ANDREW JASON JACONO - FINISH BOY

Andrew Jason Jacono is a senior at Wesleyan University majoring in English and French Studies. A proud Manhattan native, he has been writing ever since he could hold a pen. His work has previously appeared in Cleaver Magazine, The Write Launch, Chaleur Magazine, and Short Fiction Break, among others. To keep up with what he's doing, you can visit his website: www.andrewjacono.com

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Finnish Boy
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​He was tall, straight-haired, and lanky from the time I met him until I last saw him two years ago. To anyone who didn’t know him, and this was most people, he was soft-spoken, bashful, not too far from invisible. To me, though, he was none of these.
            We met on the afterschool bus when we were ten, when I’d first started to grow my hair out. It was the beginning of a new year at Hillman Park, a puny brick elementary school in my equally tiny hometown of Gold Springs, and all the September trees were thick with their annual oranges and reds and golds. Over my two previous years at school, I’d come to learn that it was a sin to sit past your predetermined bus row; the front few were designated for first and second graders, the vast middle section for third and fourth graders, and the cramped back slots for fifth and sixth graders, at whom the bus driver would have to jeer to prevent them from jumping seats and belting out dirty rap lyrics in the midst of their younger peers. As a new third grader, I chose a seat in one of the middle rows, expecting the upgrade to bring with it some sort of spiritual revelation.
It didn’t. All that was different was that the ride was only slightly less bouncy and that I was more prone to sliding because the buckles had been torn out of their sockets. Worse, I didn’t recognize anybody around me because, I realized after asking a fourth grader the row over, this was a new bus on a different route through town.
There’s nothing quite as humiliating as sitting alone while packs of classmates who’ve been best friends since the day they were born laugh and squeal all around you like a troupe of hyperactive clowns. So for a while I watched trees as they passed by the window and nodded hello at a few passersby.
At some point I felt movement at my side. I turned. It was another kid. He looked my age, with a mop of longish, anthracite-black hair, freckles all over his face, and the palest skin I’d seen in my life.
He watched me for a few seconds, as if he weren’t sure whether it was okay to sit next to a stranger. Then his face relaxed. “Hi,” he said, probably sensing I was in the same boat. “What’s your name?”
I was unsure if I should smile, but I did anyway. “Hi,” I said. “My name’s Tristan.”
He nodded. “My name’s Lucas. Lucas Kanerva. It’s a Finnish name, if you were wondering.” He pointed at my head. “I like your hair.”
I patted my frizzy top. Nobody had ever complimented my hairstyle. “Thank you,” I said, my smile widening.  
We were soon talking about our favorite books and movies and video games, the craziest thing that had ever happened to us (my story was that I’d lacerated my ankle jumping on a couch at my grandmother’s house on mother’s day; his was that he almost got mauled by a shark on a family trip to the Bahamas), and, finally, what we were doing over the weekend, which was mutually nothing. He suggested that we have a playdate; maybe he could come to my house and we could climb the oaks in the woods beyond my backyard, or maybe I could head to his place and we could take a dip in his pool.
I’d had many playdates before, but the prospect of this one was most exciting because it didn’t feel like a chore to be with him. Whereas many of my other friends were loyal and polite, albeit timid, Lucas was lively, easy to talk to, and could make me laugh with a sarcastic joke or colorful swear word I’d only ever heard uttered on late-night HBO shows my parents would watch downstairs once my father came back from work.
The bus arrived at my stop before his, so I said goodbye, promised we’d talk more the next day, and ran into my house. My mother had hardly greeted me before I babbled all I could about Lucas: he was so cool, he liked all the same things I did, and wasn’t it awesome that I’d found somebody I liked so much? She probably did think it was awesome, because she scoured the school directory for his house phone and called for me. Lucas’ mother picked up, they talked for a bit, and a few minutes later, my mother hung up and told me that I was set to visit Lucas’ house that Saturday morning.
On the bus the rest of that week, Lucas and I talked about nothing except for what we’d do when I visited. We’d watch his favorite TV show, spray each other with his arsenal of super soakers, perform somersaults and backflips off his diving board, and when all that was done, we’d dry off and head inside, and his mother would make us a delicious meal.
Waiting proved dreadful. I spent most of the time playing video games and imagining all the amazing things Lucas and I would do. When Saturday morning came, I woke up very early, got ready, then rushed down to the kitchen, where my mother had just finished cooking eggs and toast. I plopped in a chair and began to devour everything in the plate she’d set out for me.
“Jeez, honey, this isn’t a race,” she chuckled.
“I don’t wanna be late,” I said.
“Even if you are, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be very nice.”
She stepped over from the stove and kissed my head. “You’re absolutely right,” she said. “You’re much kinder than I ever was.”
I finished breakfast and insisted that we leave immediately. My mother deferred. We got in the car and drove to his house. The route was beautiful, passing through tall cedar thickets and over leaf-blanketed hills. I caught a good look of his home as we pulled into his driveway. It was huge—two acres of rolling greens and scalable black pines and a sprawling white house with marble columns and more windows than I could count.
I stepped out of the car and waved my mother goodbye. Then I jogged to the front door and rang the doorbell. Lucas’ mother opened, leaning against the doorframe. She was tall, blonde, bony, and just as scarily pale as Lucas. I figured it ran in their Finnish genes.
