AMERICAN BOYFRIEND

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with his head pressed against the gravel of a roof, his fingers dangling off the side, stained with soot and the beginning of blood, and his untied shoelace floating beside his eye, his vision level with the parking lot below, kai thinks two things: one, i wish i could call my mom. and two, i wonder if alison liked the song.

jaden is screaming somewhere behind him, his hands on both of his ankles, and yet it sounds muffled, hushed, like a whisper. something about you almost fucking died, man. are you fucking crazy, nigga? you almost fucking killed yourself. should i call the police?

kai pulls his face up from the ground, a piece of gravel sticking to his cheek. he brushes it off with his hand.

"no police," he says quietly. his voice is quiet, and tight. kai feels like he had been yelling for a very long time, the ways his vocal cords are tied around themselves in a knot in his throat. "no police. just my mom, maybe."

jaden looks at him incredulously, his face contorted half in shock, half-relief. kai wonders what he looks like to him. if the headache throwing his brain against his skull was rising veins across his forehead. if he looked relieved. there was no relief in his system.

"i really thought you died, man," jaden says, his face in his hands. "i watched you just — just drop. like you were a part of the atmosphere. like you were weightless."

kai shrugs. "i felt weightless."

"i would know. i carried your ass up a whole ladder," jaden says somberly. then his lips split open into a smile, and kai feels his smile crack too.

jaden crawls over to where kai sits, with his legs sprawled over the side of the building, swinging against the brick. his eyes flicker to kai's and then move away. he opens his mouth and closes it three times, before pressing his hand delicately to kai's shoulder delicately and asking, "are you okay?"

kai nods. "just tired. you know, i woke up at seven a.m. for this wedding. i haven't woken up that early since midterms in my junior year."

he shrugs his shoulders. "maybe i wouldn't have jumped if it the wedding was scheduled for later than ten."

jaden laughs and shakes his head. "looks like you're a morning person, right, will?"

panic flashes through kai's body. he looks jaden directly in the eye, and there it is: recognition. acceptance. his eyes are honey brown, and flit around his face like he's searching for something.

"i meant it as a joke," kai blurts out. "my name isn't will. it's malakai, kai for short. my little brother calls me mak. i just thought — since your name is jaden —"

"i get it, kai. will and jaden smith. i get it," he says, smirking smugly.

"sorry for lying," kai mumbles lamely.

"sorry for pretending i didn't know what your name was," jaden answers back, grinning bashfully. "ali's told me all about you. her fiancé's side boyfriend."

"he's not my boyfriend," kai says, almost instinctively. "we're just friends."

the question had been posed to him many times before: are you and geo....? and always, no, no, we're just best friends. best best friends. even that answer felt inauthentic.

jaden raises his eyebrows at him. kai tightens his jaw.

"what? you don't believe me?" 

jaden lifts his hands in surrender, before reaching upwards to pull out a rock from kai's hair.

"i'm just repeating alison's words. they're the ones getting married today, aren't they?"

kai looks down again. the doors of the church have opened. the petals of the flowers strung around the door handles seem to flutter under the influence of the organ pouring out from inside. all the music geo had organized himself, spilling out like water from fountain, drowning the courtyard in sound.