Don’t Kick The Chair
The Tightrope
I was having my first sleep over with Kyle, or with anyone actually, and I really didn’t know what I was supposed to expect. His invitation, a crumpled piece of notebook paper stuffed into the slit in my locker door, said he was having a get together for the team. Kyle had taken to calling me Juno after the capital of Alaska, but he stylized it “Juno” because the first time he tried to write it out I realized he didn’t know how to spell the town. It was when he first added my name to his phone, having me enter my number after he had made a contact. I looked at the screen, confused at the four letters so blatantly wrong.
“Why do you spell it like that? Shouldn’t it be J-u-n-e-a-u?” I asked, following him through the entrance of the locker room. Kyle stopped and turned, blocking my way, forcing me to bump into him. He stumbled back and smirked.
“I legit thought it was spelt like that...” he said, taking it from my hands. I couldn’t help but smile as his eyes inspected his spelling, hoping maybe I was wrong but I was named after the state of Alaska and the capital was definitely J-u-n-e-a-u.
I hated nicknames, but at the same time, when he did it I got a twinge of secret admiration because it was our thing. No one else did it and when the other guys on the team tried, Kyle lost it. He reserved the right to himself and I, for lack of any real reason, accepted it and left the honor solely to Kyle.
He was throwing a party, some kind of get together for the fantastic four, as the school had taken to calling us. There was Kyle and I, Eli the other captain and Tommy, the center mid. Without us, our team would never score and being singled out as the best on the team felt awesome! As the rules of high school require, we spent all of our time together and Kyle’s party was no different. It was supposed to be an intimate affair, the kind with dim lights and music, talk of girlfriends and boasting of who could do a better penalty kick. It sounded fun but a sleepover, at a house I’d never been to, made me nervous. I couldn’t be the one guy who didn’t go, I’d look like a pussy who was too scared to sleep without his teddy. I wanted to show the rest of the team, to show myself, that I could handle this kind of thing.
When I stepped off of the bus a block from Kyle’s house, reading the gold numbers on the doors of all the million dollar mansions the size of our entire neighborhood; I began to feel the nervous clenching in my stomach. Hanging out with Kyle and the rest of the team after practice was bad enough. Me always sitting in the passenger seat as Kyle drove us around in his dad’s extra Porsche playing strange indie music and smoking cigarettes like they weren’t going to kill us in the long run was bearable, but this was going to be less people, less distractions, more focus on who we actually were.
His house was at the end, up against the state forest. When I approached it, my expectations were shattered as a monstrous thing stood before me. His house was painted a jaundice yellow color, pale against the harsh gray trim and thick window frames. It was three stories, with what looked like an attic and surely a basement. There was a three car garage, a slot for both Kyle’s parents and of course the spare Porsche that his father had lying about for Kyle to use whenever his heart desired. The yard was longer than the entire block, a thin walkway tracing up the slight hill to the door. There were lamps lit, vintage looking lamps plucked right from the streets of an ancient city of Paris. I tried not to gawk but even after staring for several minutes waiting to ring the bell, the house still amazed me. Getting to look into the eyes of God wouldn’t even stir me as much as Kyle’s house did. All I could think about while I stood there was how on earth they kept the place clean and how much the heating bill must be.
Kyle’s mom greeted me at the door. She was exactly like I pictured her; stunning and as beautiful as a Vogue cover model. Her name was Debbie and just like Kyle, she was tall, and blonde and stood with deserved confidence as she welcomed me inside. She had piercing blue eyes, the color of the sky once rain has passed and the clouds of the storm have all retreated. Her teeth were pristinely white and her clothes smelt of expensive perfume and even more expensive designers. What I hadn’t expected was how busty she was. Her chest was easily bigger than any girl we went to school with. Her breasts stretched her sweater so that it clung to her body like melted plastic clings to metal. They had to be fake, there was no way they could be that intense if she’d had kids and was in her 40’s. She could have been younger but the tiny creases around her eyes suggested she either laughed too much or was in her 40’s. She was sweet though, and showed me to the game room.
Of course Kyle had a game room. I can't say I was really jealous because as much as I would have loved a big house, I'd have no idea how to keep it clean or how you can remember which room something is in when you've got as many rooms as a hotel.
The inside of the home was just as incredible as the exterior. I could fit my entire house, yard and driveway into just the foyer. It opened up at the top to a lookout window with a dangly chandelier and a spiraling staircase with black iron handles and gray marble steps. The hallways were lined with pictures of Kyle at all ages; the first day of kindergarten, the day he lost his first tooth, him in a dirty soccer jersey and one of him standing in front of the Magic Kingdom entrance at Disney World.
He was adorable as a kid.
I don’t know why they called it a game room because it was just a big square room, with tan carpets, white walls and a huge plasma screen TV opposite the door. There was a home bar in the corner, some furniture, two pool tables in the back and a corner desk piled with papers and books, scattered and crinkled like they’d been dropped from a plane into the house.
“Hey!” Kyle shouted as he jumped up from the sofa. He came to me and took my hand, shaking it like we'd never met. I smiled and dropped my duffle bag to my feet. Debbie patted my shoulder and wished us a good time, turning to leave the room. She stopped in the doorway, her breasts barely fitting through, and turned back to Kyle.
“You boys have fun, call if you need me,” she said, pointing at him and winking at me. She grinned, her pale lips curling devilishly as she left. I shrugged uneasily and followed Kyle across the room. He was barefoot, his toes curled up as he stood before me. I slipped off my old Vans and kicked them with my bag.
“What’s up, Juno?” he asked, handing me a glass of something pink. I sniffed the drink and took a sip, cringing as I realized the lemonade had vodka in it.
“Can we do this with your mom here? Won’t she get mad or something?” I asked as I placed the cup down on the table and slid onto the giant leather sofa. I sunk into it and began to roll about as the cushions swallowed me into their stomach. Kyle sat at the edge of the couch, his basketball shorts tight against his thighs as he moved his legs into a pretzel underneath him. He twisted his arms and reached for the sky, stretching his back and shoulders. I pulled out of the couch and sat up, still sunken into the back.
“Nah, she’s cool with it, that’s what she was winking about. My dad’s the one who would flip shit but he’s in New York for the week.”
“Why’s that?” I asked, taking another small sip of the concoction. I didn’t drink, only ever had a few times, only ever with Kyle, but I couldn’t be a bad guest. Not in a mansion bigger than the White House. No, I had to drink it.
“He sells companies or something. I guess he buys assets and resells them for profit. I don’t really get it but he makes a shit ton of money doing it. He says it’s something you either understand or don’t, and most people don’t.” Kyle shrugged, slipping behind the makeshift bar.
“When is everyone getting here?” I asked, looking around for signs of time. I didn’t have my phone, it was in my bag, and hadn’t thought to check before getting off of the bus. For all I knew, it was midnight.
Kyle looked agitated, his eyebrows creased as if he were solving a difficult math problem. He ran his fingers through his hair several times, scratching at his scalp violently a few seconds before smiling at me awkwardly.
“I don’t think anyone else is coming. Tommy can’t because his mom is sick and Eli has a report due on Monday. I guess it’s just us.” I felt a slight stinging in my chest as he announced our sequestered evening. I wasn’t mad, hardly, just more nervous than ever. It was easy to be normal in a group, nobody pays attention to one single person in a group, but being alone with Kyle and his blue eyes that always seemed to find mine, made me feel like an ant crushes by the greasy sole of a steel toed boot.