“Hi, Tristan,” she said with a smile so big it almost didn’t fit on her face, and waved me inside.
The interior was just as beautiful. The foyer was decorated with ornate chairs, mirrors, and a long rug traced with fractal patterns. To my left was the kitchen, which smelled very different from my own, and to my right was a den complete with two desktop computers, a flat-screen TV, and a wooden table topped with pencil shavings and binders whose papery contents were strewn messily about.
I’d only been wondering where Lucas was for about three seconds before he bounded down the staircase a few feet ahead of us and lifted his chin at me in a cool, casual greeting.
“You’re here,” he said. “So, what do you wanna do?”
Over the next few hours, we played round after round of hide-and-seek, crouching behind untrimmed bushes and closing ourselves in his dingy toolshed and the poolside changing room. We fought like warriors on his front lawn, kicking at imaginary shadow enemies and blasting each other with water guns the size of actual weapons. We rolled in the grass until our clothes were stained green, then leapt into the pool to clean off. We played Marco Polo and Shark and evaluated each other’s front-flipping technique off the diving board (he was much better than I, though whether because of practice or just how naturally nimble he was I wasn’t sure). At sunset, we rushed inside and ate chicken cutlets, Lucas’ mother sitting across from us and cracking jokes about how Lucas used to drool on himself when he was a baby, and once night fell, we scooped ice cream into big ceramic bowls, button-mashed Miniclip shoot ‘em up games on his den computers, and watched an epic movie about Achilles and the downfall of Troy (we agreed, as the credits beamed across the screen, that we’d just witnessed the single greatest piece of filmmaking in the history of cinema).
And then we just sank into the couch in front of the TV. Doing nothing, talking less. A period of quiet like that would have felt unpleasant with anyone else, but it felt natural with Lucas.
When the doorbell rang, I turned to him. “Thanks for having me over,” I said, and I now realize how much of an understatement that was.
He grinned. “Thanks for coming. I had a really great time.”
I picked up my dry clothes that Lucas’ mother had folded and started for the front door.
“Hey, Trist,” Lucas called after me.
I turned around. “Yeah?”
            “How about next weekend?”
            I was nodding before he could finish his sentence. “Definitely.”
            Outside, the night was black and cool. The stars were out, twinkling beyond the trees. My mother hugged me and held my hand to the car.
            “How’d it go?” she asked once we’d strapped in.
            I was quiet for a while. Then I said, completely confident, “I think I might’ve found my new best friend.”
* * *
            My first few years of puberty were turbulent, to say the least. The first unwelcome change I noticed was my newfound tendency to sweat. On days even marginally warmer than sixty-five degrees, my skin would remain moist, and if the temperature ever reached seventy or more, I’d sweat through my shirt. I started to wear a lot of solid black tops so the stains wouldn’t show.
            Then there was the cystic acne. It was due at least in part to the growth of my hair, which, having not even been in the same room as a pair of scissors in over three years, had become kinkier, puffier, and frighteningly able to produce a nasty solution of sweat and oil, which would seep into my skin. As a result, the whole of my face, shoulders, and upper back were dotted with bumpy red pustules I’d pop while bored, and I had no choice but to attend junior high egregiously pimply, where certain classmates’ offhanded comments left me so self-conscious about my appearance that I began to dread going to school. My self-image was only worsened by the fact that I both became paunchy stuffing my face on pubertal impulse and didn’t grow very much at all (in fact, I was among the shortest people of either gender in my grade).
            As any budding teenager would do during his time of sensitive transformation, I sought solace in friends. More specifically, I sought solace in Lucas. Since our first playdate a few years prior, we’d seen each other practically every day, and if not, then at some point every weekend. Unsurprisingly, our relationship had grown to a point of complete mutual understanding; if anybody were to listen to our conversations, they’d probably be too puzzled by cryptic inside jokes and childhood anecdotes to understand. Lucas didn’t have many friends besides me, and didn’t seem to want more. He’d actively avoid conversations with strangers so he’d have extra time to spend with me or our few mutual friends.
            Unlike me, Lucas didn’t have so many difficulties with puberty. He grew well past my height very quickly, remained incredibly skinny, and didn’t have much acne at all. I can’t say that he fully understood my hormonal misery, but at the very least, he was kind enough to never comment on it.
While we hung out about as frequently as before, things felt slightly different now that we’d matured. I don’t mean this in a wholly negative way; in fact, we were probably even more comfortable being ourselves, quipping at every possible opportunity and spending much of our time outside in search of good fun. But there seemed to be a certain innocence that I no longer had, and that he somehow retained.
Whereas I’d never spoken to him about sex before, many of our conversations now centered on my newfound masturbation habits and burning desire for girls. I say ‘my’ because he never conveyed any sort of lustful thinking whatsoever; almost every time I expressed my horniness, he’d become very quiet, blanch, then laugh and change the subject. A few rare times, he explained how gross he thought girls and masturbation were, and told me that I was weird for taking interest in them. It took me a while to understand that I needed to back off, but I eventually stopped bringing these things up, figuring that maybe Lucas hadn’t yet come to terms with his own libido, that maybe he just needed time.
