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It was twilight in the large swaths of parking lot outside the Emerald Square Mall and Motel, the early stages of dusk where the sun has just dipped below the haze of the pines at the tree line and the rest of the sky holds its breath and suffocates, turning a darker, cleaner blue. On one side of the lot, the motel stood, beige walls and dark green roof catching the blunt edges of the sunbeams that slipped through the boughs of the trees. On the other side, facing the motel, was the mall, which was strange for a number of reasons.
In these parts of the country, a roadside attraction must have a feature, something unique to catch the eye of tourists and motorists, something to put on billboards. The Emerald Square Mall, two floors of storefronts surrounding a food court, was interesting because, as the signs on the highway leading up to it boasted, it was open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Emerald Square Mall did not sleep, it only changed shifts.
In the parking lot, a Greyhound bus terminal faced the highway, a cheap plastic awning covering a scuffed parking spot barely large enough for a Honda, let alone a whole bus. The sunlight flickered off the plastic, a mockery of mica-laden shells on a sunny shore somewhere. At six thirty-four, twenty-four minutes late, a bus pulled halfway under the awning and stopped, read end jutting out onto the highway. A young man stepped off the bus, shivering even in the heat, took a large grey duffel bag out of the baggage compartment and sat down on the slumping black bench at the curb.
The young man’s name was Neil Abram Josten, and he was 20 years old. He watched the bus pull back onto the highway and disappear over the next rise, pulling a bent cigarette from his shirt pocket. Lighting it, he took a few desperate, shallow drags, trying to still the beating of his heart. At six thirty-five, Neil checked his phone to make sure his reservations for the motel were correct, leaned back on the bench, and tried very hard not to cry.
It was July 16th in rural Pennsylvania. Neil was now approximately 200 miles away from where he had woken up that morning. He was free. He was completely fucked.
Six thirty-six. Neil closed his eyes, taking the cigarette from his mouth and resting it on the edge of the bench. He had thought many times over the past several years about simply leaving everything behind. How, if he wanted to, he could just walk off. He had been held back until now by community college, a handful of friends, and pure fear. Some of those things were more easily rectified than others. That morning Neil had quit his job. At ten, he had snuck into his mother’s house to pack his bag. At eleven, Neil made it across town, to his father’s apartment, to take the last of his hidden stash of money from its place beneath the springs of the futon.
At noon, Neil had gotten on the greyhound at the train station. He had his two year degree, in applied mathematics. That meant something, right? Wherever he ended up, he could make something work. But he was free and nobody from Long Island would be able to track him down after this. How the hell would they? Neither of his divorced parents were hackers. Legally, he was an adult. They would probably be glad he was gone.
At six thirty-seven, Neil stubbed out his cigarette, hoisted his duffel bag over one shoulder, and began to cross the wide expanse of parking lot towards the motel office, the blue dusk pinning his long shadow against the cracked asphalt.
***
There was a car on the other side of the lot, the same choked blue as the sky above. It was a 1985 Buick Century, all metal, all angles. In the shadow of the Emerald Square Mall, this car had been parked for three days, mosquitos laying eggs in the water that accumulated between the hood and the windshield. The car bore a Massachusetts license plate, and a giant garish bumper sticker that proclaimed “If you can read this, back the fuck up!”
The car’s registered owner was not present. The man who had driven it for the past three years was. This place was treating him well, for a glorified rest-stop. He had been staying in the motel at night, but during the day he found his way to a wooden bench just outside the mall entrance. At his feet, the open mouth of a guitar case sat awaiting money. In his arms, the guitar itself, a worn old thing with wooden pegs and jagged carvings in the neck.
Andrew Minyard was playing his last song of the night when the greyhound bus pulled in. It had been a good day, the trickle of tourists and road tripping families passing through the mall coughing up handfuls of cash. He would guess, all in all, that he had made about 200 dollars in bills. He had not counted the change yet. Andrew figured he could save some of that for gas, but that he would probably spend the rest on food and alcohol. That was just how it went those days.
Andrew sometimes liked to imagine that, 21 years ago, he was born with a guitar in his hands, but that sure as hell wasn’t true. He had been born with his twin’s umbilical cord in his fist, and the guitar he picked up from a pawn shop at 16. One thing stuck around longer - the other was at college, doing fancy things with rich people and probably accruing monstrous amounts of debt, but definitely making a life for himself.
And where did that put Andrew? Well, it was impossible to tell.
Finishing his song, Andrew let the guitar rest in his lap, stretching slightly and preparing to stand up. It had been a long day, but predictably, Andrew wasn’t tired. His periods of exhaustion were few and far between. His body ran on the engine of insomnia and caffeine and bouts of mania. As he rose, placing his guitar on the bench, to gather the cash strewn about in his guitar case, a young man began to cross the parking lot alone.
Andrew paused, mid-kneel, to watch him go. There was something compelling about his silhouette, the bend of his shoulders, the duffel bag on his shoulder. His auburn hair shone a deep red in the slant of the light. He was heading for the motel office for sure. Was he about to check in?
Slowly, Andrew pulled himself back up onto the bench. He could play one more song. It was a shot in the dark, but something told him this was a man whose attention he wanted. If he turned around, then so be it. If he didn’t, oh well. Cracking the knuckles on his left hand to loosen himself back up, Andrew settled back against the wood, pulling his guitar close and starting in on a familiar rhythm.
He started off just plucking the strings, working back to strumming, familiar callouses sliding against the strings, his chipped nails finding their grooves in the neck. Andrew never sang along, since if he did he probably wouldn’t make much of a profit, but he could never break the habit of humming the song under his breath, keeping his own time. The music rang out through the parking lot, bouncing against the walls of both buildings, against the cars dotting the asphalt, flowing onwards into the forest bordering everything.
Miracles do happen. Halfway across the lot, the young man stopped, looking rather like an animal frozen in the middle of the road by oncoming traffic. He turned around. Andrew inserted a coda into the song, doubling back to play the bridge and chorus again, not wanting to lose his attention.
It was strange. Andrew didn’t care about any hypothetical money he might earn from this interaction. Maybe it was the loneliness of his life now, the stretching of hours into days, the solitude of the road. He just wanted to talk, he realized with a start. What a stupid thing to start chasing now.
But. There he was now, coming into focus as he drew closer. There was a kinetic energy about the man, like the vibration of strings, under his skin and in the air around him. His clothes were nondescript, a striped t-shirt with a front pocket and a pair of grey jeans. His skin was a warm brown, his eyes blue, knuckles gripped tight around the handle of his bag. He was twenty, ten, five feet away, his beat-up Vans coming to a halt on the sidewalk. The energy hung about him still. As Andrew played the chorus one last time, he had the sense that the man could bolt at any moment, like a frightened hare.
But. He didn’t go anywhere. As Andrew gently plucked the last notes of the outro, the man gave him a shaky smile. “Valerie? By Amy Winehouse? You were really good. I don’t have any small bills, but maybe it can be the thought that counts?” He said, looking guarded, but gauging his presence, testing the waters anyway.
“Yeah, well, you know…” Andrew shrugged, setting his guitar down again, “Sometimes I go out by myself and look across the water. Isn’t that just the way?”
The man laughed, nodded, and some of the tension went out of his shoulders. “Ain’t that just the way. Um. Do you live here?”
An odd question maybe from Andrew’s perspective, but if this guy was new to a life on the road, he surely had some learning to do. “No, just passing through. I’ve been staying over there. This place is open 24/7, isn’t that just the shit?” Absently, Andrew lit a cigarette. “Must be hell on all the retail workers. But here we are.”
