“Um, one iconic name. Cher.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Brisa, Tris isn’t going to turn herself into a plastic version of her younger self. She’s going to—”
“Just gonna say my career will probably last longer than yours. Athletes don’t—”
“Yeah.” Brisa jumps to my side.
“Yeah?” My laughs. “And what will you be doing?”
“Really? I have talents!” She chucks another bra at him.
“But your focus is one that everyone else does, so you better figure it out.” He turns around.
“I’m Valedictorian!” she calls after him.
“So was the guy who pumps my gas. Focus on you, Brisa,” he says as he walks down the hall.
She looks at me and holds her phone up, smiling, and says, “Spill it.”
“Didn’t My just suggest you focus on—”
“Fuck My, and fuck college. I think I might take a gap year and travel, without a leash, just like you are. I’ll find my passion then. Now, tell me about the Spanish guy in this picture, and I’ll tell you a secret.”
“Tell me the secret, and I’ll tell you about him.”
“He messages Dad every day and asks him how you are. Now you.”
I try not to act as if what she just told me isn’t the equivalent of me telling her that all the princesses at Disney were actually not just people in costumes; they were real. ’Cause, like, seriously, I ruined that for her. I just didn’t want her to look like a dumb-ass at school. But my heart is beating faster, and my chest is tightening around it, as if to hug it and tell it that all will be okay.
“I liked him. We wanted to be friends. I ended it and came home.”
“More.”
“No.”
“Then I won’t tell you they Face-timed last night, and he told Dad that he would like to take you to dinner when you get back to Italy, just to see for himself that you’re okay. But, either he used an app or talks really fucked up, and if that’s true, I’d just seriously shut his tape his mouth shut and look at him. Tris, he’s, like, seriously hot.”
“It was an app. His voice—” I close my mouth tight when I realize I almost spilled all the tea.
“No, screw that. Tell me more,” she insists.
“I imagine the angels sound an awfully lot like him.”
“Then fuck Dad, fuck My, and seriously use that as a muse and a rebound.” She links her pinky with mine. “Because you deserve better, and you know it.”
After my shower, I send a message to Mom and Dad, asking them to come up to my room and say goodnight. It takes them all of two minutes. I take my pill in front of them then climb into bed, lean over, and grab my favorite childhood book, my preferred bedtime story, and hold it up.
“Read to me?”
“Yeah.” Dad nods. “Yeah, of course.”
Mom tries to smile, and I laugh.
“You never pretended to like it before; don’t start now.”
“If you like it—”
“Oh my God, Mom, don’t agree with everything I say. Don’t tiptoe around me, please.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” I pat the bed beside me. “Be you. I really need you to do that for me. I need both of you to promise me now that, when you come to Italy, you stop looking at me like that. I want to go back to my version of normal, and I need you to do the same.”
“I will, I promise.” She sits beside me, and Dad sits on the other side.
After we have all gotten comfortable, Dad opens the book and smiles. “Ready?”
“Yes.”
And he begins, “The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind”—he flips the page—“and another”—he flips the page—“his mother called him ‘WILD THING!’ and Max said, ‘I’LL EAT YOU UP!’ so he was sent to bed without eating anything.”
Unwell
Matteo
Sleep has been interrupted by nightmares of her crying, her self-loathing, of her inconsolable self-hatred and the misplaced guilt and shame that she carries. No one should have to carry that heavy a load alone.
Her father, Zandor, was not particularly fond of my presence, but how could I have left her, even at his insistence, when she looked for me when she’d had enough and needed a break from her own madness.
I do feel badly that she didn’t fall into the arms or laps of those who I can see she needed. And, even though at times they may not see it, nor will pride and anguish allow her to tell them, she needs them desperately.
When she said goodbye to me, I saw the hurt in the words, but I also knew she meant it. I should have rejoiced in the fact that she was walking away, that she had family whose arms were open to fall into, but I wasn’t.
I’m still not okay.
I … miss her.
I live out of a suitcase, unable to trust that those I once thought of as family would not revel in the reality that I would be gone much sooner than the lifetime we all expect to have. I hide a disease that caused me to be a sickly child, thought of as lazy, because I didn’t want to run and jump, and play football and tennis. I was thought of as a pansy because drawing pictures, painting, and reading is where I found joy. I was thought queer because the girls who threw themselves at me were not fucked or treated like animals as my brothers did their women. Oddly, I was fine with it until burdened with the family’s fortune and the reality that my health was failing at a near breakneck speed.
Growing up, I never had a friend until the year before University. He was two years older than me and also the headmaster’s son, Carlos Rubio. Both of us loved to be challenged academically and enjoyed art and literature. We hung out with smart people—women, men, older, younger, sometimes together, and sometimes on our own.
After his first experience, with an older gentleman, an experience in which he told me about in great deal, about the extreme pleasure, the high from orgasm, very soon after, he came out.
One night, he persuaded me to experiment with him, believing I, too, was gay. I wasn’t sure if I was but held no biased against anyone for any reason.
All I knew was that the first time he got me off with his hand, it felt better than when I did it, and the first time he sucked my cock, the heat and the warmth, the wet surrounding it, felt better than either of our hands.
Carlos was right; orgasms were nearly spiritual.
When I fucked him, it was an amazing feeling, but after, he changed. He began talking about a future together. He couldn’t wait until we were both attending University and we could hold hands in public and kiss when we felt the urge.
It dawned on me that I didn’t enjoy those things unless I was filled with lust, and I just … wasn’t.
I told him that type of closeness, one beyond friendship or orgasm, didn’t appeal to me. I knew it upset him, but lying about what was obvious wasn’t something I could do.
He continued to suck my dick, at his choosing, obviously, until he left.
I loved the closeness with Ilsa. I learned love from her, and all the emotions people have toward others. Those feelings and desires grew by the day.