“Your turn to change it, Will.” Hannah yawned as we sat through the blood-splattered end credits.
I slithered my way off the couch and clawed the air to pull myself into a standing position. I adjusted my T-shirt, trying to make my bulging, pregnant belly less visible. Jamming a bunch of buttons tiredly, I managed to get the next movie in. Hannah worked the controls, and we were good to go.
By that movie’s end, Hannah was snoring softly, curled up on some pillows on the floor. Daniel changed the disc and, on his way back to the couch, tenderly tucked a blanket around his sister.
I feared that this movie would be my last. The sandman was getting impatient, and I felt him grinding handfuls of glass into my eye sockets with the heel of his hand. Thankfully, the queasiness had subsided; just as long as I didn’t look anywhere near the now-empty table that served as a terrible reminder of the food we had consumed, I would be just fine.
As the movie progressed, I started getting seriously creeped out. It told the story of a young family moving into a house in the woods and the demonic spirits of the previous inhabitants living in the shed out back who just wouldn’t leave them alone.
I was watching the movie unfold from behind my hands. My feet were up on the sofa, my knees pressed to my chin.
“Nothing’s gonna hurt you, Stacey,” said the father onscreen to his daughter as he put her to bed.
“Bullshit,” Daniel whispered softly under his breath.
He was right of course, because the father shifted a little to the side, and, as expected, there was the dark figure hovering over his shoulder.
I yelped and clutched onto Daniel’s arm, burying my face in his shoulder. I was shaking.
And then I realized that I was essentially snuggled into his side. I released his arm and scooched over a little bit, still staying close. Was I going to sit a full cushion-length away from him and risk being dragged away by the shadowy corpse-people? Hell no!
“Are you okay?” Daniel asked, smiling over at me smugly.
“Shut up,” I told him. “This one’s actually scary.”
He laughed and put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay. I’ll protect you.”
“Thanks,” I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes for show … but secretly both relieved and delighted.
The movie just got worse and worse—more scares and more close-ups of scary monsters. I was absolutely terrified. The combination of exhaustion and an excess of snack foods was surely messing with my system. I pushed aside my inhibitions and shuffled back against Daniel’s side. The same must have been true of him, because Daniel didn’t stop me.
And the only reason I watched the rest of the movie was because I needed to make sure that the ghosts ended up at peace and that they weren’t coming back for me next.
Well … I tried to make sure that I wasn’t going to become their next victim. But the fact that it was well into the early hours of the morning, my nerves were shot, and I was comfortable and warmly cuddled up next to Daniel was overpowering.
And I … and I … I …
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
7. Stay up all night!
8. Movie marathon
Chapter 11
Waving the Rainbow Flag
Daniel Clark ought to have been the basis for a teddy bear. Or at the very least, one of those pregnancy pillows that women snuggle with.
I woke up the next morning without an ache or pain, despite being curled up on a couch for hours. I stretched myself out, feeling the lovely warmth of his body against mine.
I found it hard to contain the tired smile that filled my face to capacity. And I wanted to share it with him and thank him for saving me from the monsters and being my cuddle-buddy all night … but he was still sleeping. His head lolled to the side in what looked to be a somewhat uncomfortable position (which secretly made my heart leap, knowing that he sacrificed his own comfort for mine). Daniel in sleep was adorable, his lip sucked in slightly and his hair messy.
Shaking the sleepy cobwebs and sawdust from my mind, I came to the realization that it was actually for the better that he wasn’t awake.
I thumped a hand to my forehead. What were you thinking, Will?
Removing myself carefully from the couch, I padded softly over to the bathroom. I closed the door ever so slowly, pushing gently until the door clicked into place. And I slid down to sit on the floor, putting my head in my hands.
Daniel was straight; he had a girlfriend (regardless of her horridness). How was it fair to him that I’d spooned with him all night long? How was it fair to me? I knew nothing would ever come of it no matter how right it had felt at the time. I would have to bury this night in the deepest, most private part of my brain. So yes, I had spent one incredible, amazing, cute, floppy night with Daniel Clark. But it would never happen again.
Content with my plan, I pulled myself up off the floor and used the washroom. I didn’t have my toothbrush with me, but there was a bottle of mouthwash under the sink, from which I gargled attractively—and by “attractively” I of course mean that I looked like a rabid mental patient zombie with deliciously minty breath.
Inhaling deeply, I started to open the door with the precision and stable hands of a safecracker. I was ready to sneak back into the room and curl up at the complete opposite side of the couch and wait for the others to wake up, and nobody would be any the wiser.
Terribly happy with my cleverness, I opened the door to reveal Hannah’s smirking face.
“Gah!” I shouted.
She nodded slowly, that same half-smile twisting her lips. “Morning.”
“What’s, uh,” I said, unnerved, “up?”
Hannah shrugged. “Just waiting for the bathroom.”
“Well, it’s all yours.” I tried to sidestep her, but she put her arm across the doorway to stop me. That smile never left her face.
“How’d you sleep, Will?” she asked.
Lie.
“Not very well, actually.”
