“Remember the time in second grade right after my grandfather died?” he says finally, speaking in a low, quiet voice. “I burst into tears in the lunchroom and Phil Howell called me a faggot. That only made me cry harder, even though I didn’t know what a faggot was.” He laughs softly.
I keep my eyes squeezed shut, coasting on his voice. Last year Phil Howell was found half naked with Sean Trebor in the back of his dad’s BMW. It’s funny how things turn out.
“Anyway, when I told him to leave me alone he smacked my tray, and food went flying everywhere. I’ll never forget: we were having mashed potatoes and turkey burgers. And you went up and scooped the potatoes off the floor with your hands and shoved them straight into Phil’s face. And then you picked up the turkey burger and crumbled it down Phil’s T-shirt. You said, You’re worse than the hot lunch.” He laughs again. “That was a big insult in second grade. And Sean was so surprised, and he looked so ridiculous standing there with mashed potato and chives smeared all over him, that I just started laughing and laughing, and it was the first time I’d laughed since I’d heard the news about—about my grandfather.” He pauses. “Do you remember what I said to you that day?”
The memory is there, a balloon swelling from somewhere so far inside me I thought it was lost, the whole scene clear and perfect now.
“You’re my hero,” we both say at the same time. I don’t hear Kent move, but all of a sudden his voice is closer, and he’s found my hands in the dark, and he’s cupping them in his.
“I vowed after that day that I would be your hero too, no matter how long it took,” he whispers.
We stay like that for what feels like hours, and all the time sleep is dragging at me, pulling me away from him, but my heart is fluttering like a moth, beating back the dreams and the darkness and the fog crowding my brain. Once I sleep, I lose him. I lose this moment forever.
“Kent?” I say, and my voice seems to have to rise from inside the fog, taking forever to get from my brain to my mouth.
“Yeah?”
“Promise you’ll stay here with me?” I say.
“I promise,” he whispers.
And then, just at that moment, when I’m no longer sure if I’m dreaming or awake or walking some valley in between where everything you wish for comes true, I feel the flutter of his lips on mine, but it’s too late, I’m slipping, I’m gone, he’s gone, and the moment curls away and back on itself like a flower folding up for the night.
SIX
This time, when I dream, there is sound. As I fall through the darkness there’s a tinkly, jangly song playing, like the kind of music you hear in doctors’ offices and elevators, and without knowing how I know, I realize that the music is piping all the way from the guidance counselor’s office at Thomas Jefferson.
As soon as I realize this, little bright spots start exploding through the darkness, a zooming gallery of all the annoying inspirational posters my guidance counselor, Mrs. Gardner, keeps on her walls, except in my dream they’re all blown up by about a hundred times, each the size of a house. In one, Einstein is pictured over the words GRAVITY IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR FALLING IN LOVE. There’s a poster with Thomas Edison’s quote: GENIUS IS 1 PERCENT INSPIRATION AND 99 PERCENT PERSPIRATION. I’m thinking of trying to grab one of them and worrying about whether it will hold my weight when I spin past a picture of a striped cat hanging off the branch of a tree by its nails. It says HANG IN THERE.
And it’s the funniest thing: as soon as I see it, the whistling in my ears stops and the feeling of terror drains away, and I realize this whole time I haven’t been falling at all. I’ve been floating.
The alarm that wakes me is the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard. I sit up, a bubble of laughter rising inside me. I have the urge to touch everything in my room—the walls, the window, the collage, the photos cluttering my desk, the Tahari jeans strewn across my floor and my bio textbook and even the dull light just creeping over the windowsill. If I could cup it in my hands and kiss it, I would.
“Someone’s in a good mood,” my mom says when I come downstairs. Izzy’s at the table in front of her peanut butter bagel, taking slow, careful bites, as usual.
“Happy Cupid Day,” my father says. He’s standing at the stove burning eggs for my mom’s breakfast.
“My favorite,” I say, scooting in to steal a bite from Izzy’s bagel. Izzy squeals and slaps at my hand. I plant a big, sloppy kiss on her forehead.
“Stop slobbering on me,” she says.
“See you later, Fizzy Lizard,” I say.
“Don’t call me Lizard.” Izzy sticks a peanut butter–coated tongue out at me.
“You look like a lizard when you do that.”
“Do you want any breakfast, Sam?” my mom asks. I never eat breakfast at home, but my mom still asks me every day—when she catches me before I duck out, anyway—and in that moment I realize how much I love the little everyday routines of my life: the fact that she always asks, the fact that I always say no because there’s a sesame bagel waiting for me in Lindsay’s car, the fact that we always listen to “No More Drama” as we pull into the parking lot. The fact that my mom always cooks spaghetti and meatballs on Sunday, and the fact that once a month my dad takes over the kitchen and makes his “special stew,” which is just hot-dog pieces and baked beans and lots of extra ketchup and molasses, and I would never admit to liking it, but it’s actually one of my favorite meals. The details that are my life’s special pattern, like how in handwoven rugs what really makes them unique are the tiny flaws in the stitching, little gaps and jumps and stutters that can never be reproduced.