Swallowed

Anthony waited in line behind three teenage girls, unable to block out their loud chatter. He was waiting for his order and they were pretty much right next to him. This was his fault. He didn’t usually leave the house without headphones, even when he went to Starbucks for his usual chai latte. He couldn’t fault them too much, could he? Anthony can’t imagine he wasn’t annoying when he was a teenager.

“Okay next one,” the one girl with the hair bun and multiple pierced ear said to her two giggly friends. 

Please not another one.

“Fuck, marry, kill,” the girl said. She thought a little while. “John Reese, Nathaniel Rose, and Braxton Vance.”

Anthony’s ears perked up.

“Easy,” said the girl with bright blonde hair. “Fuck Braxton, Marry Nathaniel, Kill Reese.”

“Kill Reese, are you kidding?” Repeated Hair Bun.

“I’d kill him, too, actually,” their slightly quieter short haired friend with purple lipstick said. “But I’d fuck Nathaniel Rose and marry Braxton Vance.”

“How are you going to kill John Reese when Nathaniel Rose is right there to pick off?” Asked Hair Bun. “You have the chance to wake up next to John Reese’s beautiful face every day and you choose to not only let that slip, but kill him off as well?”

Anthony couldn’t help but be slightly amused as Hair Bun tried to explain why John Reese was the best one to marry. Anthony texted his most recent contact and said, you came up in a FMK game.

“Okay, even if you wanna marry Reese, you’d kill Nathaniel Rose over Braxton Vance?” Bright Blonde asked.

“Yeah, if this were a would you rather I’d go Braxton over Nathaniel, too.” Purple lipstick cut in.

🌹- Who’s playing FMK w. Me as an option?

Anthony smiled at the text, he hadn’t expected a text back so soon. Girls in Starbucks.

“But he’s so pretty, and he’s got a great smile,” Bright Blonde said.

“I don’t think it’s real,” Hair Bun declared. “I think some of his teeth are fake.”

Anthony’s eyes rose from his phone to look at the three girls, particularly the one with the hair bun. Purple Lipstick said, “Oh come on, you can always tell when someone has fake teeth.”

“Have you been so close to see his teeth to determine they’re real?” Hair Bun said. “Besides, I heard from my cousin that you can get actual real looking teeth if you have enough money, I bet all celebs have fake teeth.”

Anthony rolled his eyes as his phone buzzed.

🌹- How’d I do?

“That doesn’t even sound right.” Bright Blonde said. “You’re spitting out conspiracy theories now.”

1 F 1 M 1 K and apparently your teeth are fake. Anthony texted.

“I bet he’s on his last set though,” Hair Bun insisted. “Even if his teeth are real.”

“Well how old is he? Like twenty eight?” Purple Lipstick asked. The girl behind the counter called her for her order, a grande mocha frap. All three girls had gotten Frappuccinos. “My mom went through her whole second set in like a year when she was sixteen, she’s been on her last set for ages but she still has all but one tooth now. I feel like most people are on their last set by the time they’re out of high school.”

“Something about him seems super fake to me,” Hair Bun said with a shrug.

🌹- Lol.

As the girls’ conversation drifted onto their next round and the other drinks came, Anthony’s tongue moved to the empty space on the right side of his mouth where he had lost an upper premolar a few months back. It had been the first tooth he lost since he was eighteen and he lost the last of his secondary set. He cursed himself for it nearly every day, and it was how he got to smiling a little crooked, hiding his gap from those who didn’t know it was there.

“Chai Tea Latte for Anthony,” called the woman. Anthony quickly walked forward and took his drink. He should consider himself lucky, he told himself every day since it happened. He lost a premolar, he knew people who lied and were stuck with one or even two missing front teeth. His cousin Jacob was missing his two front teeth and he constantly looked half his age because of it. His face took on the look of a five year old and every ‘s’ he spoke hissed.

