That night sleep was a long time coming. I kept hearing Cam crying in my head and remembering the way he’d tried to keep the sound inside himself, curving his body around it. Without meaning to I’d hurt him deeply, and there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to change that. I fell asleep crying about it and woke early Saturday morning to a feeling of dull stretched-out aloneness. At first I couldn’t think of why, and then it hit me—Cam was now out of my life...and so was Joc. Everything I’d worked so hard to prevent had happened anyway, and the heaviness that came down on me as I realized this was so great, I seemed to stop breathing.
For a while I simply lay there, not moving, not thinking, not being. When the door to my room opened and Keelie started tiptoeing toward the bed, I didn’t even try to play along, just rolled over and gave her my back. Her careful footsteps came to a halt, I heard her breathe in-out, in-out, and then, without speaking she turned and ran from the room.
It was hours before I got up and when I did it was to a world that had gone slow-mo with sadness. I thought constantly about calling Cam but decided that having to talk to me again was the last thing he needed. So after cleaning my room, I slumped down onto the window seat and sat staring out at the backyard. It was raining, large drops plopping steadily against the glass. Putting my hand to the pane, I watched the water run down the other side of the window. Happiness—that rain was my happiness and as usual it was out of reach, pouring down the opposite side of wherever I happened to be.
The heavy inner dullness gave way then, and the tears started. It was over, finally—the long charade, Queen Dylan, everything. By the time I got to school Monday morning, half the Dief would know that Cam and I had broken up. Cam would talk to Len, Len would tell Julie, and Julie would get the phone patrol into gear, revving with Foxfire rumors. Cam wouldn’t tell Len the reason we’d split, I knew I could trust him for that, but it wouldn’t help much. With him out of my life, there would be no reason for the phone patrol to show mercy and they would let loose, following their natural instincts.
Face pressed to the window, I cried harder than ever. Sweet sixteen absolutely sucked. Two months into grade eleven and my life was over. I mean, it was over.
Gradually the window fogged up and the front of my T-shirt grew damp with tears. Still I kept crying. Sniffs and sobs came out of me, then a couple of straight-out wails. This time there was no stopping it—I couldn’t seem to get anywhere close to a grip, and soon my body ached from crying, I was raw from the inside out. At some point I felt something touch my knee and looked down to see Keelie staring up at me, wide-eyed. A little later Dad came into the room, sat down on the window seat and put an arm around me. That felt okay so I scooted closer, and he put his other arm around me too. Then I just kept crying. Mom brought me some green tea, but by that time I was so tired that my hand was too shaky to hold the mug. So Dad took it and blew on it to cool it, while I leaned against his chest and sobbed some more. When I’d finally calmed down enough, he held the mug to my lips, and I was astonished at how smooth and warm the tea felt sliding down my throat.
“This is amazing,” I croaked.
“I asked your mom to put lots of honey in it,” said Dad. Slowly I slurped down the rest of it, then lay my head on his shoulder and snuffled my runny nose against his sleeve. With all the tears and gunk I was leaving on his shirt, he was going to have major laundry to do. Sighing heavily I glanced past him, out the window. To my surprise it was dark, which meant Dad had to have been sitting here with me for at least an hour, completely clueless as to what was going on, just waiting while I cried myself out. And now that I was finished he was still here, waiting for an explanation.
What should I tell him? Should I make something up, use the experience as a practice run for the story I was going to have to start spinning Monday at school? But this was my dad, not the phone patrol. And he was here, sitting beside me in the dark, not even complaining about missing his supper because he loved me so much. Maybe I could tell him something...part of the truth, a little tiny teeny bit of it.
Burying my face in his shoulder, I mumbled, “Cam and I broke up.”
Dad’s arm tightened brief ly around me and he asked, “Why?”
“Because...,” I muttered, working my way slowly through various options and ditching them one by one. “Well...,” I said, still hanging on to being in between, nobody knowing. “Because...well...”
“Because, well...why?” prompted Dad.
Deep inside I could feel something untwisting itself in a long gulping sigh—something that wanted to breathe easier, something that wanted space.
“Well, because,” I repeated, letting it untwist a little farther, then farther yet. “Because...I’m a dyke, that’s why.”
Dad sucked in his breath, and I could almost feel his thoughts moving carefully in the silence. Finally he laid his cheek against the top of my head.
“Good for you,” he said quietly. “It took courage to say that.” Emphatically I nodded. Monster courage, I thought, blinking back a fresh batch of tears. The mother of all courage.
“Don’t worry,” I muttered into his shirt. “Danny will give you lots of grandkids. So will Keelie, probably.”
Dad gave a short laugh. “Grandkids!” he said. “Heck, I’m too busy trying to keep up with my kids to worry about grandkids.”