“Oh cool,” I offered, trying to shrug off the worry in my gut. Kyle got up and grabbed a hoodie off of the nearest pool table. He moved around the room, slipped on moccasins and stood over me.
He was adorable now too.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I just didn’t think it was a big deal.” I knew he would do this, read me like some book assigned in English class. I couldn’t hide anything from him. He could smell a secret a mile away, in the snow, while the wind blew away from him and icicles dripped from him nostrils.
“You wanna go get some Taco Bell?” He reached out his hand for mine, taking me in a bro-ish grip and pulling me to my feel. I was only like two inches shorter than him and stumbled as he lifted me clear into the air as his strength far outdid mine. I grabbed my shoes and my phone and followed him out to the garage.
“Can you drive? You’ve been drinking.” I said, taking the role of responsible adult even though he was four years older than me. Kyle was 18, a legit adult, legally at least.
“Nah I’m good. Besides, you’re driving.” I stopped and leaned against the wall, holding my chest for dramatic effect. Kyle always tried to get me to drive, joking constantly that he was too tired, too sore after practice, too sick. It never worked. I refused to sit in the drivers seat of a million dollar vehicle that didn’t even belong to Kyle but to his dad. He tried to push the keys at me but I refused, taking my place in the driver’s seat as he pouted childishly, eventually climbing behind the wheel.
“I’m not drunk.” he said very seriously, focusing his eyes directly on mine. I shrugged and buckled my seatbelt, sure if we did crash I’d at least be ok. Then I made him put his on too, just for safe measures.
We drove to get tacos, smoking cigarettes the entire time and laughing about the stupid things our soccer team did. I played left mid and Kyle played right. We were the two fastest on the team and I was the only left footed player. We’d already, in only half a season, scored 18 points together. We made a great team.
After taco’s, we went to the canal lookout. We sat on the hood of his fathers car, smoked more cigarettes and talked about stupid things like the stars and the way old women always wear too much makeup and how even though it was a weekend, we both had tons of homework. Kyle laughed a lot, sometimes too much, and his uneasiness made me uneasy. I didn’t know him to be this kind of open with me. He was always honest, always real, but never so deep. His words were picked clearly to show me parts of him I'd never seen before. He was revealing a vulnerable side of himself that never came out when the rest of the team was around.
Kyle was the captain and the oldest on the team; he had to be nothing but emotionally under control. He couldn’t let there be any signs of weakness otherwise an overthrowing would happen and we’d get stuck with Chuck, the red headed goalie as captain. No one on the team wanted that though because Chuck was awful and thought so much about himself that he took credit for goals scored in games he wasn’t even at but he was next in line for captain because he was one of the oldest on the team and that somehow translated to leadership ability in our coaches mind. Kyle was humble and if nothing else, that made him a million times better than Chuck.
Kyle kept referring to “who he really was” and it made me really nervous. He sat with his arms loosely draped across his lap, telling me how he just didn’t understand why a guy couldn’t like football and fashion and how it really sucked being so rich because everyone assumed he was a snob, which he wasn’t, he told me straight up. I fingered one of my dead cigarette butts and flicked it into the raging canal winds, agreeing with everything he said. Kyle’s family was very rich but he was anything but a snob. He was fucking awesome and I didn’t care if he liked football and fashion. As long as Kyle continued to call me his friend, let alone the newly coined best friend, I didn’t care if he stole money from orphans and wanted to do ballet during soccer practice. I just wanted him to still hang out with me.
An ocean storm was rolling in and the wind was carrying rains that loomed over the water like a vengeful jaguar lingering in the dark shadows of the jungle, waiting to strike its prey. We climbed back into the car when the winds got too much and after an hour of “who he really was”, Kyle drove us back to his house as the storm began to break from the sky.
It was almost eleven when we got back and his house was shrouded in complete darkness except one window, the kitchen, which stretched its yellow arms into the yard. The tiny squares of light lit the now soaked grass like a cops flashlight in the eyes of a drunk driver. They were daunting and meant business, making the house stand with dignity against the terrors of the now full blown storm.
We ran into the house, trying not to get soaked in the rain. The door from the garage to the house was locked because Kyle’s mom always locked it, and for some reason he didn’t have a key. We had to run from the edge of the garage, two hundred feet from the front door, and sprint through puddles and mud until we were on the steps, trying to get the right key into the right lock to get the door open. By the time we were inside we were drenched and everything I was wearing was dripping down to the thin stitchings of my boxers.
“Shit, let’s get dried off. Come on, my rooms upstairs.” Kyle led me up the steps, the ones that belongs in Buckingham Palace, and down a long hallway. His room was in the back, looking out over the forest. He had his own bathroom connected to the side, a walk in closet and a small office, by comparison to the bathroom, off of the left side. His room was even bigger than the game room and his bed was in the center of the north facing wall, flanked by two enormous windows. They reached from three feet off the carpet all the way to the ceiling, revealing a view that by day was surely nothing short of truly incredible.
“Jesus, your house is fucking huge.” I said, pulling my wet sweater over my head. It pulled my teeshirt with it, leaving me bare chested and pale in the dimly lit bedroom.
Kyle disappeared into the bathroom, coming back with a towel. He pulled his own shirt off, dropping it with his pants and shoes. I didn’t move into the room, no farther than where I stood by the door, for fear of intruding on him while he changed. He stopped before getting completely nude, his fingers pulling at the waist band of his sky blue briefs and turned to me. "Are you going to spend the whole night there in the dark? Get undressed, I’ll lend you pajamas.”
I anxiously pulled off of my clothes once he turned away again and tried not to look as he stood as naked as the day he was born. I wrapped the towel around my waist, fighting the shivers from how cold I was. I had clothes in my bag but I only had one pair of underwear and as much as I didn’t want to be crazy, there was no way I could sleep in them and then wear them the next day. I wasn’t obsessive compulsive but that was one thing that drove me insane. I could skip a shower or not brush my teeth but there was no way I’d wear the same clothes I slept in. I accepted his offer.
“Sorry, my room is freezing. I should have had my mom turn my heat up. I like it cold so I can roll myself up like a burrito in all my blankets and make a cocoon of warmth while I sleep.” Kyle reminded me of a little kid. Since we’d met barely two months before I’d looked at him the way a child looks at their parents; with nothing but total respect and admiration but now, after he had revealed to me a softer side of himself, a side not different from myself, I realized I adored him.
“I do that too!” I shouted from the edge of the room as he vanished into his closet. I peered in, noting that the half I could see was bigger than my whole bedroom back home. I bit my lip, frustrated with how Kyle could be friends with a white, half Mexican freshman who didn’t have parents, couldn’t sleep at night and spent at least two hours a day staring at the wall out of a sheer lack of interest in anything else. We had nothing in common but soccer and that didn’t even really count in my head. Kyle had everything and I had nothing but my sister and a talent that kind of meant nothing in the real world.
Kyle didn’t actually know about my parents. It just never came up and I saw no reason it needed to. If he asked, I wouldn’t lie but I had no need to cry on his shoulder because my dad tried to beat me to death and then left, driving my mother into depression and insanity eventually causing her to disappear too. There just didn’t seem to be a point.
I curled up on Kyle’s bed and breathed in the fabric. He returned in a new pair of briefs, these ones white, and handed me a shirt and boxers. His bed was weird. It was big, huge actually, and could have fit an entire family with room to spare. It was a queen, or maybe a king, but bigger than any of the beds in my house. It was raised off of the ground in a burnt wooden frame, one that looked so heavy I had trouble accepting that the floor wasn’t strained by holding it. The sheets were warm flannel and smelled like the inside of a fabric softener bottle mixed with the sweet scent of left over cologne rubbed from Kyle’s skin. What bothered me though was how calculated the design was. It wasn’t meant for one person but two.
