he would come to me if he could. It’s like he’s begging me to come to him. I try, but he never seems any closer. And there’s this feeling I get. It’s—I guess it’s a longing, more than anything else. I want to know if his skin feels different, it’s such a different color. I want to touch his arm, his shoulder, his hair, his face, his eyebrows. I’m breathing shallow breaths, faster and faster, and then—well, the usual. And it’s over.
I’m almost awake, but even though I’m still asleep I know I don’t want to wake up. I want to stay in the dream, where it seems right to feel this way about Raj, where no one is going to call me a faggot. So I struggle to stay under. I imagine touching his face again, but it seems even further away than before. I reach for his hand, but there’s nothing to grasp.
When I finally have to admit I’m awake, I’m furious. I couldn’t hang on to the dream, the feeling, and now I’m back where I have to let go of it. I’m half sitting up, pounding on my pillow.
“Jason?”
It’s Aunt Audrey, with the door open just a crack. I can’t speak. She comes in farther.
“Jason, are you all right? Have you had a nightmare?”
She sits down on the side of the bed. I wrap my arms tight around my pillow and bend my head over it, and Aunt Audrey strokes my hair. I want to tell her. This is important now. This is my life.
But all I say is, “I’m okay.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s all right,” I lie.
And I hate myself for doing it.
Chapter 2
At the Mall
Robert finds me between second and third periods the next day. He says, “Y’know, it occurs to me that those guys might tell somebody about that knife.”
“Yeah. I thought of that too. I left it at home today.”
“’Cause, I mean, I didn’t really see it. You know?”
Is he saying he’d lie for me? “Are you telling me that’s your story, if you’re asked?”
“Yeah. What’s yours?”
“I guess I didn’t really see it either.” I punch his shoulder. “We still on for the mall?”
He reddens a little. “I’m game. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
“We’ll figure that out when we get there. That’s part of the fun. Reacting to the situation. It’s kind of like playing ball, when the scheme falls apart and you have to improvise.”
His grin says he likes that analogy.
He’s lost it, though—the grin—by the time I see him after school. We hop a city bus to get to the mall and then kill a little time looking through a sporting goods store, waiting for a good selection of girls to show up. I’m trying to decide whether it’s a better idea to scout for girls we know, or if total strangers would be safer test subjects. I decide we aren’t going to ask anyone out right away, so I opt for strangers.
We head to the food court and get a couple of drinks.
“No food?” Robert asks.
“We’re not here for food. You can get some later as a reward, if you want. But right now we want to stay mobile. It’s easy to move around with a can of Coke in your hand. But a tray full of meatball sub, and sauce dripping all down your chin…I’m sure you get the picture.”
He sighs, but he’s still with me.
Over in the corner there’s a round table with three girls. They look about our age, and they’re huddled to one side of it, giggling. There’s nothing terribly appealing about giggling girls, but I nudge Robert.
“See that table?” I ask. He nods. “They’ve left one side of it open, so there’s room for us to sit. We can—”
“There’s only one more chair.”
“You going to let something like that stop you?”
He shrugs.
I go on from where I was interrupted. “Now, I don’t think any of them will really turn out to be a good date for either of us, but we can practice. We’ll just talk to them, okay? We don’t know them, so even if things don’t go well, we don’t have to face them in the cafeteria at school. Get it?”
He takes a gulp of his drink and moves forward.
I grab his arm. “No, wait. We’ll both approach slowly—stay with me. And then you’ll hold back and look shy. Listen to what I say and watch their reactions. Then if we decide we don’t want to sit, we don’t.”
“Right.”
As casually as possible, we make our way toward the girls. They see us at about ten paces and stop giggling, watching our approach. At six feet or so, Robert stops as instructed. I turn, wink at him, and move forward.
“Pardon me, ladies,” I say, smiling at each one in turn. I lower myself, one knee on the floor, as sweet as possible a look on my face. “That fellow I’m with was wondering if we might join you. I’d ask you myself, only I’m really nervous about talking to girls I don’t know.”
These girls are a little older than they looked from across the room. The one to my left looks right into my eyes, and she says, “My name is Doreen. And now that you know me, are you still nervous?”
I hold her eyes as I stand and reach for a chair from the next table. This is a game, and it’s fun. I set the chair facing away from the girls and sit with my legs on either side of the plastic back supports.
“Not at all.” I turn to Robert and indicate the other chair. “And neither is my friend. I’m Jason, and this is Robert.”
I can’t quite tell if we’re being toyed with, or if there’s really some interest there, but I get Robert talking by telling the girls things about him that aren’t true, so he has to contradict me, and pretty soon we’re laughing and flirting. I’m having a great time, and so is Robert.
We don’t even try to make arrangements to meet the girls again. After a while they say they have to leave. I stand as they do, and Robert follows my lead. As they’re saying good-bye, Doreen lets her hand brush really close to me, slips something into my rear jeans pocket, and then presses her hand against my backside.
In my ear I barely hear her words: “In case you’re serious. You’re cute.”
I try to look like nothing happened as Robert and I watch them leave. No way am I going to reach for what’s in my pocket while they’re still in sight. Come to think of it, no way do I even want Robert to know there’s anything in there; he needs to think he’s done as well as I have.
Robert is more confident now. He’s scouring the room with his eyes, a male animal on the make.
“That was fun,” he says without looking at me. “Who’s next?”
We walk around a little, and Robert actually rejects a couple of possibilities. Finally we see two girls we know. Robert pulls me to the side of the room.
“Jason, look. I think I’m ready. I really want to ask someone out. Do you think we could ask Debbie and Meg? Oh—but you were going to ask Rebecca.”
I glance at the girls. Debbie is a bottle-blond cutie (eyebrows are the clue about the bottle) with curls, mascara, rouge. Meg wears her dark brown hair in a sleek bob, looking out from under feathered bangs with eyes that seem to take everything in, a feeling of quiet reserve about her. I imagine I know the answer to this question, but I ask it anyway: “Which one would you rather ask out?”
He thinks for a moment. I’m getting a little concerned that they’ll see us. Finally he says, “Meg. She’s taller and not as