There was a moment of pause, but not of silence. The man’s shoes scuffed gently against the sidewalk. In the pines, a mourning dove let out a melancholy warble. Seconds passed as though in a dream, filtering through the orange light, and the man carefully held out his free hand towards Andrew. “I’m Neil. It’s nice to meet you.”
Andrew gave him a bemused look, but shook his hand anyway. He couldn’t leave the guy hanging. “Andrew. What are we, businessmen?”
Looking a little embarrassed, Neil pulled his hand back, sticking it in his pocket. “No, no. Sorry, I’m kind of… never mind.”
“Here,” Andrew quickly went back to scooping up his earnings, wrapping them in rubber bands before shoving them into his beaten wallet, “let me pack up and I’ll walk you over to the motel. You seem like you’d rather not be alone, and here’s a secret. I’d like some company myself. It’s been a while.”
***
Neil had almost made it to the office when the sound of the music drew him back, like a fly to honey. He had been surprised to find that the musician was probably not much older than himself; the sound was so good, Neil had instantly assumed the person playing had more experience. Instead, he found a short, somewhat punk looking man, the brown roots of curly, box-dye blond hair showing as he bent over his instrument, the sun glowing on his lightly tanned skin. He wore rings, but that didn’t seem to hurt his playing, and various other piercings and jewelry glinted in the light.
Never before had Neil been so eager to start up a conversation with a complete stranger, but there was something different about it this time. He was alone and far from anything he’d never known, and there was a solid feeling about Andrew, a sense that he was both familiar and reliable, despite the fact that Neil was positive they had never met.
So here they were. Neil stood aside as Andrew packed up his old guitar, sticking it into the cluttered backseat of an older, boxy blue car. There was still fear and hurt boiling up in Neil’s chest, but there was a dreamlike quality to the evening now, a removal from the anxiety of the morning. Andrew was surely part of that.
Andrew took a shallow drag as he slammed the car door shut with one worn combat boot, turning and offering the cigarette to Neil. “Here, you can have the rest if you want. Trying to cut down.”
Neil really only leaned on smoking when he felt particularly shitty, but was this not a stressful day? He smiled wanly, taking it from Andrew’s hand and propping it between his own lips. It didn’t taste any different for having been in another man’s mouth, but Neil almost imagined it did. “Thanks.” He sighed, tilting his head back to let the smoke drift up into the blue sky above. A minute or so passed in relative calm before Neil stubbed the cigarette out on the side of the bench, dropping it into a nearby trash can.
“What’s your room number?” Andrew asked as they started towards the motel office, which looked like a mobile home tacked on the end of the main building as an addendum.
“262,” Neil replied, taking in the motel, beige walls and green roof and balcony, the sign pointing to an alleged pool around the back. “I made the reservation online while I was still on my bus, so it just have the confirmation in an email. It was like, way too cheap. How bad is it in there?”
Andrew shrugged, dark brown eyes flickering back to meet Neil’s. “Oh, not the worst as these places go. I have seen some genuine shitholes over the years. The air conditioning is feeble. Also I found some condoms on the floor by my bed, but they were still in the wrapper, so I am counting that as a win. Where are you headed, if you don’t mind my asking?”
What Andrew did not ask was ‘where are you from,’ and for that Neil was grateful. For at least a moment, he wanted to forget he was from anywhere at all. “Honestly, I have no idea. It’s complicated I guess. Maybe I’ll just keep going until I find somewhere I like. In a way I’m running, but in another I’m not. There’s no one chasing me.”
Andrew laughed, a harsh, short thing, but genuine. “Damn right. I haven’t found a place I like yet, but I think I started out same as you in some ways. I’ve been on my own for three years, basically as soon as I turned 18… I was gone.” Andrew was growing on Neil. The purposeful way he walked, the cut of his shoulders and collarbone, the low timbre of his voice and the blunt words he used it for.
“Gone,” Neil nodded, wanting to convey just how powerfully he understood that.
Andrew paused to tug open the door to the motel office, stepping back and motioning Neil inside. “Go on, the air conditioning actually works a little in there. Feels nice.”
Stepping cautiously into the room, Neil breathed a soft sigh of relief as the cool air hit his skin, feeling somewhat. He hadn’t realized just how humid it was out there. At the desk, a middle-aged woman with bobbed hair and round glasses, tapped at a computer. Neil crossed the green polyester carpet, giving her a small wave.
“Hello, welcome to Emerald Square,” the woman said, a small smile appearing on her face as her typing trailed off, “I’m Betsy, if you need anything during your stay you can let me know. Do you have a reservation or are you making one?” She paused, looking behind Neil. “Oh, Andrew, nice to see you.”
“I made a reservation online,” Neil pulled out his phone, showing the email. “It’s room 262, and I have ID if you need it.” It wasn’t the right ID, because he still hadn’t gotten around to getting his name changed. But maybe now he could start working on it, wherever it was he ended up.
Betsy nodded, rummaging around in the desk to hand over a key card and a small pamphlet. “Alright, there you are. I don’t think I need to see anything else. Your room is on the second floor, so just head up to the balcony.”
Neil returned her smile, taking the card and pamphlet. “Yeah, thanks.” He was suddenly very hungry. Now that he was feeling somewhat calm, the roar of his stomach overcame his dwindling anxiety.
What was the last thing he ate? As he climbed the wrought iron stairs to the balcony, his legs felt heavy and weighted. “Hey Andrew, what’s okay to eat around here?” He asked, dropping his duffel bag on the metal to open the door of the room.
Andrew leaned against the wall, mulling it over. “There are some okay stores in the mall food court, some classics. A Wendy’s, a pretzel thing, some pizza, an ice cream place. You know the drill. Are you hungry? No, don’t answer, of course you fuckin are, you spent all day on a bus. I’m paying.”
Neil snorted. “No you aren’t, I can pay for myself.” Not bothering to give his room a thorough examination, he got the door open, hauled his duffel bag inside and let the door fall shut again. “I’m not like flat broke or anything, I have money.”
“Yeah, I know,” Andrew shrugged, sticking his hands in the pockets of his jacket before heading back down the metal stairs, “but it’s your first night out here. Somebody’s gotta treat you.”
Neil didn’t want to eat alone. He didn’t want to be alone, not right now. He swallowed his pride and nodded. “Then you can treat me, but I’ll pay you back.” Andrew wasn’t the person he expected to be tagging along with, but he was what Neil had, and he was compelling enough. Neil would ride this out as far as it could take him.
***
The inside of the Emerald Square Mall was disturbingly familiar to Andrew. He had seen dozens upon dozens of dead and dying malls. This particular specimen was in its twilight, but not completely doomed. There were more occupied storefronts than empty ones, and the 24 hour gimmick actually managed to draw some people. Even with the sun outside drawing lower into the bank of the treeline, the mall was moderately busy. Not packed, but a few people left adrift in the place, like toy boats abandoned on a river.
Structurally, the mall consisted of two wide, square halls stacked on top of each other, staircases intermittently dotting the glossy tile floor of the first to lead up to the second. At every side of the square constituting the first floor, glass double doors let out onto the food court, a smaller square whose glass ceiling stretched up into a geodesic dome at its apex, cutting through the entire second floor.
There was a strange feeling in these places, Andrew thought, an emptiness where people could fill space but never would. The shadows and wavering squares of light sweeping across the tiles, the potted plants placed almost haphazardly at corners and around kiosks, the eerie golden glow half-filling the food court from the periwinkle sky beyond the kaleidoscopic shapes of the ceiling; together, these things were almost ghostly.
But Andrew was used to this by now. He was not used to watching another take it in for the first time. As they stepped into the mall, through doors crammed between a Hot Topic and a 99 Cent Store, Neil paused to absorb the strange atmosphere. “Oh, whoa. It’s like. Empty in here?” His voice trailed off as he approached a large gumball machine lodged in the middle of the hall like a monument to the failure of capitalism. “Fuck, these things must be fossilized in there.” He sighed, rapping a knuckle against the glass.
