Boyfriend (11 page)

Phil’s relationship with his parents had always been complicated.  He had been adopted when he was three months old but didn’t find out until he was thirteen.  He was home alone and had spent all afternoon making it his mission to find his father’s stash of porn.  With half of his body buried behind his mother’s shoes and dresses, he pulled out a brown accordion file filled with papers documenting the adoption of a baby boy.  It took him hours of looking at the papers before he was able to admit to himself that he was the adopted baby boy.

“I was wishing and hoping that they were holding some adopted kid hostage in the basement,” he joked. 

Phil didn’t tell his parents what he knew until he was 16.  He was partly afraid of getting into trouble for snooping, but he was more afraid of hurting them.  When he told them, his mother cried, naturally fearful she had somehow disappointed him.  His father apologized profusely for keeping such a big secret.  Phil forgave them both. 

Although Phil told me the story with a nonchalant carelessness typical of Phil, I could tell it affected him.  One Saturday during our first year of college, when we were high and munching on Utz’s potato chips, he asked me what kind of people could hide such a serious secret.  His mouth was full of chips, and his eyes were hanging low.  I shrugged.

“Just think about it, man,” he continued.  “What if I never looked in that closet?  I would still be walking around thinking I was someone entirely different.”

I shook my head, taking a gulp of my Corona, feeling slightly impatient with his sob story.  “You don’t know what kind of shit they saved you from,” I began, my head heavy with my own memories.  “Most people would give anything for your parents.  Adopted or not.” 

I lit up again, puffed and passed.  He nodded, sucked in a long drag and collapsed back on the couch.

Phil handled his father’s potential infidelity with the same sort of numbness.  I could tell it affected him, but rather than admit that it did or confront his parents, he held onto it.  As if it were his burden to bear.  As if they were somehow unaware of their own lies. 

One weekend shortly after Kerry left, he came home blazed on another level.   He had smoked a dime bag of what I was sure was weed cut with something else.  He ran back and forth around the living screaming about a fire until he passed out on our couch.  I dragged him to his room and placed him on his side to be sure he wouldn’t choke on his own vomit.  The blonde girl he had brought home with him watched in disgust as I wiped the drool pooling under his cheek. 

“What’s wrong with him?” she asked, her face scrunched in disgust.

“What the fuck’s wrong with you?”  I snapped.  “You came home with him.” Before she could speak, Phil sat up, surprising us both and laughing hysterically.  Just as quickly as he started to laugh, his face grew serious, and he started to gag.

“No! No! Bathroom!” I yelled.

Too late.

He threw up at my feet.

“Oh my God, eww…” the blonde shrieked, turning and bolting towards the door.  I looked down at the vomit, stepping out of it slowly.

This fucker was going to owe me.

Phil leaned back on the couch, his eyes heavy, and a dumb smile spread across his face.  “You’re like my brother, man,” he said, his words sounding like they were in slow motion.  I shook my head and headed to the kitchen to grab every paper towel we had. 

After embarrassing himself in front of the hot blonde, Phil reassessed, and decided the summer had gotten off to the wrong start.  He somehow convinced himself that his father had made a onetime mistake and there was no need to worry about something that would likely never happen again. 

I couldn’t help but think he was wrong.

***

Watching me on my own slower journey towards self-sabotage, Phil started worry about the path I was going down.  He knew about Kerry’s last minute decision to leave and my not-so-warm introduction to her parents.  He liked Kerry, and despite getting his wingman back, he thought she was good for me. 

“Nate, this whole situation has you acting like one of those skinny girls that thinks she’s fat,” he said one morning when he was about to head out to his internship.  It was about three weeks since Kerry had left.  I had just ignored a text from her asking me to give her a call and was debating whether to go to my early class.  Phil stood facing me with his arms apart, as if he was preaching some really deep shit.

“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” I responded, pouring myself another bowl of cereal. 

I was already late
, I thought, adding to my mental checklist reasons why I shouldn’t go.

