The night of the zoo kiss, I find myself unable to sleep. I am thinking about Jordan’s lips against mine, and how he actually whimpered when they touched, and how real it felt.
It’s amazing. The simple act of kissing with someone I really like can just send me. Like a drug, maybe.
And then there are the times it doesn’t feel like that. At all.
Nausea fills my throat. I’m like, Do I need to vomit? I laugh. I liked the kiss. Jordan made me want to do the opposite of vomit.
So why would I even focus on that?
I’m alone in my bedroom. Lying down in bed. After a first kiss with a dude I like. So what’s this heavy syrup filling up my sinuses? Expanding upward.
I shut my eyes tighter, ignoring the weird feeling behind my eyes.
It stays, and then it gets worse, and I even think maybe I should call 9-1-1. Suddenly my face is numb with this syrupy feeling. It’s in my nose, in my head, sloshing down into my chest. And I’m like, Am I going crazy? Focus on the positive. Focus on the good stuff.
Kevin, the name, appears in big, bright lights, and I thrash it out of my brain. My head hits the headboard slightly and that makes me dizzy, but it does nothing to stop the slush. Oh no. I think to myself, Oh no.
I make a deal with God. Please, God. Let me just feel the good thing, not this other —
God says no.
I pinch my eyes closed. There’s a milky, full feeling gathering around my heart. A sludge. Slush. My body goes heavy all the way through, and suddenly I’m underwater again, like when Betts jumped on me, and waves of it fill my sinuses, the veins in my arms, my inner ear.
Dad saw a psychic once. He was into that for like a minute when I was a kid. And he went and saw her and showed her a picture of me. The psychic said I might have tooth trouble in my life, and that if I was ever to be in trouble, I should go to sleep. If I went to sleep when troubled, I’d wake up with an answer. I’ve always remembered that. So I focus on the insides of my eyes and will my heavy heart to slow down.
The shapes inside my eyes intensify, go purple, pop and lock, rearrange and squirm. I feel it. I feel the sleep overtake me. And I’m so, so relieved.
Summer break is here! I flip the blue exam book closed after my AP History final, march up to Mr. Harrison’s desk, place it in front of him, and wait to catch his eye.
“You’re all set,” he says, smiling at me. “Have a great break, you hear?”
“You know it,” I say. “You too.”
I just about sprint down the hallway toward the front door and all the way to my truck. Even the way the steering wheel burns my hands doesn’t bug me, and I roll down the windows and blare the radio as I coast down Guadalupe the mile to my house.
We meet up at Betts’s house for some Madden, and his dad takes us for pizza rolls at Nello’s for dinner. They start talking about a Madden tournament and staying up all night, and I glance down at my phone. Betts notices.
“You got somewhere to be, Maximo?”
I shrug. “Gotta help my mom,” I say.
Zay-Rod acts like this is an act of treason. “First night of break, dude,” he says. “What the hell?”
“If I wanna have a break, gotta take care of Rosa first.”
“Momma’s boy,” Betts says, and I say, “At least my mom’s not a —” and then I remember Mr. Betts is sitting right there, and I stop talking in a hurry, prompting a mischievous laugh from Zay-Rod.
Mr. Betts laughs too. “That’s fine,” he says. “My wife is a prostitute.”
Betts is like, “Dad!”
And we all laugh, and the fact that I’m begging out of our first-night-of-break Madden fest is momentarily forgotten.
The notification comes at 8:05. Just an address, near ASU. My heart flutters. I’ve met dudes from the gay app before, but this one is different. There’s something that just seems right about it. He’s chill. Funny. Said some shit about man buns when we messaged that actually made me laugh, and I can count on one hand the number of times a dude has made me laugh on there. I’m gonna meet him. Kick off the summer before my senior year with my first ASU kegger. Maybe we’ll click?
I’ll see you there, I text.
Not if I see you first, is his response.
I grin because he seems like a mischievous kind of guy, and I like that. Maybe boyfriend material? I’d be good with that. It’s so damn hard to find someone. I’m not friends with the LGBTQ kids at school because I’m not out, because of baseball. One n ten was not for me, and while I can get into BS West with my fake ID, there’s all these dudes there giving me shade, acting like their shit don’t stink. I don’t have the time for that.
I tell Rosa I’m off to Betts’s place for some Madden, and she’s busy reading Isabel Allende’s The Japanese Lover and tells me to have mercy on those other boys. I walk out with thrilling shivers dotting my arms and legs. I’ve never lied to Rosa before about something this big. I’ve never had to, and I’m not even sure I have to now, but it feels like it adds to the excitement to make this a Max-only adventure.
The party is out of control by the time I arrive at ten. Shirtless dudes running around with Super Soakers and thump-y music blaring and girls dancing up on each other in tight tops and skimpy bottoms. I can smell the alcohol as I walk in, and part of me wants to turn right around because I’ve never walked into a party alone before. Always had my boys there, even with BS West, which Betts dug because he could mack on the straight girls hanging with their gay buddies, and they were all like, No thank you, please. It was pretty funny.
Thankfully it doesn’t take long to spot Kevin. His blue faux-hawk gives him away, and he gives me an uneven smile and a tiny wave from across the room. When he speaks, his mouth closes crookedly, and that adds some additional quirk to his look. I like him immediately.
As we walk toward his dorm, my heart pulses in my ear.
I ask him, “Do you have protection?”
He tells me to relax. He’s only been with five guys. This logic eludes me, but Kevin is older, more experienced. I defer to him.
I am shirtless in his bed. It’s like Kevin is two people. One at the party, and one ever since we left. Ever since it’s seemed like a done deal, I guess. At the party he talked fast and seemed overeager to please. Now he seems almost cocky in his attitude, and we don’t say much. And when we do, it’s not — not what I want. At all.
He stands at the foot of his bed, his shirt off too.
“Wanna smoke up?”
I shake my head no. I don’t know exactly what he means, which makes me feel stupid. It’s like I missed a class in Hooking Up 101. Weed? More than weed? I don’t know, but I am not interested in finding out. A few beers is enough for me, and I’ve heard enough of my mom’s diatribes about how Mexico has been ruined by America’s hunger for drugs. Not gonna be part of that.
He takes out a pipe and a tiny wooden case and he pinches a bit of greenish-looking stuff and puts it in the pipe hole and lights up. He inhales heavily, holds it in, exhales. Pot for sure. I try not to take in too much of the smoke. Then he shakes his head, over and over, regarding me like I’m some sort of prize he’s won.
He says, “Are you my dark-skinned boy?”
My esophagus fills with something slushy. “Um.”
“Are you my Arabian prince?”
I’m like, Are you for real? My jaw tenses, because he doesn’t laugh, or say “Just playin’.” He means this, or thinks this is acceptable, a normal thing to say. I want to say something, make a joke at least about how fucking stupid that is, how ignorant. But I don’t want to kill the moment. I’m too curious to see what’s next. When the room has been silent for so long that it feels like my not saying anything is a form of consent, I say, “My mom was born in Mexico City and my dad is from Indiana.”