I Will Be Okay

by Bill Elenbark

  I shouldn’t, I know I shouldn’t, but it’s not his fault that his family life is fucked, and I want to forgive him. I want to save him. Still. And I hate that we’re breaking—everything is broken—I didn’t want to come out like this and I didn’t want to be broken like this and I didn’t want Dad to go have a fight with Stick’s brothers, I didn’t want any of this. I only wanted Stick.

  “What are they going to do?” he says.

  My head keeps spinning—like really fucking spinning—like I need to lie down and sleep for twenty-four hours straight but it’s so hot out here and Stick’s still bleeding and I still want to love him like I’ve always loved him.

  “Matt?” he says. “What’s happening?”

  He reaches out for me and I want him to touch, like last night under the covers, smashing our lips together. I recoil at the touch.

  His broken face looks up at me, the sun at my back spreading heat through my cheeks and spilling my chakra onto the hot concrete. I can’t watch him break.

  So I run. I break into a sprint out the shed through the gate, Nico screaming from the side but growing distant. I pick up speed away from the house and away from my family, away from the salsa blaring unnecessarily and everyone celebrating while Stick is in the shed breaking.

  I will not be okay.

  I don’t know how I convinced myself I would.

  TWENTY-SIX

  EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY bursting with the sound and all these echoing vibrations rattling through the field beneath us, Stick and me side by side in the wet tall grass with the bugs and the heat and our sweat, on vacation, the end of our vacation, Stick at my side watching explosions in the sky, one at a time then in a sweltering rush, everything so rushed in my mind with this high and these thick jolting booms crashing through every second with a flash in the distance screaming darkness like I’m dreaming, broken dreaming, half asleep and broken in half it seems, Stick gone from my side with his legs splayed over mine, all the lights burning bright and then breaking, flitting fading, until I forget they were here and now they’re gone.

  We used to go to the high school to see the fireworks, my mom and the teachers from her school with their kids, these chattering girls and smelly boys who wouldn’t bother with me or I wouldn’t bother with them, maybe because I liked them. Stick and me are sort of wet and nearly rusting almost molting from the heat of his body wedged beneath my body, under the covers in Teddy’s spare bedroom, wide awake and escaping, flitting fading, more perfect than perfect but now it’s gone.

  I haven’t slept so I might be seeing things, images in the distance like Stick chasing after me, past the row of trees at the edge of our development. I want to sleep but I can’t fall asleep, it’s like I’m wide awake and dreaming but I don’t remember dreaming, I don’t remember anything but Stick and me in Teddy’s bedroom, and I close my eyes to find Stick’s face inside, his lips on my lips, his fingers touching mine. He says he doesn’t love me, or he can’t and he won’t. I watched Dad’s car drive down the street to Stick’s house. I keep my eyes closed.

  Stick, can I ask you something?

  He swipes his hair left to right like he always does, the sweat matting down against the skin.

  When you’re with Staci, I mean—do you think about me?

  Of course, he says with a sick, winking smile. I smile back.

  The colors are brighter now, harder and sharper, so the images blur and the sounds get obscured, loud enough to hear but not quite place the song. I want to sink down and hide but there’s nowhere to hide and the heat in this field is piercing my skin until it’s beginning again, that nauseating feeling that pops right in, the lights so bright I can’t see again. We won’t ever kiss again.

  No one needs to know, I say. We can keep it like a secret.

  We tried that. Your mom found out.

  She won’t say anything. My parents are cool with it, I think. It’s weird.

  You told your parents?

  His voice is louder now, not so far in the distance, this sudden buzzing scraping into my mind like I’m dreaming, sleeping dreaming, and I can’t wake up because I’m not asleep and all this clattering is cracking at my skull—seeping in through the folds of gray matter, the rattling of the train on the tracks through the trees, as Stick shifts forward, sweeping his hair left to right, his skin wet with sweat and eyes wide open, kissing me. I open my eyes to find him standing there. I will be okay.

