Sunset Fell

Moo was talking and I didn't know where to look. Look to the left and it’d seem I was staring up Oduye’s skirt, toward her legs perched on Jordan’s lap. To the right it'd be Marleney’s boobs, where she’d decided the party’s mood needed her unzipping her jacket and showing just the bra she was wearing, which looked fine (like something I'd wear back when I wore bras) but wasn't something I'd let myself be caught staring at. And look forward—well, forward was Moo’s eyes, and I'd never look at those, not for more than a moment, not if it would let them see into my soul.

I don't believe in souls, but Moo might, and they were now talking about “soul-changing,” but they didn't define the word, just left me to guess. I never had a soul and I didn't know what it would feel like to change one—like an organ transplant? I'd never had one of those, either.

Moo’s story was about a time they jumped into the Brandywine and floated down it, but the water wasn't deep enough for that, so they trudged through muddy water full of invisible bugs and worms and snakes, a world at the end of their toes.

And that's what some days are like around people, the invisible life at your fingertips is the collective slime of their experience that you don't see but you're pushing through it anyway, and oh I don't know how to make the metaphor work anymore but that's what it is, trust me.

Moo's inviting me to go somewhere quiet, somewhere where it's just their eyes and no side-by-side bodies to distract me, and I ask them:

“Is it somewhere like the muddy creek?”

and I told them no, those weren't snowflakes, it was sawdust falling from the wood.

“I never went to camp,” he replied.

“then this will be your first experience.”

I knew he’d go into a lecture about how every experience is new because it's the first time you've lived in that moment with that memory so I took his hand and dipped it in the paint.

“this’ll wash off?” he asked.

“it'll wash off if you actually wash it, which you won't.”

I placed his palm on the thigh of my jeans. the paint made a nice splotch.

“okay,” he said

“it's okay?”

“yeah”

another dip, another splotch. I held this one longer letting his hand press into my hip.

he wasn't talking now.

dip, splotch. one on my butt. dip—

—he pulled his hand away.

“no,” he said.

“but you've always wanted to touch me there.”

“where'd you get that idea?”

he was at the sink now, rinsing the paint from his hand. he didn't really wash it, as I predicted, and his palm was still a glowing pink mixed with it's natural brown.

“because you're a guy,” I said. “every guy wants to touch me there.”

he stared at me, even though I was looking down now.