesn’t quite manage and plows forward without hesitation—“because I mean fuck, you can’t even leave your house anymore without running into gay dudes and Muslims and people speaking Spanish right in front of you like it isn’t America anymore.”
The bathroom door opens and I don’t wait, I slip in between the two girls—sorry, women!—and close the door behind me. Locking it. I count to thirty-eight at least three times before I finish peeing, and I linger by the mirror long enough to check my face and my hair, a curly mess but I don’t have time to fix it, I need to find Stick. And I’m afraid Gigantaur will break down the door if I take any longer. He’s gone when I leave the room.
“Matty!” Stick shouts as I push through the heavy door onto the roof. He has a wide-eyed grin plastered on his face, out on the ledge with Kepler and Cara, the party up here more crowded than downstairs. Stick grabs hold of me.
“I thought we lost you,” he says. He’s leaning against a ledge at the edge of the building, five stories from the ground. “Where were you?”
“Bathroom. Gigantic racist dude almost broke my shoulder. Where are we?”
Stick laughs and shakes his head, straight but not sober. “No clue. All I see is colors.”
Kepler and Cara are talking to an older guy with a thin beard and short enough hair that you can almost make out the scalp. Music is blaring from portable speakers and I spy a row of dudes spread out in folding chairs on the asphalt with strings of Christmas lights above their heads and a fire pit at the center—a real-live fire pit shooting out flames in the middle of August. Stick puts his arm around my back, pulling me closer. I lift up a little to pull him off the ledge.
“Are you wasted?” Stick says, super loud over the music. “Why aren’t you wasted?”
“Oh. Yeah, umm… I didn’t swallow the pills.”
“What?” Stick’s eyes won’t focus.
“I thought one of us should be sober.”
His hat is off, I’m not sure when or where he left it but what’s left is a disheveled mess tangled from the wind. His eyes make their staggering way up and down my body.
“You know Matt Tirado,” he says. “Holy shit that rhymes but—wait I—” He looks at me again and rubs my head, back and forth hard and soft, all at once with his fingers. “You always take care of me.”
“Yes,” I say. “Always.”
I mean it.
“Come over here, Matt,” Kepler calls, waving me closer to their group. “Come meet Teddy, it’s his condo.”
“And my rooftop,” Teddy says with a weird fleshy grin. They’re sitting on the bricks around the chimney, a little further from the edge. “Not officially but none of the other owners complain about our parties. As long as they’re invited.”
He winks at me and I look around at the crowd of dudes on the roof—like seriously, Cara’s the only female up here and they all have perfect hair and perfect teeth and enough pastel polos to fill an H&M catalog. Teddy shakes my hand and returns it to Kepler’s leg.
“So how was the concert?” Teddy says.
“It was soooooo fucking good,” Stick says, stumbling over to us. I grab hold before he falls.
“I told you. You should have come,” Kepler says.
“You know I don’t care for all that indie music,” Teddy says, in this odd formal way. “All the bands you like are so obscure.”
“Not obscure to us,” Kepler says. “Right, Matt?”
“Umm … yeah,” I say, nudging into Stick to make sure he’s still awake. He must be wasted not to be freaking. I think every guy up here is gay.
“Oh honey,” Teddy says, reaching out to touch my cast. “Where did you find these children?”
“It’s a long story,” Cara says, and she steps over to help me keep Stick upright. The music gets louder and two of the guys by the fire pit start dancing with each other. Cara pulls open a beach chair for Stick to sit.
“What is he on?” she asks me.
“Huh?”
“What is he on tonight—E?”
I shake my head and I think I need to piss again, or maybe I’m just itching to get Stick alone again, at this party filled with guys touching and dancing, my ragged jeans pressed against my skin.
“What is it then?”
Stick’s eyes are alternating between open and closed and his legs are twitching.
“He took some Adderall I think.”
“Shit. Addy?”
“I think,” I repeat. I don’t want to betray him, but I am getting nervous that he took too much and she’s practically a nurse, she might know something.
“Idiot,” Cara says. She forces some water into his mouth.
“He only took two,” I say but Cara ignores me, she’s too annoyed to respond. It’s dangerous I guess and now I’m worried about Stick, but I can’t help but glance at the thirty-eight men now grinding around the fire pit.
“He might be crashing,” she says. “We should get him some food.” She holds his head back and force-feeds him more water. “Help me.”
I try to help but the grip with my wrist is useless and there’s two shirtless dudes making out right next to us. My phone keeps buzzing—like for fuck’s sake Mom, stop calling!—and I wish I could escape down the stairs with Stick.
“I’ll go grab something,” Cara says, leaving me holding him up in the chair, his eyes open but vacant. I kneel down on the black tar surface and keep hold around his waist.
“So how long you two been dating?” Teddy says, out loud. He just says it. Out loud. I look to Kepler and he shakes his head.
“Friends with benefits?” Teddy says in that strange formal way. He has a smatter of eyeliner beneath his eyes. Kepler elbows him.
“Stop,” Kepler says. “They’re in high school.”