So we stuck to what we knew best. We watched dozens of R-rated movies, shot airsoft guns at coke cans in my backyard, rode our bikes around town, and talked about what we wanted to do when we grew up (I always said I wanted to be a writer, and he always said that he wanted to move to Finland and build a cabin in the glades). I was content with this cycle until, very slowly, I began to develop another strange feeling that I couldn’t make sense of, and that I only caught a glimpse of when we swam in his pool.
That’s when I’d be able to study his half-naked body. He’d always been slim, a true ectomorph if I’d ever seen one, but over time that lankiness had shifted to leanness. This isn’t to say that he was muscular, but he wasn’t scrawny; he had thin, web-like veins all over his arms, strong calves, and a tight abdomen that would bunch into little squares whenever he stretched, exhaled, or launched himself off the diving board.
I don’t think I noticed what that staring meant at the time. I just knew that I enjoyed doing it. And with that enjoyment came fascination. Though whether that fascination was an appreciation for a physique I didn’t have or a deeper desire I hadn’t quite reconciled I couldn’t yet discern.
* * *
            Puberty barreled on, replete with strange smells and mid-sentence voice cracks and hair sprouting scraggily in places I didn’t think possible, but by my second year of high school, I’d discovered ways to counter it. To combat my body odor, I’d assault the entirety of the area from my neck to my groin with body sprays that left me smelling like the suave captain of some great sea vessel. To deal with my sweat, I snipped off most of my hair and carried around small but effective hand fans. As for my acne, I’d smear a smorgasbord of creams all over my body and swallow orange pills that shriveled up my sebaceous glands. While I couldn’t do much to change my height, I did hit my first growth spurt, which promoted me from one of the shortest people in the grade to the lower quartile for height among the freshman class.
            Most importantly, I began to exercise. My dad bought me a year-long gym membership for my fifteenth birthday, which I was cynical about until I went for the first time and realized, in the midst of an intense set of bicep curls, that it made me feel fantastic. I started working out three or four times a week, alternating between weight and aerobic training as suggested by health websites I perused on my free time. After a few weeks of this, I noticed that my frame had broadened with significant muscle mass, but my stomach, the area I wanted most to trim, still looked about the same. I chalked this up to my deplorable eating habits and chose to change my diet. It took a while to settle on one I liked (the majority endorsed significant portion control, which just made me feel weak and irritable), but I finally worked out a system that would have me cut out carbs and eat mostly lean meats, fruits, and vegetables.
A few months of focus later, I’d sculpted something close to the body I’d always wanted—big, veiny arms, toned legs, and a lean, well-defined chest. At school, people took notice, stealing glances as I passed through the halls, sometimes complimenting me on my physique. I even made new friends with people I never thought I’d be on a high enough social rung to interact with.
Throughout this period, Lucas was there. Or, I should say, he was there as much as he could be, now that much of my time was devoted to either rigorous self-improvement or building new relationships. I think he and I mutually knew that we were drifting apart, but neither of us wanted to acknowledge it aloud.
That I’d finally worked out what my staring at him could possibly mean didn’t help, either, and only made me uncomfortable being around him. What’s more, he’d at some point begun to lambast gayness. He’d do so frequently, both deadpan and facetiously, usually without reason or warning, yet he almost never commented on straight sex or expressed any desire for women. In fact, he had no female friends I could think of, and I don’t think I’d ever seen him talk to a girl if he wasn’t obligated. Not that I was much more capable in that respect; I could barely hold conversations with pretty girls because I was so crippled by nerves to communicate any cohesive thought. But at the very least (and with the sound guidance of my father, who was always sharing advice on how to impress women), I made an effort to gain their attention, cracking sarcastic jokes when I felt confident, standing straighter and wearing clothes that better fit my frame, and pushing myself to chat with one girl per day.
I was never one to confront others about their troubling idiosyncrasies, but after a quiet swim at Lucas’ house one weekend (the first time we’d hung out in a while), I decided it needed to be done, and asked if we could talk about something in private. He looked concerned, but he nodded and led me into the poolside shed. We took a seat on the little white bench next to one of the changing rooms. I was too nervous to launch right into what I wanted to say, so I looked casually around the shed for a few moments, trying to seem like I was totally at ease.
It took me a few seconds to notice that the shed looked completely different. New paint, fresh stone flooring, a clean window that let in thin beams of sunlight. “You guys got this redone?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “My dad fixed it up a couple weeks ago.”
I pursed my lips. Had I really not hung out with him in that long? I looked down at my foot, around which a puddle of water was forming. “Look, I . . . I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“I know. You already said that.”
I clenched my jaw. “Right. Um. Okay. Well, I . . . Listen, I feel like . . . like we’ve, uh . . . been drifting apart, or something.”
From the corner of my eye, I could see him nodding. “I know,” he said. “I feel like that, too.”
“It’s not you, or anything,” I assured him, then remembered that his recent behavior was a major part of my bringing this up. “Well, I mean, it sort of is, only a little, but, like . . . but I wanted to know why—”
“You know, dude, you can look at me when you talk.”
I didn’t want to, but I swallowed hard and turned to him. His eyebrows were arched expectantly, but the rest of his face looked disconsolate. I could tell how much this was already hurting him. “I’m sorry,” I went on. “It’s just . . . I don’t know. Maybe we’re just growing up, or something.”
He said nothing for a while. Just nodded with his eyes on me. “Growing up,” he muttered, seemingly to himself. “Growing up.”
