Whoever decided that taking the ACT and the SAT was a good idea, is at the top of my shit list.
I stare blankly at the question at the top of the page. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
Shutting my laptop, I lay back in my desk chair and stare pointedly at my ceiling. Lazily, I use my feet to push myself in slow circles, idly watching all my posters go by in a loop. An obnoxiously colorful pride flag is pinned across one wall, and another rainbow poster that says “Born This Way” on a separate wall. I close my eyes while spinning, letting the light strips in my room dance through my eyelids, fading through various RGB color combinations. Stopping my idle spinning I open my eyes and look at a spot on the wall quickly, seeing if I can guess what poster it is. Something gay! I think to myself. It’s yet another Pride flag, this one with two Mars symbols linked together to represent two men. This becomes a game for a few minutes, and I get it right nearly every time. Then again, almost everything on my walls is queer or pride related in some way, so it isn’t much of a mystery. Eventually, I can’t help but think about the college applications again, still threatening and invading my psyche even from my closed laptop.
My story...my story? Why should that matter to a college? I don’t even know if I want to go to college. It just feels like I have to. It’s not like I’m top of my class anyways. Perfection is elusive, aim for perfectly average. That’s my motto.
Sarah Thompson was already bragging to everyone and everything with ears about her Ivy League acceptance. Something like Harvert or Princetown or something elitist like that. Honestly, I’m surprised she didn’t hire an interpreter to brag to all the Deaf kids at school. Even Stinky Steve, the kid that’s known for his awesomely foul breath, is going to college. Everyone thought his breath was a result of his rotting brain, at least that’s the running joke.
College this, college that, it’s all I ever hear anymore. From teachers, friends, and strangers asking me “So what are your plans after high school”; expect a safe answer rather than the truth. “Oh, I don’t really know”. They always make the same face at that, raised eyebrows, mouth agape in an “ah” shape. Trying not to offend, yet always showing their disappointment behind fake smiles. Deep down, I know I don’t want to go to college. If I’m being honest with myself, I know I’m not going. I just don’t know how to tell my Mom. She hasn’t been as aggressive about applying to college as my peers, or counselor has been, but I can tell she thinks it’s important for me to go. It’s what Mima wanted for me too, and who wants to let their Mom and their grandmothers ghost down all in one sentence? “I’m not going to college”. Five simple words to free me from the invisible bonds of higher education, and five simple words that will break her heart. I can’t do that to her, not after we already lost Mima too.
Sighing to myself, I pull out the folded sheet of paper sticking out of a book strewn across my desk. It’s a “Pro/Con” list I made a couple of weeks ago. Whereas the con side takes up almost the entirety of white space, the pro side is shockingly devoid of ink. Standing out in a sea of white, a single word is written in all caps and circled almost a hundred times. It’s still the only pro I can think of for going to college, “BOYS”.
I file the note back into the book it was originally in. I decide listening to some Lo-fi Hip Hop and laying on the floor in angst would be a better way to spend my Friday night. Settling onto the hard, cold carpet, I stare at the ceiling and daydream about what my life could be like. Maybe I’ll go to a coastal city. Or I could just run away and live off the land, like how that one kid does in Hatchet. Well, maybe not for the same reasons, but he did fine, didn’t he? I only got halfway through the book before just spark-noting the summary, but I’m sure it turned out great.
I let my mind drift, thinking absently of different cities, what berries I could eat and which would kill me. I think of James… and how our lives would be separate from each other. My best friend since preschool. College doesn’t have him, and my mind starts to superimpose him into all of my fantasies. There he is, living off the land with me. Spearing fish and splitting wood for the fire that will keep us warm at night. His wavy brown hair stuck in tufts against his sweaty forehead, his biceps straining with every swing of the axe –
Woah! I violently try to throw all that imagery out of my head. Shivering at my thoughts of my best friend, but also the cold floor. Yeah, let’s never repeat that train of thought, got it Dawson? This isn’t a freaking porno, certainly isn’t some Fifty Shades of Gray smut. I close my eyes and exhale a weight on my chest I didn’t know was there. Eventually, I get bored of staring at the ceiling, go figure.
