(written for the contre la montre show-not-tell jealousy challenge. 60 minutes)
it had always been the three of them, ever since debi's dad got the promotion and moved her and her mother to grosse pointe. but that had been in third grade, and paul didn't know, couldn't know, there was a limit on how long their perfect little cocoon would last.
by fifth grade, no one bothered them, except maybe nathaniel, always more brawn than brains, and marty had no trouble spinning enough logic to befuddle the overgrown boy.
paul and debi and marty. all for one and one for all.
by eighth grade, whole weekends disappeared into a haze of movies, records, and pizza. they all slept together in debi's queen size bed. marty's parents, in a haze of bourbon and pills, didn't even notice he was gone. paul's parents were just glad he was associating with debi, and by association, her father's money.
they all slept together in that big bed. well. marty and debi slept. paul lay awake more often than he'd admit, watching them sleep. breathing and dreaming. watching marty's dark eyelashes flutter against his pale irish cheek. his thin chest rising and falling. wondering if he snuck out a finger, if the skin would be cool to his touch.
but marty was his friend. and a boy, paul reminded himself. and so he would turn over, around, into himself, fold his arms tight and think jenny slater thoughts. try to think jenny slater thoughts. but all-american blonde jenny slater drifted away as the night moved on and his control waned, and was replaced by the tall, slender boy with the serious dark eyes.
in ninth grade, paul awoke to see debi's arm flung possessively over marty's ramones-tshirt-clad torso. marty's fingers entwined in her hair. bile rose in the back of paul's throat. jenny slater. jenny slater. he tried the old trick. jenny. tiny cold feet ran up and down his spine, collecting in his stomach. marty. no. the three of us, marty, not the two of you.
he watched them dream on. no. no more. he jumped up and stormed from debi's room, grateful for the side entrance that spared him questions from her parents. hopped on his bicycle and rode furiously away, blinking back hot tears.
the three of them. no. the two of them plus one.
maybe they always were. maybe he just hadn't seen it before. it didn't matter, anyway.
well. it shouldn't matter. but try as he might it did.
for the next three years paul watched him. how sparks flew from his fingers when they brushed against him accidentally. at the lockers. in gym. in mrs. k's english class. couldn't he see the sparks? he never sparked for her.
senior year, marty's eyes changed. they clouded over, and the sparks came less frequently. paul noticed. debi didn't. but paul was afraid to ask, afraid of what the conversation might bring, afraid that marty would say something to dispel the cool pit which had been in his stomach since that day in ninth grade. when they talked it was about school and girls, and paul sang the song of jenny slater, spitting out the words and hoping for the first time that marty's clouded eyes wouldn't see inside. see the truth.
in the end, paul agreed to join them for the prom - "just the three of us. for old time's sake" - because he thought that maybe going and dancing and watching would be better than staying at home and imagining the way his hand would rest on her arm, how he would move when he danced, how often they would sneak away to kiss.
so he went and he watched and he waited. no marty. no debi. he drank soda after soda. jittered his way up and down the sideline of the dance floor on a caffeine high. pretended that the streamers and balloons really did transform the gym into a wonderland.
but marty never came.
three songs from the end paul saw debi step in to the gym. he ducked into the shadows at the far corner, kicking a stray balloon and watching.
she was alone.
paul smiled.
***
the next afternoon, paul heard a knock at the door. his mother answered it. "it's debi!" she called.
"where's our boy?" he wanted to ask her. "why?" he needed to know. "where?" so he could find him.
but he knew marty was gone. gone for good. and if he let debi back into his life they could be a new two.
"tell her i'm sick," he said. loud enough that debi could hear. but the pains that had been with him for so long had drifted away in the night.
he could comfort debi. and they would become the two of them. it would have been easy.
the two of them.
but it would be the wrong two.