IGW is
pleased to present an autobiographical tale from a new contributor—Tom
Chambers. We will let his story speak for itself. You may contact him, here.A Gay Teen's Own Story
I
Do you ever sit down and think about the difference between a memoir and a diary? When I think of memoirs, I think of someone famous. You know, Marilyn Monroe, Ronald Reagan… Sure, reading about their lives is interesting enough, but how’s it supposed to help me? How do all the great things they’ve done relate to me? They don’t. What about the rest of us? The commoners? Well, I’m one and I’m writing my own memoir. Who knows, maybe someday I’ll be famous and no one will care anymore.
High school. Remember that messed up world? Yeah, me too. It sucked. And if you liked it…you suck. In high school in Minnesota, you were either "in" or you were a "freak". There was no in between. The "ins" had it made. The "freaks" existed to be bludgeoned on a daily basis by the "ins." "Ins" were socialites; rich and spoiled mostly; popular amongst themselves and for some strange reason, every "freak" in school secretly dreamed of becoming an "in." "Freaks" were the lower social class in the infrastructure of high school. Not rich, guilty of one societal violation or another; fashion, glasses, bookworms, fatties, stutterers, whatever.
Then…there was me, "The Fag." Nobody knew where to put me after I got kicked out of the "freaks." The "ins" sure weren’t going to openly claim me. I was too freaky for the "freaks." The one lone homosexual in the whole state of Minnesota--that was me. I was "out." Trust me, it wasn’t intended that way, but I was violently ejected from my comfy closet, where I only hated myself for being a fake, and dumped onto the rest of the world, where I hated everyone else. There I was, for all my former friends to see. Out.
So now, not only did I have to deal with recovering from a severe redneck and liquor-inspired bashing, but I was dealing with being labeled a queer. And in Minnesota, a queer is not all that socially acceptable. My parents hated me, my friends hated me, and nobody else knew what to think of me. My teachers stopped calling on me, the rest of my family pretended like I was the bastard child nobody talked about. Things went from my brother being the one they hid away from the world, to him being the "good kid.” What?! Hello! I was the angel. I was the one who didn’t smoke or drink or go out and party. Now, I was the one who wasn’t a part of anything. But, back to high school. I’ll save the other levels of hell for other chapters.
I’m not saying I’m a special case and my high school experience was worse than yours. It’s not a competition. Nobody in the freak crowd liked high school and everybody has horror stories. They’re all awful. Since I didn’t live yours, I’m writing about mine. Oh, and before I go on, I have a random disclaimer. If you’re a parent of one of the "ins" and you think your kid’s not guilty of making some freak’s high school life hell, I have two words for you…HA HA!
II
Some people say that when children who’ve lived sheltered lives go off to college, they go crazy. They’re the partiers, the ones who flunk out, the ones with purple hair or dreadlocks. I think there’s validity to this. I know I went there. I didn’t have dreadlocks, nor am I in college, but I went a little nuts. Maybe it was rebellion, maybe it was one of those journeys to find myself. I’m not really sure. I never really found anything worthwhile, but I did learn a lot about myself and about human nature in general.
We left Minnesota the summer I turned sixteen, after what was possibly the most hellacious school year of my life. My father packed us up and headed to California, where he hoped we could escape small-town mentality. It wasn’t for my well being and security, it was for his. He couldn’t deal with the vandalism, the threats, the late night phone calls. He couldn’t deal with having to drag his faggot son out in public for stitches or for lesser activities. He stopped making me go to church. I was going to hell anyway, so what did it matter. He was too proud for all that nonsense.
So we left. We threw all of our stuff into a U-Haul truck and drove the two thousand miles to Los Angeles, California. I knew nothing about life in Los Angeles. I was from Bradford, which had a population of 80,000, three stoplights and a Wal-Mart. Our public transportation system was your thumb and hoping you didn’t get picked up by Ed Nelson, who smelled a lot like a moldy piece of cheese.
It wasn’t long before I fell in love with living in a city where no one knew you from the man in the moon. Even in the smaller suburb where we were, nobody really cared anything about us. My mother hated living in a world of washed up starlets, but so far it was my cup of tea. I was still terrified about going to school in the fall. The local high school I would be attending was a small liberal arts high school with less than a thousand students. If it’d been up to me, I’d have picked the biggest school I could find so nobody would even notice me for at least a month. But, fate working the way she does, things turned out fine.
I still had my dad to deal with every night when I came home, but I quickly learned that half the "ins" at this new place were gay. Hot damn! Unfortunately, I’d decided to skip back into the closet where I was safe. Eventually I ventured back out when I was seventeen and a senior, but only because someone helped. This time, I wasn’t forced out upside down into a straight world, and I have to say I liked it. I was comfortable being who I was when I was at school. Home was a different matter, but I’ll ignore that for now. School was fun. I had friends, a lot of friends, and I never made it home in time for dinner, which suited my family just fine. It felt good. Maybe that’s what happens. It’s not the sudden freedom that makes kids go wild, it’s how good that freedom makes you feel.
III
After I graduated, the fun times were over. My dad kicked me out. I wasn't going to be eighteen for another year, but I certainly wasn't going to protest it. I'd live in a wet cardboard box if that's what it took to get me out of that house. Thankfully, before I even started looking for my own box, a couple friends took me in. Okay, to be honest, one was the first friend I made after I'd moved, and my first California crush. They took me under their wing and gave me a room in their apartment. It also smelled a little like moldy cheese, but it was home.
After a couple weeks of feeling sorry for myself and job hunting, I found income in valet parking for a fairly popular Hollyweird gay club. I wasn't old enough to actually be allowed inside, but I got to see a whole other side to the LA nightlife. Yah, here we go. Spiral. You knew it was coming.
