Page 18 of Gay for Pray
He turns, and his eyes meet mine across the living room. A long beat of eye contact stretches between us, so charged it feels for a moment as though everyone else vanishes and the music muffles.
I look away quickly, look at anything but Jude. Even the girls making out in the corner are a relief compared to watching him.
What am I doing here?I wonder again. There are so many code of conduct violations around me you could write a novel worth of citations over it. Why did I agree to come to something like this? I guess I was curious. I wanted to see what a “normal” college experience is like, but I’m starting to regret that. I don’t belong in a place like this. The only thing it could possibly do is confuse me, placing land mines along the path I’m meant to follow through life.
Someone catches me scanning the room like I’m searching for exits. I think it might be that bouncer, the one who didn’t want to let me in in the first place, the one who smirked and laughed when Jude and I got stuck together for our philosophy project. Why does this guy have to haunt my every misstep? I look away as a familiar smirk hits his mouth, but a few minutes later the guy is standing in front of me.
“Hey, man,” he says. “You having fun?”
I am so out of my depth that I don’t know anything, and all I can do is answer him earnestly.
“It’s…loud,” I say.
That smile again, but it might be mirth and not cruelty. He holds up a glass. “Here, have a drink. You might feel better.”
I put up my hands. “Oh, I don’t drink.”
“Relax, it’s juice.”
I narrow my eyes at the glass, but take it and sniff. I don’t smell anything but cranberry. The guy waits, and I take a tentative sip. Sure enough, nothing but cranberry juice.
“Thank you,” I say.
“No problem. Cheers.”
He tips his glass, which is surely not as innocuous as mine, and I clink mine against it. Then he smiles and wanders off.
I stay glued to the wall, but having a drink gives me a welcome distraction. Maybe I’m reading too much into those smirks. Maybe they are just smiles. I sip nervously, drinking faster than I intend to. It’s only juice, though. I’m more and more sure of that, so it’s fine if I chug it. The worst that will happen is I’ll have to wait in the line for the bathroom.
I relax against the wall. The longer I’m here, the more I get used to this insane environment. The music isn’t quite so abrasive. The lights don’t hit my eyes like a strobe anymore. I catch myself nodding along to the beat, even with my back pressed to the wall. If I was someone else, I might like this.I’m starting to understand why people go to stuff like this. The longer I’m here, the more I become a mere mote in this big river of humanity, bumping up against other people, drifting along to their rhythms, falling into their patterns. There’s an order to it if you watch it for long enough, an ebb and flow to the way bodies drift in and out of the party.
I go for another drink, but my glass is empty. Shifting my focus to the floor so I can set my glass down almost undoes me. I have to use the wall at my back to get to the floor, and once I’m there…I’m not sure I can or want to get up. I blink, and everything over me is light and sound, so much light and sound, a wave of light and sound washing over me. I’m stuck below the surface, slowly drowning unless I find a way to swim upward.
I scramble against the wall, suddenly frantic. I feel like I gouge holes in it in my desperation to get to my feet. There’s a table or something beside me, and I use it to clamber onto feet that are no longer as solid as they used to be. This room is too hot, too close, and I need out.
Everything tilts when I start walking, like I’m on a ship in a storm. I bounce through the room, ping ponging off furniture and people as the world rocks under me, but eventually I find my way to a glass door. I feel along it until I discover a handle, then propel myself out into the night.
The cool air sweeps over me, and I take what feels like my first full breath in an hour. I get about half a second to realize something isn’t right, then I’m sitting on the cold paving stones of some kind of patio. It strikes me, distantly, that I’m fortunate to be sitting up and not sprawled across the stones, but I can’t do anything with that information. No one around me seems to care or notice. They stand around smoking or speaking more quietly than they can inside. A couple glance at me, but they apparently deem me unworthy of further consideration. I wonder how long I’m going to be here, but that doesn’t inspire the fear it perhapsshould. All I’m sure of in this moment is that I need to sit on these cool paving stones and wait. For what? I have no idea.
Then someone slips out of the house, and I know. I know with a certainty that hits me like a punch.
Jude bursts into the night looking frantic. He scans the backyard, and when he spots me, he rushes over and crouches in front of me.
“Hey,” he says with a smile, such a nice smile. Have I ever noticed how nice his smile is?
He puts a hand on my forehead like I’m sick, and whatever he feels turns that pretty smile into a scowl. He takes my hands in his, and the touch is like a healing spell in a video game. Instantly, everything feels better. My body feels better. The hot night feels better. The whole world feels better. His touch heals everything, and when I smile, he squeezes my hands tighter.
“Are you okay?” he says.
“I…think so,” I say. “Everything is kind of moving though.”
He tries to keep smiling, but from this close, I can see the exact moment concern streaks through it. Concern for me? I’ve never felt better in my entire life.
“I am going to kill whoever did this,” he says. “Come on, can you stand?”
He starts to rise, and I follow so I don’t lose the touch of his hands in mine. I sway once I’m upright, the whole world listing as some kind of cosmic wave nearly tilts us all overboard. Jude is there to catch me, his arm going around my waist. He drapes my arm over his shoulders as he starts dragging me along the side of the house so we can get back to the path.
My body feels awful, like I have the flu and food poisoning all at once, but when I focus only on the place where Jude’s hand touches my waist, everything seems much better. So I do, sometimes even closing my eyes as we stumble along. I don’t know where we’re going, but it seems okay as long as Jude is theone leading me. It occurs to me that I’m bigger than him, but he doesn’t seem to have much trouble hauling me along with my arm over his shoulders.
