Cut Both Ways by Carrie Mesrobian

Obviously so does DeKalb, because he’s jumped off the diving board like a hundred times and is strutting around shirtless on the patio and then pushing Roy into the water, which at first I think is aggression but then Roy’s laughing and doesn’t care.
    Angus doesn’t change how he acts at Roy’s. Maybe he already did his big change, with being gay, and now he’s just who he is, without worrying about it anymore?
    â€œYour hair turns green in the chlorine, doesn’t it?” Angus asks Roy, when he comes up from the surface.
    â€œThat’s a white-people thing, right?” DeKalb says. “Got to be.”
    Roy laughs, says yes. Angus swims for his school in Oak Prairie and it turns out Roy used to swim, too, so they talk about swimming and shaving their legs before races and whatever. I try to imagine Roy swimming in high school. Before rehab. Or maybe he’s just saying that. I watch him dunk DeKalb then, when DeKalb’s back is turned. Maybe Roy has learned to be in more than one place, too.
    We’ve been in the pool awhile when this girl shows up with food. A mess of pizza and chicken wings and pop and a French silk pie. As she unpacks everything at the built-in brick table under the awning, like she’s our mom, Roy waves at her.
    â€œHey,” she calls to him while opening an invisible cupboard in the brick and pulling out these bright orange plates. I wonder who she is. She’s wearing normal clothes, but I can see her swimsuit underneath. When Roy gets out of the pool, she hands him a towel and they talk with their heads close together. She laughs and swats at him and then Roy tells us all to come and eat.
    DeKalb and me are giving each other the eye about this chick the whole time we’re all eating. She gets us all Cokes from inside, except for Roy, who just drinks water. Then she takes off her stuff and goes to lie on one of the lounge chairs in her swimsuit. Andshe’s pretty fucking hot. I try not to look, but she’s kind of right in my line of sight. She’s reading a book. Roy doesn’t seem to even notice. He and Angus are talking about music, and I join in for a minute, just to say they all should see Angus’s garage, and then DeKalb asks about the band and I tune out. Stare at the water, which is flat and blue and calm. At the match Roy leaves on his orange plate after he lights his cigarette. At the curls of hair on my arms, drying in the heat.
    I’m feeling light-headed. I feel like I’m maybe coming apart. Splintering into all these versions of Will that aren’t quite the right thing. Like I’m unable to be all of them. Be at all of the places. The Will who’s a prep cook. The Will who can’t answer for his dad. The Will who avoids his mom. The Will who takes Taylor and Kinney to Walgreens to pick up nail-polish remover and Q-tips for his mom and ends up buying his half sisters glittery jump ropes with the extra cash. The Will who kisses Angus. Touches Angus. The Will who spends money on root beer and food with Brandy. The Will who is Brandy’s boyfriend.
    â€œHelp me clean this shit up, you guys,” Roy says, putting out his cigarette and standing up to clear off the plates. We end up putting them in another hidden cabinet that’s really a goddamn dishwasher. I look at DeKalb again, who shakes his head.
    We swim some more and then it’s time to head back to my house so DeKalb’s dad can come collect him. The girl who fed us gets up and ties her towel around her waist and stands by Roy as we get ready to go. She looks pinkish from the sun and she’s holding this bookagainst her hip called Ways of Seeing . Roy asks her how it’s coming along and she shrugs, “It’s fine,” she says. “Kind of abstract.”
    Roy looks bummed that she’s not liking the book. As if he wrote it or something. They go back and forth about it and Angus asks what it’s