I look up at her finally. She does look sorry, but with Melissa you never know. At least she’s done with the questions, for now. That’s good enough for me.
“Just don’t bring Eric up again, okay?”
She nods and sighs. I ignore her until she sighs again. Loudly.
“What is it?” I ask, rolling my eyes.
“I just like him a lot,” she confesses, biting her lip.
“Mel, you like a lot of guys a lot,” I remind her.
“Yeah, but I think he’s special,” she whispers. “He’s not like the other guys I liked.”
The only thing special about Eric is that he’s gay, but I can’t tell her that, not without revealing the truth about what happened between the two of us. If Melissa ever found out about the kiss, she’d let Mitch know immediately and without hesitation.
“I don’t know what it is about him that makes him so… so attractive,” she continues. “Do you think I should ask him out or something? Maybe he is just too shy to ask himself? I mean, it wouldn’t seem desperate of me, would it? That’s totally normal, a girl asking a guy out, right?”
Oh, dear God.
“I guess so,” I say through gritted teeth..
“Are you sure?” she asks, enthusiasm leaking into the very essence of her being. “Because I’ve been thinking about it for a while now and I think I should just do it.”
“Sure... It wouldn’t hurt to try, I guess,” I murmur guiltily.
“Okay, I’m gonna.”
She takes off for a table in her sector that needs attention and I let out a heavy sigh. I’m gonna have to add Melissa to the list of my problems now.
And just as I think that, Kenan comes over. He takes the same spot where Melissa was standing just a second ago. He sighs much like Melissa did when she wanted to bring up the subject of Eric.
“What is it?” I ask, though I already know.
“It’s this Eric thing…” he begins. “But I know that you don’t want to talk about it, so I’m not gonna bother you with it.”
“Come on, spill,” I say, giving him a little nudge.
“I just can’t get him out of my head,” Kenan explains. Tell me about it! “He’s just so…”
“Attractive?” I suggest. Eric’s attractiveness is growing to be epidemic. I wonder what other admirers he has floating around.
“Yeah,” Kenan says. “I know you have Mitch, but you gotta admit that the boy is hot!”
I nod noncommittally.
“What do I do?” Kenan mutters, sounding kinda desperate.
“Do you really like him all that much?”
“I do. But it’s more than that,” he pauses for a moment and shoves his fists into his pockets. “I’ve been feeling very lonely the past couple of months… or even a year… or even more than that…”
I look at him. He’s never even technically had a boyfriend. I feel so ashamed about myself right now. I have Mitch. I have Jake pining over me. Now I have Eric willing to fool around with me. It’s like gay heaven, and here’s Kenan, this sweet, wonderful guy who can’t even get a boy he likes to look in his direction.
“Don’t give up on it,” I tell him. “Maybe you should try flirting with him or something.”
“I did!”
“Maybe you should try harder,” I think about what I know about Eric before adding, “And more aggressively this time, okay?”
At least I know that Eric is gay and there is a possibility of something happening between the two of them. It’s not a hopeless case like Melissa’s.
“Okay,” he smiles. “I’ll try. Thanks, Sam!”
“No problem…” I watch him take off to one of his tables.
I’m so lost in my thoughts that I don’t notice when Eric materializes behind me.
“The secret closet, now…”
13
I close the door behind me and smile at Eric. He is wearing a very childish Frog Hat.
“Where did you get that?”
“The gift shop,” he says. My smile widens.
“Just like kindergarten, remember?”
I don’t remember actually. I don’t know how it is that Eric remembers those years so vividly, but I nod anyway.
“I have something for your headache,” he hands me a half-emptied bottle of beer. The sight of it makes me flinch. Eric catches my tormented expression.
“It’s gonna make you feel better, trust me,” he says. “It kind of goes against logic but it works.”
“Like cures like,” I whisper thoughtfully..
“Exactly,” he grins.
I gingerly take the bottle from his hands and empty it in one gulp.
“Better?”
“Kind of,” I admit.
“You know I promised Mr. Froggy that you would give him a kiss,” he pouts, pulling the hat over his face so that just his lips are exposed. I never thought the idea of kissing a frog would be appealing, but this particular frog is more of a prince. So I do. I do kiss him.
The kissing is a lot heavier this time. I can even feel the stiffness of his erection as his body presses into mine.
Since I’m breaking the rules already, I might as well go all the way with it. I let my hand slide down Eric’s torso and down into his pants.
I can’t help but be reminded of trying the same move on Mitch some time ago. We were kissing in my room and I allowed my hand to wander into the “nether regions” if you will. My hand did go all the way down there, but the moment I felt flesh, I pulled away. Knee-jerk reaction I guess, but still totally mood killing.
To my surprise, when my fingers come in contact with Eric’s er...package, my hand doesn’t even flinch. I don’t feel any urge to pull it away or anything. On the contrary, I feel ready to explore.
Just as I’m planning to do so, a sudden bout of pain shoots through my leg.
I double-over and grab my leg with both hands. This happens to me sometimes, usually at nights. It only lasts for a minute, but still, that minute is always excruciating.