“Oh,” she said, feigning surprise, “and why’s that?”
Lie.
“Because, uh, I, uh, slept on the floor. No offense to your floor,” I said jokingly.
She fake laughed. “That’s so weird.”
“What is?”
“Oh, nothing,” she said, toying viciously with me. Her smile was evil, and my pulse throbbed. “It’s just that you looked pretty comfortable when you woke up this morning.”
Shit.
“Oh,” I said noncommittally.
She waggled her brows. “Yeah. Oh.”
“Did you … what did you see?” I corrected myself, “Or think you saw?”
“Nothing, Will,” she said, brushing past me. “Nothing.”
And she closed the bathroom door. I gulped back the lump in my throat and tried to calm my racing heart. My palms were sweaty.
I heard a loud yawn from behind me and turned around. Daniel was stretching. He smiled at me. “Good morning.”
“Yeah,” I said with a forced laugh. Inside, the hydrochloric acid had seeped through the lining of my stomach and had reduced my insides to a smoldering pile of goopy nervousness.
. . .
In retrospect, it was a terrible idea to stay up for as long as we did the night before. I was dead at work, moving about my tasks with the speed and enthusiasm of a slug. I addressed customers with a series of grunts and groans, which I suppose could have been considered ghoulish and therefore fitting with policy.
Hannah made no more mention to our earlier conversation, which left me hoping that it had all been some horribly twisted nightmare. I had been sleepwalking or hypnotized or something … anything. She couldn’t know.
Deep down, of course, I knew that the conversation had truly taken place. It was as real as anything else: the money I handled all day, the past few years of my
life, and the gut that swelled beneath Mr. Sabatini’s shirt.
And I couldn’t blame Hannah for her reaction; in fact, she had acted much better about the whole thing than was to be expected, a credit to her winning personality. It made sense that she didn’t want her friend cuddling with her brother.
At least she hadn’t started spewing biblical psalms at me and condemning me to be sodomized by hellfire for the rest of eternity for my sexuality. I had to be grateful for that. And it made me think that there may come a time, far off in the future, when I would feel comfortable telling her about that part of myself.
It was just before lunchtime, and we had teamed up to tackle the men’s room where some kid had obviously had one too many fried pickles … or maybe a dozen too many. We had our shirts pulled up over our mouths and noses to block out the stench of vomit, and we were shoveling it up with some old dustpans into a big garbage bag. I suggested that we ought to find a biohazard bin to dispose of the sour-smelling slop. Hannah told me, not in the politest of words, that I could do whatever I liked with the squishy bag but that she would take it no further than the dumpster out back.
Once we had finished the foul task and the bathroom floor and lower halves of the walls were properly sterilized, we high-fived, our doubled-layer rubber gloves thwacking satisfactorily.
“Well done, newbie,” she told me, grinning.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind horribly not ever doing that again.”
She nodded. “Same.”
We wheeled the cart containing all of the cleaning supplies back into the janitorial closet and locked the door. And then we were allowed to take a much-needed lunch break … although neither of us felt particularly hungry following our major cleanup.
We walked along the boardwalk, breathing in the salty air to clear our lungs. Hannah, after a few moments, said, “Will, there’s something we need to talk about.”
The idea of putting my running practice to good use and sprinting to the border of Canada popped into my mind, but I merely nodded and said, “Uh, yeah?”
“We have to talk about Emma.”
“Oh,” I mumbled, relieved. “Okay.”
“So you recognize the problem, right?”
I looked at her quizzically. “Problem? You don’t mean the fact that I’m suddenly the funniest and cutest guy ever and that I must have Emma-magnets implanted under my skin?”
“Of course not.” She laughed.
“Good, because that’s all totally normal.”
She smiled. “I’ve know Emma for a long time. She’s really my best friend—no offense.”
“None taken.”
“And what kills me is that she’s so smart and independent and confident, and she doesn’t take anybody’s crap. But then she gets these crazy crushes on people, and she becomes just another Seaside City dumb-dumb. I hate that about her,” Hannah admitted sadly.
“Don’t blame Emma,” I told her. “It’s not her fault that she just can’t resist my studly looks and killer personality.”
“Damn you, Will!” Hannah cursed.
“I’m really not interested in her, Hannah. And I don’t want to hurt her feelings.” I shrugged and admitted, “Actually, to be honest, it’s really flattering. I don’t think anyone’s ever crushed on me before.”
“You’re a really cool guy,” Hannah told me with a kind smile. “But I understand. Do you want me to talk to her for you?”
“Would you mind?” I asked. “I just got here, and I don’t want to cause any tension or anything. I mean, I kinda just showed up and attached myself to you and your group of friends. It’s been so nice, and I don’t want to put that in jeopardy.”
“I get it,” Hannah said. “And as your self-proclaimed best friend, I will do you this service.”
“Thank you, Hannah.”
She grinned. “Can I ask why you don’t like her back? Just out of friendly curiosity.”