“I mean, you act like you’re holding a “Feed Me” sign on Florida Avenue,” he explained.  I laughed.  “I know you had a shitty past but you’re in college, man.  You aren’t stupid.  You aren’t ugly.  If you stopped seeing yourself as a fuck up, maybe you’d realize not everyone sees you as one,” he concluded.  I sat back in my seat and watch him as bounded out the door holding a frosted Pop-Tart. 

He sure knew how to ruin a perfectly good bowl of cereal. 

If I were honest with myself, I knew Phil was partially right.  I
did
see myself as a fuck-up, but it was a fact that most of the people in my life saw me as one too.  Phil’s knowledge of my family was limited.  I had finally admitted that my Dad was an alcoholic after my run-in with Kerry’s parents but I had spared him the details.  He didn’t know anything about the neglect… the abuse… and most importantly, he didn’t know anything about what I had walked away from.

I was convinced it was only a matter of time before Kerry saw me for exactly who I knew I was. 

I glanced back at Kerry’s text:
Call me.  I miss you.
   I looked at my missed calls and realized I had ignored Kerry’s last four calls.  She was trying.  She had been calling me daily since she left, and she would send me multiple text messages throughout the day.  I rarely responded, and when I did, she would inevitably plead with me to come see her or complain about missing me.  I felt the same way but I resented her for putting us in that position.  With her away, it was easy for me to act like I didn’t care. 

Face to face, I knew it wouldn’t be so easy.

***

That night, I worked the late shift at the bookstore.  Phil picked me up, so we could head straight to a house party off campus.  I ignored two more of Kerry’s calls and decided I would call her in the morning.  I wanted to get drunk and wash away my thoughts.  I didn’t want to have another phone call about how miserable we should both feel because we were apart.

Phil had been excited about the house party all week.  Ana, the girl who was throwing it, went to a neighboring college and was also interning with him.  He had been talking about her nonstop since they had met.  He kept calling Ana a “bombshell.”  In Phil’s world, that meant raven hair, olive skin, a huge rack and the “sexiest green eyes” he had ever seen.  I had listened to Phil obsess over the way her work skirts fit over her “perfect ass” and how she was also smart and funny.

“A rare find for a girl so hot,” he had said. 

When she invited him to her house party, he wouldn’t shut up about it.  They had flirted innocently, but this was Phil’s opportunity to take things to another level without being accused of sexual harassment.

When we arrived at Ana’s house, we could hear the music blasting as soon as we got out of the car.  I wondered how long it would be before someone called the police to complain.  Like many homes rented by students in D.C., Ana lived in a row home in a neighborhood in transition.  The house two doors down was boarded up and vacant, the house next door to that had solar panels on the roof and a Mercedes in the driveway. 

We rang the bell once before the raven beauty opened the door.  She was wearing a short and tight white dress. I knew it was Ana because all Phil could muster was “Oh my God.”  I had never seen him so unglued.  She laughed and hugged him tight.

“Hi Phillip,” she said pulling away.

“You look amazing,” Phil said, unable to break his stare.  She blushed.  It was clear she was into him, too.

“I’m Nate,” I said extending my hand.

“Ana,” she said smiling and taking my hand. “Come in,” she continued gesturing for us to come in past the threshold.

When we entered, Ana led us down a dimly-lit long and narrow corridor.  The floors were a dark cherry wood, and the walls were painted a deep ‘70s yellow.  There were pairs of women’s shoes everywhere, and a pile of textbooks leaned against the wall.  At the end of the corridor, we made a turn and were instantly surrounded by a crowd of people holding paper cups, sweating and dancing closely.  The pungent smell of weed traveled through the air.  Phil whispered something in Ana’s ear, and she giggled.  She took his hand and led him away.  He turned back to me grinning wildly before they rounded a corner.  All I could do was laugh. 

I found the kitchen and poured myself some beer from a keg.  I sat for a moment drinking the beer and looking at my cell phone considering calling Kerry.

“Hey,” a voice said.  I looked up and Jayna stood beside me.  She had her hair pulled back in a messy pony tail, and she was wearing a floral sundress and flats, an unusual choice for this type of party.   

“Hi,” I said surprised.

“So, I try my hardest to avoid you and you show up at my house?” she asked, laughing.

