The Music of What Happens - Bill Konigsberg Page 0,59

I liked the kiss. Jordan made me want to do the opposite of vomit.

So why would I even focus on that?

I’m alone in my bedroom. Lying down in bed. After a first kiss with a dude I like. So what’s this heavy syrup filling up my sinuses? Expanding upward.

I shut my eyes tighter, ignoring the weird feeling behind my eyes.

It stays, and then it gets worse, and I even think maybe I should call 9-1-1. Suddenly my face is numb with this syrupy feeling. It’s in my nose, in my head, sloshing down into my chest. And I’m like, Am I going crazy? Focus on the positive. Focus on the good stuff.

Kevin, the name, appears in big, bright lights, and I thrash it out of my brain. My head hits the headboard slightly and that makes me dizzy, but it does nothing to stop the slush. Oh no. I think to myself, Oh no.

I make a deal with God. Please, God. Let me just feel the good thing, not this other —

God says no.

I pinch my eyes closed. There’s a milky, full feeling gathering around my heart. A sludge. Slush. My body goes heavy all the way through, and suddenly I’m underwater again, like when Betts jumped on me, and waves of it fill my sinuses, the veins in my arms, my inner ear.

Dad saw a psychic once. He was into that for like a minute when I was a kid. And he went and saw her and showed her a picture of me. The psychic said I might have tooth trouble in my life, and that if I was ever to be in trouble, I should go to sleep. If I went to sleep when troubled, I’d wake up with an answer. I’ve always remembered that. So I focus on the insides of my eyes and will my heavy heart to slow down.

The shapes inside my eyes intensify, go purple, pop and lock, rearrange and squirm. I feel it. I feel the sleep overtake me. And I’m so, so relieved.

Summer break is here! I flip the blue exam book closed after my AP History final, march up to Mr. Harrison’s desk, place it in front of him, and wait to catch his eye.

“You’re all set,” he says, smiling at me. “Have a great break, you hear?”

“You know it,” I say. “You too.”

I just about sprint down the hallway toward the front door and all the way to my truck. Even the way the steering wheel burns my hands doesn’t bug me, and I roll down the windows and blare the radio as I coast down Guadalupe the mile to my house.

We meet up at Betts’s house for some Madden, and his dad takes us for pizza rolls at Nello’s for dinner. They start talking about a Madden tournament and staying up all night, and I glance down at my phone. Betts notices.

“You got somewhere to be, Maximo?”

I shrug. “Gotta help my mom,” I say.

Zay-Rod acts like this is an act of treason. “First night of break, dude,” he says. “What the hell?”

“If I wanna have a break, gotta take care of Rosa first.”

“Momma’s boy,” Betts says, and I say, “At least my mom’s not a —” and then I remember Mr. Betts is sitting right there, and I stop talking in a hurry, prompting a mischievous laugh from Zay-Rod.

Mr. Betts laughs too. “That’s fine,” he says. “My wife is a prostitute.”

Betts is like, “Dad!”

And we all laugh, and the fact that I’m begging out of our first-night-of-break Madden fest is momentarily forgotten.

The notification comes at 8:05. Just an address, near ASU. My heart flutters. I’ve met dudes from the gay app before, but this one is different. There’s something that just seems right about it. He’s chill. Funny. Said some shit about man buns when we messaged that actually made me laugh, and I can count on one hand the number of times a dude has made me laugh on there. I’m gonna meet him. Kick off the summer before my senior year with my first ASU kegger. Maybe we’ll click?

I’ll see you there, I text.

Not if I see you first, is his response.

I grin because he seems like a mischievous kind of guy, and I like that. Maybe boyfriend material? I’d be good with that. It’s so damn hard to find someone. I’m not friends with the LGBTQ kids at school because I’m not out, because of baseball. One n ten was not for me, and while I