“My dad was a mean fucker. I think, partly, I had this idea that if I had friends like that, they could teach me how to be someone he wouldn’t mess with so much. So, I watched them. For years. And I really believed that’s what it was—that I wanted to be like them. It wasn’t until I was thirteen, maybe fourteen, that I realized I just wanted them. By that time, I did have people to watch my back. But it wasn’t anything like I imagined. And, well, you know how that turned out.”
I nod. The guys who pulled Rafe into their group were affiliated with a gang in his neighborhood. He told me about it haltingly on the phone last night. How he didn’t realize what their friendship meant until it was too late. Until he was so deep into taking and selling drugs with them that there was no way he could step away from it without a hell of a lot of fallout.
“They all talked a lot of shit about how many girls they’d been with, even at thirteen or fourteen. Some of it was true. I don’t know how much. But I went along with it. Until high school, when it was really clear who was… you know, screwing, because it’d happen at parties, in the backseats of cars, or in bathrooms.” He winces. “I kind of… had to.”
“With girls.”
He nods. “It was a shitty thing to do. Anyway, it’s not like it was terrible or anything. It just felt wrong. And then, when I first slept with a boy. Fuck. I knew for sure then. I mean, we were sixteen, so it was clumsy and fumbling, but, damn. It was like all the things I’d been feeling and questioning about myself finally made sense.”
“Who was he?”
“Mm, Benny. Benito. He went to a different school, but his cousin went to school with us, so he was always around. He had this really light coloring—almost blond, with grayish-bluish eyes—and everyone joked that he was secretly white. He was… sweet. Which didn’t really go over well in my neighborhood. But somehow, people left him alone. Like they could tell he was good.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what ever happened to him. But one night at some party, I was standing in a corner, watching everything. I was blitzed. Benny came over to me. He took my hand and led me to this tiny bedroom that had probably been a pantry originally.
“He was smaller than me, but he pushed me up against the door and looked right at me. Didn’t say anything. Finally, he leaned up really slow and kissed me. It was like he’d read my mind. I was so shocked that I pushed him away at first. But he kept standing there, looking at me. He knew. He was totally sure of me. And I was so relieved because he proved something to me that I probably would’ve sat with for a long time, never knowing.”
Rafe’s smiling. And I’m fucking jealous. Not of this kid Benny, but that Rafe got his questions answered at sixteen, by someone sweet. Rafe likes sweet.
“Do you remember the first time you were attracted to a guy?” Rafe asks.
“I wasn’t—I didn’t realize that’s what it was until just now, I think. This guy Charlie. I dunno what happened to him either. When we went to high school, I kind of lost track of him.”
No. That’s not true. More like I started ignoring him and didn’t step in when I saw people messing with him
A familiar sinking feeling begins, like I’m slipping beneath the surface of something unfathomable, every moment I sit here pressing me farther into a blackness that I want to pull around myself and wrap up in until I can’t see or hear anything.
I bite my lip. I can’t let myself go to the place where I hate myself. I never know how to come back.
Then Rafe pulls me close and starts rubbing my scalp, kind of the way he pets Shelby. My skin prickles and my breath comes short. I squeeze my eyes shut so tight the room feels like it’s spinning.
“God, what are you doing?” I groan.
Rafe’s hand stills on my hair. “I’m sorry. I was just—”
“No! I mean, what the fuck are you doing here? What are you doing with me? Why do you even give a shit? Fuck!”
I curl in on myself, trying to contain the churning hurricane of fury, shame, and fear in my stomach, but I can’t. Liquor will melt me further into it, a razor snap me out of it—for a few minutes, anyway.
Rafe makes a choked sound and turns, going up on his knees and dragging me tight against him.
“You don’t feel this?” He presses his palm to my spine, my chest to his. The hurricane in my stomach settles a little as my heartbeat slows down to match the steady, calming thump of Rafe’s.