Gone, Gone, Gone (20 page)

But he did. I don’t ever want to give him a reason to stop.

My stomach feels warm all of a sudden.

He waited for me.

He says, “I called your brother.”

“What?”

“I was sad and I called your brother.”

“You’re not going to kill yourself. Don’t say that.”

“It’s his day off. I called him at your house.”

I breathe. “What did he say?”

“He said,
‘Don’t kill yourself, Lio.’
”

“Don’t do it.”

“I’m not gonna. I promised. You know what, Craig? This is love in the time of shit,” he says, and then he’s throwing up again.

“Yeah,” I say. “But love love love love love love.”

I kneel next to Cody and wipe the tears off his cheeks. “Don’t cry,” I whisper to him. “I will always love you. I promise.”

Because I can give him that, but I can never get back to the place where it will mean anything to him. I kiss his cheek to close the door.

Once I’m in the guest dorms, the internet finally decides to tell me, at 3 a.m., that a man was shot six hours ago in Ashland, Virginia.

He was in a parking lot outside a restaurant.

It couldn’t have been me or Lio or Cody, because we’re all out of town. And none of us would have been in Virginia, anyway. It really couldn’t have been Lio, logically. It could not have been Lio.

But

it could have been Lio.

And I can’t get that thought out of my brain no matter what I do. It could have been Lio. We fought and we hung up and
what if it had been Lio?

I still don’t believe it could have been me. I don’t know if I ever will. I don’t know if that stupid heartbeat in my head is ever going to shut up enough for me to realize that I’m human even though I am some big bad invincible teenager me me me. But Lio, Lio is human, Lio is a stupid imperfect human with stupid hair who gets drunk and stupid like a heart-aching fifteen-year-old and
it could have been him
and that is enough reason to be concerned.

This guy who was shot was thirty-seven, but twenty-two years ago he might have been someone’s Lio.

It could have been Lio.

There could have been a sniper in New York tonight.

He could have gotten alcohol poisoning.

He could have choked on a wine cork.

He could have gotten cancer.

It could have been Lio. It could have been Lio Lio Lio Lio Lio.

Nothing else matters. And all of it matters, because everything is in the same world as him. Everyone in the whole world is in this room with him.

But tonight it’s all about him, and the whole world is an incubator to make Lio the best man he can be, and I want to help, and I want to be a hand on him, a good hand, and I want everything in this whole world to take care of him. And I am going to help.

Though, the truth is, that kid can take care of himself, and I’m sorry but that is the most spectacular fucking thing I can ever remember.

I think about Cody, and this isn’t really a decision, not really. The truth is that it never was.

And this all would have been easier if Cody had changed, or if Cody were still truly unavailable and not just inconvenient, or if there were some tangible, understandable reason we couldn’t be together. There isn’t. And the bottom line is, there isn’t any ending
here, not really. He hugs me good-bye, and I can tell he wants to kiss me, and I want to kiss him, too, but I hold up my hand and shake my head.

There’s nothing movie-script ending about this, and I still love him, and in the car I think
what if what if.
I don’t know if I’ll ever get closure, the way Lio says he did when his brother died. It still sucks that we’re not together, and a part of my life will probably always suck because it’s not happening with Cody, but I’m going home, and I’m going home to Lio.

And he comes straight to my house from the airport, and he runs through my door in that zigzag and I shout, “Run, Lio, run,” and I kiss him in my kitchen like I’ve never kissed anyone in my life. It feels a little hilarious, like I’m trying to sweep his whole body into mine. Starting with hands, then arms, then lips.

Then I take his head between both my hands and say, “Are you okay?”

He isn’t pale or scared or throwing up. He’s looking up at me with that smile that could wake the dead. “I’m awesome.” He yanks my head down and kisses me hard.

Yeah. He’s awesome.

“Do you want to talk about seeing Cody?” he asks me. “Must have been hard.”

I shake my head. “I don’t
have anything new to say about him. Want to talk about your Mom?”

“I’m not okay with her.”

I nod a little.

“I hate talking.”

I give him a half smile. I hope I look sympathetic.