“Here you go, sir, have a good one,” the girl said passing him his cup and flashing him a quick smile. Anthony’s stomach churned. Maybe he noticed because he had been thinking about teeth, considering she only smiled at him for a second, but he still saw them. Two teeth, maybe more, a little whiter than the others. They shined a little brighter, reflecting the light against their smooth front. She didn’t show her teeth long enough for him to see if they had a translucent wrap around them like the plastic covers on his grandparents’ couch, but he knew it’d be there. What did she lie about? What was so important that she took the punishment instead of just telling the truth?

Anthony looked down at his chai tea, his throat dry while he quickly walked out of the Starbucks and down the familiar path home. When he went to the dentist after losing his tooth, he was offered an implant. He was told that his insurance covered the first few, so it was there for him if he wanted it. He refused it. There was something insidious about getting fake teeth. Having a gap and a few missing teeth was like making up for lying in the first place, having fake teeth felt like a trick. Anthony found it hard to trust people with fake teeth. Maybe he was overreacting, especially about the girl from Starbucks. It was just a couple teeth in the front, it wasn’t like she had lost her whole set and was lying about that.

As he turned the corner, his phone buzzed again.

🌹- Meeting ended. Free all day for once. Movie night?

Anthony smiled and swiftly texted back, movie afternoon. Were sleeping early we both have early mornings.

He took a sip of his chai tea as he reached for his keys and walked up the stairs of his apartment building. When he got to his apartment, on the top floor, he glanced at his phone after it buzzed again and saw that Nat wouldn’t be over for another hour or so. With that in mind, he went over to his discolored gray couch and opened his laptop to write a paper he had due for school.

Anthony hadn’t actually gotten that far with his paper when his phone buzzed, 🌹lighting up the screen with the word Here. Minutes later, after opening the front door, he saw Nat’s tall, looming figure blocking the light from coming in and laughed. Nat wore a hat, a big sweatshirt with the hood on and glasses. “The hell are you wearing? It’s like eighty degrees outside.”

Nat shrugged. “I’m not trying to get recognized.”

“From the Uber to my front door?” Anthony asked, leading the way up the stairs. “How famous do you think you are?”

“Pretty famous if girls are using me for a game of fuck marry kill in a random Starbucks.” Nat said from behind him. “Who was I up against?”

“Braxton Vance and John Reese.” Anthony said, a bit of a huff.

“John Reese is a fucking asshole, everyone should have voted to kill that fucker.” Nat said. “I’ve got a friend who worked with him once, high maintenance as fuck and talks to people like they’re shit under his feet.”

“Yeah, well,” Anthony said, not wanting to talk too much, lungs hurting from jogging up the stairs. He took some deep breaths as he pushed open his apartment door. “One of the girls didn’t believe you had all your teeth and Reese is like famous for still having baby teeth right? Maybe she’s attracted to the honesty.”

Nat closed the door behind them and looked at Anthony, who was trying and failing to not seem as winded as he was. “Don’t tell me those stairs still mess you up.”

“I just don’t usually run up them,” Anthony panted and dropped down onto his couch. “Not even sure why I did. You got all in my head about being recognized I guess, wanted to get you into the safety of my apartment sooner.”

Nat snorted, “Sure. Maybe you should work out though.”

Anthony scrunched up his nose. “That was work out enough.”

Nat laughed a bit, peeling off layers of clothes. His curly hair laid squashed on his head from the hat, deep dimples dug into his cheeks, not covered by his closely shaven beard. “So, you’re just gonna watch me get comfortable?” Nat asked as he shrugged off and threw his hoodie onto the couch, exposing his dark, toned arms. He raised an eyebrow and teased with the bottom of his tank top. “Should I keep going? Give you a show?”

“Just get over here,” Anthony said, arms out for a hug. Nat didn’t waste time as he fell onto the couch and then heavily onto Anthony despite Anthony being nearly half his size. Anthony let out a squawk, but wrapped his arms around Nat anyway, allowing himself to be crushed under his weight, especially as Nat kissed him all over his face. Eventually, Anthony said, “Okay, can’t breathe-”

Nat got up and said, “Breathing’s overrated.”