Everyone in liberal arts school has big dreams and big plans. Mine had just been shot down. I wasn't getting paid that much and was living mostly on charity from friends, eating their food and living in their house, not able to afford rent, and I felt miserable. I needed cash. It didn't take me long to learn the kind of dress, talk and attitude that would pick up the biggest tips. So I partook--I became a flirt and a tease. I dyed my hair, stopped eating, and buried who I used to be. Men would sit and wait for me to come back after parking their cars to chat before they went across the street to the club. Later they'd come back, a little looser from alcohol, to chat me up again. It was fun.
There was even one guy who would ride in the passenger seat when I went to park his car. One night he offered me five hundred dollars to suck his dick. I did. I needed the money, he had condoms. What was there to lose? I made rent that month. He told his friends. Before long, I quit my valet job to pursue other ventures, but didn't tell my friends. I saw the inside of a ton of nice hotels, lovely apartment buildings, quaint suburban houses. Every night I was out until seven or eight in the morning, coming home, crashing out before I'd even had a shower. Last night's makeup smeared and messy. I was breaking my crush's heart. Somewhere along the way he decided we'd make a good pair, so he dumped me.
Retail therapy. I had the money to buy what I wanted, and what I couldn't, I could always get someone to buy it for me. New clothes, CDs, an iPod, a futon so I didn't have to sleep on the floor. My friends told me they didn't know me anymore. That was fine, I didn't need them anyway. Like they could understand. When we were in school, they used to invite me to their Xtasy parties, knowing I'd turn them down. Now they didn't mention it, knowing I'd ask them what time. They all wanted to help the angel be bad, but when the angel was bad on his own, they wanted to save him. Go figure.
I think it was a Sunday morning when I dragged my hung-over body back home. Up the stairs, bleary eyes and head pounding. Ugh. Turned the corner and voila, there was a stack of furniture, loose papers, books, stuffed animals, broken coffee mugs, ripped posters, shattered picture frames, and milk crates that was taller than me right there in the hallway outside our apartment. A few people had obviously been through it already, swiping my Coca-Cola radio and a few other miscellaneous odds and ends. Everything I'd collected in school had been unceremoniously thrown into a pile, compliments of my father who had left a note pinned to the door:
"Here's the rest of your shit. I'm not a storage bin for you."
I sat there in the hall, in the middle of what was left of my life, and cried until someone came home.
IV
Next level of hell: family.
I grew up in a town where most of my family lived within a twenty mile radius. My brother and I never got to play alone. We had cousins out the ass, aunts who were always around fussing over one thing or another, uncles who watched football faithfully. Every Sunday was an all-out family event. That was fine by me. I was just one of the boys then. We’d all meet at church, which my brother protested dressing up for, even at an early age. I’m convinced he was a nudist. The only clothes he really liked to wear were his swim trunks, so he and my mother were constantly at odds.
We walked to church since we lived pretty close. Afterwards, we’d stand on the lawn and wait for the rest of the clan to finish socializing. We kids played tag, did cartwheels, and generally tormented each other until Uncle Arlo noticed the noise level getting above city ordinance levels and made us stop. So we’d stand together pinching each other and trying not to yell until the whole family was there. The adults would stand around and talk for a few minutes, working out who was bringing what for dinner, then we’d split for our respective houses to change into old clothes.
Aunt Sheila’s house was huge, with hard wood floors and a giant front porch with a swing. None of us kids were allowed to play on it, but we made do while the adults did their thing inside. My uncles would crash in the family room and watch football while my aunts chatted in the kitchen as they cooked. After a couple hours, we’d eat. My grandfather said the prayer. It was tradition. He always asked God to be by our sides no matter what path we took in life and how far it took us.
Out of my whole family, I loved my grandparents most; now that I think about it, even more than my parents. My grandfather had been in the Marines, my grandmother was a housewife. They were the two diamonds in the rough to me, my grandmother especially. I’m not sure how my mother came out of their union--must have been bad luck. She had no sense of humor, not a silly bone in her body, and was always on the party line seeing what kind of new gossip she could get about the neighborhood.
My grandmother was a complete opposite. She didn’t care about gossip and wasn’t afraid to tell you her opinion. She had a saying for every occasion. When my elder cousin Lucy got her heart broken, she took her aside and said, "Honey, a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." When one of my uncles swore over the football game, she might have come out with "that’s as unnecessary as a men’s bathroom at a Lillith Fair show." When a chore didn’t get done, "That man is about as useless as a jam sandwich to a drowning boy."
Want more? "These people are slower than the second coming of Christ." "He's tighter than a bull's ass in fly time." "You're cuter than frog fuzz." "That's harder to find than rocking horse poop." "It's colder in here than a well digger’s ass." "He may be dumber than a rock, but he's just as happy as if he'd had a brain." "She rows like hell. Kind of a shame her oars aren't in the water." "You’re as full of shit as a Christmas turkey." And for the longest time, I never knew whose initials were "BFH." That's what was painted on the handle of the sledge hammer in the tool shed. Come to find out, it was my grandmother's idea. Stood for "Big Fuckin' Hammer."
She was a firecracker in the middle of a sea of duds. My grandfather was the only one who could keep up with her. I used to stay with them and I remember she loved watching horse racing. She’d spend half an hour trying to get my grandfather to bet money with her. He never did. So she’d call him an old fart.
I think my grandparents knew I was different than the rest of the kids in our family from the start. They always used to tell me things like, "don’t ever live your life for someone else and never be afraid to be you." I miss them. I don’t think I knew I was any different than my cousins until I was about twelve. We were looking through a dirty magazine we’d found under Jerry’s bed. Sure, I thought she was pretty, but while they were trying not to pop over her boobs, I was fixated on her shoes. What the hell was she thinking?
