AMERICAN BOYFRIEND

empty

"hey, kai? malakai, you awake?" 

this is the night's night. everything is dark and slow and warm, like fireflies in jars or wool on skin. every window in their apartment is open, so cool air can trickle in sweet, drowning them in city. tonight, kai feels like a real boy in new york. not like the boy-nothing in some else's bright fictional daydream. 

he sleeps on the floor, on top of a fortress of pillows and blankets fresh from home, the scent of familiars still clinging to the fabric—pillow cases from the school store; the dead weight of his "intro to computer science" textbook rests under the ends of his blanket, the pages and spine aging gracefully, having never been touched more than two times. a couple feet above him, geo rolls onto his back and then sits straight up on his twin mattress, flickering a flashlight onto kai's face.

"wake up, kai, please. i gotta tell you something. it's important."

kai rolls his eyes, turning his head away from the sunshine he had concentrated in the bulb of a flashlight. "the last time you said that, geo, was because you found a bootleg mj vinyl."

"that was important too," he mumbles, smiling wryly—and then forty-three facial muscles contort into the semblance of a frown. he looks pensively into some far away space in the darkness behind kai's head.

"i'm serious, man," he whispers. "i think i'm experiencing a crisis. i've had an epiphany. i just can't stop thinking about her."

kai waits for his brain to register the importance of a her in geo's life. there were very few, far between, all blurry and swift, and they blended into one another so neatly he could hardly determine the difference, if geo didn't provide him with some convoluted description of her personality, or the perfume she sprayed when she came over to visit.

geo shuffles and fiddles with the flashlight, casting shadows on the wall, illuminating his face.

"i think i love her, man."

"who?"

"her, kai. ali. alison schumaker. she just finished texting me about her day and...i think i'm in love with her."

kai breathes deeply, so his lungs fill up with air like pink jugs of water. "of course you are. she's your girlfriend, geo, you're supposed to be in love with her. it's in the job description, or whatever you write when you want to date someone these days."

geo groans low in his throat. "no, but this is — this is different, man, it's like — i like her a lot, i love her, a lot, like — like i can never, ever love anybody else—like i can't physically do it," he explained, clenching his fists arrhythmically around 'it', like a heart contracting. 

"and if she ever did that — loved somebody else — it would mess me up for life, kai. i'd be ruined. i'd be done."

"then don't break up with her," kai answers monotonously. "it's simple. you're acting like you don't know how to preserve a relationship—"

"i'm going to marry her, kai," he interrupts resolutely. even in the dark, kai can make out the gloss over his eyes, real and not real, impairing his vision. he wore glasses as a kid. thick, black, duct tape around the broken sides—which he hated, and broke more, until they were irreversibly damaged and therefore un-wearable. and then—everyday other sentence he spoke was prefaced with, when i get my wires. he talked about wire rims like they were mythical creatures, imaginary things that he could speak into existence, into his ownership, if he opened his mouth wide enough.

"this year. today. tonight, kai, i'm — i'm going over to her house right now. to propose. i've gotta make her mine forever."

the room is submersed into a deep silence. the fireflies die, dropping to the bottom of the jar. kai switches his head right back in geo's direction.