Adam (2 page)

“It doesn't have to be weird . . .” said Adam.
Shitfuckshitfuckshitfuckshitfuck.

Adam tried to take a step toward the bed.

“No, it's weird,” said Kelsey, looking up from her computer. Then she looked back down and began typing rapidly. Adam saw the IM in his head:
Adam is here. Save me!

He stood there, silent. One second. Two seconds. Adam's brain was folding and contracting itself into horrible, convoluted shapes. Kelsey remained hunched over the laptop. Probably he should just go. He looked at the window. He looked at the bedroom door. He seriously thought that if he tried to climb back down the tree, he would fall and kill himself. The tree it was. He started toward the window.

“You can just leave through the door,” said Kelsey, not taking her eyes off the computer. “My dad says I'm killing the tree.”

Adam pivoted and headed to the door. He felt like he was being kicked off a reality TV show, making his grand exit of failure with the whole world watching, the audience at home marginally amused, but more likely, like Kelsey, bored.

He walked down the stairs from Kelsey's bedroom, through her living room, ignored the mom partially visible in the kitchen, and went out the front door. It was dark now, and this came as a relief. Like the change in setting could change his mood. He breathed in the cold air and could feel the high fading. Something he'd learned in biology ran through his mind:
Breathing through your nose cools your brain temperature and makes you happier.
He inhaled deeply again through his nose. It sort of worked. He made his way back to the bus stop.

***

By the time Adam got home, he was pretty much back to normal. He made a quick stop in the bathroom though to scrub his hands and swish some Listerine, just in case. His parents were not “cool.” He had told them he'd be staying late at Brad's, studying for a government test, and now he had to come up with an excuse for why he was back so early.

“Brad barfed!” Adam shouted from the bathroom in the direction of the kitchen. His mom came out, soup spoon in hand, looking horrified.

“Is he all right? Do they think it's viral? Do you feel sick?”

She came at him with her free hand, lunging for his forehead. Adam ducked out of the way.

“I feel fine,” he said. “I think it was something he ate.”

“Well, dinner's almost ready,” continued his mom, trailing after him down the hall, “and Daddy and I have something we want to discuss with you.”

Adam could not figure out why his mom still insisted on referring to his dad as “Daddy,” when he'd stopped calling him that, oh, nine years ago.

Adam took a seat with his dad and mom. His sister had been away at college for almost a year, but her empty chair stayed, reminding him how much better dinners were when she had been there. When she was around, there was always something to talk about. That something was usually her, but it was better than him alone, facing off against his mom's constant table-manner orders and gossip about people he didn't give a shit about.

“Adam! Elbows!”

Adam dragged his elbows off the table. His parents having something they wanted to “discuss” could not be good, especially since he was still a little out of it. He considered claiming he did feel sick, but he was hungry. He dumped A.
1.
sauce over his steak and started sawing off forkfuls.

“You seem down these days, honey. All mopey. Not like yourself.”

Adam wondered who on earth his mom thought his “self” was.

“I'm fine,” he said, chewing.

“No. It's been going on for a few months now. I notice these things. Daddy's noticed too. Richard?”

Adam's dad was concentrating on removing a strand of steak from his teeth with his pinkie fingernail and tongue. Adam felt his stomach turn. His mom continued.

“We think it's been hard for you this year with Casey being gone. You miss her, don'tcha?” Adam's mom smiled at him like he was five.

“Sure, yeah, but I'm fine. Can I be excused?”

“No!” his mom said, switching quickly into angry-bitch mode. “We are trying to talk to you!”

“Well, I'm fine!”

“You are
not
fine! You shuffle around the house like some kind of . . . blind mole rat—”

“What?”

“—your grades are shit; your skin, frankly, is a mess. I know you
think
you need to shave, but, I'm sorry, honey, you don't yet, and—”

Would she just shut the fuck up.

“—by trying to shave before you need to, you're giving yourself acne that could result in scarring, right, Richard?”

“Leigh . . .”

Adam stood up and started walking away from the table.

“Of course whenever I mention calling Aunt Susan about her dermatologist, you just—”

Adam plugged his ears with his fingers and turned down the hall.