“Living’s overrated?” Anthony repeated. He paused. “Okay, maybe a little.”

Nat laughed and walked over to Anthony’s fridge, which could be seen from the couch since it was all one open space, apart from the bedroom and bathroom. “Got food?”

“Nigga I’m broke,” Anthony said. “How about you bring me food instead of taking it?”

“You not getting money from your grandpa anymore?” Nat said, looking at Anthony’s clearly empty fridge as though waiting for something to magically come up.

“I just dropped all this money on rent,” Anthony said. “And I finally had to go ahead and get a text book for my psych course.”

“What were you doing before?”

“Using other people’s books.” Anthony shrugged. “But it’s inconvenient.”

“Mm,” Nat hummed, finally leaving the fridge for the cabinets. “I guess we’ll order pizza. My treat, you poor, poor broke soul.”

“You try being twenty five and working at a fucking Applebees while going to school. Which reminds me, I have a paper due in two days and pretty much no time to work on it tomorrow, so at some point today you have to give me a chance to finish it.”

“Sure,” Nat said.

“I’m serious.”

“Okay, college boy I won’t distract you from your little paper,” Nat said.

With that established, they rented a few movies, each has a particular love for Marvel so they went with Iron man. They ordered a pizza, pepperoni for Anthony, margarita for Nat. They played video games, or really, Anthony played video games and Nat told him all the moves he was doing wrong while not trying to play himself. When it started to get later in the day, Anthony tried to go into his room and leave Nat to distract himself with the TV. It worked for maybe fifteen minutes before Nat came in and started kissing Anthony’s cheeks and ears and neck and generally making it impossible for him to get anything done. So Anthony let Nat distract him for a little while longer, closing his laptop and promising himself to stay up to get it done despite having class in the morning and work in the afternoon.

He laid next to Nat on top of his red sheets, fingers intertwined. He could tell Nat was close to falling asleep, and he felt close to it, too, which meant he’d have to wake himself up to make more progress on his paper. Nat was so warm against him though, the sheets felt softer, everything was so comfortable. What was school really doing for him anyway besides piling on debt? He still had two more years, maybe he’d just drop out again. Although lord knew his grandpa wouldn’t help him financially anymore.

“What are you thinking about?” Nat asked.

“I’m just really content right now.” Anthony said. “And I’m thinking about… How much I love you.”

Nat rubbed his thumb on Anthony’s arm. “Love you, too.”

“I don’t want you to leave again tomorrow. And I don’t want to go to class tomorrow.” Anthony said to no response from Nat. “It’d be easier to drop out.” When he still got no response he looked up. “You’re not gonna tell me not to?”

“You already know not to,” Nat said, looking at the ceiling, his jaw shifting a bit.

“Yeah,” Anthony mumbled. “Let me wake myself up a bit, I’m gonna shower-”

“Let me get in there first,” Nat said quickly, getting off the bed before Anthony could say anything about it. He watched him go out the bedroom door and a few seconds later heard the bathroom door close. Anthony sat there for a second or two, then got out his laptop to see what he could get done while Nat was in the bathroom. The bathroom was right next to his room, so he heard the small thump and stuff falling, things clattering to the floor and Nat’s “Fuck!” after.

Anthony looked at the wall that separated the bedroom from the bathroom. “You good?”

“Don’t worry about it!”

Anthony stared at the wall a little longer. He could hear Nat doing a lot of moving around, both in the bathroom and outside of it. After a while he heard the shower going so he shrugged it off and went back to his work. Nat came out of the bathroom some time later looking distracted. With raised eyebrows, Anthony asked, “You alright? Did you forget how to shower?”

“I dropped your mirror,” Nat said. “Your hand mirror. I dropped it, it shattered glass everywhere. Sorry.”

“That’s alright…” Anthony said. “People say it’s seven years bad luck, so watch out.”