We sat there stiffly, self-consciously, me tapping my foot wetly on the ground, he biting the inside of his mouth. And then, slowly, gently, as if breaking free of a spell that had been restraining him, he squared his shoulders and began to lean toward me, his eyes focused somewhere just below mine, and I didn’t know why, but I leaned toward him, too, until his face was very close, so smooth and pale and freckled, and his breath was warm on my cheek, and I closed my eyes, wondering if he’d do the same, and then our mouths pressed against each other. It wasn’t a lengthy kiss, by any means, but it lasted just long enough for me to catch the taste of his lips, a curious combination of chlorine and the strawberries we’d snacked on before we dove into the pool. It wasn’t what I’d call arousing, but it was certainly thrilling, and didn’t feel nearly as numb as I’d expected it to. I almost went to touch his chest, his flanks, his abdomen out of sheer curiosity, but he pulled away before I could.
Then we just sat there. Half-staring at each other, half-wondering what to say. After a while without talking, he cleared his throat, stood up as if nothing had happened, and asked, “Wanna play Xbox?”
I nodded. Not two minutes later, we were huddled in front of his television, filling pixelated enemies with righteous pounds of lead and shrapnel.
* * *
            He didn’t come to school for a week following the kiss. I was worried, but I figured he was just sick. The stomach bug was going around, after all. But when I texted him about it, he didn’t respond, and when he finally returned, he made little effort to communicate with me. When I made eye contact with him in the hallways, he wouldn’t smile, but avert his gaze or stare at someone behind me until I passed. In the subsequent weeks, we rarely talked alone; it was as if he were constantly surrounding himself with other people so we wouldn’t have to speak directly. The only time we did chat one-on-one, the subject was trivial—homework, maybe—and as soon as I began to dive into what had happened between us, his face contorted into a look of disgust, and he said, “I’m done talking about this faggy shit.”
            Without much choice, I stopped trying to fix the irreconcilable and withdrew from him completely. It was easier than I’d expected, at least initially; I spent even more time at the gym, hung out with other people, and played video games alone from nightfall until dawn. But after two or three weeks of the same, I finally began to feel his absence. This struck me as strange, because I hadn’t even seen him all that much prior to the last time we’d hung out, but becoming cognizant that I no longer had him, I noticed a new emptiness inside that would leave me craving his presence in a way I never had.
I began to stare at him in mutual classes, studying his slouch over the desk, the way his hair ran down the nape of his neck, all the while hoping he’d just glance at me. While talking in the hallways with friends I’d raise my voice, wishing he’d notice, that maybe he’d approach me and ask if I wanted to stop by his house that weekend to talk about things. At home, I’d think about him at what felt like every moment, whether in front of the TV or loping around the backyard or sitting at the dinner table, and as I lay in bed, I’d relive times we had, sometimes picture his face, its pale, freckled smoothness, the softness of his lips and their chlorine-strawberry taste.
I considered asking my father for advice, but given he’d always been reluctant to acknowledge any feeling of affection toward men that ran deeper than friendship (whenever a gay couple appeared on TV, he’d decry how repulsive such a relationship was), I quickly abandoned the idea. Then I thought about asking my mother. I knew this wouldn’t be easy, and had a fair amount of risks, but she was the only person I could imagine consulting. After all, she was a great listener, and her advice was usually a comfortable mix of practical and sensitive.
So one evening, while my brother and sister were upstairs, I asked my mother to sit down with me. I must have sounded grave, because her eyebrows furrowed mightily as she sat beside me on the living room couch, but as I explained the situation, she burst into laughter. I almost took offense to this, but she explained herself.
“I’m sorry for laughing,” she said. “I just knew.”
            I frowned. “You knew what? That I kissed him?”
            “No. That maybe you were gay. Don’t ask me how I figured, I just . . . felt it.”
            I bit my lip hard. Gay? I’d never really considered it. Not seriously, at least, and definitely not with that label attached. I mean, I liked girls, I was sure of that. I’d masturbated to the thought of them many times, and I’d never once done the same to the image of boys. The most satisfaction I’d ever gotten from thinking somewhat lasciviously of a man was when I imagined Lucas’ body, or replayed the kiss in my head, but even then, I wasn’t what I’d call sexually attracted to him. Sure, I was fascinated by his body, but that didn’t have the power to bring me to orgasm.
            “No, I like girls,” I assured her. “I’m a hundred percent sure of that.”
            “Well,” she went on, “maybe you’re bi, then.”
            “Bi?” I said. “I don’t wanna have sex with guys, though.”
            “No?”
            “No. I just want to . . . kiss some of them, I guess.”
            Her brow furrowed again. She looked away for a moment to think, then turned back. “Whatever floats your boat, hon. But look, if you want my advice, I’d say give him some space. He’s obviously confused. And gayer than you, apparently.”
            “You think so?”
            “I know so.”
            I considered what she said, wondering if I should say anything else, but I had nothing to ask. So I got up, thanked her, went up to my room, and crawled into bed, thoughts of Lucas rocking through my head like a skiff against a current until I fell asleep.
