Heat - 13. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

I have been told that the idea for my eighteenth birthday party was all Senna’s. This doesn’t shock me as much as it would people who know her less. Senna, despite all appearances to the contrary, is sort of our unofficial leader. Back when Ryan and I were fighting all the time in middle school she was the only thing that kept the two of us together. She isn’t silent because she has to be - there’s nothing wrong with her voice and she certainly isn’t shy - she just chooses when to speak very carefully.

I guess Marcus’ dad had a friend with a houseboat. No clue how he managed to beg, borrow, or steal the keys but by six pm we were on the water and the plan was to remain floating in the middle of the lake until each of us was good and hungover the next morning. Ryan was on booze and Chris brought weed. Senna got me the new pokemon game which was off brand for the ‘cool teen party’ vibe of everyone else's gifts but I think it was still my favorite of the night. I am not ashamed to admit I’m an adult pocket monster fan. It’s my birthday, I’ll Pokemon Go to the polls if I want to.

By midnight we were all, in the common man’s parlance, absolutely fucked up. Senna, Marcus, Ryan, and I were all lying on our backs staring up at the stars passing the last of the weed from hand to hand. Chris had already passed out (which was a godsend, the man smoked half the weed he brought by himself before the rest of us had a chance to even try it). Marcus got up to pee, and Senna took the break in conversation to go make sure Chris hadn’t choked on his own vomit (an ever-caring girlfriend) which left Ryan and I alone on the top deck. To this day I don’t know why I did what I did. Sure, I was drunk (and not a little high) but still there’s some boundaries you have to know no matter how messed up you are not to cross.

I rolled over on my side and looked at Ryan. In the light of the waxing moon he looked… beautiful. I don’t think I had ever thought of him in those terms before. He’s always been a pretty boy, pronounced bones and a dancer’s form. Feminine in the right light, and always seeming a little bit fragile. I remember wanting very badly to run my fingers along his spine, to count each vertebrae. Without thinking I reached over and took his hand, brought it down to my crotch and pressed it palm first into my hard cock.

He went very still. “Kenan, what are you -” I cut him off with a kiss, deep and hungry. He let it happen for just a moment too long and then he pushed me gently off him. “Kenan no. This isn’t right.” I should have stopped there. Maybe it would have been repairable, maybe we could have laughed it off. Remember the time you were drunk and you kissed me? That was so weird! But no, I didn’t stop. I rolled over, straddled him, ground my crotch into his. He was hard, and I took that as encouragement. Kissed him deeper, forced my tongue into his mouth. He shoved me off of him, violently. I landed with a thud about a foot away, scraped my elbow bloody on the wooden deck. “Kenan I said no! Don’t fucking touch me.” He pushed up to a sitting position, scrambled backward across the deck. Was he… scared?

After a moment of just looking at each other he pushed himself to his feet. “Shit, I’m sorry.” I say, but it’s way way too late for that.

“Don’t… don’t… fucking…” He drifts off, waving his hands around his head like he was trying to chop every word into the air or build an invisible wall between us with them. I think I see tears glinting in his eyes, barely held back. A moment later Marcus returns from his pee and Ryan turns, sitting on the railing facing out at the water. We never speak of what happened that night again but after that, Ryan and I could never be the way we were before. Always standoffish, and never ever touching.

I’ll never forget the look on his face that night. That fear. That disgust. That I could be the cause of that kind of visceral response in someone I was once close to haunts me still.