More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
I’m not going to tell you that I miss you anymore. Your friend, Dante
I felt as if I were looking in a mirror. But it didn’t break my heart.
Maybe it’s a terrible thing, to keep a war to yourself. But maybe that’s the way it has to be.
I’d figured something out about myself: on the inside, I wasn’t like my dad at all. On the inside I was more like Dante. That really scared me.
write back, my letters were short. His letters were never short. He was still experimenting with kissing girls even though he said he’d rather be kissing boys.
But you know, I was used to them in a way, the bad dreams. But why was it that some people never remembered their dreams? And why wasn’t I one of those people?
Probably, beer wasn’t good for boys either. But, you know, I was experimenting. You know, discovering the secrets of the universe. Not that I thought I’d find the secrets of the universe in a Budweiser.
Kissing didn’t mean a damn thing.
“Dante, I think that when you kiss me, you’re kissing someone else.” “Yeah,” I said. “Guess so.” “Are you kissing another girl? Or are you kissing a boy?” I thought that was a very interesting and forward question. “A boy,” I said.
The thing is I love my dad. My mom too. And I keep wondering what they’re going to say when I tell them that someday I want to marry a boy. I wonder how that’s going to go over? I’m the only son. What’s going to happen with the grandchildren thing? I hate that I’m going to disappoint them, Ari. I know I’ve disappointed you too.
I remember staring at myself in the mirror. I remember whispering, “You are a beautiful boy.” I didn’t believe it—but I wanted to.
And I found myself whispering, “Do you think we’ll ever discover all the secrets of the universe?” I was surprised to hear Susie’s voice answering my question. “That would be a beautiful thing, wouldn’t it, Ari?” “Yeah.” I whispered, “Really beautiful.” “Do you think, Ari, that love has anything to do with the secrets of the universe?”
“So why do you want to get drunk?” “To feel something.”
I wondered what it would be like, to love a girl, to know how a girl thinks, to see the world through a girl’s eyes. Maybe they knew more than boys. Maybe they understood things that boys could never understand. “Too bad we can’t lie out here forever.” “Too bad,” Susie said. “Too bad,” Gina said. Too bad.
If summer was a book then I was going to write something beautiful in it. In my own handwriting. But I had no idea what to write. And already the book was being written for me. Already it wasn’t all that promising. Already it was about more work and commitments.
I loved her anger and wished I had more of it. Her anger was different than mine or my father’s. Her anger didn’t paralyze her.
“Okay, Mom,” I said. “Maybe I’ll fall in love.”
“Why not?” she said. Sometimes parents loved their sons so much that they made a romance out of their lives. They thought our youth could help us overcome everything. Maybe moms and dads forgot about this one small fact: being on the verge of seventeen could be harsh and painful and confusing. Being on the verge of seventeen could really suck.
Mrs. Quintana looked different. I don’t know, it was like she was holding the sun inside her. I had never seen a woman look more beautiful. She looked younger than the last time I’d seen her. Younger, not older. Not that she was old. She’d had Dante when she was twenty, I knew that. So she was thirty-eight or so. But she looked younger than that in the morning light. Maybe that’s what it was, the morning light.
“You’re a part of this family,” she said. “There’s no use fighting it.” “I’m sure I’ll disappoint you someday, Mrs. Quintana.” “No,” she said. And even though her voice could be so firm, right then her voice was almost as kind as my own mother’s. “You’re so hard on yourself, Ari.”
But love was always something heavy for me. Something I had to carry.
“Maybe everyone loves differently. Maybe that’s all that matters.”
He touched my shoulder—then smiled. “Bullshit, Ari. You have the harder rule to follow? Buffalo shit. Coyote shit. All you have to do is be loyal to the most brilliant guy you’ve
ever met—which is like walking barefoot through the park. I, on the other hand, have to refrain from kissing the greatest guy in the universe—which is like walking barefoot on hot coals.”
“I hope to God that my mother has a boy. And he better like girls. Because if he doesn’t, I’ll kill him.”
He didn’t say anything. And then I heard him crying. So I just let him cry. There was nothing I could do. Except listen to his pain. I could do that. I could hardly stand it. But I could do that. Just listen to his pain. “Dante,” I whispered. “Can’t you see how much they love you?” “I’m going to disappoint them. Just like I’ve disappointed you.”
“Don’t cry, okay?” “Okay,” he said. “You’re crying.” “I’m not.” “Okay.” “Okay.”
And I needed us to be all right. And he needed us to be all right too. And so we were.
Life seemed strangely normal for a while. Not that I wanted my summer to be normal. But, normal was okay. I could settle for normal. I went for a run in the mornings and worked out. I went to work.
Even though we hadn’t wanted that kiss to be a big thing, it had been a big thing. It took a while for the ghost of that kiss to disappear.
Damn it to hell, Dad, I can’t stand to live with all your silence.
Obsession, Dad? You know what I’ve learned from you and Mom? I’ve learned not to talk. I’ve learned how to keep everything I feel buried deep inside of me. And I hate you for it.
me. One of the secrets of the universe was that our instincts were sometimes stronger than our minds.
Another secret of the universe: Sometimes pain was like a storm that came out of nowhere. The clearest summer morning could end in a downpour. Could end in lightning and thunder.
My Aunt Ophelia had solved a few of the many mysteries of the universe. I felt as though I hadn’t solved any at all. I hadn’t even solved the mystery of my own body.
How strange, I thought, that dogs sometimes understood the needs and behaviors of human beings.
“Remember the rain,” she said.
Dante was standing next to me. I could feel his breath. I don’t know what I would have done if he had touched me. But he didn’t.
“It’s just that sometimes I have things running around inside me, these feelings. I don’t always know what to do with them. That probably doesn’t make any sense.”
didn’t mind the silence and the desert and the cloudless sky. What did words matter to a desert?
And sometimes, even now, I look at her and I want to ask, ‘Is it over? Is it?’
It was obvious that she had been deeply loved. By everyone except her family. We were the only ones there.
I was so ashamed. For having kept her on the margins of my memory. I was so ashamed.
“Ophelia always said Franny was the Fourth of July.”
“You didn’t bring me.” “No.” “She used to send me Christmas gifts.” “We should have told you.”
“The letters I wrote to her.” “What are you going to do with them?” “I’m going to give them to you.” “Really?” I wondered if my smile was as big as hers. Maybe as big. But not as beautiful.
I looked out the window at the black clouds ahead of us. I opened the back window and smelled the rain. You could smell the rain in the desert even before a drop fell. I closed my eyes. I held my hand out and felt the first drop. It was like a kiss. The sky was kissing me. It was a nice thought. It was something Dante would have thought. I felt another drop and then another. A kiss. A kiss. And then another kiss. I thought about the dreams I’d been having—all of them about kissing. But I never knew who I was kissing. I couldn’t see. And then, just like that, we were in the middle of a
...more
The summer sun was not meant for boys like me. Boys
like me belonged to the rain.
Through all of youth I was looking for you
