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Jonah’s fifteen minutes into a 25mg edible and still on the cusps of an actual high when he turns to his best friend and says, “Dude, I think I’m gay.”
Soft engraving marks embalm against his skin from the tufted edges of an old carpet cushioning his weighted body. Beside him lies Adam, who begrudgingly joined him on the carpet ten minutes ago, both hands resting on his stomach as he wades off an inevitable high. It’s been a week since they moved into a shoddy apartment on the borderline of Bythorne County, where Adam spent most of his time sitting on their shared bed and working on the third copy of a website repeatedly taken down. The light outside’s succumbed to nighttime and, as it usually goes, their quiet conversations have now turned into honest ones.
They’re not the kind of people to be honest. It’s not like they need to be, most of the time. Honesty isn’t the thing that keeps good friendships. You pick and choose the pieces that are digestible to the throat and you speak those, instead, because nothing else will go down without scratching. Like now, when Adam lets the words sit for a beat, only responding after due contemplation: “And what?”
The cigarette in Adam’s hand is traded to his own, taken into two lazy fingers. Jonah hesitates, letting it hover just in front of his mouth before deciding to drag from it. “...I don’t know,” He says, puffy exhales venting out acrid nicotine into the air. It curls and whisps, then dies. Well, no. It doesn’t really die, in that way. Nothing inhuman does. “I guess that’s the thing. I don’t know. You think my life changes ‘cause of that? Kissing guys?”
Adam shrugs. “Not really. I mean, I don’t care, if that’s what you’re asking me.” Peroxide to open wounds. His words sting like medicine and warm his skin like the rest of his life was spent freezing.
He's aware Adam doesn’t feel the same. “Are you gay?” When he’s thinking reasonably.
“No, idiot, I have a girlfriend.”
Jonah snorts, bearing his teeth in a grin. “You can, like, swing both ways. That’s a thing.”
“Fuck no I don’t swing both ways. What, am I getting off to… fucking, Brad Pitt before going on a date?”
“Be serious. He’s totally the reason why guys turn gay.”
Adam snatches the cigarette back. “If he’s the reason you turned gay, there’s no saving you.”
Only a part of that is true. It feels negative not to just laugh and deny everything, though. Pessimism burns fresh against skin that’s been scarred over for too long. You bathe in the rays of your worst nightmares in your teenage years and by the time you reach adulthood you’ve got nothing left to shed your tears over. Cost sunk fallacy—or some other equally capitalistic term that kind of makes his stomach turn.
From the way Adam shifts, it sounds like he notices the silence growing. “So what’s your deal, then? Who cares about being gay?” You know the world’s ending when Adam Murray is the one starting a conversation first. It might be the high. He doesn’t take THC on any regular day and 10mg might really be knocking his senses out of him.
He’s not stupid. Majority of the time, they save conversations like these to feed their throats and waste every night in the dusty, dingy hallways of another abandoned house in the suburban neighborhoods of Mandela. That’s where Adam’s really alive—when everything is screaming at him to walk away. If he even has those senses to begin with. Sometimes Jonah thinks he just doesn’t, but something has to keep him that excited to hunt ghosts. Something that makes him smile when he’s in real danger. Jonah can’t imagine a world where he convinces Adam he’s the same way.
The ceiling fan above them swirls. Jonah stares at it like it’s supposed to be mesmerizing. Dingy yellow colors burn against his face and he feels warmer. “I guess nobody.” He decides. “But, like, that’s the thing, right? Who cares about anything. You ever feel like you were just born in the time period where nobody cares?”
From the corner of his eye, Adam looks away. “I think I’m part of the people who don’t care, so no, I don’t get it.” A beat. Then, coupled with an exasperated sigh, “Tell me about your side of it.”
