“But what about you?” he asks. “What’s on your mind?”
There have been moments in the past when I’ve been tempted to answer this last question truthfully, to let myself be part of the conversation. But the temptation fades under the cover of reality. I cannot share myself because, as far as Sam is concerned, I have no self. I don’t exist. Only Mark exists.
“I guess I’m just tired,” I say.
“Me too. I’m tired of so many things, you know?”
“So many things,” I echo.
We drive on for a few more minutes. The trip seems longer than the trip to school was.
I access to see if Sam and Mark had specific plans for tonight. I can’t find any. So I ask, “Where are we going?”
Sam smiles. “I’m kidnapping you. I was waiting for you to notice.”
“And where is the destination of this kidnapping?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
He sounds happy. Awake.
He makes me play Twenty Questions to figure out where we’re going. Not knowing what the options are, I’m not particularly good at the game. I find out that where we’re going is bigger than a trailer but shorter than the Washington Monument. It’s not in a city, but it’s not in a field. It is neither yellow nor purple. It is not a place where you’d find horses or falafel or the Amish. It is somewhere Sam’s been before, but not (to his knowledge) somewhere Mark’s been before. It doesn’t smell like sewage or Tater Tots or strawberries. It has never appeared on reality TV. There have been no songs written about it. It doesn’t require a change of clothing, or an admission fee, or a note from my doctor. It is not a church.
He makes me close my eyes as we pull up. I have seen no signs along the way, no telltale markers. All I can see is how proud he is of himself.
“All right. We’re here.”
I open my eyes and see an old, battered sign that says FUNLAND.
“I used to come here all the time as a kid, because my uncle was one of the owners. I don’t know if you remember, but I told you about it when we first became friends, and you drew a complete blank. So you could say the plan to come here was hatched out of that blank.”
The gates look locked to me.
“We’re going to break in?” I ask.
He pulls something out of his pocket and dangles it in front of me.
“No need to break in when you have a key!”
It’s a small amusement park—the kind that seems like a universe to a little kid but completely manageable to a parent. It’s closed for the season—the booths shuttered, the refreshment stands unrefreshed. But the rides can’t be hidden. They are idle versions of themselves, waiting for the summer to come.
“We’re going to have to play pretend,” Sam says.
He has no idea how good I am at playing pretend. But I guess that’s a different kind of pretend, a pretend that can’t be obvious. Here we revel in the pretend, laugh at it, become children within it. We walk rings around the carousel horses, trying to find our perfect steeds. We dangle at the bottom of the Ferris wheel and pretend that it is taking us up, up, up. I allow myself to relax. I allow myself to enjoy it. I even get lost in it.
Sam seems lost in it too. But every now and then, I catch him looking at me, like he has something to say. He doesn’t think I notice, but I notice. I just don’t let him notice that I’m noticing. I keep it to myself. I pretend.
We get to the rollercoaster and take our places in the car, its seating bar perpetually raised for us. I think Sam’s going to pull it down, strap us in for an imaginary ride. But instead he sits close to me, stares out. Even when it’s in operation, I imagine this rollercoaster is more coast than roll. The peaks and the dips are nothing that would scare a ten-year-old.
He looks at me again.
“I’m having such a good time,” he says.
“Me too,” I tell him. It’s true.
“I’m so glad I found you. I mean, when I first moved to town, I thought I was sunk. I didn’t want to start all over again. But then I met you, and our friends, and I thought that, yeah, I did want to start over again, after all.”
“That’s cool.”
“It is, isn’t it?”
He stares out again, away from me. Summoning something from inside of him. I can tell.
“I just wonder,” he says, quietly. Then he leaves it at that.
I know I shouldn’t ask, but I have to. “What?” And then, “What do you wonder?”
“I wonder if you and I should be more than friends. If you have those kind of thoughts.”
The truth is, I have no idea if Mark has those kind of thoughts. I can’t access his dreams or his fantasies or his desires. Only what’s happened so far.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“You said before that you were tired. Well, I’m tired, too. Tired of letting everything stay unsaid. We spend all our time together, and we do it because we want to, right? And I guess I think a lot about that, and about us. And about … well, more. Us having more. It’s not about lust or sex or whatever you want to call it. I mean, some of it is that. But mostly it’s about belonging. When I’m with you, I belong. It just naturally felt like that. And I think it felt like that for you. But I don’t know where that leaves us, or even what that is. I’m just tired of trying to figure it out myself. I need the other half of the equation.”
I feel sorry for him and I feel angry at him and I feel love for him, for having the courage to say these things. But none of these feelings is an answer. And that’s what he wants. An answer.
Why now? I wonder. Has he sensed me in here? Did I somehow shift Mark without knowing it? Did Sam see something in him today that made him feel he had a chance? Or was this always going to be the day, and I just happened to appear within it?
“Say something,” Sam asks. “Please.”
It is very possible that Mark might be speechless, too, were he here instead of me. Not for the same reasons, but still speechless. Or maybe he would know exactly what to say. A yes or a no. A kiss or a cold shoulder.
I simply don’t know.
“Sam,” I say, “you know you’re my best friend. That, to me, is the most important thing. Don’t you agree?”
He nods.
“As for the rest,” I continue, “I need to think about it. I mean, it’s about much more than you and me, isn’t it?”
I feel foolish even as I’m saying these words. Because I feel it’s foolish that it has to be about more than Sam and Mark. I want the World of Boys to be structured in such a way that if they chose to be more than best friends, it would be a step, not a leap. That a relationship could be a relationship without any other qualifiers attached.
I take his hand. It would be cruel to not take his hand, to withhold that.
“Look,” I say. “How about this? Let’s do this again tomorrow. Kidnap me again. Ask me again. Give me the night to really think about it, and what it means. Tomorrow I’ll know more.”
This isn’t the answer he wants, but it’s also not the answer he fears, so he’s willing to go with it. We exit the rollercoaster and walk around some more. But the magic of pretending has gone, and neither of us wants to insult the other by pretending otherwise. We walk in our own thoughts, knowing those thoughts have almost entirely to do with each other.
When he locks the gate behind us, Sam calls out, “See you tomorrow, Funland!”
I do the same, even though I won’t be seeing it tomorrow.
How can I let Mark know? What can I do that will make him realize what’s happened? Will there be some remnant of today when he wakes up tomorrow?
I can’t write him a letter, or even leave him a note. That would be weird.
Instead, I pace his orderly room. I am the only thing out of place.
Belonging. Togetherness. These words are as complicated and confusing as the word love. It’s probably all the same thing. Or it would be if we let it be. I can only guess from observation.
I don’t know what will happen with them. All I know is this:
As bedtime nears, Sam texts Mark a simple Good night. But in it I can sense the belonging, the togetherness, the love.
I text back my own Good night.
Then I leave it there, for Mark to find when he wakes up.