Page 158 of Fifty First Times (Sharing You 0.40)
Exiting the restroom, I stashed the condom in my jacket pocket. “That’s the last time we go to the bathroom together,” I told Allen. “We might be gay, but we’re not a couple of girls.”
“You worry too much about what other people think,” he said, grabbing a large sugar-free Red Bull from a cooler.
I picked up a bottled water. “I grew up around here. Saying the wrong thing in the wrong place to the wrong guy can land you in the hospital. Iowa City is a college town. We can play by different rules there. But here in this no-name dump off I–80—you have to watch what you say.”
“You worried people will think we’re a couple?” Allen set the Red Bull on the counter. He put an arm around my waist and stepped closer to me as the clerk rang him up.
Allen plucked the bottle from my hand. “Let me pay for that.”
I shrugged him off. “Do whatever you want. I’ll be in the car.”
The truth was, I wasn’t worried that people would think we were a couple—far from it. I’d been fantasizing about that for the past two years since freshman year, when Allen was the big man on campus from the Chicago ’burbs and I was the small-town boy struggling to fit in. Not that there was one definitive “big man” on a campus of thirty thousand, but he was the tallest guy in my Intro to English Lit class. When I first laid eyes on him from the back of the room, Allen looked like the kind of guy who could have played ball in high school. A real jock.
In other words, just my type.
I moved one seat closer to him every afternoon that first semester, until I had him in checkmate. If I made another move, I’d end up sitting on his lap. Perhaps that’s what I was shooting for. It took me a few classes directly beside him to say anything. When I finally worked up the courage to talk to him, my mouth betrayed me, destroying the month-long buildup in one fell swoop.
“So what were you, like, the quarterback in high school?”
“No,” Allen said, “but I fucked the quarterback.”
Swoon.
“But that was high school,” he added. “I don’t want you to get any ideas about me—I was experimenting.”
My heart sank. “Of course.”
Allen must have seen the look of disappointment in my eyes, because he winked at me. “I’m not into jocks anymore.”
I thought we were going to hook up right there in the middle of the classroom. Unfortunately, I was too intimidated to return his flirtatious wink. Later, I learned that Allen flirted with everyone. That was just his modus operandi. I wasn’t special. He was dating some poet at the time, which meant he was off-limits anyway. When they broke up, I thought about making a move. I thought about it long and hard. By the time I worked up the courage to say something, he had a new boy toy. After seeing him pump and dump a few more boys (and girls) that semester, I realized the friendzone wasn’t such a bad place to be. I saw how he treated the people he slept with. They were as disposable as the paper plates he was so fond of. “I’m an equal opportunity lover,” he once told me, “but you can call me a slut.”
On a crisp fall day three weeks before our road trip, we met at the Chipotle on campus for lunch. I asked Allen if he’d seen the event page for the Beta Theta Pi Halloween party.
“No,” he said. “Where’d you see that? Facebook?”
“Yeah.”
Allen shook his head. “I don’t have a Facebook account anymore.”
“Thought I hadn’t seen any posts from you in a while.”
“I ditched that shit. Never used it. Never cared.”
“I like to keep in touch with my family.”
“Really? There’s plenty of time to catch up with them online when you move back home after graduation and can’t find a job. Right now, you’re young and away from home. Make the most of it.”
I thought about it as I picked at my salad. He was right. I had less than a year left of college unless I decided to go to grad school for an MFA. And what was I doing with my time? Losing hours of my life to Facebook and Skype, chatting with my family—family that lived an hour away. If I really missed them, I could go home anytime. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed I was pissing away my entire college experience tethered to family. I loved them, yes, but I hadn’t even come out to any of my relatives except my aunt and her partner.
“Fuck family,” I said.
“Whoa,” Allen said. “I don’t know if I’d go that far. Family is important, man. I call my mom once a week. I text my brothers every day. My point was more like, fuck Facebook.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, what’s up with this frat party?”
“The Beta Theta Pi thing? It’s next Friday. Supposed to be an orgy.”