  “Stick?”

  “You mind if I sit?”

  “No.” I reach up to wipe my eyes.

  “I figured you’d be here,” he says, squatting down on the grass. “I guess I know you pretty well.”

  His left eye is open again, the icepack effective enough to get the swelling down a bit. The train’s horn bellows in the distance. He curls his feet underneath.

  “Your mom is looking for you. She said you won’t answer your phone.”

  I fish it out from deep in my pocket to find the thirty-eight messages she’s sent since I left the house. Titi must have told her what’s happening.

  “This is all such a mess,” Stick says.

  I don’t look at him. I don’t know what to say.

  “I’m moving in with Sherry,” he says.

  His face is bruised beneath the eye but not nearly as swollen and the blood is cleaned up, his nose only oneand-a-half times bigger than normal.

  “When?”

  “Pretty much now,” he says. “I mean, when she comes to pick me up.”

  “But I thought there wasn’t any room at her house?”

  “There isn’t. But I can’t go home. I called her again and they’re heading back from the shore to get me.”

  He looks out to the street so I can’t see his eyes, just the back of his head and his hair, losing its color with the summer now over. He’s leaving me.

  “So that’s it,” I say.

  “What?”

  “You’re leaving?”

  “I have to,” he says. “I mean, I’m staying at Sherry’s until we figure it out about the custody, but I can’t stay at the house with my brothers.”

  “Does Sherry even live in Woodbridge?”

  “No. But it’s not that far. And I’ll still go to Woodbridge High. They don’t need to know I moved.”

  He winces as he squints, reaching for his side. Stick never stayed over my house this summer.

  “But you are moving.”

  “Yeah.”

  I’m an asshole. His whole world has fallen apart—way worse than mine, like infinitely worse, and all I can think is he’s leaving me. Again.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “For what?”

  I look down at my wrist, itching worse without sleep and I kind of want to cut off the cast, straight to the bone just to get some relief. I don’t know if it’ll ever feel the same again.

  “I haven’t been there for you when you needed me.”

  “Yes, you have,” Stick says. “You totally have, you have no idea.”

  “No. I haven’t. Not really.”

  He reaches out and grabs my hand, the good hand, squeezing tight. It doesn’t hurt anymore, it’s just numb.

  “Would you stop? I should be apologizing to you—I’m the one who—” He shakes his head and slams his fist into the grass. “I started kissing you and then I freaked out and said we couldn’t be friends. I’m the one who’s a horrible friend and I keep being a horrible friend and here you are apologizing to me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “See!” He laughs. I didn’t mean to make him laugh. “Before I called Sherry this morning, you know what my first thought was—the only thought I had since I left Asbury actually—it was you. I didn’t think of Janice or Sherry or Staci—oh god not Staci, it was you, Matt. It’s always been you. I thought you would hate me.”

  I laugh. I didn’t mean to laugh. “I thought you said you knew me.”

  “What?”

  “You know I can’t hate you.”

  I love you
.

  I don’t say it because I don’t know how to say it and I know I shouldn’t be thinking it, but I’ve given up trying to control my mind. I squeeze his hand pretty tight. He lets me.

  “Yeah, I know,” Stick says, both eyes fully open. “And I was wrong. Nothing needs to change. We can hang out in school and I’ll bike over after school every day and have Sherry pick me up and we’ll forget what I said last night, that was me being crazy.”

  My grip is so tight I can’t feel my skin.

  “You’re my best friend. I can’t lose you.”

  “Just friends then?” It slips right out but it’s all up in my head and I can’t get it out. How much I love him. He needs to know.