“Your house?”

“Well, my friend Ana’s house,” she corrected.  “I’m subletting a room for the summer while her roommate is away, and the dorms are closed.”

“Oh, okay.” I said, chuckling. “So, you’ve been avoiding me, huh?” I continued. “Why’s that?”

She smiled. “Do you have to ask?”

“I think we’re fine when we aren’t drinking,” I joked.  We laughed.

“Have you heard from Kerry?” I said after a moment.

“A few days ago,” she began. “She’s been really busy.”

“Yup.” 

Just then a group of people came bounding into the kitchen laughing and talking loudly.  Jayna and I caught eyes.  She smiled.  I smiled back.

“I just came down here for some water.  Do you want to go somewhere quieter?”

I nodded.

***

Jayna’s room was located on the top floor of the house.   I walked in and she closed the door behind us.  She leaned against the door and watched me as I walked around slowly.  Her room was decorated similarly to her and Kerry’s dorm room except it was much bigger, and the room looked bare with only her small amount of belongings.  Her full-size bed was unmade and covered in clothes and open textbooks.  Noticing this, Jayna rushed over to close the text books and bundle up the discarded clothes and put them in an empty laundry basket by the window.

“I’m messy,” she said laughing.

“Me too,” I said looking at a small stuffed teddy bear sitting on top of her dresser.  I recognized it from her and Kerry’s dorm.

“That’s Rufus,” she said walking over and taking him from her dresser.

“Rufus?”

“My dad gave it to me,” she said smiling. “He had a thing for this 70s band.”  As far as I knew, Jayna’s father was still alive so I was surprised she was talking about him in the past tense.  She held the stuffed animal in her hand and leaned against her dresser.  I walked closer to her and stood in front of her.

“Want to give Rufus a kiss?” She held the stuffed teddy up in front of us, inches from my face.  I smiled and moved closer looking in her eyes.  She laughed again.  I couldn’t help but enjoy the fact that I was making her nervous.  

Even without excessive alcohol running through my system, my attraction to Jayna was strong.  I thought of Kerry and what she was doing at that moment.  Whether she was sitting in her apartment in New York alone, eating ice cream and crying her eyes out from missing me
or
whether she was out with a new guy from her firm.  Some guy with manicured nails and too many words.  A clean-cut guy from a good family who was promising her things I could never promise her. 

Being someone I could never be. 

Jayna looked into my eyes like she knew exactly who I was.  It was as if she had me figured out from the moment she laid eyes on me in Kerry’s bed with nothing but a sheet between us.  It reminded of me of when my mom would shove all of our garbage in the closet when she knew someone was coming to visit.  The minute they left, she would open the doors and it would all fall back out.  Jayna looked into me like she knew about all the shit I had hidden.  Like she knew it was only a matter of time before it all came crashing onto Kerry and me.  Like it was only a matter of time before Kerry walked away.  Her unspoken understanding of me both terrified and excited me. 

I looked back at her as she pressed against the dresser in her short sundress and put my hands in my pockets in one last effort to fight the urge to reach out and touch her.  It was one thing to walk this line and bask in the desire to cross it; it was another thing to consciously take that step.  If we were willing, this was our opportunity.  If she gave the green light, I just had to decide if I would go.  She watched me and smirked as if reading my mind.  She sank back into the dresser and sighed.  I took a step closer, inches from her face.

“It’s hot in…” she began but unable to control myself, I grabbed the back of her neck and kissed her, pulling her to me.  She laughed as we grabbed at each other manically.  I ripped open her dress to put her breasts in my mouth, round and full, different from Kerry’s.  She stroked the back of my head as I sucked her nipples, slipping my hand under her dress and into her panties, running my fingers over her gently.  She moaned and brought my face back up to her lips.  We kissed again passionately; our tongues stroking each other.  Our breaths were heavy and hungry.  My lips moved to her neck as she opened my pants, slowing only to take me out and stroke me in her hands.  My pants fell around my ankles as I watched her painted fingers run up and down my shaft.  She watched as she did it, her face coated in anticipation.  Her touches felt electric.