Nat had no reaction, just nodded.

“You swept it up?”

“Yeah,” Nat said. “But, you know, still watch out.”

Anthony nodded, and got up to go to the bathroom himself. Just before he was about to go in, he grabbed the broom and dustpan. Not that he didn’t believe Nat swept, but since it was glass it wouldn’t hurt to do a once over. He put on his Nike slides and walked into the bathroom. The air still felt thick and moist, the mirror on the wall was steamed over. Still, when Anthony looked in it, he could see himself. Hie hair was usually kept short but at the moment it was a little overgrown. Even with the blurry reflection he felt like his ears stood out too much. They were big and protruding from his head like an elephant or a monkey. His thick, dark eyebrows were the only part of his face he could clearly see through the steam. He didn’t think he and Nat looked like they belonged together, but Nat still chose him.

Anthony went back to his task, sweeping the small bathroom, not that much came up since Nat had just done it. Anthony made sure to angle himself and the broom to get behind the toilet. More dust and dirt came from there so it was obvious Nat hadn’t bothered with it. He saw a small glass shard come out and then something small and white rolled towards him. He looked down at it, pea sized, covered in dust and with a bit of red on the tip, it was a tooth.

He stared at it, his tongue rubbing against the gummy gap at the top of his mouth as he stared at this one. It looked like a canine. He picked it up and brought it a little closer to his face, mostly because he didn’t know what else to do with it. Behind the toilet got a little neglected but he couldn’t imagine the tooth had been hiding back there for long. It certainly wasn’t his. Grabbing his robe, Anthony wrapped it around himself and left the bathroom. He looked into his bed, Nat was laying there under the covers. He was a pretty heavy breather when he slept, but the room was quiet and he was still. He must have still been awake.

“Nat…” Anthony said. “Is everything okay?”

Anthony had to squint to see Nat turn his head to him. “Why?”

“I’m just…” Anthony hesitated, and then turned on the light. Nat squinted at it as Anthony opened up his hand, taking the tooth in his index finger and thumb for Nat to see it clearly. “It’s yours, right? All that commotion in the bathroom?”

Nat sat up a bit. Anthony wanted him to open his mouth, he wanted to see the missing tooth for himself as confirmation. Nat said, “It’ll grow back. It was the last one of my second set.”

“What have you got to lie about in the bathroom?” Anthony asked. Nat didn’t answer, he got up and walked to Anthony, taking the tooth and throwing it in the trash. “What are you lying about?” Anthony asked again.

“Drop it, please.” Nat said.

“Nathaniel,” Anthony said.

“Sometimes teeth just fall out. Teeth fall out from stress, it’s not always lying, you told me that yourself! Stress that might come from the same, like, area in your brain or whatever–”

“That’s rare as fuck.” Anthony said. “I don’t get why you can’t just tell me what’s going on? Who are you lying to? Are you lying to yourself? Are you lying to me?” Nat didn’t answer, he let out a deep sigh and walked to the end of the bed. “I mean I’m assuming you’re lying to me I just can’t figure out what about.”

“How do you know it has anything to do with you?” Nat countered.

“I’m asking you right now if it does,” Anthony said. “I mean whatever it is, even if it’s bad, I’m sure we can work it out.”

“Tony…”

“You know I love you,” Anthony said. “And I know you love me, too, and I don’t think anything can change that.”

Nat made a face like he was eating a lemon and looked down.

“What is it?” Anthony asked. “What the hell was that? I say something wrong?” Nat stared down at his hands, squirming, shaking his leg a bit. “Can you fucking talk?”

“I don’t want to say something wrong.” Nat mumbled.

“No, you don’t want to lie again because what would Nathaniel Rose look like going to work on his show with no fucking teeth.” Anthony tightened his robe around him even more. “Say you love me,” he said. “We can get through it, whatever it is, if there’s love. I need to hear it right now.”

Nat’s nostrils flared, he swallowed, his leg still shook. “I can’t say that right now.”

