One Too Many Chapter One

This is it; the day I unveil my heart.

The thought is brighter than the sun gripping us in white hot fingers that make shadows sharp like angry words and lines of vision narrow into cracks of curtain until everyone sees through a predator’s eyes. It is louder than the chatter around us, from the ceaseless talk of passersby to the trill of excited birds to the babbling of Cupid’s Fountain cooling the air behind us. I feel like the water, carefree and laughing, tripping down stairs only to fly back up again on gossamer wings, sending little rainbows in every direction. I grip the concrete beneath me, the lip of the fountain, hard, afraid I might float away. It feels soothing against my sweating palms, imprinting a maze onto my hands that I can’t quite follow.

Bryant is beside me, sun glinting off of white skin and disappearing into his crown of brown curls. I bite my lip and stare at him while he’s still distracted by something in the distance. He looks as strong and as safe as the concrete is, and just as soothing. Long lashes protect blue eyes that are as easy to drown in as the sea, and his lips are full and honestly exquisite. I am so distracted by his lean chest and guitar-calloused hands that I almost don’t hear him say my name, which falls from his mouth like the butterflies in my stomach, that rush in expectation.

“Desiree.” He is still not looking at me, and again the thought thrums like a heartbeat. This is it. Me, unveiled. This is it. “Do you remember what we promised the other day, about not keeping secrets?”

“Actually,” I say, wincing as my voice threatens to crack, “I was going to bring that up myself.” I grip the concrete harder as he turns his drown-worthy eyes on me. He blinks, the shadow of his lashes caressing his cheek long before they do, and I bottle in a sigh. “But you can go first.” The butterflies are nearly a hurricane now, swirling up to my throat and into my lips until they throb faintly and I’m forced to slightly part them. I feel like I’m waiting for a kiss.

“I’ve been thinking about what I want in life, Desiree.” Bryant is speaking, and I struggle not to watch the way the corner of his mouth twitches as though desperate for a smile, but of course I can’t help it. “Do you remember Synthia’s party?” I nod, trying not to watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down, but my eyes are drawn against my will. “I met someone there. His name’s Donavon.” I bite my lip to keep from gazing at his nostrils as they flare slightly, but I have no choice. “And– Desiree, are you listening?”

I look into his warm eyes and want to blurt out my secret. I love you, Bryant! But I know that he has not yet shared his secret, and I dig my fingertips into the stone to gather patience from it. “You met a guy last week at Synthia’s party.” The words sound rehearsed and taste flat on my tongue.

Bryant nods, short and quick, his gaze once again retreating to the far distance. “We’ve been talking, and…” His cheeks redden, a sunrise over snow. “Desiree, I trust you with everything. I trust our friendship more than the world. Desiree…”

“Yes?” The word is choked and small. I feel something big coming on, and I am worried.

Bryant’s cool blue eyes fix on me once more as he flings out the last of his words. “I think I’m a homosexual, and I think I’m in love with Donavon.”

My heart drops, killing all the butterflies, crushing them under its weight. Slivers of shredded wings make their way to my throat and threaten to suffocate me. I feel like the water again, though not laughing as before. Rather, I feel weak, trembling, my gut heavy with moldy coins: forgotten wishes that fill me and make me sick. Bryant’s eyes are wide and desperate for reassurances. I open my mouth to deliver them, but the bits of butterfly make it next to impossible.

Before the words can claw their way to my lips, Bryant grabs onto a wavering string in the space between us. “What was it you needed to tell me?”

I swallow air, praying for a terrible case of hiccups so I won’t have to talk. “I…am thinking of changing my major.”

“Really? What to?” His voice is strained, looking for something. I shrug. I can tell by his defeated look that it isn’t what he wants. “Desiree…”

“I’m sorry Bryant. I’m trying to process it.” I look at my shoes, carefully picked to match the outfit to match the day I was going to tell Bryant that I love him. I suddenly want to kick them off, burn them, rip them into pieces like my heart.

“Are we still friends?”