V
It was about ten years after my grandmother died when my grandpa called me up, told me to pack a lunch and come over. He wanted to take me to the lake cabin to go fishing. I packed a sandwich and walked to his house. We got in his truck and drove the hour to the little secluded cabin he and my grandmother built after they’d gotten married.
He never talked about her. He hadn’t really since she passed away. I think it broke his heart to be without her. I hardly ever saw him now that I was back in school. Sunday dinners were just easier if I didn’t go. Nobody had to feel awkward and I didn’t have to listen to their unhidden messages about lost children finding the path of God. Thank God their children weren’t sinners.
There were no fishing poles in the truck. Grandpa knew I hated to fish… Maybe it was an easier thing to say than "Come with me. I want to talk to you." The little yard at the lake was overgrown and the cabin windows were filthy. I knew my grandfather came up here sometimes by himself. He never brought anyone else anymore. Everything inside was exactly like I remembered, right down to the avocado green vinyl loveseat.
I’d spent a good part of my life, until I was six, in that cabin. Every Saturday night I’d sit Indian style on the oval thread rug and listen to "Thistle and Shamrock," then "A Prairie Home Companion" on the little Coca-Cola radio my grandmother kept sparkling. She loved the colors; red, silver and cream. It didn’t matter if it was fiddles or foghorns, everything sounded better through the speakers of that old radio.
We spent a long time that afternoon just talking; about life, about my grandmother, about how much she made us laugh and how much I reminded him of her. No one had ever said that to me before, and no one since has ever said anything to me that could make me feel so warm and so close to her.
After that, I spent every Saturday at the cabin with him. When we moved away, he made sure to hide the Coca-Cola radio in a box. I didn’t know it was there until I unpacked. Every time I turned it on, I thought of him. I miss him, too. He died last year and I never really got to tell him goodbye. But I always made sure he knew how much I loved him every time we talked.
VI
My grandfather was a quiet man, but he had a sharp wit and a sharper tongue when he was angry. I only saw him angry once. I admired him. At night I used to sit upstairs on my bed when everyone else had gone to sleep and wonder how he would react if he were in my shoes. Maybe I was a little obsessive or maybe all teenagers lay awake at night replaying and reanalyzing the day’s events. I’m not really sure. I know that’s what I did. I went back over every single thing that had happened that day. Then I’d think about how my grandfather would have handled it all and I’d beat myself up for not being more like him.
It fit. I desperately wanted to be someone else. I think all kids do when they’re young. You take who you admire, or the people you think are better than you, and you roll them into one. When you can’t be that person, you lose yourself. By the time I hit high school, I was completely lost. But I wasn’t alone.
My best friend was a kid named Adam who had moved to Bradford from St. Cloud. New students always entered school with a "freak" label plastered on their foreheads. You had to work to get it taken off, and Adam didn’t really seem to care whether he was "in" or not. He had exactly the right combination of good looks, outgoing personality and loud mouth to be "in", but he didn’t actively seek it. He was just himself. And he had amazing hair. That’s rare in high school. Not the hair part, but someone who doesn’t want to be someone else. Every morning he rode his skateboard to school, hung out in the parking lot at lunch with the other skaters. They attempted aerials and ollies, Adam actually did them. There was a skate park in St. Cloud.
He moved to our school when we were both freshmen. I was an office runner in the mornings, so even though I had to be at school early, I always got to show up late to my first class. It pays to suck up. It was October when Adam’s mom dragged him into the school office. He looked less than thrilled to be there, she looked less than thrilled that he was being a sourpuss. She was bringing the completed transfer forms and Adam was drawing on his shoes. Our principal was puzzling over where she was going to find a locker for him. The school had begun construction that fall on a new addition and that made one section of lockers off-limits. Half the juniors and seniors were crammed into one set of lockers and none were happy about it.
"I guess I’ll just put you in with Tom." Oh, come on. I didn’t want a stranger sharing my locker. Just because I was only five feet tall and the top shelf was at least eight feet in the air didn’t mean I wasn’t using all my available space. Plus, he was a skater. Like I wanted all that extra stinky crap in my locker. I didn’t say anything. Adam became my locker mate. Then Adam became my friend. Then when we were sophomores, Adam became total confusion.
He was going through the pangs of being adopted by the "ins.” I was struggling with why I thought Bruce Willis was way hotter than Liv Tyler. There was no one I could really talk to, but I talked to Adam in code. He didn’t know what I really meant. Both of us had girlfriends at the time, which was convenient. He was head over heels. I was gay. So instead of freaking him out and admitting it, I asked things like, "How do you know you love her?” “What does that feel like?” “I don’t think I love Emily, but I’m not sure. How do you know?" It was sneaky I guess, but who cared. I wasn’t losing my best friend.
He laughed at me when I told him I was pissed at my father for throwing away my library book. I’d rented "The Man Without a Face." This wasn’t the bastardized Mel Gibson movie version. It was the actual book by Isabelle Holland, which delves into Charles and his sexual confusion because of his attraction to Justin McLeod. Mel Gibson didn’t go there. Maybe he wanted McLeod to be a lovable character, and not someone who was into little boys and had previously killed a student in a drunk driving accident.
At any rate, my father began reading it during one of his insomniac nights and immediately threw it in the burn pit as soon as homosexuality was hinted. The next morning I stumbled into the kitchen to find him on the phone with the public library. "That kind of homoerotic filth shouldn’t be available to our young people. This town doesn’t need books about fags. We’ve got enough problems without having to deal with a bunch of queers." The librarian had never read the book and assured my father she’d ordered it because of the popularity of the Mel Gibson movie, which was strictly G-rated.
So I was bookless, Adam laughed at me for being upset over it, and my father was planning to put together a committee to go through the rest of the books in our library. Fahrenheit 451? Later that week, I dumped Emily. There was no point.