“Oh, right,” Teddy says. “I need to behave.” He grabs Kepler’s crotch and laughs out loud.
“I said ‘stop’,” Kepler says, kind of harsh, and the two shirtless dudes grinding nearby might actually have sex right here on the roof.
“I’m just playing, honey,” Teddy says and kisses Kepler on the cheek but Kepler’s looking at me, mouthing the words “you okay?”
I nod and check on Stick, his head bouncing to the music now, and my phone must be dead because it finally stopped buzzing and I don’t know how to get Stick home tonight.
“You been to Asbury before?” Teddy says to me.
“Yeah, last weekend,” I say, maybe to impress him. Stick’s eyes are open, but I don’t think he’s listening.
“Oh yeah where at?” Kepler says.
“Just the beach.”
“Cool, cool,” Teddy says. Someone shouts when the next song comes on—it’s like that old Madonna song that everyone knows, so now the whole crowd is dancing, jumping up and down on the stic
ky tar surface, and I might be the only one at this party who’s actually sober. I spot the guys from the bathroom earlier over in the corner, lips locked and shirts off. I wish I wasn’t sober.
“There’s my buddy!” Gigantaur slaps me on the back and the shock knocks me over. “I brought you a beer.”
The sting sinks down my neck, all the way through to the cast. Kepler and Teddy are making up, or making out, and I try to shake the pain away.
“Is he all right?” Gigantaur says. “He doesn’t look so hot.”
Stick is wavering, shaking back and forth in the chair.
“Are you okay?” I say and Stick finds my eyes.
“I think I’m going to vomit.”
He says it with a whisper, or a failed attempt at a whisper, but Teddy jumps out of his seat.
“Bathroom!” he shouts.
Stick slumps forward and Kepler and Teddy get him up from the chair, carrying him arm in arm off the roof to the stairs. I follow close behind, down the heavy steps, and Stick isn’t puking yet, but I can hear him moaning, this desperate wailing, everyone rushing to keep the vomit in check as they race for the bathroom. Gigantaur’s behind me, shouting about the “whores” at the party, and he grabs me by the shirt, pulling me back to him, but I kick him in the shin with enough force to break free, sprinting down the hall through the door just in time to see Stick’s head drop over the bowl.
He’s spewing his guts in massive thrusts, this quick steady stream kind of clear not green, and my stomach lurches as the chunks hit the water. I jerk back and spin to the sink, two beats from hurling on my own. Kepler grabs me by the waist, and I steady myself, lifting my damaged wrist to keep a grip on the counter, the other hand to my mouth, to keep it all in.
Stick drops to the floor, crumpled over the mat but he isn’t vomiting anymore, he’s only wheezing. Teddy pats his back and pushes a towel across the tiles, wiping up the splattered remains that missed the bowl. I hear Gigantaur outside the bathroom, stumbling closer and screaming out my name—or “LITTLE MAN!” but the whole world is spinning now and I need to escape, so I push past Kepler into the hall.
Gigantaur’s distracted by a pair of women, so I slip along the hallway in the opposite direction, into a darkened bedroom. I close the door and wait in the dark, breathing deep in the dark, the digits of an alarm clock the only light in the room. The urge to heave begins to fade.
It’s cold in the room and I stumble over to the bed, its wrinkled covers soft and forgiving. I let my eyes close for a second.
Maybe longer.
TWENTY-TWO
I DON’T REMEMBER falling asleep and I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep but when I open my eyes it feels like another time and Stick is next to me, under the covers.
“I have to go home, Matt,” Cara says. She’s watching from a bench at the base of the bed. “Do you want water?”She points to an open bottle on the table next to us, this queen-sized mattress with plush cushions and white pillows and Stick under the covers, sleeping.
“Is he okay?” I say. She must have put him to bed, or someone did because I don’t remember doing it and I don’t remember falling asleep. I remember he was vomiting, and I remember Gigantaur chasing me and I remember how Stick was touching me at the concert. I don’t remember dreaming.
“He should be fine. I got him to eat some leftover pizza and he drank a lot of water, so. He just fell asleep.”
Music is playing somewhere in the distance but the door to the bedroom is closed. A television is mounted on the wall above Cara’s head. “Sorry about the bathroom,” I say.
“Don’t worry about it. They cleaned it up.”
Her bangs are curled across her forehead now and her eyes look as tired as mine.
“Do you want me to drive you home?” she says. “I’m parked on the street.”
“Maybe. What time is it?” I remember my phone, which is definitely dead, and I never texted Mom that we made it back to Woodbridge. She’s going to kill me.
“It’s three. Teddy said you guys can crash here if you wanted, but I need to get back. I have work in the morning.”
“On a Sunday?”
“Yeah, it sucks,” she says. “Work sucks. Being an adult sucks. Don’t get old.”
I laugh, she’s like two years older than me.
“Where do you work?”
“Starbucks,” she says. “It’s tight.”
“Wow. Do you know how to make all those fancy drinks and lattes and stuff?”
