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Going out to hide at Christie Road became a habit for Billie, though he hated calling it that. Habits sounded like something you chose, and this wasn't exactly something he chose. well, At least he enjoyed it more when he wasn't alone..
Mike had shown up at his window an hour ago, knocking on the glass with his knuckles in their usual code. It didn't really make sense as a code, but it kept Billie from thinking it was a burglar. Billie didn't ask where they were going; he didn't need to. He put on a hoodie that probably hadn't been washed but was within reach. He didn't tie his sneakers. He followed Mike out into the freezing early-morning air, his clumsy feet struggling to keep his balance on the ladder Mike had brought up to his window.
As they walked along the path behind his house, Billie thought about the first time he saw Mike. It was in the cafeteria, in eighth grade. Mike was sitting at a table by himself - sometimes he saw him with friends, but that time he was alone. Billie liked his shirt. Something told him Mike must have good taste in music. He walked over. He didn't say anything smart. He asked about his shirt and mentioned that he wrote music too. Mike looked up and smiled. Billie remembered thinking, right then, that he'd never seen eyes so blue. They talked for a while about writing music. That same day, they went to Billie's house to play something. It had been like that ever since. They always loved playing together. They felt a little isolated and lonely. The problems at home somehow brought them closer; even though they weren't going through the same things, in the end, the situations that hurt them helped them understand each other.
Now, four years had passed. Billie walked behind Mike along the dirt path, looking at his back-how, despite the thick jacket, he could still make out the shape of his spine, his waist, his shoulders. He realized there wasn't a single important memory from the last four years without Mike in it. Christie Road was a dirt track. It crossed a stream over a rotten wooden bridge that trains had stopped using twenty years ago, and turned right past a "For Sale" sign no one had ever bought. It didn't lead anywhere important - just to an old abandoned train station and an empty lot full of weeds and crushed cans. The only sound was the wind moving through the oak branches.
Now they were sitting on a fallen log. It wasn't a real bench. It was an old oak that had collapsed years ago. Rain and sun had worn it smooth as a river stone. Billie had his legs pulled up to his chest, arms crossed over his knees. Mike was leaning against Billie's head. He was breathing slowly, his head so heavy that Billie could feel his neck going numb. But he didn't move. Moving would mean Mike would have to shift positions. Even if neither of them was comfortable, at least they could be uncomfortable together. Mike had been like this for a while, eyes closed- or at least Billie thought so (from his angle, he couldn't really see). Every now and then, his breathing sped up. like he was thinking about something ualv. and then, his breathing sped up, like he was thinking about something ugly, and then suddenly slowed down again.
Billie, on the other hand, stared at the bare branches against the black sky. For a second, the image of his father walking along that same path crossed his mind. It faded before he could hold onto it. In barely four years, he could barely remember his voice.
My mom and my sister were fighting again, Mike said after a while. His voice sounded tired, a little raspy. Like he had thought about it before saying it. "I mean, I'm used to it, but... I don't know. It's just... hard sometimes.
Billie didn't answer. He didn't know what to say that wouldn't sound like "I'm sorry" - words that had always felt useless to him. They had discussed these things so many times, and still, he came up empty. He noticed a lint ball on his pants and began picking it off with his fingers. Then another, and another. Some were bigger than others. For a moment, he concentrated so hard he stopped listening. But Mike's voice still reached him in pieces. Some deep part of Billie strained to hear, even if his conscious mind wouldn't stay focused. He found himself thinking about everything Mike had told him in bits over time. Mike never unloaded all at once - just shards that Billie had to assemble like puzzle pieces. Mike could be mysterious that way.
"Sometimes I think... they shouldn't have adopted me, y'know?," Mike said. The sentence hung in the freezing air like the vapor of his breath. "I know it's wrong to say. But if they hadn't... maybe they'd still be together. I don't know."
As Billie stopped picking off lint, he stared at the dry grass on the ground. For some reason, that brought back memories of his father. The moment he found out his father had died, he stayed crying in his bed, not wanting to wake up. He thought about how his mother had replaced him so quickly. How he had been missing his father lately. He thought he didn't belong there either. But he didn't know where else he would be. Finally, he shrugged. Such a small gesture that Mike probably couldn't see.
"Sucks," he said finally. He hadn't thought about it much, just said it. It made a lot of sense.
