Page 31 of My Own Kind of Person

I still have half a cookie in my hand. Is it worse to eat the cookie or sit holding it?

I put the cookie in my mouth but I feel like it’d be weird if she looks up and sees me chewing, so I silently suck on the cookie and hope it dissolves. I’d joke with her but she’s so far away. I wish we were both on the couch instead of me being up here with her down there. I’m also not sure if this means we’re not going to have sex? That should feel like a relief but it makes me embarrassed, like she knows I can’t do it so she’s getting me off out of pity.

I think of the other night when we tried to have sex, how I froze right before reaching her and I hovered in the air immobile until she said—

I can’t allow myself to think about it. I’m already thinking too much.

I look down and Christy is gently jerking off my soft penis.

“Oh—” I cover myself with one hand and try to pull up my pants with the other. “Sorry.”

“Is everything okay?”

“It’s great, I’m just—” I move over so she can sit on the couch next to me. “Let’s do you first.”

I put a hand on her knee but she moves away.

“Let’s watch a movie or something,” she says.

“I hate movies,” I say, and she laughs. “I don’t want to ever see another movie in my life.”

She laughs again. It’s the best sound I’ve ever heard.

“Let’s go for a walk,” I say.

The air outside is humid and warm. We cross the lawn and go down the road toward the elementary school, our old go-to direction. Bugs fly around the streetlights. Cicadas chitter.

“Sorry,” I say. “When you started going down on me, I was still holding a cookie and I didn’t know what to do with it.”

“You were still holding a pignoli? That’s funny.”

I laugh. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. It is funny.”

I look up at the trees and see a few pale stars pushing through the leaves. One day, I won’t live here anymore and all of this will be a memory.

“Sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” she says. “Sometimes I feel like a guy is only hanging out with me so I can get him off, and I tell myself to stop talking and get to it.”

“I don’t feel that way at all. I thought you were getting me off out of pity.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “Man! I gotta work on myself.”

“You do?”

“Is that a surprise?”

I shrug. “I always saw you as perfect.”

“Then you didn’t see me.”

I put my hands in my pocket and we walk silently until we reach the main road. There are no cars in sight. I lead us across the street toward the long rectangle of the elementary school.

“You seem older,” Christy says.

I flick my eyebrows. “I am seventeen now.”

“So old.”

“Hopefully not the oldest.”