How They Met, and Other Stories(30)
Author: David Levithan

Then Dutch pulled me into the coatroom and made me feel a little better. You know what it’s like to look at someone and realize they’re hungry for you? The thing I loved the most about Dutch was that he never stopped grinning—even if his mouth was serious, his eyes were in on the joke. He enjoyed me, and that’s what kept us going and going and going. He found the most expensive coat in that coatroom, then took a turn into the back, threw the coat on the floor, and led me on top of it. Button-fly access, yeah. Condom, nice to meet you. I could hear everyone outside not hearing us. I could hear the empty hangers ping against one another as my shoulder hit into the racks again and again. Dutch would stop and smile, and I would smile back and keep quieter than usual. I’d feel his breaths catching, measure the distance between them to know he was close.

After we were done, he squeezed me tight for a moment and then said, “All right—back to the prom!” I made the foolish mistake I’d made at least a few dozen times already—I thought, for that one millisecond of hope, that this might be the moment, the occasion that he would say “I love you, Erik.” Even if he didn’t really mean it. We’d been screwing around for long enough that I knew it was a conscious decision on his part to never use those words with me. And because he held them back, I restrained myself, too. The two times I’d slipped and said them, he’d just smiled and said, “No, you don’t.”

Dutch was hungry again, this time for food. So we put our clothes all back in place and returned to the ballroom. We found our goth girls and their punk boys, and we ate off their plates, which they let us do because they thought that was punk, too. We were crashing, which was nothing new. But this time I actually felt like I was interrupting, too. When the DJ started spinning hip-hop and pop tunes, Dutch made fun of everyone who went to dance to them. I could tell that some of our friends had intended to dance, but now felt awkward about it. I kinda wanted to dance. The best I could do was lure Dutch away, so the goth girls could get down and the punk boys could shimmy to their punk hearts’ content. I put my hand on Dutch’s ass and whispered, “We’re not done yet.”

We walked into the men’s room just as half the football team was peeing out the beers they’d tailgated before heading over to the dance. I thought, We really shouldn’t be doing this. But Dutch’s boldness carried me on. He held my hand and opened the stall door as if it was the door to Cinderella’s carriage. When he closed it and locked it behind us, I could hear the jeers. One of the guys pounded on the door, and I jumped. Dutch looked ready to start fighting…but soon the jeers faded. The football players left. Other people came in, but they had no idea what we were up to—not unless they looked down and saw the two pairs of legs.

This time we didn’t go all the way. We just kissed and groped, and it was almost like the beginning. Only it didn’t feel like the beginning, because I knew the beginning had passed a long time ago. Dutch was murmuring how hot I was, how great I was, how cool this was. Usually I could lose myself in that for hours. Usually that was how I knew I was okay. That being me, that doing this, was okay. I loved that he said these things, and I loved that when I was with him I could believe they were true. Which is different from loving him. But in some ways more powerful.

There was a spot on his back that caused him to shiver whenever I touched it a certain way. I loved that, too. I loved knowing his body that well. But it only worked when we were lying down, relaxed, quiet. When we were pressing against each other in a bathroom stall, there wasn’t that kind of vulnerability, that kind of control. It was like we were now one thing, and everything outside the stall was another. As opposed to when we were truly alone together—then we were each one thing, and the charge came from combining the two.

After a while our mouths and hands took their usual course. When we emerged from the stall, this kid I’d been friends with in seventh grade—Hector—was at the sink, washing his hands. He looked in the mirror and saw us emerge. And then he shook his head, as if to say, What a waste. And I thought, You ass**le. I turned back to Dutch and gave him a long, hard kiss, right in that mirror. Us against the world.

Here’s the thing—even if it was just sex, even if he didn’t say “I love you,” even if I knew it wouldn’t last, you have to understand that I would have been alone without him. I would have been so alone.

I held his hand as we went back into the ballroom. I couldn’t get him as far as the dance floor, but we found friends to talk to, joke with, tease and be teased by. I could see a few teachers and administrators wanting to say something to us about our clothing choice, but as long as we held hands, it was like we were invincible. When the prom queen and prom king were announced, I half expected it to be us. I was a little disappointed when it wasn’t, because I would’ve liked nothing more than to have walked on stage with Dutch, to give him that royal kiss in front of the whole school, to prove that we’d been here, unafraid.

The DJ announced that there was only one more song until the prom song, and that couples should reunite and head for the dance floor. Dutch looked over at the DJ on the stage, then grinned and sparkled even wider. He held me by the hand and led me in the dance floor’s direction. Then, just as we were about to get there, he pulled me to the side, into the shadows. He pointed, and I saw what he’d seen—a small crawl space under the stage, beneath the music. “Come on,” he said, hunching down, heading inside. I followed.

It was a maze of dust and wires and reverb. There was barely enough room to sit upright, so Dutch lay down on the floor, staring up as if the bottom of the stage was full of stars. I crawled next to him, and he immediately rolled to his side and kissed me. His hand ran over my back, then down below my waistband.

The first sounds of “In Your Eyes” came through—the drum and the bell, the steady heartbeat. And then Peter Gabriel’s first words—Love, I get so lost sometimes. I heard them so deeply at that moment. Even though Dutch was pressing into me. Even though I was turned on and warm and with him…I thought to myself, I’m missing something. I stopped kissing Dutch back, and the minute I stopped kissing him back, he knew it and he stopped kissing me. But he didn’t pull away. He didn’t let go. Instead he pulled back enough to see me. To read me. And I stared back at him, daring him not to move. I thought it again—I’m missing something. A few feet away, couples were dancing to their prom song, holding each other tight. I was missing that. And at the same time, I was here, under the stage, being held in this different way. Looking into his eyes. Having him look into my eyes. Staying quiet. Just watching. Feeling our breath, his hand still on the small of my back, on the skin. I realized I would always be missing something. That no matter what I did, I would always be missing something else. And the only way to live, the only way to be happy, was to make sure the things I didn’t miss meant more to me than the things I missed. I had to think about what I wanted, outside the heat of wanting.