He breathes out like I’m such a hard thing to put up with, and then he says, “How about I tell you what color I want to paint my room?”

And there’s that grin again.

After he tells me—dark green—we talk some more and we figure out that what we really want to talk about is how we want to spend every possible minute together until our parents make us go back to school.

Because we’re fifteen and kind of stupid, and this is how we do love.

And I know I’ve said enough sappy shit, but this is kind of the way I always wanted to do it.

And when this is all over, and we have to go back to school and come out of my basement and be in the real world and deal with all of the real-world shit,

when all of this trickles

and

stops

I am going to help Lio paint his room.

LIO

“
SO ARE YOU STILL ANGRY?” ADELLE ASKS ME.

I say, “Not all the time. But mostly, yeah. I’m still pissed off that my mom turned out to be just as much of a useless . . . just as useless as I thought she was. And I wish my dad had more time for me, even though I know he’s trying. And I’m pissed Michelle’s probably going to end up going back to New York for good. And I’m mad Craig still loves Cody.”

She says, “Okay. And in a larger sense?”

“Larger?”

“Less immediate.”

“I guess I wish Cody’s dad hadn’t died in September
eleventh, even though Craig and I probably wouldn’t be together right now if he hadn’t. And . . .” I shrug. “I’m still really pissed that my brother died and left us with all this love to figure out how to shift around without him here.”

Adelle studies me. “So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I’ll probably always be pissed off about all this. It’s not like everything’s suddenly perfect. People are still getting shot all over the place. And not even in Maryland alone. I only care about people in this area more because it’s home.”

“Proximity.”

“Yeah.” I shrug. “Fair enough.”

“Go on.” She’s not as afraid of interrupting me anymore.

“I guess . . . it’s hard to believe that things are suddenly going to be okay because people are still going to get shot as far into the future as I can see. And outside of the D.C. suburbs, probably everyone will have forgotten in a few years.”

“But you’ll remember.”

“But maybe I’ll have Craig. That’s what’s important to me right now.”

“You’re allowed to have a rough time, you know.” She’s writing on her pad. “You’re allowed to express that you’re having a rough time too.”

“I know. And I will. But maybe not today. Craig’s mom got me ice cream on the way here. I’m sorry, I’m probably way too happy to be worth your time.”

She laughs a little.

But I don’t need her to tell me that I’ll be sad again. There will be days I wake up sweating and crying because I dreamed about Theodore and he’s not here, and I’m the only person in the world who looks like me. Craig is still emailing Cody, and there will probably be days that really gets under my skin. Right now, I can’t give a shit. I’m the one in Craig’s house. I’m the one he whispers about before he goes to sleep.

I tell her, “I’m basically made of perspective right now.”

She’s still smiling. “What are your plans for this week?”

“See you. Besides that, hide? Run when I’m outside? Duck if I see a white van? I have to go back to school, which sucks, but I’m basically living at Craig’s house. My dad’s letting me. Apparently, he knew I was gay the whole time.” We found Craig’s last cat yesterday. She’d had kittens, which seems too perfect to even be real. I say, “I’m auditioning for the GSA talent show—because my friend Jack is
making
me—and Craig says we’re doing some sort of protest today. Which . . . I’m terrified about.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Outside?”

“I know. He hasn’t told me any details. But he won’t let me get hurt.”

She says, “Craig can’t protect you from everything.”

I look down and nod and say, “I know.”

And that’s okay.

Craig and his mom pick me up from therapy, and I check my messages on my cell phone. Dad called and said he loves me and misses me. I’ll call him back later. I know he’s worried and probably would rather I was home, but I’m too comfortable here right now.

Here’s the protest, it turns out. Craig and I lie on our stomachs in the basement with the animals, two sheets of poster board, and a lot of paint. We groan when the animals walk through the paint, and my poster ends up with kitten footprints all over it. Craig dabs paint on my nose, which devolves into sneezing and tickling and kissing.

It takes us way too long to finish our posters, with all our screwing around, but eventually we’re done. Mine says
PEACE
and Craig’s says
love.

