Monsters—from the Id!

I watch Ryan as he looks out the bus window, simultaneously fearing and hoping that he’ll turn away from the window and catch me. Fearing, because I don’t want to freak him out so that I’ll never see him again. Hoping, because I desperately want him to see how I feel about him and find out that he feels the same way.

He’s my cousin’s best friend. He lives three states away, where Wendy used to live until last year. He’s only here for a month to visit her, and that month is almost over, and the closer the end gets, the more I don’t want it to arrive, but I can’t tell Ryan that without telling him things about me that I haven’t told anybody.

“I think we got on the wrong bus,” he says without moving.

That breaks the tension that I’m sure I’m the only one feeling. “What was your first clue?” I ask as I watch what should have been the turnaround breeze by. I’m sure he can hear the sarcasm dripping. “Wendy’s gonna be pissed,” I add. This was supposed to be one of those quick “architectural tours” around the city, maybe an hour and a half tops, but looking at the list of tour routes, I realize taking the first available bus meant we were on the one that took three times as long. I picture Wendy sitting in the parking lot, checking the time and fuming, but I can’t bring myself to care that much because it means I’m still here with Ryan. “I’ll just text her and tell her to come get you at my house later.”

I drop the route map and pull out my phone to text Wendy about our situation. As I’m texting, Ryan’s arm brushes against mine, his row of leather bracelets—I’ve never seen so many on one arm before—pressing into me and making my arm tingle. “She says she’ll text you later when she can pick you up,” I say, putting the phone away. “Why didn’t you just let her drive you to these places, anyway?”

“You know she’s not into architecture,” Ryan says, “and I couldn’t get anybody back home to do stuff like this with me, even if we had any architecture worth looking at.” He shrugs. “Anyway, Wendy may be my best friend, but we don’t need to be in each other’s business all the time. She told me you like architecture, too, so I figured we could hang out a little without her, since you’ve been over a lot anyway.” He has a point. Since Wendy and I hang out a lot because she has a license and I’m only fourteen (almost fifteen), Ryan and I have been spending a lot of time together. He just doesn’t know he’s the reason I’m spending so much time with them.

“And anyway,” he adds, “I wanted to get you alone.”

Something in his voice makes me look up to see his hazel eyes boring into me. He’s leaned in so close I can count the freckles on his cheeks and upturned nose, all framed by that curly golden hair. He’s a month and a half younger than me, but even with the freckles and all, he looks older, and there’s something about those eyes and those freckles and that nose that I can’t stop looking at, and there’s a little smile creeping across his lips, and suddenly it’s hard to breathe, and all I can do is stammer, “But…but…we’re on a bus. We aren’t alone.”

“Yeah, but no one’s paying attention to us,” he says, “and we don’t know anybody on here, which means I can finally find out if those looks you’ve been giving me mean what I think they mean.”

Crap. He noticed. I could ask, What looks do you mean? but I know that isn’t going to work. “What if they do mean it?” I ask instead, prepared to bluff this out and hoping this doesn’t mean he’s going to beat the crap out of me the minute he gets me alone—or worse, out me to Wendy and make my life miserable.

He looks a little hopeful. “I’d like it if they do.”

This is wild. I have no idea what to say.

He puts a finger to my lips. I can smell the leather of his bracelets. “Can we go to your house and talk?”

I nod. It’s all I can think of to do.

/sep

#

Ryan’s sitting alone on the couch in the family room when I bring him a soda. My parents are out—they left a note on the fridge to tell me they’re shopping, which means they’ll be gone for a while. “Did Wendy text yet?” I ask him as he puts his drink on the end table. I’m staring at those bracelets again. It seems like one’s missing.

He shakes his head. “Not yet. She probably won’t for a while.” He licks his lips. “So…I wanted to talk to you about—well—”

Time stops as our eyes meet.

“Lucas,” he says softly, “do you like boys?”

I should say no. I should play dumb and say, I’m only fourteen. I don’t know what I like yet. And I’m sure he’d know I was lying, and I’m wishing and hoping I’m right about what he’d say if I asked him the same thing, and I’m caught in the gravitational pull of those hazel eyes as I whisper, “Yeah. Do you?”

He nods, and my heart’s beating triple time now. “Do you like me?” he asks, whispering too.

I can’t speak anymore, so I just nod, and he leans in to touch his lips to mine, and then I’m soaring in the stratosphere and nothing else matters in the world for forever.

His phone chimes. He pulls away, looks at it, grins, types one word, and shows me his screen. It’s one word from Wendy: Well? And his reply: Yes.

“She knew this whole time?” I practically shout.

Ryan grins sheepishly. “Well, she is my best friend.” He kisses me again. “Guess I’ll be coming to visit more often?”

#

When my parents get home, I decide to rip off the proverbial Band-Aid and risk getting kicked out for being . . . different. “Mom? Dad?”

“Ryan’s still here, right?” Mom asks. “Wendy just texted us that she’s on her way to pick him up.”

“Yeah, he’s in the family room.” I take a deep breath. “Listen, I need to tell you something.”

“Ryan’s a nice kid,” Dad says. “And I think he likes you, if you know what I mean.”

While I’m trying to get my jaw off the floor, Mom says, “We’ll have to figure out how you two can see each other more.”

“Uh….” It’s all I can get out.

“When Wendy told us that she thought you two were interested in each other, we thought we’d leave you alone long enough to talk it over.”

That snaps me back into focus. “You…planned…this? With…Wendy?”

“I think Ryan was in on it, too,” Dad says.

“Shit,” I mutter. “He picked the long tour on purpose.” Then it sinks in. “You don’t…hate me?”

“Lucas,” Dad says, “we’d never hate you for being yourself.”

Mom hugs me. “We just want you to be happy.” She looks toward the family room. “Now get back in there before Ryan starts to worry.”

#

Ryan kisses me while Wendy waits in the car to take him to the airport. I still can’t believe Ryan’s parents let him stay an extra week after Wendy told them about him and me. Turns out Ryan was already out to them, and they were chill with giving him more time for us to be together.

“Here,” he says, holding out one of his bracelets. I realize it’s the one I’d noticed was missing two weeks ago. “I made this one myself.” It’s gorgeous, braided leather in three colors with a heart-shaped clasp. “I was saving it for a special occasion?”

“What kind of occasion?”

“To give to my first boyfriend.” Ryan smiles shyly and kisses me one more time before running out to the car, while I start counting the days till I can see him again.