Four years of high school and Toki was thinking about it in terms of lists.
In his bedroom: a bed, a desk, a wardrobe only half-filled with the bare necessities. A threadbare hoodie stolen from a certain person draped over a bedpost that he was about to put on even though it was not that cold outside. His backpack slumped against the leg of his desk. In his backpack: three pens that were almost out of ink, one that wasn't, a notebook that contained nothing but art, a notebook that contained nothing but actual notes, candy wrappers, spare change, a receipt from a gas station for condom, lube and chocolate with Jag älskar dig scrawled across the back of it. In his locker: half-empty folders that contained handouts and old tests, rendered useless by lack of further education, a baker dozen's worth of dead, dyed black roses in the bottom, the initials T.W. + S.S. scratched into the door, a huge yellow smiley face sticker that was peeling around the edges on the side, and a lock that he took off as soon as he shoved the previous contents of his locker in his backpack.
He shut his locker and turned around, slumped to the ground and sat with his knees drawn up. Four years of high school and this was his legacy. Okay grades, a yellow smiley face and a guy three years his senior that he liked to fuck that professed his love to him but wouldn't dare call him his boyfriend, his pojkvän. Toki sat at the bottom of his locker and watched the legs of people younger than him filter through. Some sad, sick, strange sort of nostalgia fought its way to Toki, tried to curl up inside of his chest, succeeded.
He didn't understand why, though. He had no attachments to this school. Well, he did, but they were shallow, irrelevant. He'd overlapped his friends at this school by just a year as a freshman. He decided to get up, ghost around the hallways. Here was the bathroom where he'd sucked Skwisgaar's dick when he was supposed to be in math class, the unique scent of school bathrooms now forever destined to get Toki a little hard, and here he was walking past it for the last time. Here was the stairwell under which Dick Knubbler and Murderface had had a huge fight that had left them simultaneously outed and broken up, after which Murderface shook and swore off men, deciding to be "straight again," and here Toki was walking past it for the last time. Here was the courtyard where his friend Leonard had dropped to the ground in a cocaine overdose from which he had not yet fully recovered, and here he was walking past it for the last time. Here he was at an archway, leaning against the side, surveying the walkway between buildings, feeling nothing.
After freshman year, which had been good, Toki suffered through three mediocre years of high school. He opted to drink and smoke with his old friends in lieu of homework, neglected to apply for college. He learned how to play guitar from Pickles when Skwisgaar was too fucked up on heroin to do anything else for those few months in the middle of junior year and Toki needed something to distract himself, and that was his plan for the future, form a band with those guys and force themselves to make it. That was what Toki thought about as he trudged up the stairs to his first period class, a study hall, the bell ringing loud and obnoxious in his ears. If it wasn't for his parents he wouldn't be here, a meta statement that held truth on both the literal and conditional levels.
School passed by without incident, as it always did. Skwisgaar picked Toki up, parked on the curb in the neighborhood that bordered Toki's school in that same old, shitty car he'd had for years. Toki pulled the passenger door shut, put his backpack between his feet, planted his elbows on his knees and dropped his head to his hand. There was a headache flowering around his temples that he tried to rub out.
"Wells," Skwisgaar said, shifting gears and pulling away from the curb, cutting somebody off behind them. His driving hadn't improved, but it'd stopped scaring Toki. "Ams done, I guesses."
"Yeah," Toki said. He didn't keep the bite from his voice, didn't look up. "Ams done."
They drove to the apartment that Skwisgaar shared with Nathan, Pickles, and Murderface. Nathan and Pickles were still a quiet thing, sharing a room and a bed and secrets that Toki could never hope to crack into. Murderface was still sort of reeling from the loss of his relationship with Knubbler. It was expected that Toki was to move in, eighteen and legally allowed to be on his own, that he was going to share a room with Skwisgaar and play rhythm guitar in their band and meld back into their lives. This was the life he has carved out for himself, Toki thought, as he sunk down on Skwisgaar's lap and stared at the huge map of Scandinavia that hung behind Skwisgaar's bed which was actually just two mattresses on top of each on the floor. Skwisgaar's hands on Toki's hips and Toki's hands on Skwisgaar's chest, dragging his nails down hard enough to bleed, raking over his nipples, Skwisgaar smiling because he loved it, Toki's cock leaking precum because he loved it, too. This was the life he literally carved out for himself, writing Toki across Skwisgaar's chest with his fingertips, begging him to make this permanent. They laid in bed and smoked a bowl while they waited for the refractory period to pass, then Toki fucked Skwisgaar with Skwisgaar's face in the mattress, Toki pulling his hair and biting his neck.
