Page 4 of Dire Straights

We chatted between matches, while the game loaded. He talked about his day a bit, which hadn’t been all that eventful, and then I brought up the group project in creative writing, which was a class he wasn’t in.

“Kelani’s in that class with you, right?” He asked. Kelani Knight was a mutual friend of ours, a fun extrovert who’d lately been making it her mission to get me out of my shell and expose me to more socialization.

“Yeah, she is. But the partners were assigned randomly, so…”

“Who’d you end up with?”

“Maddox Holmes. Do you know him?”

“Name doesn’t ring a bell,” he said, after thinking for a moment.

“He’s on the swim team.” That was pretty much all I knew about Maddox, other than the fact that he had nice eyes and hair and made a plain white t-shirt and jeans look kind of modelesque.

“Ugh. I hate jocks.” Aspen expressed his disdain for the athletes at our school, or maybe at every school, with no room for interpretation.

“Um, yeah, I kind of get that.” Historically, jocks had always flat out ignored me, which I preferred, or used me as the butt of jokes they could tell their friends. I imagined Aspen’s experience had been somewhat similar. Maybe even worse. I was pretty sure being a gay trans guy put you higher on the bully-able scale than just being a general socially awkward loser like me. “But he was really nice. Honestly,” I added.

“Yeah, yeah,” he answered me doubtfully. “You could find something nice to say about anyone.”

It was mostly true, so I didn’t bother arguing. “Well, anyway, he actually wants to work together on it and doesn’t expect me to do all the work, so I’m happy.”

“At least there’s that,” he acknowledged, before changing the subject. Which was totally fine. It wasn’t like I wanted to talk more about Maddox anyway. That would be weird, even for me. “Speaking of Kelani, she was here earlier and asked me about going with her to some party tomorrow. I have to work so I can’t, but she said she’s going to make you go.”

“Ah…” Unsure of how to respond, I could only wince. “You’re lucky you have to work.”

He scoffed, shaking his head. “No. Unlike you, I actuallywantto meet people and have fun.”

I was fairly sure what he meant by meet people and have fun was mostly hooking up with guys. It had already happened three times so far where I’d finished my classes for the day and wanted to relax in our room, only to find a sock on the doorknob. Unfortunately, the first time I hadn’t known what it meant so I’d walked in anyway. That was more of Aspen than I’d wanted to see. I had some classes with that other guy, and he hadn’t made eye contact with me since that day.

“I like having fun,” I argued. “I just don’t think parties are that fun.”

“They’re only fun if you let yourself have fun. Don’t sit in the corner all night, you know? Play some drinking games. Make out with a girl. You said you’re not still hung up on your ex, right?”

He was referring to my ex-girlfriend, Gwen, who I’d talked about with him a little bit. We’d started dating in sophomore year, and then all through junior and senior. When she’d broken up with me over the summer, I think she’d expected me to beg her to reconsider but I’d only been relieved. I hadn’t even realized how unhappy I was until I’d gotten away from her. She still texted me sometimes, but I wasn’t sure how to tell her I didn’t even really want to be friends anymore.

“Definitely not,” I assured him.

“Then go have some fun!” He paused for a bit before speaking again. “I’m not being too pushy, right?”

“No,” I told him honestly. He could be assertive, but I didn’t mind that about him. “You’re right. I’ll try to have fun.”

That night, I laid awake for a bit, just staring up at the ceiling that I couldn’t see because Aspen liked the room pitch black like a dungeon. I had a nervous feeling in my stomach, but I wasn’t entirely sure why. Was it because of the impending party? I’d already gone to some of those, though I hadn’t had very much fun.

Was it because I was meeting Maddox on Wednesday? But that was silly. He was cool and nice, but I didn’t have any reason to be nervous about some writing project. It didn’t even count for a big portion of our grade or anything. Or maybe I was nervous about the fact that he was the kind of guy who I always seemed to manage to annoy or aggravate in some way. Was he dreading seeing me?

Heaving a deep sigh, I tried to push it out of my mind and sleep. I wouldn’t need to worry about seeing him untilWednesday anyway. Or at least, that’s what I thought then, right before my stubborn brain finally let me drift off.

MADDOX

I GOT UPearly for swim practice. I always got up early for swim practice, five days a week. Other people were always mentioning how crazy it was to be up before the sun every day, but I hardly noticed it anymore. I was like a robot programmed to be okay with dedicating the majority of my time and energy to whatever sport I was involved with at the time. My dad had instilled that particular attitude into me at about five or six, when he’d insisted I play Little League baseball. I remembered my parents arguing about it here and there, usually when they thought I wasn’t listening.

Then again, when hadn’t they been arguing? Their divorce had surprised no one, least of all me or my two younger siblings. It should have been a relief to all of us, but they’d managed to make even their separation from one another a giant pain in the ass. Always arguing over whose holiday it should be, or who cared the most because of this present or this trip or this appointment. I couldn’t even bring myself to feel guilty for being glad to be away from it.

Quietly slipping my bedroom door closed behind me, I nearly jumped out of my skin when a figure in the dark living room moved, followed by the clanking of a glass bottle onto the coffee table. When I stumbled over to the light switch and slapped it up, I realized it was just one of my housemates, Caelyx. It was obvious by his sloppy appearance and bloodshot eyes that he wasn’t awake before me. He just hadn’t gone to bed.When he picked up the bottle he’d clunked down onto the table and took another long swig out of it, I realized it was vodka.

“Bro, are you serious?” I asked, annoyance flicking through me when he only stared at me with no reaction. “You know if somebody sees you with that shit in here and reports it to the dean, we’re all cooked.”

All three of us that lived in the house were freshmen, meaning that none of us were old enough to have that. If we’d had at least one person over 21 then it would have been alright because we could say it was theirs.

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