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Jake had come to the realization, a couple weeks ago, that a boy on his street would come dashing by on his flashy skateboard at roughly 5:00 o’clock P.M. every single day.
Jake has always wanted to try skateboarding.
5:00 on a Thursday afternoon, he sits by his window and waits for him. He’s always been the academic type, which is probably why he’s never chalked up the free time to learn how to ride a skateboard—but it benefits him now, not because it makes him happy, but because his notebook gives him something to pretend he’s doing when the object of his attention might be looking his way.
Except, today, he’s about three minutes later than usual, so Jake starts actually doing his homework instead.
“Bluesteel! Wake up, soldier!”
Jake lifts his head, expecting to have the coolest meet-cute ever, only to be met with the realization that the boy would have no idea that he was a part of Team Bluesteel, and he’s also never noticed him.
He sort of abandons that idea when the cool boy with the skateboard rolls up to his window. He points down, vigorously shaking his hand towards the windowsill as if it’ll make Jake open the window any faster. Jake finally struggles through pushing the window up after fumbling around to discover exactly where the window was meant to open in the first place. Something definitely cracked somewhere before then.
“You’re supposed to be watching me. Y’know, doing all my cool stuff.”
Jake swallows as if his staring every single day at the same exact time was somehow inconspicuous—and his anticipatory empty notebook page, and his freshly-styled hair. An open book should expect to be read.
“Well? Come on!” The boy stretches his hand out for Jake and Jake starts wiping the sweat off of his forehead. He’s never been friends with any of the ‘cool kids.’ I mean, it’s not like they were giving him wedgies, but the looks were certainly not of sunshine and sprinkles. Again, the thought is wiped out of his brain, this time by his arm being jerked and his body being drug out of the window. He crawls the rest of the way through so that the dumb limp mass of his body isn’t just being scraped against his own desk.
The boy holds him by his shoulders and gets him up on his feet before assessing him.
“So I take it you aren’t learning from me, because you don’t look like you’ve been outside. Like, ever.”
“Gee, thanks.”
The boy pushes his hair out of his eyes before coming to a conclusion that he couldn’t have made through muddy water—or a window, I suppose.
“Hey… I know you! You’re in my English class!”
“I am?”
“Yeah! You’re Jake, right? I sit behind you and put pencils in your hair.”
“Oh.”
Wow. Cool.
“Wait, so how’d you know about the Team Bluesteel thing?”
“Oh, I’unno, maybe the giant fucking sticker on the back of your computer.”
“Oh.”
“Well, to be fair, I recognized it ‘cause I’m in it. But that sticker is, like, ginormous. I mean, humongous. Giga-huge-mongous. Mongo—“
“Yeah, I get it.”
“I mean, I can see it from—“
“Can you teach me how to skate?”
“Oh, yeah, sure.”
The blood pools at Jake’s knees, like a wounded soldier, a valiant warrior. His battlecry shall shake the field, a cry so powerful his enemies will weep.
“God fucking damnit!”
He sits on the ground and pouts about his scraped knees, crying genuine human tears.
“I told you, you really should just try leading with your right foot.”
“But I’on’t wanna skate goofy! I’m not goofy!”
“You look pretty fucking goofy right now, man.”
“And whose fault is that?!”
“…yours. I’ve literally been telling you how to fix it this entire time.”
“Whatever! I’m going to sleep, I’ll be back out tomorrow. And I’m not goofy.” He throws out the middle finger behind him as he stomps back into his house.
”Skateboard scuffer!”
Jake sighs into the familiar scent of the air, recalling the smell of cologne, the way the edges of the boy’s mouth curled up when he smiled, like a cat. And when he laughed, even when Jake had fallen, (which he had, over and over and over,) the sound seemed to shake whatever doubt he had.
He’s probably right about the leading with your right foot thing. Whatever.
He drags himself into bed and falls into the deepest sleep he’s had in weeks, lingering scent of cologne stuck to his shirt after an accidental clash.
Four days had passed, each consisting of fairly productive skateboarding lessons, aside from Jake’s incessant pouting at inevitable failure. That would make today day five. Jake’s supposed to learn how to Ollie today, and he’s been scared shitless since he woke up.
Jake lets his backpack fall to the ground, leaving it at his door as he waits at the window again, like always.
Albert shows up exactly on time.
Jake opens his front door, only to be greeted by a sudden vacant driveway and a wind that hums a little bit lonelier than usual.
He was right there.
Where did he go?
Jake sniffles.
Two hands grab ahold of him from behind, knocking the wind out of him.
“Haha!”
“Ough—dude, don’t scare me like that.”
