Love Is the Higher Law by David Levithan Read Free Book Online Page A

mean, or you can leave. I don’t want you to think you can’t leave.” “But I can stay.” “Of course. It would be stupid to head all the way back to the Upper West Side at this hour. Unless, of course, you’re going to get into trouble…” “No—my parents think I’m at a friend’s.” He raises an eyebrow. “You little schemer, you.” Sadly, my scheme doesn’t include what to do next. “Do you want to watch the rest of the movie?” he asks. And I say yes, because I think it would be rude to say no. So we watch, and the Nazis ruin everything, and I’m starting to get really depressed. I’m surprised by a noise that’s not coming from the screen, and then I realize—it’s raining out. For the first time all week, it’s raining. Then the movie’s over, and when he hits stop, the news comes back on, and while they’re not saying anything new—it’s just new people analyzing—we still watch. Then Jasper starts to yawn, and when he yawns, I yawn, too. He smiles at that, but it’s not an I’m-going-to-kiss-you-now smile. “We should probably go to bed,” he says. Then he leaves the room. I fix my hair a little when he’s gone, but whenhe comes back, he has sheets in his hand. “For the sofa,” he explains. “Don’t worry—it’s really comfortable.” And now I’m wondering why I didn’t go home, if I’m only going to sleep on the lime-green couch. But now it’s way too late to go home—or even to John’s. So while Jasper brushes his teeth, I put the sheets on the couch. He offers me a toothbrush, and I go into the bathroom when he’s done and look at myself in the mirror for a good long time, as if the reflection’s going to tell me what to do. But instead of coming up with the answer, I stay in the land of inertia, which I guess is the same as deciding to accept defeat. It is, after all, just a first date. When I emerge from the bathroom, he’s changed into an old white T-shirt and some boxers. This is unfairly sexy. He walks over and puts his arms around me and gives me a hug. “Sleep tight,” he says. “I’m just down the hall if you need me.” And of course in this situation, none of the questions I want to ask—“Don’t you like me?” “Am I that unattractive to you?” “Can’t I join you?”—are appropriate. So I go to the couch and lie down and clutch at the cushions. It’s ridiculous to think I’ll be able to go to sleep, so I turn the TV back on. Then I’m worried it’s too loud, so I put it one notch above mute and keep it on CNN, so even if I can’t hear what they’re saying, I can use the crawling text at the bottom to read myself to sleep. A half hour passes, and the storm outside is getting stronger—there’s even thunder now, and that sound of raindrops hitting branches and pavement. I hear a door open, and then Jasper is back in the room. He comes right over and sits down on me, right on my legs, like I’m part of the couch. “Hello,” he says. And I say,“Hello.” Then he asks, “What are you doing?” And I’m thinking, I’m trying to sleep on the couch , but I don’t say that. He bounces up and down on me a little, like a kid. “Isn’t the couch comfy?” he says. I can only say, “I guess.” “But why are you sleeping here?” he asks. And I honestly think that’s not a question I should have to answer. He bounces on me again, then stands up and offers his hand. “Come on.” So I take his hand, and he pulls me up off the couch, and we leave the TV on as we walk to his room. The bed’s the only part of the room that’s cleared off, and I assume we’re going to end up there. First, though, we stop at the window, because he’s left it open, and there’s lightning now as well as thunder, and the rain is coming down hard. “Look at that,” he says, and while I do look at that, I’m also looking at him, and in this gray-tone light, he couldn’t be more attractive. In the shadow of that window, right at that moment, we