Work Text:
Week -4
I always hated when school started up again. My father and I traveled so much that every new school felt like re-learning the curves and plains of a new lover—something familiar, yet strange, and a little bit frightening— though far less exciting. I wasn’t shy, I wasn’t scared, I had never had a serious problem with kids at school. In most schools I would make little attempt to befriend my peers as we never stuck around long. Additionally, I had a tendency to enjoy company of the teachers, who were far more interesting stories than most of the students. I believe my peers too found me to be nothing more than the scary Russian kid and less of a teachers pet I could sometimes be. And the art teachers! When I got in good with almost any art teacher they would usually split a joint with me as long as I promised not to tell. Most of the students assumed I was a slacker, a burnout— yeah, I was 15 with oversized black clothing and nearly translucent skin who had a tendency to be late to every class, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t paying attention.
That’s where I was misjudged the most. They believe I am not paying attention, I am lazy, whatever. Traveling as much as I have, through talking with a vast array of people with many colorful backgrounds, I’ve learned more about the world, more about people than most would expect. So I am always paying attention.
I was paying attention to everything on the first day of freshmen year.
I had been in Las Vegas for the second half of eighth grade and had been able to generally get a sense of who everyone was, the cliques, the sort of social hierarchy of the school. Enough to know that there were five new kids in the class this particular year.
- A girl named Sarah who kept her hair short and only wore the color purple.
2 + 3. A set of twins, who I had hoped would be more interesting, but they had come down from Beaverton, Oregon when their mom, who had gotten promoted to work in a Hilton hotel just off the strip.
4. A boy named Alex who was even taller than me, and I was tall for my age, who spent all his time fencing. He was okay to talk to sometimes, but once he got started bout the fencing, that was the end of any meaningful conversation.
5. The last new student- well, my first encounter with him was the strangest thing and left me desperately curious about who he was.
It was, as I mentioned, the first day of school, so naturally I went to celebrate with a joint in the bathroom at lunch. I had searched the school for the most deserted bathroom I could find- the one across from the old gym that everyone said was haunted. I checked the halls, went inside, no lights on— and I left them off. I locked myself in a heavily graffitied stall, of which I had every intention of adding to, sat up on the tank of the toilet with my feet on the seat and dug deep into the pocket of my oversized coat— one that belonged to my father— for his golden lighter. Joint between my lips, fingers drawing across the lighter to produce a flame, I paused suddenly upon hearing the door open. I sat impossibly still, nervous to breath. I didn’t know the high school teachers, who I could talk my way out of trouble with and I wasn’t prepared for suspension on the first day of school, not when there was the promise of free lunch.
The door of the stall next to mine slammed against the wall connecting the two with a loud bang, all the stalls in the row reverberating with the vibration of the collision. I heard a strong sound coming from the other side after hearing the door lock. It was like the squeaking of a small animal.
The sound persisted for what felt like a long time, but can’t have been more than a few minutes. I noticed a large gap between the the wall of the stall and the tiled bathroom wall. Being careful not to make a sound, I leaned my back against the wall, turning my head towards the gap to see what was going on.
A small boy with Sandy blond hair leaned his head in his hands. His thin body shook and I gathered that the sounds I heard were the sounds of the sobs that wracked his body. I thought of the assholes in the class, the ones I knew would frequently pick on the smallest, weakest boys in our class and wondered what they must have done to him. Physically he seemed unscathed though their cruelty often came in a verbal or psychological form.
Ordinarily, upon finding someone crying I would speak up and make an effort to make a joke or at least make sure they weren’t hurt— I was antisocial, not a psychopath—but this boy was new and no one wants to be caught crying on their first day of school. I remained silent. Faintly, as lunch was nearing an end, I heard him blow his nose before the slide of the lock rang out in the empty bathroom, the door, far more gently than before, opened. I peered through the crack in the door to see him wash his hands and face and when he looked in the mirror he put a big round pair of glasses over his puffy, red eyes. He patted his cheeks as if to make the red disappear- it didn’t work.
Before he left he cleared his throat, startling me, but I didn’t move, he adjusted his glasses once more and then he was gone. I remember sitting back up on the tank, I shrugged and thought to myself, ‘He looks like Harry Potter.’ I lit the joint, finally, inhaled deep and enjoyed my one man celebration of the start of another year of being a sheep in the fucking hot wide yellow wasteland.
Classes at the high school were staggered— four classes one day, four different classes the next. So it wasn’t until the second day I discovered that I had two classes with the crying boy. In English I sat behind him and to the left. I hadn’t picked the seat on purpose but I was glad I had ended up with it as it allowed me to watch him. He fascinated me for some reason I couldn’t explain. There was something about the way he had cried, the mystery of why and how quickly he had composed himself that made me curious about his story. I felt somehow connected to him in a way that I couldn’t make sense of at all.
The first week I learned four things—
The first: he wrote constantly. I was fairly certain it wasn’t notes for class as the teacher hadn’t gotten around to a whole lot the first week. Definitely nothing worth writing about.
The second: He always wore collared shirts and khaki dress pants like a bit of a dork, but there was something about him that didn’t match his uptight clothing, almost like someone else had picked out his attire.
The Third: like most of the students he made very little effort to answer questions the teacher asked, but unlike the others, he would regularly ask questions. Someone who preferred to listen and gain knowledge was far more intriguing than someone who liked to hear themselves talk, which I frequently caught myself doing.
The fourth: I made him uncomfortable. We didn’t utter a word to each other that first week but when I passed him in the halls he would look down and walk in a wide path around me.
Perhaps he had known I was there in the bathroom or somehow seen me, though I had been careful. I made quite a few people uncomfortable. Perhaps it was my homeless-goth chic attire, or my nails painted black, maybe the bruises that regularly blossomed on my skin with no explanation. But his discomfort was different entirely, in the same way he seemed different. As if it was more to do with him and less to do with me at all.
I spent every other day watching him curiously, listening to his questions, more eager to learn what he found intriguing than to hear the teachers response. By the second week I found myself counting down the hours until we shared classes so I could watch and listen to this strange boy whom I had come to understand was from New York. Some part of me had always romanticized New York, as many people do, but I loved the idea of the seedy underbelly of a city where the misfits and the outcasts thrived. He was the opposite of this and yet he had my attention fully.