* * *
            A year went by without him: a year replete with pain, uncertainty, and change, but also with finding ways to cope. After playing enough video games to blind a group of grown men, I began to lose interest in the virtual world, and because Lucas wasn’t there to support the habit, I eventually abandoned it altogether. The same happened with other hobbies: swimming, watching epic mythology flicks, running around outside. In their place, I took up reading aggressively, devouring novel after novel of Cormac McCarthy, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Haruki Murakami during lunch, free periods, and at home, and started writing daily to build a groove. After a few months of scribbling and polishing, I convinced myself to submit a few short pieces to writing contests and ended up winning a few. There was no prize money to accompany these victories, but I found enough value in having my budding talent recognized that I didn’t need compensation.
            Near the end of junior year, I took my bike, which I hadn’t so much as glanced at since the end of my friendship with Lucas, out for a spin. Huffing and pedaling through that clear spring day, I remembered why I loved biking—I felt overwhelming peace as I careened down roads, listened to trees shiver as I sped past, and felt the cool wind in my hair. The ride wasn’t very long, but it helped me realize something very important: that the things I loved to do didn’t have to die without Lucas.
            So I began to bike daily. I started swimming at the gym. I watched one long movie a week, including every addition to the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (which I still consider to be the greatest filmmaking series ever conceived). When I wasn’t alone, I spent time with acquaintances who, little by little, became companions I couldn’t imagine living without. As I’d just gotten my driver’s license, we would speed down highways until well after midnight, feast on burgers we had bought at white-night McDonalds drive-thrus, and, when we were feeling particularly adventurous, journey all the way to Manhattan to drink bubble tea and sing badly at karaoke bars. If nothing else, these trips led me to trust these friends about as much as I’d once trusted Lucas, and whatever void I’d been harboring until then seemed to be filling.
            That is until Mark, one of these friends, offhandedly mentioned he’d been seeing Lucas on the side. Unlike the others, who’d all crossed paths with Lucas at some point but had also drifted apart from him, I took issue with this. I didn’t know why initially; I’d thought I’d become comfortable enough without him in my life to have moved on. But after a few days digesting this new information, I realized that I was jealous. Jealous that Lucas had the gall to make friends with someone very close to me, and, more specifically, that he was willing to make friends with other people at all.
            But what could I do to resolve these feelings? Risk my relationship with Mark by confronting him about something completely innocuous? Or, worse, break my year-long silence with Lucas just to tell him I didn’t like that he was socializing other people?
Doing any of this would be crazy. Selfish. Obsessive. So I forced myself to keep quiet. After all, I had to start working on college applications. I would forget all about this soon.
* * *
            Like I’d predicted, I forgot.
            By the end of my junior year summer, I’d written my college essay, gathered a list of extracurriculars that would impress application committees, and compiled a catalog of twelve universities I planned to apply to. Though the occasional thought of Lucas enjoying his life and friends without me still made my insides cold, there wasn’t time to deliberate.
I sent out my applications in October. I thought the process would end as soon as I clicked SEND, but then the waiting game began (my first and most anticipated response, an early decision plea to Brown, was scheduled for release on December 15th along with all the other Ivy League schools). To pass the time, I consulted online forums to weigh my chances of acceptance against those of other high-achieving students, and checked the application portal nightly, hoping for new information that never seemed to come. I wanted to balance the anxiety this brought by hanging out with friends, but they were too busy stressing about their own applications to even respond to my texts.
Time passed very slowly. It didn’t help that school had become a breeding ground for gossip about where the smartest, dumbest, and most ordinary people of the grade were applying. I didn’t want to get roped into the discussions, but college was the official hot topic, so they were impossible to avoid. It wasn’t long before I joined in the lambasting of classmates who couldn’t be fit for Harvard or Yale or Princeton because they weren’t “unique” enough and the skewering of those who were too “stupid” to get into even community college. I disliked that I’d given in to all of this criticism, but with every backhanded insult that tumbled out of my mouth, I became increasingly confident that I was a perfect fit for Brown, and that none of my competition was.
The two weeks preceding the decision were the most difficult of my high school career. Every night, I’d lie awake desperately trying to figure out what I’d do if, contrary to my hopes, I didn’t get into Brown, what my parents and siblings and grandparents and cousins would say, and how my friends and classmates, who had also applied to Ivy League schools, would react. I couldn’t picture any positive scenario, of course; in each of them, I was the victim of pointed abuse and vitriol, dubbed a failure by my absurdly-educated physician father and hopeful high school dropout mother, regarded as the black sheep among my graduating class of future world leaders and Nobel laureates.
It was hard to cope with so many negative thoughts, but then again, my friends were struggling, too. A week before the decisions, we began to hang out again, voicing our common anxieties during free periods in the school library. Though it’s awful to say, it was reassuring to hear that they were doubting themselves up as much as I was, sleeping only three or four hours a night and running on espresso shots, ADHD medication, and empty reassurances from their parents. These commiserating sessions became something to look forward to every day, and, if nothing else, they helped lessen the emotional blow when, on the fateful 15th, with my parents ogling my laptop screen over my shoulder, I logged into the Brown application portal to find a neatly-written rejection letter in my inbox.
It wasn’t a total surprise, and I imagined that my friends were probably logging into their own portals to find similar responses, but I still burst into tears. My parents tried to comfort me, but I didn’t want reassurances.
I ran upstairs to cry alone. I brought my laptop. I reread the letter four or five times, hoping I hadn’t read it properly, that there was somehow still a chance. When I tired of that, I shut the computer and stared at the ceiling, wondering how my friends were reacting to their news but too ashamed to read the texts that were vibrating my phone into oblivion.  
