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*Before
Adam’s self-awareness was a disastrous thing. To others, he was a stranger, all unknown and unwanted. Adam accepted this because his father told him so. All his exertion, smarts, achievements – the endlessness of a worthier him wasn’t enough to produce satisfaction. Too long Adam sacrificed his youth for survival and an uncertain future. But this didn’t stop him from wanting something more.
So when Blue happened, he was rather eager, but loneliness did that sometimes.
Then Gansey and Ronan started inquiring about her.
“Adam, she’s only fifteen? You’re going to be eighteen in two months.” This was Gansey.
“What the fuck are you doing? Babysitting? Gross.” This was Ronan.
Truth was, Adam didn’t care how old Blue was. He never looked twice at any girl until Blue’s persistence, his reasoning was insignificant.
He just lacked answers he liked when people asked, why date Blue?
*After
Adam is falling violently and spinning rapidly. His thoughts, a jumbled mess. He is massive in this moment.
His first kiss. Ever.
What he’d been wanting, something for himself: to be held, captivated, and felt. For so long Adam denied himself real pleasure – real intimacy. This is everything he wants it to be: fist bumps, laughter, cloudy days, cigarette smoke, an A+ scrawled across his paper, warmth, a forest, Cabeswater, acceptance.
Adam is so alive.
*Before
They walked along the boardwalk that stretched across Henrietta. Blue laughed at something Adam said about the ducks that slept along the shore. She had a strange laugh, he thought. That didn’t matter, she was here, he was here. Both present.
“How did you like the Ferris Wheel?” Adam asked while he grabbed her hand.
“It was a little scary,” she chuckled and let him hold her hand.
“How so?” He noticed she did not grip him back.
“It was too high.”
“I liked being up there. With you.”
She pulled her hand away. Adam deflated.
“It’s actually getting late. I should go.”
Before she attempted to walk away, he delicately lifted her chin up towards his face with his finger, and inched his way leisurely toward her lips. But Blue grabbed his wrist and twisted her face away. Shame and rejection boiled his blood and tore his skin.
“Sorry, I – can’t.” Her apology was strained.
“Why won’t you let me kiss you, Blue?” His question was a broken sound.
She uttered her apology weakly.
“I’ll walk you home.”
Adam was not okay. Did he smell something awful?
The denial was an ugly truth, a reminder of his questionable existence. Sometimes he confused authentic rejection and irrational damage.
He had wilted and withered.
*After
Adam wasn’t feeling wrong, humiliating, or immoral. The expectation to feel the weight of shame for this kiss, for all these kisses, is powerful yet absent. Is this act of physical behavior okay? If not, Adam is sure he doesn’t care. He knows being okay was a complicated thing.
He wants to yell, to scream he is wanted enough, by a person who is important enough, to kiss him. Adam Parrish. Powerful feelings of ecstasy are caressing realization, of his desires to be wanted and known, along his stubble throat.
*Before
Adam was confused and slightly shamed. He stalked home, it was 9 o’clock and he had nowhere in this life he wanted to be. He didn’t understand. He was tall, strong, and possessed attractive features. Maybe he waited too long, maybe he needed to analyze the situation differently.
He heard the BMW before he saw it, then Ronan’s cigarette bounced off his Converse.
“Hey Shithead. Needa ride?” Ronan’s sharp voice howled over the engine.
“Fuck off.” Adam glared at the piercing blue eyes that held him frozen.
“Get in, Parrish.”
Adam, conquered by Ronan’s dangerous smile, yielded and climbed into the car.
“The fuck happened to you? Date rape with what’s-her-face?”
“Please don’t say things like that. Blue’s a nice person.”
“Whatever. She’s too fucking weird,” he stabbed two fingers in Adam’s cheek, “and too young.”
“Why do you care who I date?” He grasped Ronan’s fingers and pushed them away.
Ronan pricked his razor brow and stared two daggers into Adam. Then that was the end of it. Two boys, void of words. He noticed Ronan drove them along the lake, curved up the hill and swayed across the fields.
“Why are you driving us up here?”
“Thought you’d like to clear your head before you go home.”
Adam hated that his feelings were displayed to the likes of Ronan Lynch. But they drove, in silence until Ronan turned that frightening noise he declared as music way too loud. Slowly, Adam felt more relaxed. The bass vibrated his hopeless soul.
They climbed out of the BMW once parked. Ronan hopped on the trunk, and lit a cigarette. Adam slid next to him. The lights over Henrietta were quiet, wistful. Adam’s self-pity billowed away in Ronan’s smoke.
“Why were you following me?”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Parrish. I drove by and saw your lame-ass attempt to kiss the kid.”
Ronan saw, because of course he did. Adam’s cheeks burned.
“Fuck you, Lynch.”
A smirking Ronan took a long drag of his cigarette and offered it to Adam. He took it and rolled it between his fingers. After long wasteful flicks of ash, Ronan took the cigarette back and crushed it.
A split second later, Ronan unexpectedly lodged himself between Adam’s knees and kissed him.
Then Adam kissed back.
Ravenously.
*After
So here they are. Two boys kissing. It’s rough, sloppy, wet, again and again and again. Tongues seeking purposely, fingers in hair, hot palms on hips, the two in a knot.
He may have just had his first kiss, but Adam knows it will not be the last alone-moments he’ll share with Ronan Lynch, prominent with all his sharp, lovely edges.
“What is this,” the razor boy mumbled against the hungry boy’s throat, “Parrish?”
Lips to stubble. “Nothing,” wet graze to the jawline, “Lynch.”
“You sure?” Tangling moans, “feels like something more.”
Teeth to skin, “Ronan,” soft suckling, “stop talking.”
These two boys kissing is a desperate thing. Maybe.