Where We Left Off (Middle of Somewhere 3)
“What?”
When Will had things to say, he said them. When he had nothing to say, he didn’t make an effort to fill the silence. At first this had made me uncomfortable. It was weird to hang out with someone who might be silent for an hour and then, when something occurred to him, monologue about it. But now it was one of my favorite things about hanging out with Will. Realizing that when he said things they mattered to him.
“I don’t want to be responsible for other people’s feelings, you know? I don’t want to know that someone is nervous because they’re hot for me and feel like it’s my responsibility to be nicer to them to put them at ease or some shit. It’s nothing to do with me even. They don’t like me, they don’t care about me. Hell, they just want to stare at me and have me shut up and smile at them. Like I’m a fucking prop in some fantasy.”
His expression was grim, bitter.
“And then, if I don’t play along—if I don’t smile the way they want, or flirt back, or say thank you to their compliments—it’s like I’ve somehow committed a social foul. I’ve offended them so they have to get revenge somehow. Like by asserting that I’m an actual fucking person I’ve invited retribution.”
I started to respond, but Will’s jaw was tight and he clearly wasn’t done.
“And if they aren’t turning me into a prop or a fuck toy in their heads, then they just let me do whatever I want because beauty is basically an all-access pass to the world.”
“People don’t really think that, do they?” But even as I said it, I thought of my own initial reactions to Will’s beauty.
Will hit me with a heavy, pitying look.
“Leo, you would not believe the shit I can get away with by looking like this. Seriously. It’s sick.”
“Like what?”
He sighed, like there were too many to even list.
“The things that I can say to someone and not get called on it…. Like, I was on a date over the summer with this guy and we had nothing in common. He started talking some stupid shit about how stop-and-frisk is the best thing to ever happen to the city. He kept flirting with me and I kept telling him off. Like, he’d say ‘Tell me about yourself,’ and I’d just dead-eye him and say, ‘If you think stop-and-frisk is a good policy, you are a racist.’ And he just let me talk all this shit and kind of laughed like I was kidding and never called me on it.”
“Well, maybe he was just being polite because you guys were on a date and he was trying to make the best of it since you didn’t have anything in common.”
“Dude, I called him a racist to his face and he just looked embarrassed and said nothing. Whatever—he’s just one example of shit that’s happened hundreds of times. I’ve tried it the other way around too. I’ve said ignorant, bigoted shit just to see if people will call me on it and they don’t. People don’t call me on being rude or selfish or ignorant even when the person next to me will get called out for doing the exact same thing. It’s like a social experiment at this point. A… screening process for assholes.”
The idea of Will wandering through the city feeling like everyone he interacted with was failing him, instead of actually connecting with them, made me incredibly sad.
“They give me credit for something that has nothing to do with me. It’s… it’s bullshit,” Will continued.
“Um, well, I guess it means you get what you want, though?” I was trying to put a positive spin on it, but as someone who had never really felt like I had the license to be rude or selfish or inconsiderate, it didn’t seem like the absolute worst thing.
“Yeah, great.” Will slumped. Clearly that was the wrong thing to say. “Never knowing if you get something because you deserve it or because someone just likes the way you look is awesome.”
“Shit, sorry, I didn’t think about it like that.”
He threw back the rest of his coffee like a shot and stood abruptly.
“Let’s get out of here.”
The second we were outside again, Will straightened his spine and set his shoulders. Even his gait changed. The mask slid back into place, like he could filter what went out and what got in. Will was pretty good at that whole making a bubble around yourself thing.
After a few blocks, he pulled me into a store where every single article of clothing was white. Wasn’t there supposed to be some kind of rule about white after… some day? I was going to ask Will, but he was distracted, pinching the pressed pleat of a pant leg here, running a fingertip over the crisp collar of shirt there, and caressing the cable of a sweater with the back of his hand as he walked through the store.