Jonah blinks, a little surprised. The air conditioner buzzes between comfortable pauses of silence. In the living room, an idle screen on some borrowed videogame for the Xbox 360 replays the same idle track. It waits for the return of hands searching for the next dopamine hit, the next hangout, the next joke. A life burning his eyes out in fluorescent screens is a life worth missing. Some day he’s terrified it’ll be the only life he has left, when everything falls through and Adam grows tired of cowardice wearing down on him. This soft, coaxing relief of serotonin like tidal waves usually feels better than drugs.
Usually.
Which is all to say that he likes having Adam around. It’s probably why confessions come so easy. “I don’t know. I guess I thought my childhood was like, fine.” He lolls his head to the side, facing Adam to take the cigarette from his hands. Jonah waves it around. “And then, you grow up a little. And all you ever hear about is people missing something in the past you didn’t even know was there. My mom, like, apologized for the way my childhood went one day ‘cause my ass spent so much time inside and I was like… ‘shiiitt. Did I fucking waste it? That time period where everyone cared about everything? And now nobody does and I blew that shit?’” He laughs, here, to fill the room, and he gives Adam the cigarette back as a breather. “Which is crazy, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I mean, what do you do? If we’re all just wasting time no matter what we’re doing, then why spend time at all?"
Adam huffs. “Okay, but so what? Why does anyone else’s opinion matter?”
“They don’t, buuut.” They do. His lasting memories are an endless loop of the most embarrassing things he’s ever said, or the most vulnerable he’s ever been. Never the memories captured only in home video camera buried at the back of his mom’s attic he’ll never be allowed into again. He’s queer and he’s mean and cruel and the world has moved on from second glances because it’s exhausting. And the things he’d give to have the memories everyone else was missing— “I don’t know. That’s the whole point of being here, right? Being with other people.”
The smell of cigarette smoke hits his nose strong enough to burn. He doesn’t even flinch. Adam does, though, nose scrunching. He always hated the smell. “I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so?”
“Nah. What the hell does anyone else gotta do with me?” Adam doesn’t make eye contact, which usually means he’s telling the truth. Inbetween paranormal investigations Adam had this really bad habit of lying about being alright, and then looking into his eyes, and waiting for the confirmation that he believed it. Jonah decided never to call him out on it.
“That’s the whole point, man,” Jonah reasons, gesturing with both hands. Smoke curls like it’s dancing to a silent chorus. “That’s why in all the apocalypse movies the main guy goes crazy when there’s nobody else there. He’s gotta have someone. Who the hell is gonna prove that like, love exists, dude?”
“That’s bullshit, you don’t have to just love people. You can love shit you do or make.”
“Okay, think about it like this. When the first caveman—”
“—don’t pull that shit out of your ass, you know the first caveman was so proud of the wooden stick he made.”
“Yeah, because him and all his caveman friends were on the stone block… they were gettin’ together and making fires, and that’s like, the whooolee point, man. That’s the whole point.”
“You’re so stupid. How did the first guy on Earth know that whatever he did was something he was supposed to be proud of?”
“I mean, if the first guy was Adam, then he had a whole other girl and a snake to keep him company.” A beat. “And tell him he fucked up.”
“Adam doesn’t count.” He retorts back, cigarette sitting dumbly in one propped hand. Adam likes to argue, even if he pretends that he doesn’t. Jonah’s not afraid to admit that he’s coaxed it out of him every now and then. “I’m talking about the actual first people on Earth.”
And Jonah laughs, hand moving to hover over his mouth. “You’re really adamant on this.”
“Yeah, because—forget it.”
“No, I wanna hear about it!”
“Forget about it, dickhead!” Despite his brash tone, he grins when Jonah nudges him with his arm, returning it with a harsher jab and turns his head to hide the exposed, down-turned smile forming.
Adam’s BPS hoodie hangs over his head and serves to shield just enough of his face. Without thinking, Jonah thumbs at the hood where he could reach and pulls it back, watching unkempt hair pop up in scruffy tufts of blonde rebellion. Adam responds, in one jerking motion, by pulling Jonah’s own up and over his head. And he’s smiling again, the tightness in his stomach evident. “You suck, give me back my cigarette.”