Week -3
The weekend before the second week of school was hard to say the least. The mine my father had been working on for months had collapsed due to the negligence of the men under him— so he said— and my legs had taken the brunt of his anger towards those men, black and blue and purple, sore and tired in the morning despite no physical exertion. Walking was painful and gym was troublesome as we were required to wear shorts, exposing the mottled skin that was only covered by a thin layer of black hair at such a young age. Not caring what anyone thought of me, I pulled my socks up my ankles as far as they would go to cover up the unnatural color. They really only served to cover about half the bruising, but I tried to keep to the back of the group as much as possible.
I had taken to smoking cigarettes with a redhead named Molly after gym class. She was a senior. Ever time she would walk up to me in the shade of the metal seats, she would stand very close and say, “Say something in Russian,” while dangling a cigarette in front of my face as the prize for participation.
“твое дыхание пахнет лошадиной задницей,” I would say, or something along this line. She would smile, satisfied, lean down and kiss me sloppily on the lips before giving me the cigarette.
“What did you say, Boris?” She would ask only after we both lit up.
“Your hair is like eternal flame,” I would lie, not wanting the supply of cigarettes to dry up, fully aware she wouldn’t know any better. I think because of this, she thought I was her boyfriend. She was hot, sure, but her breath did smell like a horses ass.
It was Wednesday, we were under the bleachers, smoking like usual when I saw the sad boy again, Harry Potter. He hugged a civics book to his chest as he walked.
Our eyes locked for a moment, his brown like mine, only lighter. His face was round but lean and there was a ferocity behind the sadness that seemed to follow him like a cloud. A deep frown set into his face when he saw me and I found myself leaning forward as if to reach out to him— I didn’t want to be the reason his face had fallen. My heart sank watching him quickly retreat. In the far back of my mind I registered that Molly had said something, but over the sound of my own heart beating strangely fast in my ears combined with the image of him walking away, I didn’t hear a word of it.
Friday I learned which locker was his. I had been walking through the halls with Jordan, one of the twins, who was generally dull but he laughed at my jokes —I enjoyed that particular kind of attention. I was mocking one of our classmates, something stupid they had said in class, walking backwards, gesturing wildly as I was known to do. The halls were crowded with students, but I didn’t have too much trouble avoiding running into anyone. As Jordan buckled over himself laughing his foot caught the lace of my boot and when I went to pick up my foot I toppled over backwards slamming right into Harry Potter. He had been arranging the books in his locker but had managed to keep me from falling flat on my ass with one hand gripping tightly to my shoulder as the weight of my body pressed him hard against the locker door.
I felt my body being pushed up right until I was standing and my weight was over my own feet again.
I turned to apologize, but when I saw it was him I had fallen into I was struck speechless. Besides, he didn’t even look up. He pulled out an algebra textbook, shut and locked the locker, and left. It was as though he was so deep in his own head he didn’t even register the interaction. I was so surprised by his utter lack of reaction that I simply gathered myself and walked away, not one word uttered between us.
As I walked away, I looked back towards where he had gone and caught his gaze briefly as he looked back towards me as well. Our eyes locked for hardly a millisecond before he turned back around, face flushed, eyes on the ground and shuffled away.
I felt a tightness in my chest that wasn’t pain but a kind of open feeling- an open tightness like a rubber band fully stretched but also someone lit it on fire. I had never experienced anything like it before. Clutching my chest I moved down the hall, Jordan asking what the hell was wrong with me. But I didn’t know.
As I rode the bus home that afternoon, all I could think about were his eyes averting my gaze, the flush of pink on his cheeks disappearing as he looked to the floor. There was something so beautiful in the boy’s gesture. He was slowly taking over my mind, every thought I had concerned the mystery of him.
I knew how easy it was for someone from one place to end up in another and yet I was dying to know why a boy from New York would come to Las Vegas, home of the never ending blue sky and more dust than any air filter can really handle.
At the beginning of high school I didn’t go out much but preferred to stay in my room, watch movies, read and occasionally dabble in homework. The weekend of the second week of school my father had told me he would’t be back so he left me $10 for food. I knew it wasn’t enough but I took the cash and went to the grocery store. The trick is to buy something so they don’t suspect you. When you walk in and out in an oversized coat in the middle of the a desert people start to catch on. When you bring a ten, buy some candy, you easily could have stolen, people are less likely to look for the bacon or fruit snacks you’ve hidden in your coat. I hadn’t had an actual meal outside of school in days so this was my plan. It was 9pm on Friday, the store was basically empty and closed in an hour. I nabbed some bacon, a small bag of chips, shoving them in the inner pockets of my coat—hand half way in my coat and half way out I paused. It was him. He was standing idly with what must have been his father. For all the times the teacher called his name in class I couldn’t for the life of me remember. With those big glasses perched on his nose, amplifying his large chocolate eyes I could only think of him as Harry Potter.
He didn’t see me, as far as I was aware, for which I was grateful. I watched from an aisle end cap filled with boxes and boxes of sugary cereal. There seemed to be miles between him and his father. They hardly spoke and Potter seemed always to be leaning away from the older man. His dad would pat him on the shoulder in what seemed like a fatherly gesture— not that I would have really known what that was like— and Harry Potter would flinch or shift away from his attempt at contact. I figured he must not like his dad very much, though he looked like a nice enough guy. Potter looked up to his father and asked a question before the turned towards me. Quickly I zipped into the next aisle over, my back against the cold doors of the refrigerated section. As I made to peer around the corner to see if Potter was there, I was met face to face with an employee. I smiled wide. Never interact with store employees while shoplifting, it’s one of my rules, but if you absolutely have to, be charming.
“Are you gonna pay for that?” Asked a pimply young man, probably 18 or 19, pointing to the food poking out of my coat. I pulled the bacon and chips from my pockets and looked at the price stickers attached to each. $6.50 for the bacon, $2.75 for the chips equalled $9.25 total. I was barely going to make it with the ten my father gave me, but I would be able to pay for what he had seen.
“Of course! Forgot shopping basket, too lazy to carry in hands.”
This seemed to satisfy him enough, but he eyed me suspiciously, pointed with two fingers to his eyes, then back to me. I smiled brightly again until he walked away. When he had finally disappeared I spun around to catch a glimpse of the boy and his father, curious about their disjointed interactions that reminded me so much of my own father and I, but they were gone.