The question is so open and quivering and timid that I immediately feel terrible, wrapping my arms around his familiar form. “Of course, Bryant. Forever.” I take a deep, shuddering breath, a kind of armor for my next words. “I would like to meet him.”

“Donavon?”

“No, Jerry Springer.” I giggle and lightly punch his shoulder. “‘Oh help me, my best friend’s a homosexual.’ Of course him.” Bryant smiles, making my heart stir slightly. I don an impish grin. “Then you can help me pick out a new purse.”

Bryant scowls, turning and tickling me suddenly, and I fall backwards, my arms diving into the fountain with a gasp and a splash. We both laugh loudly, and it is suddenly as if nothing has happened. We discuss school, groan about essays due, and make plans for coffee tomorrow.

Coffee with Donavon.

~~~

The apartment is thankfully free of Bryant when I arrive. A note taped to the refrigerator informs me that he is at Donavon’s and I shouldn’t expect him over tonight. I curl up on my bed and wonder what I could have done wrong, what caused this cosmic imbalance so that the one boy I was finally falling for…

I should change my gender. Then I’d have a chance.

I laugh humorlessly into my pillow, which offers little comfort. My feet turn into whispers as I sneak into Bryant’s room – as though he’s here to catch me – and grab the long pillow he always complains as being “too comfortable.” It’s soft and smells like him, so I wrap it in my arms and cry. I fall asleep tangled in Bryant’s sheets and dream of him until morning presses insistent fingers of light against my eyelids.

I snap up, afraid that Bryant’s here, laughing or staring at me disapprovingly, forcing me to tell my secret, to break his heart for me the way some deep and evil part of me wants to do. I keep this me locked away and throw away the key, looking groggily around the empty room that’s painted a deep burgundy color so that it always feels like midnight. If it wasn’t for the uncovered window, I might have slept forever.

Or until Bryant stumbled in wondering why I’d missed coffee and fell asleep in his room.

The thought of coffee has me glancing nervously at the clock, wondering how long I can put it off. It’s nearly noon, and we’d scheduled around two, so I eat lunch as slowly as possible and head out into the world, which hasn’t crumbled or paused or exploded while my heart broke in two.

The shop is only partly crowded, enough to chatter so that I can be distracted from staring anxiously at the door. I sip peach tea with a sickening fervor, feeling the forgotten wishes in my stomach shift and slide past each other.

The tiny bell on the door knob cuts through the rumble like a bad dream, and I tense, refusing to spin around and look for Bryant. The book in my hand trembles until my knuckles turn white to still it. I take in a deep, calming breath, imagining that I am a tree standing strong and alone with a wild wind flying through my leaves, rather than a lonely girl gripping a trembling book with her hair flipped crudely by the breeze from the door. Feeling the forgotten wishes stir fountains of water behind my eyes, I set down the book and bite my lip nervously.

“Are you Desiree?”

The voice is light and falls onto my ears with cool fingers. I turn, looking up at a face shadowed by the backdrop of intense sunlight streaming through the wide, clean windows. The stranger is tall and broad shouldered with sun-kissed skin and shaggy blonde hair that falls in waves over his eyes. I nod, twisting my fingers in the wire of the table, and the stranger smiles, a flash of alabaster against a kind, tan face. He sticks out his hand and introduces himself, before sitting across from me. I don’t quite catch his name, my ears still shocked by his honeyed voice, my hand feeling paralyzed from his warm grip, but I know it’s What’s-his-name.

The one who stole Bryant from me.

“Is that peach tea?”