VII
School let out for the summer, the "ins" went off to the pool, Adam and I went to the playground. It was blacktop and had stair rails for him and shade for me. I’d people watch and take pictures while he wiped out. After about an hour, he’d come sit down. There really wasn’t much we didn’t talk about, but one day he surprised me. "Do you think I’m hot?" Duh! What kind of a question was that? Loaded. So I went with the safe option. "What do you mean?" He repeated it. "I guess. All the girls think so." By then I’m sure I was sounding a little goofy. But I never expected him to come back with, "Yeah, but I don’t care about them. Do YOU think I’m hot?"
I just stared at him with my mouth open. I had no idea what I was going to say. He laughed. "Come on. I already know you’re gay. Plus, I think you’re kinda cute." He looked up at me. He wasn’t laughing anymore. I was still tongue tied. The church bells rang five o’clock, which meant he had about thirty seconds before his mother would come and drag him home by his shoelaces. Literally saved by the bell. He winked at me and told me we’d talk about it tomorrow.
Oh! My! God! That was the longest night I’d ever had. It seemed longer because I never went to sleep. I was sure he was dreaming away, completely nonplussed by what had happened. He was like that. I was a wreck. What was I going to say? The next morning I stayed in the house as long as I could. My mother kept asking me if I was feeling well. I’m sure she wanted to get on the party line, but she never admitted she listened in. I told her I’d broken up with Emily. She made me pancakes to cheer me up. It was the truth. I was just mentioning it several months after the fact.
Finally, around lunchtime, the kitchen door cracked open and Adam stuck his head in. My mother invited him in and fixed him a glass of tea. He was all sweaty from skateboarding and he didn’t act any different than normal. I was glad. I don’t think my mother noticed how weird I was trying not to be. After he cooled down, he looked at me. "You wanna go play video games at my house?" I couldn’t say no. My mother would have had me carted off to the emergency room. I was always with Adam. Something would have had to be seriously wrong. Did "fag" show up on an x-ray? I wasn’t chancing it. "Sure."
VIII
Adam’s house was always cold. They had air conditioning, which wasn’t common in Bradford. I noticed his parent’s car was gone. We went into the living room and he pulled out the box of games. Maybe he’d forgotten about yesterday. Or maybe he had just wanted to see what I was going to say. Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up. Apparently, he couldn’t find the game he was looking for and went to dig in the bottom of the hall closet. After a minute, he pushed himself backward on his hands and looked at me. "So you never answered me yesterday."
"That’s because I didn’t know what to say."
"Do you now?"
"No."
"Tom, I’m not going to tell anyone. I just want to know. Do you like me more than a friend?"
Whoa. That was an entirely different question. All I came up with was, "You have a girlfriend."
"Okay, I’ll go first. I like you. And I think I like you more than a friend."
I didn’t answer.
"Would you just say something?"
"I like you too."
"Like that?"
"Yeah." He had to be able to hear my heart pounding from across the room.
He grinned. "You want to go to Mall of America with me and my brother tomorrow?"
Huge sigh of relief. "Sure."
Next day, Adam and his brother pulled up to the curb. I was waiting on the front steps. Adam’s older brother was a huge guy, nothing like Adam. He went to college in Minneapolis, where he played football. Most of his friends were jocks, too. They came with their girlfriends and met us at the mall. It wound up being a fun day.
Kevin was Adam's brother's best friend. He had a van that smelled like oranges and we all piled in and left the separate cars at mall parking. It kind of became a weekly adventure. We started seeing less of the mall and more of the campus and other areas of Minneapolis. Most of the time, we stayed with Adam’s brother and he drove us home in the morning. I was always paranoid my mother would be able to tell I’d had a couple beers the night before. She never figured it out.
IX
I’m still not exactly sure what happened. Two weeks before school started, Adam stopped coming over. His mother hung up the phone when I called, his dad told me not to come back when I rang the doorbell. The next week, Adam went to live with his aunt in St. Cloud. School was back in session and all the "in" girls wondered where the hot little skater punk went. I got involved in a photography class taught three nights a week by a man who used to shoot black and whites for an art magazine. I loved it.
I always walked home by myself. No one worried. It was Smalltown, USA. One night, Adam’s brother called me over to the playground. He wanted to talk to me. I went. He twisted my arm behind my back and told me I’d regret ever meeting Adam. He was right. I heard my camera break against the asphalt as he shoved me headfirst into a van. It smelled like oranges and alcohol.
We drove for a long time. When we finally stopped, my chest hurt and I couldn’t catch a deep breath. I learned a lot about giving good oral sex that night. I also learned I hated being on bottom. I thought it was all a little too ironic. Finally, they pushed me out of the van somewhere in Cambridge. I went to sleep by the side of the road and didn’t wake up for three days.
X
I remember being cold when I woke up. It was really cold. And it was a little dark. I felt funny as I blinked at the television set and a rerun of "Family Ties." "Good morning sleepyhead." It was a nurse. I could see she was touching my face, but I couldn’t feel anything. I knew her, though. Her name was Sally. She went to my church. I couldn’t remember much else.
Over the next two days, things started to come back; the playground, the van, the police asking my parents to leave the room so they could talk to me in private about the bashing. My father went crazy when I refused to protest the term "gay bashing." Security escorted him out of the building. I didn’t see him again until I was released. He told me my doctor threatened to call the police for abandonment if he didn’t come pick me up. That’s all he said to me.
Adam’s brother and his three friends were arrested. No one went with me to court. The judge said I could testify via video conference, but I went to the courtroom instead. They told me it would have a more significant impact. I was so numb at that point I didn’t really care.
Everyone at school knew me now. They all liked to corner me at lunch and after school, see if they could get me to cry. It never worked. If I hadn’t cried on the drive to Cambridge, certainly nothing they could say now would have made me.