I ran between end caps, searching, with no luck. When I had given up, I turned to go to the checkout counter, slipping a pack of Reeses Pieces in my pocket, only to find the pair already standing in line. What I could see on the conveyor belt was a 24 pack of beer, a box of cereal but no milk, and a frozen pizza. I felt deeply connected to Potter and I couldn’t explain why. There was something precious about him that made me want to hold him, but also a bite I could tell lived just beneath the surface, his protection mechanism against whatever wrong the world had done him. In the two weeks since school started, I realized, I’d never seen him talk to anyone besides teachers. I wasn’t in any particular hurry to make friends either, in all likelihood my father and I would be gone by the end of the school year anyhow, but even I occasionally spoke with the other kids, like Jordan and Molly. Even the quiet kids usually had one friend. But not him. I watched them pay and leave, the darkness swallowing him whole as he disappeared through the automatic doors into the night.
Week -2
The third week of school carried on with no incident. Monday and Wednesday feeling terribly long and boring without the intrigue of the boy I’d become very nearly obsessed with. Tuesday was better as we shared both English class and history where I would watch his seemingly endless train of thought spill out onto the paper before him. He only ever stopped writing when he had a question or a teacher asked him to stop. I desperately wanted to know what he wrote. How could someone have so much to say but say so little out loud? My endless fascination with him was strange even to me. I had never been so interested in a single person before, at least no one my age who had lived so little life there was hardly anything to talk about. But without ever talking to him, I could tell there was more to him than the typical shy freshman. Shy wasn’t really the right word. He didn’t seem shy, but maybe indifferent towards those around him, which of course is always the most alluring challenge for your resident bored extroverted introvert.
It wasn’t until Thursday that shit really hit the fan. In the fall in Vegas we all ate lunch under a covered area outside with benches and tables and an excellent view of sand almost as far as the eye could see until you hit only the most high class of trailer parks. Height of glamour.
I always at lunch, as much as they would give me. However, by week three, it had become a tradition for myself and Molly to to smoke a cigarette under the bleachers at the beginning of lunch to kill time until the line in the cafeteria had died down. When we finished we would head to the cafeteria, deserted by that point. I greeted the lunch ladies warmly, complimenting them and asking how they were doing. They were sweet ladies and always gave me heaping piles of food plus extra dessert, even though they weren’t supposed to. I thanked them and wished them a good day, they always smiled and seemed very delighted by my accent and the way I couldn’t pronounce certain words or make certain sounds. The food was plain but far better than the lack of food I had at home.
We walked outside to the lunch area to find a circle of what looked like junior football players forming around a table. This shit happened all the time and I rarely bothered to get involved. I had enough bruises, I didn’t need more. Molly got to talking about some shit I didn’t care about. As I ate, I thought how I should probably spend less time with her, she was clearly getting the wrong idea about whatever it was we had.
I was deep in thought about something I can’t recall when a voice struck me out of my own head.
“Stop it! Stop it!” The sound of tearing paper.
“Shut the fuck up, faggy fairy boy!”
“I’m not! Stop!”
Harry Potter. He was so small and sounded distressed. If things escalated, they might seriously hurt him. I felt a panic rise in me. I swung my legs over the bench and made my way to the circle as calmly as I could manage.
“Hey, pick on someone more your size, yes?” I suggested, voice cool and collected, my hands unthreateningly relaxed in my pockets.
The boys laughed at me and stopped what they were doing momentarily. Potter looked at me, but judging by his glasses-less face, I gathered he probably couldn’t see me very well.
“The fuck do you care? He your boyfriend?” One of the boys mocked.
I didn’t particularly care what they thought of me, I wasn’t bothered with anyone thinking I might be gay, but the suggestion clearly bothered Potter as he made a face and said, “What!? No!”
“Do not know him, but maybe you should leave alone? Looks busy.” He had books in front of him, torn up papers, clearly done by the assholes harassing him. One of them held his glasses as if to break them. I reached out slowly to take the glasses back from his hands, but he would not let go.
“These do not belong to you.”
“What are you gonna do about it, little bitch?” He taunted.
With one hand he snapped the glasses in half, leaving half in my hand and half in his.
That was all the provocation I needed to throw a steady punch that collided hard and loud with his nose. He screamed and fell back, blood rushing down his face. “Little bitch, my ass. ублюдок.”
Another grabbed my shirt and made to hit me but I ducked and kneed him in the balls. The next thing I knew I saw pavement jumping up to hold my body, heard a crack and then black.
The makeshift infirmary looked like it had been decorated by and for six year olds. Crayons on the walls, balloons and clowns. It was more than a little unsettling in the bright blue light of the fluorescent on the ceiling.
“Hello, Honey! You took quite a fall there!” Rang the nurses high pitched, but well intentioned, voice.
I rolled my head to look at her. I was on some cross between a gurney and a bed and my head felt like it was being pressed between two expanding cinderblocks.
“I am suspended?” I asked, voice hoarse with disuse.
Thoughtfully she handed me a cup of water which I sat up and gulped down greedily.
“No, sweetie! You don’t get suspended for tripping and falling. Silly!”
“Tripping?” I was so confused and disoriented and my head hurt so bad I could hardly think. All I could remember was punching the first guy and everything after that was a blur.
“That sweet new boy Theo said you tripped and hit your head at lunch.”
Theo. HIs name was Theo. I said it over and over again in my mind trying hard to commit it to memory. Theo.
The room and everything around it felt eerily quiet but for the pounding in my head. “What is the time?” I asked, hoping I hadn’t missed class with Theo.
“It’s 4:30, honey. I’m afraid that fall knocked you out cold for several hours. Do you need any medicine? Does your head hurt?”
She put her hand softly on top of my head in a reassuring gesture. I know she didn’t have the kind of medicine I wanted. At that moment my stomach growled so loudly I hugged my abdomen tight. “Am okay, maybe food?”
That night as I lay in bed, naked but for my underwear, smoking a cigarette with the window open, blankets discarded on the floor, I thought of his red, round face as the older boys teased him. While his voice sounded distressed, he hadn’t seemed scared, only angry. He definitely couldn’t see well without his glasses as he’d been squinting at the whole scene. I found myself hoping that my intervention convinced them to back the fuck off, though I hadn’t had the most successful of conquests.
