Ten years ago, a golden boy sits on the bus seat and smiles, a big toothy grin he will train himself out of in his teens. His wild curls catch dappled sunlight through the open window behind him. Today, when you see him working at a local bakery, you see he’s grown it long, pulled back into an efficient ponytail. It hurts to see him, the way it hurts to shatter nostalgia and be faced with reality— cruel only in its oppressive normality. How long has it been since you saw colors as vivid as your memories?
The cafe music fades to a low background hum as you step forward in line and make eye contact. You see recognition in his eyes, but neither of you addresses it.
“…Hey—“
“Um—“
“Oh, um”
“Hi—“
“Hi”.
You stumble over each other’s words as you grasp for what to say. Ten years of silence is a lot to catch up on in a hello. You watch as his lips form the words “want” and realize you forgot to listen.
“What do you want? To order, I mean”. Oh.
“Iced americano, please”.
“Got it”. The seconds wear on as he presses light fingers onto a tablet screen. You swear you’ve memorized his fingerprints, know him the way you know every one of your own freckles.
“How’s school”? He asks. You’re jolted out of your stupor.
“School is fine. Great, actually”.
“Cool. That’ll be—“
“I’m sorry about… you know”. You stare at his nametag to avoid meeting his eyes.
He’s still staring at you. His face barely moved. “That’ll be 7.50”.
You reach up to say something, but put your hand back in your pocket for your phone. You tap your credit card and go wait in the back for your drink.
“I can help whoever’s next in line!” He motions for the next customer.
You are 13 and you are sitting next to your best friend Matteo on a large, slightly flat beanbag. It sinks in the middle, colliding your right arm against his left. You both squirm, leaning away as you shift, but you’re both sinking deeper into the chair. You turn to look at him and find him already staring. You chuckle to break the tension and start to look away, but he reaches up to touch the inside of your arm. You look back up.
He speaks first. “Hey”.
“Hey— this is weird, I’m sorry, I—“ he cuts you off with a laugh long enough that you catch yourself staring at his teeth, watching as he tilts his head back. He finally looks back at the screen.
“Relax, freak, pick a cart”. Your arms are still touching, and you turn away.
You’re back in the cafe. Your hands are cold from holding your cup. You squeeze, watching the tips of your fingers blanch around the wet plastic. You think about Matteo a lot since you went to University. You wonder if he thinks anything about you.
You are sitting in an attic loft. He is across from you, cross-legged and leaning back, arms braced behind him. You’re both looking through a hazy filter of dust illuminated by the high circular window near the pointed roof. The rest of the room is cloaked in shadow.
“You want to live up here?” You gaze around and feel your mouth pull into a frown. The floor is bumpy and dry. Splinters rise to meet your fingers as they run along the boards.
“Yeah”. He doesn’t notice your disapproval and looks around. You see his face light up as he looks at his imagined space. It is the summer before high school, and you are infinite. The sky is a perfect unbroken blue. The attic is stale and dusty and it is the most beautiful place you have ever been.
He turns back to you. “Jason, what do you think?”
“I love it”, you swear an oath.
It is a month later and the heat of summer is an oppressive weight on your shoulders. You are putting up the last few details in Matteo’s room. You hang up a section of star-shaped lights, he comes in and out with armfuls of stuff from downstairs. Little trinkets for the bookshelf. A T-Ball trophy. The latest yearbook. A stick of deodorant. Books for next year’s English class. You step down off the chair and turn to face him.
He speaks, “Ninth grade, huh?” He laughs, and you see just a hint of his natural smile before it disappears into his practiced one.
“You don’t need to do that”, you tell him.
“Do what?”
“The smile thing”.
He pauses for a second, so quickly you think you imagine it. He says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about”, and lets loose another smile. This one is picture perfect, and something has been broken forever.
An hour later, you’ve both collapsed onto your backs on the bed, sneakers just scraping the floor. Your right shoe bumps against his left. They stay touching. Likewise, your pinkie is sitting near his, and you feel every molecule of air between them. You are sweaty and your bangs stick to your forehead. His fingers lock together with yours. You will never tell a soul about this moment. They wouldn’t get it, anyway.
You watch as Matteo makes coffee after coffee. He doesn’t look up at you from across the cafe. You don’t want him to, anyway. You take another sip of your drink, watered down by now.
It is tenth grade, and your friends are all sitting together at lunch.
“Man, that test was so hard! I shouldn’t have taken AP Calc, I swear”. A teen to the left takes a bite of his lunch.
“Ugh, not like you have a choice, really, with college and everything”. Another blonde girl replies from across the table.
Matteo and you sit across from each other at the end of the table. “How are your classes?” You say between bites of a sad-looking cafeteria salad.
“Fine, I guess. Same as always. You?”
“Not so fast, you’re not getting off that easy. One detail about your day”. You smile at him, and he quirks his lips a little.
“We’re reading Macbeth in English. It’s pretty good”. He looks back down at his pizza.
The blonde girl turns her head. “Wait, aren’t they reading it in like regular English? You’re not in honors or anything? No, I mean it’s totally fine, you are where you are and everything, you know what? Forget I said anything”. Blonde girl is wearing a Harvard sweater, and she won’t stop telling everyone how she went over Spring break. “Just to show interest and everything, you know how colleges are”.
Another guy responds: “I don’t know, dude, a guy in my class just moved up from regular English and Ms. Ramos called on him to read, and it was literal torture. Bro must have been illiterate”.
The table explodes in raucous laughter, the incident forgotten. Matteo gets up and leaves. You follow him outside. He’s sitting on the front steps. You don’t say anything, just sit together and stare at the passing clouds.