“I don’t know if these will fit you but you can make due, right?” Kyle and I were the same size, roughly, but he had a more muscular build. He worked out a lot, played sports for years and had abs thicker than my thighs. His shoulders were wider and more defined, his back stronger. I pulled the shirt over my head and tried to slide into the boxers as quickly as possible, somewhat ashamed of being seen naked by him for the first time outside of the locker room. His eyes stayed on me, blatantly glazing over my body in search of something. I trembled and threw myself back onto the bed.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you,” he said, lying out with his hands behind his head. He looked up at the ceiling, humming something in his throat.
“Oh, no, it’s fine.” I lied, grabbing a pillow for my head. I was still shaking, now from the nerves twisting my insides to ring them dry.
“It’s not like it’s something we’ve never seen before right? You’ve got one, I’ve got one. I mean, we see each other in the locker room all the time, it’s not awkward. Ya know?”
I blinked a dozen times, waiting for the grin on his face to leave but it didn’t. He looked so smug, like he had a secret he wasn’t going to share. I sat up and put my hands under my thighs for warmth. His shirt was huge and draped over my whole body like an oversized gown.
“A what?” I asked, ignoring most of what he said.
Kyle liked to joke a lot, in his fake James Dean movie star voice. I liked it when it was funny but sometimes, instead of being clever, it just didn't make sense to me. It was one of the many things I lusted over, how clever he was. I wanted it; I wanted to be just like him, as funny and quick as he was because even if you’re really awkward, if you make people laugh they don’t care.
“A dick!” he howled, slapping his thighs as he rocked on the bed, holding his stomach with his other hand.
“I’ve never really seen anything." I whispered, oddly embarrassed. "I don’t really like to change in there with the other guys. They act so immature sometimes.” The level of pretentiousness in my voice made me detest everything I had said. Oh, sorry Kyle, I’m actually not cool. I’m just a douche bag freshman who thinks he's better than everyone and is too good to change in front of the soccer team. I felt like I needed to be punched in the face.
“Are you ok, dude? You’re acting like we’re in line at the hospital to get tested for AIDS or something. Relax.” Kyle got up and turned on music. He put in a CD he had told me about but had yet to play for me. The first song was Young the Giant’s Cough Syrup.
“I love this song.” I said, laying my head back against his pillows. He threw himself stomach down next to me, closer this time, propping his head up on his elbows.
“I know that’s why I put it on first.” Kyle winked and I instantly turned away. He always seemed to listen to what I said but I never thought that he would ever remember any of it. I didn’t know what was going on.
“So, like, where am I sleeping?” I said, trying to avoid looking at him. He growled and laughed, bouncing up onto his knees.
“In here. Why, would you rather the guest room down stairs?” Kyle presented me with a very difficult conundrum. Sleep in his room, in his bed with him, or sleep in the guest room down stairs in his house the size of Texas; neither was appealing.
“Oh, no, that’s fine I just didn’t know if there was room.” I bit my lip hard, horrified with how stupid I sounded. His bed was big enough for all of the survivors of the Titanic to ride on while they waited to be rescued; of course it was big enough for a jock and a lanky kid.
“Do you want any extra pillows or blankets? I have some in the closet.” Kyle got up and moved through the door, mumbling something about fleece and flannel and how the cleaning lady used the wrong softener again. I personally loved the softener and wanted to bottle the scent for later but at the moment I was so sick to my stomach over the whirlwind of an evening that I was sure I would lose my dinner on Kyle’s beautiful carpet. I pulled my knees to my chest and waited in silence with my face between my legs.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he said when he returned, two blankets and a pillow in hand.
“I’m tired, leave me alone.” I defended myself, hating everything about who I was being.
“Well, you should be, you were amazing today.”
Amazing at eating tacos and being awkward as fuck? Was I supposed to thank him and bow my head, pleased at how awful I had turned out from a childhood of missing parental guidance and depression?
“Uh...”
“In the game! You scored twice and assisted once. You were on the ball today, pun intended.” He looked at me with a grin on his face. He reached over and gently knocked my shoulder, playfully teasing me for how naive I was. But when he joked like that, I felt ok. He was like good music, like Young the Giant. When I listened to him talk, about sports or cars or even tacos, I felt at ease. I felt ok.
“Oh, thanks. I owe it all to you. You’re such a good captain; our team would be a mess without you.” Kyle’s cheeks glowed red as he blushed, humbled by my compliment. He was modest, which I liked, but a compliment deserved or not, gave him a rush like nothing else. He loved being complimented because unlike most people, he never sought it out. The way his eyes glazed over with a honey colored shine from the simplest “good job” or just a pat on the back showed how much the minor attention met to him.
He climbed under the sheets of his bed and folded down the side for me. I hesitated and then realized I hadn’t brushed my teeth.
“Can I use the bathroom? I need to brush.” I stood up, all gangly and half naked, waiting for direction even though I knew where it was. He pointed at the door as I tried to hide my body with my arms, crossing them over my stomach and bending my arms in a gross twist-tie way.
“My mom left your bag on the counter.”
I went and brushed my teeth, afraid to spit into the marble basin that was the sink. I peed, stared into the mirror for several minutes and finally, after washing and drying my hands three times, went back to Kyle. It was now dark, the room lit only by the faint glow of his phone. He shined it at me so I could get to the bed then laid it facedown on his bedside table once I pounced onto the mattress. I slid under the covers carefully, like a letter into an envelope, and tried to stop my shaking. My teeth clanked together in the awkward silence between us.
“I’m sorry it's cold.” He said again, moving closer to me. I could feel his body radiate heat like a furnace on full blast. I closed my eyes and inched closer too, wanting to absorb every last bit of heat coming off of his skin.
“Hey Juno,” he said after several minutes of silence.
“Yeah?”
“Can I tell you something? Like something I’ve never told anyone before?”
I felt an iceberg lodge itself into my throat. The pain was so intense, so crippling that I nearly started to cry from how strained I became. I tried to swallow, tried to force it away so I could speak but the chunk of the Atlantic refused to budge. I hated these kinds of moments when someone trusted in me, singled me out to be the receiver of a secret or important news because I couldn’t be trusted like that. It’s a lot to ask of someone, to keep a secret, and I hated the idea of having that burden on me.
After several seconds I forced a word out, scraping against the sides of my throat and drawing blood on the way.
“Yeah.”
“I think,” he began, pausing to reflect on something.
I could feel his eyes on me, through the darkness, piercing into me. The entire universe seemed to be doing it, conspiring with him. First this iceberg, so huge it was stuck in my larynx. Then there were the rose bush thorns that were Kyle’s eyes, so sharp they cut into and through me so quickly I could barely feel the initial sting. It was the aftershock that hurt the most. I closed my eyes as tightly as I could, focused on never opening them again.
“I think I’m gay.”
Somehow, I hadn’t expected that. I was hoping for “I’m quitting the team” or “I want to go to art school and become a philosopher of poetry”. I had honestly expected him to tell me he had cancer or was moving to Uganda so he could build schools with Oprah or something. That would have been easier; I would have been ready for any of that.
“You think?”
“Yeah, well, no. I mean, yes, I’m gay. I know I am. I just haven’t ever said that out loud before.”
