Дэвид Левитан - Boy Meets Boy

"So what's up with you?" I ask.

"Not much."

"And how are things?"

RRRRRRRRR. Imake a loud game-show-buzzer noise. "I'm sorry," I say, "we don't recognize

'fine' as an acceptable answer. We see it as a conversational cop-out. So please, try again."

Tony sighs again, but not that heavily. He knows he's been snagged. If I ever say "fine" to him, he reacts the same way.

"I've actually been thinking about life lately, and this one image keeps coming to me," he says. "Do you know when you cross against traffic? You look down the street and see a car coming, but you know you can get across before it gets to you. So even though there's a DON'T WALK sign, you cross anyway. And there's always a split second when you turn and see that car coming, and you know that if you don't continue moving, it will all be over.

That's how I feel a lot of the" time. I know I'll make it across. I always make it across. But the car is always there, and I always stop to watch it coming."

He gives me a low smile. "You know, sometimes I wish I had your life. But I'm sure I wouldn't be much good at it."

"I'm not that great at it myself."

"You get by" "So do you."

I try.

I find myself thinking back to something I saw on the local news about a year ago. A teen football player had died in a car accident. The cameras showed all his friends after the funeral—these big hulking guys, all in tears, saying, "I loved him. We all loved him so much." I started crying, too, and I wondered if these guys had told the football player they loved him while he was alive, or whether it was only with death that this strange word, love, could be used. I vowed then and there that I would never hesitate to speak up to the people I loved. They deserved to know they gave meaning to my life. They deserved to know I thought the world of them.

"You know I love you," I say to Tony now, not for the first time. "You are really one of the greatest people I know."

Tony can't take a compliment, and here I am, giving him the best one I can give. He brushes it off, sweeping his hand to the side. But I know he's heard it. I know he knows it.

"I'm glad we're here," he says.

We switch to another language—not our invented language or the language we've learned from our lives. As we walk further into the woods and up the mountain, we speak the language of silence. This language gives us space to think and move. We can be both here and elsewhere at the same time.

I hit the peak with Tony and then we turn back around. I am conscious of this in my silence, but I am also conscious of Noah and Kyle at their different destinations, miles away. I am conscious of Joni, who is no doubt somewhere with Chuck, not getting any silence unless he permits it. (Is this an unfair thought? I'm truly not sure.)

I don't know where Tony is while he's with me — maybe he's simply concentrating on the birdcalls and the slant of the sunlight, which hits through the trees in a pattern that decorates his arm with the space between leaves.

But maybe it's more than that. As we get back to the main path, Tony turns to me and asks for a hug.

Now, I don't believe in doing hugs halfway. I can't stand people who try to hug without touching. A hug should be a full embrace— as I wrap my arms around Tony, I am not just holding him, but also trying to lift off his troubles for a moment so that the only thing he can feel is my presence, my support. He accepts this embrace and hugs me back. Then his posture raises an alarm—his back straightens out of the hug, his hands fall a little.

I look at his face and realize that he's seen something behind me. I let go of him and turn to find two adults gawking.

"Tony?" the woman asks.

But she doesn't really need to ask. She knows it's Tony.

After all, she's his mother's best friend.

Everybody Freaks Out

Tony is grounded, and his mom's best friend can't keep her mouth shut. The church group network goes into overtime, and by the time I get to school on Monday, I find out that Rip's odds on my love life are now twelve to one for me and Noah, ten to one for me and Kyle, eight to one for me and Tony, and one to two for me botching everything up and spending the rest of my life unrequited.

By the end of the day, the odds have changed even further, and I'm a total basket case.

It's no use protesting to people that Tony and I are just friends (only the people who know us believe me, and all the rest want to believe the opposite because it's a better story). I can't even talk to Tony anymore—I tried on Sunday but his mom hung up on me, muttering something about the devil's influence, which I think was a little overstated.

"Do you think I'm an agent of the devil?" I ask Lyssa Ling after she briefs me on Rip's odds and hands me my Dowager's Dance committee list.

"I would hope that an agent of the devil would be more attractive than you," Lyssa zings back.

Before I take offense, I look at the committee list . . . and gulp.

"Um, Lyssa? You've put both Trilby Pope and Infinite Darlene on my committee?"

"So? It's already posted. A done deal."

"Clearly, you don't realize the implications of this. They both HATE EACH OTHER'S GUTS.

They can't be on my committee together."

"They both wanted to architect, and I'm not going to be the one to play favorites. They'll just have to deal. And so will you."

With that, she pulls her clipboard back to her chest and walks away.

I've gotten to .school early to find Noah and see how his weekend went. But before I can find Noah, Kyle finds me.

"We have to talk," he says urgently.

"How about after school,?" I ask.

"No. Right now."

As Kyle drags me into the janitor's closet, I can see the whole school watching through the eyes of the few people in the hall. I can only imagine what they're thinking, and what they'll say.

The janitor's closet has the usual brooms, mops, and buckets. At its center, though, is a state-

of-the-art computer. Our janitorial staff is one of the richest in the country because of their day-trading skills. They could have retired long ago, but they all have a compulsion to clean schools. < "What is it?" I ask Kyle, trying to ignore the stock ticker scrolling across the computer screen.

Some of the confusion has lifted from his face, replaced by this decisive urgency. He doesn't look sad or happy. He looks as emotionless as a fact.

"My aunt died this weekend," he says, "and I decided that we should be together."

Before I can say anything, he continues.

"She wasn't very old, only a few years older than my mom. She always lived far away, so I didn't really know her until she moved out here for treatment. Her husband was with her; they got married two days after she got her diagnosis. He vowed he would never leave her side, and he didn't. I don't know how to describe it. She could be retching or shaking or not really there, and he would kneel right beside her, look her right in the eye, and say, 'I'm here.' And the way he said it—I'm here'—was an 'I love you' and a 'Hang in there' and an 'I'll do anything, absolutely anything'—all these intense feelings in this one calm phrase. If he had to leave the room, he made sure she had this teddy bear propped up next to her—they called him Quincy—to take his place. Toward the end, there were these few moments when she got all anxious a few minutes after he left the room, and he would come right back in, as if he knew exactly how she felt. I came to the room early on Saturday and I saw him curled up in the hospital bed, singing Beatles songs to her and looking her in the eye. I couldn't go inside. I just stood in the doorway crying, because it was so sad and it was so beautiful.

"That night I stayed awake thinking about things. I thought about all the stupid things I've done, and you were at the top of the list. You gave me something, Paul. And I don't think I realized it until I saw Tom with my aunt Maura. Then I knew. I knew what I wanted."