Andrew dug through his back pocket to find a quarter. “Wanna bet?” He raised an eyebrow, popping it into the machine. “Dare me.”
A sly smile crept onto Neil’s face. “I double dog dare you. I quintuple dog dare you.”
Well, now he had to do it. Andrew had put worse things into his body. A sickly yellow gumball popped out of the machine, and Andrew promptly grabbed it. It was like trying to chew a stone, especially working around the gap of Andrew’s missing incisor. After some time, he finally managed to break through to the core of the thing, but by the time he’d done that, the flavor was already running out.
Gross. The things Andrew did for men. Andrew gave Neil another once-over. Was he trans, or was Andrew just imagining things? His jaw had a nice angle to it, but his face was soft in a familiar way. Neil was clearly trying to make his voice low. That had been obvious when he talked to Betsy. But then again, maybe Andrew was just getting his hopes up.
Andrew held back a shudder. The gum was somehow disintegrating into powder. Not thinking far enough ahead to stop himself, Andrew tilted his head back, swallowing the gum whole.
Neil laughed, shocked. “Did you just-”
Shrugging, Andrew started for the doors into the food court. “Spitters are quitters,” he called over his shoulder, not bothering to see Neil’s reaction. No, this was so dumb. Andrew couldn’t stop to make an idiot of himself over every guy who was a little attractive and might maybe also be trans. Pushing his thoughts down, Andrew tried to think of more productive things, like what he wanted for dinner.
“Would it be a bad move to just have ice cream for dinner?” Neil asked, once they had claimed a small, circular table in the mostly empty food court. “I think I deserve it. Even if I deserve it though, like, that’s not gonna keep me going. Man cannot live on ice cream alone and all.”
Andrew gave him a flat look. “That’s just untrue. The amount of times I’ve eaten only ice cream for dinner is a non-zero value. What about a compromise, if it will make you feel better? I can get you a salad or some healthy shit from Wendy’s and then you can go to town on ice cream. Or we could just go ice cream.”
“You said the word salad… and that turned me off.” Neil shook his head, wrinkling his nose. “Let’s just go ice cream, I’m sick of living like a real person. I’m feeling chocolate chip cookie dough.”
In the end, Neil ordered an entire sundae, complete with six different toppings. Andrew found himself incredibly proud of it. This was the dinner of champions, obviously. Andrew got himself a burger, if only to wash the sickly sweet taste of the gum out of his mouth. They ate in silence for a time, the golden edge of the sunlight slipping further and further up the wall behind them until at last it disappeared, leaving the food court in a purple dusk.
“When did you learn how to play guitar? You were like, really good.” Neil finally said, around a mouthful of gummy worms.
Andrew leaned back in his chair, tilting it slightly off the ground. “When I was 16. I taught myself. I used to print out guitar tabs from the library and carry them around all folded up in the case.” What did he have to lose by talking? It was unlike him to open up to anyone, let alone a stranger. And yet here he was, doing it. “It really kept me going through a lot. Yeah. Having something like that to focus on, that I kinda knew I was good at. In one way it held me together.”
“I think for me that was running. The only thing I really did in high school was track, and even after I graduated I would go for long runs. I knew I was fast, and I didn’t get tired, but the moving… it took me out of it.” Neil nodded. “I’ve never played an instrument, never really had the chance. I think in elementary school I could’ve, but we were too poor to rent the instruments from the school, so that was whatever.”
Andrew laughed. “Don’t I know it. School is broken. Especially for little kids. The amount of times I came to school as a kid all fucked up and they just looked me right over… yeah. Don’t even get me started on the free lunch thing. Horseshit. Everybody’s lunch should be free, were were kids for fuck sake.”
“Close to home.” Neil sighed. “Oh wow, I think I might finish this whole bowl. This is a lot for me, you understand.”
“Color me impressed,” Andrew finally let his chair fall back to rest normally on the floor. “If you’re not too worn out after that, I think I could stand to do some window shopping. I have insomnia like nobody’s business. Looks like this is shaping up to be a long night for me. You?”
Neil gave a tired laugh, setting his spoon down in the empty bowl. “God. I don’t think I could sleep tonight if I tried. Let’s be mallrats. Never really got to until now, I have some catching up to do.”
There was a fleck of ice cream on Neil’s lower lip, but Andrew resolved to say nothing about it. He was not going to draw this out or make it weirder than it had to be. All he really needed from Neil was his company. It was impossible to ask for more.
***
Neil felt more awake after his dinner, more full and present, but the ghostly feeling of the mall’s innards did not go away. This was a place that didn’t sleep, but lived at the edge of reality, at a crossroads between drifting and dying. He followed patiently along with Andrew as they made a loop around the first floor. There was the Hot Topic, an aquarium shop, a store for board games, an American Eagle, a Tilly’s, and some assorted other places. Their neon windows smeared into a blur for Neil. This was some kind of fever dream, it seemed.
Andrew was very real, though. His dark clothes stood out against the white and green floor, the fullness of his small mouth and the hard lines of his eyebrows shaping his every expression. The smell of cigarette smoke hung very lightly around him, mixing with something else. Cologne? Neil wondered, trying to place it. On his upper lip, the faint fuzz of stubble was clear under the hazy lights. Neil found himself getting jealous against his will.
He had only been on T for a month. The changes would come. “Where are you thinking?” Andrew asked, his voice sudden and gravelly.
“American Eagle? I haven’t gotten new clothes in a while. And I didn’t take a ton with me. A shirt and pants or something would fill my wardrobe out a bit.” Neil shrugged. “I’ve never had a lot of clothes though.” When he was little, he practically lived in oversized t shirts from Goodwill.
“Practical.” Andrew rounded the corner again, going towards the storefront. It was quiet inside, the lights low over various stacks and racks of clothing. It was so relieving not to have to worry about being caught in the men’s department. There was no one around to snitch on Neil, no one to spy on him, no parents to lurk just out of his sight.
Neil picked up a few flannels, plus a baseball tee and a pair of black jeans. “Any suggestions?” He turned to Andrew, who probably wouldn’t be caught dead wearing anything from in here.
Andrew hummed, looking over the various displays. “Some shorts? Like these maybe.” He tugged on a pair of dark blue shorts with a drawstring. “I think they’d fit you. And sleeveless hoodies, you can’t go wrong there.”
Picking up the final two items, Neil cast a glance towards the changing rooms at the rear of the store. “I should probably try this stuff on. Sometimes things don’t fit me right.” He wasn’t about to out himself by elaborating. Andrew didn’t press him. Neil led the way into the dark hallway, three stall doors facing a bench on the opposite wall.
“I’ll wait here. If you want you can model for me, but it’s your choice.” Andrew plopped down on the bench, motioning to the stalls.
Neil shuffled into the middle stall, dumping his clothes on the bench. And there he was in the mirror. Same soft face, weak shoulders, hips that formed an uncomfortable ratio with his midsection. He pulled off his t shirt, and there was his only binder staring back at him, worn from being washed in the bathroom sink at odd hours of the night, slightly stained around the neck. The curve of his waist still felt wrong. Quickly, he yanked the sleeveless hoodie on, trying to adjust it so the bump in the front wouldn’t show.
Even once he did that, a bit of his binder was very clearly visible through the arm holes. If Neil held the edges of the garment just right, though, he could hide it. He felt a nameless, old frustration well up inside of him, but he pushed it down again before it could rise to the surface. He would show Andrew this, but he wouldn’t be buying it.