“Uh … yeah,” she says and she tries to keep her eyes from rolling, the eyeliner smudged a bit at the edges. “Wait, did Matthew Tirado actually ask me a question about myself? That must be a first.”
“It’s Mateo.” I get defensive about my name even though I hate it.
“Oh, sorry.” She laughs and touches my leg. I jerk back on instinct.
“Yup, there’s the Matt I know. What’s your deal, kid? Like seriously?”
“What do you mean?”
She looks over to Stick and I can hear him snoring. A single light in a frosted globe above the bed brightens the room.
“You’re a bit … umm… what’s the word I’m looking for—really awkward?” she says. “Do you ever just … relax?”
“Sometimes,” I say but she keeps staring and it’s unnerving. “You’re a bit … umm … what’s the word—really mean?”
The glare of the light hits her eyes and for a second I think she’s going to jump across the bed and punch me in the face but then she breaks. Laughing.
“Okay, okay, you got me there,” she says. “You can play.”
I sit up, looking over at Stick on his side, wheezing through labored breaths. I didn’t know he snored.
“So, can I ask you something, Mateo Tirado?”
“Sure,” I say.
“You know Kepler is gay, right?”
“Yeah.” My face turns red, immediate as fuck.
“And you know he’s my brother?” The music down the hall has faded, maybe the party is ending. “And I remember when he was your age. Struggling with coming out.”
I dip my head to try to will the red from my cheeks.
“Do you get what I’m getting at?”
I shake my head. I do, but I don’t know why she’s bringing it up and I’m not ready to talk about it. Not now.
“Oh my god, Matt—don’t you have any girlfriends?”
“What? No,” I say, offended at the suggestion. Or confused. I don’t know what’s happening. “Wait … what?”
“No, I mean—no.” She laughs. “I know that you don’t have a girlfriend, that’s the whole point. When I saw you at that horrible party Rhonda dragged me to and I saw the way you looked at Stick, I just … god, it’s like I’m drawn to wounded animals that should really be put down—you should really be put down.” Her eyes belie her frustration but in a way that’s welcoming somehow. I’m not sure how. “So like I don’t—I really don’t want you to do anything or tell me anything you’re not ready to talk about—I mean, everyone’s got their own pace and I can’t even find a boy in the greater Woodbridge area worth a second of my time but I’m just saying, you should really have a female friend to talk to about this stuff. That’s like ‘Gay 101’.”
She steps over to the bed to prop Stick’s head on the pillow, choking for breath at the edge of the mattress. She turns back to me.
“Do you have anyone to talk to, Matt?”
I shake my head.
“Well you do now,” she says. “I really wanted to warn you about the party tonight—that there might be a lot of gay guys here, but I didn’t want to scare you. Or Stick.” He starts to snore again. “Does he know?”
I don’t respond, my mind is spinning thirty-eight ways in every direction, like okay, she’s known all along that I’m gay which means I’m obvious, I mean Stick and me were pretty obvious at the concert but she knew before that, when she first met me, and I guess she wasn’t into me then which makes more sense now that I’m processing
, but how did she know? Am I really that obvious?
“Wait—have you two?”
I nod. Her eyes are bright and begging me to speak.
“It didn’t end well,” I say.
It didn’t. Unless we’re still in the ending. And she’s right about talking to someone. I mean, tonight’s been great—better than great, more perfect than perfect, but it might have been the drugs or the Red Bull and the rum and he never seems to want me when he’s sober.
“Oh honey,” she says, reaching out to touch my leg. “I’m sorry. Do you want to talk about it?”
“Nope,” I say, shaking my head so hard that the red melts away and is replaced by a dizzy brown. “I’m good.”
She laughs. “Yeah. Okay.”
I pull my foot back. Awkwardly. I’m not ready to talk yet. Not about Stick. Not when he’s next to me under the covers.
“Well like I said, you can crash here. I think Teddy and Kepler are awake somewhere and you have my number if you need it. Don’t call me though, I’ll be sleeping.” She backs away from the bed, picking up her purse. “But we’ll hang, okay? We’ll talk.”
“Okay.”
“I’m serious,” she says. “I mean if you need to talk right now, I can always be late for work. Starbucks ain’t shit.”
I laugh. We really do need to hang out. She’s kind of awesome. “I’m okay,” I say and I think I am, I think I just came out again. And this was light years better than coming out to my mother. Actually, if I include Stick and Titi and Kepler and Teddy, that’s like thirty-eight people that know about me and the world hasn’t exploded yet so maybe I’ll survive this.
“Awesome,” she says. “You know I don’t believe you, but I’ll let you be.”
She smiles at me. She never smiles. It’s nice.
I push myself closer to Stick when she leaves, eyeing the covers and the soft white pillows. His eyes are closed and he’s snoring louder, the back of his head propped up so I can see his face, soft and smudged and hair out of place, sweeping down across his forehead.
I will be okay, I say, out loud this time.
I could stay here forever.
TWENTY-THREE
I Will Be Okay Page 15