-Principal Thomas
I took this to mean that she would not be present before the first day of school.
I know it’s going to be at least an eight o’clock night tonight, so I take my time getting out of bed, doom-scrolling on my phone instead. I know it’s Elias’s typical shower time, so I give him some space. The last thing I need right now is to be blasted in the face with his dripping wet chest when he exits the bathroom.
I groan, scrubbing my face with my hands. I have refused,refusedto even think about that moment this summer,especiallywhat I did afterwards.Nothing happened, actually, I tell myself. I just got off to the image of Adam’s perfect mouth, blue eyes, and one perfect curl going down on me. His tongue licking me just like he licked the salt off his hand. That’s exactly what happened. I find myself daydreaming about it now, absentmindedly circling a nipple with my finger, when Elias pounds on my door.
“I’m coming in,” he yells a split second before doing so, wearing nothing but a towel and indeed blasting me in the face with his dripping wet Hercules chest.
“Gah,” I squeak.
Elias stops short and zeroes in on my boobs. I look down and see my nipples poking obscenely through the thin material of my tank top.
“Gah,” I squeak again, gathering up every square foot of my comforter in my arms and pulling it up to my chin, pulling myself together along with it. “WHAT DO YOU WANT, ELIAS?! CAN YOU KNOCK?!”
“I did knock,” he tells my chest.
“You have to wait for a response before entering, dickwad?—”
He finally meets my eyes, moistening his lips at the same time. I look away. “But we’ve never done that,” he tells me.
I want to gouge my eyes out. “We need to revisit our Privacy Policy. Remind me why you live with me, and not your best friend?”
“Because you asked me to? Because Leo makes too much money and doesn’t want to live with the ‘poors’ in Brooklyn, so he has his own one bedroom in Tribeca that’s double the size of our entire apartment?”
I sigh. “What do you want?” I ask again, exuding calm, cool, and collected.
He comes to sit on the side of my bed, moving his head and trying to catch my eyes every time I try to look away. “Will you just look at me?” he demands.
“I am looking at you,” I mutter.
“Meems, come on,” he pleads.
I finally meet his gaze for the first time since August. We look at one another for a beat. I clock the green of his eyes, the bronze and blue flecks you can find if you look closely enough, rimmed with dusky brown lashes that curl up like a tidal wave. The slight curve of his twice broken nose. I notice he’s gained some new freckles over the summer.
I want to wave hello to those freckles, want to give them a hug. They’ve been constant, cyclical friends, like the friends you would make and only see at summer camp. Freckle friends that would say hello every July, in the woods behind our houses or on the beach of Wildwood.
“We need to talk,” he tells me.
“We absolutely do not need to talk,” I retort.
“You’ve been weird ever since the Bathroom Incident?—”
“I do not know what ‘incident’ you speak of?—”
“And I need it to not be weird anymore because I miss my Meems. And honestly, I’m surprised it’s taken you almost thirty years to see my dick,” he finishes.
“I’ve seen it before. You’ve grown up since then,” I mutter.
He gives me an indescribable look. I close my eyes, hoping that he either goes away or I disappear.
“I can still see you,” Elias tells me. “I thought you figured out you don’t turn invisible when you close your eyes when you were five.”
“Probably later than that,” I grumble, “since the two of you convinced me otherwise for a very long time.”
“So do you wanna talk about it, or do you wanna forget it ever happened and never speak of it again and then go back to normal?” he asks me.
I open my eyes. “The second thing is an option?”