His mom stood up, shouting after him. “If you would stay put for five seconds, I could tell you how Daddy and I have been planning a special trip for you this summer to visit your sister in New York! But you probably don't want that either, so I guess we should just forget the whole thing—”

“Yes! Forget it!” shouted Adam, stomping up the stairs to his room. “I'm going to Lake Tahoe with Brad and Colin anyway!”

Adam slammed the door to his room. His most satisfying action of the day. He looked at his government book on his desk. A bald eagle frowning at an American flag. He did have a test tomorrow. That part wasn't a lie. He sat down at his desk, stared at the unopened book, and casually pushed it off the desk onto the floor with a thud. He turned on his laptop, and a barrage of Internet porn ads attacked the screen. There was really no way to avoid them. Once you looked at one porn site, it caused some freaking worm or virus in your computer that notified all porn sites in existence, and then they showed up every time you opened a browser. It didn't matter, really, since that was what he generally wanted to use the computer for anyway.

Adam scanned the selections of “real teen girls” and “barely legals.” Sometimes it made him nervous, since he knew people got arrested for looking at child porn online, but
he
was only seventeen! He shouldn't get in trouble for looking at girls his own age. Adam found an appealing ad with a blond girl rubbing a lollipop in between her legs. He clicked on the “free trial” link to watch the five-second promo. That was what he usually did, watched the promo over and over again until he was done. Credit cards were too risky. Not that he had one anyway. The blond girl stuck the lollipop inside her vagina. Then another teenage girl, this one with brown hair, appeared on the screen, took the lollipop out of the girl's vagina, and put it in her mouth. The girls giggled and the screen froze. Adam wrinkled his nose. This was not the sort of video he liked. He didn't know if this meant he was secretly gay or something, but he just really preferred if there was a dick involved. He didn't want to see the guy's face or body or anything nasty like that, just his dick. Preferably being sucked on or plunged into some girl's hole. Adam scanned more ads. The lesbian thing was just really boring to him, especially since it was so obviously fake. He should know—his sister was a lesbian. And, yes, he'd seen her have sex.

It hadn't been his idea. It was Brad's, of course. Brad was obsessed with Casey—all guys were—and was always bugging him, “When are you gonna let me watch your hot sister fuck another girl?” as if Adam were the bouncer to his sister's bedroom door. “What's her girlfriend look like? She hot too?”

Adam had really liked his sister's (now ex-)girlfriend. Her name was Sam, short for Samantha, and she basically looked like a boy. She always wore baggy jeans and a baseball cap and was super-polite to his parents, even though his mom referred to her as “Casey's confused friend” behind her back. Their parents didn't know Casey and Sam were girlfriends, and Adam had been sworn to secrecy. “It's just easier this way,” Casey would say. “The last thing I wanna do is answer a bunch of freaked-out Mom questions about lesbianism.” Adam knew it was more than that. Casey didn't want their mom to know because Casey was the perfect child. Their roles in the family were immutable: Casey was perfect and Adam was troubled. Adam knew Casey loved him, but he also knew she loved being better than him. It wasn't that their parents were
homophobic
—it was just that
other
people were gay, and people in their family happened not to be. “Also, I wouldn't want Mom to tell Dad. The idea of him thinking about me having ‘lesbian sex' makes me want to vomit.” Casey saying this had, of course, put the image of Casey having “lesbian sex” in Adam's mind, though he also wasn't entirely sure what that was. And as wrong as it felt, he was curious.

It was last summer the night it happened. Adam's parents were out at “dinner and a movie” for one of their biannual pathetic attempts at romance. Casey and Sam were watching TV in the living room, and Adam had invited Brad over. When he went downstairs to let Brad in, Casey was sitting in Sam's lap, and Sam's hands were around Casey's waist, under her shirt.

“Get out of here!” said Casey.

“I'm just getting Brad,” said Adam.

“Well, hurry up!”

When Sam was over, Casey acted as if she ruled the house.

“'Sup,” said Brad, walking in and leering at Casey and Sam. Casey ignored him. She didn't like Brad. “Guys like Brad make me thank god I'm gay,” she would say.