We stand out in his backyard, in the open air, in this random-as-fuck suburb, with our posters in the air and our fingers laced and our faces up to the sky. No one will ever see us.

Safe
,
I whisper, like we’re sliding into home.

Then Craig grabs my hand as we go inside and says, “And now for the real protest.”

“What?”

He pulls me into his bathroom and digs through the cabinet under the sink. Then he sits me down on the floor and leans my head back into the bathtub. I figure out then exactly what he’s doing, and I think about stopping him, but I don’t.
Instead, I talk him through it. I’m kind of an expert at this by now.

Two hours later, I’m blond again.

I touch my reflection and Craig kisses my cheek.

“No hat,” he says.

I nod.

He drops his voice like he doesn’t want anyone to hear him. “I can see you.”

And I damn near swallow him whole.

CRAIG

OUR FIRST DAY BACK AT SCHOOL, TODD SUBS FOR A
second-period class. Right after, he meets me at my locker and says, “Is today important?”

I don’t know how to answer this question.

He says, “I mean, if I pulled you out of school right now, would it be a major detriment to the health of your education?”

I’ve barely been to school this month, so it’s not like I’m really on track to being an upstanding citizen anyway. “Let’s go.”

“I’ll pull the car around. Stay inside.”

I leave a note on Lio’s locker.
Spending the day with my brother. BREAK A LEG!!!!

His audition for the talent show is today. I wanted to go see him, but, to be honest, I’ve heard him sing, and I’m not sure the GSA is really my scene. Maybe someday. I do love community. I’ll be at the show, anyway, and right now, I really want to be with my brother, wherever he wants to take me.

Fishing, it turns out.

He hands me a floppy hat and takes me to fucking West Virginia for the afternoon. He says he’s never felt safer in his life. I throw all my fish back, and he throws his back too, just to humor me.

He tells me a shitload of dirty jokes that I have to remember to tell Lio. He gathers me under his arm and tells me the point of working nights was supposed to be so he had days free. And he’s going to work on it. We talk about Lio, and about this girl at work who he thinks maybe, maybe . . .

He has no obligation to me. He’s not my parent. He’s just my big brother. And this is just one of the best days of my life.

LIO

THE AUDITION IS PRETTY MUCH A JOKE, BECAUSE
everyone who auditions for the talent show gets in. I mean, it’s the GSA. But the audition decides the order of the program. You really want to be toward the beginning or the end, Jack explains to me. We’re in the back of the auditorium, watching a girl tap dance.

He says, “They put the second best act at the beginning and the very best at the end. In the middle is pure shit.”

“I’m scared,” I say.

“Oh, shut up. You’re going to be awesome.”

“You’ve never heard me sing. I could be horrible.”

“You certainly give your voice plenty of rest.” He smiles at me.

It’s true, I’m
still pretty quiet, even though I talk a lot more than I used to, especially to Jack and Craig. But I’m never going to be a chatterbox like them.

“I’m going to cheer for you when you’re done,” Jack says. “Like, really loudly and obnoxiously. I might actually stand up and do that really loud clap, with cupped hands? Purely to piss you off.”

“I might kill you.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I might . . . castrate you or bring you to a gay bar.”

“I’ve experienced one of those already. You can probably figure out which one.”

“Hmm . . .”

He still has me in a headlock when the head auditioner, the sparkliest, shiniest boy imaginable, says, “Lio?”

Jack releases me and gives me a high five. Break a leg.

He smiles at me the whole time I’m onstage. I sing the best I can. I don’t forget the words. The sparkly boy smiles and thanks me. Jack jumps to his feet and cheers, and I love every minute of it.

I get the first spot in the program. Not too shabby. Plus, it’s fucking first.

CRAIG

I’VE FOUND ALL THE ANIMALS EXCEPT FOR ONE.
My guinea pig, Peggy.

I will still go out looking, and I’ll still wait for calls from the shelter, but I am not going to make it my whole world. I can’t. I have too many animals and too many things in my life to pour all of me into a lost guinea pig. I will imagine her in a warm new home with new owners. I will worry about her sometimes.