“We could have walked here,” I said when Diego parked on the side of the beach road. It was empty, save for a couple of packs of cyclists that whizzed past, wearing those obscenely tight spandex shorts.
“I didn’t want to carry that.” He pointed at a long black duffel bag in the backseat.
“Are those the tools you’re going to use to kill and dismember me?”
Diego rolled his eyes. “If they were, do you think I’d tell you?”
“I’d tell you.”
“As if. I’m pretty sure the only thing you could dismember is a sandwich.” Diego hoisted the bag over his shoulder. “Speaking of, there’s a sack with subs on the floor. Grab the pop, too.” He started down the dunes, and I had to hustle to catch up. By the time he stopped, my shoes were full of sand, so I kicked them aside and peeled off my socks.
“If I’d known we were going to the beach, I would have worn flip-flops.”
“You usually do. I hadn’t expected you to be in fancy dress.”
“Fancy?” I tried to ignore my burning ears, but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t put some thought into my outfit. Still, it was only jeans and a V-neck tee. Compared to Diego, though, I suppose I was a little dressy. He was wearing khaki shorts and a green tank that showed off his lack of tan lines and his impressive shoulders. I tried not to stare at the way his muscles rippled when he moved, but I rationalized that it would be insulting not to admire them a little. “Anyway, at least I can pick a style and stick with it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Preppy one day, surfer the next. It’s like you can’t decide who to be.”
Diego shrugged. “I like to try new things. You don’t go to a buffet and only eat spaghetti all night.”
“Still, it’s weird.” I walked to the edge of the water and breathed in the salt air. The sun had set, but the western sky was the color of peach skin, while the sky over the ocean was a clear lapis blue. The moon was a bright smile, hovering high to the south. “Is this the surprise?”
Diego knelt beside the bag and lifted out a navy tube and black tripod. It slipped, and I rushed to help. “It’s my sister’s telescope. I thought you’d enjoy looking at the stars.”
“I guess.” I’d never looked through a telescope before, and I’d always wanted to, but I kept waiting for Diego to crack an alien joke or ask me about the abductions, even though he hadn’t mentioned either in weeks.
After twenty minutes of trying to set up the telescope, Diego threw his hands in the air and admitted defeat. I had no idea what I was doing, but I tried to aim it at something interesting anyway. “You know,” I said, as I fiddled with the knobs, “I kind of like that you suck at something.”
“Me? You’re crazy. I suck at lots of things. Stargazing, for instance. And Ping-Pong. I’m the world’s worst Ping-Pong player.” Diego busied himself with spreading out a ratty blanket that had been wadded up in the bag with the telescope. “Anything?”
I peered through the eyepiece and tweaked it until I managed to bring Neptune more or less into focus. “Check it out.”
Diego sprang to his feet and peeked through the lens. “Is it supposed to be that small?”
“It’s almost three billion miles away. Even traveling at the speed of light, it would still take about four hours to reach.” I tried to imagine standing on that cold, distant planet, breathing hydrogen and helium, viewing Earth from the other side of the solar system. I wondered if it was lonely out there on the edge of space, so far from the light and warmth of the sun. “I bet I can find Saturn. We can probably see its rings.”
“It’s not a very good telescope, is it?”
“Better than nothing.”
Diego patted the tube. “Viv got it cheap, I think. She’s not a telescope expert.”
“And you are?”
“No.” Diego swiveled the telescope to another part of the sky and looked through the eyepiece. He kept adjusting the knobs, but I don’t think he knew what he was doing. “I just thought I could show you something beautiful.” He glared at the telescope. “Or try to, anyway.”
I trudged back to the blanket, flopping down and staring at my toes. It was one of the most considerate things anyone had done for me, and that twisted my stomach into knots. “Why are you so nice to me?”
“I’ve got a soft spot for lost causes.”
“I’m not your charity case.”
Diego abandoned the telescope and sat across from me. The way he looked at me—with curiosity or pity, I couldn’t tell which—made me wish I’d ignored his text. “It was a joke, Henry.”
