That Feeling - 14. You care too much

The air is getting chilly as we’re pretty far into November now, but that doesn’t stop us from laying on the ground, staring at the stars. Sara and I are laying on a blanket she brought: it smells like smoke and Sara’s expensive perfume. We’re at the park Carson’s neighborhood association keeps on the river, and I can hear the rushing sound of water and the crickets and Carson as she talks on the phone at a picnic table a few yards away. Sara’s smoking and the smoke is rising into the sky and I think back to that night of the party. Things seem a million miles away from that night and I wonder if that’s how life is, if maybe life is that feeling you get when you think back, a nostalgia for things we didn’t even know we wanted. Because even if things are better, they’re different and new; and different and new are hard because it’s something else to figure out. Like how we’re here, the three of us. No Avery and no Jake and thank God no Knox, but this new thing; we’ve never been like this. I’ve never laid next to Sara, her brown hair touching my face and her holding my hand and the smell of stale cigarette smoke that I hate and love at the same time because it’s familiar enough to be right but different enough to remind me that something’s changed.

“Do you think Clark likes me?”

“Huh?”

“I don’t know. He says he doesn’t. But I don’t know. He sends mixed signals.”

“Are you going with him tomorrow to the club?”

“I guess. He pulled strings.”

“Don’t feel obligated so much. That’s half your problem. You care too much.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Sometimes. A lot of times.” She take a deep drag of her cigarette and blows it up. I watch as it twirls around the stars. “If you don’t care, you won’t get hurt.”

“Is that how you do it?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think it works. Because you do care, Sara. I know you do, somewhere, because you can act like a bitch or whatever, but I know you care.”

“Maybe, but it’s easier not to.”

“Yeah, but I can’t just not care.”

“Your loss.”

We’re silent for a while, Carson’s voice is almost inaudible. I’m watching a plane fly through the night sky, the tiny red dot blipping across the atmosphere. It’s weird to think there’s someone up there, maybe a hundred someones who mean something to someone, who have lives and families and thoughts and feelings and all I’ll ever know about them is the small blipping airplane as it passes. Sara sits up and puts out her cigarette in the grass.

“I have an idea.”

“About what?”

She looks at me dumbly, “Clark.”

“Okay…”

“At the club tomorrow-- play along with him. Get up close to him and dance. Act interested. Touch him. Kiss him. It’s a club, people do that kind of stuff to total strangers. Do it with a total stranger and look for a reaction. See how he responds later, just the two of you. In the cab ride home or whatever.”

“I don’t know if I can do that.”

“It’s not hard.”

“But what if he does like me and he thinks I like him too and then what? I’m stuck and I’d feel bad.”

“Fuck it. You asked my opinion.” She gets up and walks toward the water.

I follow her. The moon shines on the river as it makes it’s way toward the sea. On the other side is nothing but trees, a wilderness, a different world than the carefully preened lawns of River Trace. “No, I mean, I see how your plan could work. But I don’t know if I could do that. I’m not very sexy like that.”

“You’re sexier than you think.”

“I mean, like, sexual. I don’t know if I could that.”

“You’ve got to learn sometime.”

“Yeah...I guess so. But what if he gets the wrong idea? Maybe he doesn’t like me like me, but he wants to, I don’t know, fool around.”

“Then fool around. Or don’t. You can say no. In several languages, if necessary.”

“I don’t know.”

“Then don’t. Jesus Christ, Caleb. It’s not that hard to figure out. Do it or don’t. I don’t care. You’re the one who wants to know.”

I think about it a bit more as we lean against the railing of the dock. I could flirt, I guess. Nothing too strong, definitely nothing so sexual as to lead him on. I watch a branch twirl along in the current of the river, dunking under and back up, slowly traveling in the dark water.

“I just got off the phone with Grey James.” Sara and I turn around. Carson is standing a few feet from us, holding her phone to her chest, smiling. “He wants to go on a date with me tomorrow night.”

“Wait. Weird Hair Grey James. The one who goes to Grovetown?” Sara sounds incredulous.

“He’s the one who drives the silver Jetta?” I vaguely remember him from a week or so ago, when I almost ran him over as I pulled into Carson’s drive-way for a movie night. She shakes her head.

Sara and I respond simultaneously--- “Cool.” I say. “What the HELL?!” is Sara’s less positive response.

Carson’s face scrunches. “What’s the matter with Grey?”

Sara’s body relaxes. “Nothing, I guess. If you’re into that pretentious hipster douchebag type.”

