Boyfriend Box #3

J said, “You’re gonna do what you’re gonna do,” and yeah, I did what I was gonna. J was my friend and N was her ex, but in a town so small, sharing was almost assumed. Not that J cared about N, she’d just let him finger her in his garage. She said he was too clingy, too much, too intense, but to me that sounded pretty damn good, the drama, the drama, the disaster. Only fourteen and pretending to be fearless, at that age always chasing shit down, shit that was gonna make shit worse. N was my twin’s ex, and with my twin it was everything in competition, in comparison. Brunettes highlighted blonde, it was the trend, short white shorts in the summer and orange flip flops. I was all flirt and no brain but damn, that was something. But damn, that was the time of my life, or it was a time in my life when I did what I was gonna, so I went to that garage by the park where we all used to get drunk. The garage where the boy with the blue-tinted glasses spent his summer smoking cigarettes. As I went over, J hollered, “Be careful, watch out,” like he was gonna get me or some shit. On his low-rider bike in the cracked driveway he circled me and didn’t say, “But I’m J’s ex and you’re her friend,” and I didn’t say, “No, J’s my sister.” He just kissed me without asking and I didn’t say no. I never said no in those days. J was across the street watching from the tire swing and yeah, everybody saw us, I wanted it that way. I wanted them all to know I could have what she had, I could have the boy with blue-tinted glasses even though no one really knew why he wore those things anyway, to be protected from something, I guess. But yeah, we made out for like fourteen minutes, it was so long and I was so young. I’d never kissed anything for that long before, not even my own hand, and I wondered how long J kissed him for, how long she could take it, but when I pulled away, he pulled right back. I said, “I gotta go,” and he said, “No.” Boys are always so good at saying no. And then it was that his knife was out, out of his pocket and onto my wrist. His smile was a knife too, and I was like oh shit. J couldn’t see us with her back turned. He was so close I could smell his hair gel and sweat slicked his nose skin so the frames slid and that’s when I learned that his eyes were blue too under those glasses.

Taylor Sykes

Taylor Sykes’s writing has appeared in The Masters Review, Miracle Monocle, Hairstreak Butterfly Review, NPR’s All Things Considered, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the James Hurst Prize for Fiction and a 35 in 35 Fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center.  Originally from northwest Indiana, she has an MFA in fiction from North Carolina State University and teaches writing at UNC Asheville.