Slowly, Neil slid the lock open, stepping back into the hall. Andrew leaned back on the bench, pulling at one sleeve of his jacket, shifting the neckline of his own shirt far to the left. “So, you’re back. Looks good.” Andrew said, carefully, letting his words hang.
Neil froze, his eyes drawn to the crook of Andrew’s shoulder. It couldn’t be. But no, there it was, clear as day: the tight beige strap of a binder tucked against Andrew’s body, as recognizable to Neil as the binder he wore himself. How genius, Neil thought, numbly. Andrew hadn’t wanted to ask, because who would? Outing yourself to a person who might be cis could go wrong in minutes. But this was a subtle thing, a hint only another trans person would grasp. “You think?” Neil asked, letting go of the fabric and letting it drop to reveal his own binder.
Andrew smiled with what Neil would guess was relief. “No. I actually think it looks great.”
The revelation that Andrew was trans aside, Neil had been pushing his feelings and fears down all that day. The pressure was overwhelming. A thousand other days flashed through his mind, times when his mother picked him to shreds for wearing men’s clothes, his father’s open cruelty, the indifference of his classmates in high school, the fear of stepping into a men’s bathroom in clothes that could give him away. All those moments folded back onto him, crashing like a waterfall onto his shoulders, joined by the events of the day, the fact that he’d finally left, the anxiety burrowing into him.
The times when Neil had been told clothes suited him were few and far between. Andrew hadn’t said much, but Neil couldn’t handle it, not then. He took a ragged breath, stepping forwards falteringly. It wasn’t enough to try and hold it back this time. Neil sat down heavily on the bench, a wheeze sticking in his throat.
He was not going to cry in front of a man he barely knew, not here, not today. It was too late, though. The hot, sharp blades of tears were already piercing through his eyes, a sob catching hard in his chest. It was too much, and he couldn’t stop it. He turned his head away, trying to cover his face with his hands so Andrew couldn’t see him. This had to be the most embarrassing thing that had ever happened to him, right? Or at least it felt like it in the moment.
Against all logic, Andrew didn’t get up or turn away or mock him. Out of his periphery, Neil saw him slowly move closer on the bench, raising an arm almost around Neil’s shoulders. Neil nodded shakily, taking another deep, rasping breath, and Andrew carefully lowered the arm. His presence was warm, stable even. “Hey. It’s okay.” He said, quietly, moving his thumb against Neil’s shoulder. “Even if you don’t feel okay. It’s alright.”
After a time, Neil could manage a few words. He didn’t want to look up. That would be too embarrassing. Keeping his face in his hands, he forced a weak apology. “Sorry,” he mumbled, “you probably weren’t expecting this. I didn’t mean to.”
Andrew sighed. “Yeah, but who is ever expecting it? Don’t be fucking sorry, you don’t have anything to be sorry about.”
“You’re trans, right? Like I’m not imagining that?” Neil asked, pulling the hoodie up to wipe some of the tears off his face. “Sorry again. Shit, that was a stupid way to ask that, huh…”
Andrew let out a weak laugh. “Yeah. No, I get it, stop apologizing. I was trying to be subtle for my sake but yeah, I am.”
“Can I…” Neil trailed off, feeling crushed but knowing he wouldn’t be able to keep going without getting some of this off his chest. “I don’t know. Talk about something?”
“If this situation were any different, I think I’d kick a cis guy’s ass if he tried to unload on me after like an hour of knowing me.” Andrew paused, and for a moment Neil could feel the beat of his heart, pressed close against his side. “Say what you need to. I sure as hell won’t judge you.”
Neil looked up, shakily cleaning his hands off on his pants. “What I need to say is… I had to leave, but I’m scared I think. I felt like shit every day on Long Island… that’s where I came from. My parents were divorced but they hated each other and me like, equally. My mom sometimes tried to blame my dad leaving on me being trans or ‘weird’ or. Something. I just felt wrong all the time. And then last month I graduated from community college and I finally got my own health insurance. Nothing special, just a basic plan. And I finally got on T, since I had a letter from my therapist already.
“But then… that was a whole other shitstorm. Having to hide when I did my shots. Feeling scared of changes, like they were gonna catch me doing it. Knowing I couldn’t be around when bigger things started happening. The anxiety was killing me. So I just fucking packed up and took the cheapest bus to nowhere I could find and now here I am and I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, Andrew.” He stopped himself before the urge to cry hit him again. He wasn’t going to do that twice.
“Listen,” Andrew’s thumb brushed against Neil’s shoulder again, “you don’t need to know what you’re doing. Really. Figuring things out as you go isn’t bad. Sometimes shit happens, but we make it. Believe me when I say my life before I left was hell, and every day that I live on my own terms I feel a little better. I used to think I could never heal. Just cauterizing old wounds over and over again… that was pretty much all I could do. The distance will help, and time will help more.”
Neil breathed in and out until he could feel something stabilize in his chest. “Yeah. I think I’m okay for now. Um. Thank you. That feels good to hear. Thank you for this.”
“Don’t you even dare be all grateful.” Andrew gave him a thin smile. “I’m not doing this to get anything, especially not your gratitude. I don’t need that. Now. Aside from the great things this hoodie does to your shoulders, I think that since you cried on it, it’s only fair that you buy it.”
“Ah fuck,” Neil let out a hiccup of laughter, “I did cry on it, I forgot it wasn’t mine. I’ll buy it I guess. I claimed it with my tears.”
Andrew nodded. “That’s the spirit. Do you want to try the rest?”
Shakily, Neil got to his feet. Oddly enough, it did feel like some of the weight had been lifted. “You know, I think I will.” He resisted the urge to thank Andrew again as he returned to the changing room. Andrew could easily have gotten up and left him, but he didn’t. There was no use wondering why, Neil figured, as he changed into the next shirt. He supposed he just needed to slow down and appreciate this night for what it was.
***
“Where to now?” Neil asked as he and Andrew stepped back out of the store. His voice was a little shaky, but overall he had recovered with remarkable speed.
Andrew remembered his first days and weeks on his own with painful clarity. Years ago, that had been him. And there were times when he had been cruel to himself, needlessly. 18 year old Andrew would have seen another trans man on the road and been too wrapped up in his own hurt to extend a hand, too buried in his trauma to consider someone else’s. He had certainly had a lot of time since then to patch himself back up.
And maybe it did feel good, to understand some of Neil’s hurt, to try and do what little he could to soften the blow.
“Wherever you want,” Andrew motioned to the other stores, “or we could go upstairs too, see what’s up there. You’re in charge.”
Neil quickly looked towards the aquarium store. “Can we go up after we look in here? I don’t want to get a pet or anything, I just want to look. It would be crazy to try and take a fish on a bus or something.”
Andrew nodded. “I can imagine. I used to know a guy who had a cat he took around on a leash, but like, there’s no water involved in that. Carting around a whole goddamn tank with a filter and shit… that’s a bit much.” The aquarium shop was extraordinarily bright in the vague gloom, neon lights blaring from the sign, the turquoise glow of UV lights in the tanks lining the storefront like so many swimming pools. Andrew could almost smell chlorine looking at them.
Inside, the wavering lights of the tanks threw themselves over each other, mingling and crossing, bleeding through each other like the facets at the center of a gemstone. Neil, a small grin on his lips, darted through the central aisle, kneeling on the ground to practically press his nose on a tank of long-legged crabs. “Fuck yeah, I hated Long Island but the ocean kind of gets me.” He sighed, watching one crab clamber over the other.
“I used to live in Back Bay, in Boston. The ocean I got to see there just sort of smelled bad.” Andrew snorted. “What was yours like?”
