Harmonious Hearts 2017 Page 12

  He hangs up in a panic, finger tapping the End Call button multiple times as if that will shut it off faster.

  It’s as if he has just committed a betrayal. Felix clutches his phone, not sure if he wants it to ring but also not willing to make the call, until he falls asleep.

  The next morning he wakes to a text lighting up the screen of his phone.

  Hey Felix, it’s W. Are you okay? You sounded like you were in pretty bad shape. I want to talk to you face-to-face, so when you are ready, text me back, okay? xx

  Felix carefully types out a response that directs William to meet him at the only place Felix feels somewhat safe. He sends it before he can second-guess himself and decide not to send it, or decide to decline William’s invitation. He turns off his phone directly afterward, as he doesn’t want to know if William replies. He doesn’t know if he could handle the answer or the waiting until it arrives.

  THEY MEET at the park. It’s surrounded by trees, secluded from the rest of town, and generally desolate. When Felix arrives, William is sitting on one of the swings, drifting slowly back and forth, almost as if the wind is lovingly caressing him. He looks up when Felix nears him and gestures to the swing beside him.

  Felix sits down on the swing and looks over at the boy swinging beside him. “You showed up.”

  “Well, duh.” William looks away. “You asked me to.”

  “I guess I didn’t expect you to come. Anyway, you said that you wanted to meet in person to talk.”

  “Yeah.” William toes the ground, slowing his swing to a stop. “I just hate that you think you’re screwed up. Because you’re not. I’m on the ace spectrum too.”

  Although he doesn’t entirely know what the term means, Felix has a fairly solid guess. “But if that’s true, why did you take me home that night?”

  The wind whistles through the trees. William looks down yet again.

  “I’m more of a grey ace. Sometimes when I feel really lonely, I go looking for sex in order to feel like someone wants me. But normally I don’t like it.”

  Felix fidgets, running his hands up and down the chains of the swings. “It just feels like I don’t know anything about me,” he admits in a hushed voice. “I want to know who I am. I was trying to figure that out when… when I met you.”

  They lapse into silence, and Felix gets the impression William isn’t that surprised.

  “I think we all are,” he remarks finally. “I think throughout our lives we are constantly finding out new things about ourselves, but I don’t think anyone is ever entirely satisfied with their knowledge of themselves.”

  His words give Felix pause because this is something he has never considered before. The thing is, he wants to know who he is and what labels apply to him, so he can get on with his life.

  “Maybe. But maybe I want to know now.”

  A shout echoes in the distance, and a bird screams back, as if contributing a response.

  “I do too. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.”

  Felix looks sideways at him. “What do you not know?”

  William’s expression suggests he is going to regret what he is about to say. “What to do about my feelings for you.”

  Felix expects his heart to plummet with the realization that William likes him, wants more than friendship. He expects to be disappointed, but instead a feeling of eagerness nestles in the pit of his stomach.

  “Really?”

  William nods, eyes firmly focused on his feet. Felix smiles for the first time since he left the house, a genuine expression of happiness.

  “That’s not a bad thing. We… we could try it.”

  William looks up, a brief air of elation replaced quickly with one of suspicion.

  “But you hardly know me. I can’t expect you to just agree to this because I said how I feel.”

  Felix laughs, feeling light. “Dude, most people don’t know each other much before they start to date. That’s the purpose of dating. To see if you are compatible. It’s not like you asked to get married or anything.”

  A smile breaks out over William’s features. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. So, um….”

  “Yes.” Felix answers, knowing the question without hearing the whole thing. “Do you want to come over to my house? We can hang out, watch a movie or something. My mom won’t notice. She went to sleep, like, three hours ago.”

  “Sure. That—I would like that.”

  They sneak through the basement door, and Felix can hardly keep from laughing in glee and relief as he pulls William to the couch. The basement has two rooms—Felix’s bedroom and a living area. Felix found a couch for cheap online and drove out to buy it, so the living area is populated with a couch, a small television, and an end table next to the couch.

  For once, something Felix perceived as a risk has worked out well.