The only person I ever talked to was our guidance counselor. I didn’t go to her office willingly. She always pulled me out of study hall to talk. Mostly she talked. She seemed a lot more concerned about my welfare than I did. I guess that was the point. When she found out what school I would be attending in California, she called the counselor there. She was the kindest, biggest-hearted person I’d ever met. Too bad I’d never given her a chance.
XI
California. What a weird place. My first day of school there was also my first time riding a bus. I’d never been on a school bus except to go to the Minneapolis Zoo when I was in fifth grade, but I was pretty sure the kids in Minnesota didn’t spend the ride to school texting each other on cell phones or playing games on laptops. Once I got to school, I followed the herd into the building and ducked into the office. They gave me the paperwork to pass along to my homeroom teacher. I had math first period. There was some confusion in finding my file. They finally shipped me back out into the hall with two minutes until the last bell.
My parents refused to drive me to the school earlier in the summer so I could learn to navigate before I was thrown into the mix, but my orientation packet came with a map. Not wanting to look like the geeky kid from the Midwest, I memorized the map. Or so I thought. Turns out I took the wrong staircase. I really didn’t have time to notice though. At the top of the steps, I stopped to look at room numbers.
There’s a law of physics that says when an object in motion collides with a resting object, that object is set into motion. Well, not only was I set in motion, I was sent into orbit. I didn’t even know what hit me, just that he hit me like a ton of bricks. The books I’d been carrying flew out of my hands, my backpack fell off my shoulder and the contents spilled all the way to the bottom of the stairway.
When the friction of my ass sliding across the hall tiles stopped me, I looked up. Not only was the moving object still standing, but he was looking at me and laughing. The bell rang. I lost it.
Trying not to scream too loudly, I managed a hiss instead. "Hello?! Are we blind or are we just stupid!"
He stopped laughing and one eyebrow went up. I heard my hand clap over my mouth. Way to go dumbass. First day and you’re already making friends. Stellar.
I almost threw a book at his head when he turned and headed down the steps, leaving me sitting in the hall like a toddler who’s learning to roll a ball. I was bitching under my breath as I started collecting my papers that had sprayed at least fifty feet in all directions. When I turned around to gather the rest of my belongings, he was standing there with an armful of books.
"I think these might be yours."
"Thanks."
I shoved them into my backpack which he was dangling from one finger. He mouthed "ow" as the bag got heavier and his finger bent toward the floor. I pulled the bag off his hand and slung it over my shoulder.
"New?"
I rolled my eyes.
"Where were you going before I creamed you?"
"212."
He shook his head. "Who’s your teacher?"
"Simmons."
"Me too. Come on, I’ll take you."
I followed. "Aren’t you late?"
"So I’ll tell him I splattered the new kid."
We got to the room, he shoved open the door and went in. I slipped in behind him.
"You’re late and it’s only day one. Not much farther downhill you can get, you know."
"Sorry. I would have been on time for once, but I hit a speed bump in the hall." He pointed to me. Everyone giggled.
I tried not to glare at him too obviously and went to hand Mr. Simmons my paperwork, which was slightly crinkled by now.
"Nice to have you aboard Thomas. Feel free to park anywhere you’d like."
"Tom, please."
"Tom it is."
"Thanks."
I picked a seat near the back since everything up front was already taken. Speed demon picked the seat next to me. I tried to stay pissed, but he had such a cute smile.
XII
I was determined NOT to have a guy crush. Been there, done that, no thanks. Like we get to pick, right? I tried to avoid him, tried not to look at him when he walked by me and winked. He was just rubbing it in, still. Bastard. I used to sit at the window with some of the girls in the class to people-watch before school. I always watched him, which I’d never admit. The only two people who had any clue were Lily and Cassie. I met them on the window sill and they said I needed adopting. Cassie moved to Huntington this year. No more week night ice cream parties.
But anyway, I managed to pick up a few friends, mostly through Cassie and Lily. The only friend I really made on my own was Marc. He rode the bus with me and let me share his headphones. Tuned out, he was friends with my girls too. They used to curl his hair around their fingers to make ringlets. He hated it. He played music with some other kids at school and practiced pretty much every night. I got an invite to go listen. Lily went with me.
Just my luck, he was band mates with my secret crush, who actually called me by name now instead of “speed bump.” I think he figured out how unfunny I thought he was. He told me once, a few years later, that he was convinced I completely hated him. He was so far from right. Nobody can resist an electric smile. But I guess that said something for my acting ability.
Even though all I wanted to do was leave, we stuck around and listened. They were good. There was a talent show coming up in a couple months and they were rehearsing for it. Marc said the year before they got beat by the ventriloquist. Lily laughed. It was about an hour until our tummies were growling, so we left and stopped for lime freezes. She asked me if I wanted to stay over. Her mom didn’t care. She knew we would rather hang out in the kitchen and paint each others’ toenails than to lock the bedroom door and make out. It was fun.
The last week of school was the talent show. The ventriloquist won. Marc was grumpy, but the taste of summer break helped. We all managed to stay un-bored until after the first week. Then we became beach bums. They all got tan. I stayed white and just peeled in layers. It was worth it. At least it was something to do. Most of us had part time jobs, but we managed our fun pretty well. Everyone always spent time on the sand, went to work, went home, took naps and went back later after the sun went down. For some reason, my parents decided it was time to be semi-parent-like again and set a curfew. I didn’t protest. If I did, they would have made it earlier. I never got to hang out on the beach after dark.