Adam and Brad went to his room, where they hung around doing nothing, being bored. It was around the time that stuff had first started feeling weird with Brad. They had always been best friends—since fourth grade—but for some reason it had begun to feel like whenever they hung out alone, Brad didn't really want to be there. Like hanging out with Adam was an obligation or something.

“You think they're fucking down there?” Brad asked.

“I don't know.”

“Her girlfriend's kinda mannish, but whatever.”

They heard Casey and Sam come up the stairs and go into Casey's bedroom next door. Brad smirked and raised his eyebrows. Then a song started blasting from Casey's room.

“Shit. How the fuck are we supposed to hear anything now?” said Brad.

“Gross,” said Adam.

Brad picked up a Sharpie off the floor and scribbled on his shoe. Adam tried to think of something else to say, to suggest something for them to do, but everything he thought of seemed dumb. The song from Casey's room played on, highlighting Adam and Brad's silence. It never used to be this way with them. It was uncomfortable, awkward.

“I actually know how we could maybe watch,”
Adam imagined telling Brad.
No. He would never.

“I actually know how we could maybe watch,” said Adam.

“No shit, Freedman.”

Adam said nothing.

“Well?” said Brad.

“Never mind.”

“Come on, you just said you know how we could watch.”

Fuck it. He was in it now.

“Take off your shoes,” said Adam. He looked around, even though there was no one else in the room.

“Yeah, OK,” said Brad. He quickly started to unlace.

Adam took off his own shoes and stood up. “Now, whatever you do, do not make
any
fucking noise.” As much as he hated himself, Adam was enjoying being the one to boss Brad. It was always the other way around.

The two of them crept out of Adam's room and softly padded down the hall past Casey's bedroom. Brad lingered by her door for a moment, but Adam waved him on, pointing down the stairs. Brad gave a quizzical look but followed. They walked through the living room and into the kitchen to the door that led to the backyard.

Outside it was dark and cold, and Adam realized how fast his heart was racing. Their house was built on a hill, so the backyard was a slope that led up to Casey's bedroom window. As they walked up the hill, Adam could feel his socks getting drenched from the wet grass.
This was a completely fucked-up thing to do.

Adam leaned into Brad's ear. “Her shade is open just a crack—it's perfect,” he whispered.

Brad swatted Adam away and wiped his cheek with the back of his hand. “Stop spitting on me,” Brad said, not in a whisper.

They crouched behind the bushes in front of Casey's window. The crack in the shade glowed yellow against the darkened house. Adam groped for possible reasons why they were there if caught.
“Brad lost his baseball in the bushes,”
singsonged in his head like a Learn-to-Read book. They leaned in closer against the bush, and a sliver of the room came into focus. Casey and Sam stumbled into view—about mid-thigh to shoulders visible. They were sort of fake-dancing to the music, pushing and pretend-hitting each other. Sam grabbed Casey around the middle and began to pull her shirt up.

Adam glanced at Brad, whose mouth was opening and closing like a blowfish. He felt an urge to just
push
Brad, just sort of knock him over and watch him roll down the hill.

“Holy fuck,” said Brad.

Adam looked back through the window crack. Casey was on the bed, and Sam was crawling in between her legs, undoing Casey's jeans.
Look away, just look away.
Casey reached up and tugged at Sam's shirt. Sam pushed Casey's hands off, but then hesitated and took her shirt off herself. She was wearing a black sports bra. Casey put her hands on Sam's tits, and they started kissing again. Sam was grinding herself into Casey. Adam imagined digging his fingers into his eye sockets, scooping out his eyeballs, and throwing them into the night. They would be light and slimy and hard to throw very far. Sam reached down and opened one of the drawers underneath Casey's bed. She took out a sort of black strappy contraption and turned her back to Casey.
What the fuck was she doing?
Sam pulled off her jeans, keeping her underwear on. She spread the contraption open, turned it around a few times and put her legs through some of the straps, tripping forward a little. She pulled it up around her waist and that was when Adam realized what it was. Coming out of the straps was a huge black rubber dick.