“Oh.” I was slowly racking up bad friend points. Kyle was opening up to me again, revealing his biggest weakness and darkest secret and my response was “oh”, just that, “oh”.
“Juno, I like you.” Kyle whispered, his face lost in the darkness. All I could see was the piercing blue of his eyes, subdued by the shadows that encased us. I could hear the rushing of the distant ocean in my ears, the waves rising and crashing against my body as if I were a tiny shell on the shores of the beach, waiting to be washed out to sea. But with three little words, technically four, but only three that were important, I was that tiny little shell but I had already been swept up by the sea, by Kyle, and he was quickly infiltrating every inch of my body and mind, making himself comfortable and stating begrudgingly that he wasn’t going to leave.
“I like you, too.” I said, in an octave too cheery for the occasion.
“No, like, I really like you. I don’t just want to be friends with you.” Kyle was stern now, suddenly taking on an authoritative tone that was reminiscent of unruly practices when the team had better things to do than play soccer.
“I’m not gay.” I argued halfheartedly, my pulse racing as I felt Kyle’s body get closer and closer with every thump slam, thump slam, thump slam in my chest. I could hear his breathing now, so close I could feel it against my lips. I opened my eyes.
“I don’t believe that. I started hanging out with you because I could tell from the first time we met that I liked you. You’re the only one actually. I know we're meant to be together because I’ve never felt like this before. I just suddenly feel like I have everything I will ever need. Everything except you.”
I wanted to slap Kyle for that. Picking a romantic comedy movie card from the deck and trying to serve me it was like a hit below the waist. We stared into each others eyes for a long time, neither of us moving or blinking or saying anything. For a minute I didn’t even breathe. I didn’t want this moment to be real but at the same time, a tiny flicker inside me, knowing that it was, never wanted it to end.
I had two paths I could take. I could say I was gay, which I wasn’t sure if I was or I could stick with being straight, which I didn’t know if I was either. I stood in the fork, frantically looking down both ways trying to understand where I was supposed to be. No matter what I did, this moment would change everything.
I liked Kyle, wanted to spend all my time with him but was that a manifestation of sexuality or just a desire for close friendship? How was I supposed to know at 14 fucking years old if I wanted to spend my life with a man or a woman, if even either at all? He was what I wanted, right then at least, but how I wanted him haunted me.
Kyle didn’t say anything, knowing he was probably right. I didn’t say anything because I knew he was right. We were destined to meet and be together, he was so spot on that I couldn’t have said it any better myself. If I had been able to see it, a tangible thing that represented everything he had just said to me, I wouldn’t even be able to grab it. I was dancing on a tightrope that was constantly moving, trying to knock me to one side or the other but I was diligent about not losing my balance. I didn’t want to have to be one thing or the other. Why did I have to choose between sexuality and friendship? Couldn't we just be together as friends for a while before we planned eternity?
I continued to contemplate in my mind, letting the time slip away from me while Kyle continued to stare into my eyes like they were bottomless caves that would reveal all of the secrets of the world if only he could see to the bottom. I blinked finally, only once, and before I could do anything something happened.
Kyle’s body got close to me, so close we were touching. I could feel the contours of his legs and his waist, the firmness of his stomach and chest, the power in his shoulders. He had one hand under my head, his thumb on my cheek while the other grabbed my hip, pulling me to him like we were two magnets sucked together against our will.
I was supposed to respond but I didn’t know how to kiss him or where to touch him or how exactly I was supposed to look into his eyes and what, if anything, I was supposed to find there. His eyes were just vast pits of mystery. Millions of things for me to wade though, it was just a matter of which thing was the right thing to pick out. It was that moment, when I was supposed to sift through his eyes for something like it was a single page in a single book hidden in the depths of a library, that I decided I liked him.
Then I started to panic. I was inching closer to a massive freak out and what scared me the most was Kyle having to witness me come undone. He’d never seen me get so excited or so angry or lose my composure the way I was about to but I was only 14 and he was expecting me to be able to handle all of this. All of this grown up shit. Who the fuck did he think he was?
I felt Kyle envelope me, the heat of his body radiating through me hot enough to fry an egg on his burning skin. His face pressed to mine, our noses colliding in one swift dance before each taking a side. His lips met mine.
Kyle kissed me with his tongue, catching me off guard and causing a natural reaction that I still haven’t figured out. I kept my eyes open, frozen in shock, as I let him kiss me. His lips tasted like cigarettes, like the burnt smokey scent of tobacco. I marveled in it, inexplicably aroused by it while still feeling the minor anxieties that smoking could someday kill us. But I became calm, no more explosion on the horizon.
He held onto me, his hands cupping around me like I was a fragile flower about to be destroyed under the foot of an elephant. I cherished the moment, held it as close to my heart as I could while I began to kiss him back. I had never kissed someone before, not a girl or a boy, and tried to learn as I went. Kyle had notoriously dated every hot girl at school and knew how to kiss, knew how to react to his partner. He led me along, keeping me a close distance to him as our bodies reacted to each other.
I felt a welling in my core, pushing for release. I could feel the pressure burn my insides, trying to force its way to the surface, to the outside. I tried to force it back, to repress it but it was already clawing at me, making it’s way up my throat, past the iceberg and onto my tongue where it prepared to leap out. I bit down, clipping Kyle’s lip. He recoiled back, cupping his hand to his mouth as he began to laugh. Our bodies pulled apart, an unbreakable void forming between us.
Kyle reached for me again, tried to pull me back to him, but I was resistant. He had wants, had needs I couldn't satisfy for him. I pulled away and sat up, throwing my legs off the side of the bed. He was quick to react, coming up beside me and taking me into his arms. He hugged me, holding me against his chest while he whispered into my ear but I couldn't hear a word he said.
“Can you bring me home?” I asked, already pulling on my wet clothes. Kyle remained on his bed, scratching his head in the darkness.
“I’m sorry.” He mumbled, slowly getting up for his clothes.
“No, don’t. It’s not what you think.” But what was it? Why was I running from something I liked so much, something I wanted more of? Because I wasn’t gay? Because I didn’t want to be? Did I want to be? Why didn’t I? What was wrong with being gay? After all, I kissed him back.
We loaded into the car and Kyle drove me home. He had seen my house a hundred times and pulled right up so I was only a few feet from the creaky front door. The rain slammed against his car, against me, against the perfect moment I had so selfishly robbed him of as the storm continued to grow worse. It seemed in my life that nature always followed in the footsteps of my personal life.
“I’ll call you.” I said as I climbed out of the car and ran inside. I went to my room, neglecting to wake my sister to tell her I was back. I climbed into bed, nearly naked and shaking, trying to sort everything out. Kyle was great, so what was the problem?
Was I afraid?
Was I worried what people would think?
About what Marisol would think?
Did it really matter?
I kept asking myself question after questions, finding myself avoiding the answers until I finally came back to where I began; was I afraid? I imagined myself struggling to stand on the wavering tightrope as I desperately clung to the wire. I always hated heights, maybe I was scared to be so high up. But something seemed to be shifting in me, the dark pits I so treacherously had to wade through seemed a tiny bit lighter. The crushing pains in my head and stomach subsided briefly, momentarily, just long enough for me to look to both sides and effortlessly drop down into Kyle’s.
As I let myself go I realized something and without hesitation I began to laugh. It was a laugh of happiness, something I rarely experienced. I didn’t feel anxious or scared or tired. I just felt right. I reached down, tracing my finger over the waistband of my boxers. They were Kyle's and in the race out of his house, I had never taken them off.
