Thomas and Niko in the City of Trees

Chapter 10 - Part 2

He's in a better mood by the time we leave the second store. There's no plan. We're just going around the mall in a pod, taking in the sights and sounds and smells. Everything is familiar. Nothing ever changes in this place. It's probably exactly what you're picturing if you think of any big, modern mall. It's gone through a few renovations since it was built and the latest concept is that everything is all white and minimal with wood accents here and there, just like a few dozen of the coffee shops around here. I'm telling you, it's all the same. If you want different in this dumb town, you have to hit up one of the last truly authentic places, like Flying M or Merritt's. You know the kind of places I'm talking about. I can count them on one hand.

The girls head to the bathroom and we're waiting outside the hall. There's a wooden bench next to us so we sit down. I'm just minding my own business when Thomas decides to lean over and whisper in my ear, "I can't believe your jizz is in my stomach right now."

I have this knee-jerk reaction where I turn and punch him in the shoulder, hard. Maybe a little too hard. I'm pissed that he said it. I'm pissed off that he thought it was an appropriate thing to say at this moment in time. Jesus Christ.

"What?" he says, all defensive. He's so weird sometimes.

I try to communicate. I try to explain to him exactly what I'm thinking. "You need to understand," I say. "If we're doing this—if we're actually going to fucking try and do both—" I cut myself off, because I can't quite think of how to say it. I take a breath. "I need to keep the two worlds separate." God, it sounds so stupid and over-the-top now that I've put it out there.

He's just looking at me for a minute. "Okay. I can do that."

The girls come back too soon. A thousand and one years would have been too soon.

Maybe Thomas decides in that moment that he also needs to separate the two worlds. Not just for me, but for himself. Because for the rest of that visit to the mall, he's acting like nothing ever happened between us. We're kind of paired off anyway, holding hands with our girlfriends like we're supposed to, and he leans in often and kisses her and she kisses him back. I'm doing all the same things with Lexie because we decided to relax our rules about PDA. Later on, as we're eating and talking about nothing, and even after that, when we're all walking around the park and the sun's getting low in the sky, things start to feel exactly the way they always did. As I'm getting close with Lexie beneath a tree, and he practically has Madison on his lap, I swear to you there is not a single feeling of longing between Thomas and me. Not even a tiny, distant one.

Let me explain to you why we're both able to block it out so well, why Lexie's hand on my thigh is making me a little hard, why Thomas was able to not only get it up but finish the act with Madison the other night: It's because that's still a part of who we are. Until recently, it was the only life we led. And you know what? It served us well through that crazy swirl of events I'll call our collective high school experience. If Thomas Chu and Niko Savic rose to the top of that place, it's because they were both really good at one thing: playing the part. Sure, it's all over now, but hey, this is a vestige of that time. What more can I say about it?

We hang out with the girls until late. We all get high in the park, and by the time I peel off from the group and head for home, I'm feeling pretty much back to normal. I'll admit that there was this one moment when we were pretty high and I looked at Thomas and he looked and me and it all came rushing back. I'm talking about that crazy time we had together in the car. In that instant, it really felt like he was remembering too. I even wanted to believe that our brains were temporarily connected somehow, and on some level we were both back in his car again, just the two of us, reliving every second of it. But now that my mind is clear, I can tell it was all just a figment. Maybe he wasn't even thinking about us at all.

For the rest of the week, nothing happens between us. I talk to my mom quite a bit, when she's at home. Lately I've been stuck in a certain line of thinking. I've decided that she doesn't have a very good sense of reality. I've made up my mind that her relationship with the truth is a very shaky one. I guess it helps me understand the big picture of what's going on with her a little better. But then I had this moment on Wednesday when I was feeling extra resentful over the way she is, and I stopped (for one goddamn second of my life) to think about my own actions. I thought of this phrase: "Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones." And then I decided that I better drop whatever stone I was holding and leave her alone.

"Nikola," she says on Friday night before her shift, "will you massage my shoulders? I'm sore from stocking shelves at the store."

I'm willing to bet she hasn't asked me to do that in at least five years. I even think for a minute that she's completely lost it, forgotten what years she's in and all that. But I go over to her anyway and I sit down on the couch, and she sits on the floor in front of me, and I massage her shoulders for quite a while until she tells me I can stop. The whole time, I'm just thinking about how nice it is when all the clutter and bullshit around us is cleared away, and I'm sitting here doing this simple action that shows how much I care about her. There's nothing else to it, no subtext, just the scene as described. Somehow, that dumb moment with my mom fills me with so much joy that I'm still riding the wave when I show up around nine in the evening at Thomas's house.

His dad is watching TV in the living room. I say hi and he asks me how I've been. I tell him I've been fine.

I find Thomas in his room at his desk.

"How was your chat with Papa Chu?" he asks.

"Short," I say.

It's got to be the least eventful Friday night of the summer so far. I'm mostly just on my phone and he stays at his desk, scrolling through some Rolling Stone articles.

I should say now that I deliberately fired off a few before I left home. I mean to say that I pleasured myself, and if you're thinking that I was picturing Thomas while did it, you're wrong. I didn't let myself. I'm only telling you this to show you how committed I am to the cause—that being Thomas and me keeping our filthy hands off each other.

But that shit doesn't work. After we get ready for bed, Thomas and I rub one out together. I don't mean to be crude, or to make the situation sound more casual that it is. It just feels like the best phrase to use given the arrangement we've apparently settled on (yet another one of our stupid unspoken agreements), namely, a sort of middle ground. Half an hour later, we just can't seem to help ourselves and we do it again. That second time, we're lying side by side on his bed, and he's using his left hand and I'm using my right, and our other hands are between us. Just as we're both about to lose our shit, Thomas takes hold my hand. He doesn't let go until we're done.