Mike just nodded a couple of times, closing his eyes with an almost tender calm. Billie opened his mouth to say something more, but then he heard a car on the road - wet tires, a muffled sound that quickly faded. He looked up toward the street without meaning to and saw a couple walking close together, hands in pockets, shoulders touching, heads tilted toward each other like two trees grown crooked. The guy pulled a cigarette from his leather jacket, lit it with a silver lighter, and after a long drag, turned to the girl and cupped her face with one hand, with a gentleness Billie didn't know men possessed. He pressed his lips to hers and breathed the smoke directly into her mouth no hands, just his breath. The girl closed her eyes and smiled. The guy ran his thumb slowly down her cheek.
Billie couldn't stop staring. His mouth went dry, his cheeks burned, and he knew it wasn't just the cold. It was something else - something he had been trying not to feel for months, something that kept slipping through the cracks, something about to burst. In his mind, without asking permission, he imagined it: Mike cupping his face, leaning in, white smoke passing from his lips to Billie's. Warm. Tasting of tobacco and of him. He knew he shouldn't imagine it, knew it was wrong. But he couldn't help it.
Billie squeezed his eyes shut, but the image didn't disappear. It stayed stuck behind his eyelids. His cheeks burned, his ears burned-heat rising up his neck, beyond his control. He hated himself for it: for staring at the couple so long, for imagining something that would never happen, for wanting it to happen. The worst part wasn't that he imagined the kiss - it was that he still wanted it. If Mike did that right now, Billie wouldn't say no. And that certainty scared him more than anything.
And then, as the couple walked away, as he blamed himself for imagining it, Billie thought of all the times he had watched Mike sleep in his bed. How sometimes, when Mike rolled over, his arm would rest on Billie's chest, and Billie would stay frozen for hours, breathing slowly, so he wouldn't wake him. He thought about the notes they passed in class, the buses he had taken to Mike's house, and how much fun they always had.
"Bills," Mike said.
Billie's eyes snapped open, startled-like he had been caught doing something forbidden. Mike had sat up and was looking at him with a strange expression, somewhere between confusion and something Billie didn't know how to name.
"So you brought me out here just to sit in silence?"
Billie blinked a couple of times, processing the question. He wasn't the one who had brought them there. Mike had shown up at his window and said, "Let's go." Still, the question probably wasn't about that. It was about why they were here. Why they always ended up here.
"I don't know," Billie said. He shrugged. A moment ago, he had bitten his lips thinking about Mike. Now he tasted blood in his mouth. He ran his tongue over the tiny wound he had made without meaning to. A bad habit his mom told him to stop. "Well... It's a good place, y'know."
Mike looked at him for a moment. In his blue eyes, turned gray by the orange streetlight, there was something Billie couldn't read. Mike nodded. but didn't look away. Billie felt like those eyes looked right into his soul. For a second, he imagined Mike could read his thoughts that would be awful.
But Mike looked away toward the couple already walking down the street, and Billie relaxed from his little paranoia, letting out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. "We need to smoke something."
Mike stood up from the log, patting his jacket pockets until he pulled out a half-crushed pack of Marlboros. He checked it with numb fingers.
"Shit. Empty," he said. He crushed the empty pack between his fingers and tossed it on the ground. "I'm gonna go buy some. Got any cash?"
Billie reached into his pocket and pulled out some crumpled bills. It wasn't much what he had been saving for a cap to cover his curly hair - but that could wait. He handed Mike two bills without counting. Mike took them and disappeared into the darkness toward the dirt path that led to the main road, shoulders hunched, hands in his pockets.
Billie was left alone on the log. Suddenly, the place felt bigger. Emptier. Colder.
Mike walked quickly down the dirt path, though not as fast as he could. Behind him, the log where he had left Billie grew smaller- a dark blotch under the orange streetlight. The cold seeped in through his collar. His back tensed, but he didn't speed up. He needed the air. He needed the few minutes alone to sort out what he had said. They shouldn't have adopted me. The sentence sounded stupider now that he was alone, but also truer. He thought about Billie's face when he heard it. Billie wasn't a man of many words, but his face was very expressive. If he had looked at him directly, he would have gotten an answer. Billie never knew what to say. But he always listened. They had listened to each other for as long as he could remember, and that made Billie special.
