Дэвид Левитан - Boy Meets Boy

He nods.

"And what do you want from me?" I ask.

"I don't know." He looks me right in the eye for a moment, then looks behind me, to the periodic table of the elements. "I know I don't have any right to do this. I was really. . . I don't know what the word is for what I was to you. I didn't break up with you the right way.

Something inside me flipped out and I. . . I couldn't stand you. It wasn't your fault. But I couldn't stand you. I needed to. . . I needed to obliterate you. Not you personally. But the thought of you. Your presence."

"Why?"

"It was just a feeling—it was an instinct. I had to do it. It wasn't right. It didn't feel right."

"But you didn't have to lash out at me," I say, my voice rising until I bring it back down.

"You could have just told me. Said 'it doesn't feel right.'" "No"—he's looking at me again now—"you don't understand. You would've talked me out of it. I would've backed down."

"Maybe you would've backed down because you didn't really want to do it."

"You see—you would've used that logic on me. And I didn't want to use your logic."

"So instead you obliterate me?"

He's playing with one of the beakers now, looking at it in his hand. "I know—I'm sorry."

I decide to continue the narrative. "So you dump me. You bad-mouth me. Then a couple of weeks later you're in the halls playing tonsil hockey with Mary Anne McAllister, telling everyone that I'd tricked you into liking guys. Now what? It didn't work with Mary Anne or Cyndi or Joanne or whoever else, and you've decided to come back to my side again?"

"It's not like that."

"Then what is it like?" I can see he's confused, I can see he's trying to tell me something. But all of my own hurt is coming out now—and it's angry hurt. "Please tell me what it's like.

Because as you've been walking past me all these months — as everyone has been asking me, 'Whatever happened with Kyle?' and I've been trying to piece together your side of the story from all the second hand accounts I've heard—all this time, I have been wondering more than anything else what you think it's like" He starts to shiver then. And I remember it so clearly how he used to shiver when he was upset, when he was overwhelmed. There was nothing he or I could do to make it stop. When he told me his brother had learned he had diabetes, when his father yelled at him on a Sunday visit for quitting basketball, when we got to the ending of Boys Don't Cr— these were the only times I got to hold him with all my strength, as his body shook out what his mind couldn't handle. After the first time, when he'd tried to laugh the whole thing off, we hadn't talked about it. We just rode it out, until I wasn't there anymore.

I want to touch him right now. Not hold him, just touch him. But I'm paralyzed. My own reaction to being overwhelmed.

"I'm sorry," he mutters.

"Don't be. I'm sorry I snapped at you."

"No." He looks at me again; the shivering subsides. "I know you hate me. You have every right to hate me. You don't have to speak to me again."

He gets up to leave, and my paralysis is broken. I put my hand on his arm and gesture to him to sit down.

"Listen to me, Kyle," I say. He sits back down and angles his face toward mine. "I mean this entirely. And I'll only say it once. I do not hate you, and have never hated you. I was angry at you and depressed by you and confused about you. But hate never came into it.

"Thank you," he whispers.

I continue quietly. "If you want me to forgive you, I guess have. If you want to know that I don't hate you, you know that now. Is that all?"

A slight shiver again.

"No," he says.

"What, then?" I ask gently.

"I need your help, Paul. I have no right to ask you for it, but I can't think of anyone else to talk to."

I am already involved. I've put myself in this position, and the truth is that I don't really mind.

"What is it, Kyle?"

"I'm so confused."

"Why?"

"I still like girls."

"So?"

"And I also like guys."

I touch his knee. "It doesn't sound like you're confused, then."

"But I wanted to be one or the other. With you, I wanted just to like you. Then, after you, I wanted to just like the girls. But every time I'm with one, I think the other's possible."

"So you're bisexual."

Kyle's face flushes. "I hate that word," he tells me, slumping back in his chair. "It makes it sound like I'm divided."

"When really you're doubled?"

"Right-O."

I smile. It's been a long time since I've heard a Right-O.

I know some people think liking both guys and girls is a cop-out. Some of Infinite Darlene's biggest rivals save their deepest scorn for the people they call "dabblers." But I think they're totally full of garbage. I don't see why, if I'm wired to like guys, someone else can't be wired to like both girls and guys.

"We could call you an ambisexual. A duosexual, A—" "Do I really have to find a word for it?" Kyle interrupts. "Can't it just be what it is?"

"Of course," I say, even though in the bigger world I'm not so the world loves stupid labels. I wish we got to choose our own.

We pause for a moment. I wonder if that's all — if he just needed to say the truth and have it heard. But then Kyle looks at me with unsure eyes and says, "You see, I don't know who I'm supposed to be."

"Nobody does," I assure him.

He nods. I see there is something else he wants to say. But he keeps it inside, and it fades somewhere behind his expression.

"Do you think we can be friends?" he asks.

It's so funny—if he had asked that during the break-up, that old "we'll be friends" fallback, I would have laughed out loud or torn out all his hair. But now, here, it actually works. It means exactly what it says.

"Yes," I answer. Then he surprises me. He leans out of his chair and envelops me in a hug.

This time he holds me with all his strength, even though I don't shiver. I don't know what to do at all.

I know he wants me to feel like comfort. And deep in my heart, I know I am afraid that he'll feel like comfort, too.

Pinba

I tell Joni everything.

Then she tells Chuck.

A few days pass between the events of these two sentences. But the effect is the same.

I find out from Infinite Darlene. This alone means trouble, since Infinite Darlene tries to put as many degrees of separation as possible between herself and Chuck.

"Oh, honey," she says, "they were talking about it in the locker room."

"Talking about what?" I ask.

And she tells me: They were talking about me and Kyle, and me and Noah.

Then it gets worse.

"I'm only telling you for your own good," Infinite Darlene murmurs under her breath. "Rip is in on it."

Rip is our resident oddsmaker. His parents own islands, so his allowance allows him to bet on just about anything: How many times will the principal's secretary use the word the in the morning announcements? How many kids will pass by classroom 303 between sixth and seventh periods? What color will Trilby Pope wear the most in the month of April? Rip is ready to make the odds and stand by them.

He loves betting on how long couples will last.

"What are my odds?" I ask.

Infinite Darlene pouts a little at me. "Darlin', you don't want to know that, do you?"

"I'm serious."

Infinite Darlene sighs. "It's six to one that you end up with Noah, five to one that you end up back with Kyle, and two to one that you botch both chances and end up alone in the next twenty days."

"Which did you bet on?"

Infinite Darlene flutters her eyelashes at me. "A girl never tells," she chirps. Then she spirits herself away.

I wonder what, the odds are that Noah has heard the gossip. Two to one? Even?

I haven't noticed any change in his heart, any sudden suspicion or wariness. And I've been seeing him a lot the past week. We've been dating. On Wednesday we sneaked into the city after school, to go to a museum free night and look at all the people there. The art students stood like intellectual twigs in worn-through sweaters, while the too-beautiful Europeans dipped and glided around them, conversing in languages both floral and spicy. On Thursday we hung out with Tony. It felt like ages since I'd last seen him. Noah and Tony seemed to get along pretty okay, although Noah's presence did complicate the homework routine.