"I'm sorry. My daddy said they need all hands on deck to get this job done in time," I say soothingly, lying out of my ass.
"Oh, well, since it's for your daddy..." she says.
"Speaking of which, I guess I'd better get going," I say, starting to pull on my clothes. "Got an early start."
Misty watches me still pouting, but she softens when I give her a long, loving kiss goodbye. The falseness of it takes all the sweetness out of the kiss and turns it into poison in my mouth, and it all just gets added on to the pile of shit of this endlessly long shitty day of feeling like shit.
I'm not even halfway home when I have to pull over to a side street and park, and I hit the dashboard with my fist in frustration.
"Fuck!" The feeling of being trapped with no way out is growing more and more and more. How am I going to survive this, living this old life for a year until I graduate, or even longer, when now I see it for what it is and I can't even stand it for one night? I don't have a choice, I don't have a choice, I have to stay in this cage! Not just being with Misty, but everything, my entire life is fake and...
My breath is coming short and fast and my palms are feeling sweaty and my vision starts to blur and my chest is feeling tighter and tighter... I try to focus on my breathing like I've been told to even though I feel like I'm suffocating, and right when I feel like I'm going to fucking pass out, like a damn bulldog my mind latches onto the image of him again. Jesse. His tight body and dick are so fucking hot. And I'd never even thought about it before yesterday, but he's good-looking too. That quiet smile on his face when he was looking down at me bathing in his piss. And you can almost see in his eyes that he's smart, kind, good... I smile a little despite myself. And loyal and trustworthy and thrifty and brave, I'm making him sound like a fucking Boy Scout. But that image in my mind's eye is like an anchor. It calms me down, rescues me from being adrift and steers me slowly back to shore, and despite my own resistance to thinking about him I let myself be comforted by the image of him. I'm not going to see him in person any more, but my memories are my own and I can still think about him. Can't I? I can think what I want, and no one will ever know, I decide somewhat defiantly. They haven't invented mind readers yet. I feel like I'm playing a dangerous game here, but if the alternative is to have a breakdown in public I guess there's not much choice really. At least that's how I rationalize the situation to myself as I start my truck again and head home.
What am I going to do. What the hell am I going to do. I've been in this cage damn near my whole life, haven't I? And there's no way out, no way out... The panic starts to set in again... But I try to shake it off by focusing on the fact that I need to make a plan. I need to find some escape route, there's gotta be a way, there's gotta be something I can do. Eventually I hit on the idea that if I blow Misty off and ignore her as much as I can, pretend to be too busy or too tired to meet up, maybe she'll get bored with me enough that she'll break up with me. Knowing her, not having me follow her everywhere like I used to, not having her arm on her favorite accessory all the time to show off, that might just be enough for her to get with someone else. But if she's set on marrying me, her high school sweetheart, football star, rich daddy, then she's going to be impossible to shake off... In my mind I try to imagine the chances that my plan will work, but I just can't predict what she's going to do. But at least now I have some idea of what I can do.
When I get home I say hi to my daddy and grab a beer from the fridge on my way up to my room. I open the window, strip to my boxers, and lie restlessly in bed, sure I'm going to have another long sleepless night. But then I suddenly get an idea. I hurriedly scan my mostly bare bookshelf and look around my desk and in the drawers and rummage through some piles of junk in my closet, and I finally find it buried underneath some forgotten jockstraps and old football pads. My yearbook from last year. I feel pretty guilty about pulling it out, but I can't help flipping quickly through it. I skip past the seniors' pages and look through the club pages that are near the front pretty quickly, scanning for his name. Despite making fun of his club activities, it doesn't look like he's actually in any clubs. Guess he doesn't have time for them.
I slow down when I get to the section for photos of the juniors. I come across Misty's photo first. Perfect smile, perfect hair, perfect make-up, she's like a real life plastic Barbie doll. There's a reason why every guy in school wants her. She's so good at playacting that just looking at her picture you wouldn't even guess what a bitch she is to everyone who isn't me. I see my picture next. I guess I'd be considered good-looking, but what strikes me about the photo is the look in my eyes. Honestly, I look like an arrogant little prick. I sigh a little, but it's been a long day of feeling ashamed about myself, so there's nothing new there.
Finally, I find his picture. Jesse Grayson. I study it closely, still feeling guilty, like I'm invading his privacy, like someone's going to catch me in the act. Dark untameable hair. Brilliant hazel eyes, intelligent with a bit of a cynical, wise to the world look to them. Glasses, magnetic half smile. The expression on his face is an odd combination of "Don't notice me", a blend-into-the-background wallflower type of look, but there's also that underlying defiance, that toughness that draws me in so much, like, "I don't care if no one notices me. Fuck them." It's not arrogance though. His expression says, "I've got better things to do than care what you think of me." It's like he's above us all, not in a superior way, but in a completely confident way, like he's resting on a foundation as solid as a rock and everyone else is living on sand. Like he's the human who doesn't care a bit about what ants think about him, because they're just too small to be worth bothering about. We're not even on his radar. I can't think of anyone I've ever met who cares so little about what anyone else thinks about him, and it takes me a minute to recognize the emotion I'm feeling. Envy. I wish I could be more like him.
I can't help myself. I touch the photo of his face lightly with my thumb, and that tiny little act makes me smile a little at how cheesy and dumb I'm being. But I can't ignore the little jolt that passes through me from such a small, silly little act, and it's like before when I was sitting on the shore of the lake when I was looking for him. It's stupid, but somehow seeing his picture makes me feel connected with him in some small way. And even though I'm hidden away in the privacy of my own room, I feel myself blushing a little. Fuck, I think, for what feels like the thousandth time. What the fuck is wrong with me?
The mental and emotional weariness of the day, the whole week, finally catches up with me, or maybe seeing his picture has relaxed me some, and I finally find myself drifting off. The yearbook drops down and my arms hug it lightly to my chest, and I try to imagine what it would be like, not caring about the rest of the world like that. What would it be like, feeling that... that free...
Right on the edges of consciousness, right as I'm falling asleep, a faint little voice is saying, Dusty, don't you remember, you have felt that free, once... When was that? But just as I'm about to remember I'm out like a light...