You see Matteo on the first day of Junior year. You share a home room, and you save him a seat, but when he walks in 30 seconds before the bell, he takes the seat closest to the door. Did he not see you? You texted all summer, but nothing came back.
After class, you come up behind him in the hallway and put your hand on his shoulder. He jumps, then pretends nothing happened and walks faster. You stop him and pull him into the bathrooms.
“Why are you avoiding me?” He won’t make eye contact with you and keeps trying to make his way back out.
“I’m not avoiding you! Now let me go!”
“Not until you tell me what’s wrong!”
“Nothing is wrong! It’s just the way things are!” As his hand reaches the doorknob, your fingers reach out and graze his back. He flinches like he’s been burned. Matteo pushes the door open with a thud and you are left alone.
You still sit together at lunch. You eat mostly in silence, now. Harvard girl walks up from the lunch line.
“Hey Jason! You’re in APUSH with me, right? That’s so exciting! We should totally study together sometime. Here— “ she grabs your phone from the table and scrolls to the contacts, inputting her name. Maya. “Let me know what days work for you and we’ll meet up. I saw your presentation, I know you’re a rockstar!” She smiles.
You think you remember her having braces once. Her teeth look perfect and shiny and white. “Oh! Matteo! Wow! I didn’t know you two still, like, hung out. That’s so cool! Anyways”. She walks over to the other side of the table where her friends are waiting. Matteo’s face is flat and neutral.
It is October now, and you’re walking your dog when you pass by Matteo’s house. There he is in the attic window. He’s smoking a cigarette, the red molten cherry visible in the dark evening. He hasn’t seen you yet, so you hurry down his driveway to the back door. It’s locked, of course. Please, please… You find the spare key right where it always has been, under the planter.
You leave the dog in the kitchen and tiptoe on quiet feet up to the attic. He is still sitting in the windowsill, dressed in a black tank top and sweatpants.
“Since when do you smoke?” You ask behind him.
“Jesus Christ—oh, it’s you. Don’t scare me like that. You can’t just come in whenever you want! You know what, it’s whatever”. He goes back to smoking, taking a long drag off the cigarette. You join him at the windowsill and see him using his mom’s old ring tray as an ashtray.
“She’s gonna miss that eventually, dude”, you say, staring down at it.
“If you’re here to judge, you can leave”.
“No, I want one”. At that, he snaps his head to look you dead-on.
“One what?”
“A cigarette, come on, dude”.
“I knew what you meant, I just wanted to hear you say it”. This close, you can see each of his eyelashes. It’s not fair how pretty they are.
He stops for a moment, thinking. Hesitantly, he asks: “Have you heard of shotgunning?” You blush. You’re embarrassed that you don’t know, but you’re more embarrassed that you can guess. He takes a long drag, then stares at you. Before you can say anything, his lips are on yours, and you are inhaling smoke from his lungs. It makes your throat hurt and your head spin, but maybe the dizziness is just from kissing. You smell the salt of his skin and blood from cracked lips. You kiss him back, and he pulls away.
“I shouldn’t have done that”, he says, casually. “I understand if you never want to speak to me again”.
Realization hits you over the head. “You’re trying to scare me off”, you say in shock. Your head is still spinning. You can still feel the phantom sensation of his lips on yours. “You don’t mean it”.
He looks agitated and his eyes are cold.
You ask, “What’s going on with you? Just talk to me!”
“I think you should go”. He’s glaring, and he stands up to motion you towards the door. You’re already standing.
“No, you don’t get to do this! You don’t get to kiss me and then throw me out the door without telling me why!” You walk forward and get in his space. You trap him between the bed and the window.
“Well, you weren’t supposed to like it!” He’s getting frantic now. You are both breathing hard. You hear each other’s heartbeats. You kiss him again, and he recoils like he’s been slapped.
“Jason…” he doesn’t elaborate. You don’t think he knows what to say.
“Don’t ‘Jason’ me. You’ve been elusive ever since the school year started. It’s always been you and me, and suddenly you’re just gone?”
“It was never going to be you and me. You know that”.
Your brows furrow in confusion. “What are you even talking about?”
He’s growing more upset. “Don’t you get it? You’ll go off to some fancy college, somewhere beautiful with new amazing friends and smart professors and beautiful girls”, he pauses, “and no freaks named Matteo holding you back”.
You’re shocked. He’s never said anything about this before, at least not that you noticed. “Matteo, is that what you think?” He pushes his curls back, wild and unruly. He stays quiet.
You start to fill the silence. “It doesn’t have to be like that, you know. We can move, go to college somewhere, I’m sure you can find somewhere if we just–”
“You really don’t get it, do you? I’m not going. It doesn’t matter if you find some magic school for losers that will let me in with my shitty grades, but I’m not going. I can’t afford it”. He brushes your hand off his arm. “I’m going to live and die here in this town and there is nothing you or anyone else can do about it. Maybe I’ll even get married, I dunno.”
The attic shrinks around you. A cloud moves overhead, and the moon is revealed, casting soft light on the side of his face. His eyes are watery, and you see him shove his hand at his eye to stop a tear from falling.
You’re not sure what to say. “I’m sorry, I need to leave”. You turn away and close the door behind you.
Back at the bakery, the ice has fully melted, and you are left with an empty cup. You play with it in your hands, pinching the plastic and watching it turn white at the stress points. The bell above the entrance rings out, and a woman walks in wearing a dark coat. Matteo smiles solid teflon, she runs behind the counter and throws her arms around his neck. Your drink is finished. There’s no reason for you to be here anymore. You move your chair back, gather your things, and finally walk out the door.