My mind was stuck on the events that had played out at lunch. I played and replayed it in my head. Sometimes exactly as it happened, other times I imagined myself more successful in my efforts, scaring off the bullies, returning Theo his unbroken glasses and earning a sweet smile from his lips in thanks. And the sweetest thanks it would have been, had I been able to see it. As I fell asleep I imagined all the ways it could have ended. The last thing I remember around 1am, the picture burned into the back of my eyes, was of him taking my hand in his as we walked away from a pile of beat up assholes who deserved everything we gave them and more.
Friday I woke up much too late to bother attempting to go to school. My dreams had all been unusually vivid and featured heavily the boy I’d become accustomed to calling Potter in my mind. Frustrated by the tightness in my underwear, I rolled over and covered my head with a pillow before sliding my hand between my legs thinking about the new kid at school.
Week -1
The weekend had felt horribly long and awfully boring. I had managed to steal some candy to last me through Saturday and Sunday, though the sugar did nothing to help the throbbing in my head that persisted through Saturday evening. By Monday I found myself somehow hungrier than I’d been all summer when I’d practically lived as a scavenger, a dumpster diver and a thief. It frequently seemed as though my father forgot I even existed, though I did little to remind him that I did as it frequently ended poorly for me.
Molly was waiting for me in our usual spot Monday morning with a whole pack of cigarettes she’d promised me. “Hey, cutie, you’re back.” She’d taken to calling me cutie, but I definitely preferred the use of my given name to her pet names. “Come here, I missed you this weekend.” Once again I thought of how hanging out with her was a mistake and clearly leading her on. Granted, it was worth it for the cigarettes and occasional joints she would produce for us to share. She leaned in close to my ear when I moved closer to her. “Tell me I’m pretty in Russian.” I had to stifle a laugh. I thought shit like this only happened in movies.
“я бы хотел, чтобы ты был мальчиком,” I whispered back, trying not to laugh. She didn’t seem to mind the slight as her lips found mine again and for a moment I closed my eyes and tried to imagine she was Potter. But she smelled like too much floral perfume that almost made me gag— I pushed back. “Have cigarettes?”
She scowled at me and handed me a fresh, unopened pack. “You know, Boris, sometimes I think you don’t even like me, you just want the cigarettes.”
I had to try not to laugh again. That was exactly what I wanted. But I said nothing. And that must have been the wrong answer as she stomped off, red faced.
I simply lit a cigarette, took a deep drag and felt my body relax, the hunger starting to subside. I had planned to ask her for food as well, but she was gone and I’d already pushed her to the limit enough for one day. I knew she would get over it and everything would be fine in a day or so.
Due to my necessary morning smoke under the bleachers, I was running late to history— one of the classes I was genuinely excited about as I got to see Potter- Theo.
When I got to he classroom the door was closed. Before entering I looked through the slit of a glass window cut out in the heavy wood to scope out what I would be walking in to. To my surprise Potter wasn’t there. He was usually punctual, one of the first in his seat before the bell rang. My heart fell and I decided to go to the bathroom by the abandoned gym and smoke another cigarette, skipping class altogether.
I enjoyed walking through the empty halls alone. It was strangely peaceful to see a space usually filled with so much chatter and chaos, completely and utterly silent. As I rounded the end of the hallway, turning the corner leading toward the old gym, it grew darker, this part of the school was rarely used. I pushed through the bathroom door a startled sound giving me pause. By the sink stood Theo, face crimson and puffy, a new pair of glasses, round and large as the previous ones, sitting on the porcelain beside him. I tried to think of something to say— words weren’t usually too hard for me, except for the fact of English not being my first language— but I found myself speechless as I stared at him looking at me. His eyes glistened with fresh tears, his eyelashes slick with them. I never imagined a boy could be so beautiful when he cried. I wanted to hold him. To do anything but stand there like a fish out of water, just staring, but my mouth wouldn’t open and words failed me.
The intense eye contact was broken by him first. Soon after my own gaze fell to the floor, almost feeling ashamed that I couldn’t conjure up one thing to say to him. This was the last time that would ever happen.
Quickly collecting his glasses and his discarded backpack from the floor, he brushed past me— and it felt like it all happened in slow motion. As he walked toward me, I glanced up and his eyes met mine one last time, in a strong but pleading way that seemed to say, “please don’t tell.”
I nodded as though he had said the words aloud. I sucked in a sharp breath when his shoulder touched mine, like an electric shock, a fire that raged between us. When he was gone I leaned against the bathroom wall, a gross dirty thing, uncaring, and tried to conjure up the soft scent of him that had made my senses tingle as he’d passed me. A gentle hint of Irish spring soap, clean and subtle. I took several deep breaths, closing my eyes. There was no doubt about it, I had to talk to him. It was kind of strange, honestly, that in nearly four full weeks of school we hadn’t spoken to each other once, though I dreamed about him so regularly now I felt like I’d lived lifetimes with him.
Wednesday came and once again we had our classes together, me and Potter. He was more quiet than usual, not asking any questions. I was too lazy to stay awake for the whole class and promptly fell asleep as soon as Mrs. Spear turned off the lights to show us slides on the overhead projector. It was a dreamless sleep, a kind of relief being that I was in class. When the lights were flicked on and the low hum of classmates whispering to each other began, I abruptly awoke to find I had drooled on my arm. I made a face at myself, wiped my mouth and tried to sit up straight in my chair.
Mrs. Spear announced she’d be handing back the homework from the last two weeks. She walked through the aisles, dropping a small stack of paper on each person’s desk. When she got to me I lazily flipped through them to find all A’s and a B+. Grammar. Always grammar. If she’d just let me write in Russian it wouldn’t be an issue, and I had said as much to her, to which she responded with a soft laugh. American’s never bother to properly learn a second language so there was no hope on that front. I bet she couldn’t even speak two languages let alone three. Fuck that. Anyhow— I digress.
I leaned forward on my desk when she passed Theo. As he flipped through the papers they all had a big red A+ at the top with a paragraph of red writing on each— surely compliments from Mrs. Spear rather than the single sentence I got on my own papers, “You need to work on your grammar.”
I smiled to myself and made a mental note that next class I would find a way to participate that would be an organic in, a way to interact without it being forced or awkward. I felt giddy and excited, and an odd feeling that nothing would ever be the same again.
