“Shit,” I say. “Kerouac was in my American Lit class.”
“We’re definitely into another wave of something. I hope it’s not as bad as last time.”
“You be careful.”
“I don’t think careful has much to do with it. You’re the most careful person I know and you were nearly killed by a deer.”
“I’m not the most careful–”
“Dad still home?”
“Nah, he sneaked off to work about eight.”
“You have to admire his willpower.”
“Willpower? I thought drinking too much was a lack of it.”
“The opposite. Trust me. You’re helpless to the behaviour but the effort involved is just unbelievable.”
After we hang up, I call Jared but his phone goes straight to voicemail and no one answers at home.
That’s kind of the limit of the numbers I know by heart. I wonder if I ever will get my phone back.
Then I wonder what will happen to the poor, dead deer. Will someone eat it? Then I wonder if Henna’s arm will completely heal again. Then I wonder the same about the scar on my face. Then I wonder what Henna meant when she said my name as the last thing before unconsciousness. Then I wonder what she meant by saying she didn’t think I loved her.
It’s occurred to me more than once to ask myself if I was gay, too, deep-down. My best friend is, after all, and we’ve fooled around. I wasn’t exactly lying back with my eyes closed either. It was fun. I feel so safe around Jared, it seems only natural that we’d help each other let off some steam once in a while. He thinks it’s because Gods, apparently, are irresistible to humans in the literal sense. Maybe. I think it’s just because he’s a good guy.
I’m also sure he doesn’t like me that way. He said so once because he was afraid I thought that way about him and didn’t want me to get hurt. Which I didn’t and won’t. So, okay, it’s all a little complicated but I’d have been crazy not to at least ask myself the question.
But I dream about girls. In that way. And when I, you know, have the occasional … intimate conversation with myself, girls again. It’s what I look at online, and it’s who I’ve dated in the past. I’ve had sex with two girls, too. Vanessa Wright and I lost our straight virginity together in tenth grade.
We went out for a while and are still friends. And last year, I dated a girl called Darlene who was a waitress at Grillers. She was really funny and really pretty and so embarrassed when she gave me her ex-boyfriend’s crabs that she actually quit her job. I would have been okay with it; a cream cleared them right up, and my mom couldn’t even be all that mad because I’d otherwise been really safe. She was a bit more upset that Darlene was twenty-seven and I was sixteen, but I don’t know, maybe I’m just stupid sometimes.
And then of course Henna. I’ve imagined us for years. Living together. Kids and homes and travel.
I’ve imagined, you know, personal things, too, but always really respectfully. Well … you know what I mean. You do it, too, and when I do, she and I are always in it together, like we’re on the same team and it’s us against everybody else and there’s nowhere else either of us would rather be.
I imagine her as my friend.
And if I don’t understand what she means about the desire in her stomach, well, so what? People are different.
I love her. I do.