"I feel bad for Byron Burch," I said about a Light in August character, one Friday afternoon, after Susan had left for the day. "He's too shy to tell Lena how he feels about her."
"She's pregnant with someone else's kid, though."
"I know. But still. I understand how he feels."
He closed a binder on the table. I watched as he stowed it away on a metal shelf. "Me too. Lots of times I've been afraid to speak up when I liked someone."
"Yeah?" I lose focus on the chart I was filling out. "How often is 'lots of times'?"
"Okay, maybe not 'lots of times'," he said, hunching over the table diagonal from me. "Especially nowadays, it's not often I like someone. But it doesn't matter. Who would like me back anyway?"
He knew exactly what he was doing. I broke out in a sweat. This was my chance now. I could shape out what this relationship was.
I may not be suave, but I am no Byron Burch.
"Craig, if you wanted to, I would go out with you."
Big smile. "You mean that?"
"I do." I smiled back.
"I… wow. I'm glad because I have to admit: I've been lowkey crushing on you for the past few weeks."
"Me too… I thought maybe you liked me, but I wasn't sure because…" I waved a circle around my face. "Because of this."
For the first time since I had known him, he looked genuinely sad. His eyebrows furrowed, his shoulders slumped. "You don't think you're cute?"
"I have no reason to think that."
"Well, you haven't seen how you look when you're talking about cell division. It's really cute."
"Don't make me blush."
"You already are," he looked completely dopey now. "I have to get some stuff out of my office before I go home, want to come with me?"
...
Some people think science is boring. They had teachers who told them to analyze facts or memorize the periodic table and be done with it. True science means digging in - probing the soft underbelly of our existence.
Existence was something I thought about a lot during that time. I often felt outside of my body, not controlling anything, watching this broken vessel move from room to room.
When he pulled me into his tiny office on the floor above, I realized what my existence was about to be for someone else. My body, too, would be a part of someone else's.
He took a minute to download something to a USB from a humming old Dell on the desk, watching me observe everything. Every knick-knack or pad of stationary, I thought, would clue me into more about him. Like me, he had lake stones on a shelf. He also had Pride buttons and little green army men. In the center of the army men was what I can only describe as a mailman action figure, shining of plastic, a scrambled, painted face.
"Is that supposed to be you?" I pointed it out.
"According to my friends, yeah."
"You still have the uniform?"
"Maybe."
I zeroed in on the windowsill, flushed with sunlight, tiny succulents, and one singular daisy with a postcard that read to plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow! Love, Mom.
"Adorable," I whispered.
"Like you."
"No…"
"This is going to be an ongoing thing with you, isn't it?"
"You bet."
"That's fine. I can go for a long time."
I looked away from all the meanings he implied and moved on to the next thing. Piles of department pamphlets, employee folders, a few books, one of which was in German. I picked it up.
"Nichts ist mehr wert als dieser Tag," he said from behind me.
For a second, I thought he was telling me to put the book down. I twisted back to look at him. He was now up and leaning against the front of his desk.
"Care to translate?"
"Nothing is worth more than this day. It's the first quote I thought of when I saw you picking up that Goethe. But it's been in the back of my head whenever I see you, too."
I put the book down, then stood in front of him, arms crossed.
"What happens now?" I asked.
"What do you want to happen?"
"A lot of things. I don't know where to start."
While I spoke, he quietly put his hands on my hips. I leaned into him, getting closer to his face than ever. He had gotten some sun, and his nose was peeling. Instinctively I reached up and tugged off the dead skin.
He didn't even flinch, pulling me in to kiss me.
Our underbellies, what makes us, us. It didn't matter, me being an estranged Jew with a criminal record and him an adopted child of mixed descent, or that we were two men kissing.
Yet, it meant everything.
Everything we were led up to this point, and as he moved his hands up my shirt, I thought of the soft belly of a sheep, amber honey, how no one else has kissed me deeply.