  “I didn’t say that.” My grip eases a bit. His face is raw and dark. “You know, when I was like seven or eight and Sherry was dating Pat, I didn’t really know what it meant when she got engaged—I just thought that Pat would move in with us and nothing would change, you know?” He releases my hand and I glance down the street. Dad and Willie haven’t driven back but I haven’t been looking. “So we all got dressed up for the wedding and I was wearing this little suit, one of Jarrett’s old ones I think, because he used to be little like me and we were sitting in the pews and I think I asked Janice which room they were moving into—Sherry and Pat—and she laughed and told me that Sherry was moving out. And it killed me, you know, I just started crying right there in church, like I never really cried before. And I know it’s stupid, but Mom she just—she never really mothered me, even when I was a kid, it was Sherry who watched me every night and she used to let me sleep in her bed. She’d read me the same book every time—this really old Disney book but I wouldn’t let her switch no matter how often she tried.”

  His eyes are cloudy and the sun is bright on his face.

  “And I realize now I was being selfish, but she left me, that’s all I thought at the time, and I wouldn’t forgive her, not for a while. And I hated Pat, I would be so mean to him at their apartment, like really mean, he probably still hates me for that. No way he wants me to move in.”

  He laughs again and it makes me smile. I don’t know why but I smile.

  “Aileen got married next and the rest of the older kids, they all left and then Mom, which—yeah, I’m not going to forgive her for that—but then Dad, fucking Dad of all people.” He looks back to the street, shielding his eyes from me. “You know where he had the heart attack?”

  I shake my head. He’s not looking.

  “He got home from work and he was sitting in our driveway. The car was still running, and he collapsed, right on the front seat. David found him but we don’t know how long he was out, just that they couldn’t wake him up and the ambulance came, and he never woke up again.”

  He’s crying. I reach out to hug him and he lets me hug him, this deep long embrace, perfect and strange, and for a second it flashes that maybe Puerto Ricans have a point because I never had a hug feel better than this.

  “I don’t want you to leave me, Matt. I think that scares me more than being gay even. I mean, what if we tried dating again and it got too hard and we stopped speaking, you know? What if I lost you, too?”

  “You won’t,” I say. I need him to believe me.

  “I like you, Matt. A lot. And I don’t even know what that means but I never felt like this about anyone before and definitely not a boy and it scares the shit out of me, not just because you’re a guy but I think about you all the time and I—” He bites his lips to stop them from shaking. “I don’t know why I’m so afraid of this.”

  I reach out again and he looks up, his watery eyes and broken nose, hesitating because I’m not moving and then he’s half-crying, half-laughing when he jerks me into him and kisses me again. And it hurts—like there’s this physical pain on my lips but it doesn’t matter, nothing matters but this.

  “Sorry,” he says, touching my swollen lips. He smiles and leans forward again.

  “Wait,” I say. “What is this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like—” I make a motion back and forth between us, indicating this back and forth between us.

  “I don’t know, Matt,” he says. “I really don’t. I mean, we could do another trial, if you want. I think I’d like that.”

  “No,” I say. I need to say it. “No more trials. It needs to be for real this time. That’s what we both want, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Stick says and he leans back for a second. Longer than a second. “But I still can’t figure out how that would work. I mean—I can’t come out. Not yet. I’m not ready for that, I don’t even know if I’m …”

  He trails off and another train is approaching.

  “You don’t have to come out,” I say. “We can take it super slow. And now that my parents know, we can at least be cool around the house.”

  “Wait—what?”

  The train picks up speed and I think maybe I forgot to tell him that I CAME OUT TO MY PARENTS THIS MORNING. I think that’s what happened. I’m not sure this isn’t all a dream.

  “I told them. They were grilling me about my lip and coming home so late so yeah … they know. And so does Cara and probably Kepler at this point. I’m just coming out all over the place today.”

  “Jesus.”

  The rumbling on the tracks is getting louder and I can’t read Stick’s face or I’m afraid to read it, I love him more than anything and I don’t want to hide it. I want this to be for real. There’s a chance this can be real.

  “What did your dad say?”

  “He’s okay with it, I think. He wasn’t angry. And he asked me to play Frisbee. So that was weird.”