Walking, Mike thought about when his parents had separated. The memories from his childhood were fuzzy, but things hadn't been great since he'd gone to live with his mom. He had spent his time depressed, isolated - though not intentionally. He was a funny guy and didn't have trouble making friends, but he felt like they never really understood him. That reminded him of the first time he saw Billie. Cafeteria, eighth grade. Mike had been sitting alone at a table in the back, needing to be alone that day after the fight with his mom. Then a curly-haired guy walked up and pointed at his shirt. "Ozzy's awesome," he said. Billie was wearing the same shirt. Mike looked up and met big green eyes, crinkled from smiling. Billie didn't say anything smart- he just smiled. Then he sat down next to Mike. They hadn't been apart since.
When he reached a 7-Eleven, the cashier didn't even look at him. He bought a pack of Marlboros. Holding them, he remembered his lighter- how many times he had used it, how it might not even light anymore so he bought another just in case. He left with the little red pack clutched in his fist. On the way back, he walked a little faster. He was getting cold and wanted the cigarettes to warm him up.
I'm fourteen, Billie thought. It was a horrible age to understand what he felt. Because at fourteen, no one took you seriously. They were even more thoughtless than adults. At school, older guys called anyone who was a little different a 'faggot.' They shouted it in the hallways. Wrote it on bathroom walls. Spat it out like it was the worst word in the world. Billie had seen how they looked at a guy they had started picking on just because he walked differently. He had seen them shove him against lockers. No one did anything. Teachers looked the other way. And sometimes Billie felt like that same word was going to explode in his face any moment. That someone would look at him and figure out the truth he couldn't even bring himself to say. His truth, which wasn't just a suspicion, not just a phase. It was that he liked Mike in a way he shouldn't like any guy. And if anyone knew, if anyone saw him thinking what he thought when Mike was too close... Billie shrank just imagining it. Not the hit. What came after. The loneliness
Except maybe not entirely alone. Because there was Mike. And Billie was glad for that- glad he could be himself around him, even if nowhere else.
Because the truth was, he liked watching Mike more than he should. He liked Mike's smile. The way he hugged him in hard moments. How he always reached things for him-Billie was smaller. The way he ran his fingers through his hair when he was nervous. How he called him funny nicknames that sounded different than when other people said them. And how he made him laugh with his stupid jokes.
Sometimes at night, Billie lay awake and imagined things he shouldn't. He knew that if his mother knew if anyone knew everything would fall apart. But he couldn't help it. He imagined they were in Mike's bed upstairs, in his small room with his sister. The bed was so small that there was no choice but to be pressed together. Billie felt Mike's warmth against his face. Something stirred in his stomach - a mix of fear and something hot he couldn't name. He closed his eyes. Prayed for dawn to come late. Very late. Never. He imagined Mike looking at him the way that couple had looked at each other. Gently. Fingers brushing his cheek. He imagined the smoke between their lips. He imagined Mike leaning in, not pulling away, just closing his eyes and waiting. And then, in the darkness of his room, Billie touched his own mouth with his fingers, as if he could feel the kiss before it happened. But it never did. Then he covered his face with his hands. Ashamed of touching his lips. Ashamed of wanting it so badly. But he couldn't help it.
Just then, Mike came back,Billie saw his feet kicking up small puffs of dust. He was holding the little red pack of Marlboros and the green plastic lighter he always kept in his back pocket
"Couldn't find anywhere open," he said as he sat down. His weight made the log creak beneath them. "Had to go all the way to a 7-Eleven. Sorry I took so long."
Billie took the cigarette Mike offered and lit it. The first drag scratched his throat. He coughed - just a little, not much - enough for Mike to laugh and say, "Guess I got the strong ones."
The truth was, he had never really liked smoking. He didn't quite remember when he first tried it. But he only ever smoked when Mike smoked - because doing it together felt good.
The truth was, he had never really liked smoking. He didn't quite remember when he first smoked. But he only ever smoked when Mike smoked- because doing it together felt good. They did it in silence for a while. A long while. The silence was thick and comfortable. They both knew they didn't need to talk to understand each other. Mike had his head tilted back, eyes closed. The ash on his cigarette grew long and white. Billie watched him out of the corner of his eye. He watched the smoke leave Mike's lips and dissolve in the cold air. How it went up his nose with an elegance only someone who had been smoking for years could have. How his eyelids fluttered, like he was daydreaming.
At some point, Mike turned his head toward him. He had his cigarette between his lips, his eyes half-closed against the smoke. Billie felt his heart race. For a second - just a second- he thought Mike was going to do what the guy in the leather jacket had done. Cup his face. Lean in. Breathe smoke into him. Billie didn't know if he could handle it. Didn't know if he even wanted to. His lips parted, waiting for something. But Mike didn't do any of that. He just took a long drag, blew the smoke toward the black sky, and said, "Looks like the sun's coming up soon."
