Noise

[Colby]

We had a class together, but we sat across the room from each other and I didn’t know his name. Nor did I care at that point; I was more interested in keeping my nose in whatever book I was reading at that point in time. That’s not to say I hadn’t noticed him, though.
There had been a test, and I had done poorly on it. I didn’t need to see my grade to know that. I was walking out of the classroom after handing the stapled papers to the professor, and the only thing that I had on my mind was getting back to my dorm. But when I stepped into the hallway, someone looked up.
It was this guy who sat in the row in front of me. “Michael, right?” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “How do you think you did?”
I let out a breath of air that was to be interpreted as not very f--- good.
“Me too,” he said. “Listen, there’s gonna be a little party at my apartment this weekend, and I think you should stop by.”
I didn’t have a crush on Michael. But I did know that Michael was gay, and that meant there would probably be other gay people at his party. When I agreed, I was hoping to find someone single.
Michael punched his number into my phone and sent himself a text. “I’ll let you know more details later this week,” he told me, and then I was off, headed back for the comfort of my dorm room.
It was cold outside, and when I got into my building there was no relief. My cheeks were still icy. But when I opened the door to my room, there was a blast of heat. If they couldn’t heat the whole building, I was happy my room was at least warm.
I lay down for a while on my bed. For some reason, it was quiet in the dorms today, even for the middle of the day. There’s a certain noise to silence. You hear a miniscule buzz from the lights overhead, a hum from the heater. Outside the window, there’s a car driving by and contributing its noise to the chaotic whir. Tree limbs rustle and leaves scatter across the ground as the wind picks up speed. These things are always here, but they aren’t important enough to notice on most days, when excitement buzzes around with the voices of students. These noises exist to remind us that there is no such thing as silence. If there were, we’d all go crazy from the lack of noise.

By Friday, I had all but forgotten about Michael’s invitation. When I got a text with the address of his apartment and 10:00, I was at first confused, but then I remembered being stopped in the hallway.
I considered skipping it. I felt like I had been on campus for a ridiculous amount of time that day, and I didn’t feel like doing anything besides binge watch Orange is the New Black on Netflix. But then I remembered the sole reason I had intended to go to Michael’s party—to try and find someone.
It wasn’t like I was some acne-riddled, sex-starved loser. I just thought that it might be nice if I could find someone to keep me company and maybe kiss me. That was all.
So at 9:30, I hopped in the shower, rolled on some deodorant, and threw on my darkest, tightest jeans. My hair, thankfully, never took much work other than a brush or two to the side, and I planned to cover it with a beanie anyways.
Right before I walked out the door—at 10:10, so I wouldn’t be too early and seem overanxious—Carlos, my roommate, came in. He looked me up and down, then said, “Damn, who are you all dolled up for?”
I felt my cheeks redden. “Shut up,” I said.
“Good luck,” he told me as I let the door shut behind me.

As I began the walk to the nearest bus stop, the nerves were finally beginning to hit me. I had been to a party or two, but only a party or two. And those were always at home, and I had gone with my friend Maddie, who was much more accustomed to the party scene than I was.
The bus I took wasn’t the usual bus. There’s a bus that runs on the weekends to make sure that drunk people aren’t driving home from parties, so even though it was only nine at night, I was one of the few sober people riding. I sat in the back and shrank into myself. I wasn’t really in the mood for what I was getting myself into, I could feel, but I had already come this far so I wasn’t about to turn back.
That’s what I was thinking when he stepped onto the bus at the next stop and made his way through the drunken crowd. He was diminutive in stature but not in a way that made him look like a kid. I recognized him from chemistry immediately, and I could tell that he recognized me, too. After making his way down the aisle, he sat down in the seat next to me and said hi.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know your name,” I told him. I had to speak up to cover the noise of the other bus riders.
“It’s okay, I don’t know yours either,” he said. “I’m Brett.”
“Davis,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”
He shook my hand. People do that a lot more in college than in high school. In high school, it’s weird to use such formal behavior among your peers but in college, it’s something to be expected. It’s like over that two-month summer gap, everyone became a businessman. It bothered me. But there was something about his handshake that I found attractive, and I didn’t know why. His hands were a bit sweaty, so I could tell that he was nervous, and his small fingers barely curled themselves around my hand. Something so simple shouldn’t have interested me so much, but it did, and I found myself becoming curious about him.

