And the part about his brother is the worst, because I’d totally talk to him about it, I’d love to talk to him about it, I live to drink up other people’s problems and pee them out and probably drink them again, knowing me, though it’s not like that turns me on or whatever, but if it did I’d know just the websites because insomnia is ridiculous.
But anyway, no matter how many times Lio says “Yeah, we’ll talk,” the bottom line is, the kid doesn’t talk, and I want him to, because I’d like to see what he says when he doesn’t edit. I want to see if it’s beautiful, because right now I don’t know.
Or we could . . . use our mouths for other things, is I guess what I’m trying to say. I mean, if that’s easier for him. Or if it’s even possible for me, in my current state of eunuch.
God, I’m so tired, and I don’t know what I want, which is probably why kissing seems like the best option, but it sounds like he doesn’t even want to kiss me anymore, so now I don’t even know. I should go to sleep, I guess.
I check the kennels and the beds again and again, and I pet Caramel for ages until he starts to get really annoyed with me. I should sleep.
That’s my part of me that’s “a little fucked up,” I guess. If we can divide ourselves up that way. I have Cody and the fact that I don’t sleep. And the animals, though I guess they’re all connected or some shit like that. God, I should go to therapy with Lio. I bet she’d have a field day between the two of us. And then we’d get better, because I guess that’s the point of therapy, and then what? And what happens when you don’t get better? I know the answer to that and it’s not something I want to happen to me. Or Lio. Although I guess he probably knows more than I do about not getting better, but the more I get to know Lio, the more I learn that you can’t use cancer as a metaphor for real life.
I flop down on my couch and turn on the TV. Sandwich walks in a circle on my back like a dog before she settles down. I hear my parents walking around upstairs, shutting off the lights and double-checking all the locks on the doors before they go to bed. The windows are already fixed, because it’s not safe to have all that broken glass around when there are animals.
I can hear my brother getting ready for the suicide hotline job. He likes it, even though the pay is shitty and it’s about people killing themselves. He says he likes to help. My family is all full of beautiful people who care about everyone they don’t know, and then we can’t even get along most of the time. I think it’s gotten to the extent that, if we were going to kill ourselves, none of us would think to call my brother for help first, and isn’t that just the most pathetic thing in the whole world?
The man on the TV talks about a big jigsaw puzzle I can buy for four payments of something—no, three payments of something, special TV offer, I need to call right now. I don’t even have a phone with me. I am a waste of his infomercial. There’s no way he could make money off of me, and I feel really guilty about that.
Also, I sort of don’t understand TV, in that way. Why do ratings matter? Do people get money when I watch their show? What about when I turn a show off in the middle? I guess I’m not part of that eighteen-to-thirty-five age group, or whatever it is everyone gives a shit about, so it probably doesn’t matter. I barely matter, if you’re looking at numbers—what’s a fifteen-year-old? I can’t even drive. And I’m six months younger than Lio.
I don’t feel six months younger than Lio. I mean, I can deal with my life and stuff. And I’ve had a boyfriend and Lio hasn’t, as far as I know. Or a girlfriend. So really, I’m older in a lot of ways.
I should sleep. It’s been quiet upstairs for ages. I was a wreck in school today. Nearly started crying in algebra just because I couldn’t figure out the next step in this proof, which is really unacceptable behavior. I was falling asleep all through history, and now I’m awake like someone’s electroshocked me.
Cody was older than me too. Nearly a year. Cody Cody Cody. Why didn’t I get an email from him tonight? Usually he emails every night. Every single night, around nine o’clock. And I respond faster than I can breathe.
He didn’t email tonight, for the first time since he’s been gone. I’m trying to act like this is something I’ve just realized while I’ve been lying here watching the infomercial, acting like it hasn’t been chewing on my thoughts ever since I checked my email and it was only Lio. Pretending there’s this vague possibility that Cody wasn’t the first thing I thought about for once.
