Timmy Liu McKenzie

The school is buzzing with news and gossip. Is it still gossip even when it's the truth? I guess because the way people keep talking about us just has to be gossip.

I don't know how many minutes Curtis and I kissed but I know it was the need for air that made us broke apart. We didn't say anything and just looked at each other for another minute before Curtis smiles and takes my hand with him, leading us into the school. I knew why he did it then too because as we walked away, I could see Nadia and her group trying and failing to look at us— Nadia herself looked stunned and embarrassed. We haven't said a word to each other since then and I don't think we are even going to say anything. I know I have nothing to say. The kiss was good, we did good. Too good. Now we are at my locker and I'm slowly switching up my books, my heart still beating and my lips still tingling. Curtis is by my side, relaxed on the locker next to mine looking at me like I am some Da Vinci code.

I'm never going to finish switching up this book at this rate, so I summon up courage and turn to him. My eyes meet his glazed hazel once and we're both caught off guard, Curtis looks away first coughing to himself and smiling a bit and I sigh with a stupid smile on my lips, "um, aren't you going to go meet your impatient friends?" I ask him, nudging my head in the direction of his locker where his Ice Hockey guys were surrounding. "You don't need to watch me like a hawk and follow me. I'm pretty sure everybody is convinced we're a couple now." And I need to breathe well, I can't do that of my heart keeps racing like it's in the Olympics.

Curt blushes, his hand reaching up to touch his neck. "Right, I guess so."

He doesn't go immediately though and his eyes meet mine again and we stand there looking at each other. This isn't good for my heart, I gesture with my head again, laughing at whatever it is going on now. "Go on then."

Curt nods, reaching up to fix my glasses before leaving. "Bye, I'd see you at lunch."

"Okay." I watch him walk a distance before looking away and sighing so deeply, resting a hand over my heart and my head inside my locker. "You can stop dreaming now, Timmy's heart."

This is my second kiss and honestly the first kiss has been rendered null and void because of this one. The bonfire guy and I kissed longer but everything I started feeling the second Curtis's lips touched mine is a hundred times greater than what I don't even remember I felt kissing the guy. It's not surprising since I'm in love with Curt, he's my dream everything and he just fulfilled one of my most persistent dreams and wishes. It's also not healthy seeing as he's my dream guy and blah blah, this entire thing is fake. The kiss... it was fake and for show. My heart leaps just thinking about it and as much as I hate to think about it, nothing about kissing Curt felt fake. It was as real as any other thing we've experienced together in our years of friendship, more real even.

The way his hand held me close and tight was real. The way his lips moved with mine causing everything else to disappear around us was real. The way my hand held his hair and his reaction to it was real. The electricity and pull was so real. The exploding feelings I got when my tongue touched his, was real. It felt everything single thing. I turn to look at Curtis looker and I don't know if it's coincidence but he is looking at me too. It was real alright but I wonder if the realness went both ways or if I was the only one feeling all that. If I am the only one feeling this way.

"Liu McKenzie!" Billy screams, coming to stand in front of me thereby cutting off my eye contact with Curt. I blink at her face and I just know what she has come for.

Jet laughs, "Billy calm down, you'd give the guy a heart attack at this rate."

"Yes," I agree with Jet, turning so I can shut my locker. Dream time officially over. "Billy calm down."

"I can't believe you, your first kiss with our Ice Hockey jock and you didn't give us a heads up so we'd be there and ready to be the first ones to take the best pictures," she whines and Jet and I exchange a looks and I don't need to wonder if I'm the only one hearing the absurdity in the accusation, he hears it too.

"Billy, hear yourself." Is all I say, walking and they follow me. "Nobody really plans a kiss when they are in a relationship, it's always spontaneous." Surprisingly, for me it actually was spontaneous although Curtis and I planned the night before to do it, I had kinda forgotten about it after my encounter with my mom and Curtis took me my surprise. I blush, remembering just how Bollywood-ish the kiss was.

"Yeah and not only is that weird to ask but why are you complaining? You got plenty pictures of your own," Jet adds shaking his head to himself.

"Yes, I got fifty pictures but then I didn't get any pre-kiss pictures and I'm hearing Allison did."

