I don’t understand why this boy who writes musicals about himself is sitting with me. am i that pathetic? does he get a merit badge for picking up the pieces of a wrecked human being?
I let go of my head. it’s not helping. when i surface, i look at tiny, and it’s strange all over again. he’s not just watching me - he’s still seeing me. his eyes are practically gleaming.
tiny: i never kiss on the first date.
I look at him with total incomprehension, and then he adds
tiny: . . . but sometimes i make exceptions.
so now my shock from before is turning into a different kind of shock, and it’s a charged shock, because at that moment, even though he’s enormous, and even though he doesn’t know me at all, and even though he’s taking up roughly three times more of the bench than i am, tiny cooper is surprisingly, undeniably attractive. yeah, his skin is smooth, his smile is gentle, and most of all his eyes - his eyes have this crazy hope and crazy longing and ridiculous giddiness in them, and even though i think it’s completely stupid and even though i am never going to feel the things that he feels, at the very least i don’t mind the idea of kissing him and seeing what happens. he is starting to blush from what he’s said, and he’s actually too shy to lean down to me, so i find myself lifting to kiss him, keeping my eyes open because i want to see his surprise and see his happiness because there’s no way for me to see or even feel my own.
It’s not like kissing a sofa. it’s like kissing a boy. finally, a boy.
he closes his eyes. he smiles when we stop.
tiny: this is not where i thought the night was going. me: tell me about it.
I want to run away. not with him. i just don’t want to go back to school or to life. if my mom wasn’t waiting on the other end for me, i would probably do it. i want to run away because i’ve lost everything. i’m sure if i said this to tiny cooper, he’d point out that i’ve lost the bad things as well as the good things. he’d tell me the sun will come out tomorrow, or some shit like that. but then i wouldn’t believe him. i don’t believe any of it.
tiny: hey - i don’t even know your name. me: will grayson.
with that, tiny jumps off the bench, nearly knocking me to the grass.
tiny: no!
me: um . . . yes?
tiny: well, doesn’t that just take the cake?
with that, he starts laughing, and calling out
tiny: i kissed will grayson! i kissed will grayson!
when he sees that this freaks me out more than sharks do, he sits back down and says
tiny: i’m glad it was you.
I think about the other will grayson. i wonder how he’s doing with jane.
me: it’s not like i’m seventeen magazine material, right?
tiny’s eyes light up.
tiny: he told you about that?
me: yeah.
tiny: he was totally robbed. i was so mad, i wrote a letter to the editor. but they never printed it.
I have this deep pang of jealousy, that o.w.g. has a friend like tiny. i can’t imagine anyone ever writing a letter to the editor for me. i can’t even imagine them giving a quote for my obituary.
I think of everything that’s happened, and how when i go home i won’t really have anyone to tell it to. then i look at tiny and, surprising myself, kiss him again. because what the f**k. completely, what the f**k.
this goes on for some time. i am getting totally big-boned from kissing someone big-boned. and in between the making out, he’s asking me where i live, what happened tonight, what i want to do with my life, what my favorite ice-cream flavor is. i answer the questions i can (basically, where i live and the ice-cream flavor) and tell him i have no idea about the rest of it.
nobody’s really watching us, but i’m beginning to feel that they are. so we stop and i can’t help but think about isaac, and how even though this whole tiny thing is an interesting development, all-in-all things still suck in a tornado-destroyed-my-home kind of way. tiny’s like the one room left standing. i feel i owe him something for that, so i say
me: i’m glad that you exist.
tiny: i’m glad to be existing right now.
me: you have no idea how wrong you are about me.
tiny: you have no idea how wrong you are about yourself.
me: stop that.
tiny: only if you stop it.
me: i’m warning you.
I have no idea what truth has to do with love, and vice versa. i’m not even thinking in terms of love here. it’s way, way, way early for that. but i guess i am thinking in terms of truth. i want this to be truthful. and even as i protest to tiny and i protest to myself, the truth is becoming increasingly clear.
It’s time for us to figure out how the hell this is ever going to work.
Chapter eleven
I’m sitting against my locker ten minutes before the first period bell when Tiny comes running down the hallway, his arms a jumble of Tiny Dancer audition posters.
“Grayson!” he shouts.
“Hey,” I answer. I get up, grab a poster from him, and hold it against the wall. He lets the others fall to the ground and then starts taping, ripping off the masking tape with his teeth. He tapes the poster up, then we gather up the ones he dropped, walk a few paces, and repeat. And all the while, he talks. His heart beats and his eyelids blink and he breathes and his kidneys process toxins and he talks, and all of it utterly involuntary.
“So I’m sorry I didn’t go back to Frenchy’s to meet you, but I figured you’d guess I just took a cab, which I did, and anyway, Will and I had walked all the way down to the Bean and, like, Grayson, I know I’ve said this before but I really like him. I mean, you have to really like someone to go all the way to the Bean with them and listen to them talk about their boyfriend who was neither boy nor friend and also I sang for him. And Grayson, I mean really: can you believe I kissed Will Grayson? I. Freaking. Kissed. Will. Grayson. And like nothing personal because like I’ve told you a gajillion times, I think you’re a top-shelf person, but I would have bet my left nut that I would never make out with Will Grayson, you know?”
“Uh-hu—” I say, but he doesn’t even wait for me to get through the huh before he starts up again.
“And I get texts from him like every forty-two seconds and he’s a brilliant texter, which is nice because it’s just a little pleasant leg vibration, just a reminder-in-the-thigh that he’s—see, there’s one.” I keep holding up the poster while he pulls his phone out of his jeans. “Aww.”