“I’m really sorry,” I say because I don’t know what to say and he won’t look at me. I feel the sweat on my neck from inside my suit.
“Yeah,” he says. No one can hear us.
“I’m here if you need me.”
It sounds stupid when I say it out loud—it’s like something an adult would say, not me. But I mean it.
“Yeah,” he says. His eyes are cloudy like he’s been crying. All week maybe. I didn’t know Stick’s father well, we had like three actual conversations in my life but once I saw Stick at the viewing and as soon as I saw his body—cold and still and deflated, the same size as a human being but flat somehow, like a tire slowly leaking but the air already escaped. I close my eyes and it’s all I can see.
“I just mean, you know like—it doesn’t matter—” I forget how to speak so I’m just spurting words and I don’t know what to do with my hands. I think I should hold him—if it weren’t for the kiss I would reach out and touch him, but I don’t want to scare him. “No matter what, you know—if you just want to talk or whatever, I’m here.”
I’ve been working out what to say all week, alone with Stick if I could see him like this, to let him know the kiss was just a thing, it doesn’t have to mean anything. I memorized some words but I forget them now and it doesn’t matter anymore. He grabs hold of my hand.
“Thanks, Matt.”
His skin is warm, and his eyes meet my eyes in the bright light outside the church. I feel tears coming on.
“You’re welcome.” It’s a stupid thing to say but I’m out of actual sentences and he’s in so much pain I wish we never kissed.
“I better go,” I say when he lets go.
“Yeah. I think we have to—” He glances over to the hearse parked along the driveway. Looming.
“Yeah.” I nod and he nods and Stick’s brothers laugh, loud and unnecessary. I step back.
“Oh, did you hear?” Stick says, reaching out to brush my hand again. “A new World Is song got leaked.”
“Wait, really?”
He pulls his hand back but he’s looking at me. Finally. I don’t even squint at the sun above his head.
“Yeah, someone Tweeted it this morning. Actually, the band did.”
“Oh my god, did you listen?”
“Yeah, it’s amazing.” He pauses and almost smiles and it’s nice, to see him smile. “I can send you the link.”
“Okay, thanks,” I say.
“No problem.”
“Maybe we can listen to it this weekend?” I try. I needed to try.
“I’d like that,” he says but Janice is pushing on Michaela, who’s pushing on Stick, the rest of the siblings climbing into cars lined up behind the hearse out into the street. Stick opens his mouth like he wants to say something else, something profound, but he doesn’t speak. His family takes him away.
FIVE
DAD DRIVES ME TO LINDEN for baseball camp every morning, dropping me off on his way to work an hour before practice, and I used to sit in the stands by myself on my phone, scrolling through pictures of boys on Twitter, but lately I’ve been walking over to Quick Chek to load up on Beef Jerky and Red Bull and Haribo Gummi Bears, the breakfast of champions. We do hitting and fielding drills from eight AM to one, with a lunch that follows then a scrimmage until our parents pick us up—in my case my mom, always the last to arrive, once she gets out of school and through the traffic on Route 1, and we never make it home until late. Stick’s been working nights ever since the funeral and when I do get to see him, either Sammy’s been with us or Trevor and Gavin are with us, like last Saturday at the Quick Chek by the train station, Trevor and Gavin getting high on bad weed, and Staci showed up for some reason. Stick hasn’t been calling as much and I don’t know why he’s not calling as much but we haven’t talked. About anything.
I changed the password on my phone so my parents can’t get in, not that I’m looking at boys on Twitter all the time but if Dad found out who I was looking at, even the super skinny dude I watch on YouTube lisping through the different ways to come out and go out (with a guy) and how to decide whether you’re a bottom or top (he’s such a bottom) and I don’t think I can be like that, I don’t know how to speak like that and I don’t want to dye my hair and get six studs in my nose just to get one stud in my ass, so I’m not sure where I fit in the gay world. And I don’t want to come out in my high school—I’m not even sure anyone’s out actually, I mean there’s some kids where it’s obvious but it’s mostly girls and I’m mostly assuming because it’s not like Sammy or Trevor or Gavin walked me around the halls one day and said “oh yeah, that dude you think is cute—totally gay.” Stick’s not like that anyway so I guess he isn’t gay and maybe that’s okay, I don’t need us to be gay together, I just need us to be friends again. More than anything.
“Time!”
The umpire sweeps the dirt from the plate and my teammate steps out of the box. We’re in the last game of a three-game set against the Dominican kids from Harrison and they’ve been killing us so far but it’s the last day of camp and we’re in the last inning of the game and if someone doesn’t knock in the runner from first it’s over. Finally.
I brought Kakashi’s Story to read in the stands before practice this week, I was in the middle of a scene late the night before and I wanted to keep reading but my teammates interrupted with their aggressive existence, ripping the book out of my hand and reading out loud the part where Kakashi drifts into a dream about one of his favorite novels, Icha Icha—the in-universe series of erotic stories written by Jiraiya. They started calling me “Icha Icha” and the nickname stuck, pretty much all week. I haven’t made many new friends at camp.
“Strike three!”
My teammate heads back to the dugout and I slap his sticky hand on my way to the plate. The pitcher is new this inning but I think he pitched earlier, the way his delivery is strange and his big lanky frame and I should have been paying attention in the on-deck circle because the first pitch comes out at such a weird angle I don’t even think to swing before it’s on the plate.
“Strike!”
I can hear my dad screaming, his booming voice ringing out over the cheers from the other team’s stands. He’s shouting about keeping my eye on the ball and I step out of the box to call for time, sweeping the dirt from the spot underneath me. Dad and I used to watch the Mets and Yankees at our old house, flipping back and forth between innings—he hated the Mets and I hated the Yankees but we used to watch together every summer in the rec room with the air conditioning blasting. It might have been the ankle injury or maybe it happened before, the way I dreaded practice at Woodbridge High, dragging my aching body down to the locker room after a difficult day of classes and more difficult homework and the changing on the benches next to all the bigger boys with their better bodies and their raging … confidence. I was always afraid to look because I didn’t want to look and I didn’t want anyone to think I was looking so I’d keep my head low and change as quick as I could and I hated going to practice every day.