Adam Silvera - More Happy Than Not

“Let’s get the check,” I say.

“And the waiter’s pen,” he adds.

We’re going to Comic Book Asylum, laughing as we throw the waiter’s pen at each other, overdramatic, like gladiators hurling spears. After we started hanging out last year, we would go to the comic shop when it was too cold out to do anything else. It didn’t matter to me as long as we were chilling. We’d spend hours sitting in the aisles, as close to each other as possible, checking out what we wanted to read but were positive we didn’t want to buy. Man, I spent so much time at Comic Book Asylum that Genevieve brought me there for Trade Dates. Then again, she also created Trade Dates because there was a strain in our relationship, also because of Collin.

He always surprised me whenever he brought up things that weren’t related to comics and fantasy books. One afternoon I thought we were about to leave the shop, but he pulled me back down to the floor beside him. I was both nervous and hopeful he was going to kiss me, but instead he said he was done caring about what others thought of how he lived. That sentiment didn’t survive any longer than a shadow-basilisk did against a black sun phoenix, but in the moment it made me happy to believe it. And then I lost him and his conversations and touches, and I couldn’t fill that hole. So forgetting the hole was even there turned out to be the next best, saddest thing.

But I have him back now, I think.

Stan is by the door, doing a poor job installing a Captain America gumball machine. He smiles at us. “You two done fighting?”

Collin is looking at me funny, sort of like that time I echoed the ending to his bad haircut story because he’d forgotten he told me already. I paid attention, made him feel worth it, and I promised I always would.

“We’re good,” he answers for us. He leads me to the graphic novel section.

“What was that about?”

“I came in here a few times without you, and Stan kept asking me where the Robin to my Batman was.”

“That’s bullshit,” I say. “I’m totally Batman.”

Collin snickers. “For a while I made excuses, said you were sick or working, but eventually I accepted we probably wouldn’t ever talk again. It sucked, but it made sense with how I ditched you.” He trails a finger across the spines of graphic novels and says, “I gotta ask you something.”

“Shoot.”

“When you saw me here and were being extra nice and fake, were you doing it to impress that guy you were with? Was he your boyfriend?”

I completely forget that happened on account of having forgotten my relationship with Collin. Two worlds, ten feet from each other — and Collin was the only one who knew, the only one who was affected by it. “He was never my boyfriend and you were barely anyone to me. I went through the Leteo procedure and forgot my time with you.”

“Sure you did,” Collin says.

He doesn’t believe me. Why would he? But I told him.

We sit against a bookcase, our elbows touching. We’re both reading the same graphic novel about zombies invading a heavily guarded garbage dump, where they find their master’s decapitated head. Not really sure what the zombies plan on doing with the head if they manage to retrieve it, but we lose interest anyway.

“Remember our spot behind the fence?” he says out of nowhere.

It’s not a game of Remember That Time.

“It’s been a while,” I say.

“Want to go?”

I close the graphic novel. We tell Stan we’ll see him later and I wonder if he knows about Collin and me. As long as he’s not outing us, it doesn’t matter.

We head to our spot between the meat market and flower shop. I steer Collin toward the fence from behind, but he shrugs me off and I don’t give him any shit for it, even though there’s not a single gay-hating soul in sight. The smell of dead cow is way more pungent than the flowers this evening. There’s a sign that reads: community service gathering on friday, august 16th. Who the hell knows what that entails? But it’s pretty awesome to find our graffiti still on the wall.

We crawl through the open spot in the fence into the side where history is pulsating with memories of our first time, second time, third time… you get it. Collin scans the area for any wanderers or birds with cameras on their heads before coming back to undo my belt buckle. It’s so dark someone could murder us and get away with it, which we prefer — the darkness, not the murder part. I pull him into a rough kiss and I don’t doubt that whenever he’s kissing Nicole he’s pretending she’s some other guy — maybe even me — and as I kiss him now I pretend he’s someone else, and it’s just so fucking sad.

He hands me a condom and I rip open the wrapper with my teeth.

It’s only been a day and I desperately need to see Collin to stay sane. I know he’s working two jobs — one as a busboy at an Italian restaurant, the other as a stock boy at a bodega — and doesn’t get a lot of sleep. But I need him as badly as I should be pushing him away. It’s too weird a mix of ugly and hopeful.

Collin has a few hours free before work, so at 2:00 he meets me at the track field where I watched trains speed by with Thomas. I look around for him lying on the grass or sitting on the bleachers, thinking about how he can be the architect of his life, but Thomas is not here. It’s okay, it’s okay: I have Collin, my first gateway to honest happiness. I tell Collin I chose this spot so we could run around and get him in shape for basketball tryouts, but when we race he’s so far behind, and it reminds me of Thomas losing too. But unlike Thomas, Collin doesn’t just quit, be it a job or a dream or a race. He charges on to the end and then throws himself onto the grass beside me.

“Can we talk about it?”

His question throws me off. “About…?”

He looks around before tapping my scar. “Was it really that bad?”

“Yes.” I lie back and stare at the sun until it hurts. “Life felt like it was going to be too long. I wanted out.”

“It wasn’t because of me, right?” he asks quickly.

I shake my head in the grass. “Not completely. I’m not some kid who was pissed someone didn’t want him back.” Except I was. Even having forgotten all the things that led to Aaron 2.0. I was still aching for a Leteo procedure because of fear and disappointment in someone who couldn’t love me back. And I was despicable enough to try and play my suicide card to forget heartbreak. “There were a lot of reasons. But trying to live when my father refused to stay alive — because of who I am — broke me in a way I don’t think will ever be fixed.”

“I was so pissed at you, Aaron,” Collin says. “Nicole told me what you tried to do. I was stuck on this level of Vigilante Village and I was this close to throwing my controller at the TV. But I kept it together because I didn’t want to ruin her the same way I wrecked us. I always thought we would be the endgame, even when I knew I couldn’t afford to be that person.”

“You walked away from me.”

“It’s taken me a few months to realize how badly I miss you. I know I’m living a lie, but I’m thinking about this kid, Aaron. My son. What is having a gay dad going to do to him? I sometimes think I’d be better off not being in the picture at all, but I can’t get myself to be a deadbeat dick either.”

I sit up. “What do you want from me? Are you going to bounce again?”

“I can’t promise anything,” Collin says, which is basically promise-speak for Don’t count on me. He sits up with me and — for a second — holds my hand. “I just want you to be alive when I figure it out.”