Hopefully, the voice insists, louder this time, he’s not just kissing you for his self-esteem. Because you told him he’s beautiful, after the world made him feel ugly.
Something pulls in my gut, and I feel like I might be sick.
I slow down the kissing, my head spinning with the new, horrible thought. Zach picks up on the change, and pulls away, panting. “Are you okay?”
No. I genuinely think I’m going to throw up. I try to breathe steadily, to bring the room, and reality, back into focus. The nausea settles, but the terror in the pit of my stomach doesn’t.
I want to beg for reassurance, but he’s drunk, and confused, and now isn’t the time. He probably wouldn’t tell me the truth even if he understood the driving force behind his kiss. And that’s a big “if.” For him, the clarity will come tomorrow, when he’s reflecting and regretting.
And we’ll be destroyed. And we might never come back from it.
All for a kiss.
Zach rolls off of me, and sits beside me. “Ruben?”
“I think maybe we should just go to sleep.”
“I don’t … I’m sorry,” he says.
He sounds hurt. God, he sounds so hurt. But he’ll thank me tomorrow, for stopping it before it went further. He’s drunk. I’m drunk. When he’s sober, he’ll understand.
“Don’t be sorry. It’s fine. Just don’t … worry.”
I roll onto my side so he can’t see me, and press a hand against my mouth to keep myself quiet. My lip’s trembling, and my jaw is clenched tight against a wave of disappointment and panic.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
What have I done?
SIX
ZACH
What have I done?
I’m still in bed with Ruben, as close to the edge of the bed as I can be without falling off. Every second since has stretched on and on, even as the sky got light. I haven’t slept at all, but I’m forcing myself to stay still, so I don’t make things weird.
Weirder than they already are, anyway. Because holy fuck.
I kissed him. Or he kissed me. We kissed each other, I guess.
And I liked it. I was drunk, but not so drunk I can’t remember that. It was one of the best kisses of my life. It practically blew my mind, how good it was. But that makes no sense, because he’s a guy. I want a girlfriend. Like, when I think of my future I think of myself with a wife, a house, and a dog. The only thing that’s changed about that picture since childhood is how expensive the house would be. That doesn’t line up with the kind of guy who kisses another guy and loves every second of it. It just doesn’t.
Ruben stirs next to me and I nearly jump out of my skin. I get the impression he’s faking being asleep, though, his movements seem a little too deliberate. He settles back down with a soft moan, burying his head in the pillow.
His back is well muscled, and his hair is short and messy. He’s so clearly a dude. Still, the kiss was hot and sweet and all-consuming, everything I want a kiss to be. I don’t think I’ve wanted anything as much as I wanted to keep kissing him, to never stop kissing him.
It’s not the first time I’ve ever thought of kissing a guy, of course. But those thoughts have only lasted a few seconds. They’re anomalies, things I think when I’m tired or drunk or—
Or are they?
I’ve had fleeting feelings for guys that are something like tiny crushes. The sort where you start to notice someone like that, and then they force their way into your mind at random moments, and you can’t stop your eyes from wandering to them whenever they’re near. When they start to become really important, more than a regular friend. Normally it happened with a soccer teammate, and I’ll admit my brain did go to mush one time when I was talking to our captain, Eirik, and he pulled up his shirt to wipe his brow mid-conversation.
After times like that I wondered if I could be gay. But I’m not. I’m not. I’ve fallen for girls before, hard. Gay guys have to pretend when they’re with a girl, and I’ve never had to; kissing and sex has always been great. Hannah completely took over my world when I first fell for her. I don’t think it’s normal for a gay guy to have romantic feelings for a girl, nor for them to get their heart broken by one.
Obviously I know there are more options than gay or straight, too, but none of the other things have ever felt like they matched me, either. My crushes on girls have been a steady, recurring presence throughout my life, and the idea that it would happen again once I got over Hannah was extremely comforting. Like, I could tell myself it’s fine, because I knew I would like someone again eventually, when I was ready. The crushes I got on guys were weird blips, things that would catch me by surprise and cause me confusion, and maybe a little panic, until I forced them out of my mind. Then I’d get a crush on a girl and she’d be all I could think about, and I’d get all swoony and happy and mostly forget about ever micro-crushing on a dude. That I even could crush on a guy, even if it was a small crush. I’m sure it’s common to get such minuscule crushes on other people. It doesn’t mean I’m queer. If I felt the way about guys that I felt about girls I’d know it.