  “So, William,” he says after William has taken a seat on the couch. “What kind of movies do you like?”

  William shrugs and eyes Felix’s diverse selection of DVDs. “Horror, probably. I don’t know. You pick.”

  Felix can feel the familiar bubble of insecurity in the face of having to make a decision. He takes a breath, in, out, and shakes his head.

  “Nah, you pick. Please?”

  “Sure.” William throws himself to the ground in front of the collection of movies. “Hmm, do you like Saw? I haven’t seen that movie in fucking forever.”

  Felix nods. “Saw’s chill. Put it in.”

  William starts the movie and settles comfortably next to Felix on the couch. Felix tenses up, afraid of causing William discomfort from excess physical contact, but William quickly lays his fears to rest by snuggling against his side.

  Felix allows himself to melt into William’s touch.

  Sometime later, on screen, a man screams in pain as his foot is detached from the rest of his body.

  Felix glances over at William. “Is this the part where I hide in your arms because I’m oh so incredibly scared?”

  William shrugs, eyes still on the screen. “Maybe? I don’t know, dude. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of watching the movie? Also, there is a truly epic amount of blood onscreen right now. It would be a shame to miss that.”

  A scream emits from the television as a man gets fatally shot.

  “Yeah. I mean, I want to watch the movie. I can’t see it if I’m hiding in your arms. Also, it’s not like this movie is even scary. It’s physiologically complex, though.”

  William shrugs. “You can psychoanalyze it. I’ll enjoy the violence.”

  “Deal.”

  When Felix sneaks a glance at William as he pulls the disk out of the player, he can’t help but feel like maybe, just maybe, he has uncovered an unknown part of himself.

  MATTYE JOHNSON, or “pathetic mime” if you are talking to her mother at any point after that one time she got laryngitis, spends most of her time either writing or attempting to convince large animals not to kill her. Those animals being horses. She’s fifteen, and the most recent dumb thing she did was put a chip bag in the microwave to shrink it. Her mother was in complete support of this, and the microwave miraculously survived.

  She lives in Idaho and resents that people seem to call it the Potato State instead of the Gem State as she has seen one too many potatoes in her lifetime and not nearly enough gems.

  If you qualify pets as animals who have been in the house, she has two: Amber, a miniature horse, and Oscar/Barney/Garfield/Whatever-His-Name-Is, a cute yellow cat. Besides Amber, she has four horses, whose names are Link, Smoke, Aspen, and Arwen.

  Entrances and Exits

  By Olivia Anne Gennaro

  The foyer of the Huxtable family home has seen its share of struggles. It bears witness as siblings Pippa and Mike try to strike a balance between their dreams and the expectations of well-meaning parents. As Pippa grows up, she realizes the influence of everyday heteronormativity on her life, while Mike cannot seem to escape his driven sister’s shadow.

  AN
AFTERNOON routine in the foyer of a suburban home: mere steps from the door, a seventeen-year-old girl called Pippa carefully opens the ads and seemingly personalized notes sent to her from competitive colleges on a daily basis. Her backpack and coat remain intact on her shoulders, over which flows wavy chestnut hair that was freed from braids when she entered high school.

  “This one’s an art and design school in Brooklyn… isn’t that funny? I never said on anything I was interested in art!” Looking up, she sees her younger brother ignoring her, continuing through the foyer.

  “Mike! C’mon, look at this!” she calls.

  He turns around, shaking his head. “I don’t want to listen anymore to how great you are and that everyone wants you, okay?” he snaps. “I’m tired of it.”

  Pippa’s countenance transforms. Her eyes narrow, her mouth curves. She spits, “Oh? You’re just jealous—what do your grades look like?”

  “Will you stop always thinking I’m attacking you?” Mike hisses, looking over his shoulder.

  “Well, you always do!”

  “When?”

  “All the time, everywhere! Even right here!”

  “Whatever,” Mike huffs, and he storms up the stairs that land in the foyer.

