Ryan and Avery, page 8
As the credits roll, Avery is astounded by how unalone he feels. He has just kept the company of two characters who are older than him, but still somehow like him. He has kept the company of this boy by his side, who is just as moved by what he’s seen in the reflection. And he has kept the company of the rest of the audience, some of whom are singing or sighing themselves back into their cars, while others linger as the names unfurl across the screen.
Like most people, Avery has always seen the credits as an afterthought, a coda. But now he sees this list as something else, as an accurate representation of how many people it takes to create a simple love story.
He thinks: Here’s to all the people who’ve made the sets, sewn the costumes, provided the lighting and the popcorn and the words already written in his and Ryan’s hearts. Here’s to the separate crew who did all these things for the two girls a few feet away dancing over the end music, lit now by the headlights of departing cars.
“This was such a good idea,” Ryan says, looking around, too. He’s forgotten the idea was his.
Avery thanks him, because he’s forgotten, too.
* * *
—
They move their cocoon back into the cab. Once the screen goes dark, they can appreciate the stars that have been watching all along from their seats in the sky. Most cars’ windows are still rolled down, so Ryan and Avery can hear an hour’s worth of songs playing all at once as a slow line trails to the exit. Hip-hop and pop and folk and jazz and country all sharing the queerness of the evening. When Ryan turns the ignition, he looks over at Avery, and Avery has a flash of the first time they saw each other, in an equally queer crowd, much messier and more nervous than this one. He wonders how he can have only met Ryan such a short time ago. He wonders how this can only be their fourth date.
But since it’s a fourth date, he doesn’t wonder this out loud.
It’s later than they thought it would be. Which means they’ll be home later than they said they’d be. Queerness means being worried that it will take only the slightest movement on your parents’ part to pull the plug. Or maybe that’s not exclusive to queerness. But queerness makes you believe it is, that your actions carry a unique set of repercussions.
They talk a little about the movie, but neither of them can fully articulate what it means to them yet. Nor are they ready to consider the balance of their own you and me. It still feels too theoretical, even though it’s theory that’s been applied from the very start.
Eventually the conversation ebbs into the rhythm of the highway. Ryan needs to pay attention to the road, and after a spell of particular concentration, he looks over and sees Avery has fallen asleep.
Ordinarily, this would worry Ryan. They don’t have much time together, and now they’re letting sand fall out of the hourglass. But instead of worrying, Ryan reassures himself. They have plenty of time. They’re going to make plenty of time.
At this point, Ryan could watch Avery sleep for hours. Because maybe this is what turns threads into veins, knowing something so quiet could have such consequence for your heart.
Avery is apologetic when he wakes up, but Ryan tells him it’s fine. They talk a little about the week ahead, and as they near Avery’s house, the clock draws close to midnight. Avery doesn’t tell Ryan about how his parents want to meet him, about how he promised to bring Ryan in after the movie. It’s too late for that, and Avery doesn’t want to switch this night into anything other than what it already is. Because he knows his parents will undoubtedly be up, he has Ryan pull over a few blocks before his own block, so they can kiss and enjoy themselves without having to worry if anyone’s at a window.
Queerness is stolen moments and stolen victories. It is stolen time and stolen glances. It is the thrill of the theft, for sure, but also the knowledge deep in your heart that none of this stealing is wrong. It is, in fact, the most honest thing you can do.
When Ryan pulls up to Avery’s house, they make plans for Ryan’s return. He’ll come back here, and this time he’ll stay for the day.
It’s only taken them four dates to learn: Parting is much easier when you’ve plotted the return.
There will be no end credits. Not tonight. Just a brief transition. The kind that can make a week pass in a few seconds, and seem like not much time at all.
Practice
(the seventh date)
Three weeks and three days after he was abruptly grounded, Ryan is just as abruptly ungrounded. No reason is given for this timing. Ryan suspects his parents have simply gotten tired of enforcing their own rules.
When he calls Avery to tell him the news, Avery is busy with play practice. But later, when they have time to talk, Avery says, “We need to celebrate.”
They plan a date for Saturday night. This, they feel, is what boyfriends do when they’ve earned their freedom.
* * *
—
Avery doesn’t understand how he’s supposed to fit his life into the time he’s being given to live it. Forgoing sleep would be the natural solution, but his eyelids think otherwise. Whoever scheduled the school play for the end of exam week is clearly a monster who feeds off the stress of youth. And what’s worse, Avery wants to do well in the play and ace the exams. That takes more time.
Then there’s Ryan. Patient, eager Ryan. Way-too-far-away Ryan. Avery is thrilled to have a boyfriend…but instinctively knows relationships are like plants: You need to water them in order for them to grow, especially at the start. And the hitch is that you can’t water them with water. You have to water them with time.
Avery is not ecstatic about this metaphor. It’s only a short leap from here to imagining your relationship as the plant in Little Shop of Horrors, insatiably demanding “FEED ME! FEEEEEEEED ME!” That’s not what he and Ryan are about. It will never be what they’re about. It’s just a thought.