“He’s not a pretentious hipster douchebag. And besides, maybe I am in to pretentious hipster douchebags.”

“Carson. He drives a hybrid Jetta. He wears horn-rimmed glasses. He puts more product in his hair in an attempt to make it look messy than Robert Pattinson. He listens to the Backstreet Boys...ironically.”

“I thought he was nice,” I interject.

Sara glares at me. “You would. Where’s he taking you?”

“Some Indian restaurant downtown. Then to a show.”

“Ugh!”

“Why is this making you angry?”

“It’s so...YOU!” And Sara walks off toward her car.

I look at Carson and she’s just staring towards Sara walking off.

“I better go. She’s, um, my ride, yeah.” I walk off and pick up Sara’s blanket and purse. I turn to Carson, “Um, I’ll call you later.”

Carson is still looking off into the dark. “Yeah. Okay.”

When I get to Sara’s car, she’s just sitting there, smoking another cigarette. I sit in the passenger seat and she cranks up the car without saying a word. The music’s loud and sad; Conor Oberst at his most depressed.

“You like him, don’t you?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You could have told her.”

“It wouldn’t matter.”

“Just because you say something over and over again it doesn’t mean it’s true.”

“Yeah, you’d know.”

It felt hurtful at first, but then I shrugged it off. She didn’t mean it, not really. Sara had problems, just like me, just like all of us.

After a few minutes of only sad acoustic guitar filling the car, Sara says, “I don’t mean to be cruel, Caleb. But I get shit all the time, you know? I settle for whatever loser of the week I can find, and it’s whatever. I tell myself it doesn’t even matter. I tell myself I’m young and love sucks anyways. And I love Carson. But she prances around with her designer clothes and pretty lips and long hair and smiles that smile and boys smile back and want her. Not for sex, well, not just for sex. They want what she is. And it’s not her fault. The world was made for people like Carson. And the Carsons will always get the Greys because that’s just how the world works. I’m just fucked. And it doesn’t even matter.”

“But maybe it does?”

“Maybe.”

“I think you’re wonderful.”

“Hmmph, thanks. If only you weren’t so gay.”

We’re at my house and I get out. We look at each other for a few minutes and I smile. “G’night, bitch.”

“Night, homo.”

The next day school goes by passively. Clark excitedly reminds me of our plans for tonight, saying he’ll pick me up at 8. After talking to him, I go over how I’ll enact my plan. The scenarios in my head sound too out there for me to actually ever pursue. But I can imagine. I don’t know much about the club we’re supposed to go to, except it’s near the university’s campus, so I’m sure there will be lots of college guys, which kind of scares me a little. But it’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. I’ll be with Clark and he’s safe and good and it’ll all be fun.

At lunch, Jake sits with us again and for some reason I smile to myself. Maybe things can’t ever be the same. Maybe things’ll always be changing, for better or worse, and some of the old things can slip through the cracks, like how Jake is making fun of Carson’s cup she made for ceramics and how Sara is reapplying eyeliner next to me. We can’t be the old us, but we can be us, a different us, or a better us and things can rearrange and maybe be better and less complicated or not, it doesn’t even matter, but we can try. We just can and that makes me smile.

In the car after school, Cassie eats a leftover apple from lunch and tells me about this bitch in her algebra class named Michaela who she can’t stand.

“And to top it all off, she wants people to call her Mickey. What kind of shitty name is Mickey? Like the mouse? I just don’t get it.”

“Wait, does she have like, purple braids?”

“Well, she did. Now she has no hair. Yeah, she fucking got a buzz cut.”

I rolled my eyes. Cassie was one to talk about people’s choice of hairstyles. Although her own was very tame this week, shoulder length and black.

“Maybe you’d get along with her if you got to know her.”

“Yeah, like that would ever fucking happen.”

“Hey, language.”

“Shut the fuck up. So, Clark tonight?”

I exhale deeply. “Yeah.”

“What’s the deal? Just let loose.”

“It isn’t that simple.”

“Here we go. It’s never easy with you.”

“We’ve discussed this.”

“You discussed this. I ate frozen yogurt, nodded, and listened to fucking Kim Kardashian whine about her life.”

I look at her with my eyes squinted. I know she doesn’t listen, but she doesn’t have to admit it. “I can’t believe you.”