Pulling out my phone and opening Instagram, I scroll past some posts from people I go to school with but barely know, nothing catches my eye. I fall into a mindless pattern of scroll, glance, scroll, glance, and so on. Something about a birthday, some girl wearing a bikini with the caption, “Feeling cute, might delete”. I roll my eyes and continue the pattern of scroll, skim over some more fake smiles here, some drunk teenagers with solo cups, the usual.
My eyes hesitate on a post while I’m scrolling. It’s a group photo, I only recognize one face of a girl I knew in middle school. She’s cute, definitely not the same girl I remember from 7th grade. It’s only been 5 years, but she grew into her giant ears and buck teeth pretty gracefully.
Looking at the other faces, a few of them seemed like her close friends. There was one guy, standing on the edge of the photo, that looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there. And I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Everyone looked really dressed up for some fancy whatnot, and he was wearing athletic shorts and a polo shirt. A freaking polo shirt… with basketball shorts. Wouldn’t have been my first choice, but then again I wear sweatpants and a hoodie to almost everything, so maybe I’m not the authority on fashion. There was something about him. His smile was… intoxicating. I wanted more of it. Tapping on the photo, I easily find him tagged in the picture and navigate to his page.
Private account?! I roll my eyes and toss my head back, shaking my fists to the heavens pleading, “Please God, just let me stalk his account for five minutes, no, two minutes!” I request to follow on his account just as my mom called from the kitchen. No going back now, I think to myself and cringe just a bit.
“Dawson! Dawson dinner is ready!”
“Coming!” I scream back at the door, knowing full well she wasn’t listening for a response.
I skip down the stairs two at a time, the glorious scents of Curry Tofu clinging inside my nose like the scent was made up of microscopic burs. “Do you have to stomp down the stairs like a god-damn elephant? Is that necessary?”
“Hey Mom, love you too, smells great.” She kisses me on the forehead as I walk past her to sit on a stool at the counter.
“I’m trying one of Mima’s recipes so tell me what you think, and be honest, none of that ‘oh, this is great mom, really’ smart-ass bullshit you like to do. I won’t hear none of it, ya hear? It’s either good, or it ain’t okay?” I loved it when she would get all Southern Baptist on me. She always got like this with food, just like Mima used to. It’s either good, or it ain’t. I can still hear Mima saying it, every time I step into the kitchen. This was her place, this was where she laughed and chided and made us feel like a family. The kitchen will always be Mima’s.
I’ve noticed her trying to cook more meals from scratch since the funeral a few months ago. She might get sassy and all, but I watch her cook when she doesn’t think I can see her. The way she meticulously pours over Mima’s old recipes, how she paces when something is in the oven, checking every thirty seconds even though she just put it in. It has to be perfect, cause Mima wouldn’t have accepted anything less than.
I smile like an idiot, watching her scurry around the kitchen. “Why have you got that dumb look on your face? Careful ‘fore it sticks.” She smiles like an idiot back. “Is James coming over for dinner?” She asks without looking away from whatever monstrosity is simmering in the pan.
“Yeah should be, when has he ever missed a Mama meal?” In fact, James has eaten at our house nearly every night since I can remember. It’s like tradition, more than anything. He’ll eat dinner with his family, since they’re the type to eat before the sun goes down, then head over here and eat with us.
Even Mima loved James. He would always eat his plate clean, without fail. No matter how full he was from his own family dinner, he never failed to remind Mima how much he loved her cooking. That was not the case now that Mom has taken over.
Right on cue, we hear the front door open, and a baritone voice, “You know, I could be a serial killer for all you guys know. Just leaving your front door unlocked all the time.”
“James! You’re just in time, I’ll get you a plate.” She turns her back to reach for the cabinets, he raises his eyebrows at me as we embrace.