The awful thing is that the couple Avery is closest to, his friends Aurora and Dusty, totally have a Little Shop of Horrors relationship. It devours all their time and most of their attention. When Avery’s with them, he’s not a third wheel—he’s a spare tire waiting in the trunk. Neither of them knows about Ryan, because finding out about Ryan would require them to talk about something other than themselves, and they’ve proven to be almost humorously incapable of that since ninth grade.
Avery’s friends in the play are a little more attuned to what’s going on, and not just because Avery’s had to explain why he disappears with his phone every now and then. When you get to the seventh date, it starts to matter who you’ve told and who you haven’t, because it’s crossed the line from something that might happen to something that’s actually happening. Especially now that they’re using the b-word—part of having a boyfriend should be feeling able to tell people you have a boyfriend. That’s not a reason to do it; Avery didn’t say yes to Ryan in order to have bragging rights. It’s just become a part of the story of his life, so he wants to be able to share it with the people who include him in their own stories.
The most curious member of the production is Pope, who is the kind of teenager who can be cast as a gossipy octogenarian society matron without any discernible change of personality required. On the first day of rehearsal, Avery received his share of I’m trying to figure you out glances from kids who didn’t really know him; Pope was the only one to come up and say hello. Within five minutes, Avery knew Pope was a first-year, nonbinary, and went by their last name, in no small part (they said) because they were an only child and didn’t have to worry about a sibling who’d want to do the same. Pope thought it was hysterical to have the last name they did. “Someone in my family had pretty twisted aspirations” was how they explained it. “Someday I’m going to get a gaudy ring just to make people kiss it.”
Pope had been at the dance when Avery had first met Ryan, and even though Pope didn’t have anything to do with the match, they still took some credit for it. “You wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t gone, too,” they insist now. “So therefore you wouldn’t have met Ryan if it hadn’t been for me.” Avery doesn’t want to put his relationship’s origin story through this particular butterfly effect, but he can’t resist the pride and investment Pope feels in seeing it all work out. There are times when Avery sneaks off to a classroom to talk to Ryan and he swears that Pope is guarding the door, to make sure the lovebirds have a chance to trill without anyone else hearing their song.
Pope pretends to be a cynic about love, but asks wide-eyed questions that betray their true belief in love as a perpetual engine of happiness. Talking to them, Avery sometimes wonders if he’s the opposite, an open optimist who harbors a fierce cautionary voice, who meets love reluctantly rather than gratefully. Not that he’s thinking of Ryan in terms of love right now. He’s thinking in terms of like, in terms of boyfriend. Not the same thing.
It’s not accurate to say Pope is more excited about Avery’s Saturday-night date than Avery is, but Pope is certainly louder about it. As soon as rehearsal is over on Thursday, Pope besieges Avery with questions—Where are you guys going? What are you going to wear? Do you think there will be more than kissing? And, unrelated, Can I get a ride home?
Avery can never deny Pope a ride home. They live pretty close to each other, and Avery remembers all too well what it was like to be a ninth grader, exposed to high school opportunities without the transportation to match.
As it happens, Ryan calls as they’re walking to the car. Avery answers and makes it quick, telling Ryan he’ll call back when he’s home. Pope and Avery are both in the car by the time goodbyes are exchanged.
Pope doesn’t say a word until the car is out of the parking lot. Slumped in the passenger seat, they check out the contents of the glove compartment. Then, finding nothing interesting there, they close it and say to Avery, “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”
Avery gives Pope a quick sideways turn of the head. “Not at all. Ryan and I will talk later.”
“But, like, if I weren’t here, you’d probably be talking right now.”
“I mean, probably. On speaker. Because I’m driving.”
“Oh my God.” Pope sits up straighter and actually palms their forehead. “I’m totally interrupting some sex talk!”
Avery laughs. “I think we’d be having how-was-your-day talk for the drive home.”
“Ohhhh. So the sex talk comes later.”
At first Avery thinks Pope is joking. Then Pope goes on.
“C’mon…you’re in a long-distance relationship. There’s got to be a lot of sex talk. You know, oral sex—but, like, oral in the talking-out-loud sense, ha ha. Sexting, but with voices. Like he says, ‘Hey, what’re you wearing,’ and you tell him, and he says, ‘Ooh, that’s so hot,’ and—”
“Pope,” Avery interrupts, exasperated. “I know what you mean.”
“And…?”
“And…it’s none of your business.”
Pope pouts. “You’re no fun. If I were having sex, I’d tell you.”
“I promise you, I wouldn’t ask.”
“Fine. You’ve got to hear this song. Where’s the cord so I can plug in my phone?”
Pope isn’t introducing Avery to a cool new artist. Instead they just want to blast some classic Miley Cyrus.
Meanwhile, Avery is wondering if it’s weird that he and Ryan never have sex talk.
