The rooms are as tightly packed as a box of crayons, and being confined in such a small space with so many people is freaking me out, so I decide to get a breath of fresh air. City life, even in a smaller city like Lexington, is different from life in the mountains. The air is cleaner here, or at least smells better, and you can actually see the stars at night.
After a quick glance up at the twinkling sky lights that have held my admiration for these past twenty-some years, I take a seat on the soft grass. I pull out my phone and scroll through pictures on Instagram, cute pics of cats and dogs, pictures of girls in bathing suits and pictures of people at this party. I stop on Gwen’s account and watch a video of her licking white powder off some girl’s nipples. I roll my eyes and keep scrolling.
Gwen was not like this before I left to go to college. While not exactly prim and proper, she had been sweet and shy, especially around girls she liked. Then something had happened to her, and she’d gone off the deep end, I guess. When I’d come home for Christmas during my freshman year of college, she’d been several inches taller, had gotten her braces removed, and had had pastel pink streaks in her near-white hair. She had become a woman in the six months I had been gone.
“Excuse me,” someone says, stealing my attention away from the illuminated screen in my lap. “But do you have any idea where the bathrooms are?”
Two people, dressed completely in white, stare down at me from the porch. I crane my neck back to get a better look at them. They don’t sound like they’re from around here, and I’m certain I’ve never seen them in school or in town.
“Oh,” I say. “I think there’s one downstairs, right beside the kitchen, and maybe one upstairs? I’m not sure. You should ask my sister. She’s the one in charge, I guess.”
One of the two guests takes a step forward. “Gwen is your sister?” they ask.
I put my phone away and squint into the dark, letting my pupils readjust to the darkness. “Yeah, she is. I’m her brother, Lance.” I get up from the ground and wipe off my palms, then extend my hand. “Nice to meet ya,” I say.
“Lance and Gwen Lotte.” The other person finally speaks. They exchange glances with each other. “You live here, in town?”
“Yep, sure do.” I gesture to my left, using my chin. “About four miles that way. Where are y’all from? I’ve never seen you around here before.”
People of color are few and far between in Avalon. There are black families that I know of in town, but I don’t recall any of them having kids my age, or anyone remotely close to my age.
“California,” they both say at the same time.
When one of them tries to take my hand, the other slaps their hand out of the way. “No. We are not even supposed to be outside, and you want to touch his hand? Have you lost your mind?”
“Who will know, Morgan?” The question is like a hiss, aggressive and serpentine, and not meant for my ears, I think. “Tell me.”
“Our ancestors, the spirits. They will know.”
“You’re taking this Iyawo shit too seriously, you know that? That old man has filled your head with fairy tales.”
“No,” Morgan erupts and jams her finger into the other person’s chest. “You are the one who is not taking it seriously enough.”
“Lance,” the unnamed one says. “It was my pleasure to meet you. Hopefully this will not be the last time our paths cross. Be safe tonight.” The one who appears to be male—maybe?—pulls his hand out of Morgan’s grasp. “I’ll meet you back at the car.”
Morgan calls out, “Mordy!” and chases after him as he swerves in and out of people on the porch.
Mordy. That was Mordy? I hastily pull my phone out of my bag and sign in to the Camelot Crafts account again. Most of his profile is set to private, but I can still see a set of dazzling white teeth smiling back at me. I click on tagged photos and scroll through the public ones. Mordy wears glasses and has perfect teeth, including the silver one in the front. He’s tall and slender, not muscular like Arthur at all. I like the way his bottom lip juts out slightly, plump and ripe for the picking.
Handsome. Absurdly attractive.
In several pictures standing beside him is a girl, whom I assume to be Morgan. They must be twins, because she is absurdly attractive too, with long, well-maintained dreads that match his, and silver beads scattered throughout her hair. They’re dressed in slim-fitting black clothes in all of the pictures—a stark contrast to the matching white outfits they now wear.
I return to the first image and for a second, an overwhelming feeling of déjà vu consumes me, followed by a strong desire to weep—to grieve—to mourn something that I’ve lost, or that I’m about to lose.
I drop the phone and cup my mouth. The sensation lasts only a few seconds, but it’s powerful enough to knock me back into the railing. I have met those two before, but where? I cannot say.
“There you are,” Gwen practically sings when she finds me. “Where’s Arthur?”
“I have no idea. I thought he was with you.” I drop to the ground and scramble on all fours, searching for my phone. No. No. Please don’t be broken.
“No,” she replies, firmly grasping one of the eight pillars on the porch with her hands. “I did see him come out here, though. I thought he was following you.”
I shake my head. “Nope. Are you okay?”
Gwen swings her body around the pillar to stand in front of me. “I was just thinking the same thing, Lance.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask. If I take one wrong step, I’ll smash the phone screen. I’ve done it twice now, and I’ve run out of my student loans. A hundred-dollar screen repair is out of the question. I move my hands in a circular motion, praying that someone’s foot doesn’t find the phone before I do.
“He came here to be with you.”
I don’t like her tone. “Arthur is a free man. He can do what he wants. We’re not joined at the hip.”
“You know damn well freedom is the last thing on Arthur’s mind.”
“I don’t care to talk about sex with you again, and I’m looking for my phone right now. So can we please not?”
Gwen pulls out her phone and uses it as a flashlight, holding it above me while I frenziedly look for mine. “I am not talking about sex. That man is desperately in love with you. Doesn’t that bother you at all?”
“Ah ha!” I find my phone and kiss it, not at all caring that I just inhaled a lump of dirt. “He told me he loved me this evening.”
“What?” Gwen asks. She swings her legs over the railing and balances herself on the metal pole. “And what did you say?”
“Nothing. I told him that I wasn’t ready.”
“When will you be ready? You’ll be twenty-one in three months. Are you going to watch him from the bleachers for the rest of your life?”
“We both know I can’t,” I say. “You and Arthur both know.”
Gwen clicks her tongue. “So…is this a trans thing? Or like a knight-of-the-round-table thing?”
Darkness has fallen so Gwen can’t see me roll my eyes, but that doesn’t stop me from doing it. We haven’t discussed either matter in months, because I can’t bring myself to admit these certain truths that I hold about myself and my friends may or may not be true. She knows I don’t believe in coincidences, or the possibility that some things just aren’t connected, so talking to her about predestination is out of the question.