10th grade

Everyone had left them in the wake of Craig's tantrum. Jimmy and Spinner had been annoyed with Marco and Craig anyway, just a little. Marco had been especially whiny lately and Craig was flying off the handle. They went to the Dot and got burgers and fries and vented.

"What is with those two?" Spinner said, dipping a fry in ketchup. Jimmy shrugged and bit into his burger, grimacing as condiments spilled out onto his chin. He wiped it with a napkin.

"I don't know. But they can have each other," he said, taking one of Spinner's fries because he had finished all of his.

Back in the garage Craig sat slumped down on the couch, his legs stretched out in front of him. Sitting like that, Marco noticed how tall he was, noticed his dark curly hair, longer then it had been last year. He shook his head at him, knowing what was wrong. Girls. Ashley. Figuring them out. But it seemed like basic math compared to the calculus of what he was dealing with. He breathed in Craig's cologne.

"She said we're on a break," Craig said, the despair in his voice. Marco winced and thought of the irony of his dispensing advice on a subject he was just as lost in, on, around, everywhere. Lost, lost.

"You love her, right?" he said, peering at Craig, at his pretty dark hazel eyes, his full lips. Of his friends, Craig was one that he found to be more attractive. Jimmy had his positive attributes as well, very athletic, that mocha smooth skin, the smooth voice. Spinner kind of repulsed him.

"Yeah,"

"So tell her," he told him, not seeing why this was so hard. He loved her. She wanted to hear it. People needed affirmation, he knew this. He didn't know why Craig didn't.

"It's not that easy, I can't just tell her," Craig said.

"Then you've lost her already," Marco said.

Craig didn't know that Marco was struggling with a sexuality he perceived as different from everyone else, a self image that seemed to be crumbling before his very eyes. He wanted to be normal, he wanted his father's approval, he wanted a boyfriend. These wants didn't seem to be able to coexist in his world as he knew it.

Marco didn't know the extent of Craig's history of abuse, his struggles with commitment and love as a result. Marco had a loving and stable upbringing and was more able to contemplate and have a committed relationship.

"Tell her you love her, what is the big deal?" Marco said, and Craig drew his knees up, shifted his weight on the couch.

"I don't know," he said. What was the big deal? Every time he thought of just telling her, just saying it, he felt like he couldn't breath.

Marco looked at the way Craig's head was tilted back against the couch, his lips parted slightly. He could imagine kissing him, softly and delicately. Then he looked away and shook his head. He was here trying to give him advice on how to reconcile with Ash and he was thinking this way? What was wrong with him?

For his part Craig was feeling unable to take any advice and vaguely sorry for having snapped at Jimmy and Spinner. He couldn't take Marco's advice because he couldn't articulate to himself what was wrong. He loved Ashley. He loved seeing her and talking to her and kissing her and he wanted to have sex with her so bad he could taste it. He wanted to be with her every waking second. When he first saw her in the morning at school or outside the movie theater or at the Dot his heart started to beat faster. He felt alive. He loved her. So why couldn't he tell her? He wasn't consciously thinking about his mother, his first love snatched from him. All the times she'd smoothed his curls away from his forehead and whispered, 'I love you,' He wasn't thinking that she was affecting him now. He wasn't thinking about her withering away in those white hospital beds, frail figure under paler sheets still whispering that she loved him.