Every Small Town Has Secrets

Chapter Ten: We Thought The Weight Of The World Would Have Us Sinking Like A Stone

By: Jondy Macmillan

Sometimes, you think you're heading in one direction, and life throws you a curveball. By the time the dust clears, you realize you're on a path that's completely opposite the way you've been going. Once you're there, you have a choice. Leave the opportunity behind, go back your original way, or realize the truth.

It's a lie though. You can never go back. Not really.

That's what it was like dating Stuart. I thought that we'd be friends til we were old men, rocking on chairs in a town far away from this one, trading jokes and jibes and memories like they were wares for barter, each more precious than the rest. Instead, I started dating him and blew everything to hell.

I lost him; it was the one thing I feared most, and the one thing I refused to believe would ever happen.

Because being with Stuart was kind of amazing.

I knew him as my best friend, as the kid I spent hours discussing the merits of beer versus grain liquor, of Star Wards versus everything else. For me, Stuart was always fierce, opinionated, vulgar, independent, and wild. That was my friend.

I didn't know who this 'boyfriend' person could be, and the more I found out, the more invested I became. The vulnerability he never would have shown me, the secret dreams and fears; these were the things that drew me in. These were the things that terrified me the most.

In retaliation for the concert, I decided I owed Stuart a date. My family was always big on reciprocity, and even though Stuart insisted it wasn't necessary to treat him like a girl, I put my foot down. Unlike our friendship, where I never forced Stuart to take part in things that weren't shared interests, I wanted our relationship to be on equal footing. If I had to date my best friend, I wanted him at least to see what he was getting into. I would have done the same for Randy, if I'd ever gotten the chance.

"Brof, enough with the secrecy, already. We've been driving for hours."

"We've been in the car for like, twenty minutes," I chided, completely aware of Stuart's insatiable curiosity when it came to mysteries. He was a lot like me in that way; he couldn't stand not knowing.

"Brof," he whined, inching a hand over to my thigh and squeezing, running one finger along the inseam of my jeans. It was the most he'd touched me since the concert, and it made me acutely uncomfortable.

"Stop that."

"Dude, you need to chill out," Stuart withdrew his hand, which was something of a relief, "I've heard stress can make your head explode."

"Where'd you hear that?"

"Kevin Tucker."

"Kevin's a moron," I replied.

"That might be true," Stuart conceded, winding his hand in my hair instead, "But I'm really, really fond of your head."

Without warning, he drew my face towards his for the first time since his damned experiment began. Our lips came this close to touching when a blaring horn startled us apart. I was veering right into the path of an eighteen wheeler, the headlights bearing down on us brighter than anything I'd ever seen.

"Shit," I swerved right, narrowly avoiding a head on collision.

Stuart was cracking up.

"What the fuck do you think is so funny?"

"The look on your face right now, for one."

"We nearly died!" my voice hiked up an octave, close to breaking.

"Yeah," Stuart admitted, "But wouldn't that have been the best way to die?"

He wiggled his eyebrows at me.

"I hate you. I hate you so, so much. I have half a mind to drive back to South Park right this minute."

Suddenly he was all puppy dog eyes and apologies, "No, no, I'm sorry man. I promise I won't do it again. Really. Scout's honor."

I crossed my arms, refusing to be mollified.

"Brof," Stuart unbuckled his seat belt, shifting his body so that he was completely facing me, "I'm sorry. Promise."

"Okay," I groaned, "But if you ever do that again, I will not hesitate to kick you out and let you hitchhike back home."

He grinned, amused as I'd ever seen him, "Yessir."

He was considerably less amused when I pulled into the parking lot of the airport Hilton, where the giant light board read, 'Colorado Consortium on Human Rights'.

"Where the fuck are we."

"I believe we're near the airport," I replied mildly.

"You're taking me to a- to a geek conference?" he nearly shouted.

"Give it a chance, Stuart. It's about the plight of the human race," I snapped, annoyed. This was why I never took him to these kinds of things. I'd always been scared that he'd make me feel like the things I liked were stupid. And here he was, doing just that.