“Well, I wanted to have kids,” I said. “With Cam. And he’s upset. I hurt him really bad.”
“How did you hurt him?” asked Dad.
With a sigh I pulled back, and Dad took his arm from my shoulder. The cool air came in around my face, patting it like gentle hands, and I sat staring out the window into the dark, thinking my way word to word.
“I lied to him,” I said hoarsely. “I should’ve told him a lot sooner. I mean, I’ve known the way I am since—y’know, since my body started changing and all that. But I pretended, I dunno, because I wanted to be like everyone else. I wanted to be like you and Mom, and get married, and have kids, and be happy. How can I be happy if I’m a dyke? And Cam’s so great, he would’ve been a great father, and—”
“Dylan,” said Dad. Taking my face in his hands, he turned it toward him. “Listen to me, sweetie,” he said. “This isn’t all your fault. It’s partly mine and your mother’s. When we first told you about sex, we didn’t mention the possibility that you might be lesbian, and we should have. We should’ve mentioned it right at the start, so you had that possibility in your mind from the very beginning. No one ever talks about being lesbian or gay in this house, do they?”
I shook my head.
“Well, I can see how that would make you want to hide it,” said Dad. “It’s completely understandable. And don’t you worry too much about Cam. Lots of couples break up in high school. He’s a smart strong boy, he’ll work his way through it. No matter how much you cared about each other—”
“Care about each other,” I interrupted.
“Yes, you do,” Dad said firmly. “But you probably wouldn’t have ended up marrying Cam even if you were straight. People rarely marry their high school sweethearts. They go on to university and meet someone else, or get out and do some traveling and come back changed. I had several girlfriends before I met your mother, remember? Dating different people is an important way of finding out who you are and what you like. It’s not wise to marry your first serious boyfriend.”
He paused, then added quickly, “Or girlfriend.”
“Oh,” I said weakly. Then I just sat there, staring at his soggy shirt. I mean, it had never occurred to me that Cam and I might have broken up for another reason—that if I’d been straight, we still might not have gotten married. A weight lifted off me then, and I glanced quickly at Dad’s face. It was shadowy, but I could see him smiling at me.
“I feel like such a shit,” I said, my voice wobbling. “Like no one else will ever love me as much as Cam did.”
“Just you wait,” said Dad. “They’ll be lining up. You’ll be fighting them off.”
I had to smile a bit at that. I mean, he was obviously still thinking guys, not girls.
“So you’re not...disappointed because I won’t give you grand-kids?” I asked.
“Sweetie,” he said, touching my cheek. “I’m going to get to meet some very wonderful girlfriends that you’re going to bring home to meet your family. If there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you have great taste in dating partners. And I think you’re going to lead an unusual life, different from most people. An important life and a unique one. And I’m going to be right here watching you live it.”
Jeeeezus, he was really making me want to bawl now. But I didn’t. Instead I took a shaky breath and got a grip.
An unusual life, I thought, staring out the window. Important and unique. That sounds interesting.
Slowly I stood up, wincing at the stiffness in my muscles. Then I reached down and took Dad’s hand.
“This important and unique person is very hungry,” I said. “Let’s go eat.”
Dad grinned, then made a face. “Fair warning,” he said. “It’s Danny’s night to cook. Maybe we should stop in at the bathroom and dose up on some Alka-Seltzer before we go down.”
He waited outside the door while I washed my face and did my thing. Then, giggling like two maniacs, we opened the medicine cabinet and snuck a few Alka-Seltzer tablets into our pockets. And then Dad put his arm around me, and we went downstairs to join the rest of the family for supper.
For a week I didn’t do much of anything except sleep, eat and stare out my bedroom window. If there were Foxfire rumors going around at school I didn’t hear them, but that was probably because I was avoiding everyone. No way was I going anywhere near Cam’s usual haunts, and when it came time for English, I slouched down in my seat and kept my eyes fixed on whatever page we happened to be on in 1984. The hurt inside me was too big, I guess—I needed to go deep into myself and just be there for a while, waiting the whole thing out. Sometimes it’s important to let yourself hurt and find out what sadness means.
But not forever. Gradually, as Tuesday and then Wednesday plodded by, the dullness began to lift. My body didn’t feel like such a dead weight anymore, and it no longer seemed impossible to pick up my hairbrush. By Thursday food had a taste again, and I could smell the air coming into my nose. So when I woke Saturday morning to find Keelie’s face poked into mine, her little voice saying, “Wake up, Dylan. It’s going to be a busy busy day today,” a tiny crouching smile crawled onto my face and I actually felt like getting out of bed.