Fifty. . . Okay, she's crazy.

"There's literally only one school paper in the school, Billy," Jet says. "The pictures are useless to her if she doesn't give you."

"I know but she's going to be so smug about giving me and you know how I hate her smugness," she explains.

Jet and I exchange a look before simultaneously saying, "poor you."

Billy rolls her eyes, smacking us both on our shoulder before pocketing her phone and locking our arms together. "So, that aside, how was the kiss?!"

I fix her a look, "are you asking because you're curious as my semi friend or because of the paper?"

"Um, can it be both?" She asks and I shake my head with a purse on my lips. "Okay, I'm asking as just Billy, your friend" she smacks my arm as if reprimanding me for calling her a semi friend.

I give Jet a pointed look and he raises up both hands in surrender, "I'm not doing anything shady. No records."

Letting out a satisfied sigh, I wear on my normal teenage boy smile and delve into one side of the story, telling them what is true without the complications that they didn't know and hearing me it would seem like I'm living the life I want; the life where being gay isn't a cultural issue and I get to have the boy I am in love with— no fakeness, no one-sided feelings.

"It was awesome, anybody who told you jocks had sloppy kisses lied because oh my gosh..."

*

Curt had practice today but I couldn't attend because I had to print out the photos in my camera and put the finishing touches on the paper we have to publish out tomorrow and go through the designs we have been working on for the yearbook. Honestly I had so much to do and time flew so fast, I lost track of it. When I come back to my senses it is already an hour and forty minutes after school closed, and the sky outside is gradually becoming dark.

"Fuck," I reach for my phone to see if I've had any texts from Curt but there's nothing. Practice takes forty minutes, an hour at most when laps and punishment are included, that means Curtis has had at least forty minutes to either go home or go crazy waiting for me.

I leave everything I still have to do, at least I'm done with the paper for tomorrow, the year book thing could be continued another day and I'd just pick my dried photos tomorrow. Locking up nicely, I break into a run in the empty hallway, running to the ice rink and hoping it is still open, while calling Curt's line at the same time— Curt doesn't pick and the ice rink is still open. I could hear skates on ice. Sigh, here's to hoping he's the one inside. When I get it the person I see skating is indeed Curt, I exhale deeply in relive cursing myself for being so stupid and forget about him.

Curt has headphones on, his eyes closed as he skates to the right end, then to the left end. I quietly make my way to the bleachers sitting on the line just before the lowest seat. My eyes remain transfixed on Curt, watching his moves and expression. My eyes widen when I notice he isn't just skating from left to right, he is skating with a pattern, his legs moving and curving in different ways, his body turning and then gliding—Curtis is dancing. I shoot up to my feet and rush to the door, shutting it and bolting it tight from the inside. Is he mad?! Yes, it's no new thing that Curtis likes to dance, especially on the ice instead of playing the football he is supposed to do. But then he only does this dancing at an ice rink that isn't in bloody school. His dad forbids it for Christ sakes, only God can fathom the kind of trouble Curt is going to get into if anybody sees him and reports to his father.

But then, if he's skating here despite knowing the troubles he can get into, then— my heart breaks looking at him. Something must be wrong, what the fuck happened to him?

I silently go back to my seat and he wasn't just skating slowly anymore, whatever music he is listening to must have changed to one he likes because he is full on dancing now. I smile to myself, seeing Curt sing and dance has the same effect on me and as usual, I'm the only one who gets the privilege to. I bring out my camera and switch to video mode, recording him as he dancing. Curtis is spectacular on the ice, I personally think he's an ice dance prodigy and it's not just because I'm in love with him, no, I'm certain if any other eyes see him dancing, they would think so too.

Actually another eyes has seen him, the grandpa who runs the ice rink outside school. He has known us all his life and all the time Curtis came there to practice ice hockey, he had no idea ice dancing wasn't a part of it. Well, until the day Curtis dad caught him and made a huge scene, he even told the old man not to let Curtis dance there anymore and if he caught him, he should report him. We all thought he'd do as he was told but then when Curtis came there again he told him to be free and be himself that his dad had no control over him and he tore the card with the phone number long ago. Ever since Curtis does his dance there in secret and the grandpa hasn't said shit to anyone.

