How They Met, and Other Stories(44)
Author: David Levithan

songs before I am ready, sing him

back the moments he has missed.

as if to say, this is where I was

when you couldn’t find me.

The sound of my voice means

I have returned to him, ready

for a different kind of duet,

that delicate, serendipitous pairing

of listened and sung. He accepts that,

and wants more.

black ink

falls on the blue lines

spelling out silences

harboring words

you think

my love’s not the true kind

unanswering questions

do not disturb

but I’m not leaving you

when I leave you

I’m not forgetting

that we’re getting somewhere

I’m just trying

to figure my part of this

my place in the world

with you standing there

with you standing there…

Our local coffee hangout decides to throw

a weekly open mic night. I decide to go

as a member of the audience, unsure

about playing in a town that knows me

unwell. A local band snarls through

three songs, then a girl from my school

recites poems from a long black book.

I realize I can do this, that I want to be heard,

that it’s possible I have something to say.

Word spreads, and all the next week,

my friends tell me to do it, convince me

they’ll be there next time. And that is perhaps

the most surprising thing, to feel such support

for this secretive calling. So I sign my name

to the roster, and Caleb makes fliers

on his computer. He slips them into lockers

and strangers from school tell me they’ll be there.

Sometimes I’ve skipped study hall and

practiced in the abandoned stairwell by

the auditorium. Now I’m seeing how many

people have overheard. They have listened in.

I practice past my curfew, past midnight,

into dreamtime. In a moment of weakness,

to fend them off from laying down the law, I tell

my parents I have a gig coming up, as if

they would be proud of me singing in public.

My mother, polite, says it sounds nice.

My father tells me it had better not interfere

with my homework. I tell him it won’t,

in a voice that’s so ready to leave.

Doors do not slam, but they do not stay open

as I sneak music into the house, as I whisper

my longings to the furniture, my fears

to the ceiling, my hopes to the line of

hallway light that goes off beneath my door.

silent night

stay with me

hold me tight

then set me free

daylight will

blind me still

the child’s dream

not what it seemed

we search for safer passage

we pray our eyes adjust

we cling to all that’s offered

we do what we must

storm outside

thunder warns

deepest fears

since we were born

take me now

show me how

to fight the dark

to find a spark

you are my spark

Who is the you? Sometimes when I’m writing

I don’t know. I am singing out to the stranger

of my songs.

On Friday, Caleb won’t take no for an answer.

We are going out to the club he loves, the one

I’ve always managed to avoid. He wants to dance,

and he wants me to dance with him. I can’t

say no. Even though I dread it, even though

it’s not my thing, I will do it for him, because

he has done so much for me. He asks me what

I’m going to wear, and I tell him I was planning

on wearing what I wore to school. He laughs

and tells me to go home and put on something

a little more clubby. For him, this means tighter.

For me, this means darker jeans. When I go home

to change, I don’t pick up my guitar, because

I know if I do, I might never leave it.

It’s under-18 night at the Continental,

which means there’s no drinking,

except for the few hours beforehand.

I carry a small notebook in my back pocket,

although I can’t see the music coming to me

here. It is too loud. A singer-songwriter

nightmare. Speakers blasting the thump-thunk-thump

of a dance floor mainstay, while the singer belts

the same three lines over and over and over again.

I love this song! Caleb cries, pulling me into

the flashing lights. He looks hot, and everyone else

seems to be noticing. I am lost. It feels like the music

is being imposed on me. I struggle to sway while

Caleb soars. This is his place. This is the liberation

he’s found. And there is something beautiful about it,

this closed room where boys slide up to boys

and they find a rhythm that defies everything outside.

The music elevates them, takes their cares away

and gives them only one care in return—this movement,

this heat, these lights that turn them into a neon crowd

feverish in their release, comfortable in their bodies

as they leave them in the synthesized rush.

I observe this without feeling a part of it.

Caleb holds me and pulls me into him and I feel

nothing but the ways my body can’t move,

the songs inside that are being drowned out

in this rush. Caleb asks what’s wrong and I say

nothing and keep trying until Caleb senses it again,

says what’s wrong and this time I know what’s

implied—that the something that’s wrong

is me. I tell him I need some water, and when I go

he does not follow.

I get some water and stand on the sidelines.

I watch him and don’t recognize him

as the boy I have felt love for. He is joyous

in his movements, holding and groping and swaying

in time with his new partner. And I know it’s not

that he likes this other boy, I know it’s just part of

the dance, but suddenly I am seeing all the things

I will never be able to give him. I am seeing

that I cannot be a part of the music that sets him

free. And it’s seeing it in those terms that does it,

that makes me fill with loneliness. I will stand here

for the rest of the night, and he will dance there.

He has listened to me for hour upon hour, and so

I have dressed the part, I have made the appearance,

I have tried the groove. But in the end he will say

I closed my ears to him, and he will not be wrong.

I take out my notebook, take out my pen,

but the lines remain empty. I cannot think,

I am thinking so much.

For the first time ever, we drive home in silence.

He is sweaty, ragged, angry, beautiful.