Free Perfectly Good White Boy by Carrie Mesrobian

some of the hyper feeling. I hadn’t talked on the phone to a girl in a million years. A girl not Hallie. With Hallie, we usually texted, not talked.
    The floor was crumbly and gritty and gross, but I just laid there, breathing hard, Otis trying to lick my face, human sweat being like the sweet nectar of the gods for dogs, I guess.
    Just sex? I couldn’t fit it in my head: Neecie was too nerdy to have sex.
    I laid on the floor for a long time. Imagining Neecie Albertson having sex. Jesus. It wasn’t hard to picture, actually, me being me, and The Horn and all.
    I got up, brushed the crap off myself from my nasty carpet and got into bed. But still, I couldn’t wash out the whole Neecie Albertson sex thing.
    Then I felt like jerking it again. Which was pretty gross of me.
    But then the channel switched to Hallie again. The first time she’d given me head. We were at her house; I’d been lying on her bed, the one with the big purple blanket, in the same position I was now. And we’d had a dumb fight just before it happened too. But I couldn’t remember what we’d fought about.
    The only part I remembered was how it was basically the best feeling in the world. Total relaxing luxury. Not having to do anything at all but lie back and feel it. Feel everything .
    And when it was over, it was just over. Nothing for me to clean up, no condom to ditch in the bathroom. And it was quiet, too. Hallie’d get up, without a word, and then come back, usually drinking a glass of water, and then she’d lay down beside me again and still not say anything. That first time she’d put her head on my stomach, her hair tickling me a little. She was always oddly quiet and peaceful after doing that, like she didn’t need anything from me, like she was feeling as good as I was, though I doubted that was true. I didn’t care, though. That first time, I remembered looking down at her and thinking, I would do anything for you. Anything. Name it, and I will do it.
    But then I couldn’t jerk it anymore. Because then my eyes were just leaking, dripping down over my temples, into my ears, all over the pillow, and it was like I was being crushed from the inside, like my organs were failing. I sat up, then, and dropped to the floor and did twenty more push-ups, so fast I thought I’d choke. Otis didn’t even move, just slumped his head on his paws as if to say, Enough of your up-and-down shit, man. I’m not moving anymore. Finally, I got back in bed. Otis settled his hot head on my shin, and I listened to the water heater kick on and scream for a million years until I finally fell asleep.

Chapter Five
    We were in a stand of trees between two cornfields, me and Eddie and my grandpa and Brad. Deer hunting. It was earlier than fuck, the sun not all the way up, and it was kind of cold, but not as cold as Eddie was bitching it was, and though I didn’t like smelling like the doe piss that Grandpa Chuck insisted we had to wipe all over us, and I was sick of Brad telling everyone what to do every second, it was good to be here. I loved deer hunting, especially with my Grandpa Chuck.
    Eddie was nervous. He wouldn’t stop whispering questions about what was going on, and I didn’t exactly know the plan, either, because this was Brad’s deal. Brad had been out hunting a couple of times this season but hadn’t bagged one yet, so he was extra bossy. I was just glad we weren’t at the same farm where I’d met Hallie last year.
    â€œYou two, up that stand over there,” Brad said, pointing at me and Eddie, then at a tree down at the edge of a frost-covered cornfield.
    â€œWhy do we have to go up?” I asked. The wind was kicking up and it’d be worse in the tree.
    â€œDon’t be a bitch,” Brad said. “You can’t track for shit, and you know it.”
    â€œI’m a better shot than you,” I said.
    â€œYou can’t be still for one