My Aunt Lynn died that summer and my parents forbad me to fly back to Minnesota with them. If they’d given me the choice, I would have opted to stay home anyway. It’s not like I was going to be missed. Cassie said I could stay with her and her parents at their beach house. I was ecstatic. I tried not to let it show in case my parents caught wind of it and decided it would be more torturous for me to go with them. I must have done a good job. They left for Minnesota and I left with Cassie.
XIII
That was the best week I’d had in a long time. Every night we had a beach fire. Sometimes it was just us, sometimes other people would stop by. My crush and his best friend always brought their guitars. Marc had a bongo. We’d sit and sing until our throats hurt, then spend another hour just listening to the guys play. It was hard to find a song they didn’t know. Once or twice, my crush came over by himself to sit and watch the fire go out. Cassie had this crazy notion he liked me. I told her to stop smoking cheap crack.
He and I did become pretty good friends by the end of summer, though. I started spending more time at his house. His mom told me I was the only one she knew who could coax their psycho cat into sitting on their lap. She was a nice lady, a single mom with two kids, one on the verge of going to college. There was more than once I rang the doorbell and wound up spending the afternoon with her. She used to cart me up to the laundry room when my hair was getting shaggy to give me a trim.
Summer ended and school began. We were seniors. It was a whole new ball game. I spent the money I’d earned over the summer on clothes I really wanted instead of the t-shirts and jeans I had. I threw out most everything in my closet and replaced it with new. For the first month, most of us went to my crush’s after school to unwind. His mom would fix us lemonade, throw us a box of graham crackers and leave us to reruns of 90210. As after-school activities multiplied, we trickled away one by one. Before too long, it was just the two of us.
We played video games and he beat me every time. The only way I ever won was if he let me. He wouldn’t admit it.
"You wanna see my scrapbook?"
"Sure."
His room was so cool. The walls were covered in posters, event tickets, pictures and guitar picks. The Smiths, The Who, Pink Floyd, Roxy Music, The Cure…you couldn’t even see the paint underneath. He had the CDs to go with all of it. I’d only been in his room once, so it was half an hour before we actually got around to the scrapbook. It was mostly pictures, newspaper clippings, cards and poetry. I read a bunch. Some I understood, some I didn’t. When I looked up, he was staring at me.
"What?"
"Nothing." He didn’t look away.
"Stop it. What?"
"What would you do if I kissed you right now?"
Flashbacks of a playground. I didn’t answer. I didn’t look away. Then he leaned over and kissed me. I thought my insides were going to blow apart. This was really happening. He put the scrapbook on the bed and smiled at me.
"Sorry. Was that bad?"
He certainly didn’t look sorry. My face felt hot. "No."
"Good."
He touched my arm. His hand was cold. His eyes went from looking at me to looking over my shoulder. He didn’t move his hand.
"Am I interrupting?"
I almost shit myself. His mother was standing in the doorway behind me.
"I told you, no boys in your room when I’m not home."
"I was showing him the scrapbook."
"Mm hmm, and a few other things?"
He laughed. I was still frozen.
"Downstairs. Five minutes."
I heard her go back down the steps.
XIV
I jumped to my feet.
"Where are you going?"
"I have to go."
"Why?"
I turned around. "I’ll see you at school."
He stopped me. "Whoa! Wait. You can’t leave."
I just stared at him.
"Why would you leave?"
I’m sure my mouth was hanging open.
"What? My mom? She doesn’t really care. She likes you."
This was NOT sinking in.
He just looked at me with this funny grin. "Because she saw us kissing?"
I nodded.
"And now you’re embarrassed?"
Something hit me. "Did she say you couldn’t have boys in your room?"
He put the puzzle together. "She knows I like guys. Don’t your parents know you’re gay?"
I couldn’t believe he was asking me this.
"Tom, she doesn’t care. You don’t have to get all freaked out over it."
"She knows you’re gay and that’s okay?"
"Umm... yeah. Why wouldn’t it be?"
My head hurt.
His mom yelled for us. He put both hands on my shoulders and steered me down the steps and into the kitchen.
"You guys want to peel carrots?"
I stood very still, trying to sink into the floor. He rooted through a drawer and came up with a potato peeler and a knife. "I’ll peel, you cut. Chunks about this big." He held up two fingers. I didn’t move. He laughed and put the knife into my hand and pushed me into a chair at the island.
"So your parents aren’t cool with it?"
I almost cut off my finger. His mom dumped a bag of lentils into a pot on the stove. "With your being gay?" She asked.
It was like I was on another planet, or having an out-of-body experience. This was the twilight zone. There weren’t even any words inside my head I could string together. I just stared at the carrot in my hand blankly.
"What’s with you?" He sat down beside me. I couldn’t look at him. Someone else was controlling the muscles in my body and I got the feeling my face matched the white countertop. "Do your parents not know?"
I looked from him to his mom, who was leaning over the counter looking back at me. She took the carrot out of my hand and cut it into chunks. "Honey, it’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. But there’s nothing to be ashamed of about being gay. Is that what it is? Your parents think it’s wrong?"
My mouth was so dry. "They hate me for it."
Neither one of them said anything. They just looked at each other like they were reading each othes’ minds.
"Well…" his mother put her hand on mine. Her hands were cold, too. "…there’s nothing wrong with it in this house, okay?"
I didn’t move.
She used her finger to tilt my head up. "Okay?" I nodded. "I mean it."
She stood up. Her eyes were all fiery. "I can’t believe that. I cannot believe there are people out there who would warp their children into thinking it’s wrong to be who you are. Tom, that’s one of my biggest pet peeves." Carrot peels were flipping in all directions. "Kids have a hard enough time growing up and sorting out their own lives without having to worry about their parents’ problems."
I got an icy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"You’re not going to say anything to them, are you?"
She looked at me. "Not unless you want me to. I’d love to, but it’s not my place. But you listen to me, Tom. Don’t you ever let anyone make you feel like you’re not good enough or there’s something wrong with you."