I stare blankly at my cup for a long moment, licking my lips and still tasting the peach, before I nod briskly. He emits a low, slightly awkward chuckle, and I grip the wire table harder, feeling it press dangerously hard into my skin. “Bryant’s never really punctual,” I say, my voice small and bristling, defensive. When I glance up and What’s-his-name, his shockingly green eyes stare at me with the same concerned look Bryant gives me. “So, do you go to the college too?”

What’s-his-name nods, his eyes still gazing into mine. “I’m in the athletics department, so that’s why we’ve never seen together. We do have a mutual friend, I believe–”

“Bryant.” His name is bitter on my teeth like medicine.

What’s-his-name only smiles, another flash of white against his impressive features. “Actually, I was talking about Synthia.”

I smile tightly at the mention of Synthia. It’s because of her party that we’re in this mess. I can’t quite bring myself to hate Synthia, with her innocent gray eyes and easy smile; I just hate her parties. Naturally. For more reason than one.

The bell chimes again, and Bryant hurries in, his face lighting up at the sight of the two of us. We both stand to meet him, and I immediately make as though I’m brushing something off my pants. What’s-his-name kisses Bryant’s cheek, and looks are shot at us from all sides like poison darts. They both sit down, and I take a few more moments to pick off invisible debris before sitting heavily on the uncomfortable chair, my fingers once more pressing into the wire table. Bryant smiles widely in my direction. “I’m glad you’ve already met each other.”

What’s-his-name smiles at me, warm and accepting, and I suddenly sip my tea with absorbing interest. There are a few silent moments that fall on us like suffocating shadows, then What’s-his-name stands up to get Bryant coffee and himself “something sugary,” and we are left alone.

Bryant turns on me with wary eyes. “Desiree,” he says, his voice wrapping around my name like vines over a tree, pulling away life but offering beauty in its stead. “You are being very rude.”

I blink, hating even the brief second he is gone form my sight. “How?”

“You could be nicer to him. To us. Synthia’s not exactly heterosexual, and you accepted her quite well, if Christmas says anything about it.” His eyebrows raise, and I know what he is hinting at by the mischievous smile playing on his lips. My own twitch in reply.

“You know that story, Bryant, so I won’t bother going over it again. And you want me to be nicer? Fine. They’re having a Meg Ryan-a-thon on television tonight. Invite him over. We’ll watch it together.” Bryant’s smile is practically blinding, and I know that I have offered the right thing. What’s-his-name balances the streaming mugs carefully as he sits down, and his smile mirrors Bryant’s once the plan has been revealed. They make it sound like the apartment is merely my own, as though Bryant and I aren’t roommates.

Only roommates.

I smile with them and sip tea until there’s no tea left to sip, and my cup contains only tea leaves that are supposed to hold my future in their dark, damp faces. I can imagine what they whisper: the rest of my life will be spent watching my best friend break my heart.

What’s-his-name grabs my hand in a surprisingly strong embrace, twining around my small hand like a spider over a fly. His smile is close, personal, my own star, and he raises my hand to his lips, leaving a soft tingling pace where we touch. Ghosts of butterflies start to stir, but What’s-his-name’s gaze flickers, and when I follow it I see Bryant, my ghost of a heart crushes them again. Bryant hugs me, long and hard, and I breathe in his familiar scent eagerly, wanting to close my eyes and disappear.

I don’t.

Bryant and What’s-his-name do.

In the wake of their departure, I sway uncertainly. People give me strange glances and their whispers in the corners sound like wind through barren skeleton trees. I read the rest of my book with tired yes and anxious fingers, acutely aware of what the evening holds for me. My plans linger, scenting the air with dangerous possibilities and paining two nearly identical smiles on the back of my eyelids.

“Curse you, Meg Ryan,” I think as I untangle from the wire and go to face my promises, my stomach full of peach tea, forgotten wishes, and the lie that I am okay with this.