The Tightrope
I was having my first sleep over with Kyle, or with anyone actually, and I really didn’t know what I was supposed to expect. His invitation, a crumpled piece of notebook paper stuffed into the slit in my locker door, said he was having a get together for the team. Kyle had taken to calling me Juno after the capital of Alaska, but he stylized it “Juno” because the first time he tried to write it out I realized he didn’t know how to spell the town. It was when he first added my name to his phone, having me enter my number after he had made a contact. I looked at the screen, confused at the four letters so blatantly wrong.
“Why do you spell it like that? Shouldn’t it be J-u-n-e-a-u?” I asked, following him through the entrance of the locker room. Kyle stopped and turned, blocking my way, forcing me to bump into him. He stumbled back and smirked.
“I legit thought it was spelt like that...” he said, taking it from my hands. I couldn’t help but smile as his eyes inspected his spelling, hoping maybe I was wrong but I was named after the state of Alaska and the capital was definitely J-u-n-e-a-u.
I hated nicknames, but at the same time, when he did it I got a twinge of secret admiration because it was our thing. No one else did it and when the other guys on the team tried, Kyle lost it. He reserved the right to himself and I, for lack of any real reason, accepted it and left the honor solely to Kyle.
He was throwing a party, some kind of get together for the fantastic four, as the school had taken to calling us. There was Kyle and I, Eli the other captain and Tommy, the center mid. Without us, our team would never score and being singled out as the best on the team felt awesome! As the rules of high school require, we spent all of our time together and Kyle’s party was no different. It was supposed to be an intimate affair, the kind with dim lights and music, talk of girlfriends and boasting of who could do a better penalty kick. It sounded fun but a sleepover, at a house I’d never been to, made me nervous. I couldn’t be the one guy who didn’t go, I’d look like a pussy who was too scared to sleep without his teddy. I wanted to show the rest of the team, to show myself, that I could handle this kind of thing.
When I stepped off of the bus a block from Kyle’s house, reading the gold numbers on the doors of all the million dollar mansions the size of our entire neighborhood; I began to feel the nervous clenching in my stomach. Hanging out with Kyle and the rest of the team after practice was bad enough. Me always sitting in the passenger seat as Kyle drove us around in his dad’s extra Porsche playing strange indie music and smoking cigarettes like they weren’t going to kill us in the long run was bearable, but this was going to be less people, less distractions, more focus on who we actually were.
His house was at the end, up against the state forest. When I approached it, my expectations were shattered as a monstrous thing stood before me. His house was painted a jaundice yellow color, pale against the harsh gray trim and thick window frames. It was three stories, with what looked like an attic and surely a basement. There was a three car garage, a slot for both Kyle’s parents and of course the spare Porsche that his father had lying about for Kyle to use whenever his heart desired. The yard was longer than the entire block, a thin walkway tracing up the slight hill to the door. There were lamps lit, vintage looking lamps plucked right from the streets of an ancient city of Paris. I tried not to gawk but even after staring for several minutes waiting to ring the bell, the house still amazed me. Getting to look into the eyes of God wouldn’t even stir me as much as Kyle’s house did. All I could think about while I stood there was how on earth they kept the place clean and how much the heating bill must be.
Kyle’s mom greeted me at the door. She was exactly like I pictured her; stunning and as beautiful as a Vogue cover model. Her name was Debbie and just like Kyle, she was tall, and blonde and stood with deserved confidence as she welcomed me inside. She had piercing blue eyes, the color of the sky once rain has passed and the clouds of the storm have all retreated. Her teeth were pristinely white and her clothes smelt of expensive perfume and even more expensive designers. What I hadn’t expected was how busty she was. Her chest was easily bigger than any girl we went to school with. Her breasts stretched her sweater so that it clung to her body like melted plastic clings to metal. They had to be fake, there was no way they could be that intense if she’d had kids and was in her 40’s. She could have been younger but the tiny creases around her eyes suggested she either laughed too much or was in her 40’s. She was sweet though, and showed me to the game room.
Of course Kyle had a game room. I can't say I was really jealous because as much as I would have loved a big house, I'd have no idea how to keep it clean or how you can remember which room something is in when you've got as many rooms as a hotel.
The inside of the home was just as incredible as the exterior. I could fit my entire house, yard and driveway into just the foyer. It opened up at the top to a lookout window with a dangly chandelier and a spiraling staircase with black iron handles and gray marble steps. The hallways were lined with pictures of Kyle at all ages; the first day of kindergarten, the day he lost his first tooth, him in a dirty soccer jersey and one of him standing in front of the Magic Kingdom entrance at Disney World.
He was adorable as a kid.
I don’t know why they called it a game room because it was just a big square room, with tan carpets, white walls and a huge plasma screen TV opposite the door. There was a home bar in the corner, some furniture, two pool tables in the back and a corner desk piled with papers and books, scattered and crinkled like they’d been dropped from a plane into the house.
“Hey!” Kyle shouted as he jumped up from the sofa. He came to me and took my hand, shaking it like we'd never met. I smiled and dropped my duffle bag to my feet. Debbie patted my shoulder and wished us a good time, turning to leave the room. She stopped in the doorway, her breasts barely fitting through, and turned back to Kyle.
“You boys have fun, call if you need me,” she said, pointing at him and winking at me. She grinned, her pale lips curling devilishly as she left. I shrugged uneasily and followed Kyle across the room. He was barefoot, his toes curled up as he stood before me. I slipped off my old Vans and kicked them with my bag.
“What’s up, Juno?” he asked, handing me a glass of something pink. I sniffed the drink and took a sip, cringing as I realized the lemonade had vodka in it.
“Can we do this with your mom here? Won’t she get mad or something?” I asked as I placed the cup down on the table and slid onto the giant leather sofa. I sunk into it and began to roll about as the cushions swallowed me into their stomach. Kyle sat at the edge of the couch, his basketball shorts tight against his thighs as he moved his legs into a pretzel underneath him. He twisted his arms and reached for the sky, stretching his back and shoulders. I pulled out of the couch and sat up, still sunken into the back.
“Nah, she’s cool with it, that’s what she was winking about. My dad’s the one who would flip shit but he’s in New York for the week.”
“Why’s that?” I asked, taking another small sip of the concoction. I didn’t drink, only ever had a few times, only ever with Kyle, but I couldn’t be a bad guest. Not in a mansion bigger than the White House. No, I had to drink it.
“He sells companies or something. I guess he buys assets and resells them for profit. I don’t really get it but he makes a shit ton of money doing it. He says it’s something you either understand or don’t, and most people don’t.” Kyle shrugged, slipping behind the makeshift bar.
“When is everyone getting here?” I asked, looking around for signs of time. I didn’t have my phone, it was in my bag, and hadn’t thought to check before getting off of the bus. For all I knew, it was midnight.
Kyle looked agitated, his eyebrows creased as if he were solving a difficult math problem. He ran his fingers through his hair several times, scratching at his scalp violently a few seconds before smiling at me awkwardly.
“I don’t think anyone else is coming. Tommy can’t because his mom is sick and Eli has a report due on Monday. I guess it’s just us.” I felt a slight stinging in my chest as he announced our sequestered evening. I wasn’t mad, hardly, just more nervous than ever. It was easy to be normal in a group, nobody pays attention to one single person in a group, but being alone with Kyle and his blue eyes that always seemed to find mine, made me feel like an ant crushes by the greasy sole of a steel toed boot.