“Uh, your cigarette? I lit it, asshole.” Adam protests with a fitting glare.
“I bought that pack! You’re the one stealing from me.” Little fight obstructs Jonah from another drag of his cigarette, sighing intently. As the rush of energy drains from his body, his head meets the carpet once more, a little harsh on the release of his head against the floor. He’s just a little too content to be brought back to center, if only to save the fragile seconds. And he is, softly exhaling just to inhale nicotine again, stained across his lips.
His eyes leave the ceiling fan and find something else to stare at. Old Redbox DVDs sitting on the nightstand too far past the return date. A half-empty cigarette pack. Papers and files and a printer and everything that makes a good adult, though blending in with the blank drywall. Jutting out like a sore thumb sits the small keepsakes they’d taken from their childhood homes. Both of which were few and far between. Jonah was kicked out on some sudden night a few months ago with thirty minutes to pack his shit and Adam never had a permanent home. It leaves a lot to desire.
So much space to fill. Never enough time to fill it before the time slips away between his fingers, and it just wasn’t enough to suffice. Not good enough of a childhood. Not good enough of an adolescence. “Whatever, man. I don’t know, it’s dumb. This is so crazy dumb. I can’t take myself seriously.”
“It’s not dumb.”
Jonah sighs. “It kind of is, though. I do the same shit too, sometimes. ‘Who cares? Who should care? What the hell are we doing?’ It’s just like, over.”
“It’s not,” Adam points out, rightfully so. “You’re still alive.”
“Not to sound like an edgy asshole, but if you count my heart beating, then hell yeah I’m alive, but, like. How do I know if I’m actually living? Or that I would be if I did something else?”
“You don’t. You just do it.” He scoffs.
He just hums in return, something soft and quiet, feeling a half-smoked cigarette being coaxed back into his fingers. Jonah drags slowly this time, as though the faster he steals cigarette smoke the faster this will end. Time passes regardless, ticking in the alarm clock on Adam’s side of the bed; the only proof that the sun is going to rise at all. His other hand settles in his hair, fingers nesting in hair dyed far past its curly, puffy days, lacking the soft closure of stressful days during group in church.
His hair’s got more of a brittle, frizzy texture, a fate sold in the last time he dyed when he left his parents’ house. It’s another feeling, now, that he’ll forget in time, replaced by another. And another, and another, and another.
Jonah’s silent for longer than he intended. “Adam?”
“Uhh-huh?”
“You think you’re living? Like, for real?”
A thoughtful beat. “Yeah, I think so. What about you?”
This time, his eyes directly meet Adam’s. Sometimes he wishes they were those kinds of friends that met when they were five and were fated to be tied together, in some hometown equally as shitty but slightly more talkative. Fond, fuzzy memories shared between two would be enough to keep them alive forever, always sure there’s more ahead. He can’t ever be sure the future’s ever going to be good enough when the past never stays the same. It’s the kind of thing he wishes he didn’t have to do alone. Sometimes he wishes he saw himself living past 25, so that he could imagine the same in Adam, whatever that’d look like. Then he’d know which of his memories would turn into ones he’d let his heart swell and grieve over.
And other times he just wished he was laying on the ground smoking a cigarette. It’s too easy to seem so out of reach. Daydreaming about the pieces clicking into place was a miserable way to exist. “Probably. I don’t think you can really tell.”
“I think it’s a good thing.” It’s the most honest Adam’s ever been with him. “Don't the jackass that regrets everything before it even happens. You can be gay and, I don't know, kiss guys, do whatever you want, and you’re gonna find people that care. The only way you don't is if you sit on your ass and don't try."
Jonah snickers. “Actually, I think I already did.”
“Okay, who, then?"
“Don’t worry about it, man.”
"You're such a dick."