“That’s what Marcus always says.”
“That’s because he’s a douche.”
“He’s not. I mean, yeah, he is, but sometimes he’s okay.”
“Wait.” Diego’s eyes widened. “Please tell me Marcus isn’t the guy you’ve been fooling around with.”
“No,” I said, but it was obvious I was lying when my voice broke. “Damn it.” I stood and walked to the water, let the waves run over my toes. If I dove in, maybe I could swim off the edge of the world. When I heard Diego behind me, I said, “Don’t you dare tell anyone.”
“I won’t.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know how to keep a secret.”
“That’s obvious.”
I waited for Diego to decide I was too much trouble, to leave or fight with me. Something. He simply stood beside me while the moments passed and my anger drained into the ocean. Then he said, “Do you actually like him?”
“I thought I did.”
“He’s not the kind of guy I figured you’d go for.”
“He isn’t.”
“Then why?”
“Because he’s not Jesse.” It was the first time I’d admitted it to myself. Marcus and Jesse were so different. Jesse had never called me Space Boy, he never would have hit me, hadn’t cared what his friends thought, and I’d never felt ashamed of who I was with him. Jesse had loved me.
But that’s a lie, isn’t it? If Jesse had loved me, he wouldn’t have left me. “Marcus isn’t a bad guy. He can be sweet.”
A wave splashed across my feet and sloshed up my legs, soaking the cuffs of my jeans. In the dark it was difficult to see where the ocean ended and the sky began; I could pretend the sky curved down and around, and that it was possible to walk on the clouds. But even though I wasn’t looking at Diego, I felt the pull of him, the way he distorted everything around him so I didn’t know what was right or real anymore.
“What about all the names he calls you? The shit he and his friends put you through? A guy who does that . . . Well, he’s not really boyfriend material. I mean, is that honestly who you want to be with?” Diego’s voice contained a dangerous undertow. He hardly sounded like the boy who’d flung himself into my chemistry class, pretending to be a nude model. “Well, is it?”
I knew the answer. Jesse Franklin was who I wanted to be with. Jesse, who’d wrapped his arms around my waist and kissed my neck and told me it was going to be okay after I fought with my mom, and who stayed up all night on the phone with me when he went to Rhode Island to visit his family for Christmas, and we watched the sunrise together even though we were separated by 1,377 miles. That was who I wanted to be with. But he was dead. “Maybe that’s what I deserve,” I said under my breath.
“What?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it does.”
“We’re all going to die.”
“Which is why it matters.” Diego stood beside me quietly for a few seconds before he returned to the blanket. “Hungry?” He tossed me a sub—roast beef with all the veggies. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I hated onions.
“Thanks.” I unwrapped it and ate it even though I wasn’t hungry. Diego didn’t know what he was talking about. He didn’t know Marcus, he didn’t know Jesse, and he didn’t know me. If he did, he’d understand.
“I met Jesse freshman year. I knew who he was; ev
eryone knew Jesse Franklin. It wasn’t that he was popular, but he had this way of dominating a room. No matter how many other people were there, you couldn’t help noticing Jesse.
“Of course, he talked to me first. I never would have had the courage to approach him. It was during lunch. I always sat alone, reading, and he walked up to my table, all smiles and perfect hair, and asked me if my name was Daniel. I told him it wasn’t, but he insisted I looked like this guy Daniel he’d known from summer camp. Finally he asked me my name. But it wasn’t just Jesse standing there. It felt like every kid in the cafeteria was at my table asking. I’ve never done well under pressure, so when I opened my mouth to answer, I said, ‘I don’t know,’ instead.”
Diego snorted and laughed.
“Jesse gave me this crazy look and was like, ‘You don’t know your own name?’ and all I could do was nod, even though in my brain I was screaming, ‘Henry Denton! My name is Henry!’ Jesse eventually returned to his own table. I was sure I’d blown my only chance to get to know him.”