“What’s wrong?” Eric cries out, worried.
“Cramp,” I wheeze.
“Oh… Can I do anything?”
“No, it will pass in a minute or two.”
“Oh, okay…”
“I think you better go before anyone notices we’re gone,” I manage to eek out.
“You sure you’re gonna be okay?”
“Yeah, it’s just a cramp. I’ll be fine, I promise.” Though the stilted quality of my speech probably suggests otherwise.
“Okay… I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” I say, me too. I watch him leave with equal parts shame and regret.
14
“Ready?” Melissa asks.
I nod half-heartedly.
“One, two, three,” she counts and starts running towards me. She stops right in front of me before jolting upwards.
“Four.” She jumps into my hands as I try to lift her all the way up.
“Five, lift,” she yells. I strain to keep her suspended over my head.
“Now hold me! Hold me!” she shouts, though we’re already falling. She lands on her feet, because she’s a professional. And I land on my butt, because I am not.
“Okay,” she says, trying not to sound disappointed. “Again!”
She resumes her original position three feet away. We are using one of the unoccupied tennis courts to practice our routine, but, as you may have guessed, I haven’t mastered the lift element quite yet.
It’s a very complex part, crucial to impressing the judges, but also the most difficult, and I can’t seem to complete it no matter how hard I try. We’ve been practicing it for weeks now and I’ve made absolutely zero progress, but we haven’t lost hope.
“One, two, three, run,” Melissa says, starting over. She runs towards me.
“Four, jump,” she yells and jumps into my arms.
“Five, lift,” she shouts. This part I can manage, as Melissa is not particularly heavy.
“Now hold me!?
?? she shouts. “Hoooold meeee!”
I’m trying as hard as I can, but I already know that I’m doing it wrong. I don’t feel any balance at all. We start tilting.
“Hold me!” she growls but it’s already too late. We fall again.
Melissa is frustrated. I can see that, but she is trying to look optimistic.
“Okay, again,” she commands. She attempts to move past me and resume her starting position, but I put up a hand and stop her.
“It’s not working,” I say, sinking down onto one of our (or my more specifically) crash mats.
“It has to work. This is the key element of the entire routine. If we don’t do this, the whole thing is gonna look amateur.”
“I know, I know, but I don’t know how to make it work and you’re not helping at all,” I complain.
“I’m sorry, but I’ve never lifted anyone. I’m a girl,” she emphasizes. “I’m usually the one being lifted.”
“Well, I obviously dont know how to lift either.”
“You just need to practice,” she coos. “With practice comes understanding.”
“Nothing seems to be coming to me. I’m just stuck doing the same thing over and over again. I know I’m doing it wrong.”
“With practice,” she repeats, “You’ll figure out your problem and fix it. We need to keep practicing.”
“Mel, we don’t have a lot of time left to practice. The thing is tomorrow,” I rest my head on my hands.
“We’ll just go for it then, and hope that everything works out on the dancefloor somehow.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I say.
Melissa is not looking at me anymore.
When I trace her gaze, I notice Eric. She is staring at him as he passes the court on his way into the main complex.
“Are you listening to me?”
“Sorry,” she says and turns back to me. “I just need to get a chance to talk to Eric. I want to ask him out tonight.”
“What about practice?” I ask. She doesn’t seem to fully understand what is at stake for me here. “You just told me that we needed to practice.”
“We’ll practice later,” she shrugs. “You’re too tired as it is. I don’t think you can do any more lifting right now.”
She’s right, of course, but I don’t want to let her go just yet. We’re supposed to be a team!
“I gotta go,” she says, getting ready to bolt.
“Melissa!” I shout after her.
“It’ll be fine, I promise,” she shouts back at me before disappearing into the distance.
I groan loudly before flopping back onto the padded mat like the fish out of water I am.
15
I keep lying there for a good long while, contemplating my impending doom. I think I might as well start entertaining the idea of Law School or something. My dream of becoming a cinematographer seems to be getting farther away by the minute.
“Hey,” Jake says, appearing suddenly from behind.
I look up at him. “Hey,” I sit up. “What are you doing here?”
“To tell you the truth, I was watching you,” he says.
Watching me? Does he mean like spying on me?
“I mean I was watching you practice,” he corrects himself. “I wanted to make sure you were doing okay. I mean I know how important that Film School thing is to you. And I promised to help.”
Yes, he did promise. But I didn’t think that his promise would extend to watching me practice with Melissa. I wonder what he thinks about what he saw though. It has gotta be obvious that my lift element sucks.
“I’m doing it all wrong, aren’t I?” I ask. He extends his hand toward me and practically pries me off the mat.
“Nah, you’re not that bad,” he encourages. “We just need to fix a couple of things, that’s all.”
“So you’re gonna help me?” I don’t know why I ask. He already told me he would.
He takes both my hands and puts them onto his thighs.
“Now lift me,” he says.
“What?”
“Try to lift me. You don’t have to lift me all the way up into the air but you have to be able to hold me for fifteen seconds,” he says. “If you can do that then we can work further.”
