Outta My Room

“We can hang out in my room,” I say.  “Listen to music?”  This is the first thing I say after Mickey walks in.  After I act as if it isn’t strange that he’s here.  Are you real?  An imaginary friend?  A ghost? I want to ask.  But none of these things I say out loud.  But I talk so fast it seems as if I’ve said ‘Outta of my room’ like I’ve told him to get out and listen to music someplace else.  He doesn’t seem to hear it like this.  He seems as nervous as I am.  And when he turns around it is like he understands what I meant.

I swallow hard.  I don’t get into where Grizzly is or even remind him that I live with my aunt and say, “Don doesn’t come home until after six.”  All of this seems so typical and when he leans down and kisses me it feels like it did at prom.  Everything except the kiss melts away and I am more alive than I have ever been before. 

“You must be real,” I say.

I forget everything Ally told me about my dad, everything that happened at prom, and everything from the beginning of the year and even before all of that.  My baseball cap falls to the floor and then my fingers latch around his neck and pull him in to our perfect place on Aunt Ally’s couch where we linger for what seems like a beautiful forever until he pushes me back.

“No offense,” he says.  “But you looked better before.”  He points at my head.  He isn’t kidding.

“You’re serious?” I ask.  I look down at the cap and think how things were just starting to work out like I imagine they do for other girls my age – a boy comes over to listen and share his playlist.  We skip the music and kiss instead.  He isn’t supposed to tell me my hair looks bad and disappear.  I don’t guess the boys ever tell Gitt that.  She knows the kinds of steps that bring boys forward, the same kind of steps that bring boys back. 

And then I tell myself it doesn’t matter.  I am well past normal – past the perfect universe.  I’m up as high as I choose to go – the music screams and then gets quiet – but in this place there will never be enough air.