Be Dazzled Read online

  I’ve never been called cute in my life. That I become cute when I am on the brink of exhaustion and collapse should be a concern, but I was too tired to acknowledge that. The text made me feel warm. Hugged in his absence. Now I feel a creeping cold. It gnaws at the edges of my haze, trying to break through and tell me something. But what? What did I miss? What have I done wrong?

  I think about this for most of the school day. When I see Luca, his eyes seem to slide right over me. I text him when we’re in class together and watch him ignore it, which is possibly the most horrible thing anyone has ever done to me. As far as my anxiety goes, that’s the equivalent of pulling a pin out of a grenade. I’m just waiting for the explosion.

  Instead of exploding, I do what I always do: I make stuff. In precalc, where we’re supposed to be doing independent work, I peel strips of paper from my notebook, each about an inch wide. I fold and roll the strips, turning them into strands, and then I braid them into a chunky band. By precalc’s end, I have a new woven bracelet.

  It doesn’t help.

  By the end of the day, Luca still hasn’t texted me back. I know he’s got a game today, so after the last bell rings, I head to the buses that pick up the athletic teams and bring them to their rivals. At first I don’t see him, because I’m looking for his lone figure off to the side, moping about whatever’s got him down. But he’s actually right in the thick of the team, engaged in some sort of game with his friends. It’s his laugh that grabs my attention. Bright and careless, it has nothing to do with the version of him I imagined.

  And the laugh cuts off right as our eyes meet.

  I don’t understand what I’m feeling, just that it’s bad. I turn away, looking for a place to aim myself, because suddenly I know I made a mistake in coming here. I end up ducking in between the busses, finding one with a door open and hurrying up the steps just as the first tear blurs my vision. I don’t get why I’m crying. I know I’m tired. I know I’m being a little unreasonable.

  The bus driver gives me a second to compose myself and then says, “You on the soccer team?”

  I’m on the soccer team bus? Oh, awesome. Lovely. I curl into a seat on the far side of the bus where the other boys can’t see me, getting ready for my escape. I could climb out the window, maybe? Or bribe the driver to drive away.

  “Raffy.”

  I look up. Luca stands at the front of the bus. He nods at the driver—they’re friends, of course—and then joins me in my hiding spot.

  “Why are you crying?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Which is the truth, but also not really the truth. So I add, “Because you’re ignoring me.”

  Luca takes almost a minute to respond. At first, I think it’s because he’s thinking of an apology, but then halfway through the silence, I see the way his jaw is clenched. His shoulders are hunched. He’s angry.

  “You didn’t even notice,” he says. His voice surprises me after the silence, and I almost don’t hear what he says next. “When I didn’t show up, I thought you would be worried, or at least mad, but you didn’t even notice I was gone last night. I don’t know what’s worse: that you probably loved working alone and didn’t want to ruin it by checking in, or that I’m such a small part of your world that you didn’t even realize I was missing.”

  “Wait,” I say. “What?”

  “You’d be mad, too, if your boyfriend would rather be doing arts and crafts alone than with you.”

  “Wait,” I say again. “We’re boyfriends?”

  “I don’t know, Raff. Are we?”

  Rationally, now is not the time to moon over Luca admitting that we are maybe boyfriends. Later, I will feel the threat of his unsureness, and that will matter more, but for the few seconds after the word enters the air between us, I can’t help but feel reassured. If we’re fighting, there’s something to fight about. What we have is worth fighting for. I needed to know that, especially today after thinking Luca was ignoring me. It makes me smile, which is a huge mistake.

  I wipe the smile away and check to see if Luca saw. He didn’t. He’s focused on the vinyl of the seat in front of us.

  “You haven’t even asked what I was doing last night.”

  Once again, I have become distracted by the details. It didn’t even cross my mind that there might be a bad reason for Luca’s absence. I’m still unraveling the day’s anxiety and stitching it into a less selfish point of view.

  I feel so, so dumb when I repeat his question to him: “What were you doing last night?”

  I expect something soccer-related. I don’t expect what Luca says, which is:

  “Being screamed at.”

  “By who?”

  “My mom.”

  I give Luca a chance to say more, knowing he doesn’t like it when I overwhelm him with questions he’s not really ready to answer. But then the next big surprise comes.

  “My parents want me to stop seeing you.”

  “Wait, what? They know about us?”

  Luca makes me wait as he picks at the peeling vinyl, probably knowing what he said has set off a hurricane of questions in me.

  “They don’t know everything, but they figured out enough. They must have caught on that I wasn’t always hanging out with the boys, like I told them. And then they put together the rest from those photos from a while ago. They know who you are, and my mom watched a bunch of your streams. She made me show her all the pictures I took at Controverse.”

  “Jesus, Luca, I’m so sorry. Were they mad?”

  He tilts his head back against the seat. “They were mad about eeeeeeverything. They made me tell them about you and explain the cosplaying. And then they went through my Netflix history and made me explain what each show was about. Have you ever had to explain Evangelion to a Catholic Italian mom? The second I said the heroes have to defeat angels, I knew I was doomed. Like, doomed doomed. Anyway, after that, I got lectured about lying and about the importance of family for another two hours. We didn’t even eat dinner. That’s how I know they were mad. And not just mad. Big mad. Big Italian mad.”