Neil nodded thoughtfully. “Sometimes it was gross, don’t get me wrong. When I was at my mom’s house, I didn’t feel safe outside like just in front of my house a lot. Being visibly trans and like, not white. Wasn’t great around there.” He paused to watch one of the crabs tumble briefly onto its back. “So if I really needed to get out I would just walk a couple blocks to the bay. It was on the south shore, so it wasn’t the actual ocean, because Fire Island kind of blocked it off. And yeah, there were times when it was gross and people threw trash in there and stuff, but sometimes on summer nights when the crabs would molt and the wind was soft, it felt right just to sit on the wet sand and feel something other than scared. I used to run on that beach a lot.
“Maybe I won’t ever see it again. Maybe that’s okay.” He smiled weakly, standing. “There are other beaches out there.”
“The greatest thing about being in charge of yourself is that you really can go wherever you want.” Andrew moved a little further down the aisle to watch a catfish wriggle against the glass of its tank. “You’ll find new places. I know I did. One of my favorite places as a kid was the children’s section in the Boston Public Library, since I didn’t have to pay any money to be there and nobody bothered me.” Neil had shared more than he had to about his own life. Now it was Andrew’s turn. “I still remember the way it smelled, like book glue and dust.”
Neil nodded, making a small noise of affirmation. “Free is good.”
“Free is good,” Andrew confirmed. “When shit got really bad my twin brother and I would just go hide in there until the library closed. In the winter it was warm, and in the summer they turned on the AC, and we didn’t have that in our apartment. When our mom got high it just felt like a better place to be. Later… later on we’d just let her enable us for the most part, but when we were young and scared it was safer to be there than with her.”
Andrew remembered the blanketing warmth pouring from the old, paint-chipped radiators, the scratchy comfort of the carpet on his elbows, the glossiness of pages in the “I Spy” books he and Aaron had spent whole afternoons poring over. Looking for something else while trying to forget everything outside those walls.
“Yeah. I know that feeling,” Neil sighed, letting his hand gently brush Andrew’s arm through his jacket as he scooted further down the aisle. “Oh, shit, a stingray! Do you think we’re allowed to touch it?”
That got his attention. Andrew peered over Neil’s shoulder into the long rectangular tank, a small stingray coasting along the sand at the bottom. “I mean, there’s no lid,” Andrew made a face, “but it is a stingray. I’m pretty sure. The risk and the reward are pretty high.”
Neil looked back and forth, a look of unbridled mischief on his face. “I’m gonna touch it. Spot me.”
“I swear if you get stung or whatever I am not gonna take you to the hospital,” Andrew snorted, but turned around anyway, looking down the aisle both ways to check for employees, “Okay, you’re clear. Poke the damn thing.”
There was the sound of splashing water, a delighted noise from Neil. “It’s really slippery, it feels like rubber!” More splashing. “Okay, okay, I’m done, do you want a turn?”
“No offense, but I don’t.” Andrew had to struggle to hold back laughter as he turned around to watch Neil wipe his drenched arm off on his jeans. “Did you have fun?”
Neil looked up, smugly. “Yes. Can we go upstairs now?”
“Absolutely.” Andrew paused, feeling a familiar itch surface. He was going to need to go back outside and have another smoke soon. But not quite yet. He could wait. What time was it now? It was hard to tell in here, although he supposed it didn’t really matter. For once, Andrew was having a good night. And he wasn’t alone.
Upstairs, the first thing Andrew spotted was a bookstore. As usual, he felt the urge to go inside. Neil was similarly inclined, shooting a look towards the sign. “Yeah?”
“I’m feeling it, yeah.” Andrew nodded. As he went for the entrance, a strange feeling came over him. Would it be too hard to hold Neil’s hand? They were right next to each other, and the more he learned about Neil, the more Neil revealed about himself, the more he liked him. And he wasn’t cis, and they both needed company. But Andrew stopped himself, shoving his hand in his pocket. He was not going to do this. Besides, he hadn’t even asked Neil if it was okay, and that had to be step one, if there were going to be any steps at all.
Neil took a deep breath. “It smells good in here, like paper. Really calming. They should make a candle that smells like books.”
“I would buy that candle and put it in the cupholder in my car. You want to put a drink in there? Tough shit, that’s for candle.” Andrew ran his fingers over the spines of books, resisting the very strong impulse he was having to dump them on the floor. It would be so easy. But he had to keep it together. “Hey, poetry books. Do you like poetry?”
“Honestly I think I would like it more if I had more time to read it.” Neil paused, considering the shelf. “Like even in college I was just trying to get my degree fast, so I didn’t take more classes than I had to? So I don’t even know the basics of it on like an intellectual level or whatever, but I think I’d want to if I had the chance.”
Andrew snorted. “Here’s a secret. Intellectual level doesn’t mean shit. Poetry is just supposed to feel like things. You can’t put it in a box, people in school don’t want you to know that. It just is.” He took a random book off the shelf without looking, flipping open to a page in the middle. “Huh. I think this one is in Spanish.”
Neil bent over, and for an instant Andrew could smell his hair. God, he had to stop himself now, while he was ahead. “I can try to read it?” Neil volunteered. “I took Spanish in high school, I could probably remember some.”
“Even high school Spanish is more than I know,” Andrew sighed. “I know I don’t really look it, but I’m half Puerto Rican. I feel robbed of a lot of stuff I feel like I should know, since I never really knew my dad. Sometimes I try to find a connection with the culture, but since I grew up without somebody to teach me, it feels… fuck, I don’t know. Distant.”
Neil gently placed his hand on Andrew’s arm again, and damn if Andrew couldn’t imagine the warmth of it against his skin. “Yeah. The stuff our parents did or didn’t teach us…” He trailed off, meeting Andrew’s eyes. “Would it help if I taught you a little? I can’t promise it’ll be right. But I can try.”
He was so sincere that Andrew couldn’t find it in him to say no. For a time, they sat on the floor in the aisle, Neil stumbling his way through the poem, their backs against the shelves, Andrew’s leg a centimeter away from Neil’s.
***
As Andrew set about returning the various books he’d pulled from the shelf while trying to show Neil all his favorite poems, Neil couldn’t help focusing on the way Andrew’s piercings glinted under the harder light of the bookstore. His ears were dotted with an assortment of hoops and studs, a bar threaded through one eyebrow, a curve of metal bending around his septum. They looked so good on him, Neil thought, absently.
Neil’s mother had gotten his ears pierced when he was an infant, but in the process of trying desperately to reject femininity, however complicated his relationship with gender presentation was, Neil had foregone earrings for years. The holes had closed when he was 14, to his mother’s frustration.
“Wait. Can I say something stupid?” Neil said, as Andrew slid the last book onto the shelf.
Andrew shot him an amused look. “Stupider than touching the stingray?”
“I mean, stupid’s relative.” Neil held back a laugh. “I kind of want a piercing. And I saw a Claire’s when we came upstairs. Do you think-”
Andrew held up a hand to shush him. “Wait… okay. I think you’d look the best with a helix. Like right on the top of your ear, like this one.” He touched one of his own piercings. “Are you sure about this?”
“Why not, you know? I do what I want.” Neil crossed his arms, already mostly convinced. “Yeah, I’m doing it.”
“Before we do, I need a cigarette. Can it wait ten minutes?”
Neil smiled. “Can it? No, I’m joking, we can go outside. It’ll give me more time to get convinced anyway.” He followed Andrew back down the stairs, into the hot, dark night. Time really had flown. Just like that, it was almost ten pm, and the warm blackness of the sky weighed heavy on the orbs of light thrown from the streetlamps. If Neil looked closely, he could see the pinpricks of stars.