  INDEED, THE foyer was the birth of their competition. As young children, they would frequently play a simple block-stacking race. Young Pippa and Mike would bring armfuls of toy blocks to the foyer, away from their parents, and form them into piles. Then they would count down—“One, two, three, go!”—and stack the blocks to each make their own tower as fast as they could without letting it topple, until they had used all the blocks.

  Pippa almost always won—she was taller, after all—and celebrated by jumping around and knocking both towers to the ground. But little Mike—his blond hair wispy then, still growing in—wasn’t intimidated. He just shouted, “Again!”

  And on it went. Mr. and Mrs. Huxtable would sometimes appear in a doorway, chuckling at the spirited play of their children.

  This game disappeared as they grew, but the spirit of it didn’t. They would race each other around the house until the angry shouting of one or both of their parents put an end to it. They would play hide-and-seek, with Mike sometimes squeezing into the coat closet in the foyer. Giggling frequently sounded throughout the house.

  But that was an equilibrium that couldn’t survive in the world outside the breathless simplicity and resilience of childhood.

  HALLOWEEN. THE foyer’s armoire features a plastic bowl overflowing with fun-sized candy bars between two crudely carved jack-o’-lanterns. Pippa, ten years old; Mike, eight.

  Pippa is adjusting her floppy-eared headband that matches her brown turtleneck and corduroys, and clutching a plastic pumpkin. “Put the ears on, Mike!”

  Her brother fiddles with the black cat-ear headband in his hands. “Why couldn’t I have been a dog, too? You know I like dogs better.”

  Pippa takes the headband out of his hands and affixes it properly. “I’m older, and Mom said we shouldn’t be the same thing.”

  “She would have let me!”

  “Mike! Pippa!” Mrs. Huxtable’s voice sounds from upstairs. “Settle down! I’m coming!”

  “But she would have thought it wasn’t the best. Costumes that go together are supposed to go together, not be the exact same!”

  “You just made that up! Mooooooom!” he wails.

  “I’m coming!” his mother yells again.

  “I am not jealous!” Pippa exclaims, crossing her arms in defense. “Everyone knows I’m better anyway.”

  A noise—somewhere between a growl and a scream—emits from Mike, and he shoves his sister backward. She stumbles, but she easily recovers her balance and pries him off her by his shoulders.

  “Mike! Pippa!” Mrs. Huxtable rushes down the stairs. “Ready to go?”

  “Yes,” Mike says, scowling at his sister.

  She wrinkles her nose in reply.

  “I DON’T wanna go!”

  Mike, ten, is resisting Mrs. Huxtable’s efforts to get him into his coat. Pippa stands at the door, dressed from earmuffs to boots, wiggling impatiently.

  “Mike, honey, Pippa needs to be at her school’s science fair. Don’t you want to see the hard work she’s done?”

  “No!”

  “Mario will be waiting for you to play the game when you get back,” Mr. Huxtable says gently.

  “And if you don’t come, Michael, I won’t let you play the Wii for the rest of today,” Mrs. Huxtable warns.

  Mike refuses to move.

  Mr. Huxtable places a hand on his wife’s shoulder, saying softly into her ear, “Lily, take Pippa so she’s there on time. I’ll talk to Mike and then we’ll come later in my car, okay?”

  Mrs. Huxtable nods and escorts a relieved Pippa out the door.

  “I don’t want to go!” Mike protests again, his coat sagging off his shoulders, arms not completely through the sleeves.

  “Mike, listen to me.” Mr. Huxtable kneels down next to him. “It’s important for Pippa that we see all the hard work she’s done and support her. She’ll do the same for you, you know.”

  Mike pouts, swinging the lifeless sleeves of his coat. “She won’t.”

  Frowning, Mr. Huxtable tugs Mike’s coat up around his shoulders. “Sure she will. She came to your basketball game, remember?”

  “We lost.”

  “I know, but I’m sure she’ll see you win another time. Here, how about this—when we get back, Pippa can play Mario Kart with you, okay?”

  “I guess,” Mike sighs.

  “Good,” Mr. Huxtable says, ruffling the boy’s hair. “Come on, kid.”

