Calculus.

Calculus then English—no—AP English. He had to read that book—all of it, write that essay, double test grade—make or break him, make or break his train of thought, if it wasn’t already gone. The Calculus was sprawled out on the bed as he read Hemingway and every five minutes he’d look at the little aim box on his old computer to see if that girl from Chem had any more helpful ‘hints’ on how to pass his Chem final. He made me light a cigarette up for him, only a minute ago realizing that I had climbed through his bedroom window, though he didn’t care.

Dirty little secrets. His mom smoked and hid it for years, coughing away the meaninglessness of her life after her first divorce in a dirty bathroom with an open window to the back yard. She didn’t know he knew she smoked. He didn’t—up until he turned 10. He found the cigarettes in her bath room but didn’t tell her, picking up the nasty habit himself just out of convenience. The stash was always there—there were so many boxes, she never noticed when two or three went missing. Dirty little secrets. But he held all the cards.

Calculus.

He asked me to look it over for him, even though I was a grade behind and one year older. He expected too much. And not from me.

“I’ll never pass Spanish, I can never do the translations,” he said in a monotone voice, not even looking at anything relative to the language—just another reminder that his paper on Hemingway was not going anywhere, since he was only halfway done reading the book. “And I can’t believe they censored the book—what’s so wrong about saying ‘fuck’?” he asked quietly, perhaps just musing to himself. I didn’t feel it was directed at me. If he really noticed me in the room he would have been complaining to me by now.

Calculus.

I told him I didn’t know what it meant, and now the scribbles on his paper won’t mean anything.

“That’s alright, it’s just homework,” then why was it so important to him? I shouldn’t have asked that, even to myself. I knew why.

“Look at me,” I said, but he didn’t turn around. He said he didn’t have time tonight, but he didn’t have time last night or the night before, or this past week, or the week before that. Friends made time.

“Midterms, AP testing, SATs, three major projects, homework, and fucking 10 tests next week before break, not to mention report cards are coming out on Tuesday and grades have already closed for the quarter,” he said it like it meant something. He thought silently and probably wondered what he could possibly be salvaging.

Calculus.

I flicked his papers lightly. He whipped around and nearly fell out of his chair, suddenly concerned about me being in the room. “If you’re not going to be helpful then just fucking LEAVE!” he yelled, though not too loudly.

I sat where I was. Needed, wanted, hated, unwanted—it made no difference to me. It wasn’t going to affect my staying or going. I sat right where I was. He turned back to his work, suddenly unconcerned again. I’ve gotten used to the hot—cold switch. It was a tricky device to use.

His door was closed, and I could see the paint nearly peeling off the walls. I was all too sure this room was more smoke-filled than a building gone up in flames. I heard the rain outside. It was very wet. My boots were caked with mud. I had nowhere to put them in the small room.

“He finally moved out,” he admitted. I didn’t say anything. He kept typing on his screen to the Chem-girl. “I don’t think he’s coming back,” he said, this time with a hint of emotion in his voice. He’d been crying before. “I haven’t,” he said in his defense.

“How’s your mom been?”

“Fine,” he said bitterly. He leaned back in his chair, which made an irritating squeaking noise and sighed. The book fell from his lap onto the dirty floor. I knew he was blaming himself—blaming himself for what wasn’t even his fault, not entirely, anyway. I told him so. He laughed sadly at me. “Another dead marriage. God, I hate adults. Remind me never to be one,” he said ironically.

“Noted,” I said.

“I hate when you agree with me,” he said, turning completely around, and scolding me for my muddy boots on his bed. I think he was more concerned of how close they were to his calculus homework than the fact that his sheets were now covered with a disgusting gunk only meant for the outside.

In this house, barely a home, the outside was a better place to be.

“Someone has to be the adult,” he said, perhaps a little sadly. I couldn’t tell.

“It shouldn’t have to be you,” I said softly.

“Are you staying tonight?” he asked, noticeably changing the subject. I didn’t mind. I couldn’t tell if he was being hopeful of my saying yes or wishing softly against it. I disregarded the latter.

“Yes,” as an afterthought, “if you want me to.”

He walked over to his bed and threw the papers on the floor, the papers that two moments ago I couldn’t flick with my finger. Hot and cold switches. He threw himself on the bed and suffocated his head within the soft pillows. Dirty little secrets. Jonathan always cried like this—cried so no one would hear; cried so no one would care. He cried so that he had a moment to shed another little piece of his sanity down the drain of existence at 16 years old.

“I hate it here,” he said with no more enthusiasm as asking me to check his calculus papers before.

“I know you do,” I said, slipping off my boots and putting them lightly on the floor. I wondered what the change was in me that made me not just toss them across the room like Jonathan had done with his papers not a moment ago. It was more my style than his. I smirked at this, which he inquired upon. “Nothing, just thinking,” I responded.

