Page 60 of How to Hide in Plain Sight
His eyes flared. “How dare you!” he said. “How fucking dare you!”
I flinched. “How dare I what?”
“You knowexactlywhat,” he said.
I tugged my wrist again. He tightened his grip.
“You know what, Eliot? I get why you hide your compulsions. I get that they scare you. I get that there are thoughts you have that you never shared, even with me.” He leaned in close, so close our noses almost brushed. “But after everything you put me through.AftereverythingI did for you in high school, all the lies I saw right through, all the ways your Worries tried to get in the way of our friendship, how hard I worked to make sure they couldn’t. Afterallof that—howdareyou lie to my fucking face! Me. Ofallpeople.”
I scrunched inward, eyes down, trying desperately to fold so far into myself that Manuel wouldn’t be able to see the shame blossoming up from within me.
“I…” I started, then trailed off.
Manuel didn’t fill the ensuing silence. He wouldn’t give me that mercy.
“I’m…”
I didn’t know what to say. A decade of friendship, of always having something to say, of allowing his warm brown eyes to tug words from me without ever questioning how they would land, and I was speechless. I didn’t know how to deny his accusations. I didn’t even know if they were true.
Manuel finally released my wrist. “Hey,” he said, voice gentler. “Look at me.”
I did.
“Are you okay, Eliot?”
My breath curled up into my chest, building, congealing, pushing into the walls of my lungs until it felt as if they might burst. How could I answer him? How could I possibly respond when I didn’t know the truth myself?
20
FRESHMAN YEAR
THE WEEK BEFORE THANKSGIVING, KARMAmarries her girlfriend of eight years, Shelly, on the roof of their condo in Lincoln Park. Almost a hundred people show up for the ceremony, standing room only, friends and cousins and teachers packed together between four precariously low railings. Caleb officiates. Every single one of my siblings is a bridesmaid, men included. Manny sits up front with my parents, right next to the aisle. He pelts grains of rice at my face when I walk past.
After Shelly and Karma kiss—to thunderous applause and an unseasonal snowfall of rice—the reception begins. A metal staircase connects the rooftop and their top-floor condo. The party spreads itself between the two levels, with the roof acting as the dance floor and the inside as the lounge. Guests flow freely between the two. Manuel and I spend the whole night on the roof. We dance beneath dangling lights until our feet hurt, stopping only to steal sips of champagne from other guests’ abandoned flutes. At midnight, the new couple smashes cupcakes into each other’s faces.
Manuel and I don’t keep track of how much we steal from the other guests’ glasses, and eventually, the sips add up. By two a.m., we’re tipsy. I find, to my utter joy and fascination, that the more Idrink, the less I worry. When I find one of the female guests attractive or remember some lie I told the month before, it’s a quiet kind of reminder. Not as relentless as before.
By the time the party ends, Manuel and I are wheeling about the roof like unleashed puppies. The guests clear out. Soon, only the core family remains. We stumble down the metal steps and into the condo to inhale what’s left of the buffet. Everyone fills plates and collapses onto the couches that were pushed up against the wall. Manuel and I grab three pieces of pizza each. I glance around at my family. They seem to be falling into a pit made of melted cheese and seat cushions. To Manny, I say, “Let’s go back outside.”
We carry our pizza back up. The roof, now littered with cups, napkins, and a light frost of rice hulls, is otherwise empty. We drain the last few abandoned champagne flutes, then climb up onto the wide brick-lined perimeter. Our legs dangle over the other side. The street twelve stories below contains nothing more than a few midnight drivers.
I take a bite of pizza. “I’m drunk,” I announce.
“I’m also drunk,” says Manuel.
We giggle.
We’re freshmen. The beginning of the end. But I can’t know that, of course. The night doesn’t feel like the beginning or end of anything. It’s just my best friend and me on the roof of a building filled with my entire family, the way it’s always been. There’s no future, no past. No graduation. No college. Just starlight and cold mozzarella. My bare feet—shoes came off immediately following the ceremony—bounce off the building’s brick exterior.
“How’s Leo on this good evening?”
“Beats me.” I throw a pinch of crust off the roof.
“You aren’t texting?”
“I mean”—I pick up a new slice of pizza—“he’s texting me a bit. But it’s my sister’s wedding. I’m trying to be present, you know?”
“Makes sense to me.”
