We each crack open a Jack Daniel’s. I can only take small sips. It’s bitter and burns my throat. Sam chugs his, then opens another. I start to wonder if he drank and smoked and did stuff like that in Anniston. Nothing would surprise me anymore about his time there.
I dim the lamp and put on my pajamas in the bathroom—boxers and a T-shirt. When I come out Sam’s just in his boxers, sitting Indian style on the air mattress. I want to stare but I know I shouldn’t. I go to my bed and crawl in. I take another sip, then another, finishing the bottle. I see two empties by the air mattress. Sam grabs his sack, digs around, and tosses me a Wild Turkey, which tastes only slightly different from the Jack. I feel a buzz now, a dizziness. Like I’m cut loose from my actual life, calmer, almost giddy. I stare over at him, at his shirtlessness. He’s a little glassy-eyed, looks kind of goofy. But also cute. I take my T-shirt off then, feeling less self-conscious.
“Man, every time I watch Alien. . . . Every time I think somehow they’ll all survive. I know how it ends, but I still root for them to get away. Like, that scene with Parker and Lambert, I’m always like, ‘Run! Run!’ But they never do. They always die. That’s stupid, isn’t it?”
“No,” I say. “Not at all.” I know what he’s talking about. Like, what if I had run out of that backyard and seen the white truck’s license plate as it drove by, and what if I had reported that?
But I didn’t.
Sam crawls under his covers, so I flip off the lamp. The glow from the streetlight sneaks through the blinds, so I can see the outline of Sam down beside my bed. I feel myself start to doze, lulled by the alcohol, but Sam starts talking.
“I called Kaylee the other day,” he says, sounding suddenly serious. He’s quiet for a few seconds, then says, “Her dad wouldn’t let me speak to her. He told me to never call again.”
I don’t say anything, but I hear Sam take another chug from one of the bottles. I wonder why he thought of her now. “I really cared about her. She’s the only girl I ever did it with.”
Did it with. It takes me a few seconds to realize he means sex. And I feel queasy all of a sudden. Sam, who had his life taken away from him, has had sex with a girl. I start to wonder about Nick and Sarah and my other friends, and then about all my classmates. All of them doing it. Everyone having sex, drinking. Is everyone normal and I’m like the one who’s the total loser, who’s never done anything exciting in his life? Even Sam, after what he went through—he’s done stuff that seems so far off to me.
I haven’t even kissed anyone.
I feel small in my bed, and I’m glad I’m in the dark under the covers.
“Josh? You awake?”
“Yeah.”
“Have you ever, like, done it?”
“No,” I say, and it feels surprisingly okay to admit that to Sam. The old Sam might have laughed at me or made a joke. But not this Sam.
“You’re the only one who knows about Kaylee,” Sam finally says. “I haven’t even talked about her to my therapist.”
I don’t respond.
“I really miss her sometimes.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
I see him unwrap the covers and stand up. He walks toward my bed, around to the other side. “You mind if I just lay here for a little bit. It’s easier to talk this way.”
“Okay,” I say, my heart starting to rev.
He lies on the side next to me, but not under the covers, and I feel my body shift a little to his side of the bed, his weight pulling me toward him. I close my eyes and listen as he talks.
“Kaylee was . . . well, when I was with her. It just felt like I was in another place,” he says.
Another place. Does everyone feel that way, when they’re with someone they like, someone they love? Sam’s so close I can smell the alcohol on his breath, can smell the musky scent of his body next to mine. I scoot away a little and reach over to the bedside table and grab the Wild Turkey, still mostly full, and take a few sips.
“Can I have some?” he asks.
“Finish it,” I say, and he does.
After a long silence, I think maybe Sam is asleep. But then I feel the bed shake as he props himself against the pillows a bit more. I see his hand going under the covers, just a bit. Outside, I hear a car drive by. So late for this neighborhood. I close my eyes again when I feel Sam’s hand on my hip, at the waistband of my boxers.
I don’t know what’s happening, but I do.
Maybe if I wasn’t drunk I’d leap up and lock myself in the bathroom, but I don’t. I just lie there, eyes closed, and let it happen. His hand, it’s warm, it creeps into my boxers and finds it, and he starts tugging. It hurts at first but then it doesn’t.
It doesn’t hurt. It feels good. So good.
I know this isn’t what he wants. It’s what I want. It’s what he somehow knows I want. I listened to him talk about Kaylee, and now I get this.
“Don’t,” I say softly. But he keeps going, keeps at it till I gasp and shake a little and then it happens and I feel like I might yell out or something because it’s so different than when I do it. It’s like he knows exactly when I can’t bear his hand anymore, and he lets go and rolls off the bed, goes back to his air mattress, climbs under the covers.
We both just lie there in silence for what seems like a long time. It’s like how I felt after the movie earlier. My heart racing and racing and then it’s over, and my heart slows and slows.
Maybe Sam’s fallen asleep. I pull my boxers off and sort of wipe myself, and then drop them on the floor, on the other side of the bed. I’m tired. So tired, and a little drunk probably, because my head spins when I collapse on my pillow. And I’m glad I feel so funny because then I don’t have to think about what just happened. It’s so quiet, the only noise the sound of Sam breathing.
===
When I wake up Sam’s not there. But his stuff is. The bed’s unmade. Why didn’t he wake me? I don’t hear any noises in the house so I rush to the bathroom, totally naked. I don’t look at myself in the mirror, but I wash myself with a hot rag. Out in my room I change into a clean pair of boxers, my jeans, a T-shirt.
I hear a faint noise from the front yard. I crack my blinds and I see Mom and Dad, and Sam, all of them dressed. They’re wandering around cleaning things up because someone has toilet-papered our house.
No, not someone. Probably a whole group. They’ve thrown toilet paper over the trees, over the shrubs, around the mailbox, everywhere, making it look like a snowstorm came through overnight.
I put on my shoes and go downstairs and out the front door.
It’s a mess.
Mom spots me first. “Morning,” she says, sounding surprisingly amused.
Sam and Dad are slowly unwrapping the toilet paper from around the biggest tree in the yard. I try to catch Sam’s eye, but he keeps to his task.