Toki wasn't a kid anymore. That was evident. He had stubble on his jaw and a musk to his voice, muscles that ran up and down his body and fingers strong and deft from playing guitar. He'd stopped listening to his parents and cutting his hair and now it hung down to his armpits; he wanted it down to his waist. There was still something youthful in his face, a pound or two left of baby fat, but he was beginning to look more like a man than a boy. That was expected. He'd been eighteen years old for months.
It wasn't like Skwisgaar hadn't grown also, though. He'd recently dyed the first layer of his hair black and pierced the left side of his bottom lip; Toki's head on Skwisgaar's chest, Toki was playing with the ring, running his fingers over the metal slick with sweat and saliva. He'd gotten taller, never giving Toki a chance to catch up, and leaner, the more he filled out the more handsome he became. After he graduated he had worked a few odd jobs, played in a couple of bands, before coming together with the other guys, deciding to live in this apartment and play their music together. They were living off of Murderface's meager inheritance and the money Pickles brought in from tending bar at the seediest joint in the city, Nathan and Skwisgaar writing songs all day, Murderface loafing around in an ever-present depression. The apartment smelled both like dead dreams and burgeoning beginnings.
Skwisgaar's room was atmospheric, painted a white that looked much darker with the hazy light falling in through thick black curtains on the two windows. The mattresses, a television sitting atop a broken amp across the way, stacks upon stacks of record and CD's shoved into the corner around a gigantic stereo. A beautiful, gleaming guitar that had been his graduation gift from his mother in the corner diagonally opposite the stereo. That map of Scandinavia with the red circles around his and Toki's hometowns, a looping line drawn between them; Toki had drawn the circles, Skwisgaar the line. Skwisgaar had taped miscellaneous things around the map, a border: photographs from Pickles's old Polaroid of Skwisgaar and Toki at fairs and concerts, ticket stubs, a page pulled from a mythology book depicting a siren tearing a man apart, a receipt from a gas station for condoms, lube and flavored sparkling water with Jeg elsker deg scrawled across the back of it. Toki could see himself living here. Toki could see himself going to sleep in this bed, waking up in this bed, both in a tangle of limbs and hair. Toki could see himself watching television and eating the shitty junk food Skwisgaar and them subsided off of, could see himself placing his guitar by Skwisgaar's in the corner, could see himself listening to Skwisgaar's record and nodding his head along. And this is where he would be, in a few short weeks.
But despite the I love you's and the collected memorabilia of their life together on the wall, they weren't official. It was a matter of semantics, maybe, but it bothered Toki. He knew Skwisgaar still slept around, didn't know if that would stop once they shared a living space. Skwisgaar was Toki's first in every regard, his everything, this relationship something Toki had poured blood, sweat and semen into. And something had clicked, had slid into place in the space of Toki's brain, that he wasn't getting all he put in.
Skwisgaar was smoking, and with one arm still around Toki's back he stretched to rub the cigarette out in the ashtray sitting on the floor. "Ams happies you's out of high school," he said, returning and nudging Toki's back to indicate he wanted to switch positions, get more comfortable. Skwisgaar propped his head up on the pillow; Toki returned his to Skwisgaar's chest. "Ams was feelingks likes a pedophile."
"You ams," Toki said, his voice flat.
Skwisgaar tugged at Toki's back, prompting Toki to look at him. "You's actingks all weirds," Skwisgaar said, furrowing his eyebrows. He pressed a finger to the space between Toki's eyes.
And Toki could not deny the sad, sick, strange nostalgia that enveloped him, coated his skin in a slimy sheen. He pulled away from Skwisgaar, pressed against his chest so that he could sit up properly. Skwisgaar mirrored him, never losing his look of confusion, black hair over his shoulders while blond hair swung in his face. "You's de problem," Toki said, his voice escalating in volume and pitch. "You's fucks me for years, I fucks you for years, you tells me you loves me and—for whats, Skwisgaar?"