Why didn’t I like Emma? Was it because she seemed super clingy? Was it because I reduced her to a personality-less teenage girl without opinions of her own? Was it that she was a brunette, and I preferred blondes? I could have said any one of those things. But honestly, I think the frontrunner in the long list of reasons why a relationship between myself and Emma Yeung was one of the least likely things to ever happen was directly related to the fact that she was missing a certain little dangly thing in her boxer shorts.
I’m gay.
I kept walking while Hannah stopped dead in her tracks. After a few seconds, I realized that I was walking by myself, and I turned around to see what was the matter.
“What?” I asked her.
She wore an expression of understanding, and she was smiling. She crossed her arms as her smile broadened, and a shimmery light started burning in her eyes. Why was she acting like that?
And then I realized.
I gasped as I understood that my body had betrayed me. The words in my mind had been verbalized without my permission. I had just come out to her. I had just come out for the very first time ever. I had just told Hannah Clark, my new Seaside City best friend, that I was gay. Oh my God!
My heart started beating really fast, and I felt a burning sensation in my eyes. Then I felt a wetness on my cheeks. My breathing became labored, and my shoulders shook.
“No,” Hannah murmured, rushing to envelop me in a tight hug. I pressed my face into her shoulder, the tears gushing out. I couldn’t stop the violent sobbing. She stroked my back. “It’s okay, Will … it’s okay.”
I was remembering all the times my friends back home had called me a fag … every memory was like a punch to the stomach. I relived every lie I’d told, every time I had pretended to find a girl attractive. I could see my white-picket-fence future crumbling … I would never be normal.
“Talk to me, Will,” Hannah murmured. “What’s going on?”
“You’re … the first person,” I choked out. “The first … person … that I told. I … don’t know why I’m … crying. I’m … sorry.”
She pulled away from the hug, holding me at arm’s length from her. Hannah’s eyes were intense. “Will, I’m so happy you told me. And it makes no difference to me, okay? Okay?”
“Okay.” I coughed, rubbing at my puffy eyes.
“I’m so proud of you.” She smiled. “And I’m so happy you told me. Now that you’ve said it, things are going to get so much better. I promise.”
“Hannah,” I said. “Can … can I hug you again?”
She grinned and put her arms out. We hugged. And this time, I squeezed just as hard … if not harder. She knew. She was okay with it. Everything was going to be okay.
. . .
On the way home from my very eventful day at work, I decided to pop in on Lysander downstairs in the tattoo parlor. I assumed there was a certain amount of planning that went into getting a tattoo, and I didn’t want to leave it until the last minute and end up with something I wasn’t totally happy with.
And even though I had completed two points on the List already (I was counting the part about staying up all night, even though we didn’t because … well, let’s face it: it was a pretty good night!), I wanted to push full-steam ahead.
Stepping into the shop was easier the second time, like it had been at Monster Manor (I wondered if initially scary buildings that later turned out to be mostly harmless were a common theme among Seaside City infrastructure).
“Hey, my friend,” Lysander said as I pushed through the door.
He was at the back of the shop, stocking some of the shelves.
“Hi,” I replied. I noticed that he was wearing exactly the same thing as he had been the first day we arrived. And his hair seemed even darker and wilder.
Lysander pushed the box of supplies to the side and stood up, brushing off his hands on his black pants. “What can I do for you?”
“Well,” I told him, “I really want to get a tattoo this summer. It’s part of my plan.”
“I see,” he muttered, stroking his beard and waddling over toward me. “Most admirable, young Master William. Righteous … very righteous.”
“Thanks.”
“You know that you’ll need consent from your parent … er, guardian. Your aunt.”
“Yeah,” I said. “She seems to be on board.”
“Cool.”
“So I was wondering when I would be able to book an appointment for a—”
“Whoa,” Lysander said, raising a hand to silence me. “Chill out for just a minute. Tattooing is not something to rush into.”
“But I know I want one.”
“Yes, exactly,” he said. “You want one, but which one?”
“I—”
“Aha, see? This is permanent, William. And as such is not a decision to be made hastily. You aren’t wetting a little piece of paper with some washable ink on it. This isn’t a little superhero picture you got out of a comic book. This is true ink, man. Needle to skin inking.”
“Okay. So …”
“So the tattoo must come to you, not you to it.”
I wondered privately if perhaps Lysander was a little crazier than I had originally thought. He was talking about tattoos as if they were living entities. The wand chooses the wizard, and all that jazz.
“Here,” he said, gesturing to the red sofa at the side of the room, “sit down. I’ll bring you some of my tattoo books for you to look through, get some inspiration maybe.”
He shuffled off, moving his considerable mass with such sufficient rapidity that I suspected witchcraft was at work.
Lysander returned with a tall, precariously stacked tower of thick books. He plopped these down on the table in front of me. Then he took a seat next to me, nearly launching me into the air as the bench wobbled under his weight.
Quickly, he started thumbing through the many pages.
“A tribute to a loved one, a religious symbol, a meaningful quote, a good-luck charm, a simple decoration …” His eyes twinkled as he winked at me. “What do you choose to adorn your body with?”
The Big Summer Page 10