The bus made a stop near Michael’s apartment, and we both got off. I hadn’t even considered that he might also know Michael, that he might be going to the same place as me.
“Are you going to Michael White’s party?” I asked.
“Yeah, I figured you knew that,” he said.
We didn’t talk about much as we walked the two blocks to Michael’s apartment complex, but at least neither of us would have to show up at the party alone. As we walked up the sidewalk to his building, we could hear music playing, and there were a couple of people smoking on the porch.
“This must be the place,” Brett joked, and I smiled nervously. We passed the smokers and, unsure of what to say, I told them hello. They both gave me a weird look at that, so I continued past them.
The door was cracked open so that nobody would have to knock. Brett pushed it open and slid past it. I didn’t want to seem like I was clinging to him, so even though I didn’t know my way around or any of the people there, I walked deeper into the apartment, in the direction I presumed the kitchen to be in.
I found Michael, surrounded by some of his girl friends. He had his arm draped around one of them. I could tell he had already taken a few drinks.
“Davissssss,” he said.
“Hi, Michael,” I said.
“Ohmigod,” he said. “You gotta get a beer. Why don’t you gotta beer?”
Someone reached into a box of Pabst in the fridge and handed me a can. I didn’t tell them that I couldn’t stand beer; I just cracked open the top and took a swig of the bitter liquid. At least it was cold.
As always seemed to happen, my nerves were swept away by the energy of the party. It wasn’t a huge gathering or anything—there were only around twenty-five people there—but everyone was in good spirits and either drunk or on their way there.
I had expected there to be a lot of gay people at Michael’s party, perhaps people he knew from the LGBTQ pride organizations on campus, and I had been right in that assumption. The only problem was that everyone seemed to be with someone else. There was Michael—who I was not attracted to—only surrounded by girls, and Brett—who I was pretty attracted to—standing around in the kitchen, talking to anyone who came his way.
I decided to make my way over to him. I had already had a few beers by the time I made this decision, so I hesitated less than I may have if I were sober. But it seemed like he had been drinking too, so it didn’t matter if I acted different than normal.
He was leaning up against the counter. I had a few inches on him, so I leaned my arm on the counter, evening out our heights.
“Hey,” I said, speaking up a little to be heard over the hip-hop song that was playing.
“Are you having fun?” he asked. He was smiling at me like I was giving him a gift. I thought that had to mean something.
I told him that I was, and it was true, even though I hadn’t really been social at the party. It was nice to even be in the presence of so many other gay people; that wasn’t something I had ever had at home.
I finished my beer, and Brett noticed. He turned around to the counter and grabbed a cup, in which he started to mix a drink. Finally, he handed it back to me. I had no idea what was in it, but I was glad for anything that wasn’t beer.
We had a conversation about Michael, which led to a conversation about our Chemistry class, which I realized was the most absolutely lame thing I could talk about with a guy I wanted to make out with. But the conversation just flowed that way, and I figured it was better to let it happen than try to make something artificial begin. I was so comfortable in the conversation that I wasn’t even paying attention to my drink, so I was surprised when I hit the bottom of the cup.
I held it out to Brett, saying, “I need more of that.”
“You’re drunk,” Brett laughed.
“Shut up,” I said. “So are you. Now make me another one of those things.”
He laughed at me, but he complied with my request. We moved from the kitchen to the couch without either of us saying anything, and I put my arm around his shoulder, because it felt natural to me. His arm was more than warm; it was hot, almost as if he had a fever.
That’s what I meant when I said, “You’re hot,” but of course he didn’t take it that way. He just laughed at me and said thanks, but having said something like that—and I realized that even if I hadn’t intended it that way, I did mean it—gave me more confidence.
I turned my head into him and pulled him by the shoulder up to me. His lips were soft, and I slid my tongue in between them. The kiss lasted less than a minute, and that was all. But it had happened.
It was my first kiss with a boy.
I was very drunk by the time I finished the second drink he had made me, so I decided that I would just stay where I was, even though I could have reasonably taken the bus back to my dorm. When I fell asleep he was still like that, under my arm, with my head leaned down against his, but when I woke up he was gone.