Damn it.
I drag my laptop in front of the TV and boot up an old email from him, from a few weeks ago.
Craig—
To die by your side, baby. I heard that song today and it reminded me of
I mean
Still mad at you. Mad at you forever. Fuck you, Craig, fuck you and everything you did.
Love,
C
He’s sent me over a hundred emails, and every single one contains, in some form, usually more than one form, the phrase, Fuck you, Craig.
And I email him back like my life depends on it. Every. Single. Time.
Because every email he sends has the word “love,” too.
But today no email, so am I supposed to email him anyway? I don’t know what to say. Usually I respond to him. Usually I only email because I need to know that he’s okay. I never tell him anything real. I don’t want to weigh him down with stuff from here.
“I miss you I miss you I miss you,” I whisper and stupid Sandwich thinks I’m talking to her and stretches her paws all the way out, and her claws come out and dig into my head a little, and damn it, Sandwich, I love you, but this is about Cody.
I want to email him, but if I do I’ll stay up until he answers, I’ll stay up worrying, I’ll stay up freaking out that he’s hurt and wonder why he isn’t screaming at me with capital letters from my inbox. I’ll spend every second I don’t sleep pouring all of me into that computer, and I have animals to feed, animals to look for, animals to pet and hold and love me.
So I sleep a little, and my alarm goes off at five thirty, and I feed the animals, which takes about thirty seconds because there are not nearly enough, but by the time I get to school this girl Caitlin, who only wakes up ten minutes before school starts and brags about it and looks like it, is all, “Did you hear there was another shooting?” in her un-toothbrushed voice.
I say, “Yeah? Shocking,” which is pretty douchey of me, but, seriously? Someone got shot in the world and now this is like the fucking Berlin Wall or some other shit people care about.
“This guy in Kensington. He was mowing his lawn. My dad was mowing the lawn yesterday! I mean, Jesus, it makes you think.”
I don’t see Lio until after second period. Some days I go most of the morning without seeing him, since we don’t have any classes together until third period, but usually one of us seeks the other one out. It’s nine thirty, and two more people have been shot since I talked to Caitlin. A few people are talking about it, but the news isn’t sweeping the school like wildfire or anything. I heard two of the student teachers discussing it, or I wouldn’t know.
It’s four dead people. I don’t mean to sound like that doesn’t suck. I mean, obviously people shouldn’t get shot. But this isn’t God Bless America anymore, and things happen, people get shot.
Lio has a pink armband on, like now that he’s kissed me he’s fine with the whole world finding out he’s gay. Though I don’t know if anyone else would notice the armband, since it kind of goes with his usual quirky attire, and I don’t know if he was ever in the closet to begin with or if he didn’t advertise it because he’s one of those people who thinks it’s only your business if his cock is in your mouth. Maybe he’s bi. Or maybe he’s one of those guys who thinks that just because he likes guys doesn’t mean he has to be part of some community. I don’t like those guys, to be honest, but that’s really just because I love community.
The rest of him is mostly in black, like usual. He says he wears eyeliner on Halloween but only then. Once I had a wet dream about
helping him put it on. I can’t believe I’m thinking about this right now.
“Maybe this is the apocalypse,” I suggest to Lio, instead of “hello” or “thanks for last night” or “what made you think you could do that, but again maybe?” Or “no.”
He raises his eyebrows at me.
If we’re not going to talk about the kiss, are we at least going to talk about the email that talked about talking about the kiss? Correction—am I going to talk about the email? Because it’s not like he will. And no. I’m not.
I say, “You know that whole thing about the world ending with a whimper, not a bang? This is actually how it’s going to happen. We get shot until there’s no one left.”
I touch his hand because I’m dying to, all of a sudden. Just a tap with my finger on his palm.
He says, point-blank, “That’s awful.”
“Well, we’d last for a long time, I think. I get the feeling we’d be resourceful and everything.” I clear my throat and take my hand away. “I was just joking around.”