~~~

The Poets’ Loft is my favorite store, with its faded red sofas and endless aisles of verse. I feel like I’ve entered a perfect world, or like I’m a vessel aboard a sea of ink and tears. Words crawl up my arm and possess me, filling my lips with forgotten words like o’er that taste of foreign spices on the tongue. The owner sells tea and cakes in the corner, but I’ve had my fill and search for something to sate a different appetite, one that does not have a name.

I am curled up in the most faded of sofas with a small volume cupped gently in my hands as though it might fly away, when the door opens. I can tell by the change in air pressure and the sudden rush of traffic noise suddenly polluting the air. The newcomers are laughing, one like bells and the other a low engine-type chuckle that reduces to a purr by the time it reaches my ears. The purr is familiar, and I look up, a wide-eyed mouse confronting a cat that’s stolen my tail once before.

Nicholas has a lanky arm around a girl shorter than I ever was once I hit puberty. She gazes up at him with an open smile as he laughs his smoker’s laugh, though he’s never smoked a day in his life. She must have dragged him here, I think to myself, my hands clutching the book they were so carefully guarding moments before as though they wish to strangle it. Nicholas hates poetry.

I look down, but the words have blurred and spun all the o’er’s upside down. I sense Nicholas’ eyes on me, feel his feet hit the yellow carpet with the deliberate strides of a cocky soldier going into battle. The girl flails behind, a wavering flag with not quite as much bloodlust. She makes a strangled, confused noise when he stops in front of me and says my name. “Desiree.”

The word falls from his lips: not as butterflies as it does from Bryant’s, or even wary curiosity like What-s-his-name says it. Rather, it is a flat stone cuffing my ears before sinking to sit heavily in my lap as I look up. “Fancy meeting you here, Nicholas.” A smile gasps for breath on my face for a few agonizing seconds, before giving up and drowning. His face reveals a similar situation, though his eyes dare not even to attempt a smile. I turn with forced civil-ness to the girl, who’s staring at me with a curious expression, somewhere between concern and annoyance. “And this is?”

“My new girlfriend,” Nicholas says, and his tone adds on the unnecessary, as opposed to you, my ex, who I dumped when she wouldn’t put out and be bi-curious for me. He gives me a smug, satisfied look, before tacking it on himself. “God, she’s so much better than you.”

I want to turn on him with animal ferocity, but I calmly refrain from doing so, smiling tighter than before. A thin smile, fraying like rope pulled too tight, little lines snapping away. The sound makes a crackle through the center of my chest, fireworks that threaten to bust out and turn me into flame.

I need something to douse the sparks, so I turn back to my poetry, hoping he’ll get my hint. Probably thinks the red couches and yellow carpet means McDonald’s, rather than homage to the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Time to set sail. Aye, aye, captain.

“You’re Bryant’s flat mate, right?”

The girl’s voice is thin and verges on a whine even when the context is sincere. Her bubblegum-pink lips shape the words with wide and unneeded motions that make it hard not to stare, and her eyes flutter constantly. She reels my ship in, and I force myself to drop anchor and close the book.

The fire’s rising. “Yes.” My voice flies out cold, yet burning at the same time, signaling the end of the conversation. After all, I’d come here to escape Bryant, and the arrival of my ex and a pretty girl who knows both of them is doing nothing for my nerves.

“Bryant’s very–”

“Gay!” Nicholas chortles, his smoky laugh sounding more like a sick person’s than a sexy one’s. The girl looks startled, then ashamed, and I realize that she must have told him when she found out. The word gay is gasoline on my fireworks, and I stand up so suddenly that Nicholas and his informer take a step back. My volume of poetry falls to the ground in a flutter of featherless wings.

“This coming from you? The boy who called himself Nichole for a year?” The informer picks up my book as though it might catch fire. By the way I’m staring at it, it just might. She hands it to me, careful not to touch me, and I brush past them with gritted teeth. I count out exact change for the book and place it on the counter before the owner has time to register I’m leaving, but I’ve been here so often she doesn’t doubt me.

The pavement is hard against my feet in the fading sunlight. I wait impatiently at the cross section for the little flashing walk sign; I always detest walking across the street. The asphalt whispers of danger and sends shocks of adrenaline racing up my legs and makes me shiver despite the warm June night.

I dash into a liquor store and buy a couple of wine coolers. I usually avoid alcohol, but a gulp of syrupy sweetness is down my throat before I can stop it. I close it quickly, not wanting to show up drunk at the Meg Ryan festival.

Typing in my code with squared shoulders, I trudge up the stairs and am surprised to find the apartment empty. I give in and straighten things with the air of a thespian pessimist being cast as an optimist and not quite ready to get into character. My fingers are thick and heavy, but more because of the crash from my adrenaline rush, fizzled out fireworks, and my anxiety of What’s-his-name with Bryant – my Bryant – than from the few hurried gulps of Strawberry Kiwi Surprise.