Billie nodded. Swallowed. The moment broke like a bubble. Right, Billie thought. Of course it wasn't going to happen. Why would it? Mike wasn't like that. Mike didn't look at me like that. I'm the weird one - the one who sees things that aren't there. He ran his hand over his face as if he could knock the thoughts out. But he couldn't. He never could. The worst part was he knew he would keep waiting - that next time Mike got close, his heart would race again.
He stubbed out his cigarette on the log. It hurt his throat. He hated himself a little for expecting something different. Mike kept smoking. He took another drag and another. When the butt fell to the grass, a red dot died in the darkness. Mike turned his head and looked at him. His blue eyes were fixed on Billie's. Billie's mouth went dry. His hands started to shake. His cheeks burned.
Billie looked down. Saw his untied shoelaces. He could have tied them now, but he didn't. He never tied them when he was with Mike. Mike took him out in the middle of the night; he couldn't tie them in the dark of his room. It was funny - he always ended up falling or tripping, but he never did.
"You're being weird," Mike said. It wasn't really a question. It was an indirect way of asking Billie to explain without sounding like an interrogation - because Billie tended to get anxious. Mike threw the sentence into the air like a stone into a lake, waiting to see the ripples.
Billie looked up from the dry grass. Mike's eyes were fixed on him. He got a little distracted by them he liked how they shone, though there was something he couldn't read. Billie shrugged. For a moment he hesitated to say nothing was wrong. But he couldn't lie. He bit his lip again, not hard. enough to draw blood but enough to leave a little bump
"I don't know," he said. It came out raspy. He cleared his throat with a soft cough, trying not to be heard. He rubbed his hand over his face. His skin was very dry from the cold. Mike watched him do all this without a word with that patience he sometimes had, when he knew he just needed to listen. "Just... stuff."
"Like what?" Mike asked. It wasn't an order. It was an invitation. An open hand Billie could take it or leave it.
Billie thought of a blurry memory of his dad. How he could barely remember his voice anymore. How his mom cried in secret. He also thought about the other stuff. The stuff he couldn't say. The stuff he barely dared to think. How his heart raced when Mike laughed. How he liked watching him move. How he stared at his lips and had to look away fast. How, when they were in bed, pressed together because there was no room, Billie pretended to fall asleep just to feel Mike's breath one minute longer. He had memorized the smell of his shampoo - every detail of Mike. His pimples. His soft hair.
"Home stuff," Billie lied. It wasn't entirely a lie, but it wasn't mainly that either.
Mike nodded. He understood. The stuff at home. The nights they spent staring at the ceiling because sleep wouldn't come. Then he moved closer - just a few inches. Enough for Billie to feel the warmth of his body through the cold.
Mike's hand, which had been resting on his own knee, hesitated for a
moment. Then it settled on Billie's. His fingers were long and cold. When they wrapped around Billie's knuckles, his heart leaped into his throat.
"Mike," Billie managed to say, but the word got stuck. Mike was too close. Close enough that Billie could see his eyelashes - pale, almost transparent at the edges. His pores. The acne that had started breaking out these past months. The dry skin of his lips. He also saw how Mike's eyes dropped to his mouth for a moment, then came back up to his eyes. Billie wasn't sure about that body language. Something in him wished what he was thinking would come true. But he didn't really believe Mike would do that. And it hurt.
Mike tilted his head. His nose brushed Billie's. The air he exhaled was warm and smelled like tobacco. Billie stopped breathing. His eyelids fluttered. He wanted to close his eyes but couldn't. He wanted to look at Mike, to see his expression, to know if this meant anything.
Billie stayed still. He didn't know what he was supposed to do pull away, get closer, or stay frozen. Mike stayed still, too. For a few seconds.
Then his hand let go of Billie's and moved up to his neck. Cold fingers sank into his hair. Goosebumps ran down his entire body. Not from the cold- because someone was touching him and he wanted it to never stop.