Keelie sure noticed the difference because she stuck around while I got dressed, chattering like mad as she picked out socks and a T-shirt for me to wear. Then, when I was dressed to her satisfaction, she led me triumphantly downstairs and pulled out a chair, saying, “Sit here, Dylan. I’m going to make your breakfast now.”
Well, I was willing to trust her with my socks, but not my french toast. So we did a quick role reversal, and I plunked her into the chair and tied a bib around her neck. Soon she was chowing down some fairly decent french toast, and the smell was dragging everyone else downstairs, still sleepy-eyed and mumbling. As I fried them up a few slices, I could feel Mom and Dad watching me carefully, obvious relief on their faces. Even Danny kept giving me ear-to-ear grins and actually volunteered to do clean-up.
So I left him to it, threw on my jacket and went outside. Over the past week I’d been too depressed to pay attention to the weather, but now I noticed that it had gotten noticeably warmer. For a moment I just stood with my jacket open, looking around the yard. After my week in the land of the dead, it felt as if I was coming back to a place I hadn’t been in quite a while. And during that week, while I was lost wandering around in my thoughts, things seemed to have changed in some mysterious way. I mean, the sun was up in the sky the way it always was and the trees were growing in the same places, but at the same time everything felt completely new. Moving slowly around the yard, I started touching things—a tree, a large rock, even the side of the house—just feeling how alive the world was, how it opened to color and softness.
Abruptly the back screen door slammed open and Keelie came tearing down the porch steps. Hurtling around the yard, she started hollering at the top of her lungs. “I want to go swimming!” she yelled, spinning a pirouette. “I want to go to the zoo, I want to fly Daddy’s big kite.”
As I watched her spin another pirouette, bellowing about all the things she wanted to do in the next five seconds, it hit me— the million dollar question: What do I want to do? In the next five seconds, the next three hours—what do I want, more than anything in the world, to do?
The answer was as obvious as heartbeat. Quickly, before I lost my nerve, I hauled open the door, called Keelie back inside, and told Mom that I was going for a bike ride. Then I grabbed my bike out of the garage and took off down the driveway. As I sped along the street, the neighborhood was just a smudge of colors going by. So I didn’t have time for second thoughts before pulling up at the curb in front of the Hersches’ place, and the relief that hit me when I saw Tim’s car was gone was massive. I mean, we’re talking sky-wide here.
“Thank you, thank you. Whoever you are, I love you God,” I whispered. Still, to be on the safe side, I wheeled my bike around the side of the house and locked it to the back fence. Then I ran up the front porch steps and knocked on the door.
Ms. Hersch answered, a newspaper in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other. “Dylan,” she smiled. “I haven’t seen you for ages.”
“Is Joc here?” I asked, trying not to pant absolutely all over her.
“In her room,” said her mom. “She’s had breakfast, so she should be civil.”
Kicking off my shoes, I took off down the hall. And then, suddenly, I was standing in front of Joc’s closed door, wondering what to do next. I mean, I could do anything.
With a deep breath I knocked on the door, and when there was no answer, eased it open. The curtains were still drawn, but in the dim morning light I could see Joc lying on her bed, wearing headphones. Her eyes were closed, her lips moving, and she was balancing a lit cigarette on an ashtray that sat on her stomach.
A wave of longing hit me. I mean, we’re talking hypersonic sweetness here. So I waited, riding it out, then slipped into the room. As I closed the door Joc’s eyes didn’t open, but it would have been impossible to hear anything over the volume she had going on those headphones. Taking hold of her dresser, I shoved it slowly across the door. When I’d gotten it levered into place, I turned toward the bed to see that she’d finally opened her eyes and was watching me.
She wasn’t smiling, but she was definitely interested. For a long moment we stayed like that, just looking at each other. Then, without saying anything I walked across the room, climbed onto the bed, and straddled her hips. Joc still didn’t smile, just quirked an eyebrow and held up her cigarette, offering me a drag.
Shaking my head, I leaned forward and took off her headphones. Sound blasted from them, vibrating my hands. Just like I’d thought, it was “Fear of Bliss.”
“I quit,” I said, keeping my expression in neutral, to match Joc’s. “I figured that would make me healthier, and that would improve my sex drive.”
Joc raised her other eyebrow, but didn’t say anything.
“Are you drunk?” I asked, leaning forward slightly.
Joc’s eyes glimmered. She shook her head.
“Are you stoned?” I asked, leaning forward a little more.
Again, she shook her head.
“When was the last time you brushed your teeth?” I asked, and finally, finally a grin hooked one corner of her mouth.
“Fifteen minutes ago,” she said. “Nature’s Gate toothpaste. Wintergreen flavor.” Pursing her lips, she puffed some air at me.