Friday
Thursday when I arrived home from school I was pleasantly surprised to find the fridge full of beer and a fresh bag of bread on the kitchen counter. It was at the discovery of these two miracles and the note from my father saying he’d be gone all weekend, here’s $200, that I decided to celebrate. It was the most money he’d given me since summer and I intended to spend it wisely— a couple more joints from Molly’s friend Kayley, some proper vodka, a carton of cigarettes from Molly and food with whatever was left. But first, I partied.
I popped open beer after beer, had several bread and sugar sandwiches, and then passed out in bed, fully clothed, watching some black and white film on the television.
When I woke up Friday to find I was fully dressed, I felt a certain sense of accomplishment that I wouldn’t have to make the effort of getting ready for school. First period, a class without Theo, crawled by. I took to impatiently tapping my foot and drumming my fingers on my desk. The teacher droned on for what felt like hours. And, honestly, I usually found this class and this teacher rather interesting, but today all I could think about was getting to English class and making an effort to participate in hopes of getting Theo’s attention. I started drawing little things on my notebook to occupy my mind. I found myself drawing the iconically round glasses and lightning shaped scar over and over. When one of the kids near me tried to lean over and look at my drawings, I slammed the book shut and shot a warning glance in his direction.
Finally, after three centuries of watching the clock, waiting for the bell to ring, it rang. I was the first out the door. I had ten minutes in between classes so I took the opportunity to calm my nerves by smoking a cigarette under the bleachers. Molly wasn’t there and that was a relief. I slipped a smoke from the pack, balanced it between my lips and flipped open my dad’s lighter to light the tip. I inhaled, the act alone serving to calm me down a little already, and blew a cloud of white smoke up into the uncomfortably blue sky. It wasn’t so much that I was nervous, just that I rarely made an effort to actively participate. The commentary of most students was typically surface level, never reaching to the deeper more interesting parts of whatever we happened to be reading. They never thought beyond the general structure of the story, never bothered to sift through the details to find what I had come to know as the real story, the secret— but not so much secret— story that if you paid even an ounce of attention was there in plain sight. Potter was the only one in class who ever saw the books we read as more than just the surface level story.
The bell would ring any minute to signal the start of class. I could tell as students rushed back into the building like their ives depended on it. I dropped the cigarette and snuffed it out with the heel of my boot before making my way inside. Theo was already there, he was always there. We were discussing Thoreau in English that day. Far more students seemed to have opinions than normal and I listened for my in. One girl droned on about how pretentious she found our author but I hardly heard what she said as I was too busy watching for Theo’s reactions. He had put his pen down and was listening intently. Upon her comment his hand went to his forehead as if in exasperation.
This was my chance. Think of something good to say, Boris, you’ve got this— I gave myself a pep talk. When this stupid kid with stiff, weird looking spiked hair started droning on about how if everyone was like Thoreau blah blah blah—
“Twat.” I spat. I couldn’t help myself. However pointless my contribution, it worked. Potter turned in his seat and looked at me with a sort of half smile. I raised my eyebrow, nodding towards said twat and he actually laughed just the smallest amount. My heart did a flip in my chest but I sat there trying to act cool, smirking in return.
“Did someone have something to say back there?” Asked Mrs. Spear. Theo turned back to face the front. I didn’t really have anything to say so I said the first thing that popped into my mind.
“Like Thoreau gave a toss about roads,” and this set the whole class off on a debate which allowed me to sit and relish in the small but poignant moment Theo and I had shared. I was completely delighted and felt like I was floating.
Theo and I rode the same bus home every day, though I usually sat in the back and him in the front. That Friday after school I watched as kids filed into the big yellow vehicle, carrying heavy backpacks full of books but mostly elated to have a weekend of freedom.
Potter ascended the bus steps and took a seat in the front. I quickly followed after him. I passed the first two rows, chatting girls and boys who had already fallen asleep with their cheeks pressed against the window. The third row was where he had sat. I plopped my body down next to his, swinging my long thin legs out of the aisle, softly pressed against his. We glanced at each other and a smirk spread across my lips. “Ha! Harry Potter!” Finally got to call him the name I’d given him weeks ago.
He tilted his head as if to say, ‘really?’ but what came out was, “Fuck You.” Not too much bite in his voice, just enough to show me the fire. I was pleasantly surprised by his response and immediately knew, just as I had three weeks ago, this kid was more than meets the eye, the kind of kid worth knowing, the kind of friend worth having.
After that the conversation flowed easily, as if we’d been friends all our lives. We talked about our histories, our families. He asked me to say something in Russian, this was the most normal thing— the thing everyone asked of me— about him. I said, “ебать вам дупу.” Which was Ukrainian, not Russian, but satisfied him all the same.
I found our first conversation far more interesting and fun than all the fake conversations I’d played out with him in my head. There was a deep sadness to him but also a fire and a playfulness that seemed to somehow balance the pain behind his eyes. We talked all the way to my stop. Internally I began to panic. We had finally officially met, this boy I had been thinking about constantly for weeks, after what was hardly any time at all it felt like we were already friends. I didn’t want to wait until Monday, or worse, Tuesday, when we would have classes together again, to keep talking and getting to know this strange boy.
I blurted out exactly what I was thinking, “Want to come home with me and watch television?” For some reason my heart was racing and I hoped beyond all hope it wasn’t obvious.
He hesitated, “Well—“
“Oh, come on.” I tried not to sound desperate. Now that I’d spoken to him I couldn’t see going back to my house alone and spending another weekend drunk, passed out in bed, equal parts waiting for and dreading Monday. “No one’s home. And I’ve got S.O.S. Iceburg on DVD.”
I watched the wheels turn in his brain and when he finally nodded I couldn’t help the wide smile that passed across my lips.
We spent the whole weekend together, watching movies, eating what we could find, playing with his dog, Popchik, and asking endlessly about everything under the sun. I didn’t think I’d ever hear him talk so much as he did that weekend. But I found myself hanging on his every word, eager for his opinions and the stories of his life in New York. I learned the heroes and villains of his life, the supporting characters and the mythological beings. While on the surface our lives were very different and the events that lead us to Vegas were worlds apart, I found our experiences had the same ring to them and in the matter of three days- plus the four weeks of intrigue- I had never felt closer to anyone in all my life.
As we sat in my bed with the TV on low, our legs pressed against each other sprawled out in front of us, I remember thinking in that moment, to the world, I’m lost forever as my whole heart and everything I am now belongs to him.