  It’s my turn to lean back. I swallow my questions, unsure how I can fix any of this.

  “Want to know the worst part?” Luca asks. “They didn’t even bring up the whole bisexuality thing. The whole time, I was just waiting for that to be the climax, and I was even a little relieved because we were finally going to talk about it. Finally, I could be out to them, no matter the repercussions. And I could tell that’s what they were really mad about, but they refused to even mention it. It’s the same as always. Maybe worse. I can’t go over to your house anymore. I’m not even supposed to be talking to you.”

  Whatever anger I had, whatever has kept me moving today, is gone now. I don’t even feel sorrow. Just a spreading numbness.

  I jump as the bus kicks to life. A hand slaps the window, and I can see Luca’s teammates taking turns jumping, trying to get his attention. He waves them away with an easy smile.

  “They saw us talking,” I say. “Are you going to get in trouble?”

  “Nah, they have my back. That’s what it means to be on a team. If I got grounded, I’d be out of practices and games, and they wouldn’t be able to function without me.”

  He stands, gesturing for me to get up too with a sweep of his arm.

  “Unlike some people,” he says to the back of my head.

  “Luca, come on, I’m sorry—”

  Luca whistles, getting the bus driver’s attention. They exchange some sort of hand signal, ending in a thumbs-up. Then Luca leans on the back door’s hinge, and it pops open just wide enough for me to slip through. The driver returns the thumbs-up.

  “Here, so you don’t have to walk by everyone,” Luca says, indicating it’s time for me to go. I’m too scared to just jump, so I sit on the ledge and scoot out onto the pavement. I turn to look up at Luca, expect
ing him to slam the door in my face, but he’s watching me. Waiting for me to say something.

  “I’ll figure this out. You don’t have to choose,” I say. It’s what Luca told me once, and it got me to admit that I love him.

  “You still don’t get it, do you?” Luca says. He kneels down so that we’re level, just me and him blocked from view in a gridlock of idling buses. For the first time since we started talking, a real smile plays at the edge of his lips. “We’ll figure something out. Come here.”

  Relief sweeps through me as I step forward between his knees, his lips pressing to my hair as his arms collapse over my shoulders.

  “We work together, okay?” he says. “I’m not giving up.”

  “I’m not giving up, either,” I whisper.

  Luca picks up my wrist, playing with the little paper bracelet I made in precalc.

  “You made this today?”

  I nod.

  “Aww, you must have been real nervous if you made something,” he says.

  I shrug.

  “Can I wear it? For my game?”

  I suppress a smile. “It’s all yours.”

  He tilts my chin up. The air is thick with the fumes from the buses, and it’s noisy, but everything feels romantic as he slips the crude bracelet from my wrist and winds it between our locked fingers. His kiss lands light and quick on my cheekbone, fast as a dragonfly.

  “Boyfriends?” he asks.

  “Definitely,” I say.

  “Cool.”

  Luca winks. He stands and eases the door closed, and almost immediately, the bus rocks with commotion as the team climbs aboard. I slip away, keeping my head down, a plan already forming in my mind.

  Twenty-Five

  Now

  Luca is looking at his mom. She is red-faced, too, as though she is suddenly aware of everyone watching. But her focus is on him, her emotions unreadable except for the steam that condenses on the partition. She’s breathing heavily, like she got here in a rush. Like maybe she’s mad.

  “And it looks like we’ve got a parent on the sidelines, but she doesn’t look pleased! Could it be that she didn’t know this is what Luca needed her signature for?”

  It’s a moment before I register that this question has been aimed at me, and Ginger’s microphone is in my face. I push it away and get closer to Luca’s mom. When I glance at Luca, there is a shadow in his eyes that I’ve seen before. Shame.

  My heart breaks for him. It is unfair that he has to navigate this. It is even worse that he has to do it here, in front of all these people. People looking for a show. And I’m sure Irma meant for this to happen. Luca’s mom has a lanyard on, and she’s trailed by a clubber, as though she’s a special guest brought in just to create this moment.

  The crowd’s murmuring bubbles up as people notice there’s something bad happening. The excitement snuffs out all at once as Luca’s mom says, “Luca, what is this? Why wouldn’t you tell me about this?”

  Luca’s shoulders are hunched. Whispers swarm through the arena. Nervous laughter, too.

  “I’ve been calling you. Why is your phone off? Why didn’t you tell me you were on TV? What is all of this? How come I had to hear about it from your cousins?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to worry. It’s not that big of a deal,” Luca pleads.

  “Not a big deal? You think not telling me about something means I can’t worry? I worry even more when I feel like I don’t know my son. And this?”

  She slaps her phone against the partition. It’s a blurry screenshot of Luca kissing me. We are the terrible thing that dragged a mother through an entire convention center to confirm with her own eyes.

  “This is no big deal?” she says. “I have to learn this from your cousin? From the internet?”

  “Ma, I’m sorry. I can’t talk about it right now, okay? Just go home, and I’ll explain everything later. Okay?”