“What? If I have to hear you go over your ‘complicated’ love life one more time, my head might explode. Here, synopsis: Knox is straight and practically non-existant. Jake is...too complicated to even quip about. Ethan isn’t going to happen. And I don’t think Clark likes you like you want him to.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“For someone who has hated himself for basically his whole life, you really think highly of yourself. I don’t get that kind of vibe from Clark. But you do, because you want someone to like you. You need validation. And right now the only viable, and least fucked up, candidate is Clark.”

“That’s not even remotely true.”

“Isn’t it? Maybe not. But it doesn’t really matter, because you’ll still think it no matter what.”

“You’re so full of bullshit.”

“Hey, language! Virgin ears here.”

“I’d care if I thought any part of you was a virgin.”

“Hey now. I prize the virginity of my asshole.”

“Ew, please don’t go there.”

“What? It’s your future.”

“Shut up.”

“Anal sex make you queasy, gay boy?”

“Yes, when I’m talking to my little sister.”

“You’re so repressed. It’s the 21st century! Live a little.”

“I’m sneaking into a gay club tonight. I think I’m living enough for the both of us.”

“Hmph, sneaking in doesn’t mean shit, it’s what you do once you get in.”

All afternoon I go back and forth to my closet and pick out different outfits. What do you wear to a gay club? I don’t have a mesh tank-top and booty shorts, but that’s cliché anyway, right? I start to panic a bit when I think about a room full of gay people writhing around on a dance floor, probably hitting on me and stuff. I don’t know if I’m ready for that. I want to wrap myself up in my duvet and count down the night reading Teen Wolf fanfiction and eating potato chips. Because I can tell myself I’m gay and I can enjoy jerking off without feeling tremendously guilty afterwards and I can even hang out with Clark in front of people, but maybe I’m not ready for a gay club with the sweat and the sex and the bass line telling my heart to beat faster and the strobe lights making me feel alien and willing to follow some smiling college boy to the last bathroom stall and suck him off, and failing miserably because I’ve never done it before, but him not caring because he’s drunk and his boyfriend is out of town and he just needs a willing mouth. My mind gets carried away, and I see myself laying in an alley bloodied and dying because the cab driver who picks us up at the club hates gays and decides to “take care of us” in some East Boundary crack alley while prostitutes try to pick my pockets. I start shaking and feel like I may be on the verge of a panic attack, but my phone rings and it’s Clark, so I answer.

“Hello.”

“Hey, boo, what’s up?”

“Nothing.” Which is a lie because I’m currently planning my funeral.

“Good. Can I come over? My mom is being weird. I told her we’re going out tonight and she keeps making a fuss over it.”

My heart skips a beat because number one: Clark’s never been to my house, and number two: he told his mom we’re going out? What the Hell. I don’t know how I feel about him coming here. This is my safe place.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Cool. Oh, and can I stay over? My parents are weird about me going out. If I stay out too late, they flip shit. It’ll be easier if I can just stay with you. Besides, we can chat about all the cute guys we see tonight!”

Shit. Double, triple shit. Last time a guy stayed over I ended up getting a very complicated blow job that I am still feeling the repercussions of, so the thought of Clark staying over and doing his nightly moisturizing routine in my bathroom kind of freaks me out.

“Um, I don’t know. I’ll have to ask my mom.”

“That’s cool. I’ll be over in a minute.”

The doorbell rings exactly eight and a half minutes later, my dad answering the door to, I’m sure, the chipper smile and perfectly sculpted hair of Clark McDonnell. My dad calls for me, but I am already half-way down the stairs, not caring for any awkwardness between my dad and Clark.

“Clark! That was fast.”

“I left before I called you.”

“Ahh, okay.”

Clark and my dad stand at the door for a second as I stand at the bottom of the stairs, them looking at me expectantly. Finally my dad says, “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”

“Oh, yeah. Um, Dad, this is my friend Clark. Clark, this is my dad.”

My dad reaches out his hand and shakes Clark’s. I feel struck by the formality of it all. It’s weird. “Nice to meet you, Clark.”

“Likewise, Mr. Abernathy.”

“So, what are you boys up to tonight?” My dad gives me a look, like he knows whatever he hears is going to be a lie.

“Um, I...well, we...are, um, going...um, to…” I stumble because I can’t tell my dad I’m going to a gay club, I’m not that dumb.

“I’m taking Caleb to an art show downtown. I’m really in to art and he was saying how he didn’t know much about it.”

“Hmmm, okay.” He looked at Clark’s smiling face, then to me with a suspicious scrunch, then back to Clark, “so you’re in to art? Caleb’s mom went to SCAD.”