Skwisgaar blinked. "I don'ts understand," he said, soft, reaching a hand out to Toki's shoulder.
Toki swatted Skwisgaar's hand away. "Ams done with dis stupids middle school shit," he said. "You tells me I'm de babies all de time but you de babies, Skwisgaar. You can'ts comments."
"Do you means commits?" Skwisgaar asked, a smirk teasing his lips.
"Whatsever!" Toki threw his hands, looked to the ceiling. "You gets de point! Ams you my boysfriend? Ams you just a fucksfriend? Doesn't know!"
"Toki, I thoughts you understood," Skwisgaar said. "You knows I cares about you—"
"Reallys?" Toki looked at Skwisgaar, face blank, and Skwisgaar's jaw slacked. "You cares about me? Dat's why you fucks de sluts every days of de week?"
"Dat doesn't mean anyding." Skwisgaar's jaw hardened, his eyebrows furrowing again, his eyes slanting. "You know dat, Toki, why you's being so babies and idiots tonight?"
"Because fucks you," Toki said. He drew his hands back, crossed his arms over his bare chest. "You only says you cares about me to keeps me around and makes de fun of me behinds my back. You's horrible, you's a dick, you's de worst persons ever."
He had done so well. He had made his point. When he felt the lump building in his throat and the tears collecting in his eyes he extricated himself from the bed. He grabbed the jeans he'd been wearing and pulled them on, grabbed his shirt from the floor and balled it in his hand. He left his boxers and Skwisgaar's hoodie behind, litter on the ground. He walked out, he slammed the door, and he ignored the stares from Murderface and the questions from Pickles. He took the elevator down to the lobby and shoved his tears back inside himself, kept his face blank as he walked to the bus stop, ignored the looks he got from everybody on the fucking street. He put his shirt back on while he was riding the bus and went home.
It wasn't a breakup because there was nothing to break. That was the worst part, the thought that resonated in his head in the negative space between the last day of school and graduation day. It rained three times and each time it did Toki sat by the window in his room, watching the rain fall for the entirety. It calmed him, the rain, the thunder, the flashes of lightning so close to the face that he thought he had gone blind, thought he had died. And though he had felt the tears come in Skwisgaar's room—a memory that already seemed like a haze of hot emotion and half thoughts, shrouded in the black light of the curtains—he did not cry, not once. The sky cried for him.
Graduation was June 5th, held on the football field of his school, and it was hot. His school's color was black and thus Toki donned the traditional black robe and cap, sat in cheap folding chairs amongst his fellow students. His last name, W, put him in the last few rows, sandwiched between Kurt Warren and Rose Watson. His parents didn't attend. He'd given one of the tickets to Skwisgaar, had made plans to sneak off afterwards and have sex in an empty classroom as a final fuck you to the place as they'd done on Skwisgaar's graduation three years ago, but Toki doubted that he had come. He didn't look, told himself that he didn't care, instead watched his classmates walk across the stage as the time trickled by. He sweated profusely, his hair sticking to his skin, even though he was wearing shorts and a short-sleeved shirt beneath his robe.
When it was his turn he kept his head down as he made the journey, shook his principal's hand, and received his diploma. Standing onstage, surveying the people he'd never bothered to become acquainted with, it occurred to him that his friends might not be his friends anymore. They were tied together, a packaged deal if he'd ever seen one, but Toki had always been the most expendable. They knew each other before him. He slid into the group as the new kid, then as Skwisgaar's sort-of boyfriend, never as Toki. He walked offstage as Rose Watson walked on and it felt monumental, underneath that hot sun and uncomfortable in that hot robe, truly like this was the last of something. The ramifications of what he'd done on the afternoon in Skwisgaar's room landed on his shoulders. His future was bleak.
