This is the stickiest fucking summer that I can ever remember. Or maybe it's just because all previous summers I had air conditioning. I don't know. The heat seems a lot more intense when there is no retreat. And there was no retreat in our what it would be a stretch to call a three-bedroom house. The economy was suffering from the war, and no one had any extra money for anything, considering we were a lower middle class family. We sold the window units that used to cool each room way before the morning frost went away. Didn't even think about it then.
Maybe the heat made us delirious. Or maybe it was pure cabin fever. Either way, something had to be to blame. Or maybe growing up in white trash, rural Ohio just makes things like this seem right. Who knows.
I knew Adam before my mom married his dad. We went to high school together our freshman year. He tried to fuck me at a kegger. He played guitar, and I always thought that was sexy. Something about his bluesy, quasi-folk rock struck a nerve some where in my stomach. It was different than the self-pity emo bullshit that emanated through the veins of every teenage boy in eyeliner and girl pants. Looking back, I blame the music.
We got really close not long after our parents moved in together. We already thought of each other as siblings by the time our parents got married. Not long after that, though, the tangible sexual tension became apparent. We shared a bedroom, which was even worse. I would sit and stare at him from behind my computer while he worked on his sultry songs. I would purposely do things to irritate him so he would pay attention to me. It was childish, the way I would pretend to be annoyed and turn my music up as loud as it would go so he would walk over to me and turn the volume down. He had to be very close to me to do this. I did it often.
Around the end of June, when the thermometer began to reach the upper 90's, we fought over who got to push their bed up near the window. We concluded that his futon would be the best option, because it was big enough for us to both sleep in. This was hands down the worst idea ever. It was impossible for either of us to sleep, and we both blamed the heat. Every brush of skin on skin was a mini-heart attack. I slept in the tiniest things I could find, out of pure necessity. And he slept in his boxers. So there was a lot of skin to brush.