by Adi Alsaid
Oh no, he’d looked at me. Dead on, eyes-on-eyes, pupils, irises the whole thing. Had he smiled too? Holy shit, that was intimidating. I was definitely not going over there and kissing him. Who the hell did things like that?
I went back inside, running from my embarrassment, and found another beer in the fridge.
Scanning the room, I spotted Cal talking to yet another group of people. I felt my phone in my pocket, the email basically poking me in the thigh, like Jase used to do when he was smaller and wanted attention. Not to be outdone by an email, the fact that it was Saturday and I had another deadline on Monday exploded into my mind too, burning a hole in my thigh. Or the thigh part of my anxiety. Anxiety is human-shaped, therefore has thighs, right?
Maybe I’d had enough beer.
I checked my phone, reread the email.
Okay, one more beer and then I’ll go, I thought to myself. I’ll stay up all night writing about myself, fueled by beer and the terrifying proximity of my deadline. Catharsis after catharsis will find me in the middle of the night, bathed in only the gentle glow of my computer screen, the way all brilliant writing happens.
There was a cute Asian guy on the couch, but his face was zoned in on his phone. I pictured him reading an email from an ex too, feeling the same things I was feeling. Does love ever come up from two people just trying to stick it to someone that’s left them behind? If not love, I’m sure there had been good make-out sessions founded on just that. Except I kept looking over in his direction and trying to catch his eye, but he was only interested in his phone.
I didn’t know what I had expected from that party. A distraction from thinking about love and its absence in my life? Time spent with Cal? Normal teenage behavior? Then I felt that unique tingle of my cheeks going into blushing-drinking mode, looked around the party, and realized I was tipsy.
I’d only been at that stage a couple of times before, and I’d forgotten how downright pleasant it could be, at least physically. I looked over at the guy on the couch and he actually looked back. I wanted to smile at him but I guess I wasn’t quite there yet. I drank a little more.
Now, I’m not one to condone teenage drinking or anything. But at that moment? I was ready to condone the hell out of it. If I drank a little more, maybe I’d even be able to smile at Couch Guy. I should have really texted Pete already. Pete was great. He’d talk me through this party. He’d convince me to delete Leo’s email before I could respond to it, before it burrowed itself into the scars that had somewhat healed, ripping them apart anew.
I pulled my phone out and sent him a message, waiting for the ellipsis that said he was writing back. Meanwhile I took another sip from my beer and watched the party, this time not scanning for cute boys, or being too judgmental of bathtub bros, just watching the sight of a hundred or so people interacting. Five minutes later Pete hadn’t even checked my message yet, but I was feeling all warm and chatty, so I found Cal and worked my way into the little circle he was standing in.
This took a little work. First, I stood by and waited for him to notice and open up the circle. When that didn’t work, I tried to catch what they were talking about and chime in with my own comment. But they were talking about some people they knew, and so I just pretend-laughed whenever they laughed. Then I realized I wasn’t sure what my real laugh sounded like, so I had to practice laugh a few times, which is what finally made Cal notice I was there.
“Are you drunk?” Cal asked.
“Probably,” I conceded when I caught my breath from my practice laughter.
Cal and I stood quietly for a while, watching the party unfold. An uncomfortably grindy dance party had broken out, the music getting even louder than it was before. Several couples around the party were deep into make-out mode, the beer pong table was surrounded by people who seemed to have a moral imperative to high-five every eight seconds.
Cal leaned in so I could hear him over the music, his mouth close to my ear. “How do you feel at parties?”
I tilted my head at him, then leaned in to him, our shoulders touching as I shouted to be heard. “Awkward and buzzed. Why do you ask?”
“You don’t feel this deep curiosity about everyone? Like, this amazement that humanity is a thing that exists in the world, and that you get to be surrounded by it?”
“Cal, there are literally six dudes peeing against the fence in the backyard, and another one passed out in the dirt.”
Cal turned to look and laughed. “Still.”
Somehow, this led to us deciding we’d go around the party talking to as many people as possible and introducing each other as someone else every time.
The first few attempts went horribly, since I was still in quite the giggly mood, and Cal tried to introduce me as his newly adopted sister, then as his newly adopted daughter, then as an extraterrestrial refugee that his family had taken in until the war ended on my planet. The last one didn’t have much of a chance of fooling anyone, even without my giggling.
Cal pulled me aside as I recovered from my fit. “Come on, Lu,” he said, a little giggly himself, but managing to put on a straight face. “You need to get it together. A lot is on the line here.”
“Like what?”
Cal grabbed me by the shoulders and shook. “Like what? The joy of fooling someone!”
“That doesn’t sound like a very honorable mission.”
“It isn’t!” Cal cried out, a smile breaking through. “But what of the memory of tonight? Remember, you have but one life, and this is one night in that one life.” He pulled his hands away then gestured toward a couple that had just walked in. “Perfect. There are two people neither of us know, and who we won’t ever see again. Now, what are we going to do?”
“Lie to them?”
“Exactly! We’re going to bring fiction to life. Follow my lead.”