“Oh cool,” I offered, trying to shrug off the worry in my gut. Kyle got up and grabbed a hoodie off of the nearest pool table. He moved around the room, slipped on moccasins and stood over me.
He was adorable now too.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I just didn’t think it was a big deal.” I knew he would do this, read me like some book assigned in English class. I couldn’t hide anything from him. He could smell a secret a mile away, in the snow, while the wind blew away from him and icicles dripped from him nostrils.
“You wanna go get some Taco Bell?” He reached out his hand for mine, taking me in a bro-ish grip and pulling me to my feel. I was only like two inches shorter than him and stumbled as he lifted me clear into the air as his strength far outdid mine. I grabbed my shoes and my phone and followed him out to the garage.
“Can you drive? You’ve been drinking.” I said, taking the role of responsible adult even though he was four years older than me. Kyle was 18, a legit adult, legally at least.
“Nah I’m good. Besides, you’re driving.” I stopped and leaned against the wall, holding my chest for dramatic effect. Kyle always tried to get me to drive, joking constantly that he was too tired, too sore after practice, too sick. It never worked. I refused to sit in the drivers seat of a million dollar vehicle that didn’t even belong to Kyle but to his dad. He tried to push the keys at me but I refused, taking my place in the driver’s seat as he pouted childishly, eventually climbing behind the wheel.
“I’m not drunk.” he said very seriously, focusing his eyes directly on mine. I shrugged and buckled my seatbelt, sure if we did crash I’d at least be ok. Then I made him put his on too, just for safe measures.
We drove to get tacos, smoking cigarettes the entire time and laughing about the stupid things our soccer team did. I played left mid and Kyle played right. We were the two fastest on the team and I was the only left footed player. We’d already, in only half a season, scored 18 points together. We made a great team.
After taco’s, we went to the canal lookout. We sat on the hood of his fathers car, smoked more cigarettes and talked about stupid things like the stars and the way old women always wear too much makeup and how even though it was a weekend, we both had tons of homework. Kyle laughed a lot, sometimes too much, and his uneasiness made me uneasy. I didn’t know him to be this kind of open with me. He was always honest, always real, but never so deep. His words were picked clearly to show me parts of him I'd never seen before. He was revealing a vulnerable side of himself that never came out when the rest of the team was around.
Kyle was the captain and the oldest on the team; he had to be nothing but emotionally under control. He couldn’t let there be any signs of weakness otherwise an overthrowing would happen and we’d get stuck with Chuck, the red headed goalie as captain. No one on the team wanted that though because Chuck was awful and thought so much about himself that he took credit for goals scored in games he wasn’t even at but he was next in line for captain because he was one of the oldest on the team and that somehow translated to leadership ability in our coaches mind. Kyle was humble and if nothing else, that made him a million times better than Chuck.
Kyle kept referring to “who he really was” and it made me really nervous. He sat with his arms loosely draped across his lap, telling me how he just didn’t understand why a guy couldn’t like football and fashion and how it really sucked being so rich because everyone assumed he was a snob, which he wasn’t, he told me straight up. I fingered one of my dead cigarette butts and flicked it into the raging canal winds, agreeing with everything he said. Kyle’s family was very rich but he was anything but a snob. He was fucking awesome and I didn’t care if he liked football and fashion. As long as Kyle continued to call me his friend, let alone the newly coined best friend, I didn’t care if he stole money from orphans and wanted to do ballet during soccer practice. I just wanted him to still hang out with me.
An ocean storm was rolling in and the wind was carrying rains that loomed over the water like a vengeful jaguar lingering in the dark shadows of the jungle, waiting to strike its prey. We climbed back into the car when the winds got too much and after an hour of “who he really was”, Kyle drove us back to his house as the storm began to break from the sky.
It was almost eleven when we got back and his house was shrouded in complete darkness except one window, the kitchen, which stretched its yellow arms into the yard. The tiny squares of light lit the now soaked grass like a cops flashlight in the eyes of a drunk driver. They were daunting and meant business, making the house stand with dignity against the terrors of the now full blown storm.
We ran into the house, trying not to get soaked in the rain. The door from the garage to the house was locked because Kyle’s mom always locked it, and for some reason he didn’t have a key. We had to run from the edge of the garage, two hundred feet from the front door, and sprint through puddles and mud until we were on the steps, trying to get the right key into the right lock to get the door open. By the time we were inside we were drenched and everything I was wearing was dripping down to the thin stitchings of my boxers.
“Shit, let’s get dried off. Come on, my rooms upstairs.” Kyle led me up the steps, the ones that belongs in Buckingham Palace, and down a long hallway. His room was in the back, looking out over the forest. He had his own bathroom connected to the side, a walk in closet and a small office, by comparison to the bathroom, off of the left side. His room was even bigger than the game room and his bed was in the center of the north facing wall, flanked by two enormous windows. They reached from three feet off the carpet all the way to the ceiling, revealing a view that by day was surely nothing short of truly incredible.
“Jesus, your house is fucking huge.” I said, pulling my wet sweater over my head. It pulled my teeshirt with it, leaving me bare chested and pale in the dimly lit bedroom.
Kyle disappeared into the bathroom, coming back with a towel. He pulled his own shirt off, dropping it with his pants and shoes. I didn’t move into the room, no farther than where I stood by the door, for fear of intruding on him while he changed. He stopped before getting completely nude, his fingers pulling at the waist band of his sky blue briefs and turned to me. "Are you going to spend the whole night there in the dark? Get undressed, I’ll lend you pajamas.”
I anxiously pulled off of my clothes once he turned away again and tried not to look as he stood as naked as the day he was born. I wrapped the towel around my waist, fighting the shivers from how cold I was. I had clothes in my bag but I only had one pair of underwear and as much as I didn’t want to be crazy, there was no way I could sleep in them and then wear them the next day. I wasn’t obsessive compulsive but that was one thing that drove me insane. I could skip a shower or not brush my teeth but there was no way I’d wear the same clothes I slept in. I accepted his offer.
“Sorry, my room is freezing. I should have had my mom turn my heat up. I like it cold so I can roll myself up like a burrito in all my blankets and make a cocoon of warmth while I sleep.” Kyle reminded me of a little kid. Since we’d met barely two months before I’d looked at him the way a child looks at their parents; with nothing but total respect and admiration but now, after he had revealed to me a softer side of himself, a side not different from myself, I realized I adored him.
“I do that too!” I shouted from the edge of the room as he vanished into his closet. I peered in, noting that the half I could see was bigger than my whole bedroom back home. I bit my lip, frustrated with how Kyle could be friends with a white, half Mexican freshman who didn’t have parents, couldn’t sleep at night and spent at least two hours a day staring at the wall out of a sheer lack of interest in anything else. We had nothing in common but soccer and that didn’t even really count in my head. Kyle had everything and I had nothing but my sister and a talent that kind of meant nothing in the real world.
Kyle didn’t actually know about my parents. It just never came up and I saw no reason it needed to. If he asked, I wouldn’t lie but I had no need to cry on his shoulder because my dad tried to beat me to death and then left, driving my mother into depression and insanity eventually causing her to disappear too. There just didn’t seem to be a point.
I curled up on Kyle’s bed and breathed in the fabric. He returned in a new pair of briefs, these ones white, and handed me a shirt and boxers. His bed was weird. It was big, huge actually, and could have fit an entire family with room to spare. It was a queen, or maybe a king, but bigger than any of the beds in my house. It was raised off of the ground in a burnt wooden frame, one that looked so heavy I had trouble accepting that the floor wasn’t strained by holding it. The sheets were warm flannel and smelled like the inside of a fabric softener bottle mixed with the sweet scent of left over cologne rubbed from Kyle’s skin. What bothered me though was how calculated the design was. It wasn’t meant for one person but two.