“You’re too smart to have been expelled, Devon,” he sighed again, rubbing his hands over his arms lightly. The room was small and cold. I smirked again, a slight twitching of the lip—quite my specialty.

But—that’s right. Too smart…expelled…words that you think would have no place in a sentence together. But for me, it made as much sense as sock is to foot. Fighting wasn’t a hobby for me, I wasn’t some cheap punk selling any shit in the lower lots where the ‘bad kids’ hung out. I didn’t smoke, I didn’t drink, I didn’t sell, I didn’t buy, I didn’t beat the crap out of anyone—except, I did. That one time. Sacrifice wasn’t my specialty, but I made it be just for him. Only for him. He knew it, too.

“That’s wasn’t your fault, either,” I said nonchalantly.

“Either?” he said, only a bit hysterical. “What ELSE is my fault? My conscience is already full with all my mistakes!” he said sadly.

“They are your actions and your mistakes, which are also synonymous with regret—and you need to regret them in order to be a real human being, you know. It just proves how alive and well you are,” I said. I wasn’t sure if it had helped any, but at least it was the truth.

Laying on his back, he pulled a pillow into his arms. “But you never regret anything.”

“That’s right. Take note that I’m an alien.”

“Be serious,” he said.

“I can’t,” I said, “and besides, you love me when I’m a goofball. I make you forget, like some wondrous drug—what would a serious Devon do for you, someone who was so intensely human just like you—who worried about their future and about their parents and their best friends, but never about their own sanity? Would you have liked that Devon better?” I said, laughing, leaning against his desk.

He said nothing. I thought so.

“Stop smoking,” I said.

“No,” he said. There was no emotional reaction beyond that. We had had this conversation before. It was tiring and old. I dropped it.

“I’m tired,” I said.

“Come here,” he said.

“No,” I said. He quirked his head to the side. “You’re not in your right mind.” He squinted at me, his eyebrows lowering in confusion, gripping his pillow tightly as if it were some type of security device—emotional security. Something that wasn’t any good to me.

“And what mind should I be in?” he asked.

“Stop smoking.”

“No. Why do you keep demanding that when you know I’ll keep saying no?” I shrugged.

“Your weak and you love me,” I suggested. He winced at the first part but didn’t fight me back. He didn’t have the strength to fight this night, and it made me sad. My only joy came from him being who he was—his vibrant and angry, determined, stubborn and silly self. I wasn’t going to see any of that side of him tonight. “But you’ve become too much of an adult to care what I say anymore.”

“That’s not true,” he said, looking very hurt and offended. Whenever I called him an adult, his mind always switched back to one of his parents, or his lack thereof parents who acknowledged his existence but not the voice that was screaming to be heard.

“If I’m so fucking smart, why can’t I get you to quit?” He fell silent. I sighed and straightened myself, brushing imaginary dirt off my jeans. The calculus was on the floor still. I walked toward him, which was only a step given the size of the room. “I’ll tell you why Jon. I’m not your wondrous drug anymore. I remind you too much of reality, and it kills you. I know you’re worried you’re turning into your mother, and I’m not going to concur with that,” I said; his lips were closed but I could feel him breath heavily all at once through his nose after that—a sigh, relief—“but you are doing something even worse to yourself,” he drew in a light breath, sucking the air through his nose. I looked at him a moment, and then turned and sat on the bed with him, looking away at one of the walls, knowing full well he wanted and expected an answer from me. He cleared his throat.

“It’s…not about the grades.”

“I know that.”

“And it’s not about Michael and my Mom’s expected divorce,” he clarified.

“I know that, too.”

“And it’s not about what happened last year on the lower lots,” he hesitated before he mentioned that one, but I reminded him that I knew that as well.

“And it’s not because of…” he didn’t finish, but I knew what he was saying anyway. I always knew what he was saying, even if he said nothing. Most people aren’t best friends for ten years and not know what the other was thinking. Only for him. Only for him.

But I could have sworn it was that last thing.

“What happened to me?” he said after turning and laying on his side, facing the wall.

“You grew up too fast,” I said, like it was an ordinary fact—like hey, did you know "hello" is a 5-letter word? Well Jonathan lost his childhood. Oh these dirty little secrets had a habit of crawling up on a person at the worst of times. Like after school on the lower lots.

“It happened last year.”

“With me. But you said it wasn’t about that.”

“It’s not.”

“But—” I said, forcing him to continue.

“But it’s a part of it.”

“So elaborate.”