Scrambling onto the hood of his car, Andrew rested his feet on the front bumper, patting the metal beside him and beckoning Neil. Neil set his American Eagle bag down on the sidewalk, boosting himself up next to Andrew. As Andrew shook out a cigarette and lighter from his jacket, Neil tilted his head back to watch the distant stars. “I know some constellations.” He said quietly, trying to find the familiar shapes. “Like Orion, I know that one. And Ursa major. Also some of the zodiac ones.”
“Can you see any now?” Andrew asked, exhaling smoke.
“I think… that’s cancer? And that’s the Big Dipper, and that bright one is Polaris.” Neil craned his neck, getting a bit dizzy. Andrew took another drag, offering the cigarette wordlessly to Neil. Neil accepted it, put it to his lips, passed it back.
They sat in quiet for a time, and in the humid tree line the songs of crickets mingled faintly. “Space used to scare me. The thought of so much emptiness.” Andrew said, softly. “I’ve always been afraid of emptiness. Now I think it comforts me… the idea that it goes on forever.”
Neil laughed. “I used to think people became stars when they died, like when I was four, before anybody really sat down and explained dying to me. Sometimes I’d look up and think that would be me someday.”
“You don’t have to do anything special to be bright,” Andrew murmured, almost barely audible, the ember on his cigarette flaring like a supernova in the darkness.
Neil gave another nervous laugh. Did he mishear? “What?”
“Nothing.” Andrew replied, stubbing out the cigarette on the hood of the car. “Ready for your big moment?”
Neil hopped off the car, grabbing his bag again. “As I’ll ever be! How bad does it hurt? I have a pretty high tolerance for pain, but also I like to be prepared.”
Andrew hummed thoughtfully. “Not as bad as I thought it would, at least not the first time. It feels kind of like… punching through your skin? And then it’s kinda sore for a few days, but as long as you get all the right stuff to take care of it and keep it from getting infected you’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it, as pain goes there are worse ones, and definitely it hurts less than getting a tattoo.”
“You have tattoos?” Neil asked as they stepped back into the mall.
“A couple, yeah.” Andrew grinned. “They’re privileged information.”
“Fair enough.” If Andrew wanted to keep them a secret, that was his prerogative. But now Neil couldn’t stop imagining what they might be. An animal? Words? Maybe a poem?
The Claire’s was completely empty as Neil and Andrew walked in, the garish colors and sequins of children’s accessories like the bright after-image of looking directly into the sun. The only employee, the cashier, sat at the counter with a laptop and a handful of fashion textbooks arrayed across it. She didn’t look up as Neil approached, seemingly very invested what looked like a homework packet.
As Neil drew closer, she looked up, startled, a few honey-blonde braids falling over her shoulder. “Oh my god, there are people in here,” she laughed, looking at the clock, “this almost never happens. What brings you in here at this absolutely unfortunate hour?”
Andrew gently patted Neil’s shoulder. “You do piercings right? He wants a helix.”
The cashier grinned, hopping off her stool. “Okay, normally we’re only supposed to do lobes, and I’ve only ever done kids’ piercings in here, but before this I worked at a real piercing place and they taught me how to do real shit so… let’s make this happen. I’m Allison by the way, sometimes I take off my nametag at night cause like, what’s the point?”
So he was really going through with this, huh? No going back now. “I’m Neil, and this is Andrew.” He said, allowing himself to be led over to a tall, purple chair near the front of the store. “We’re having a night.”
Allison grinned, rummaging through a kit of piercing supplies. “Seems like. Are you on a road trip?”
Neil couldn’t help his nervous laughter. “Something like that?”
“Yeah, I hear that a lot in this place.” She snorted, taking out a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a small marker. “Which ear do you want it on?”
Looking into a small, nearby mirror, Neil considered his fate. Did it really matter? “I guess the right side? It’s kind of all the same to me.” He said, sitting still while Allison leaned over him and gently marked a place on the cartilage of his ear with the marker.
Andrew gently rested his hand on Neil’s shoulder again. “Relax,” he said, his voice soft, “it’ll hurt less if you just breathe. Or at least try.”
Allison hummed a little to herself while she disinfected the needle, picking out a plain sterling silver hoop for the piercing. “So.” She paused, smiling a little and looking carefully between Andrew and Neil. “Uh. How long have you two been together?”
For a moment, Neil’s brain short circuited. “Together?” He asked, feeling like he was missing something. Then it clicked. Oh. Did she think he and Andrew were a couple? The thought made Neil’s face grow quickly warm. Had they been acting like a couple?
Andrew shook his head, saving Neil from potentially embarrassing them both. “We’re not a thing.” He said simply, not explaining.
Allison made a small sound of dismay. “Oh man, sorry. I didn’t mean to assume. My girlfriend and I have been together for almost year now, our anniversary is in August.” She bent down again, examining Neil’s ear. “You ready?”
Neil nodded, resisting the urge to dig his fingernails into the chair. “Yep. Should I do anything?”
“Just breath in, as deep as you can.” Allison said, so Neil did, inhaling as much air as his lungs would let him. The pain was sudden and sharp, like punching through his skin, just as Andrew said it would be. Neil hissed softly, letting out his breath. The piercing feeling soon dissipated, leaving behind a dull sort of ache.
Allison straightened up, looking over her handiwork and holding up the mirror. “Well? How’d I do?”
“Wow…” Neil tilted his head, taking in the hoop. “Honestly, that looks fucking amazing. I don’t regret this at all.”
Andrew grinned nodding. “Agreed. It really suits you.” Neil had to resist blushing again. Stupid. He was so easily provoked. Andrew was just being nice, nothing more.
“How much do I owe you?” Neil absently patted his pants pocket for his wallet.
“I don’t care, let’s be honest.” Allison shrugged, heading back to the counter. “Sixty bucks? This place has me here all night for minimum wage. It’s a corporation, I owe it nothing.”
Neil handed over the money, feeling slightly giddy. He’d really gone through with it, and it did look very good, and Andrew thought it looked good too.
What if they were together? Neil tried to picture that. For fuck’s sake, they’d only known each other maybe five hours. Neil could not let himself be this irresponsibly gay. They were just friends. They’d just met at the right place at the right time.
***
Andrew hadn’t been lying. The piercing really did suit Neil. As they wandered through the rest of the mall’s second floor, investigating a candle store, a JCPenney furniture outlet, a KB Toys and a Spencer’s, Andrew prayed that Neil couldn’t tell how often he was pausing just to watch him. This was a strange night, but that didn’t mean Andrew had any right to make it stranger on purpose.
It was midnight when Neil turned to him, buzzing with energy. “I have a dumb idea. It feels right, but it’s dumb.” He said, his eyes bright. To think only a few hours ago he had been crying.
Andrew raised an eyebrow. “Can’t be any dumber than some of the things you’ve already suggested. This is the time for it. There’s no shame in dumb ideas.”
Neil looked back towards the stairs quickly. “I was thinking maybe we could take a walk? In the woods? I just kind of want to know what’s out there, the curiosity is getting to me. What if there’s something really cool just out of sight?”
“Why not? What do we have to lose?” Andrew didn’t mind the outdoors. There would probably be bugs, but what were a couple of mosquitos? Just annoying. And he didn’t want to disappoint Neil either.
“Fuck yes.” Neil practically jumped back down the stairs, taking them two at a time. Andrew wasn’t surprised. If Neil was a month on testosterone, the surge of energy he was experiencing would akin to what Andrew remembered. It had taken him off guard at first, and for a while he thought it was just one of his mood swings, but after some time he’d been able to recognize it for what it was. If Neil wanted to run around in the woods in the dark, that was his due.