Then I remembered something. Williams College, my second choice, was also set to release decisions on the 15th. I flicked my computer back open and smashed my login information into the Williams portal, clicked on the letter waiting in the inbox, and read this opening sentence:
On behalf of all of us at Williams, I’m delighted to offer you admission to the Class of 2019. Congratulations!
I screamed like I’d just lost an eye. Down in the kitchen, where my parents had started to cook what smelled like tacos, I could hear a clatter of cookware and startled obscenities from my mother. I ran down the stairs and flung my computer at them. They stopped stirring their respective pots to read for a few seconds. Then they looked at me and started to scream, too.
For the next hour, they paraded me around the house and phoned my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and their close friends. It was only after they’d gone back to their cooking posts and served dinner that they settled down and passed out on the big couch in the living room, their arms around each other, their faces soft as if for them, too, a great burden had been cleared away.
I sat in the armchair beside them and scanned the two hundred or so group messages I’d missed during the festivities. The majority weren’t long so much as they were short, vulgar exclamations, some of them positive, a fair deal negative. Out of the eight people in the group, three had gotten into their top choices: Tommy, Yale; Mark, Cornell; and Bryce, Amherst. The other five had been either deferred or rejected outright, and while none of them seemed completely dejected, their texts were less colorful than usual, replete with casual Kk’s or noncommittal I think I might be able to hang out tomorrow but I’m not so sure’s. I told them my news without much flair, trying to downplay how elated I was, and they congratulated accordingly (the accepted friends more passionately than the others). 
I was about to put my phone away for the night when Mark texted that Lucas had gotten into Stanford. I was initially taken aback by this; I hadn’t heard or thought about Lucas at all in the last few months. But after a few seconds I noticed that, for the first time in a while, I actually felt happy for the kid. This isn’t to say that whatever animosity between us had evaporated, but at least in the moment, it was secondary.
I don’t know what made me, but I scrolled down to Lucas’ contact and sent the following message: Hey. I heard you got into Stanford. Congrats. Happy for you.
It was a few minutes before he responded. This is what the text said: Thanks. Hope things’ve been okay.
Part of me wanted to continue the conversation, but I didn’t. He didn’t have anything else to say, and, after thinking about it, I didn’t, either. So I pocketed my phone and leaned back in the armchair, listening to my parents snore.
* * *
            Subsequent celebrations with my friends didn’t go quite as planned. The four of us who’d gotten into our first choices were ecstatic, gunning to let loose in every conceivable way now that high school was effectively over, but the five who hadn’t were now busy writing out an extra dozen or so regular decision applications each. We still hung out one night over Christmas break, when we bought a bunch of booze, got drunk on my patio, and shouted campfire songs into the woods until four in the morning, but the less-lucky ones made it clear, just by their denial of subsequent hangout invitations, that they weren’t quite ready to take on the world like we were.
            So Mark, Bryce, Tommy, and I decided to hang out separately. This was a big change at first, what with half of our group missing, but it didn’t take long for us to acclimate. By the last few days of break, we’d ventured out of town every night, sometimes to get wasted at house parties hosted by Harvard- and Penn-bound lacrosse kids, most of the time to eat at greasy twenty-four-hour all-you-can-eat joints, to shopping cart joust in King Kullen and Seven Eleven parking lots, or to wrestle each other in abandoned playgrounds half-crazed by the stench of our own youth.
            We decided to give the break an upscale sendoff at one of my favorite sushi restaurants in town. I remember feeling like a whole era of my life had come to an end as we stepped through the entrance and took our seats at a small table near the back of the place. We had just begun to scan the menu when Mark gestured toward the middle of the restaurant.
            “Look,” he said. “Lucas is over there.”
            My back went cold. I turned to look. He was right. Not only was Lucas sitting at a table, but so were his parents.
“Hey!” Mark called out, a little too loudly for the ambiance. “Lucas! Mr. and Mrs. Kanerva!”
The three of them turned their heads at the same time. Lucas’ parents looked confused, but Lucas recognized Mark immediately and said something that made his parents’ eyebrows lift in realization. “Hey!” he called back, waving.
Everyone lifted a hand except me. In a moment, we went back to looking at our menus. The waiter stepped by to take our order, which amassed to around fifteen rolls, gave us a look that hovered somewhere between impressed and perturbed, then walked away.
We got to talking about how quickly time had passed, how we wondered if it would speed up. Or, I should say, it was Bryce, Tommy, and I who did the talking. Mark was busy texting, his face screwed up in an expression of badly-suppressed amusement.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
He looked up at me briefly. “Nothing, nothing,” he said.
“Sure doesn’t seem like nothing.”
“Well, it is.”
“Come on, dude, you’re being rude.”
“Oh, calm the fuck down. I’m just texting Lucas.”
I could feel my innards lurch. “Well, I guess your conversation with him must be a whole lot more interesting than the one we’re currently having.”
He finished whatever text he was working on, then put his phone down and gave a frown that I could tell wasn’t at all remorseful. “Sorry,” he said. “I was busy inviting him over here. Is that cool?”
Bryce and Tommy nodded nonchalantly, but I glared at Mark. Didn’t he know that I wasn’t on speaking terms with Lucas? Wasn’t he aware that this unannounced reunion would be awkward for us?