For a while, neither of them moved at all. Nat wouldn’t look at Anthony while Anthony couldn’t look away. “That’s… What you lied about?”

“You needed to hear it.”

Anthony’s hands shook, he crossed his arms over his chest, his teeth chattered. “Why is it a lie now? Why can’t you say it right now? What changed, I… It’s not like it’s the first time…” Anthony’s heart felt like it was beating wrong, too fast or too slow or upside down. “Did I do something?”

“No!”

“Then it was a lie when you told me the first time!” Anthony threw his hands up. Nat closed his mouth again, everything suddenly felt off, the world fell out of its orbit. “It was a lie when you told me the first time?” Anthony said, leaning on his dresser. Nat let out a slow breath. “It was a lie every time?”

“You said it,” Nat said. “You needed to hear me say it back, you needed–”

“I needed it to be true,” Anthony said through thick breaths. “You’ve been lying to me… How many–” He motioned to his mouth. “How many teeth have you been throwing out, you’ve lost your whole second set lying to me about–”

“I knew eventually I’d say it back and it’d be true!” Nat stood, Anthony took a step back. “But you needed to hear it!” Nat yelled. “I don’t not love you, see, that’s the truth. No teeth are falling out, nothing’s happening. I just don’t know, okay? I don’t know if I’m there yet.”

“Why didn’t you say that the first fucking time?”

“Because you needed to hear it!” Nat yelled. “You needed someone to love you, it couldn’t be your grandpa, who doesn’t even know you, or your parents because who knows where the fuck they are! You needed it and I wanted to be that person for you, I just didn’t know if it was true then and I still don’t know.”

Anthony shook his head, unable to look at Nat anymore.

“Sometimes you have to just say things, you have to tell people what they want–what they need to hear.” Nat said. “You know that. That’s why when your grandpa asked if you were seeing anyone you told him no because he wouldn’t be able to handle the fact that you fuck men. You sat there and swallowed that tooth, and I never questioned you for it, I never judged you.” Anthony rubbed his tongue along the gap in his teeth again. “I knew you had to do it. And I had to tell you what you needed to hear, I’m sorry I hurt you, I never wanted that.”

Anthony felt his heart in every part of his body. He swallowed down the feeling that he was going to puke and still refused to look at Nat. “Get out.”

“Come on, Ant, we can talk about this.” Nat said but Anthony shook his hand. “You’re not even going to hear me out?” Anthony crossed his arms, staying silent. “Can we talk about it after your shower? Or… Or any time later?”

Anthony hesitated, opened his mouth, and then closed it. Then he muttered, “I want to say no.”

“But–”

“I can’t–” Anthony paused. What’s the truth? He asked himself desperately. What’s the truth? What’s the truth? “I don’t want to be in love with someone who lies about something like this.”

Nat stared at him, a frown, a quivering lip. Anthony couldn’t look at it and turned away.

“Call an Uber from the stairs. Don’t be here when I’m out of the shower.” Anthony said. He turned on his heel and walked out, going to the bathroom. It felt cold and dry, there was a dust pile that he stepped over, the broom laid between the toilet and the sink. He turned the water on, putting it on the hottest setting. He stood in the shower without moving, letting it burn his skin until the scorching heat became comfortable. He didn’t listen out for the front door but he still heard it when it slammed closed.

As Anthony got dressed for bed, Nat’s face swam into his brain. Nat said he didn’t not love him. But he obviously didn’t love him. Or didn’t think he did? Anthony glanced at his trash can, walked over and sorted through it a bit until he found the tooth. I love you.

Is the lie in the ‘love’? Or is it in the ‘you’?

Anthony gently ran the tooth under warm water, cleaning it of dust and grime. He stared down at what was in his palm. Finally, taking it to his mouth like a pill, he felt the tooth fall into his mouth. He rolled it around his tongue, pushing it on the gap in his own teeth, before finally gathering the spit in his mouth and pushing the tooth down his throat.