Page 51 of Hollywood, Ending

“Uggggg, Kai. First off, it’s not our movie. It’s my movie featuring you.”

“It’s Matthew’s movie featuring both of us,” I said, laughing.

“It’s Kathryn’s movie, starring Matthew, featuring me, and introducing you. Secondly, yes, I am going to check how many likes my stupid picture got, and how many new follows it got you because I tagged you you’re welcome. This is how I quantify my value to society, Kai. I am trying to help our movie.”

“Matthew’s movie,” I said.

“Matthew’s movie. What are we going to watch?”

“I’ve been wanting to see John Wick 2,” I said.

“People say it’s the Thinking Man’s John Wick 1,” she answered.

15

As we watched the movie, I kept looking over at Juniper. She had full lips and improbably large brown eyes. “I look like a cartoon that became a real girl,” she told me once. Her hair fell extremely straight from her head, a rich brown, naturally highlighted red. I liked the way Juniper sat—her legs curled up together, one hand across her stomach. I liked the way she glanced at me during the most violent bits and made an exaggerated barfing face. I liked the way she laughed at the jokes in the movie, abruptly and generously. If you were onstage doing improv, you’d want Juniper in the audience, and I appreciate people like that.

And I loved how hard she worked, how much she wanted to be great. What other people found annoying about Juniper—she’s too overbearing, too ambitious, too committed—were to me the coolest things about her. So I was attracted to her. I wanted her. In a world where I knew so little about what I wanted, I knew I wanted her. I didn’t just love her; I also liked her. I liked being with her. But I also felt bad about loving and liking her, and especially about wanting her. Maybe wanting someone is wrong. This is the fucked-up shit my brain does when I get within a mile of human sexuality. I can’t trust myself. I recoil.

About halfway into the movie, Juniper leaned over into me, and I put my arm around her, and I could feel the strangeness of her breaths rising and falling toward and away from me.

Sexuality always stressed me out, even before. I guess that’s part of what made me a good target or whatever. He told me once, “You know I know what you like,” which is one of those very complicated sentences made entirely of simple words. I thought of Juniper seeing me naked, what she’d say or do. When I’d been with the social virologist I definitely wasn’t dating, she’d told me she liked this part of me just above the hip, and he’d said that, too. He’d said that boys and girls both had that little arc of muscle that stretched from the pelvis to the hip, and that’s why he liked both boys and girls. And I sat there and let him stroke it and it felt good, or at least something adjacent to good. And then the social virologist said the same thing and I felt like I was going to throw up but we had sex anyway and if she noticed anything off she didn’t mention it.

“Are you ill?” Juniper asked.

“Well, I just saw a guy get his face shot off,” I allowed.

“No, seriously, you look terrified.”

“I’m good, let’s watch the movie.”

She grabbed the remote and paused it. “What?” she asked.

“Really, nothing.”

“Is it me? My proximity? The leaning?”

“No.”

“Because I can sit up very straight. I have excellent posture. I didn’t mean to—”

“I’m just worried about the test,” I lied. “I really want to get it.”

“Andromeda,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said after a second.

Something about her eyes calmed me down. I felt my breath back in my body. Juniper kept looking at me a long time, quiet. I did love her. I knew that much.

She seemed to swallow a breath. She sat up straight—she did have excellent posture—and unpaused the movie, and then she mumbled, “Look at me that way tomorrow and you’ll get it.”

_____

The next morning I woke up early and made my way down to the lobby of the hotel and called an Uber. It was hazy and cool with a whipping wind. I turned my back to the wind and hunched over. The valet standing nearby said, “Fire weather.”

“I hope not,” I said.

“On the news this morning, they said it’s not a question of whether, just a question of where,” he said.