At the edge of the parking lot, the bright lights faded into a gloaming purple blur. Neil didn’t hesitate to plunge through the tall grass and into the shadow of the pines, waving Andrew after him, his bag of clothes slapping against vegetation. Andrew considered the thicket. His jeans were a bit ripped, but what was a little more? Sticking his hands in his jacket pockets, he dove in after Neil.
It smelled thickly of resin under the trees, a thick blanket of dried pine needles sifting underfoot. Neil slowed down once it became clear that he couldn’t go very fast without walking into a tree trunk in the darkness. “How good is your night vision?” Neil asked, pausing to try and balance on a thick tree root like a balance beam. “I can’t see for shit in here.”
Andrew squinted, turning in a slow circle. It wasn’t terribly dark, and somewhere now the moon has risen, a pale light filtering down through the branches. “I think mine might be better than yours. Can you see that stump over there?”
Neil leaned forward, shaking his head. “Nothing. Just more shadows.” There was a moment of stillness before he held out one hand. “Maybe you should lead me, I don’t think a concussion is what I need right now, and if I crash into something it probably won’t end well.”
This was entirely too much. Neil was just being genuine and friendly, he didn’t mean a damn thing by this. Andrew bit the inside of his mouth to try and shock his heart out of pounding so hard. He was acting like a dumb little kid. The right thing to do would be to say no, right?
“Sure,” Andrew replied, letting his hand slide into Neil’s. Neil’s hand was bigger than his, warmer and softer. It felt right, holding it like this.
Neil gave his hand a squeeze as they walked on. “Calluses, huh? Are they all just from playing?”
Andrew nodded. “I need them. They built up over time, but without them I can’t get the right grip on the strings, and the metal will actually hurt my hands. Some people have way more than I do, though. And if you let them sit in hot water or something for too long they peel off, and then you have to start over.”
“Oh, ouch. Does it hurt much?”
“In the beginning?” Andrew laughed. “Hurts like hell. When I was just learning how to play I kept making my cuticles bleed. Once it got so bad I thought one of my nails came off. I was maybe a little too rough.”
Neil drew in a sharp breath. “Yeah, that’s a lot.”
“Practice makes perfect?” Andrew shrugged, pausing. “I think the trees are thinning over there. The moonlight is brighter. Should we look?”
Neil was already tugging Andrew towards the glow. Well, that was as good an answer as any. Beyond the last stand of pines, a deep canyon was cut into the forest, a river of grass bridging the gap between the woodland they stood on the edge of and another bank of trees. As Andrew stood, looking out, he could see the places where electrical lines bisected the forest, the cables and towers standing out black against the blue midnight. The canyon looped on and on, down the slope from where Neil and Andrew stood, the thread of it curling back up the next hill far away, where a radio tower shone a faint red beacon.
The moonlight washed over it all, the shadows rippling in the grass with the faintest breeze. Neil sighed, his hand tightening in Andrew’s, perhaps unconsciously. “I was right. It was…” He trailed off, the atmosphere seemingly having silenced him.
The way the moon shone on Neil’s profile, his afterimage hanging in the warm air like a tintype portrait, sunk deep into Andrew’s mind. There was no avoiding the way Neil affected him. And it was scary, to be affected, to have an element of his attraction taken out of his own hands.
Still, he returned the gesture, squeezing Neil’s hand back. “You were right. There was something wonderful out here.”
***
After their romp through the Pennsylvania woodland, Neil became quickly aware just how badly the heat was getting to him. “What’s that smell?” He wondered aloud as he and Andrew wandered back through the forest towards the lights of the parking lot. “Hold on.” He took a deep breath. Uh oh. “Shit, I think that might be me.”
Andrew smiled faintly, just barely visible in the shadows. “So that’s hitting too? Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. A good strong deodorant plus body spray or something worked for me when I first started sweating more. Don’t be embarrassed, it’s fine.”
Neil laughed nervously, a bit reassured but still somehow feeling gross. “Yeah but I don’t want to just leave it like this. Maybe I should take a shower? And I should probably organize my shit a little better. If you want to wait around in my room you definitely can, I still don’t think I’m going to sleep any time tonight.”
“Are you sure? I can wait in my car, or in my own room.” Andrew suggested.
“Yeah,” Neil said, already convinced, “very sure. Oh, am I allowed to take a shower with this thing in?” He gestured to his piercing.
“Yeah it’s fine, just let the water run gently over it,” Andrew suggested as they began to cross the parking lot again. “Remember that it’s there, that’s the hard part. And be careful with the towel, if you snag it on a thread that shit will hurt.”
Neil winced. “I don’t want to think about it. Honestly it doesn’t hurt so bad anymore, it’s just sort of numb? Every once in a while it’ll kind of throb, but not hard.”
“You’re probably fine then.” Andrew stopped to let Neil unlock the room and turn the light on, the warm yellow glow from the lamp half-filling the space. Neil tentatively stepped inside, pulling his duffel bag up properly and unzipping it, digging through to find a ziploc bag of assorted soap. He could probably be in and out in a few minutes. He didn’t want to keep Andrew waiting for too long.
Scooping the sleeveless hoodie and shorts out of their paper bag, Neil gave them a look. “Would it be alright do you think to change right into these? Since I don’t think I’m gonna need pyjamas.”
Andrew plopped down on the edge of the bed, scoffing. “Who cares? You do what you want. You’re the only one in charge of you. Do you want to put them on?”
Neil folded them carefully over his arm. Yes. Yes he did. As soon as the bathroom door was closed and locked behind him, Neil let out a deep breath, trying to keep calm. He was past the worst of his anxiety, at least for tonight. Something was happening, little by little, between them. And he had no goddamn idea what to do about it.
Either Andrew was really absurdly friendly, or he was into Neil. At this point, those seemed like the two most plausible options. Of course, Neil had also caught Andrew watching him several times already, which was more fuel on the fire. Neil had held Andrew’s hand, felt his pulse speed up in his wrist.
And figure Andrew did like Neil. What could possibly come of that? Neil had tried things in high school, but never before had anything with anyone felt right. He wasn’t in the right place, and it wasn’t the right time, and he wasn’t the right version of himself yet. He and Andrew were two ships in the night in one way, but in another their paths were crossing, right here right now. In the morning they might part. Was Neil going to throw away his shot at something he did genuinely want just because he was afraid of assuming how Andrew felt?
He could just take things as they came. Sunrise was going to come eventually, and with every second that passed the earth turned just a little more towards the dawn. Neil scrubbed himself down as harshly as he could, trying to erase any evidence that he had gotten so sweaty so quickly. If he was going to try doing anything, may as well give it his best effort.
Neil dried off quickly, carefully avoiding his ear. Getting his binder on and off would be a struggle for a while, but it was worth the mild annoyance. He dressed, giving his reflection a once-over. Andrew was right about the clothes too. Now that Neil had gotten more accustomed to seeing himself in them, they did fit him pretty well, and the cut of the hoodie lent his frame a more rectangular shape.
Would Andrew give him his phone number or something after all this? Neil considered how weird it would be to keep asking him for fashion advice, because clearly he knew what he was doing.
He stepped back into the room, greeted by a warm blue light from the television. Andrew still sat on the bed, cradling the remote between his hands while a Jeopardy rerun played from the boxy little tv set. “Had to entertain myself, you were taking a while.” Andrew looked up at him. “It’s almost over though. I usually calculate points for myself, just to see if I could win.”
Neil sat down next to him on the bed. “Let’s watch the rest. How are you doing so far?”
“Pretty damn good,” Andrew paused to listen to the next question. A Russian writer who was exiled to Siberia in the mid-eighteen hundreds? Neil thought he maybe knew the answer, but Andrew beat him to it. “Who is Fyodor Dostoevsky… Oh, that’s another couple hundred.” He grinned, a little proud of himself. “I have a pretty good memory. I’ve got all these useless facts kind of just rattling around in there.”