  Luca is practically begging. I’ve never heard the word okay said with such emotion.

  His mom crosses her arms. Luca crosses his arms. They reflect one another, except Luca is about a foot taller.

  “You’re staying?” she asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “You want to be here?”

  “Yeah, Ma.”

  “This matters to you? He matters to you?”

  Luca swallows. “Yeah, it does. He does, too.”

  Controverse never goes silent, but in this moment, I swear it comes close. Luca’s mom purses her lips, thinking about his answers. If she’s conscious that an entire show, a dozen cameras, and countless production staff have started watching her, she doesn’t show it. But I think she’s seen the energy and attention and the love assembled around her son. I can’t be sure, but I feel like I see something shake loose in her rigid expression.

  “Then I’m staying, too,” she announces. “I never missed a game in your life, and I’m not missing this,” she says. “I’m your mother, and I cheer you on. No matter what. Okay?”

  The silence is broken by the collective sound of every pair of lungs in a one-mile radius gasping. Theatre gay gasping.

  Luca is surprised, but his smile is already breaking through. “Okay, okay,” he says.

  His mom grins, too, looking just like him once again.

  “This makes you happy?”

  Luca nods.

  “Then you should do your best. You’re a Vitale, and we always do our best. And…” She looks at me, then looks away shyly. “And he…?”

  “He makes me happy, too.”

  “Then you bring him over for dinner after, okay? Don’t eat the food here. It looks like poison.”

  From Luca’s face, it looks like she’s given him the best possible blessing in the world. And then his mom looks to me, and I find myself nodding obediently. Yes, of course I will come over for dinner. No questions asked. She gives me an approving smile.

  Luca puts his hand on the partition. His mom presses her palm to the other side.

  “Make us proud,” she says.

  Somewhere, someone starts to clap, and it breathes movement back into the silent arena. The crowd gathers around Luca’s mom, rocking her with their cheers.

  “Let’s get back to work.” Luca pulls me back to our station, and the cameras find other things to focus on, other plots, and we’re left alone to work.

  “Luca, that was—”

  “Let’s just work, maybe? If that’s okay?” he says. He’s trying not to smile. He’s trying not to let the world know how relieved he is, and I get that. It’s easy to go from relieved to suddenly crying, and there’s no stopping tears like those. So we just get back to work to the sounds of the crowd cheering us on. Now, Luca’s mom is among our supporters, and she cheers the loudest of all.

  * * *

  The cameras stay close on our hands for the next few hours. Luca and I fall into a rhythm, and gradually, the accumulated materials merge together to become a chest plate, shoulder armor, a helmet, and even wings. We barely talk at all, only when we need to figure out what’s next. I end up moving on to pattern-making for the more complex garments while Luca transitions to props. He’s better with foam than I remember. Like, actually skilled. And that leaves me time to sit with my fabrics and sewing machine and think.

  And think. And think.

  I lose nearly an hour trying to put together a pattern. I can’t decide on anything. Can’t commit to anything. What if I make the wrong choice? What if I make the right choice but don’t have time to execute it because I’ve spent so long sitting here worrying? What if I get everything done, but it doesn’t matter because Evie figures out where I am and send assassins to take me out the next time I go to pee?

  Arms encircle me from behind. I’m so lost in my thoughts that I barely register the crowd going awwwwwww as Luca says, “You’re thinking too hard. Let’s go for
a walk.”

  “Where?”

  “Just come.”

  Luca leads me away from our station, past the people pressed to the glass, and over to the aisles of craft supplies. We stop in front of the shelves of fabrics. Unceremoniously, he takes my hand and shoves it between the rolls.

  “I don’t get it,” I confess.

  “Whenever we used to go fabric shopping, I swear you would touch every single fabric before making a decision. It was like your hands were thinking for you. So if you’re going to think, you might as well think with the right part of you. Here, like this.”

  Luca drags my hand across the rolls. We’re in a section of quilted fabrics in blacks and gray, like futuristic insulation. Something you could use for a regal space uniform, maybe? I picture heavy coats that barely shift in the wintery winds of a distant planet. The other textures give me other visions, like the cloth is falling over invisible ideas and revealing their hidden shapes.

  I see Luca’s point.

  “Good,” he says, like he can see my doubts releasing me, my creativity coming back to life. “Now do your thing.”

  So I do as Luca says and let my hands think for me. As my mind sheds its inertia, a design forms in my head. The materials fill in like a paint by numbers, and soon I’ve got several options piled up in my arms as I waddle to the cutting table. Breathlessly, I tell the attendant what lengths I need, and then I go back for more. What was I thinking, taking this long to explore? I’m in my favorite place in the world with no budget. Now is the time to go as wild as I want. Now is the time to let the fabrics do the work for me.

  I walk away with a luscious, soft leather (fake, but convincing), which I’m going to use to make a fitted crop top and high-waisted slacks. It’ll be a lot of work, but the fabric has some stretch, and I know Luca’s measurements already. I also find a gorgeous bulky knit that I want to use for the Deimos cape. I can distress it to give it some personality.