“Really? Caleb, you didn’t tell me your mom is an artist!”

I frown, this feels wrong. “She’s an interior designer.”

“When I first met her, she was an art student who painted beautiful oil paintings.”

“Ahh, I’d love to see her work.” Clark was being so fake. His voice didn’t even sound the same.

My dad smiled and motioned into the dining room. On one of the walls was a large oil painting of a field, to which my dad was now pointing. I’d seen this picture a thousand times at boring family dinners.

“She painted that.”

“She did not! Dad, shut up.”

“She did.”

Clark was looking at the painting thoughtfully. “It’s very good. I love the brush strokes she used on the grass, very impressionistic, but also controlled. And the colors. She could be a great colorist if she pushed the boundaries a bit further.” I look at Clark, mainly because I could see him transforming into a piece of shit before my eyes. Because he sounds like he is schmoozing, and that rubs me the wrong way. My dad looks at me and grins, and suddenly it hits me. He thinks Clark and I are together. Duh, Clark just told him he was taking me to an art show. That’s a date. Clark told my dad we were going on a date and unlike me, Clark isn’t dumb about everything so I’m sure he did it purposefully.

“Um, Clark, wanna help be pick out what to wear?”

He looks at me and does a once over on my sweat pants and t-shirt. “Sure.” He’s wearing a tight purple v-neck shirt with a tight brown cardigan and dark wash skinny jeans and he’s looking kind of hot if I admit it to myself. “It was night to meet you Mr. Abernathy.”

“You too, Clark.” My dad smiles at him and wiggles his eyebrows at me and I blush. I so can’t handle this.

As we’re going up the stairs I mock Clark. I say, “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Abernathy,” in a high-pitched whiney voice.

“Shut up!” Clark says as he teasingly pushes me.

“You were sucking up so hard to my dad.”

“I wanted him to like me.”

“Whatever.”

“Besides, he’s nice.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Once we’re in my room, I walk to my closet and pull out several choices I’d compiled earlier this afternoon. Clark is looking at my bookshelf and I blush a little because people don’t really know I like to read.

“You have a lot of books.”

“Yeah, I, um, like to read.”

“That’s cool. I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, a lot of people don’t.”

“You continually surprise me, Mr. Abernathy. I always thought you were a meathead jock who blindly followed the masses.”

“I put on a good act.”

“Yeah, you do.” We smile at each other and a part of my stomach constricts because the way Clark is looking at me makes me feel a little attracted to him.

“Anyways, these are the outfits I’m debating.”

He walks over to my bed and rummages through my clothes, pulling out different shirts and pants combinations and putting them back. He throws a grey button down at me, followed by a pair of red trousers. “Shoes?” I point to the rack in my closet and after a few minutes he returns with a pair of navy chukka boots. “You have surprisingly good choices. I’ve never seen you wear half this stuff.”

“Avery used to pick out my clothes. And Carson always buys me things she says she’d wear if she were a guy. But I never really wear a lot of the stuff because I used to think it made me look too gay.”

Clark tilts his head and gives me this look, that’s a mixture of ‘I can’t believe you just said that’ and ‘you’re crazy.’

“But because I am gay, it shouldn’t matter?”

He smiles, shakes his head, and plops onto my bed. We look at each other for a while without talking.

“What are you waiting for? Get dressed!”

I feel nervous with him sitting there, but I also kind of like the fact that he is watching me. I take off my t-shirt and slide on the button-down, I glance at Clark and can see him looking at me. I button it slowly, giving him full view of my chest. He’s looking, but not like I expect him too, not really with lust. I slide off my sweat pants and try to display the bulge in my boxer-briefs, although I’m a bit self-conscious and feel dumb doing it. I slowly bring the new pants up, trying to discreetly watch Clark. He’s looking, but as if I’m a pet doing a funny trick, not someone who wants to jump my bones. I finish off the outfit with a belt. And show myself to Clark.

“Now that that little show is over, you look great.” He obviously realized what I was doing and I feel embarrassed enough for my cheeks to turn a bright red. He notices and smiles. “You’re hot Caleb, I won’t lie. But I’m just not in to you.”

I sigh. “I know. And I’m glad, because I’m not in to you either.”

“Good, now let’s have some fun.”

I look at my phone and it’s seven. When I look up, Clark’s at the doorway, rolling his eyes. I guess it’s go time, whether I’m ready or not.