“I don’t know if these will fit you but you can make due, right?” Kyle and I were the same size, roughly, but he had a more muscular build. He worked out a lot, played sports for years and had abs thicker than my thighs. His shoulders were wider and more defined, his back stronger. I pulled the shirt over my head and tried to slide into the boxers as quickly as possible, somewhat ashamed of being seen naked by him for the first time outside of the locker room. His eyes stayed on me, blatantly glazing over my body in search of something. I trembled and threw myself back onto the bed.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you,” he said, lying out with his hands behind his head. He looked up at the ceiling, humming something in his throat.
“Oh, no, it’s fine.” I lied, grabbing a pillow for my head. I was still shaking, now from the nerves twisting my insides to ring them dry.
“It’s not like it’s something we’ve never seen before right? You’ve got one, I’ve got one. I mean, we see each other in the locker room all the time, it’s not awkward. Ya know?”
I blinked a dozen times, waiting for the grin on his face to leave but it didn’t. He looked so smug, like he had a secret he wasn’t going to share. I sat up and put my hands under my thighs for warmth. His shirt was huge and draped over my whole body like an oversized gown.
“A what?” I asked, ignoring most of what he said.
Kyle liked to joke a lot, in his fake James Dean movie star voice. I liked it when it was funny but sometimes, instead of being clever, it just didn't make sense to me. It was one of the many things I lusted over, how clever he was. I wanted it; I wanted to be just like him, as funny and quick as he was because even if you’re really awkward, if you make people laugh they don’t care.
“A dick!” he howled, slapping his thighs as he rocked on the bed, holding his stomach with his other hand.
“I’ve never really seen anything." I whispered, oddly embarrassed. "I don’t really like to change in there with the other guys. They act so immature sometimes.” The level of pretentiousness in my voice made me detest everything I had said. Oh, sorry Kyle, I’m actually not cool. I’m just a douche bag freshman who thinks he's better than everyone and is too good to change in front of the soccer team. I felt like I needed to be punched in the face.
“Are you ok, dude? You’re acting like we’re in line at the hospital to get tested for AIDS or something. Relax.” Kyle got up and turned on music. He put in a CD he had told me about but had yet to play for me. The first song was Young the Giant’s Cough Syrup.
“I love this song.” I said, laying my head back against his pillows. He threw himself stomach down next to me, closer this time, propping his head up on his elbows.
“I know that’s why I put it on first.” Kyle winked and I instantly turned away. He always seemed to listen to what I said but I never thought that he would ever remember any of it. I didn’t know what was going on.
“So, like, where am I sleeping?” I said, trying to avoid looking at him. He growled and laughed, bouncing up onto his knees.
“In here. Why, would you rather the guest room down stairs?” Kyle presented me with a very difficult conundrum. Sleep in his room, in his bed with him, or sleep in the guest room down stairs in his house the size of Texas; neither was appealing.
“Oh, no, that’s fine I just didn’t know if there was room.” I bit my lip hard, horrified with how stupid I sounded. His bed was big enough for all of the survivors of the Titanic to ride on while they waited to be rescued; of course it was big enough for a jock and a lanky kid.
“Do you want any extra pillows or blankets? I have some in the closet.” Kyle got up and moved through the door, mumbling something about fleece and flannel and how the cleaning lady used the wrong softener again. I personally loved the softener and wanted to bottle the scent for later but at the moment I was so sick to my stomach over the whirlwind of an evening that I was sure I would lose my dinner on Kyle’s beautiful carpet. I pulled my knees to my chest and waited in silence with my face between my legs.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he said when he returned, two blankets and a pillow in hand.
“I’m tired, leave me alone.” I defended myself, hating everything about who I was being.
“Well, you should be, you were amazing today.”
Amazing at eating tacos and being awkward as fuck? Was I supposed to thank him and bow my head, pleased at how awful I had turned out from a childhood of missing parental guidance and depression?
“Uh...”
“In the game! You scored twice and assisted once. You were on the ball today, pun intended.” He looked at me with a grin on his face. He reached over and gently knocked my shoulder, playfully teasing me for how naive I was. But when he joked like that, I felt ok. He was like good music, like Young the Giant. When I listened to him talk, about sports or cars or even tacos, I felt at ease. I felt ok.
“Oh, thanks. I owe it all to you. You’re such a good captain; our team would be a mess without you.” Kyle’s cheeks glowed red as he blushed, humbled by my compliment. He was modest, which I liked, but a compliment deserved or not, gave him a rush like nothing else. He loved being complimented because unlike most people, he never sought it out. The way his eyes glazed over with a honey colored shine from the simplest “good job” or just a pat on the back showed how much the minor attention met to him.
He climbed under the sheets of his bed and folded down the side for me. I hesitated and then realized I hadn’t brushed my teeth.
“Can I use the bathroom? I need to brush.” I stood up, all gangly and half naked, waiting for direction even though I knew where it was. He pointed at the door as I tried to hide my body with my arms, crossing them over my stomach and bending my arms in a gross twist-tie way.
“My mom left your bag on the counter.”
I went and brushed my teeth, afraid to spit into the marble basin that was the sink. I peed, stared into the mirror for several minutes and finally, after washing and drying my hands three times, went back to Kyle. It was now dark, the room lit only by the faint glow of his phone. He shined it at me so I could get to the bed then laid it facedown on his bedside table once I pounced onto the mattress. I slid under the covers carefully, like a letter into an envelope, and tried to stop my shaking. My teeth clanked together in the awkward silence between us.
“I’m sorry it's cold.” He said again, moving closer to me. I could feel his body radiate heat like a furnace on full blast. I closed my eyes and inched closer too, wanting to absorb every last bit of heat coming off of his skin.
“Hey Juno,” he said after several minutes of silence.
“Yeah?”
“Can I tell you something? Like something I’ve never told anyone before?”
I felt an iceberg lodge itself into my throat. The pain was so intense, so crippling that I nearly started to cry from how strained I became. I tried to swallow, tried to force it away so I could speak but the chunk of the Atlantic refused to budge. I hated these kinds of moments when someone trusted in me, singled me out to be the receiver of a secret or important news because I couldn’t be trusted like that. It’s a lot to ask of someone, to keep a secret, and I hated the idea of having that burden on me.
After several seconds I forced a word out, scraping against the sides of my throat and drawing blood on the way.
“Yeah.”
“I think,” he began, pausing to reflect on something.
I could feel his eyes on me, through the darkness, piercing into me. The entire universe seemed to be doing it, conspiring with him. First this iceberg, so huge it was stuck in my larynx. Then there were the rose bush thorns that were Kyle’s eyes, so sharp they cut into and through me so quickly I could barely feel the initial sting. It was the aftershock that hurt the most. I closed my eyes as tightly as I could, focused on never opening them again.
“I think I’m gay.”
Somehow, I hadn’t expected that. I was hoping for “I’m quitting the team” or “I want to go to art school and become a philosopher of poetry”. I had honestly expected him to tell me he had cancer or was moving to Uganda so he could build schools with Oprah or something. That would have been easier; I would have been ready for any of that.
“You think?”
“Yeah, well, no. I mean, yes, I’m gay. I know I am. I just haven’t ever said that out loud before.”