  Stick smiles and looks out past the field toward his house. The train passes by too loud for us to speak.

  “Stick, I’m gay and my parents know and I’m okay with that. I can’t believe I’m saying it but I’m okay with it and I’m here for you no matter what, if you just want to be friends again, or coming out. But I need to know what you’re thinking because I think I love you.”

  I focus on my feet, the spiky grass sticking up underneath, and I know I went too far, but I need to know for sure and Stick isn’t speaking. The train cruises past my development.

  “I can’t believe your dad went over to beat up my brothers.”

  He laughs, but I’m not sure why. I look hard at him, waiting.

  “I’m totally jealous of your family, Matt.”

  “Why?”

  “Just like, the way they stick up for you,” he says. “Or for me, I mean. I don’t know, you know I love your mom.” He pauses long enough to throw in a wink, from the eye not battered and swollen. “Not like that—”

  I try not to, but I can’t help but smile. He shifts closer and touches my side.

  “It’s just that her son, you know, he’s my best friend and he’s really fucking cool and he’s also really hot and I don’t know what to do with that.”

  He squeezes my leg and it snakes through my skin.

  “Don’t be gay,” I say.

  He laughs, fully now, then he reaches around me and pulls my face into his face, my lips into his lips. The perfect kiss. His cheek is swollen and the red is burnt into his skin. I pull back.

  “What’s wrong?” he says. I need him to say it.

  “No trial, just dating. This needs to be for real, okay?”

  “Okay,” he says and it spikes through my head, these explosions so bright I can’t even see the sky this time. I steady myself with my cast on the grass and we kiss again. It’s perfect.

  “Matt.” He pulls back, finding my eyes. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For this.”

  The smile spreads across his face, shiny and broken and perfect.

  “Always,” I say.

  I will be okay. EVERYTHING.

  Acknowledgements

  First and foremost, I need to acknowledge the two families that made this story possible. My own family—especially Mom and Dad—thanks for y
our unwavering support, both in writing and in life. And to Elba and Figgy and your wonderful family, thank you for welcoming me into your lives and giving me love and acceptance.

  To Tanya, thank you for the many, many years of friendship and for allowing me to become part of your family, the experiences of which contributed to the joys present in Mateo’s close-knit family. And to Mike, who never likes all the hours I spend writing because it keeps us apart, but if it weren’t for him, Stick and his family would have never been realized on the pages of this novel and I truly appreciate all the love you’ve given me throughout this process.

  To Jackie, who has always been my biggest writing booster, thank you for your great advice and support. To Laura, for all her writing advice and all the happy hours at Treehouse and the fact that she still became my friend after I rooted through her purse on the first night we hung out. To the New School writing group who provided invaluable feedback, particularly those that became my closest friends in NYC—Katie, Kat, Alex, and dear departed Jodi. To the fellow Rowan writers who read a super early and very different draft of this story a decade ago. And to my writing professors, thank you for all your knowledge and encouragement, in particular Julia Chang, Jen Courtney, Carla Spataro, John Reed, and the late Denise Gess.

  To my wonderful editor Kristy Makansi and the rest of my publishing team at Amphorae (Lisa Miller and Laura Robinson), thanks for getting this out into the world. To my agent Veronica Park at Fuse Literary, thank you for connecting me with Amphorae and for all of your support in getting my writing published now and in the future. To The World is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die, thank you for letting me use your lyrics in this story and for serving as inspiration for Mateo & Stick, and of course, for all the great shows. We will all be okay.

  And finally, to the friends who supported me throughout this process—Karen, Rob, Jonathan, Matt, Larry, Jill, Andrea, Aaron, Crystal, Michael, Murph, Gina, Felipe, Rich Sr., Rich, and Lauren (who helped me with the limited Spanish in this book, it’s her fault if it’s wrong!). And of course to Elie, the newest joy in my life. For everything.