“Wintergreen,” I said. “My fave.” Then I leaned through the last few inches that separated us and kissed her. It was a soft slow kiss, a whispering, wanting, question-mark kind of kiss, and Joc definitely answered the question, her lips opening gently against mine. So when we finished that kiss, we started another and another. After the fifth, Joc put a finger to my lips and pushed me away. Stubbing out her cigarette, she set the ashtray on the floor.
“C’mon,” she said, pulling back the bedcovers. “It’s warmer in here.”
Right away—gut reaction—I stiffened. “Uh,” I mumbled uneasily. “Joc, uh...”
I could feel it, a goddamn kick-ass power blush taking over every inch of my face.
Eyes narrowed, Joc collapsed onto her back and stared up at me. “What is this, Dyl?” she asked, her voice very cool. “You come over here to jerk me around?”
“No!” I said, my flush deepening. “I wouldn’t do that, you know that.”
“Then what?” she asked, her expression softening.
“Well,” I said, then stopped. Why is it always so hard to think when you need to? “I want to...,” I muttered nervously, “you know...”
Before I could stop them, my eyes slid to Joc’s chest. Still in the T-shirt she’d worn for sleeping, she obviously wasn’t wearing a bra.
“Well,” I said again, stammering a little. “I mean, I want to touch you, but...”
“So touch me, Goofus,” said Joc, smiling at me.
I took a very long, very shaky breath. Slowly, the way you reach out in a dream, I placed a hand on one of Joc’s breasts. The sweetness I felt then—well, you can forget heartbeat, this was heatbeat. Joc’s eyes closed, her lips parted slightly, and I just had to lean forward and kiss her again.
Then I took my hand away.
“No, Dyl,” said Joc, opening her eyes. “That’s not the way it goes. C’mere.” Taking hold of my wrists, she tried to pull me down on top of her.
“Wait,” I said, pulling back. “Can we just wait with that for a bit?”
“What—you don’t want to?” asked Joc, staring at me in bewilderment.
“Yeah, I want to,” I said. “But can’t we, well, get used to this first? You know—you and me, just being like this?”
“I know what I feel,” said Joc.
“Yeah,” I said, “I know what I feel too. And I also know that we’ve been friends forever, and we know each other inside out. But this is something different, something new. I just want a chance to get kind of used to it first, y’know?”
Joc grinned, exasperated, then said, “I hope you’re not going to say you want to wait until we’re married.”
“No,” I grinned back. “Not until we’re married. But right now I just want to get used to being madly in love with your little finger. Because I am—totally. I am totally, madly, completely in love with this little finger here.”
Lifting her left hand, I kissed her pinkie.
A definite blush swept Joc’s face. “Gosh darn, Dyllie,” she mumbled, her eyes flitting away. “You’re a romantic.”
“Well,” I said, hardly able to believe that for once she was blushing more than I was. “It’s like that globe Ms. Fowler has in her office. You ever seen it?”
Joc shook her head.
“She told me she bought it because it was bigger than her head,” I said.
Obviously not getting it, Joc just looked at me.
“Well,” I said, struggling, not quite getting it myself, “that’s the way this feels to me. Y’know, sex, love—it’s so big. Bigger than my head, my groin, my entire body. And I want...I mean... well...”
I paused, trying to figure out what exactly I goddamn meant. “Well,” I stammered finally, “I want sex...with you...”
My eyes flicked across Joc’s, and I saw we were both in power blush mode. “Well,” I stammered on, “I want it to be the most incredible experience of my life. I mean, I want it to be really us, something we’re sure of, not just something we did. Because...”
Suddenly it was all welling up inside me, the whole fucking mess—Cam, Sheila, Joc, me, even Dikker—and tears started sliding down my face.
“I don’t want either of us to get hurt, okay?” I blurted. “Because I love you, Joc. And I want to feel as if whatever we do, it’s love, y’know? True love, the kind that can just let itself be.”
“Oh my god,” mumbled Joc, and I saw she was crying too. “C’mere, Goofus,” she whispered. “I promise I won’t ravish you. Just c’mere.”
This time I did let her pull me down beside her. And then, slowly, as if we were in some kind of incredible parallel universe, we put our arms around each other and nuzzled into each other’s hair. And then we just lay there like that, getting used to the feel of it, the whole astonishing impossible sweetness.
“Y’see,” I mumbled into Joc’s neck, “I figure, if I work at it, it’ll take me maybe one or two months to get used to being in love with your little finger. And then maybe in half a year or so, I’ll be able to give you a hickey—”
“Half a year!” wailed Joc, directly into my ear.
“Okay,” I said. “A couple of weeks?” “Only if you promise to autograph it,” smiled Joc, brushing the hair back from my face.
Y’know, when Joc is smiling, she has the softest, most absolutely beautiful face in the universe.
“Deal,” I said, and we kissed on it.