“But you hadn’t,” Diego said.
“No.” I felt a tear burning in the corner of my eye, but I refused to acknowledge it. I wasn’t going to cry in front of Diego. “I ran into him at the mall a few weeks later. Actually, he’d found out my name from one of his friends, and when he saw me with my mom shopping for shoes, he chased after me, yelling my name. My mom thought he was a lunatic, but all he wanted to do was give me his number.”
Diego finished his sub and tossed the crumpled wax paper into his duffel bag. “Your Jesse sounds like a cool guy.”
My Jesse. He wasn’t anyone’s Jesse anymore. “He was the best. We spent almost every second together, and when we were apart, it hurt—it physically hurt. My entire life revolved around Jesse, but in the end, it didn’t matter. He slipped a noose around his neck and hanged himself without saying good-bye. No note, no text, no last voice mail. The last thing he said to me was that I needed a haircut, like it was just another day. Only, it wasn’t any other day. It was the day before he committed suicide. If everything matters, wouldn’t Jesse have said something more meaningful? Wouldn’t he have wanted to do more than hang out and watch TV like we always did? Wouldn’t he have at least left me a note to explain why he felt he had to die, instead of leaving me here alone, wondering why. Why is Jesse dead? Why am I not?”
I waited for Diego to answer. I wasn’t sure how he had expected this night to go, but I doubted it was this. There was nothing he could say that would change my mind, but I waited for him to try. Instead he said, “Do you think we could see them with the telescope?”
“Them?”
“The aliens.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay, sure.” A moment later he said, “I believe you, you know.”
“I don’t need you to believe me.”
“I know. It’s one of the things I like most about you.” It caught me off guard, and I didn’t know how to reply. Diego stood up, brushing the sand off his shorts. He peered through the telescope again. Maybe he was looking for the sluggers, maybe he just wanted to see the stars and dream of a world beyond this one while I sat on the blanket and remembered Jesse. Dreams are hopeful because they exist as pure possibility. Unlike memories, which are fossils, long dead and buried deep.
We stayed at the beach for a while longer but, no matter how much we fiddled with the telescope, the stars never seemed so far away.
30 October 2015
Sometimes I wonder if the sluggers sent Diego Vega to Calypso to test my resolve. It makes more sense than his persistent attempts to be my friend when everyone else at school barely notices me. His reluctance to talk about his past coupled with the fact that I haven’t been abducted since Marcus’s party makes me seriously consider that this is simply an elaborate experiment and Diego is nothing more than a variable in a slugger equation. For all I know, it might not even matter whether I press the button. Not that I’ve changed my mind about that.
• • •
The Friday before Halloween, Principal DeShields allowed students to wear costumes to school, though the list of prohibited items was extensive and included:
Masks
Weapons (real or fake)
Excessive cleavage
Wearing underwear on the outside of clothes
Fake blood (or bodily fluids of any kind)
Glitter
Vampire teeth (which may or may not have fallen into the weapon’s category)
Clown costumes of any kind
I didn’t wear a costume, but Marcus showed up as Captain America, and I overheard Audrey claim to be Joan of Arc, which was fitting. Ms. Faraci was supposed to be an oxygen molecule, but her outfit—pieced together with coat hangers, duct tape, and cardboard—carried the unfortunate whiff of homemade desperation. It’s both cool and mortifying to have a teacher so passionate.
Marcus, Jay, and Adrian spent the entire period whispering to one another, cutting up like they didn’t think anyone could hear them. I did my best to ignore the name-calling and laughter, and between the impending end of the world and Diego, I hadn’t spent much time worrying about what fiendish plans Marcus and his boys were cooking up.
Before the bell rang, I noticed Diego waiting outside the door. He grinned at me and waved. We were only friends, but I hoped Marcus saw him. It was tough to tell whether Diego had dressed up like a surfer for Halloween—wearing board shorts and a tank top—or if he was just trying on another style. Anyway, it never seemed to matter what Diego wore; he always looked like he belonged. I envied that about him, since I never belonged anywhere.