The following Monday, it was cold again. I was able to catch a bus to class instead of walking from the dorms, so I was at least warmed by the collective body heat of the others on the bus, but my nose was still numb and a little runny.
I had wanted things to be different. I had wanted them to change because I felt like I had changed. But just because something changes you doesn’t mean it changes the world. Everything felt the same as before and everything felt indisputably different. I didn’t know how to reconcile these two worlds of before and after.
I showed up at the class I had with Brett. Michael looked exhausted; he had probably partied more over the weekend and also had to clean his apartment. Brett just looked normal as he walked into class a minute after it started. I realized that the kiss had probably meant more to me than it had to him, and that was okay with me. I was just hoping that something more could come from it, and I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant.
I was imagining it, the two of us together. Not even sexually, just doing arbitrary things like getting coffee together and doing homework on the floor of his dorm room. I had no idea what our teacher was droning on about for that entire class because my mind was in Brett Zone, and once I entered Brett Zone there was no return.
After class ended, when we all packed up our stuff and made for the door, I passed by Brett.
“Hi, Brett,” I said.
“Davis,” he said.
And I didn’t know what it was, but that was when I knew that my daydreams had been just that: dreams.

By the end of the week it was already driving me crazy. I didn’t want to approach him because I didn’t want to seem like a spaz who was all excited just because of a single kiss (which, yeah, was what I was, but shut up). But I also didn’t want everything that there could be between us die away because we weren’t communicating. I didn’t know what to do and every option felt wrong, so on Friday I finally decided I would text him.
What are you doing tonight? Would you wanna get together? We could get food or something.
I hit send and shoved my phone back into my pocket. The text immediately felt lame, because he was the type of person who went to parties alone. He probably already had plans tonight and he would probably just laugh at my text whenever he saw it.
When I got back to my dorm, I decided to watch Netflix. I could have been asking around, looking for a party to go to or something, but I figured I might as well wait and see what Brett said to my text.
I was closing in on the end of Season Two of Orange is the New Black, and that depressed me, but I couldn’t stop watching it every time I had a chance. I only had a few episodes, left, and before I knew it I was finishing the final episode. Now I truly had nothing to do with my night.
That was when I realized that my phone had been on silent this whole time, still shoved deep in my pocket. I reached for it now, sure that I had in fact gotten a response from Brett but I hadn’t checked my phone because it hadn’t vibrated. The screen lit up, but there were no new messages. I sighed.
The commons area on my floor of the dorm was quiet, aside from all of the everyday noise. There was one girl sitting at the table and doing homework, but other than that there was no activity. I had hoped for a group of guys preparing to head out to a party who I could tag along with, but I had no such luck.
It didn’t take me long to accept my fate—I probably wasn’t going to have a very interesting night. After sitting in the commons for what felt like forever, I resigned myself to my boredom and returned to my dorm room. I picked up the first book I found on my windowsill and flipped it open to the first page. I tried reading it, but I couldn’t really concentrate so I ended up just lying there in my bed, staring at the first page of a book I didn’t care about, the words smudging together in my vision.

The weekend passed without event, and so did most of the next week. On that Friday, I decided to text Brett again and see if he wanted to do something. I felt needy and ridiculous, but it was something I had to do if I didn’t want to go crazy.
This time, Brett responded, and it only took him a few minutes.
Actually, I was wondering if we could talk?
We met for lunch at this place on campus that has different fast food options. I waited for him at a two-person table with my personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut. He showed up and bought some French fries and a Coke.
“Sorry, I just got out of class,” he said.
“It’s okay,” I told him. “So what’s up?”
He tossed a couple of fries into his mouth and chased them with the soda.
“I just wanted to talk to you about something,” he said “I know I kissed you at Michael’s party.”
“It’s okay, we were drunk,” I said. I don’t know why I felt the sudden need to defend it in that way, as if it wouldn’t have been okay if we hadn’t been drunk.
“I know it’s okay, but I wanted to make sure you’re not getting the wrong idea,” he told me.
These words hit me like a brick, like everything I had hoped for had been immature and ridiculous.
“It’s okay,” I repeated.
“You know that I’m straight, right?” Brett said. “Or, okay, I’m at like a one on the Kinsey scale. But you know that what happened just happened because I was drunk and happy, right?”
“Yeah,” I lied, because of course I hadn’t known that. I had no reason to suspect it. “Seriously, it’s not a big deal. It’s nothing.”
For some reason, saying this was the worst part. I felt somehow wronged, and I knew that Brett hadn’t done anything wrong but maybe I felt wronged by the world, and maybe that was stupid but it was how I felt. I didn’t want to lie to him and say it wasn’t a big deal or that it didn’t matter to me. I wanted it to be a big deal to him too, but of course I couldn’t blame him for being straight or for getting drunk and kissing the person who was nearest to him, which just happened to be me.
“Well I’m glad you feel that way,” he said. He was finishing his fries by then, so he said, “I’ll see you in class,” and left the table.