Mike pressed his lips to Billie's. He closed his eyes. For a second, his brain filled with alarms - this is wrong, Mike is your friend, what if he's making fun of you, what if he laughs after, what if he tells someone. But while Billie just stayed still, Mike kept trying to kiss him. Mike wasn't making fun of him. Mike had one hand on his neck, his fingers slightly clenched. His other hand stayed on Billie's knee, warm despite the cold. And when Mike opened his mouth a little more, Billie, without thinking, kissed him back. The kiss was clumsy, as a first kiss should be. Their teeth bumped at first. Mike's nose smashed against his cheek. But Mike turned his head slightly, making their lips fit better.
The warm smoke Mike still had in his lungs escaped. Billie tasted it in his mouth. On his tongue. In his throat. It tasted like tobacco. It tasted like Mike. It tasted better than any night he had imagined. But unlike all those nights, this didn't end a second later. Mike didn't pull away. Instead, the hand on Billie's neck tightened a little more. It didn't hurt. It was just a firm pressure, trying to make sure Billie didn't disappear. And the other hand, the one on his knee, slid up to his hip and stayed there. Not moving. Just resting. But Billie felt each finger burn into his skin.
It wasn't a peck. It was a real kiss. Mouth opening against Mike's. Tongue finding his. Billie's fingers clutching Mike's jacket, wrinkling the fabric like it was a lifeline. Mike's mouth was softer than Billie had imagined - and he had imagined it many times but reality was messier. So much better than his dreams.
The cigarette Mike had left on the edge of the log rolled off and fell into the grass. Billie noticed it from the sound, but he didn't care. Cold breezes reached his face, but kissing Mike made him feel so warm. His stomach churned with excitement. The only thing he cared about was the pressure of Mike's lips against his, the way Mike's hand moved from his neck to his jaw and held it, firm and gentle, as if Billie were something fragile.
They didn't know how long they had been kissing. Billie had lost all sense of time. He only knew that Mike's mouth was hot, that the taste of tobacco was fading, leaving a more intimate taste, and that his own lips no longer trembled from the cold.
But something pulled them apart. The need to breathe properly, maybe, or the buildup of nerves exploding in both of them at once. Mike opened his eyes and pulled back slowly - a slowness that seemed to cost him. His eyes were glossy and his lips red and swollen. His breath came out in ragged clouds of vapor that mixed with Billie's. His cheeks were flushed, and his hair was messy where Billie had dug his fingers without realizing it.
"Hey," Mike said, and his voice sounded broken. "Billie, I..."
He didn't finish the sentence. Billie didn't know how to help him because he was also speechless, mouth dry, heart pounding in his temples. Shame rose from his stomach and flooded his face, his ears, his neck. He couldn't look at Mike. He lowered his head and buried it in Mike's chest, pressing his nose against the denim of his jacket that smelled like cologne. He squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for Mike to push him away, to tell him it was a mistake, to laugh and say he was just kidding.
But Mike didn't push him away. He slowly raised his arms, as if he too had been waiting for something, and wrapped them around Billie's back. He just hugged him. He didn't say anything - just held him against his chest, his chin resting on the top of Billie's head. Mike's fingers spread wide across his back, covering him.
Billie stayed there, curled up, feeling Mike's heartbeat against his cheek. It was beating fast, as fast as his own. They were both beating at the same rhythm, a beautiful syncopation that embarrassed them.
The wind moved the oak branches. A dry leaf broke free and fell silently. The "For Sale" sign swayed with a metallic creak. The streetlight in the distance flickered twice and then stayed steady.
Billie didn't know how much time had passed. He only knew that Mike's breathing, little by little, began to calm, that his arms stopped shaking, that his heartbeat settled into a steadier rhythm. At some point, the silence stopped being uncomfortable and became the same silence they had always had the one that didn't need words.
"Mike," Billie said after a while, without lifting his head, against Mike's jacket, very quietly. "Mike."
"What?" Mike said. He sounded softer now. Warm.
"... nothin'."
Mike tightened his arms a little more. The sky, far in the distance, started to turn blue. Not a light blue yet a dark blue, almost black, a different blue from the night. The horizon turned gray, and the stars began to disappear one by one.
Billie didn't want the sun to come up. The sun meant going home, past his mother who looked at him with sad eyes, straight to his lonely room. But the sun would rise anyway, because it didn't ask anyone for permission. And Billie envied that. He wished he didn't have to ask for it either.
But before that happened, Billie had this. He had Mike's arms around him. He had the warmth of his body seeping through their clothes. He had Mike's breathing rising and falling like ocean waves. He had the certainty that, even if everything fell apart, right now he wasn't alone as the night slowly retreated.