Soon that will not be the case, however. Soon I will drown myself into numbness.

The doorknob turns slowly, like a safecracker is on the other side and listening for the sound of my heart, which is thrumming unevenly. Bryant walks in, and my eyes search the empty hallway behind him. “He’s coming later,” Bryant eventually says, smiling. “I’m going to cook popcorn.” The words are so simple that I almost believe this is not a day of endless heartbreak. His lean form stretches to reach a bright red bowl, his shirt straining until is reveals a long line of skin just above his hips, and my fingers suddenly ache to feel it, to press against his form and lean down and taste it.

I scold my hands with a glare before retreating to the living room and ridding it of unfinished outfits and the scarves spread across the couch like a lover’s arms. They spill across my hands, rivers of patterns and silk. I pause as they spin in living color, and then hurriedly throw them in my room. I lean against the wall as though absorbing the strange shad of pale green, imagining it filling me with renewed strength, before pushing it away and returning to the living room, not seemingly void of life.

The doorbell rings, shrill and impatient, and my mind freezes as my body jumps.

Bryant’s bring and anxious laugh wraps arms around me as silky as the discarded scarves. “Desiree, could you put this in the bowl for me? I’ve got to buzz him in.”

The popcorn falls into the bowl with a soft, shushed sound; it seems muffled and distant, as though my heartbeat is too loud in my ears to fully register anything else. It probably is. I feel a change in the air pressure of the room as the door opens, and I physically plaster a smile onto my face as my fingers dig into the bowl, painfully searching for strength.

What’s-his-name walks in, his gaze searching the apartment carefully until he finds me, and he smiles, his seemingly natural and easy. His shirt is stretched tight across his lean chest, and appears shockingly white against his sun kissed skin. His jeans hug low on his hips, revealing the same stretch of skin Bryant had shown moments before. He reaches to take the bowl and I panic, momentarily losing the strings to loosen my fingers. When the bowl is gone, I clutch empty air like a child dreaming of fairies for a long moment, made longer by his expanse of white teeth.

It comes to me suddenly that Bryant and What’s-his-name are what I had expected. Never once have the giggled or said the word fabulous; it seems more like Bromance Gone Wild than Men Purses and Unnaturally High Voices. Both are still very much men, which seems rather odd to me. For a moment I allow myself to pretend that it’s all a big prank to send me over-the-top blushing, but when Bryant plants a confident kiss on What’s-his-name’s lips and it grows roots and blossoms, I feel the hope inside me flutter to its death. More like screech to a halt, sparks flying and with an ear-splitting scream. Again.

I never knew breaking things took so long. When you drop a plate it shatters instantly. His a window with a hammer and you get immediate fracturing. With hearts, it’s a small pick, chipping away slowly to watch you bleed. Andy Duphrane, I think, would be impressed.

I sit beside Bryant just as Sleepless in Seattle begins, flickering through the dimly lit room as though reaching for us with fingers made of light and sound. A low chuckle comes from off to the side, but it is not crisp and clear like Bryant’s. It’s soft and dangerous and sets my teeth on edge. It must be What’s-his-name’s. What is his name? I sneak a glance at the two, but all I see is a tangle of hands and lips and sounds. The couch feels touch beneath my cool and fragile fingers. I stare at the screen until I don’t understand what I’m seeing, until it is a blur that I force myself to focus on. My ears rush with the sound of my blood flying through my veins until I fail to hear anything else, and I’m not sure whether my heart is actually thrumming this hard or if it’s a defense mechanism against the couple beside me, who aren’t paying attention to Sleepless in Seattle at all.

Suddenly I’m angry, the pure force of it stealing my breath away. What happened to getting to know each other better, to playing nice? I’m not the host of a porno, offering popcorn and a dimly lit room for them to kiss each other. They could go to Bryant’s room, for Frith’s sake.