I didn’t know what my problem was. This shouldn’t have been a Major Event in My Life, but it was shaping up to be just that. I felt stressed out about my classes. I even skipped some of them. When I was actually in my classes, I couldn’t focus on them completely because I was thinking about Brett and everything I had hoped we could have. It was stupid, and it shouldn’t have mattered so much to me. I was wishing I never went to Michael’s party, because if I hadn’t I wouldn’t have kissed Brett and it wouldn’t be mixing up my mind. It was as if my life had been in order, and then Brett had to come along and mess everything up with his lips. This was a lie, of course—nothing had ever been perfect before. Now it felt worse, though. It hurt to want and not be wanted.

I didn’t talk to Brett as much after that. Mostly, when we did talk, it was about class. And the feeling passed, of course. I didn’t stay miserable about it for the rest of the semester. But there was always something there, just on the edge, like when you get a speck in your eye that you can’t quite blink out.
Later, after a few more weeks had passed, I saw Brett sitting alone in the window of a restaurant downtown. I did consider it, going inside and joining him. But then there was a girl, returning to her seat from the restroom. She smiled at him, and he was smiling back. I had known for a while then that he would never be mine, but in that moment the fact solidified.
The world was quiet for a moment as I watched them eat and paid no attention to the sounds of the cars or the birds or the people walking by. I wasn’t bothered seeing them together, I realized. I kept looking for a moment. Then I looked away, and the noise came rushing in.

[Dew]

loved some of the tangential observations along the way...especially "It’s like over that two-month summer gap, everyone became a businessman". Its true isn't it? I think story telling requires that kind of mind that notices things and doesn't succumb to mindless participation without asking (even if only internally) about the cause. social scientist's curiosity? Enjoyed the story...dew

[Jahaliel]

A simple, powerful and very well told story here. I really liked the honest feel of it, there's something that rings so true - that this is an experience that many people could identify with.

[AnIdeasman]

This is great. Your story provides a clear insight into something that many of us can identify with and is particularly accessible to young people. Thanks for sharing it.

[Dana Renee]

I thought I had commented on this already, but evidently not. With this story, you really capture feelings I think most of us experience at some point in our lives. Though it's not a particularly exciting topic, you've written it in a way that is very relatable and interesting. I also really liked the phrase "It’s like over that two-month summer gap, everyone became a businessman". Great writing Colby! Keep at it.

[rupertpupkin]

Hi. Great story with some wonderful individual lines. Brought me back to my teenage years. Really enjoyed this lovely tale. Hope to read a lot more of your work. Great stuff! Sean.

[JacobBenAvraham]

Classes, parties, social contact, guess I missed out on all of that, I was kind of a loner when I went to High school in the late 60s, If it had anything to do with booze or cigarettes, I went the other way. Only once did I try and join in with some "teens" in the woods with a drinking party. I got some "Tropic Tom's island Mix" from my father's liquor cabinet, yes, it was only the "mix" it said "FOR" rum, only I didn't see the "FOR" on it, the teens were glad, they started to drink it, then something seemed wrong, they looked at the bottle: "Stupid, this the MIX" I high tailed it outa there, quick like, the bottle went flying through the air, and landed....somewhere....

rabbi

[ramfire]

Not quite sure if the main character is male or female. An interesting insight into college life and the modern era of texting. Do people still use the telephone? I guess they're not that handy anymore.

[JASON]

The title is great - I interpret it to be the business of life that is always around us -
and how it can fade away when we are focussed on other things.
congrats on the light!!

[BarryC]

wonderful piece-deserves the spotlight