Something in what she said touched me and I started to think about my grandmother. I felt a little better, but had the awful feeling I was going to start bawling at the kitchen counter. I excused myself to the bathroom and washed my face. Their voices carried through the door and I sat in the floor a few minutes and listened.
XV
Eventually, I got used to the openness at my crush's house. It still took me what seemed like forever before I really joined in with my own personal stories. I guess I have to credit them with helping me find the courage to come out. Even though no one at school cared, it was still too weird for me. They taught me a lot about myself and about the differences of life in California. His mom even got me a shirt for Christmas that said "Straight people scare me," and I wore it all the time.
Once I did come out publicly, I learned as long as I was comfortable being myself, most people were comfortable around me. That never would've happened in Minnesota. I might have been stoned to death on the street. Not the case here. I actually discovered I was a very touch/feely person, which I'd never allowed myself to be before. My whole group of friends here were. It used to freak me out a little, but I embraced it later. We'd walk down the hall arm in arm. When you talked to someone, you touched their arm. People in Minnesota are born with space issues. I learned to shed mine.
I also figured out how to use my openness in other ways. Maybe that's a bad thing. Example? My crush and I were at the mall, walking and holding hands. This bald chubby man was with two children who were probably tenish or elevenish. Old enough to be taught not everyone in the world has the same relationship as their parents. The man was staring at us with one of those looks that crawled with "don't pollute my world with faggishness." A few months before, I would have let go and blushed. Not now. I turned and looked at my crush, who had the same idea as me (he was way more evil than me). He leaned in and kissed me while I looked at the man out of the corner of my eye. Just enough for him to know I was looking. I felt my crush's hand slide into my back jeans pocket and the man, obviously disgusted, got up and went to another bench. We laughed hysterically. How much fun was that?! I loved my new life. All my friends thought it was cute that I was so excited just to be able to be me.
I didn't even pretend at home. My dad cut my "straight people" shirt up for shop rags one night, but I didn't care. I didn't need a symbol now to help me find strength. I found it other places. He couldn't change me and he couldn't make me live my life as a lie anymore. We constantly fought. I was no longer the one who backed down when he raised his voice. He couldn't control me by keeping me afraid. I wouldn't let him. I guess that's part of the reason he threw me out.
"Go and don't come back."
I fully intended not to. If I'd ever heard that voice again, it would have been too soon. He wasn't even going to let me in to get my things until I told him I had his credit card. I didn't, but I knew he didn't either. I'd seen it earlier on the driveway in front of the garage when I came in that night. I didn't pick it up. He searched his wallet frantically. I went to my room and shoved as much as I could fit into a backpack and headed for the door.
"Give me back my credit card you ungrateful little bastard."
"It's in the driveway where you dropped it. I don't have it. But you're welcome for finding it." And I left.
I started walking. It was too late to catch a bus. Almost four hours later, I made it to the school, where I curled up on the smoker's couch outside the teacher's lounge and went to sleep until the janitor woke me up several hours later. He let me in and I washed my face in the sink. I had no idea what I was going to do. School had let out two weeks before, but school was a lot closer to my friends' houses than my house was. No one would have appreciated my knocking on their door at three in the morning.
Now I had time to think. I talked the janitor into letting me use the phone in the teacher's lounge since I had no change. Cassie came to pick me up and I lied about what was going on. I think she knew something was up, but she didn't push it. She drove me to my crush's. Right after graduation, he and Marc had moved into an apartment so they could be closer to studio. Both had part time jobs and help with rent until they could get on their feet. We got there and Cassie left for work. As soon as she closed the door, it all came spilling out. I really wasn't intending to ask for a place to stay. Just for advice. But I didn't turn it down when they offered me a room.
XVI
I never really intended for the living arrangement to be permanent. Turns out, they had been roommate shopping with very little success. So I became a fixture. It wasn’t my dream house, but it was better than a wet cardboard box. I think maybe the floor was a little harder. There really was no furniture to speak of. The sofa consisted of three cushions on the tile floor. It wasn’t good tile either. It was the same stuff that’s in schools and businesses all over. That one foot by one foot square ugly ass speckled linoleum kind of tile. Can you tell how much I loved it?
I certainly wasn’t complaining. I even had my own room. Marc and my crush shared the smallest bedroom to make the apartment more enticing to potential roommates. My room was the master bedroom and it looked mighty lonely with only a backpack full of clothes in it. I did go back home a couple times when my father wasn’t around to get my little closet dresser and a few other odds and ends. I only took what I could carry to the car in one trip: the blankets off my bed, my pillow, some clothes, shoes. My mother never said a word to me, just let me in and watched me walk by. Fine by me. The room was still sparse, but I wasn’t sleeping on the tile. Now I had blankets over it and a pillow.
The day after I moved in, I started job hunting. Three days and two bags of Fritos later, I got hired to valet park during the evening hours for a Hollywood gay club. When I interviewed, I really didn’t know it was a gay club. Didn’t matter much. I worked with a bunch of college students who were part time. They didn't like to socialize and spent most of their free time studying. I had nothing to study except the patrons, so I took to talking to them instead. The more I talked, the more I flirted, the bigger tips I made.
Most of the customers were late 20s and 30s. They thought I was cuter than frog fuzz. One guy told me I looked like an angel with my light blonde locks. The next day, I dyed it shiny black...eyeliner and attitude to match. They loved it. Mega tips. I started going out after work with some of them. They took me all over Los Angeles. Not many places questioned my age when I was tagging along with 30-somethings. It worked. We’d dance and talk until five in the morning. I’d stopped looking for a second job at that point. Even though I needed the money, I was just too tired to go. The first month, I paid as much as I could on the rent. It wasn’t expected for me to pay at all yet, but I wasn’t ready to be a free-loader.
