MONDAY
05 NOVEMBER, 1990
ISAIAH

               I watch Dorian without hearing Miss Katz speak about the paintings she projects onto a screen at the front of the class. A morsel of guilt sits in my stomach for ignoring her like the rest of her audience; Jewish anthropology may be an extracurricular but most pupils have the same attitude toward it as mandatory assemblies. Still, how am I supposed to focus on Jewish contemporary artists when I have Dorian to look at?

Teachers never sit us next to each other in their charts and I'm left to admire him from a seat diagonally three rows behind him but even from this angle, I could stare for hours.

Raising his hand, he's invited to speak and all I focus on is his voice, the dimensions in it, how it doesn't sound particularly deep but there's a rumble beneath all his words that buzzes at the edges of my mind even when he stutters.

Until Bechor cuts over it. 'What age are you planning to learn how to speak?'

But before anyone can respond, Dovid calls from the back of the class: 'I thought it was normal for Sephardi to be illiterate and all,' and the classroom explodes into a dispute.

It takes her several attempts until Miss Katz wrestles everyone into silence. Sweat sheens on her forehead in the glaring projector light. 'Hope you enjoy spending your evening in detention, Dovid. Don't you think it's hard enough for us in this country without fighting among ourselves?'

Dovid slouches with his arms crossed over his chest and I wait for Bechor to get his punishment but he's left to grin triumphantly.

'Okay, where was I? Flack was the only woman in photorealism in the 70s–'

I raise my hand.

Katz's sentence stammers into silence. She stares at me with the distinct air of a deer caught in headlights until she finds her voice. 'Isaiah... did you have something to add?'

'Dorian wasn't finished.'

'Oh...' Miss Katz weighs her options; her desire to move on without more bullying she doesn't know how to tackle versus her worry about how it would look if she doesn't allow Dorian to finish when he's from a founding family. 'Would you like to continue?'

He finds me over his shoulder and I smile.

'Um... I was only going to say that Flack's paintings, to me, are such a valuable depiction of Judaism in art. Like with the matzo flour. She depicts Jewish life in such a casual and domestic way.' Dorian's speech still has caesuras where they shouldn't be and I know his fingers tap his thighs though I can't see them, but he presses through. 'I really appreciate it because Jewish is art so often about suffering. It's either about the Inquisition or it's about the Holocaust which, I find, ends up as a platform for antisemites to revel in our trauma. And Flack refuses to do that.' 

He sinks in his chair. 'That's all...'

A relieved smile has just begun to form on Miss Katz's face when Bechor scoffs at me. 'Are you protecting your boyfriend, puff?'

'Yeah, I am,' I say.

Miss Katz thwacks the pointer onto the projector screen to force our attention to the use of negative space in the next painting. She doesn't invite any opinions for the rest of the lesson and most of us have sunk back into a stupor when we file out half an hour later.

Dorian's feet scuff the marble floor on every third step. Air coils around him. Even when he frowns, his lips thinned and cheeks creased by the expression, I'm stunned when I look at him. When I look up at him. Everything is beautiful when I look up at him.

Sometimes I get insecure over my height — combined with my light skin and scrawny build, it ensured I would never access masculinity in the eyes of my peers — but moments like these remind me what a blessing it is. I don't know how I'd survive if I didn't get to look up at you.

I nudge his side. 'What are you doing now?'

We both have independent study next but with the advent of November, it's officially too cold and wet to go outside for recreation. A grey cloak looms over Suffolk, the mist as unflinching as a mountain. Its spectral presence clings to us for an hour after we walk through it.

'Think I'll go to the music room.'

'Can I come with you or d'you wanna go alone?'

Dorian considers for a moment. 'You can come too.'

Warmth rushes into my muscles so quickly I become dizzy. I lean into him as we walk toward the grand staircase: half nudge, half collapse. But, though he doesn't push me off his shoulder, Dorian doesn't reciprocate the gesture. His frown is set firmly in place.

'Everyting criss?'

He strides up the stairs quicker than I can and I lose my breath trying to keep up. 'They shouldn't be allowed to speak to you like that. Miss Katz should've said something.'

'I've heard worse insults than people calling you my boyfriend.' Even in jest, the words flutter in my stomach — my boyfriend.

Dorian isn't amused. He casts me his best imitation of a glare only to realise I'm two stairs behind and stop. 'You know I mean the other thing.'

I stand in front of him, craning my neck more than usual with the added height difference of the stair. 'She literally can't. It's illegal now, remember? It's fine.'

'It's not fine.'

I flatten my palm on his chest, press against his heartbeat. 'It's fine.'

I step past him though Dorian is right back at my side in an instant. He slips his fingers between mine and I'm so giddy, I barely get tired from all the stairs we have to climb to get to music room B.

Dorian holds the door open for me. He digs out his score notebook, opens the fallboard, and starts to untangle the kinks in his compositions, playing only a handful of measures at a time to make adjustments and play it again, and again, and once more.

Loitering around the room, I strum a harp string, then the violin. 'How come you never play other instruments?'

'I can't play other instruments.'

'Yeah, you can.' When my confusion fails to prompt a response, I prod further. 'Why don't you never play the violin? That's a sick instrument.'