“Have you ever thought about actually going on one of these things?” Neil asked, after Andrew had answered several more questions with point-blank accuracy.
“When I was like ten my mom tried to get me on Kid’s Jeopardy, but obviously that was a kind of flawed plan.” Andrew laughed. “Yeah. I don’t think ten year old me got along with that plan very well. And she probably would’ve kept all the fuckin money too and used it on herself. Selfish.”
Neil sighed, nodding. “Selfish. Yeah.”
As the final credits of the show rolled across the screen, Andrew did a quick mental calculation. “I think I have about 10 thousand dollars. Or I would, if that meant anything.” He turned off the tv, tossing the remote away. “You really do look very good in that outfit. Where to now?”
Neil felt a nameless longing rise in his chest. He could ask to stay here, tell Andrew how he felt, ephemeral and shapeless as his feelings were. No. It wasn’t right. He made a small, thoughtful noise, looking towards the door when his stomach growled again. “Maybe a second dinner? I’ll pay for this one. I’m thinking maybe not ice cream this time.”
“No?” Andrew stood, cracking his shoulder. “Shit, we’re almost to sunrise. I would say I can’t believe it, but I’ve done this a lot. It’s peer pressure to sleep at night, I’m telling you.”
“You’re absolutely right.” Neil felt a pang. Sunrise. Where was he going after this? He had maybe an hour to figure it out. He had better start now. He would be alone again.
He found himself missing Andrew already.
***
The morning approached slowly. Andrew had seen a million sunrises, and come to rely on them. There were few things that remained stable in Andrew’s world. He had learned to treasure the moments that he could count on.
He and Neil had their second dinner, pizza and pretzels with cheese sauce that didn’t really taste much like cheese. The blue-black sky over the food court was brightening, little by little. Andrew thought about Neil leaving, disappearing into the wide world like so many other things Andrew would never see again. He wasn’t ready yet. Perhaps a night wasn’t long enough.
As a faint lavender light began to creep through the glass ceiling, Andrew abandoned their table, chucking his paper plate like a frisbee into the nearest trash can. “I need another smoke.” He said, looking over his shoulder to Neil. “Join me again? We can watch the sun come up.”
Neil gave him a wan smile and moved to gather up his trash. “Yeah, I think I’d like that a lot.”
In the parking lot, the streetlamps were just beginning to compete with the lightening sky, their halos of electricity worn away at the edges by the approaching sun. It was cooler now, the air clean against Andrew’s face and neck, a cicada in the forest just starting to tune itself for the day ahead. As they reached the Buick, Andrew taking his usual seat on the hood and lighting up, Neil peered through the window at the guitar case in the backseat. “Hey, would it be too annoying if I asked for a song? I have some change from the piercing, so I can contribute… Could you play the one from before?”
“What, Valerie?” Andrew raised an eyebrow. “You don’t need to pay. Don’t even think about it. Here.” He handed Neil his cigarette, scooting off the hood to grab his guitar. Once he had it safely in his arms and tuned properly, he clambered back onto the hood, and Neil joined him without needing an invitation. Neil’s warmth at his side was a kind of comfort Andrew didn’t know he needed.
The eastern horizon was turning a confused mauve now, a cup brimming over, an hourglass of color. Andrew played a few chords, his fingers remembering where to go and how to move. He had to make this good.
He took a deep breath and released it, closing his eyes lightly. He could do this without looking, and having his eyes closed would take some of the nerves away. Starting in on the opening riff, he played softly but surely, knowing that he was playing in the dawn.
“Well sometimes I go out by myself,” a voice almost interrupted him, a worn tenor. Surprised, Andrew opened his eyes to find Neil looking out beyond the highway, to the place where the horizon met the hills, his mouth moving. He was singing along. “And I look across the water,” he went on, growing more confident, gaining volume, “And I think of all the things, what you’re doing, and in my head I paint a picture…”
Neil’s singing voice was lower than his speaking voice. He was slightly out of tune, but the timbre of it carried. Andrew could imagine he had heard this voice a thousand times before, but this was the time that mattered most now. He focused on playing, letting the notes mix the rest of the song. “Cause since I’ve come home, well my body’s been a mess… and I miss your ginger hair, and the way you like to dress…”
Neil finally acknowledged Andrew, looking towards him with a somewhat bashful smile on his lips. “Won’t you come on over, stop making a fool out of me? Why don’t you come on over Valerie?”
Andrew gave it a valiant effort, but he couldn’t find it in him to keep the smile off his own face. This was right. This felt right, in every way that it possibly could. As he hit the bridge of the song, the sun gave one last push at the veil of night, a pale pink glow washed through with orange spilling in flood tides through the parking lot. Neil was lit by it as he was by the moon.
There was nothing to lose. Either this was the end or it wasn’t. As Andrew let the final notes hang, shivering, in the fresh dawn, Neil let out a long breath, Andrew’s cigarette falling out of his slack hand and landing on the pavement. Neil swallowed, turning to look at Andrew, looking both anxious and determined.
Andrew didn’t move away as Neil placed a hand on the body of the guitar, tilting it down. Andrew released the neck, reaching for Neil’s shoulder. He didn’t think he could bring himself to speak, to shatter this moment like glass, but he hoped a simple nod would be enough.
Understanding clicked in Neil’s eyes. That seemed to be all he needed. Andrew wasn’t expecting a soft kiss, nor did he want one. He let Neil collide with him, the guitar trapped between their bodies, his warm mouth on Andrew’s, a soft noise catching in his chest. Andrew hadn’t been kissed this way in so long. He pulled Neil closer, allowed himself to get lost in the feeling.
When they parted, Neil’s head dropping to Andrew’s shoulder, he was laughing, his chest shaking under Andrew’s hands. “I feel like I should’ve done that a few hours ago. Did you… was that…?”
Andrew let one of his hands tangle loosely in Neil hair, winding an auburn curl around one finger. “I wanted to. I want to…” How was he supposed to tell Neil how he’d been feeling all night? Laughing again, Neil lifted his head, and Andrew kissed the corner of his mouth softly. Something had been aching inside him, and Andrew hadn’t even realized until it was made quiet.
The sun rose further and warmed the hood of the car. Andrew let his guitar slip down until it rested on the pavement, the neck leaning against the car’s fender, and in the moments of waking he held Neil close, folding him against his side.
There was a rush of wind in the trees on the side of the highway. Neil made a soft sound, twisting to look back up at Andrew. “Hey. So. If this is crazy you can shoot me down. But could I keep going with you for a while? Until I figure something out? If you’ve got room for one more, that is.”
Andrew thought about how he had started out just looking for somewhere to belong, for someplace to be.
Maybe a place could just be a person. He hadn’t considered that before.
***
It was noon in rural Pennsylvania, dappled sunlight streaking through a summer sky half blanketed by storm clouds. In the distance, the grey curtains of July rain swept across the fields and hills. The road wound like a river through the gentle hills. Billboards cast their shadows on it, and by the guardrail lupines and wildflowers grew over shattered mini vodka bottles and weathered asphalt pebbles.
A light blue Buick Century coasted over the pavement, sunbeams glancing off the mirrors, the windows open, the cassette player loud and jubilant. The backseat contained a worn guitar case, propped against a large grey duffle bag. On the gearshift, a man’s hand rested, small and calloused, rings dotting his fingers. Over it lay another hand, soft brown and a bit larger, fingers spaced between those of the hand beneath it.
Thunder beat gently in the distance. A short laugh trailed out the car window, spiraling upwards into the heat-dark sky and coming to rest somewhere just out of sight.