"Does it mean that much to you?" I could hear the interest in his voice, and when I glanced over I was shocked to see he was actually waiting for my answer.

"I- yeah."

"Okay," he shrugged, "What can it hurt. And what exactly is the 'plight of the human race'? I didn't know we had a plight."

"You have no idea," I promised him, "Just wait."

And he did. He waited through lectures on nuclear nonproliferation, and discussions of third world industrialization. He waited through talks of global warming and what was then thought more feasible; global cooling. He listened to tales of child soldiers in India and genocide in Africa, and at the end, he looked no more enlightened than he had sitting in the cab of my dad's old sedan.

We burst from the conference into the night air, and I, at least was reeling from my information overload. I hadn't know things were Quite So Bad, because back then, we didn't believe in the possibility of the world ending with quite so much vigor. Oh sure, we imagined it, and maybe even feared it, but we thought it was far more likely that the Soviets would blast everything to hell or aliens might rain down from outer space than that mother nature might just give up on us all.

We fell back on the landing strip of greenery alongside the parking lot, ignoring the slushy snow and the warning signs to 'keep off the grass'.

"What did you think?" I asked, turning to face my friend.

"I dunno," Stuart murmured.

"That's no answer," I sat up, suddenly alert, "Seriously. What did you think."

"It was a'ight."

"Stuart," I warned.

"Brof," he warned right back.

"Why aren't you giving me opinion."

"'ell, it seems like we got us a whole shitload of opinions back there. Ain't that enough?"

I could tell from the way his speech was starting to go Southern on me that something was wrong. I softened my tone, "I just wanted to know what you think?"

"A conference is no kind of date," he growled, pushing a hand through his thick, sandy hair. Then he admitted, "I didn't understand half of what they were sayin'."

"What?" I whisper, nearly choking on the word.

"You might get all this intellectual crap Brof- you're goin' to college, leavin' us all behind. But I- I'm not like you."

What I'd done began to sink in.

"I hate- feeling stupid. I just hate it," Stuart sighed, watching the stars like they held the secrets of the universe.

"You're not stupid."

"Don't lie to me."

"I'm-" I paused, grabbing hold of his chin so he had to look me in the face. My sneakers nudged the sides of his legs where he reclined on the grass, and I knelt until my knees touched down and I was straddling him, adamantly replying, "I'm not lying. You're so, so smart."

"What are you on about?" he tried to turn his face to the side, annoyed.

I didn't know how to convey what I was thinking, about all the times Stuart had one upped me intellectually without even knowing it, like when he calculated tips faster, or completed cross word puzzles faster. He was the best guy in town at fixing cars, and he knew practically all the names of the stars when I could barley identify the big dipper. Sure, it wasn't enough to get him into college, but I knew he was smart. And he needed to know too.

"You're brilliant," I told him earnestly, staring straight into his sky blue eyes, because he was- he shone as brightly as any star, "I'm serious, Stuart. You're one of the most brilliant people I know."

"You're required to say that," he wrapped his arms around my waist, looping his fingers inside the back of my jeans, "As my best friend."

"No, I'm required to say that because it's true. And I'd never lie to you," I confessed. And then I did the one thing that I'd been thinking of, constantly, since we'd had that near death experience. I hadn't wanted to tell Stuart, but I'd barely been focusing on the lectures too. Because all I wanted was to do this, to kiss him.

So I did.

He kissed me back, soft, gentle, stealing the air from my lungs so that I felt like the sky must have been spinning overhead; the scientists had gotten it wrong, because I was certain in that moment that the whole world spun around Stuart and me.

For a second, he broke contact, and he mumbled, "Just do me a favor, Brof? Next time you pick a date, choose the movies or somethin'."

He tugged me back down for another kiss.

A/N: This is a reaaaaally short chapter, and for that I apologize. I also apologize for their retarded date location, I had this whole idea in my mind where I wanted poor Stuart to worry about being stupid, but I couldn't think of a single situation where he would think that. And thus we have…whatever the hell that was. I had to like google half that shit just to check if it was extant in the seventies. Which explains why I didn't write more about their time inside the conference. Please review, and I promise the next chapter will be sooooo much better!