And then Toki looked up, squinted into the distance, and saw him. He thought he hallucinated it at first, a mirage like water in the desert, and looked down to make sure he wouldn't trip over his shoes. But when he looked up he was still there, sitting with everybody's relatives in the other collection of cheap folding chairs. He stood out in a crowd with his ripped shirts and pierced lip, heavy eye make-up and height. The chairs beside him were empty, his arms slung across the back of them, one leg folded over his knee. Skwisgaar, sitting there, looking not at Toki but at the stage. Toki knew that the look of complete apathy was something Skwisgaar had manufactured, knew that beneath it he hid a tangled mess of emotions, and Toki's heart fell through his chest like an elevator whose cable had snapped. Toki took his seat, kept his head turned towards Skwisgaar.
Stupid fucking Skwisgaar Skwigelf, always pulling shit like this. He fancied himself a prince, chivalrous, charming and charismatic. Toki swore that if he tried to make it up to him he would deny it, that Skwisgaar was toxic, that maybe Toki's self-esteem could take off and flourish without Skwisgaar there to mock him. He told himself he only liked Skwisgaar for his dick and the way his body curved around Toki's own, attractive and lean, how he bled pretty. And Toki failed at all of this, he did, the pressure in his head building up again, tears threatening to come. He looked at the sky, a cloudless blue vacuum, and cursed the gods for having cursed him. He turned around as Rose Watson took her seat to watch somebody else get their diploma.
Afterwards in the fray on the field Skwisgaar found Toki, of course he did, and pulled him aside. Toki had already shed the robe and the cap, was holding them both in his arms. Skwisgaar put a hand on his shoulder, his mouth a flower that had yet to bloom, and said, "Tokis."
"Skwisgaar." Toki fought hard to keep his voice flat.
"Does you knows why I ams here?" Skwisgaar asked. He looked around, looking at here, at the football field with the well-groomed artificial grass and the bleachers that blazed with heat and burnt your ass when you sat on them, at the buildings that compiled their school wavering with heat in the distance.
"To get de numbers of de grannies?" Toki asked, making a sweeping motion with one hand to indicate all of the student's relatives, many of them elderly, standing around in the field.
"I thoughts about it," Skwisgaar said, and he laughed a little, a temporary flash of anxiety lighting up his face. He composed himself, put his other hand on Toki's other shoulder and continued. "Buts, noes. Dat's ams done. I means—what's I ams tryingks to say is, Toki. I love you."
"I knows dat," Toki said, rolling his eyes. "Or I knows dat you thinks you loves me—"
"Noes, I does, and I's thoughts a lots about what you says. I think dat I does have dese commetments tissues, or whatsever dey're called. I dinks it's because of—my mother." He grimaced, his hands tightening on Toki's shoulders, but then he shook his head and continued. Toki told himself not to be proud. "But likes I says, I dids a lots of thinkings, and I never once thougthts dat I coulds lives without you, Tokis. You's—remember what I says to you, dat day where we gots high and did de blowjobs for the first time?"
"You calls me a stupid idiots babies like you does every time we's together," Toki deadpanned.
"Besides dat!"
Toki did remember, of course he did, he had sketched the words on so many pieces of paper, had inked them into his skin when he was supposed to be paying attention in class, had whispered them to himself before falling asleep. "Noes."
"I says 'Only yous, Toki," Skwisgaar said. "You says somethingks abouts gettingks high, I doesn't remember, and I says only yous, because I coulds gets away wit it in dat contacts. But what I means is dat it ams only yous, really, forsever. Ams only yous dat I want. Ams only yous dat I think about. What ams trying to say ams, I think, Toki. Will you bes mine boyfriend?"
Toki's first reaction was to laugh and so he did, laugh hard enough that the graduation robe and cap tumbled out of his arms and hit the ground between them. And as he laughed Skwisgaar's hands slid down his shoulder, making it so he could wrap his arms around Toki, pull him into his chest, and so Toki laughed into Skwisgaar's chest. Laughed hard enough that he cried, fat tearstains running the length of his cheeks. He could hear Skwisgaar's heart skip beats beneath him.
"Uh, Toki?" Skwisgaar asked, retracting himself so he could look Toki in the face.
Toki laughed away his tears and ceased his laughter. "Skwisgaar," he said, his voice croaky. "I waits so long to hear dose words and—nows?"
Skwisgaar shrugged. "If you wants, we can starts all overs again. I can takes you actual dates and we doesn't have to have de sex for, like, a months."