But it was too late. I could hear Lucas’ footsteps thumping on the floorboards behind me. He pulled up a chair across the table, next to Mark, just a few feet away. It was the closest I’d been to him in years, and he looked different. He was still slender, and his skin was still pale and freckled about his nose and cheeks, but his face was more angular, especially around the jaw, his hair was shaggier, and his Adam’s apple had swelled to a point where it looked as if it would burst. He smirked as he shook Mark’s hand, Bryce’s, Tommy’s. Then he reached out to me, his eyes completely neutral, as though nothing of import had ever occurred between us. I took his hand, equally expressionless, and squeezed.
“Your parents cool with you being here, Lucas?” Bryce asked.
“They don’t mind,” said Lucas. “Here for my mom’s birthday and I’m pretty sure they haven’t been alone like that in a while.”
“How old’s she turning?” Mark asked.
“Fifty-two.”
“Damn.” He shook his head. “She ain’t young anymore, huh?”
Lucas leered. “That’s usually what happens when you live long enough.”
Tommy laughed and flicked a clumped straw wrapper at Mark’s head. “Yeah, Mark, shut the fuck up. She looks great for her age.”
“Hey, hey,” Mark pleaded, chuckling to himself. “No need to cut my balls off, guys.”
“Wouldn’t even be worth it,” I butted in. “You haven’t got any, anyway.”
Bryce and Tommy snorted. Lucas chortled into his hand. Mark glared at me for a moment, but seeing how everyone else reacted, he forced a laugh. He then tried to save face by recounting some long-winded story about how his grandfather had to cut off his own frostbitten testicles in World War II, but at that point, I wasn’t really listening. I was focused on the fact that I’d actually made Lucas laugh.
The sushi came in a few minutes. Everyone attacked the plates; we gave Lucas permission to eat so long as he paid his share. Mark got a bit aggressive talking to Tommy about some political concept or other and threw a spicy tuna piece at him. Tommy reciprocated with a shrimp tempura piece, and Mark with another spicy tuna, and in a few seconds, Bryce had joined, chucking an assortment at both of them, at one point taking a break to stuff his face with three salmon pieces. I didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire, so I scooted a foot away, and so did Lucas. I glanced at him.
“Haven’t seen better table manners in my life,” I said.
He snickered. “About as good as my four year old cousin’s.”
“What’s he like?”
“Punches his plate when my aunt doesn’t give him dessert.”
I watched as Mark tried to force his chopsticks into Bryce’s eyes. “Sounds like a joy to eat with,” I said.
“Not as fun to watch as this.”
A moment later, our waiter ran over and threatened to throw us all out. Mark, Bryce, and Tommy apologized profusely, and when the waiter stormed off, silently ate rice and fish remnants off their clothes. In the meantime, Lucas and I exchanged amused glances and speared dragon roll pieces off the plate between us.
In a few minutes the three were back to yelling, laughing, and devouring. Lucas was in the middle of making a joke about how much Tommy resembled an aggravated blowfish when his parents stepped over.
Lucas’ father, a tall, silver-haired man of about sixty, had his arm around Lucas’ mom, who had dyed her hair brown since I’d last seen her. His father was turned slightly away, as if he wanted to leave, but his mother took the time to smile at Mark, Tommy, and Bryce, though curiously avoided eye contact with me.
“How was dinner, boys?” she asked.
“Good,” we all replied.
She nodded, scanning the plates scattered about the table, then looked at Lucas. “Lucas, honey, do you want to come home with us or have one of your friends drop you off?”
“You and dad can go.” Lucas looked at all of us. “Who drove?”
Mark and I raised our hands. Lucas’ parents looked at Mark, then squinted at me.
“Well,” Lucas’ mother half-laughed, “I’m sure Mark wouldn’t mind doing you a favor.” She bent down to hug Lucas with one arm. “We’ll see you when you get home,” she said. Then she and Lucas’ father left.
With that, we got to finishing the food, but while the others chatted, I thought about Lucas’ parents. I’m sure they knew that Lucas and I had had a falling out, but why had they, especially his mother, treated me so coldly? Had I done something awful that I couldn’t recall doing?
By the time we polished off the rest of the sushi, we were so bloated that talking seemed too much of a task even for Mark, so we requested the check. We split the bill, and just as I was standing up to leave and organize my thoughts, Mark said,
“Trist, mind if you drive Lucas? I’ve got a thing in half an hour and four people’s gonna take too long. I think you live closer to him than I do, anyway.”
My throat buckled. I’d just started to feel comfortable looking Lucas in the eye again, and now I was being asked to spend something like twenty minutes completely alone with him? How would I start a conversation? How would I act around him?
Despite all of these reservations, I also knew I couldn’t refuse. I didn’t want to complicate Mark’s plans, and I doubly didn’t want him to know any more about my situation with Lucas than he already did. So I said I’d do it.
If Lucas was shocked by this, he gave no visible indication. He said a chillingly nonchalant “Sounds good,” then clapped his hands on the table and stood up. Everyone else followed suit, walked out onto the sidewalk, and muttered goodbyes. Mark, Bryce, and Tommy split off toward the left, and I toward the right, Lucas trailing behind. I briefly wondered if he was staring at me now as I’d once done him, but shook the question as he spat a wad of saliva on the ground, careless as ever.