  PROM, PIPPA’S junior year. The blushing boy who has been appearing for a month now arrives this time in a tuxedo, followed by his parents. He must be an only child.

  “Alan, welcome!” Mrs. Huxtable chirps, ushering the other family into the house. “You look so handsome, doesn’t he?” she adds with a glance at Pippa, decked out in a sequined salmon dress and curled hair secured in an elaborate updo by at least a hundred bobby pins. She glances down, trying to hide a smile, before sliding over to the nervous boy’s side.

  “Um, here,” Alan says, transferring the small box he’d been holding to Pippa’s hands.

  “You’ve got to put it on her, kid,” his father chuckles.

  “Right.” Alan fumbles with the white floral corsage inside, finding its proper orientation before slipping it on Pippa’s wrist.

  Mr. Huxtable puts his hands on Mike’s shoulders, whispering in his ear, “Take note, Mike—this’ll be you in two years.”

  Mike shrugs. He’s grown out his hair so it hangs shaggy over his ears now.

  The ensuing photography fanfare lasts nearly a half hour as Mrs. Huxtable fusses with Pippa’s dress before she can smile for pictures with Alan, from the serious to the silly. One of those pictures—the traditional boy’s-arm-around-the-girl one—is later promoted to the collection opposite the painting in the foyer. Then every possible arrangement of the couple and their parents follows.

  Quick pictures are taken of the brother and sister and then the whole family, but the way Mrs. Huxtable says, “Oh—and we shouldn’t forget to get a picture with Mike!” demonstrates this is merely obligatory.

  When Pippa and the boy return that night, they can be seen through the narrow windowpanes that border the door, illuminated by the porch light, their bodies pressed together, lips locked, hands exploring. It is the first of many such occurrences in the months that follow. Pippa returns with her cheeks flushed, her makeup rubbed off, unable to keep the corners of her mouth from turning up in a smile as she rushes through the foyer into the living room from which her father is calling, “There’s our own prom queen!”

  PIPPA AND Mike no longer exchange a word in the foyer when arriving home after school and rarely leave or come home together during the summer. But this afternoon, during a stretch of autumn where robust gusts of wind blow discolored leaves onto the indoor welcome
mat, the routine changes. Mike opens the front door after school rather than Pippa rushing in with her mail.

  Instead Pippa trails after him, seemingly mesmerized by several crumpled envelopes and glossy brochures in her hands. She stops on the welcome mat, clutching her hands into fists, further mangling the mail. A sob escapes her.

  Mike hesitates, gazing back at his paralyzed sister. “Pippa….” After another moment passes with her unmoving, he takes an awkward step forward, reaching out tentatively to touch her shoulder, as if they are merely newly minted friends.

  She jerks back and lowers her gaze.

  Mike’s hand falls. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

  Pippa shakes her head furiously, looking up at her brother. “No, no—not you. I just don’t want to cry anymore. Sorry.” She sucks in a breath and drops her gaze again in an attempt to maintain composure.

  Mike takes a deep breath, too. “I’m sorry about Alan,” he says softly.

  Pippa shrugs. “I knew it was going to happen. I just wish all this… all my competitiveness and ambition didn’t get in the way of the relationship so much.” She shakes her mutilated college mail as proof. “You know?”

  “Yeah,” Mike sighs. “I know.”

  IN THE spring and summer, Pippa goes out almost every Friday and Saturday night with friends. Sometimes she leaves alone, presumably to meet them, but more often one or more girls come to the door. When Pippa returns, sometimes that night or the next morning, she is unable to stop a grin. She has not been seen so pleased in the house’s entrance since her dalliances with her ex.

  One night, near the end of the school year, one of the girls comes to the door, tall and brown, dark hair pulled up in a bun. “What is this movie about, again?”

  Pippa shrugs. “I don’t know, exactly, I just needed to get away, sit in the dark, with you….”

  The other girl’s eyebrows draw together, and she catches Pippa’s shoulder, stopping her from escaping too far out the door. “Are you okay?” she asks, bending down to catch Pippa’s eyes that are determinedly focused downward.