Toki shook his head, giggles spilling from his mouth though he tried to keep the laughter inside of him. "Fucks dat!" he exclaimed, slapping Skwisgaar in the chest. "Fucks you, you dicks! Of course I wills bes yours, wowee."
Skwisgaar grinned and took one of Toki's hands, laid it flat against his chest. "You gives me de hearts attack," he said. "I thoughts I was goingks to die when yous left. I didsn't eat for days."
Toki shook his head. "You's so gay," he said, still laughing. "Can we has de sex in de classroom now?"
Skwisgaar led Toki by hand to the only class they'd ever shared, an art elective Skwisgaar had signed up for to spend more time with Toki and had miserably failed. They laughed the whole way there, making stupid, lame jokes about the school that they always made, and laughed even harder when they found the classroom unlocked. In lieu of desks the art room had large, broad tables and Skwisgaar fucked Toki over one of them, their laughs melting into groans and moans, everything serious again. That strange nostalgia crept back into Toki, this time without the tinge of sickness or sadness, and he welcomed it as he welcomed Skwisgaar's cock in his ass. After they both came Toki flipped around on the table, sitting with his shorts unzipped and dipping low on his hips, leaning into Skwisgaar and kissing him stupid.
A label in a language they both had only the loosest of grasps on shouldn't have meant so much but it did, and this ride in Skwisgaar's shit car from school to his apartment, this final, ultimate ride, felt so, so different. Skwisgaar drove with one hand on the top of the wheel and the other on Toki's knee and Toki fucked with the radio, Skwisgaar complaining. Toki stuck his tongue out at him; Skwisgaar leaned towards Toki and mouthed his tongue; Toki pulled back and shrieked at Skwisgaar to focus on driving so he couldn't get them both killed.
"But we'ds goes to Valhalla and bes happies together forever," Skwisgaar said, as if he was genuinely befuddled that Toki didn't understand that fact.
"If we goes to Valhalla because of you's bad driving," Toki said, staring at Skwisgaar's jaw flexing with the effort to surpress a smile, "we ams not goin' to be happy together forsever. I will makes sure of dat."
Walking into the apartment felt like coming home. It was Toki's home, or at least his future home, so the feeling wasn't out of place—nor was it new—but it was still important. Skwisgaar deposited his keys in an empty ashtray on a rickety table beside the door and walked into the kitchen. Pickles, sitting on the couch between Nathan and Murderface with a game controller in his lap (and the game paused, eliciting complaints from Nathan and Murderface) captured Toki's attention.
"Hey, you're back," Pickles said, tossing the words over his shoulder. "You two fuck and make up?" Nathan sniggered; Murderface groaned and gagged.
"Uh, ja, actualskies," Skwisgaar called from the kitchen. He seemed to be making popcorn of all things, shutting the microwave door shut and turning around. He examined his nails, painted a chipping black.
"Cool, good, now we don't gotta have Magnus on rhythm in the band. Guy's a douchebag." Pickles unpaused the game, eliciting rejoices from Nathan and Murderface.
Skwisgaar and Toki exchanged a glance and Skwisgaar shrugged. He reached into the refrigerator and pulled out two cans of soda, then a baggie of weed from his pocket, jangling them all at Toki. Toki nodded, walking forward and over the legs of his friends to purposefully fuck up their game, and met Skwisgaar at the doorway into his room. They shut the door to Skwisgaar's room and sat cross-legged from each other on the floor as they had done all those years ago, Skwisgaar rolling a joint quickly and efficiently, holding it to Toki's mouth so he could take the first hit. It was tradition.
They volleyed mouthfuls of smoke back and forth until they heard a faint beeping and Pickles shouting to them that their popcorn was done. Skwisgaar dashed to get it, came back and sat on the edge of his bed, cracking open the bag. Toki clambered to join him, Skwisgaar throwing an arm around Toki's shoulders, resting the bag on their thighs. They ate popcorn and fought over the remote before deciding to watch Pink: Floyd the wall for the fifty-seventh time, sharing sloppy, greasy kisses over low guitar and mournful voices, in the dimly lit room. It wouldn't be the first, nor would it be the last, time that this occurred, Skwisgaar breaking to seesaw their foreheads, whispering to Toki, "Only with yous, Toki. Only with yous."