I unlocked the car and got in. He took the passenger seat. I jacked the ignition and the engine whirred. My palms clammy, I clutched the steering wheel.
“You remember where I live, right?” he asked, clearing his throat.
“Of course,” I nodded, trying to sound indifferent.
He didn’t react, which I didn’t know how to take. I drew a breath slowly enough for it to be inaudible and pulled out of the lot.
Five minutes and a few red lights later, we hadn’t said anything else to each other. I hadn’t even turned to look in his direction except to switch lanes. I took this to mean that I was doing something wrong, so I said, without much thought, “You okay?”
            He turned to me. I kept watching the road. “Yeah, I guess,” he said. “Why?”
            “You’re just quiet, is all.”
An isolated chuckle. “That a crime or something?”
“No, no, it’s not a crime or—or anything like—”
“Dude, I’m kidding. Although you’ve been pretty quiet yourself.”
I readjusted my grip on the steering wheel.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I looked directly at him for the first time since we’d started driving. One of his eyebrows was lifted curiously.
“Sure, yeah, I’m good,” I mumbled, speeding through a yellow light.
“You don’t seem like it.”
“Well, I am.”
“I’ve known you since I was a kid, Tristan. I know when you’re lying.”
I clenched my jaw. That pissed me off. We’d just reestablished contact for the first time in years, not even on his accord, and now he was acting like he cared? “Well, you haven’t bothered to know me for the last two years, have you?”
            From the corner of my eye, I could see him open his mouth, close it. He crossed his arms and stared through the windshield. “I get it.”
            “What?”
            He turned to me again. “You’re still hung up about it.”
            It took me a moment to realize what he was referring to. I didn’t know why, but now, here, driving him home, the perfect time to talk about the very thing that had been eating at me for so long, I didn’t want to. Maybe I’d become complacent. So uncomfortable not knowing how he perceived our kiss that I’d ironically become addicted to the feeling.
            “Do you really want to talk about this right now?” I said.
            “It’s been two years. It’s pretty overdue. And we’re alone.”
            Another red light. I blinked. “What do you want me to say, Lucas?”
            “Nothing. I don’t think you need to say anything.”
            “So why are you bringing it up?”
            “Well, I want to say something about it.”
            The light went green. I stepped on the gas a bit too hard and the car jerked forward. Lucas gasped. I apologized under my breath.
            “Look,” he said, swallowing, “I was confused. I didn’t know . . . I didn’t—”
            “You didn’t know what you wanted?”
            “I . . . I don’t know. I didn’t then, at least. Not like I know now.”
            “What do you know now?”
            “That I’m gay.”
            I sniffed. “So is this you trying to proposition me or something?”
            I didn’t have to look to know that hurt him. I immediately regretted what I’d said, and was about to apologize, but he kept on, glowering at me, “No, I’m not trying to fucking proposition you. I’m trying to explain what happened.”
I kept looking ahead. “Okay,” I muttered.
            He was quiet for a few moments, then sank back into his seat. “My parents found out.”
            My face went numb. “They did?”
            “I told them.”
            “What’d they say?”
            “They told me to stop hanging out with you.” He gave a long sigh. “My dad beat the shit out of me.”
            I looked at him. He was turned away, so I couldn’t see his face, but he was shaking his head. I quickly cut to the right lane, stopped the car in a parking space beside the nearest sidewalk, and waited for him to speak.
            “You know why I didn’t come to school for a couple days after we kissed?” he asked.
            “No,” I said.
            “My dad gave me a black eye and a bunch of nasty bruises and broke two of my teeth. My mom tried to put concealer on my face to get rid of the marks but it didn’t really work.”
            He was crying. I didn’t know how to respond.
            “I really liked you, Trist,” he wept. “You were the only guy I ever did that with and you were the best friend I ever had. And I betrayed you. I’m sorry.”
            My tongue was heavy. I unbuckled my seatbelt and leaned over and put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t apologize,” I said. “Please.”
            He cried a while more. I kept squeezing his shoulder. When he was done he shifted to me. His cheeks were wet. He squinted into my eyes, like he was searching for something. Then he leaned over and rested his head in the crook of my neck, breathing softly, his body rising and falling, and I held him by the arm.
            “Why do we have to grow up?” he sniffed.
            Outside was dark. The sky was starless.
            “I don’t know,” I said.
            We sat there in silence. Like we used to. Like we had no other place to go.
* * *
            That was the last time I saw him. It’s been two years. I haven’t spoken to him since, but I’ve thought about him. About all he’d been hiding, about his warmth, about how his head felt on my neck.
            Recently, a lot of people have asked if I’ve ever been in love. I’ve been inclined to say that the feeling’s eluded me, but I always hesitate. Was growing up with Lucas a reflection of mutual love? Was my fixation on him an act of it? What the hell does love even mean?
            A few days ago, I stumbled across one of Lucas’ rare posts in my Facebook feed. He’d changed his four-year-old profile picture, a photo of him grinning in the camera’s mighty flash, his freckles shimmering and his skin Finnish pale, to a snapshot of him and a man about his height holding hands on a beach, their hair messy and peppered with sand, their faces close, tilted, blushing. The sun squatted above the vast blue ocean behind them. They looked happy.