Georgia Boys

01. in which quincy attempts to convince me

SILAS

Here's the kicker: Quincy Denton is the biggest imbecile, but no one can doubt that he is a skater. 

I see him all the time: shoes resting on the black board, sun-tipped locs flying in the air behind him, teeth glimmering. Now, he's beautiful. And I mean, beautiful— like a spring picture— a sort of marvel. I believe one day I will catch a butterfly landing on his head. 

He skates past my window. Now, that boy's shirt is huge on him. He's swimming in it, and those jeans as well. He's got a necklace, a cross necklace. 

From my own history with boys, I'd come to the conclusion that most guys with such necklaces were the type of boys to whisper declarations of love into your ear and be tangled up in someone else the next day.

Now Quincy's an interesting story— see, he isn't an out-and-proud casanova, but neither is he unexperienced in any such field. Quincy Denton is in love with life, and by extension, many of the people that come with it.

He goes untethered. Most of his relationships do not have strings. But a lack of strings won't stop a boy like Quincy Denton from grasping someone's hands in his and saying he loves them. When Quincy Denton loves, it takes up every fiber of his being. I've seen it. The town has seen it.

Quincy's story of love begins with Sequoia, the stunner who had been visiting our county when we were fifteen. Quincy was infatuated with her, and her with him. And then she moved back to the city and Quincy was distraught, temporarily. 

Next is Beck, the Canadian exchange student who'd left at the end of sophomore year. It was a silent thing our school understood—  Quincy's love for Beck. They'd never announced it, but no one could convince themselves that the two boys who rode the bus downtown together, who held each other's gazes during lunch were not somehow in love. 

Last was Kennedy, a kid visiting down South from New York. That was the summer after Beck and Quincy split. Now Kennedy was cool, and tall and suave and yet, as laissez-faire as Kennedy was, they fell under Quincy Denton's spell just as everyone else did. 

Which neither of them minded, because Quincy is sympathetic with those who fall in love with him, and more often than not he reciprocates, to varying extents. 

Quincy Denton romanticizes life, he romanticizes every bit of it — the chase, the heartbreak and the aftermath. 

The chase is when he exists and one soul or another falls in love with him. The heartbreak is when the two fall out of love or circumstances pull them away from each other. The aftermath is his brief respite before he falls in love again.

Beck, Sequoia and Kennedy aren't Quincy's only loves. 

They were simply  the ones that were more defined, more obvious to the student body, to the town, to the people around him. 

But there were ones that were less serious— country club hook-ups, members within our shared group of friends that Quincy has kissed. It's an easy thing to fall in love with Quincy— he doesn't make it difficult. 

I'm certain almost everyone within our group of friends or everyone who Quincy has ever had a fling with has fallen in love with him to some extent. 

Quincy, as good a lover as he is, is also a pain in the ass to me. And unlike half of our county, I've managed to stay far away from his spell, partially because when you're used to someone, you aren't as swept up in them as everyone is. 

But the thing is — you understand why the person you know has that effect. I don't let familiarity cloud my eyesight. 

I'm at the front counter, rolling some dough, each back and forth motion carrying thoughts. And speak of the devil— Quincy Denton comes barging into the bakery as he does, skateboard tucked underneath his arm, eyes shining.