Huffing, he rolls his pencil between his fingers. 'I know how to play the violin. If you gave me a piece of sheet music, I'd be able to play it just fine but I can't connect to it — I can't feel it.' His eyes flit to me only for a split second. 'Don't tell me it doesn't make sense; matters of the soul rarely do.'

'But piano is so boring,' I drag the word out and drag my feet toward him in tandem. 'Everyone knows how to play the piano.'

'You don't.'

'No, I don't, but everyone else.'

'I'm sorry my choice of instrument isn't cool enough for you.' The chip in his voice finally registers as sharp.

I grimace. 'I'm just making fun of you. I didn't mean it. Sorry.' Floating awkwardly at the centre of the room, I try to mentally prod him to look at me. He doesn't. 'Do you want me to leave? It's good — I'm being hella annoying.'

'I want you to stay. Just be less annoying.'

I apologise a second time though a weight grows slowly in my stomach. He doesn't usually become this grumpy over Bechor nor did Bechor say anything particularly bad... unless what he said is particularly bad to Dorian.

'The piano is a stunning instrument,' I muse as I drift over to it. 'Stunning just like you.'

Grinning, I shove his head to the side and Dorian finally looks at me. I take it as a cue to lean against the piano, partly because my legs are tired of carrying my weight. My hand slips from his head to centre the knot of his tie and pick nonexistent lint from his shirt.

My gaze climbs to his, one careful step at a time. 'Will you play it for me?''

'It's not finished.'

'That's alright.' I mean both: it doesn't have to be and you don't have to if you don't want to.

Dorian leaves his pencil on the music rack, adjusts his score notebook, and, with a glance of reassurance, starts to play. I sink lower onto the piano to watch his fingers dance over the keys with ease they find nowhere else. The music, more serene than what he tends to write, tickles me as I moon over him, over the calm on his face that softens the permanent line between his eyebrows, over the pale skin behind his trimmed fingernails, and the mountain range of his knuckles.

Moon. What a wonderful verb. That's exactly what I long for: to, like the moon, follow all your rituals, guide your waves, and reflect the light that kisses your skin. To not once move my eyes from you.

My daze lasts a moment after Dorian finishes the song. 'It's beautiful.'

'Of course, it's beautiful — it's about you.'

'You don't have to be my boyfriend if you don't want to.' The words get away from me earlier than I intend; I can't blame how they disorient Dorian. 'Is that why you're upset? Because Bechor called you my boyfriend?'

'No.' The answer is premature and he rethinks: 'Maybe. Well... what if they know?'

'Cuz, folk have been accusing me of sucking your dick for the past six years. It ain't nuttin new.'

'Except now it's true.' His voice is shrill and he shuts the fallboard, planting his palms on the black lacquer. 'Now everything they say is true.'

'Do you... regret that?'

'No, I don't regret it. I only– I–' Dorian huffs, though I know it's not my question but his struggle to find the words he needs that irritates him. 'I don't want them to know. It's none of their business. I hate the thought of every boy here wondering how we have sex and turning it into something dirty for them to watch. It's none of their business.'

With him hunching over, I can't see his face but if the crack in his voice is anything to judge by, he's crying. I lift my hand, retract it, and finally place it on his shoulder. When he doesn't tense, I keep it there, gently massaging the knots in his muscle.

'I wish I could fix it but I don't think that's avoidable if you're gay.'

'But it's not dirty. That's the opposite of what it is.'

My body warms as though the mist has finally disbanded to allow a beam of sunlight right to my heart. I take a moment to soak it in before I speak. 'Listen, cuz, Bechor's a twat. He can't make what we have into anything else. I love you so much. People like him can't touch that.'

'I just wish they would leave us alone.'

'You can say that again.' Laughter mixes into my words and though I have offered no solution, Dorian smiles.

It drains before it fully forms. 'I don't even know if I'm gay. I'm not attracted to men; I'm attracted to you. Does that make me gay? I don't know. I'm confused. I don't even know if I'm a man. What does that even mean?' He shakes his arms as if to physically release anxiety from them. 'I don't want them to call me things because then they get to decide. Why should they get to decide if I'm gay?'

'Cuz, you're a founder; they aren't gonna call you nuttin.'

'Except retard.' His stare drills onto the space between his spread fingers. 'Why can't I speak and know how to do eye contact and just be normal like everyone else?'

'Why do you wanna be like everyone else? They're all pricks.' When it doesn't elicit even a fake laugh, I move my hand to his jaw and try to coax him to look at me. He refuses. 'Hey, Dorian, listen — okay, you're weird. So what?'

This is exactly what his family does to him: makes him believe all sorts of things about himself just because they aren't bothered to listen to him properly. People use a dictionary to understand emotions but Dorian's can't be understood that way. He shakes his head when he's happy, looks away to concentrate, and shows love by rambling. Nobody would think he's impolite or self-absorbed if they took a moment to get to know him.

He still won't look at me a minute later. 'I don't know how to make it better. How do I make it better?'

Dorian lunges to his feet and hugs me.

I'm shocked only for a second before I reciprocate, though I'm able to do so only with my left arm, Dorian pinning the right to my side. He squeezes me so tight my heels lift off the floor.

'I love you.' His voice is spirited and when he pulls back, he's smiling with his dimples and crow's feet.

'I love you, cuz, just like this.' I nod to reassure my sincerity: just like this. 'Will you play it to me again?'