“Okaaaaaaaay,” I drawl, trying not to think about the fact that my hands placed on his thighs are making me aroused.
I bend my knees and wrap my arms around him, settling with my hands just under his butt and my torso against his crotch. It didn’t feel half as intimate when I was doing the same thing to Melissa. For one thing, she doesn’t have that thing between her legs Jake has, the thing that I can feel so distinctively right now. And I gotta say it does nothing to lessen my arousal.
And also, I never felt the attraction to Melissa the way I feel it towards Jake right now. I’m torn between feeling guilty and feeling aroused, which makes the lifting so much more difficult.
“Okay, I’m lifting,” I mutter pointlessly.
Jake is wearing his sweat pants and his crotch is pressed tightly against my chest now and my face is digging into his stomach. I can’t help but smell the mixture of sweat and the deodorant that he is wearing. I inhale it hungrily.
“Great, now hold me,” he says. “Fifteen, fourteen…”
The fact that Jake is actually much heavier than Melissa seems minor compared to the rest of the stuff that I’m feeling.
“Thirteen, twelve, eleven…” Jake keeps on counting. The time seems to have slowed down for me both because of the weight that I’m holding and because it’s not just some inanimate heavy object. It’s Jake!
“Come on, ten more seconds,” he shouts.
I feel my hands starting to tremble. I think Jake can feel it too, but I’m not giving up. I’m not gonna give up.
“Hold me! Hold me as if I was the most precious thing you’ve ever held in your arms,” Jake whispers. “That’s what my ballet teacher used to tell me when I was holding one of the girls.”
There is no way I could respond at this point. My face is practically buried in his stomach. I wouldn’t know what to say anyway.
I know he is joking about him being precious to me, but it still triggers the feelings that I have been trying to push deep into the darkness for months.. I do actually cherish him. I feel lucky to be holding him in my arms. Having him there makes me feel happy.
It’s more than a physical attraction though. There’s more to it. For a second the hidden door in the back of my mind opens, one that I locked a long time ago and threw the key away as well. For a second I can see the light coming through. I didn’t want to see that light. I was forcing myself not to look in that direction. But I can’t help looking at it now. I guess I’m not making much sense here, but that’s just how I feel.
Truthfully, I don’t want to let go of Jake at all. I don’t want him to escape my embrace after those ten seconds are over; but I know that he will. More so, I know that I’m going to be the one to push him away. Because I can’t let myself have Jake in my arms. That wouldn’t be right. I can’t.
These are the ten seconds that I can be free. These are the ten seconds that I can keep that door in my mind open and feast my eyes on the magical divine light. These are the ten seconds that I can have Jake… And then I’m gonna have to let go.
I don’t feel his weight anymore. I just feel happy, in a way that I’ve never felt before. I hold to Jake tight and try to make those last seconds count. I allow myself to feel him pressed against me, feel him without any emotional restrictions. I can feel his body molded into my arms so perfectly. I can feel the heat of his body. I can feel him breathing. I can feel his heart beating, even though my own heart is racing right now. So does his, I think.
Maybe I’m going crazy here, or maybe Jake’s smell is more intoxicating than I thought, but I actually feel that our hearts are beating in unison. It’s a perfect harmony. And it’s just so beautiful…
“Three, two, one!” he finishes, but I can barely hear him. There??
?s a loud ringing in my ears now.
“Okay, you can put me down now,” he breathes. I set him down gently and unwillingly. My muscles are screaming with ache, but I swear I could have held him for hours.
“You did it!” he shouts out, cheerful. I’m beginning to regain my hearing, also my senses, and my control.
I’m reluctant to pull my arms away from him and he picks up on it. Our eyes meet, but only for a second, a second that is enough for my brain to prevail over my heart again. I pull away and catch my breath.
“That was great!” he tells me. “You’re actually not in a bad shape. I can work with that.”
“Great,” I manage to say. Great…
16
“Okay, the thing is that you gotta trust me,” Jake explains. “It works both ways, when I’m lifting you and when you’re lifting me. Trust is the key. Otherwise..”
“Splat,” I nod. I’m out of breath again, but I’m also more determined than ever.
We have moved from the tennis court to the lake now. There is nobody here but us.
We’re using water instead of the ground so that neither of us gets hurt. Jake is already knee-deep and I am getting ready to launch myself into his arms. It might sound easy, but it’s actually pretty difficult. The angle and my balance have to be just right. Plus, it’s kind of unnerving flinging yourself full-force at a very solid, unmoving being.
“Come on, one, two, three, go!” he commands.
I run up to him and jump. His hands grab my thighs and he lifts me cleanly up into the air. He is doing it with much less effort than it took me, but I find it that it’s harder to be lifted than to lift. Jake was right. Trust is the key. And it seems that I don’t trust him at all.
It’s a good thing that Jake proposed we do this in the water. Otherwise, we would have been covered with bruises by now.
I sink below the surface for a second, basking in the refreshing coolness, before emerging to a stern, reproachful expression.
“You don’t trust me,” Jake says, mock serious, and then a grin appears on his face.