It felt dramatic, as children often are in love, but I know I felt something wholly different about him than anyone I had ever met, a connection that seemed to cross centuries and lifetimes.
I watched him out of the corner of my eye, drinking a beer, head laid back against the wall, the glow of my Christmas lights coloring his face.
“Potter—“ I had nothing to say, I just wanted him to look at me.
“What?” I realized it would seem weird if I said nothing so I said something.
“Beer is empty,” I waved my empty bottle at him, “Can have some of yours?”
Easily and without hesitation he handed me his beer, our fingers brushing as I grasped the sweating bottle and the rush I felt explode through my whole body was a sign I was surely done for.
Week 132
I was 17 going on 18, Theo was barely 17, it was the spring semester of our junior year of high school. The second half of freshmen year through sophomore year had been a bit of a burnout year for the two of us. We had gotten so caught up in ourselves, each other— and Theo within a deep depression— that we were doing all kinds of things that kept us from school and any semblance of a ‘normal’ high school experience. We’d spend our nights drinking, the mornings puking our guts out. With two of us it was easier to steal better alcohol and food. We did a small array of drugs at the time as well, mostly what we could sneak from Xandra’s stash and the occasional psychedelics from the girls at school who thought I was cute enough to share with.
We went to school between two and three days a week at this time, enough to just barely pass our classes. We got into trouble for smoking in the bathrooms a few times and suspended for fighting when an asshole across player said some dumb hateful thing to Theo. To my surprise, he punched first. To be honest, I was kind of proud. Then I beat the asshole within an inch of his life, a teacher had to pull me off the guy. Theo and I got suspended and the lacrosse player got off unscathed but for his trip to the hospital.
In some amount of clarity, at the beginning of junior year, Theo decided we should probably start giving a shit about our lives again. And if Theo wanted it, I would do it. He always acted like I was somehow in charge of things when it came to us. Usually doing what I suggested, maybe to a fault, frequently going along with whatever wild, harebrained scheme I’d cooked up, but the whole time he was the one in control. I was the lost puppy at his heels who would follow him to the ends of the earth.
That’s why the first time anything happened between us, toward the end of freshmen year, I was equally overjoyed and devastated. It’s hard to say who touched the other first. I almost always had an arm around him, a hand in his hair, our legs tangled together the couch. Nothing overtly intimate. He had gotten used to the physical nature of me and wasn’t bothered by it after a while. We were at his house, drinking vodka we’d stolen, sitting on the floor of the living room. Like I said, I don’t know who started it but our hands were on each other all of a sudden. He was tearing my shirt off and I was kissing his neck. A feeling deep in my chest swelled as everything I’d been feeling for months was being realized. We didn’t do much but touch each other and kiss before we both passed out drunk on the floor. In the morning when we woke, a tangled pile of limbs on the floor, only half clothed, I looked in his eyes for any sense of recognition. I lifted my hand to touch his face, so beautiful in the morning light. But his face quickly soured as he jumped to his feet and ran off to puke in the bathroom.
I tried to subtly bring up what had happened but he either didn’t remember or didn’t want to remember. My heart broke but I’d rather have a friendship with him than nothing at all. That was, of course, until the next time.
In rare form we had stolen some tequila. It took very little to make us both more than a little intoxicated. I do remember- that night Theo touched me first. We were totally shit faced lying by the pool in the middle of the night. He had rolled onto his side, reached across my body to take my wrist, then pulled me on top of him as he rolled to lay on his back. I stared down at him, curls falling over both our faces, as I tried not to breathe for fear of scaring him away. Our noses nearly touched, I could feel the warmth of his body radiating up into mine and I couldn’t control how my body reacted to the proximity. Just as I was considering moving back where I had come from he closed the gap between us. It was sloppy and desperate, I braced one arm on the pavement and supported his head with the other, my hand pulling at his dirty blond hair. When his hand slid into my underwear beneath my jeans my eyes went wide, which he couldn’t see as he continued to kiss me and make me feel more alive than I ever had. He didn’t remember that night either.
This happened several more times, always drunk off our asses. Theo never remembering, or pretending he didn’t, I was never sure. The last time we fucked around he went so far as begging me to fuck him. This was deep in the depression of sophomore year. I knew he wouldn’t remember but he was insistent and I wanted him, so I fucked him and when I said ‘I love you’ as I came he could only laugh in response.
He had been wasted, so was I, and he didn’t remember a thing, but that didn’t make it hurt less. I was deeply in love with him and couldn’t take the mornings of memory loss any longer. I started dating a girl named Kotku shortly after that.
Theo never showed interest in anyone romantically. I dated Kotku until she graduated at the end of our sophomore year when she moved to California with her boyfriend. That summer I went to a lot of parties and fucked around with any girl that was willing so I wouldn’t think about Theo. We didn’t spend so much time together that summer, but I would show up at his house fucked out of my mind, puking, headaches, sometimes gashes and bruises from unsuccessfully walking home and he would take care of me every time with little complaint. I think it was my wild summer that made Theo want us to get our act together. Or maybe it was our impending graduation and lack of prospects as dropouts that at some point one would be forced to actually think about our futures. Whatever it was, Theo insisted we regularly attend school, make some effort to do our homework and drink just a little less. He started going to parties with me when school started back up. Most of the time he wouldn’t drink much— I think he wanted to make sure I didn’t die, even though I had a much higher tolerance than him.
On a Monday in March, the weather a chilly sixty five degrees, something odd was going on. Theo had hardly spoken a word to me all day. We had woken up in the same bed as we usually did, ridden the bus to school together, shared two classes and lunch with each other but said no more than ten words to each other the whole time. There was a tension between us I didn’t understand, something that had never been there before. I was beginning to wonder if I hadn’t blacked out and done something stupid the night before, but I was pretty sure we hadn’t touched a drink in two days.
We stood next to each other waiting for the bus. His shoulder bumped mine and felt strangely warm for how cold it was outside. We had both changed a lot in the last two years, Theo more than me. Both still hall starved and thin, but Theo had grown a full head taller than me, his face less round and more defined. He still wore the same glasses, which I was very fond of.
I glanced toward him, admiring the man he was becoming. But his face was pulled so tight I thought he might have a terrible headache.
“Potter, you are—“
“Bus is here,” his words were quick and short, he seemed nervous.