“Curry Tofu,” I whisper in his ear. I pull away from him and his grin is infectious,
“Is that Curry Tofu I smell? My favorite!” I catch whatever sickness James has, and a grin spreads across my face too, rolling my eyes as we both sit at the counter. Conversation picks up between Mom and James. I pull out my phone and open Instagram again, vaguely listening into their conversation. “Tell me again why Mima, a 97 year old Southern Baptist, has a recipe for Curry Tofu?”
“Mima just loved cookin’. Always had a love for Indian cuisine I ‘spose. Somethin ‘bout the spices and all the different flavors.” A grin spread across her face as she spoke, smoothing her features and making her lose almost fifteen years reflecting on some childhood memory of Mima.
“What’s that?” James asks looking down at my phone. Reflexively I pull it close to my chest and hide the screen. “What, is it porn?”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Mom laughs at that. “Oh please, Dawson’s a little old school, with those raunchy magazines and whatnot.” Both of them start cackling, like two crows trying to harmonize.
“Ha-ha. Very funny. Sorry I like to be old-fashioned about my dirty business, what can I say, I’m a romantic.” I shrug my shoulders and sigh with a swoon to add a bit of drama. I’m nothing if not dramatic. We all laugh, and I put my phone back into my pocket. Mom makes everyone a plate and we do our best to get down the Curry Tofu, which, actually, wasn’t half bad. Don’t get me wrong, it was still like eating bile, but it wasn’t bad.
I feel a familiar buzz in my pocket telling me a got a notification. Being the mindless, device addicted Gen-Z'er I am, I pulled out my phone to see what it was.
Follow request accepted. It was an Instagram notification. Boy from the party picture accepted my follow request.
“May I be excused?” James looks at me, one eyebrow raised.
“Only if you’re doin dishes tonight.” She says it sternly, but her eyes twinkle with a wink and I take that as a yes.
“Off to hide your ‘romance mags’?” James chides me as I walk toward my room.
“Or maybe I’m gonna look at them, gimme a few!”
“Dawson Alexander Hope, you watch that smart mouth!” My mother shouts, I can picture her pointing the knife in my direction as she says it.
Pulling open my laptop, closing out of my still-blank essay prompt, I open Facebook. Just a quick peek, then I’ll be done. Why was I being so creepy-stalker? I didn’t even know this boy. I type his name in the search bar, Brent Anderson. Luckily, he’s the top result since we have a mutual friend.
I’m about to click on his profile but my finger freezes, hovering above the touchpad. What are you doing? This is so weird Dawson! I click. His profile loads, the background photo behind his main profile picture is a super artistic night photograph of the mountains with the shooting stars above them. His profile picture looks like a professional headshot from a modeling agency, like an airbrushed Ken doll. Okay, overkill much? We get it, you have flawless skin too, yippee. Yet my eyes linger over every part of his face. Like a marble statue, chiseled in flesh.
I finally tear my eyes away from staring at the profile picture and scroll down a little bit more. My mouth drops open, the scent of Curry Tofu billowing out of my mouth and into my nose. Quickly snapping my lips back together, I lean closer to the computer screen to read his bio again.
Lives in Wimberley, Texas
From San-Francisco, California
Studied at Galileo High
Goes to Wimberley High School
Interested in Men
Single
I feel giddy. My heart is pounding a mile a minute. He lives in the same city as me, and goes to my High School! Why have I never seen him before? Have we had classes together? There’s no way I wouldn’t have noticed if he-
“Dawson, you good in there? Run out of tissues?” A couple of loud knocks at my door, followed by James laughing at his own joke.
“Uh-hey, yeah, just a sec!”
“Oh no need to hurry on my part, please, take your time lover boy.” I open the door just in time to see air quotes around “lover boy”.
“Why James, I had no idea you felt that way about me. You could have just walked in, sweetheart, after all isn’t that why you came to check on me in the first place?” I laugh. I’m laughing so hard my eyes tear up. Catching my breath, I look at James so we can both bask in my humour, but he isn’t laughing.
He catches a glimpse of my laptop screen and coos, “Watcha got there?” He is much quicker than I, and deftly maneuvers around me to get a better look at the screen.