“Aww, were you lonely? Were you lonely without your big, strong, handsome—“
“Knock it off, asshole.”
The boy takes his arms off of Jake to cross them over his chest in a sarcastic pout, walking a few steps away from Jake before turning back with a visible screen of confusion over his face.
“Why aren’t you, like, begging me to come back?”
“Because you’re 2 feet in front of me.”
He rolls his eyes and takes Jake by the hand, running with him and stopping just in front of Jake’s garage.
“Don’t move.”
And Jake doesn’t.
The boy walks out with a brand-new skateboard with a hand-painted (albeit poorly, but charmingly) tiger right underneath it. He displays it proudly above his head before placing it on the ground in front of Jake.
“Dude, sick! Thank you so much, uh…”
Jake realizes that he’s spent all of this time with this boy that he’s learned so much from and laughed so much with without ever learning his name.
“Albert.”
“Yeah, thank you, sorry, I don’t know how that slipped my mind.”
“Don’t sweat it.”
It isn’t foreign to Albert, being ignored or forgotten. Truth be told, Jake is one of the first people to ever find him cool.
However, Jake feels terrible, and it’s visually apparent when he droops over like a giant stormcloud drifted over him and started raining down on his head.
Albert uses all of his strength, and pathetically strains himself to lift Jake up onto his new skateboard and run with Jake’s hand in his own, leading him along. Albert hops up onto his own skateboard and starts to ride hand-in-hand with his new best friend. Dangerous? Yes. Stupid? Yes. Worth it? Also yes.
Jake wobbles with the sudden change in gravity beneath his feet.
“Are you out of your mind?!”
“Just stay planted.”
“Where are we even going?”
“You’ll see.”
Jake and Albert approach a grassy field just outside the community Catholic church—a large, open field that Albert often goes to on hard days. The field was originally left open for future construction, but the church never gathered enough funds for another building. Five acres of pure nothingness.
Albert doesn’t stop.
Jake starts to panic.
“Stop, man, we’re gonna crash!”
Albert, instead of stopping or looking ahead of him, turns his head to face Jake and gives him the warmest smile he’s ever given to anyone outside of his own family.
The world goes black.
Or so Jake thinks.
They tumble and roll out into the grass as their skateboards abruptly come to a halt against the edge of the sidewalk, and Jake is curled up in a ball with his eyes squeezed shut like he’s embracing death.
Albert lays sprawled out in the grass and his laugh echoes out into the empty sky.
Jake opens his eyes and finds out that the world has, in fact, not gone black, but rather he’s lying in the grass right next to the most beautiful boy he’s ever laid his eyes on.
Or, no, the coolest boy.
Boys aren’t beautiful? Are they?
Albert turns his head to Jake and the sun sets in slow-mo.
I guess they are.
A couple minutes of silence pass as the sun finally sets over their quaint little neighborhood, skateboards laid to wait at the sidewalk, just as the moon had waited for this very moment.
Albert opens his mouth to speak and the milk of the moon spills out through his voice like coconut water on a night at the beach, like the Earth opened up and gave this to Jake as an apology for something. A gift. He wishes he knew what there was to apologize for, because all he’s been able to remember since he met Albert is… Albert.
What a lovely name.
Oh, God, right. He opened his mouth to speak.
“You played the new Zelda yet?”
“I’m like, halfway through, why?”
“You finished Ocean Realm yet?”
“Mhm.”
Albert keeps talking, and Jake can’t seem to get himself to pay attention like he can in class.
The only thing he can pay attention to is Albert’s teeth peering out through his lips when he speaks.
“Are you even listening to me?”
Shit.
“Yeah..?” and he ends it with that stupid upward inflection he always uses when he’s lying that he wishes he could get rid of.
Albert’s eyes run over Jake’s, trying to identify exactly what he’s looking at.
Gotcha, bitch.
“Are you gay?”
Jake’s heart tries to shoot up through his throat and he chokes on his own saliva. You don’t just ask somebody that?!
“Kh-what?”
“Are you gay. Yes or no.”
“I mean, maybe?”
“Wanna find out?”
Before he can form a thought, two hands are grabbing his face and a pair of lips are on his own. He tastes like toothpaste and Cheetos, which is quite a strange combination for him to wrap his arms around Albert’s neck and lean in for more of, but we all have our quirks, I guess.
They pull off of each other and look into each other’s eyes for a lingering while before Jake decides to break the silence.
Out of breath, he musters:
“Yeah, I’m gay.”
And then he rolls over onto his back and looks at the stars, fingers intertwined with the stargazer lying next to him.
Thank God he didn’t have to learn how to Ollie.