I stepped forward, getting on before him. I made to go for our usual seat, three rows from the front, when he said, “I want to sit in the back.”
Like I said, I’d do anything, “Okay, Potter.” I nodded my head to the side and passed all the rows until we were one from from the back and sat down against the window. He took a seat next to me, a little closer than necessary, our thighs pressed tight together, but I, of course, didn’t mind. I let my hand rest on the outside of my own thigh so my finger tips lightly brushed his leg. The closeness wasn’t unusual, though that day it had my heart racing more than normal with the strange tension.
Theo was entirely silent, staring straight forward like a robot. Once in a while he’d glance around or straighten his glasses- a nervous habit he’d had the entire time I had known him- but he didn’t speak. A couple times I tried to talk but it was like he was far away somewhere else so I resorted to looking out the window.
We passed so much yellow dust, poorly built houses, apartments, palm trees and blue pools. One by one the others shuffled off of the bus. We were the last stop as we lived the furthest out. It wasn’t always that way, but most of the others our age were driving and had cars, but not us.
I heard Theo sigh deeply as the last student got off the bus. For the first time since we’d gotten on the bus he looked my direction.
“What? Why are you looking like this? You are okay?” I asked, concerned something was actually wrong.
He didn’t speak, but glanced toward the driver. A phone rang and startled us both. The bus driver answered her cell phone talking loudly to the person on the other end.
“Potter?”
He grabbed my arm and sunk down in the seat so his head wasn’t visible in the front mirror. I looked down at him curiously, a half smile forming across my lips at his unusual behavior. He tugged my arm and motioned his head for me to slide down next to him.
I did as he bid, “Is not so comfortable, Potter, what is—“
I didn’t get the chance to finish as his finger tips brushed a loose curl off my cheek. The pads of his fingers burned hot as smoldering embers against my cheek. In seconds his lips were on mine, chapped but sweet, tasting nothing like the drunken kisses from the year before. I breathed in deeply, butterflies fluttering all around in my stomach, and grabbed the back of his neck with both hands moving my lips feverishly against his. I waited for him to stop us, to say it was a mistake and he hadn’t meant it, but he didn’t. Instead he drug his nails across my scalp to the nape of my neck where he tugged at my dark curls, twisting my head slightly to the side to kiss me deeper. He licked my lips and I opened my mouth against his. He was the only boy I ever kissed. There were plenty of guys at school I found attractive, but none of them were him. From the first taste of his lips he was the only boy, the only person I would ever truly love and it terrified me. From the first moment I had seen him to the first words— fuck you— that he ever uttered to me, I felt like I had found the other half of my soul, the part of me I belonged to.
And there he was, pulling me below the top of the seat, concealing us from the driver and kissing me like he’d been waiting his whole life to do so.
The bus jerked to a stop sending us both crashing into the seat in front of us laughing. His smiling face, lips swollen and red, eyes sparkling with a sort of peace I hadn’t seen in them, possibly ever, made me feel as though I was flying high above the clouds and he was there with me and everything was wonderful. His lips turned up in a half smile and he grabbed my hand and his bag, pulled me off the bus into the dusty wasteland we were to traverse to get to his house. He didn’t let go of my hand as we passed the driver, he didn’t let go when we got off the bus.
We stopped in the sand and stood in front of each other like children or lovers saying a vow, still holding hands. “Boris— I…” his eyes fell to our hands as if they would give him the words.
For once I was silent, but smiling at him all the same. When his eyes returned to mine they had a determination, a confidence about them. “Boris, I’m in love with you.” He said it fast and quiet. I heard, though I knew what he was going to say before he said it.
“Is good.”
His face wholly changed, “The fuck!? What do you mean ‘is good’?” He was perplexed, perhaps even slightly amused at my response.
I took a step closer so our noses were nearly touching. “Is good. Have been in love with you since first day I see you.” I kissed him softly on the lips, then on his cheek.
“Saw, not see, Boris.”
“You fucker!” I pushed him and he laughed. We chased each other, pushing and shoving all the way back to the house. We fell through the front door laughing.
“Dad? Xandra?” Theo called into the empty house. Upon hearing no response, he turned to me. “Did you see their car in the driveway? I forgot to look.”
“No car, empty.” I had been paying attention.
He grinned mischievously before pushing me up against the hallway wall and kissing me much rougher than before.
“I love you,” he whispered between kisses. My heart was alight.
I took him by the waist and spun us around so he was against the wall and I pressed my body tight against his.
“я тоже тебя люблю.” As I ground my hips against the growing hardness in his pants he moaned into my mouth.
“Fuck— Upstairs.”
But I pushed him harder into the wall, my heavy boots giving me good leverage as I let the full weight of my body pin him down. Kissing his neck my fingers trailed down the front of my t-shirt he happened to be wearing until I found the waistband of his pants. I drug my tongue slowly up from the base of his long neck, over his Adams apple, up the underside of his chin until I made it all the way to his perfectly parted lips. “Why?” I whispered against the very same lips. I traced them with my tongue. “Have been waiting—“ I slid my hand up under his shirt, following the bone of his hip, up the soft skin of his side, before I found his chest and brushed my fingers across his hard nipple. “Very long time,” I finished biting his bottom lip lightly before kissing him again.
He was breathless by the time we parted, his hands making a proper mess of my already disheveled hair as I had fully unfastened his belt. “Not upstairs?” His voice was breathy and perfect as it never had been when we’d fucked around drunk.
“No.” I hooked my arms around his thighs, hoisting them up around my waist. While he was taller now, I had taken to working out in the school gym during my free period and grown significantly stronger. He gasped into my hair as I pressed against him and bit at the base of his neck, leaving a mark he could enjoy in the morning. Slipping his arms around my neck I tilted my head up to kiss his lips as I carried him from the hall to the couch in the living room- big, plush leather couch just waiting for us with open arms.
As I fell back into the couch, still kissing him, I heard a yelp and Popchik hopped to the floor indignantly and stomped away. Theo sat atop my hips as I lay with my back pressed into the cushions. Hastily he threw off his shirt before leaning down and helping me pull of mine as well. I pushed myself up with one arm to reach him better, touching every bit of pasty white flesh I could reach, peppering kisses all across his naked chest.
“What took so long, Theo?”