“Nothing!” Undoubtedly incriminating myself, I attempt to use my body as a shield to block his view, a fruitless endeavor. He has a solid three inches on me, not to mention hardened muscles from Football and wrestling, and he knows it. He easily pushes me aside.
I give up, and he examines my laptop screen. His smile slips, and his brows knit together. He clears his throat and says, “Aw the Facebook stalk, a classic.” He nods knowingly, but his shoulders are taught. There’s the slightest warble in his voice when he speaks.
“Um, you good?”
“Yeah man, just let me know if you need a wingman. I’m your guy, you know that.” Unfortunately, I do. It’s thanks to him I have only ever had one boyfriend my entire life. But I don’t think giving Josh Decker a kiss on the playground in kindergarten counted.
It all started, as most first loves do, while playing house on the playground. Sarah DeSoto, Josh Decker, James, and myself were all figuring out who would be the mommy and who would be the daddy. Being the incredibly woke children we were, James ceremoniously volunteered that Josh and myself just both be the daddies. Sarah, spirit broken at not getting the role she was destined for, stormed off. We went through all the normal grown-things kindergarteners playing house do, such as picking only the finest wood chips to be served as a meal, and going to work; which consisted of playing on the swing set for a few minutes. James then pointed out that if we were the daddies, we obviously had to kiss since that’s what adults did. I planted a big one on Josh’s cheek right then and there. He ran off crying, and ended up joining a game of tag instead.
“Right, and look where that’s gotten me. No boyfriend, and a traumatized Josh Decker.”
He pushes me against the wall. “James what the-what’s the problem man I just-” His lips were on mine, silencing my resistance. Flames rushed through my entire body, I felt like I was melting. My eyes fluttering shut, he smells like cinnamon, and heat. My senses snap back into focus, and I push him away from me. A hot anger swells from my chest and I throw him off a little too hard. He crashes loudly against the opposite wall with a deep thud. When I pull away it feels like pulling off a part of myself. “James-what…what the fuck are you doing!?” He’s shaking, his lips quiver as he tries to speak. I feel my ears burn hot, blood rising in my cheeks, anger courses through my body. I think of his hand slowly reaching around my lower back. STOP! I shout in my own head. Lust and anger mix in my hormonal body. Being so close to him felt so right, and so disgusting.
“I- I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to- I just-“ He stammers, grasping for words like they are his
“Boys! C’mon, quit the stallin’ and come finish your food! I didn’t slave over the kitchen for the last 30 minutes to-“ Mom yells.
Still just inches away from James, his lips still tingling on mine, I interrupt her, “Coming! James was just helping me clean out my, uh, porno box!”
We stand there for a few more moments before one of us speaks. He opens his mouth to say something, and his breath catches, “I-“
“You were just playing off the joke, right? The whole ‘lover boy’ bit, yeah?” His eyes sparkle, and he quickly agrees.
“Yeah, yeah right. Maybe I took it a little too far, just thought it would be funny, that’s all.” I look into his eyes, seeing the storm behind his light gray iris. They scare me, like a thunderstorm might, and yet I am drawn into them. I want to fall into his cloudy eyes, where he is the center of the storm keeping me safe.
“Yeah, right.” I say as we both turn to go back to the kitchen. My hand brushes his when I step around him, and lightning shoots through my arm. The thought of James' lips on mine playing on repeat in my head. Remembering the weight of him against me makes it hard to breathe, and easier too. My heartbeat is having a rave in my chest as we make it into the kitchen.
I think of the boy in the group photo, Would kissing him feel like that?
“Everything alright? James sweetheart, you look like you might have caught something from that pigsty Dawson calls a room. I tell him all the time to pick up after himself but does he listen to me? No, of course he doesn’t.” She turns back to cleaning up muttering to herself things like “what does she know” and “do everything around here… can’t be bothered to clean his damn room”.