He took off across the house and I followed behind, starting to get a little stumbly, but otherwise feeling great. The only thing on my mind now was not writing or Leo, but just this comparatively simple task of not giggling while lying to strangers.
Cal reached the couple and put his arm around the guy, who was tall and muscular, with one of those chiseled jaws that always make me think of action figures and cartoon superheroes. “Norton! So great to see you again.”
“Uh, my name’s not—”
“And, Matilda, darling! How are things?” Cal stepped away from the guy and gave two Italian air-kisses to the very confused girl. I stood by, focusing on not laughing the same way you try to resist a sneeze in class.
The couple got understandably wide-eyed. “You’ve got the wrong people, man. We’re not—”
“Nonsense!” Cal said. He stepped over to me and put his arm around my shoulder. “Don’t you remember us, old chap? We’re the Kaminskys! The safari last year? Dar es Salaam?”
“We shared a tent,” I said, not really knowing where the hell the improvisation was coming from. Maybe it was from Cal’s arm on my shoulder, which gave me a little rush of warmth and joy. “The sound of hyenas kept us up at night, and we each confessed our secrets to each other, so that we wouldn’t take them to the grave.”
“What the hell?” the girl said, grabbing her boyfriend by the arm and trying to pull away from us.
Cal sidestepped and blocked their path. “You don’t need to worry, Matilda. Your secret’s been safe with us. No one will know about the homeless man you murdered.”
“Or about your fear of chickens,” I added, putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder, which she immediately shrugged off. “We haven’t told a soul.”
They made a few more evasive maneuvers around us, managing to sneak away, casting furtive glances back at us. “You gave us the best night of our lives!” I shouted.
When they disappeared into the crowd, Cal and I turned to each other and immediately burst into laughter. Then we decided that we probably didn’
t need to have any more beer, and that it was a good note to leave the party on. I stepped outside to get some fresh air while Cal went around saying bye to his friends. It was perfect out, unlike the mugginess of Manhattan summer nights, a cool breeze blowing in through the trees lining the street.
The last time I’d had this much fun was with Iris, and I gave a quiet thanks to past me for being in the right place at the right time and meeting these two. They hadn’t saved me from my writer’s block, but they kept saving me from nights thinking about Leo. I hadn’t even checked my phone in a while, and had no desire to now. A minute or so later Cal came out, stumbling a little bit and smiling widely.
“God, that was fun,” he said.
“Yeah. It reminded me of being little.” We walked down the driveway and turned in the direction of my dad’s house. “Playing pretend. It’s like childhood’s one big game of improv that we lose the skill for when we hit puberty.”
“At least the cringing sticks around,” he quipped. “Kind of sad though. Why do you think that happens?”
I shrugged. “Hormones and society. I don’t know.” I laughed and looked up at the sky. There were way more stars out than there had been at the park that night, but I somehow felt like even if there was a meteor shower today too, we wouldn’t be lucky enough to see any. Only Iris and Cal would. I glanced at Cal, a little surprised by how well we’d gotten along all night. “I like to think there’s an unexpected explanation for it. Not something reasonable, like self-consciousness or social norms or anything like that. Something sillier.”
“Like what?”
I thought for a while. “Piggyback rides.”
Cal burst out into laughter, and I wanted him to keep on laughing the whole way back. “God, I love that idea. That if we just gave each other piggyback rides more often we’d find our inner children.”
I didn’t say anything. I was happy. Even if I knew part of it was the alcohol. Happiness is always chemically induced, whether the chemicals are naturally occurring in your head or ingested. I slowed down my pace, not just because I was swaying to the point that every now and then I’d bump into Cal, but because I wanted to prolong this walk back to my dad’s. I didn’t want the feeling to go away, didn’t want to be alone at home, didn’t want to think about Leo’s admission that he still loved me.
“Give me a piggyback ride!” Cal shouted out suddenly into the night air.
I laughed. “Cal, my legs are so stubby they can barely support my weight. I don’t think it’s a good idea to load you on top. No offense.”
“Okay,” he said, undeterred, “then let me give you one. I’m sure giving a piggyback ride is as effective as getting one for the purposes of being a kid again. And if that doesn’t make any sense, just pretend it does.” He smiled, and his eyes were wide and gleeful. I like to think that, somewhere deep down, in whatever part of me was still sober, I knew it was a bad idea. I like to think that I hesitated, that I was at least initially responsible and intelligent, even if that wasn’t the part of me that won out.
But the truth is that as soon as the words were out of his mouth, I was ready. I wasn’t just ready. I was thrilled. The happiness I’d felt just a second before had in an instant multiplied, if happiness is a thing that can be multiplied. Whatever. There was more happiness than there was before. I was elated. I was thrilled. There was nothing in the world I wanted to do more than to jump on Cal’s back and have him carry me down the street, laughing.
“That is such a good idea!” I cried out, even though—heavy-handed foreshadowing here—it wasn’t.
We laughed into the night like a couple of cartoon villains, and then Cal turned his back to me, flexing his knees, ready to take my weight. I took a few steps back to get a running start, which made sense at that point. Like, I was short and I thought I needed that running start to jump high enough. I landed with my arms wrapped around his neck, his hands holding my legs on either side of him.