“Oh.” I was slowly racking up bad friend points. Kyle was opening up to me again, revealing his biggest weakness and darkest secret and my response was “oh”, just that, “oh”.
“Juno, I like you.” Kyle whispered, his face lost in the darkness. All I could see was the piercing blue of his eyes, subdued by the shadows that encased us. I could hear the rushing of the distant ocean in my ears, the waves rising and crashing against my body as if I were a tiny shell on the shores of the beach, waiting to be washed out to sea. But with three little words, technically four, but only three that were important, I was that tiny little shell but I had already been swept up by the sea, by Kyle, and he was quickly infiltrating every inch of my body and mind, making himself comfortable and stating begrudgingly that he wasn’t going to leave.
“I like you, too.” I said, in an octave too cheery for the occasion.
“No, like, I really like you. I don’t just want to be friends with you.” Kyle was stern now, suddenly taking on an authoritative tone that was reminiscent of unruly practices when the team had better things to do than play soccer.
“I’m not gay.” I argued halfheartedly, my pulse racing as I felt Kyle’s body get closer and closer with every thump slam, thump slam, thump slam in my chest. I could hear his breathing now, so close I could feel it against my lips. I opened my eyes.
“I don’t believe that. I started hanging out with you because I could tell from the first time we met that I liked you. You’re the only one actually. I know we're meant to be together because I’ve never felt like this before. I just suddenly feel like I have everything I will ever need. Everything except you.”
I wanted to slap Kyle for that. Picking a romantic comedy movie card from the deck and trying to serve me it was like a hit below the waist. We stared into each others eyes for a long time, neither of us moving or blinking or saying anything. For a minute I didn’t even breathe. I didn’t want this moment to be real but at the same time, a tiny flicker inside me, knowing that it was, never wanted it to end.
I had two paths I could take. I could say I was gay, which I wasn’t sure if I was or I could stick with being straight, which I didn’t know if I was either. I stood in the fork, frantically looking down both ways trying to understand where I was supposed to be. No matter what I did, this moment would change everything.
I liked Kyle, wanted to spend all my time with him but was that a manifestation of sexuality or just a desire for close friendship? How was I supposed to know at 14 fucking years old if I wanted to spend my life with a man or a woman, if even either at all? He was what I wanted, right then at least, but how I wanted him haunted me.
Kyle didn’t say anything, knowing he was probably right. I didn’t say anything because I knew he was right. We were destined to meet and be together, he was so spot on that I couldn’t have said it any better myself. If I had been able to see it, a tangible thing that represented everything he had just said to me, I wouldn’t even be able to grab it. I was dancing on a tightrope that was constantly moving, trying to knock me to one side or the other but I was diligent about not losing my balance. I didn’t want to have to be one thing or the other. Why did I have to choose between sexuality and friendship? Couldn't we just be together as friends for a while before we planned eternity?
I continued to contemplate in my mind, letting the time slip away from me while Kyle continued to stare into my eyes like they were bottomless caves that would reveal all of the secrets of the world if only he could see to the bottom. I blinked finally, only once, and before I could do anything something happened.
Kyle’s body got close to me, so close we were touching. I could feel the contours of his legs and his waist, the firmness of his stomach and chest, the power in his shoulders. He had one hand under my head, his thumb on my cheek while the other grabbed my hip, pulling me to him like we were two magnets sucked together against our will.
I was supposed to respond but I didn’t know how to kiss him or where to touch him or how exactly I was supposed to look into his eyes and what, if anything, I was supposed to find there. His eyes were just vast pits of mystery. Millions of things for me to wade though, it was just a matter of which thing was the right thing to pick out. It was that moment, when I was supposed to sift through his eyes for something like it was a single page in a single book hidden in the depths of a library, that I decided I liked him.
Then I started to panic. I was inching closer to a massive freak out and what scared me the most was Kyle having to witness me come undone. He’d never seen me get so excited or so angry or lose my composure the way I was about to but I was only 14 and he was expecting me to be able to handle all of this. All of this grown up shit. Who the fuck did he think he was?
I felt Kyle envelope me, the heat of his body radiating through me hot enough to fry an egg on his burning skin. His face pressed to mine, our noses colliding in one swift dance before each taking a side. His lips met mine.
Kyle kissed me with his tongue, catching me off guard and causing a natural reaction that I still haven’t figured out. I kept my eyes open, frozen in shock, as I let him kiss me. His lips tasted like cigarettes, like the burnt smokey scent of tobacco. I marveled in it, inexplicably aroused by it while still feeling the minor anxieties that smoking could someday kill us. But I became calm, no more explosion on the horizon.
He held onto me, his hands cupping around me like I was a fragile flower about to be destroyed under the foot of an elephant. I cherished the moment, held it as close to my heart as I could while I began to kiss him back. I had never kissed someone before, not a girl or a boy, and tried to learn as I went. Kyle had notoriously dated every hot girl at school and knew how to kiss, knew how to react to his partner. He led me along, keeping me a close distance to him as our bodies reacted to each other.
I felt a welling in my core, pushing for release. I could feel the pressure burn my insides, trying to force its way to the surface, to the outside. I tried to force it back, to repress it but it was already clawing at me, making it’s way up my throat, past the iceberg and onto my tongue where it prepared to leap out. I bit down, clipping Kyle’s lip. He recoiled back, cupping his hand to his mouth as he began to laugh. Our bodies pulled apart, an unbreakable void forming between us.
Kyle reached for me again, tried to pull me back to him, but I was resistant. He had wants, had needs I couldn't satisfy for him. I pulled away and sat up, throwing my legs off the side of the bed. He was quick to react, coming up beside me and taking me into his arms. He hugged me, holding me against his chest while he whispered into my ear but I couldn't hear a word he said.
“Can you bring me home?” I asked, already pulling on my wet clothes. Kyle remained on his bed, scratching his head in the darkness.
“I’m sorry.” He mumbled, slowly getting up for his clothes.
“No, don’t. It’s not what you think.” But what was it? Why was I running from something I liked so much, something I wanted more of? Because I wasn’t gay? Because I didn’t want to be? Did I want to be? Why didn’t I? What was wrong with being gay? After all, I kissed him back.
We loaded into the car and Kyle drove me home. He had seen my house a hundred times and pulled right up so I was only a few feet from the creaky front door. The rain slammed against his car, against me, against the perfect moment I had so selfishly robbed him of as the storm continued to grow worse. It seemed in my life that nature always followed in the footsteps of my personal life.
“I’ll call you.” I said as I climbed out of the car and ran inside. I went to my room, neglecting to wake my sister to tell her I was back. I climbed into bed, nearly naked and shaking, trying to sort everything out. Kyle was great, so what was the problem?
Was I afraid?
Was I worried what people would think?
About what Marisol would think?
Did it really matter?
I kept asking myself question after questions, finding myself avoiding the answers until I finally came back to where I began; was I afraid? I imagined myself struggling to stand on the wavering tightrope as I desperately clung to the wire. I always hated heights, maybe I was scared to be so high up. But something seemed to be shifting in me, the dark pits I so treacherously had to wade through seemed a tiny bit lighter. The crushing pains in my head and stomach subsided briefly, momentarily, just long enough for me to look to both sides and effortlessly drop down into Kyle’s.
As I let myself go I realized something and without hesitation I began to laugh. It was a laugh of happiness, something I rarely experienced. I didn’t feel anxious or scared or tired. I just felt right. I reached down, tracing my finger over the waistband of my boxers. They were Kyle's and in the race out of his house, I had never taken them off.