James and I sit back at the counter, a little further from each other. We pick at our Curry Tofu, not fully looking at anything except our plates. Eventually, my mom can smell the tension in the air. She has a knack for that kind of thing.
“James sweetheart, would you mind fetchin’ a couple of beers from the fridge in the guest house?” He raises his eyebrows at that, and I look at her confused as well. “Well, I won’t tell if you won’t.” She winks.
“Uh, sure thing Ms. Hope.” James stalks off, a bit awkwardly, having to push his chair back all the way to avoid bumping into me.
As soon as he’s out of sight, she sets her glare on me, “Spill it, what happened?”
“Nothing happened,” I shrug my shoulders, a blatant tell. She raises an eyebrow, and I know this battle is lost before I can even start it. “Okay. Fine. I’m not sure, we just… It was a joke that got taken a little too far that’s all.”
She doesn’t move her eyebrow back down for a few breaths. It’s clear she wants to press more, but she sighs and accepts it. “You know, you’re my son,” she puts her hand up before I can make my smart ass comment. I close my mouth and keep listening. “You’re my son, Dawson. And I’ve known James since he was as big as that head of yours. He is like a son to me, too. A mother knows things about her children, and there is almost nothing in this world y’all can keep from your mother, ya hear me?”
“I know Mom.” What’s she getting at? How does she know what happened?
“Listen, you know what I’m tryin’ to get at. Now, Mima was never a very… open-minded person. We loved her, and she was my Mama, but she had a very different life.”
My palms are sweaty. Why are my palms sweaty? “Yeah, I know…It was just a joke Mom, James and I are fine-“
“That boy loves you.” The words hung in the air as strongly as the scent of curry. They didn’t smell the same, though. This was like iron, and vinegar.
“Wha-no he doesn’t-“ I knew it could have been true. I couldn’t even lie to myself. James had kissed me. Did that really mean he loved me though? I didn’t even know he was… Why didn’t he ever tell me?
“I know you love him too,” She reached over the counter and took my hands. They were wet and pruny from washing dishes. Her floral perfume embraced me like a hug, familiar and safe. “You are my baby boy, and I will always love you. Don’t you ever forget it, smart ass.”
She reached up and cupped my chin with her hand, her thumb wiping away tears I didn’t know were there. She squeezed my hand and pulled my forehead toward her for a kiss. “Go get yourself cleaned up before James gets back.”
I stumbled to the bathroom through foggy eyes and shut the door behind me. Turning on the sink, I let the water run and took a few deep breaths. My chest heaved as the familiar dam holding back James' tears broke inside me instead. No sound escaped me, but my body convulsed with tension I didn’t know I was holding. Years of pain, buried under excuses and lies I would tell myself to hide who I am, leaving my body all at once. It was a relief, it was torture. I let myself calm down, drenched my face in cold water, and toweled off before heading back into the kitchen.
In my rush to get out of the bathroom, I didn’t see James as he was walking passed the door. We collided uncomfortably, and I could feel his heat from the small space between us in the hallway. “Oh! sorry.”
We stand there looking at each other. It’s silent, but I hear a river running through my ears. My heart is beating so hard I’m sure he can hear it.
“Dawson, I-“ My lips cut him off this time and he drops the beer cans. We collide like stars, a supernova between us. Our hands travel like spaceships over every new hill and valley. We are explorers, from different galaxies of the same universe. We are stardust, colliding again after lifetimes to make anew.
I think of the boy in the group photo. His perfect, pretty, dumb smile. His terrible fashion sense, and his chiseled body. I couldn’t figure out why I was so obsessed with him when I didn’t even know him.
I pull away from James and look at him, and he looks back at me. I never really noticed just how brilliant his smile was before. It was intoxicating, it was my Sun.
An epiphany. He always wore the most horrendous jeans, with the ugliest polo shirts. He always had that silly grin of light, and his shoulders looked like they could carry the weight of the world.
I was so obsessed with the image of a boy I didn’t even know, thinking I wanted to be with him whether I admitted it or not. I didn’t know that what I’ve always wanted had been in front of me the whole time.