The Youth & Young Loves of Oliver Wade: Stories by Ben Monopoli Read Free Book Online Page B

me to.

 
    OwOw0: I know how you feel....................
    Boydyboy: Whatever. I don’t even know what im talking about.
    OwOw0: don’t you?.... “Strange things I have in head, that will to
hand / Which must be acted, ere they may be scanned.”
    Boydyboy: haha . did you just quote
fucking Shakespeare at me?
    OwOw0: we’re reading MacBeth in English. i like that line.
    Boydyboy: uh huh
    OwOw0: :-(
    Boydyboy: I’m going to get another beer. then hit the sack. I’ll
see ya

 
    The near-miss moments in our chats always reminded me of
that teasing pause the modem made when I was trying to get online—that
moment of potential that fizzled into a failure to connect. Boyd and me, we
kept getting the Goodbye instead of
the Welcome .

 
    ***

 
    OwOw0: Want to hear a secret?

 
    Sometimes my strategy was to try to plant in his mind the
notion that a secret existed. To get his hopes up, in case there were hopes to
be got up. And, if I’m honest, if there were hopes, to make him slip and reveal
them.
     
    Boydyboy: Of course i want to hear a secret.
    OwOw0: It’s potentially embarrassing
    Boydyboy: the best ones are.

 
    I would let it dangle. Then I would yank it away.

 
    OwOw0: .... I want to see the new Chucky movie, in all its
killer-doll cheeziness . Oops... Did I really admit
that?

 
    A bait and switch. I felt bad doing it. It was mean.
Secrets can make you mean.

 
    Boydyboy: i thought it was going to be
something juicy. :-( but those movies are good... you shouldnt have movie shame.
    OwOw0: You like juicy things you perv .
:-)
    Boydyboy: HHAHaha . the juicier the
better.
    OwOw0: Hehehehe .
    Boydyboy: hooheheehaha !
    OwOw0: Hoohahahahaha !!!
    Boydyboy: BWUHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
    OwOw0: Haha you win, I cant top that one.
    Boydyboy: what the hell is wrong with us Oliver?
    OwOw0: A good question Boy-o-Boyd.

 
    And sometimes he would seem to do the same.

 
    Boydyboy: want to hear a secret?
    OwOw0: Is it juicy?
    Boydyboy: :-/
    OwOw0: Tell me.
    Boydyboy: i will
    OwOw0: Haha . tell meee !
    Boydyboy: don’t get pushy, ya pushy
bastard.
    OwOw0: just tell me boyd .

 
    Sometimes he would take my breath away.

 
    Boydyboy: Did you know that I’m in love?

 
    Sometimes he would reduce me to a shivering mass in a
world so suddenly silent my ears would ring. I would look at the screen, rub my
eyes, wonder if I was reading him right.

 
    OwOw0: Really? you’re in love?

 
    I would see the bait and wait for the switch.

 
    Boydyboy: yes really.
    OwOw0: OK
    Boydyboy: I can’t say who. nothing funky, no animals or objects or
shit because I know how you think.. you perv .
    OwOw0: you can tell me who it is.
    Boydyboy: i don’t know.... i know i can trust you not to say
anything to anyone. but maybe it’s me whose not ready yet.
    OwOw0: you’re right i wouldn’t ever tell
anyone.
    Boydyboy: i need time............. but if i ever did tell anybody it would be you.

 
    I suppose if there was a specific moment when I discovered
I was in love with Boyd Wren, it was this one, the one when I suddenly believed
he felt the same way. What he had said took more than my breath away now; it
took all of me, everything I had understood about the world and myself and our
friendship and what the rest of my life was going to look like.
    Adrenaline coursed through me and I felt dizzy. There was no
time to think through my response, no time to settle on a code. I had to go on
instinct, and I was weighed down by my fearful unwillingness to gamble, however
small a gamble I thought in that moment it might be, with this last piece of
ambiguity between me and the end of my lifelong secret.

 
    OwOw0: I really appreciate you feeling like you can tell me though.
    Boydyboy: do you?
    OwOw0: well my list of friends isn’t huge, as you know. i’m glad we’re that close.
    Boydyboy: i’m gladwe are too. means a lot to me.

 
    And then
something happened.

 
    OwOw0: I’m glad you specifieid that it
wasn’t an object