There was silence for a moment. I looked down and saw the calculus glaring back at me. “I just realized how…pathetic I am. I held on to you, I held onto my mother, I held onto my dying childhood. For what? What was I holding onto, Devon?” he said, I could hear him crying but I didn’t look behind me. “I’m nothing to anyone. I can’t make myself useful—not to you, not to my mother, not to anyone. It makes me fucking mad—” he punctuated the word mad by gritting his teeth—“and sometimes I think there’s no God.”

I nearly laughed.

“What?” he asked, a bit provoked. He wanted me to feel sorry for him.

“Of course there’s a God. You have to believe in Him.”

“Why?” he asked seriously. For whatever reason Jon thought I knew all the answers, I didn’t know if I liked the responsibility of knowing all of them or not.

“Because I’m right here,” I said. He smirked at me and let a light laugh escape him. I was glad to see him like that, though I knew it was short-lived. We’d all have to get back to our lives sometime.

He beckoned me to lie beside him, and I did as he requested. He turned to me and looked in my eyes. For some reason they seemed to comfort him. Funny, they did nothing for me. To this day I would never have even marked myself as a prime candidate for a love interest. But here was the truth, the reality of it all, which seemed more like an elaborate stage drama than real life.

“I love you.”

It just seemed floating out there. I can’t remember if it was me who said it or Jonathan. It wouldn’t have made much of a difference, but…perhaps it did? Topics like these don’t get started out of mid air (did that mean this one was a fluke?), someone had to start them. I looked over my shoulder to see if Cupid hadn’t hit either of us with some stupid bow, or was just throwing his voice.

“—but that’s so cliché,” I added. He nodded solemnly. My hand was already in his, holding it tightly, even though I wasn’t the one afraid to let him go. I wish he would let go. I wish he would stop feeling whatever he was feeling for me. I wish he’d stop feeling those things for a while. It wasn’t natural for a kid like him to be saying such things like “love” to someone else. It wasn’t love. It was just being naïve. It wasn’t tangible or real.

And no one but actors live in an on-screen drama. And we weren’t actors.

The charade had to stop somewhere. So why was I holding on so tightly? I’m pretty sure that’s what Jonathan wanted to know as well. I let go of his hand. “Sorry,” I said apologetically and embarrassed. He giggled. He said it was alright.

“I’m not just going crazy, you are attracted to me, right?” he asked hesitantly, the same confused and hopeful look on his face. I didn’t want to cause him any more problems. I didn’t want to be another mistake to him.

What about the calculus? I was playing coy and he smiled. Answer the question. Yes, I said. But you don’t love me. It’s not that simple. Nothing is simple, answer the question. It wasn’t a question. I hate when you pick fights with me. I’m not picking a fight with you, and I thought you said you hate it when I agree with you? I beamed. I hate when you catch me being a hypocrite, too. Well, I hate when you hate me. But I love you. Don’t say that, I sighed.

I looked over his shoulder and out the window but could only see darkness. I looked over at his clock but he already understood. “10: 36.”

“I’ll stay. I brought my backpack for tomorrow,” I said. He smiled.

“But you don’t go to school,” he nearly laughed.

“Sentimental value,” I shrugged. The room was silent and the smoke was clearing up. I didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing.

“I’m sor—”

“I swear to God if you say ‘I’m sorry’ one more time you won’t feel so good tomorrow morning.”

“I won’t feel good tomorrow period. I haven’t done anything tonight, my Chem teacher is going to fail me and my Calculus isn’t even started, and that essay…”

“Fuck it,” I suggested. He looked at me amusedly, but more like I was insane. “Fuck it,” I said again to make sure he heard it the first time, slowing down the words for him to hear.

“I know, I heard it,” he said, still feeling very skeptical.

“Listen, you said it’s not about the grades—”

“She needs to feel happy about something. She lost Michael over me. I need to repay her somehow. If I show her that I was worth what I cost her—” he said, not entirely too sure where he was going with his rant.

“Stupid homophobic jerk-offs aren’t something you or your mother should be lamenting over. She should be happy she has you, as I’m sure she is,” I assured him.

“She’s disappointed in me.”

“Because you’re not happy.”

“You know me, I can’t be happy unless everyone else is.”

“Including yourself.”

“Well, it’s a circle.”

“So is life. Take one sharp turn too many and your life is going to turn into a messy hexagon without you knowing it.”

“You say the weirdest things.”

“I try.” I put my arms around him. My voice lowered, there didn’t seem to be a reason to talk at all, but I did, anyway. “What I did that day I did it for you, and I don’t regret anything I did because it was my choice. So don’t worry about it and get some rest. I’ll be right here—I won’t leave.” There was a relaxed pause in the room.

“I’ll stop smoking if you’ll be my wondrous drug again,” he said finally.

I was only too happy to oblige.

The forgotten calculus was on the floor, and our dirty little secret became a cleaner addiction.