Thursday, July 19, 2012

The Family in the Window- pt. 09 What You Want


Tristan slept five hours when he was awoken by his cell phone and he could tell by the tone that it was Evan.  He thought about letting it go to voicemail but then he thought about the night he had just had and he decided he wanted someone to talk to so he answered it.
“Hey, how’s it going?” Evan asked.
“Not bad,” Tristan said as he rubbed at his face.  “What time is it?”
“It’s almost 3 o’clock.  Were you sleeping or lost track of time whacking off?”
“Sleeping,” Tristan said, “I had a long night.”
“Out on a date?”
“You know it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Tristan pulled the covers aside and reached for his jeans.  “Do you want to come over?”
“You know I do,” Evan said.
“Okay,” Tristan said but then he remembered that he had been out late, that his mother was there in the kitchen when he got home, and though she had seemed to believe his story, the same story from the previous night she seemed disappointed, maybe because he had been up all night.  “Wait,” he said, “I have to find out if I’m grounded.”
“Dude,” Evan said.
“I know, I know, I’m eighteen and all but I’m still in high school.”
He pulled his pants up one handed then found a shirt and as he tried to think about how to get it on while still holding his phone he decided to tell Evan to come over anyway as he didn’t really think he was grounded.  He closed the cell phone and put on his shirt then headed for the door.
The house was quiet and he didn’t hear a television from downstairs but he suspected his mother was in the kitchen so he stopped in the bathroom upstairs because she often started conversations with him when all he wanted was to pass by her.  After a quick flush of the toilet and wash of his face he headed downstairs and to the kitchen which he found empty then he spotted a note on the refrigerator door written on the erase board.
“Visiting friends, be home late, love mom,” he read the note aloud then stopped at the phone number written below.  He didn’t know who the friends were but it didn’t matter, though he didn’t know why she left a number if she also had her cell phone on her.  He shook his head and opened the refrigerator door and grabbed a cola from inside along with a bag of lunch meat and cheese.  
Everything seemed to be moving faster than he could process it until his first taste of cola then he perked up and pulled his phone from his pocket.  As much as he wanted to stick around until Evan got there he knew it would be boring so he texted him that he’d be in his room and the front door would be unlocked.  He made a sandwich, unlocked the door, and headed to his room.
At his desk he pulled his phone back out as he had thought about texting Mark, or maybe calling him, but he decided to play it cool.  They had a third date arranged.  It was set.  But it didn’t feel right.  Why didn’t it feel right?
He turned to his computer and woke it from hibernation and began to check his multiple e-mail accounts.  There was one for social media, one for friends, and one for everyone else including family.  
They had kissed.  It had been nice, fun, to be on the dorm room bed at a college with someone close to two years older.  They had dated, real types of dates too, and Mark he was an attractive guy, muscular and handsome.  It was the type of relationship that should have been instant, anyone else would have killed for, the type that was in romance novels and television shows.  Mark was the type of guy, the guy, he was supposed to want, supposed to sacrifice for and yet it didn’t feel exactly right.  There was something missing, a wall between the two of them, a barrier.  Then he thought about his lies and he wanted to come clean, felt bad for having told them.  
He heard a knock on the front door then the sound of his dog, Barney, barking and finally the sound of the door being opened.  He knew that Evan that Evan and Barney got along with each other but that Evan was still wary of the dog so he started for the door of his bedroom.
“Hey where you at?” Evan called out.
“Up here,” Tristan yelled back.  He moved into the hallway and down the steps to find Evan was still by the door, cast in silhouette by the sun’s light, a dark shadow that leaned over petting Barney who wagged his tail.
“You’re a big dumb fucker aren’t you?  Aren’t you?” Evan joked.
“Hey that’s my dog you’re talking about.”
“Who said I was talking to the dog,” Evan said before he stood and Tristan saw the change in his shadow, two or three more inches on top of his head that hadn’t been there before.
“What did you do?”
“Do you like it?”
“I can’t see it,” Tristan said.  He turned on the living room light and looked to Evan who stood in a half-heroic pose, dressed in black, and a full mohawk shaved onto his head.  He looked at his friend’s angled body, pale skin, and the mohawk.  Evan always had to be daring.  For a moment he thought fondly of his friend, I forget how handsome you are, but then that spell was broken.  He had to say something because he had been caught staring.
“Wow, that’s pretty extreme,” Tristan said.
“Yeah, I picked the wrong fucking time to do it because it’s winter but still it’s pretty cool huh.”
“Yeah, does your mother know?”
“She helped me shave it,” Evan said.
“You got strange parents.”
“And you got lame ones.  Do you have anything to eat?  I’m starving.”
Tristan shook his head and told Evan to hang his jacket on the coat rack then lead the way into the kitchen where he fixed Evan a sandwich and got him a cola before they headed up to his room.  There was one thing he wanted to talk about, one thing that Evan probably wanted to talk about, the date.  Tristan moved to the desk chair and turned on his friend who sat on the bed.
“That’s going to be pretty bitchin’ at school.  Does that pass the dress code?”
“Hey if cheerleaders can get away with wearing their uniforms and short skirts anytime they want then I get a fuckin’ mohawk.”
“It’s still black,” Tristan said.
“Yeah, I want to bleach it and dye it a color but I’m not sure which one.  I have a couple.”  He took a bite out of his sandwich.  “Now quit stalling and tell me what happened.  Did you fuck?”
Tristan gave Evan his best angry look and shook his head.
“So what did you guys do?”
“I don’t know,” Tristan looked away.
“Come on man tell me.  It’s been too long since I had any kind of fun and it was with you.”
“Well, we kissed a lot.”  Evan mocked boredom.  “With our shirts off.”
“Good, what else?”
“He played with my nipples.”
“He played with your nipples?”
“A lot,” Tristan said, “he found I was kind of ticklish and we were on the bed with a bunch of pillows and blankets and stuff.  We kind of just fooled around, you know.”
“So that was it?”
“Pretty much,” Tristan answered.
“That’s what you called me over here for?”
“You called me?”
“Okay.”
“It’s just, I don’t know this morning.  He dropped me off and I don’t know.  It’s like it’s not supposed to be or something.”
“It was the second date,” Evan said.
“I know but still.”
“Still what?  Look he’s everything you want in a guy right?”
Tristan frowned at the question as he eyed his friend.  At that moment he wanted Evan and for a brief second it felt like there was a connection between them, a feeling of electricity that they had both recognized something but then Evan burped and got off the bed and walked to the book shelf.
“Maybe not everything but close,” Tristan said.  He felt it with Evan too.  They were each pushing the other away.  Maybe that was meant to be too, he thought.  
“So go for it,” Evan said.
“But what if he just wants sex and I’m just nothing to him?  What if he dumps me?  I mean I lied to him.”
“You lied?”
“A lot,” Tristan said, “I told him I was in college.”
“So what?”  Evan squatted at the shelf as he perused through the titles.
“Some of us want more than casual sex,” Tristan said.
Evan looked him in the eye then said, “Maybe sometimes that’s all we get.”
Tristan felt a knot in his stomach as he had been the one to break up their romantic relationship to be ‘just friends’ because things were moving too fast and he wanted to experience something, someone, else.
“Fuck,” Tristan said.
“That’s right.”