* * *
—
It’s not that Avery doesn’t think about sex. He does. But the truth is that when he thinks about sex, it’s often to think about why he isn’t thinking more about sex, or thinking the same things about sex that he’s been led to believe everyone else in the world is thinking. Every seven seconds. Every. Seven. Seconds. Is he the only person in the world who questions that statistic, who thinks he wouldn’t actually be able to function if he thought about sex that often? He knows he could type a few words into his phone’s browser and witness pretty much any sex act there is to see. When he first started understanding who he was, it helped reaffirm his inclinations, to see which sections of the menu he was choosing from. But after a while, it wasn’t exciting—he started to feel his reaction was as formulaic as the scenes he was watching. He felt porn was turning him into a robot, that something that should have felt intrinsically human was starting to feel detached from any human interaction. So he stopped.
He and his first boyfriend, Lyle, had messed around, and that had been great. There were times he completely lost himself while they were making out, and it was so different to lose yourself to another person instead of to a picture on your phone. He loved the mutual lostness, the mutual foundness of being with someone else, how you can be a blur one moment and then the other person does something and draws you into this vividly tactile sense of where you are, what you’re doing, how your bodies feel. It’s like that when he kisses Ryan, and when they make their bodies close. To Avery, that’s the best part, to share such intimate proximity. To say that sex is the only thing that matters disregards the words of the sentence and focuses only on the exclamation mark at its end.
All of this has remained unsaid with Ryan. Avery assumes this is because they’re in agreement. He doesn’t feel the pull toward sex from Ryan, not like it was with Lyle, who would get jumpy about it, whiny even. Ryan seems to enjoy the pleasure of the moment, instead of spending most of his energy planning the next step of the pleasure. Avery really likes this about him. But now he’s starting to wonder whether this is just his own wishful interpretation. What if their unsaid feelings don’t actually match up? What if Ryan isn’t bringing up sex because he has no desire to have sex with Avery?
No. Avery knows at heart this isn’t it. And he also knows he’s falling into the exclamation-mark traps of believing sex is the goal, the home run, the only way to get onto the scoreboard. It takes so much more work to avoid these traps than it does to give in to them. Where are the points given for that?
It even feels weird to say I’m not ready. Because that still sets sex up as the ultimate destination, the ultimate proof, the thing toward which all preparation leads.
Avery doesn’t believe in that.
But he also realizes he doesn’t know for sure if Ryan feels the same way.
* * *
—
That same Thursday, Alicia finds Ryan at his locker after school.
“You know you love me, right?” she starts.
Ryan doesn’t stop putting his books away. He knows this is her version of Don’t get offended, but. She doesn’t really mean it as a disclaimer anymore; it’s more like a signal, so he can at least have a moment to get ready for whatever’s coming next.
“I do,” he says. Because that’s always his line.
“Good. Because, Ryan…only someone you love would be able to tell you that your hair needs a serious touch-up.”
Ryan feels his body relax. This is not a serious problem. He’s been aware of how his hair’s been growing out, pushing the blue to the borders.
“Call your aunt,” Alicia continues. “Now that you’re allowed to go over there again. Otherwise, I might have to take matters into my own hands.”
Ryan closes his locker and pretends to shudder away from her.
“My hair! My precious hair!” he calls out. Which is all he needs to do to evoke the disastrous haircut Alicia gave him nearly two years ago. (“Was she drunk when she did this to you?” Aunt Caitlin had asked when she’d seen it. And Ryan had confessed that, no, Alicia’s imprecisions could not be blamed on any intoxication other than that which comes from the power of wielding a scissors.)
Alicia laughs. Two football players passing in the hall give them a strange look, which only makes Ryan and Alicia side-eye each other and crack up further.
Ryan texts his aunt to make an “appointment” the next afternoon, then shows Alicia the phone to assure her he’s done it.
“Good,” Alicia says. “We want you looking suave for your big date on Saturday.”
Ryan has no idea where Alicia has plucked this particular word from. Suave. He teases her about it, but then it comes back to him later on that night, when he’s getting ready for bed. He pauses while he’s putting on his pajamas, so when he looks in the mirror, he notes his messy, unevenly colored hair; the three o’clock shadow on his chin; his chest with maybe a dozen hairs on it; his not-quite-abs-not-quite-belly; his pajama bottoms hanging on his hips. He doesn’t feel suave at all. He doesn’t feel ugly, either. He just feels like maybe he’s not attractive enough. For what, he’s not sure.
He isn’t thinking of Avery, not when he’s looking in the mirror. This is good; it means he isn’t worried about how Avery sees him. Avery isn’t the one he’s trying to impress.
Ryan pulls away from the mirror, throws on an old T-shirt, and takes his phone with him into bed. He and Avery text for a while, choosing a town roughly halfway between them for their Saturday-night date. It takes a ridiculously long time to pick a restaurant, considering there are only about six options. When they’re done, Avery texts Ryan, Are you in your pajamas?
Yeah, Ryan texts back. U?
Yup. I bet you look cute in yours.
Thanks. Ryan smiles, thinking about sleeping over at Avery’s house, seeing him ready for bed. You too.
The three dots of an incoming response hang around for a bit. Then Avery’s next text appears: Can I see?
Ryan hasn’t turned out the lights yet, so he types back, Sure. He takes a picture of himself in the old T-shirt and the flannel bottoms. He keeps his messed-up hair in the frame.
Looks comfy, Avery replies.
Ryan reaches over and turns out the light.