Curt just had to look at the execution of a step once and when he does it, he does it perfectly. We've watched a lot of videos on ice dancing and he has learnt all the steps but that was when we were much younger. Curtis stopped dancing at fifteen, it was as if he was hypnotized and he said he wanted to focus on Ice Hockey because dancing would get him no where and he needed to get drafted. Hearing all that made my heart break but there was nothing I could do. Now he only danced when he had something on his mind, was worried and troubled and when he couldn't control it. Now looks like one of those moments.

Is it the kiss that has him this plagued?

I shake the thought the thought the minute it comes in, it can't be. He was perfectly fine this morning.

Curtis does a fantastic sit spin, a triple jump—A jump with three full rotations (180 degrees) in the air, an upright spin, a twizzle and then finishes up with a waltz dance. I see him smiling after he's done and just when I think he's going to come out the rink then, he does lift one foot so high up, so he looks like the letter Y, and then he attempts to do a spin in that position, it starts off well but somewhere along the line, his knee bucks and he falls harshly to the ice.

"Curtis!" I scream, dropping my camera and running to him. He just stays on the floor, groaning, until I'm kneeling in front of him and pulling his body so he's facing me. His eyes widen in surprise at seeing me but then the surprise fades just as quickly and he looks relived. I yank his headphones off, "what's wrong with you? Are you okay?"

Curt shakes his head negativity, sits up, then nods. "I'm fine."

"Really? You almost gave me a heart attack."

"Sorry," then he  forces out a fake smile. "But it's nothing, the fall just hurt a little, no broken anything and you know you react like a grandmother to things."

I give him a deadpanned look, then my hand reaches out to cup his face, forcing him to look at me while my thumb wipes the tear stains on his face. "You must take me for a fool, Curtis Salazar. And I get why, I'm not the sharpest kid on the block and I make a shitty friend."

Curt shakes his head no and his big palm comes to rest over mine on his face and he closes his eyes with a sigh, "how long have you been here?"

"Long enough."

He opens his eyes and the hazel beauties look glassy, "I- I am not fine."

I bite on the insides of my cheek and pull Curt to me so his head is buried in the crook of my neck as we hug. Curtis hands wrap around, pulling me closer to his body and I might not know what the problem is but I know when he needs me, and he needs me now, even if all I can give is a warm hug in the middle of the cold ice rink.

Thankfully he is right about not getting an injury and we leave the ice rink in one piece. He throws the car key to me, getting into the backseat and lying down like he's dying. I know he's just exaggerating and using his sadness to his full advantage and any other day I would have smacked his head in, setting him back straight but today, I leave him.

"You know my anxiety hits the roof when it comes to driving," I say, wiggling my ass on the driver's seat as if there's a way I can get more comfortable. "Right?"

"You got your driver's license, didn't you?" Curtis asks, voice deep and rough. He looks like he just survived a panic attack.

"Yes but that's just a necessary evil that I had to just get in case of emergency when you're drunk and need me to get you home or when my mom gets drunk and need me to drive her home." I hold the steering wheel tight, too tight. "Honestly, I only want to drive when I have no other choice, I'm the chauffeur for the drunk and senseless."

"Just imagine I'm drunk then," he says, waving a hand as if telling me to shut up and drive. Not today, buddy.

"Um, no you aren't," I let go of the wheel and turn to him. "Perks of being a chauffeur for the drunk and senseless is when I do bash their cars in, they either don't remember who it happened and blame it on themselves or are too thankful and apologetic to me to cut my head off."

Curtis sits up and gives me, my traditional deadpan look. "Timmy, you aren't going to crash the car and if you don't drive now and stop freaking out, I'm going to bite your lips off."

I blink at Curtis and he blinks at me like he didn't just say that. We look at each other and I feel my blush get deeper and spread, just as his does the same— the kiss. Curtis looks away, blinking at the roof of the car before abruptly lying back down on the seat. I turn back to the steering wheel, starting the car and biting on my lips that he just threatened to bite off. Smile.

Yeah, shut up and drive is not a bad song afterall.

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