Chris drives straight through San Antonio and from the Interstate you can see the Alamodome. You remember the time you had to play there without Joey and remember thinking that the stage had never seemed so big as when someone was missing.

You haven’t said anything to Chris in an hour or more; you’ve been coloring Drive Myself Crazy Chris with the pineapple head.

“You’ve changed,” you whisper to him, even though he’s a drawing and won’t understand.

“What?”

You jump because you didn’t think Chris would hear you over the music in the car.

“I was just… you… you’ve changed,” you finish lamely, pointing to the Chris in the coloring book.

“So have you,” he says. “You used to be able to talk.”

“I still can.”

“Not about anything that matters.”

“Fuck you,” you say.

Seconds later, it occurs to you that you may be proving his point. “I can talk. I can. It’s just… I never used to… get lost. I get lost in myself now. I never used to.”

“Never had to before.”

“What?”

“Think about it. It’s been a long time that we’ve been N Sync. I mean, fuck. And during all that time, how much time have you spent alone? How much time have you gotten to yourself? When no one, not even one of the guys, was around you? It’s changed all of us, C. Not just you. Not just me. Lance and Joey, they’ve just gotten closer to each other.” He laughed. “I can’t tell them apart some days. Justin eats it up, just gets bigger and bigger because he doesn’t know yet what will happen. You retreat into yourself.”

You nod at everything Chris says. You know he’s right. You know you’re all different, newer somehow. On the verge of breaking but not there yet.

“What about you?”

“I’m just bitter.”

And you nod because you can see that. He still smiles, still jokes, but there’s a sharp edge to it now that wasn’t there before. A cautious tone in what used to be a world of light.

You start to hit long stretches of dirt and sagebrush just as the sun goes down. Chris wanted it this way, planned it this way so you could stop and look at the stars.

As full dark descends, he pulls off the highway onto a dirt road that heads off north. He pulls far enough away from the highway that the traffic wouldn’t bother you and stopped.

You get out and stand next to the car, waiting for the hood to cool down so you can sit on it.

Chris doesn’t wait, just hops on and leans back against the windshield. After a few moments you do too.

“How many do you recognize?” he asks, gesturing toward the sky.

“Constellations?”

“Yeah.”

“That one,” you say, pointing up. “Orion. I can find his belt.” You look around a bit more. They seemed so close out here, like you could reach up and touch them if you tried. “There,” you say, pointing at the Big Dipper. After a moment you point out another. “Pleiades.”

“What?”

“The Seven Sisters.”

“Where?”

“There,” you say, pointing.

“You do know that you’re just pointing up, right? And that no matter how insistently you point, it’s not going to suddenly jump out at me?”

You sigh and squirm closer on the hood of your car. You pull Chris up so you can move behind him with your arm over his shoulder, pointing at the small cluster of stars.

He nods and leans back before you can pull away, trapping your body between him and the windshield. You give up trying to move back over in favor of wrapping your arms around his shoulders. He sighs and wiggles around, settling, and you try to ignore the wiper digging into your back.

“Where are we headed?” he asks, and you know he isn’t talking about the trip, the two of you, but the group, the collective known as N Sync.

“I don’t know.”

“I never thought it would be like this. Never imagined. I don’t know if I’m cut out for this.”

You don’t know what to say to that so you remain silent, holding him to you, unwilling to let him go, let the group go, but especially him.

“Will you promise not to weird out if I ask you something?”

“Yeah,” you say, wondering when that’s stopped him before.

“Can I kiss you?”

“What?”

“I want to know what it’s like.”

“Kissing a guy?”

“Yeah.”

Your heart is pounding and you are certain that he can feel it, hear it because his head is on your chest and your arms are still around him. You don’t know what to think and you don’t know exactly what it means but your mouth says, “yes” before you’ve even begun to figure it all out.

He flips around so you’re both chest to chest and hitches a leg over both of yours, anchoring you under his body.

Your hands are still on his shoulders, clenching into fists as he leans into you, onto you. His breath is on your lips moments before his mouth slides against yours.

Your heart jumps in your chest. You can’t really think but one thought, that its everything you wanted. Wanted for so long and never thought you’d get.

His hand comes around your head to your choppy, uneven hair and stays there, tangling in the strands.

He pulls back too soon and licks his lips, staring down at you in the moonlight.

“Um… yeah. I’m definitely into guys,” he says and jumps off the car.

[next] OR [back to index]