“Yeah.” He slings his backpack over his shoulder like he’s about to leave, but he doesn’t move. He’s staring me down, or up, I guess, because he has to tilt his chin at a pretty wide angle to look at me. And he’s still fierce and frightening.
But I’m angry. “Maybe I’m scared,” I say. “Maybe I’m scared and deflecting.”
“Maybe.”
“Did you consider that?”
He shrugs.
“I mean, Jesus, Lio.” What am I so mad at him about? I lean against his locker. “I mean . . . I could be scared.” I could be a lot of things and he fucking wouldn’t know, maybe that’s the point.
He starts walking to his next class, or to somewhere, or maybe just to anywhere that’s not here. I jog beside him. He used to run cross-country, and those short legs know how to move.
He says, “You’re not.”
“I’m not what?”
“Scared.”
“Three random people—”
“Four.”
“—have been shot. I completely have a right to be scared. I could be quaking in my boots. Sneakers.”
“You’re complacent,” he says.
A three-syllable word from Lio is enough cause to stop walking, so I do, and he comes to rest beside me. But I can tell he really doesn’t want to stop walking, and he doesn’t want to look at me, and he certainly doesn’t want to talk to me.
At least not about people dying.
Wait, so which one of us is the coward here? Because I would rather talk about people getting shot than talk about him kissing me, and how pathetic is that? Right now I want to crawl back in bed rather than talk about anything real. It’s so much easier to debate and argue over this shit that has nothing to do with us or how we feel. Random people that happen to die in our random city.
I say, “I’m not . . . complacent.”
“You don’t think you’re going to get shot.”
I rub the back of my neck. “Well, yeah. I mean, chances are, I’m not going to get shot.”
“You’re right.”
I look at him.
Lio’s really into numbers. He counts when he’s nervous. I’ll put my hand on his back, and he’ll give me this really small smile—sorry. I’m a little fucked up.
He sighs. “You think you won’t get shot because you’re you. You doesn’t get shot. Won’t happen to you.”
I catch my breath. “So?”
“It’s bullshit.” He shrugs.
“You can’t pretend like I should be out there fearing for my life. Come on. The odds are . . . I mean, four people? Odds were pretty good that none of those would be me, you know that. If we’re playing the odds . . .”
“Be confident because the odds are in your favor.” He clears his throat, like talking this much hurts him. “Not because you’re a special snowflake.”
This isn’t fair. None of this is fair.
I don’t know if I’m special, but yeah, there’s that heartbeat telling me, I’m Craig, I’m Craig, and I don’t think I need to apologize for that. I’m Craig, and Craig is alive. I know that. It’s basically the first thing I know when I get up in the morning, so yeah, I’m not really open to the idea of that changing any more than I’m open to the idea that I’ll stand up and there won’t be floor. Is that a problem? I can’t be the only one who feels this way. I think that’s consciousness, and I think it might be the thing that keeps me from being a sociopath.
“You won’t get shot,” he says. “It’s a numbers game.”
Right now my heartbeat’s all out of whack trying to thrum out, Why did you kiss me and why won’t you do it again? But I can’t ask it, I can’t.
Anyway, by the time we get out of class, someone else has been killed. A twenty-five-year-old woman was pumping gas, and someone shot her in the head. At long range, like all the others.
I’m so mad. I’m just mad about everything. I feel like this proves Lio right or wrong but I don’t even know what his damn point is, and in fifth period he barely even looks at me. He just sits there and doodles a lot.
Mom picks me up after school and there’s Kremlin in the backseat, pounding her paws against the leather, and I cuddle that dog so hard that I’m worried I’m going to rub all her fur off or something, and she licks my face over and over, and she smells funny but I don’t even care.
“The lady who found her was excited to get rid of her, I think,” Mom says. “God, she’s a loud one. I think your dad would have preferred she stayed lost.”
I cover Kremlin’s ears.