He pulled back, my cheeks held softly between both his palms, taken aback by my use of his real name. I couldn’t help but lean heavy into his hand as I had imagined doing so many times before.
“I don’t have your confidence, Boris. I didn’t know what I felt, I couldn’t put a name to it until I saw you kiss some girl from school at a party a couple weeks ago. I—I didn’t want to be—you know…”
“Gay?”
“Sure, yeah. But it’s you. And I think I’ve loved you for a long time. I’ve never even been attracted to anyone but you, not really. Sure I thought I was in love with Pippa, but the more time I spent with you, the more any thought of her like that faded. When you kissed that girl I wanted to run over to you, grab your face and make you mine. I—“ his breath caught in his throat as I unzipped his pants while he spoke, my hands finding their way to his ass and I pressed my erection up against his.
“Am yours, Potter,” I rolled my hips against his, he pressed down into me and his head fell back in pleasure, “Have always been yours.”
He leaned forward, hands on both my muscled shoulders supporting his weight. Our eyes met. He looked at me as though he was seeing me for the first time. Fingers trailed from my shoulder across my bicep, down my forearm until he laced our fingers together bringing the back of my hand to his lips. Shivers ran up my legs, across my torso, through the inside of my chest and up my neck like a sweet embrace. I took the opportunity of our interlocked hands to pull him down, chest flush against mine, the feeling of his skin against mine more intoxicating than all the alcohol we’d consumed in the last two years combined. He pressed my hand down into the plush cushion, I captured his lips with my own. As his hand found the button of my jeans, popping it open, quickly sliding the zipper down, I pressed up into his hand which he cupped around my hard cock over my underwear.
“Potter,” I breathed against his cheek, our foreheads pressed together now, his hand finding its way beneath the thin fabric.
He said my name back to me and it never sounded so good coming from anyone else’s lips. In all the ecstasy of the moment I had to remind myself that this was real and not some half baked teenage fantasy. Theo was really on top of me, stroking my cock, telling me he loved me as I had loved him for so long.
And then he was gone. Up and off me in a flash, cold shocking my body where he no longer was. I pushed up on one elbow, hardly able to think straight, my senses overwhelmed by him. I could only watch as he stripped off the rest of his clothing until he stood before me completely bare, stunning from head to toe. He made to remove his glasses but I reached for him, hand landing on the top of his thigh. “Is cute. Keep glasses?”
He pushed them up the bridge of his nose and rolled his eyes, “Fuck it. Sure.”
“Glasses are sexy,” I said pulling him towards me with one hand, “You are sexy.” My eyes traced all the curves of his body, the shape of his hard cock, the dips and rises of his chest, “Very sexy.”
He rolled his eyes, kissed the top of my head, grabbed the waistband of my jeans and said, “Up.” I lifted my hips for him and he pulled off the rest of my clothes too, discarding them on the floor before climbing back on top and straddling me.
Wrapping one leg around his lower back, I sat up and took his cock in my hand this time. His thighs squeezed my hips tightly and I ran my hand up and down in a steady rhythm. “Potter?”
“Yes, Boris?” He breathed into my hair.
“You remember nights we do these things before?”
His body stilled, but my hand did not. With a hand on my face, his head resting heavy on mine, he nodded, unmistakably. “Some, yes.” The words came out jagged as I picked up the pace.
“Okay.”
I flipped the script, pushing Theo on his back until I was on top of him. I hovered above him, my curls tickling his forehead and cheeks. “You remember?” He pushed up and kissed me before he said yes.
“Okay.” I pointed to the floor beneath us. “And here?” But before I could answer I put my finger in his mouth, he moaned and sucked around it, nodding. I slipped two more fingers in this mouth and he sucked them like he’d been doing it his whole life. I pulled them from his mouth and reached down to trace the ring of muscle at his entrance. “And this? You remember this?”
The crown of his head pushed back into the leather and the sounds he made stirred something in me I had missed dearly. “Only—“ he moaned loudly when I pushed one finger inside him. “A little.”
I laughed a sharp laugh as I fucked my finger slowly in and out. “Do not remember then, am not so little.” He laughed around a gasp.
“Yeah— fuck. Boris—“
I pressed a second finger in and he moved his hips in time with my thrusts. By the time I pushed the third finger in he was practically begging.
“Boris. Please, fuck—“
“Is deja vu. Have been here before.”
When I pulled all three fingers out at once he gasped desperately. His pupils were dilated behind his large glasses and the brown in his eyes had a honey colored glow. “Boris,” he made sure I was looking at him before continuing, “I love you. Please fuck me.” His tone was serious and sincere and just like him, I couldn’t wait any longer. I spat in my hand and nodded for Theo to do the same before running my spit slick hand down the length of my cock.
I lined myself up at his entrance and whispered, “что-нибудь для вас.” The sound that escaped his throat as I pressed into him, slowly at first, was indescribable. Worth the wait for the ‘I love you’ that prefaced it all.
His long legs dangled over my shoulders, my fingers digging into his thighs as I thrust deep inside him. He was a sight to behold- his lean muscular body, beads of sweat running slowly down his forehead, down his creamy white chest, his mouth open and gasping, breathing ragged over his delicious lips. As I felt myself getting close, my thrusts getting faster and deeper, I reached down and took Theo’s cock in my hand, stroking with the rhythm of my thrusts. His eyes caught mine, his whole countenance completely fucked as he was getting close. A swell of pride that I could make him feel this good washed over me inspiring a faster pace. “Boris— I—“ he cried out in ecstasy as he came over my hand and his stomach. I clutched his thighs tightly, body shaking as I came inside him.
After, we laid together, sweaty, naked bodies on top of each other, Theo lazily running a hand through my hair as I traced circles absentmindedly on his shoulder. Joy didn’t seem a big enough word for what I felt. Completely sober, Theo wanted me. Completely sober, Theo kissed me. Completely sober, Theo said I love you. In that moment I felt I could cry I river of happiness. So long I had waited for this boy, who had so quickly become my entire world, my closest friend, my only real family and the love of my life to see that I could be all that for him as well. I hugged him tightly to me and buried my face in his neck.
“Boris, are you okay?” He tried to sit up and look at me, but I would’t let him.
As salty tears mixed with sweat on his neck I sniffled softly and tried to respond, “Am so happy, Theo. So happy.”
He held me as tightly as I held him and said, “Me too.”