I pick up another wine cooler. Snatch it, more likely, my hands gripping it with unnecessary force, eagerly bringing it to my lips. I sip it, feeling it buzz me into numbness, dancing through my veins and into my head where it fills it with hot air and threatens to make it float away. I have never been this drunk before, or even tipsy, but under the current circumstances I can’t seem to find a way to scold myself. Bryant’s arm brushes mine, sending a delicious tingle through me, and suddenly I don’t care about What’s-his-name kissing my best friend, no matter how equally charming he is. Bryant and I have sworn no secrets, so I instinctively wrap my fingers around his shoulder ad tug until his hot blue eyes are staring, concerned, into mine.

“I love you.” My words are slurred and seem too big for my mouth. “Bryant, I’ve loved you forever.” My fingers find the collar of his shirt, grip it, as What’s-his-name stares at me with wide eyes over Bryant’s shoulder, who is blinking slowly. I take a deep breath before closing my eyes. “Kiss me.”

Before Bryant can say no, or yes for that matter, I twist my fingers through those beautiful chocolate brown curls and bring his plush and tender lips to mine. My tongue snakes across his bottom lip slowly, earning me a surprised moan that falls into my mouth like something sweet, sweeter than any wine cooler in the world, and my heart latches onto it eagerly. Therefore it takes a moment for me to register rough hands pushing me gently away.

“Desiree,” Bryant sighs the word, exhaling like it tasted bad in his mouth. Then he turns to What’s-his-name, leaving me behind like yesterday, like something you remember with regret until you don’t remember it at all. “I’m sorry love. I thought she had accepted us–”

“It’s quite all right.” What’s-his-name looks at me with gentle eyes as I hurriedly brush away a tear. It dangles on my fingertip, as transparent and trembling and hopeless as my desperate grab for Bryant’s heart had been. What’s-his-name offers me a small smile, a smaller compensation. “She truly does love you, Bryant.”

“Donavon–”

I stand to leave when Bryant’s tone strikes a shard of ice through my heart. I swat a little with the wine coolers, standing still and trying to get my bearings as the world tips dangerously around me, when suddenly What’s-his-name – Donavon – wraps warm fingers around my wrist. “Stay. Please.” Bryant gives him a confused look that mirrors my own, as Donavon tugs me down between them, and both shift to accommodate me, Bryant less enthusiastically. His lips part, but Donavon shushes him. “You talk about her all the time, dear. You love her too.” My throat goes dry as Bryant doesn’t deny it, hanging his head. Donavon doesn’t seem upset, however. On the contrary, he doesn’t even lose his gentle smile, laying his arm across the couch behind my shoulders, like I am his date, leaning forward, causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand up straight and my arms to crawl with goose bumps.

Before I can stop him, he’s nuzzling his nose into the place my shoulder and neck meet. I try to escape, but he subtly grips my arm, loose enough to break free from, but it seems like a warning. Suddenly, I’m too frightened to leave, and only gasp in deep, shuddering gulps of air. Bryant makes a small noise in the back of his throat, a whimper, and when I glance over at him, I see his eyes shining with something close to want. Donavon smiles at him; I know, because I feel his lips brush across my skin. “Does this make you happy, my love?” He smirks, a predator, a game host who knows he’s won. I remain frozen like a mouse under and snake’s gaze, and Bryant whimpers again, only I’m not sure if he’s the hunter or a victim just as I am. I don’t think Bryant knows either.

Donavon strikes, teeth practically piercing the skin of my neck before claiming my sweetened lips with a fierce grip, and my wide eyes follow his gaze to Bryant, who moans suddenly. I feel his hot mouth on my neck, sending tendrils of flame to lick at ever part of my body, and I threaten to explode. I gasp and stiffen, before violently jerking away. It feels as if I’m moving one part at a time, jerkily and trembling. My hands shake, and my knees feel weak, unsubstantial and wavering. I know that it is my place as much as Bryant’s that I should stay and ask them to leave, nut the couch grins at me with traitorous eyes, and in Sleepless in Seattle, a single man and a single woman are together.

That’s what I should want.

So why do I feel like I want to skink down and lose myself in their kisses?

Donavon’s eyes smirk at me as I grab my bag and leave.