Usually, when I take one of the pets out somewhere by himself—like to the vet, or maybe if he’s been sad, out on a special walk—we’re greeted by a whole host of jealous, curious animals as soon as we come back through the front door. It’s weird when only Jupiter and the two cats run up to sniff Kremlin’s legs. It makes it very hard to be happy, when I think that tonight I will be walking so many fewer dogs than I am supposed to.
Then Todd comes down from upstairs and gives me this huge hug. I say, “Hey,” because this is a little weird.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he says.
It’s like no one would have told him if I’d died at school or something. I say, “What?”
“You didn’t hear about the shootings?”
“Oh, right, I mean, I heard about them, but I wasn’t thinking about them or something.” I want to tell him that the chances are way better that I’d died in a car wreck with Mom on the way home, but I don’t mind when Todd likes me, even though I sometimes feel like I’m just his good deed for the day.
Dad finally comes home with a stack of papers, rubbing the headache between his eyes. Parents are calling him like crazy, he says, all of them demanding that he promise their kids will be safe, like that’s something Dad can tell them.
We eat a late dinner, and I should do my homework but I don’t, and I should sleep but I don’t, and while we’re sitting around chewing on our cold, gummy pizza, a man is killed crossing the street in Washington, D.C. Wha-pam, long-range bullet, dead body.
I email the boy I shouldn’t instead of the boy I should. Because there is nothing from Cody in my inbox. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
Lio—
I don’t know why you have to be a jackass all the time. It didn’t used to be like this.
Craig
_________________________
Craig—
We didn’t used to know each other. I’m a jackass sometimes. It’s not really all the time. You’ll deal.
Lio
_________________________
Lio—
I wish you would call me.
I wish you talked.
You don’t think anyone’s going to shoot an animal, right?
Craiger
God, the least Lio could do is answer this one, let me know that the animals are safe, even though why do I trust him to know when I don’t trust my dad to know about his students? The animals aren’t Lio’s
job. They have nothing to do with Lio.
LIO
I’M ABOUT TO ANSWER CRAIG’S EMAIL WHEN DAD comes in. He wants to chat. That’s sort of his thing. Our thing. Though my part is mostly listening.
I’m his only son. It’s stupid to say we have a special bond just because of that, but we do, I think. I think I’m a relief for him, like an oasis among all the girls. We sit and watch football together. I haven’t told him I’m gay, but he’s probably figured it out. If he hasn’t, I don’t think it’s going to be a big deal to him, as long as I assure him we can still watch football.
In a way, my role for him has changed. Now most of the girls are gone, since Mom left and the big girls are at college. The single-parent situation, even with only three kids here, is hard for Dad. These things mean that I feel now like less of a respite for Dad and more like just another person bearing down on him. So I have to use that bond to our advantage.
Music comes pouring in as soon as Dad opens the door, because my little sister, Michelle, is watching MTV in the living room. My dad shuts the door and the noise blurs out. I don’t know why he doesn’t tell her to turn it down or watch TV that has people wearing clothes.
“Hey, Lio.”
I smile at him.
“How’s school?” he asks me. He peeks under my hat and laughs a little. “Look at your hair.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me. You’re the one who has to walk around like that.”
“School’s fine.”
“Good to hear.” He aims his gaze toward the living room. “I think Michelle’s having a rough time making friends.”
That doesn’t make much sense. Michelle is bubbly. She and Jasper both—though Jasper had issues at her last school because of some boy dating her and this other girl at once. So she was excited to move. Michelle was apathetic, I think.
“She misses New York, I think,” Dad says. My dad has the collar of his shirt unbuttoned and his tie loose around his neck. He’s gained too much weight. His stomach’s hiding his belt buckle, and I can see his shoulders move when he breathes, just from climbing the two flights of stairs to our apartment. “But at least Jasper’s happy, and God knows that’s a victory worth celebrating. Did you go jogging today?”