“Hold on,” he said, and then he shifted a little, readjusting me on his back. My arms weren’t all the way up on his neck anymore, but secured tightly against his chest. “That’s better.” He turned over his shoulder to look at me. “Ready?”
I nodded, holding on, feeling my heart pounding against his back.
“And away we go,” he said, and he took off running.
The air rushed past me, like we were going way faster than we possibly could have. I pictured my hair flowing in the wind and closed my eyes for a second, basking in that breeze. When I opened my eyes again, trees were blurring on either side of us. We were either accomplishing impossible feats, or I was kind of drunk. A curb was coming up ahead, and I braced myself tighter against Cal. I became aware of my hands against his chest, the skin and rib cage that I could feel through his soft T-shirt.
Cal hopped off and landed without a problem, running on with another one of his doughy laughs. I let my chin drop to his shoulder. I could see a bead of sweat forming at his hairline, right behind his ear. I forgot about everything else and watched as it traced down his neck, around the curve of his collarbone, soaking into his shirt. Without a clue as to why the hell I was doing it, I leaned into him. Nothing obvious, but just enough so that our cheeks grazed against each other.
“Oh shit,” he said, a breathless whisper. Then I felt us start to tumble forward, gravity tugging at us.
The next thing I felt was a shooting pain on the side of my face. I closed my eyes, dizzy, and when I opened them again I saw Cal’s head framed by trees and the New Jersey night. His face was drawn with concern.
“You’re okay,” he said, moving his hand to wipe hair from my face.
“How bad is it?”
“Not bad at all,” he said. He took off the plaid button-down he was wearing over his T-shirt and bunched it up into a ball. Then he pressed it against my face, and the pain came to life again. I couldn’t tell exactly where it was coming from.
“What happened?”
“I lost my balance. I’m so sorry.”
I blinked a few times, and I could feel tears forming in my eyes. One of them scuttled down, focusing the stinging pain on my cheek.
“Come on. Let’s get you home and cleaned up.”
“Okay,” I said. Then I let out a giggle. “You shouldn’t piggyback under the influence.”
He smiled, still dabbing his shirt at my face.
Then he helped me up and held my arm as we walked the ten blocks or so to my dad’s house. I was dazed and in pain. I was worried about the fact that the pain was coming from my face, and how I would explain that to my dad. I was worried about permanent damage, scarring, a concussion. But Cal kept saying reassuring things to me, one arm around my shoulder, and it was helping. The tears were flowing, but it was more of a physical reaction than sadness or worry or panic. Somehow, a trace of the night’s joys remained, and maybe that worried me too.
When we got to my place all the lights were off except for the one at the front entrance. Cal shut the door softly behind us. We went upstairs quietly to the bathroom connected to my room. I kept Cal’s shirt against my face when I turned on the lights, not wanting to see the damage quite yet.
“Am I gonna freak out?” I asked him, lowering the shirt and motioning to the mirror without looking.
“Umm. I don’t know if you’re the freak-out type. I won’t lie, it looks kind of bad. But I think maybe you should let me clean it up first. There’s dirt and stuff that’s making it look worse than it is.”
I turned to the mirror, covering up the right side of my face again. That half of my reflection looked normal, aside from my eye being red from crying, which I guess shouldn’t have been a surprise. I lowered my right hand and gasped inadvertently. There was a long scrape going from cheekbone all the way to my upper lip, bloody and flecked with dirt. The tip of my nose and my chin were bright red, and there was a deeper gash below my nose that was also
bleeding.
Through the mirror, I saw Cal wince, whether at my pained reaction or at my face, it was hard to tell. “I thought you said it wasn’t bad,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.
“It’s not. I really think it looks worse than it is.”
I leaned in closer to the mirror, watching blood start to pool on my upper lip. There were little specks of gray in there too, like the force with which I’d hit the ground had guaranteed that I’d have a piece of that sidewalk with me forever.
The tears started flowing again, so I turned away from the mirror and sat on the lid of the toilet while Cal grabbed a washcloth and ran it under the tap. He kneeled down in front of me and tilted my head up by the chin.
“I’m never giving anyone a piggyback ride ever again,” he said.
I managed to chuckle, tasting tears, but then he pressed the washcloth to my cheekbone and the pain shot through again. “Sorry if this hurts.” He steadied my head with one hand as he kept cleaning off my cheek. His eyes were focused and concerned and a lovely shade of brown, tinged with yellow, I now saw. Like autumn leaves. It did hurt, but I looked at Cal’s eyes and it wasn’t all that bad. It was hard to tell what I was more aware of: the sting of the scrapes or the light touch of his hand.
“Your elbow’s bleeding,” I said.
“I got off light.” He dabbed the washcloth on my nose a few times then moved to my lip. “When I felt myself losing my footing I tried to turn so we’d land on our backs. I think I messed that up.” He stood up and rinsed the washcloth off, then opened the medicine cabinet and rummaged through the bottles. “You have some really gross diseases, Lu.”