The classroom became bedlam when Ms. Faraci dismissed us for lunch. I’d started hanging back, waiting for Marcus and the others to leave first. Adrian especially enjoyed shoving me into the edge of my desk, leaving me with bruises across my thighs, so I’d learned it was best to remain seated until they were gone. Diego stood at the threshold of the door, leaning from one foot to the other.
“Ah, my nude model has returned.” Ms. Faraci waddled around her desk and lifted the oxygen molecule over her head, setting it on the floor. She looked strange and lumpy in her faded unitard.
Diego blushed. “Yeah. Sorry about that. First-day jitters.”
I shouldered my bag and hurried for the door. “Have a good weekend, Ms. Faraci.”
“Henry, wait.” I flinched, knowing what she wanted. “About your extra credit.”
My chemistry grade was the last thing I wanted to discuss in front of Diego. And I had a perfectly horrible BLT waiting in my locker. Of course, the B was actually butter and the T was probably tuna—I really needed to stop letting Nana pack my lunches. “Can we talk about it later?”
“Your last quiz was an improvement, but you still need to do the extra credit project to pull your grade up. You need at least a B to get into physics next year.”
“I’ll think about it.” I inched closer to the door with every word.
“It can be anything, Henry. Essay, experiment, song and dance. Just give me something I can slap a grade on.” She was practically begging.
The last time a teacher cared so much about my academic welfare was in first grade. All the standardized tests said I was a below-average reader, but Mrs. Stancil kept me after school every day to tutor me. I don’t remember when the blocks of words began to make sense, but by the end of that school year I’d gone from book hater to bookworm. But this was different, and I wanted to tell Ms. Faraci not to waste her time. None of this would matter in ninety-one days.
“You should write a story, Henry,” Diego said, stepping into the classroom. “Henry likes to write, you know.”
Ms. Faraci’s eyes widened with delight. “I did not know that.”
I prayed for the sluggers to take me away, but they didn’t answer. They were probably using their alien technology to spy on me, laughing their eyestalks off. “Don’t listen to Diego. He lies. Pathologically. He can’t help himself.”
“D
id I ever tell you that I was almost an English teacher? I spent a year studying medieval literature.” Ms. Faraci’s molecules were jittery with excitement. “I would love it if you wrote a story.”
With Diego and Faraci both gaping at me, hope and optimism relentlessly beaming from them, my resolve began to fizzle. “What would I write about?”
“Write what you know,” Diego said.
“But I don’t know anything.”
Ms. Faraci shook her head. “Oh, Henry, don’t you understand? You know everything.”
• • •
It was a stupid idea to schedule PE immediately after lunch.
Coach Raskin informed us after we’d dressed that we were going to be running four miles—mandatory participation—with him jogging behind us screaming inspiration in the form of personal insults, as if that were actually going to work. Yes, I did want to go home and cry to my mommy. No, I did not care that a one-legged octogenarian could outrun me.
I managed to jog the first mile, but the air was thicker than tree sap, and the pizza I’d eaten for lunch instead of the “BLT” squirmed in my stomach like a bottled-up squid. I tried to keep up my pace for the second mile, but I developed a stitch in my side, right under my ribs, and I was panting so hard, I thought I would faint. When everyone else had finished and gone to the locker room to change, I still had two laps to go, and Coach Raskin made sure I completed them.
The first bell had already rung, so the showers were empty, which I was grateful for. Showers after gym had been mandatory in middle school, and I’d spent years perfecting how to be naked for the least amount of time. The other boys seemed comfortable in their own skin; I felt like an alien. If I hadn’t been soaked with sweat and smelled like the inside of one of Charlie’s sneakers, I would have doubled up on deodorant and skipped the shower. But since I was already going to be late for last period, I decided it didn’t matter. Besides, I didn’t want to reek when Diego took me home.