The second month, I made full rent. Even had money left over to buy a few new outfits and indulge in a little more than Fritos. I’ve always been a veggie-phile, but when you move to a place like I lived in California, you get sucked into the lifestyle. Veggie burgers, tofu with every seasoning imaginable, sprouts, spinach, avocados, artichokes, almonds. Mmm…I didn’t get sucked in, I dove head first. It was perfect for me. I hated most meats as long as I could remember, which wasn’t exactly the norm in Minnesota.
So you already know how I made rent, and it’s really not as bad as it sounds. Or it wasn’t then. It wasn’t so nice the first month or so of selling sex for cash. Once I kind of got established, things got a lot better. I became everyone’s little angel. People took care of me. They took me under wing, strange as it sounds. Not that I didn’t stand up for myself. I had to a lot in the beginning, but I had plenty of leverage. When someone started to go too far, or challenge my rules, all I had to say was…"I’m seventeen." That was all I needed. Not only did they completely freak out half the time, but that’s a damn hefty fine. No skin off my nose. My father kicked me out before I was eighteen. I didn’t want to go back there, but any investigation or lawsuit against anyone wouldn’t get done until after I’d turned eighteen anyway. Thank god for a slow legal system.
I really didn’t have to use the “seventeen” line very much, but once I did, people behaved. After a while, I didn’t have to use it at all. I had other methods. I’d been adopted by a whole slew of guys. All I had to do was mention the fact that I didn’t like someone and they took care of their little angel.
XVII
Emmett was my favorite. The first time I met him, I wasn’t feeling very social, but needed some cash. I’d quit the valet job at that point and was relying solely on alternative income to fund my taste in fashion, among other things. I was hanging out with a few guys one night outside a club, waiting for a bite when up walked Emmett. I’d met him a couple times before. He was a friend of one of my tricks. He’d never tried to pick me up. Usually, he made up some lame excuse whenever I was around and said goodbye. I didn’t know what was with him, but I didn’t much care.
I wasn’t expecting to like him. All indications I’d had pointed to his being a mega stuck-up jerk. He wasn’t at all. That first night, he walked right up to me and didn’t beat around the bush.
"You wanna come home with me?"
I agreed and hopped in his ‘vette. Several hours later, I got my money, he was sound asleep and I curled up on the couch to watch TV. It was only maybe half and hour until he came to sit beside me. A lot of guys invited me to stay until morning. He did the same. I usually stayed. I didn’t like to crawl back home in the middle of the night anyway.
We talked about a lot of stuff; how I reminded him of himself when he was my age, about his friends (most of whom I knew), plans for the future, the past. He was easy to talk to. When I finally couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore, he gave me a fluffy towel, directed me toward the shower and offered me his bed.
"I’ll sleep on the couch," he kept saying.
I thought that was a little ridiculous considering the circumstances. I didn’t care if we slept in the same bed, but I told him if he raped me in the middle of the night I’d bite off his nuts as souvenirs. He laughed. I tried not to, but couldn’t keep it in.
His shower was awesome. I could have stayed in there forever, but I resisted. Eventually, I climbed into bed and zonked out before my head hit the pillow. At around eleven o’clock, I woke up alone. There was a pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt on the pillow next to me with a note. I put them on and went downstairs to the kitchen. Turns out, he’d called in sick to work and made me Belgian waffles because "I can tell you're feeling down". I was stunned. And stuffed by the end of it.
We never had sex after that night, but it wasn’t the last time I stayed over. He called me all the time, I called him. He’d swing by the clubs at night to make sure I had a place to stay. If I didn’t, he’d take me to his house. Sometimes he’d show up in his pajamas at two or three o’clock in the morning. "I was just in the neighborhood," he’d tell me. Mm hmm. He never ‘fessed up, but I think he either called his friends to find out where I was or they would call him. Occasionally, he’d say things like "Oh, I just had a feeling."
I started going over on my own after a while. Whenever I was feeling lonely, he’d cheer me up, or we’d talk, or maybe just sit in silence and watch television. He always made me feel better. He was also a little bad for me I guess. He was into drug experimentation. I never got into really hard drugs, but I tried a lot of things with him: blue nitro, acid, x, ketamines, mazzies, poppers, pot.
I hated pretty much all of them. I guess I didn’t like that out-of-control feeling it gives you. That’s the whole point, I know, but I just couldn’t get into it. Emmett could always tell when I was feeling skittish about things and never pressured me or even asked me to try anything. I always asked. So maybe he wasn’t bad for me. Maybe it was just me that was bad for me.
Whatever, it doesn’t matter. The point is we became inseparable.
XVIII
Emmett constantly tried to talk me out of the lifestyle I’d adopted. He could be very pathetic when he tried...almost enough to really make you stop and think. But I didn’t want to stop. I liked going through my closet every month and throwing away half its contents so I could fit more in. Like all novelties, though, it got old after a while. I was tired of not being able to go home, not wanting to see my old friends, not staying home at night to just sit and talk. I couldn’t do any of that anymore. Someone would automatically ask me what I’d been up to and I’d turn defensive. They weren’t pushing me away as much as I was pushing them.
I knew one day I’d finally get sick enough of it. I didn’t know when that day would come. I couldn’t cave and let Emmett think he’d talked me out of it. I couldn’t give anyone that satisfaction of having "saved me." On several occasions when I was out, I bumped into my crush. He would stand and stare at me, trying to talk himself into coming over. I was vicious in self defense. I’d look straight at him and cuddle closer to the jerk I was with. Now I’m sitting here shaking my head at how evil I was. I’m not proud of it. Don’t think I am.
Horrid might be a better word than evil. I’m not sure. One of the two. I used to get people kicked out of clubs just because I felt like it. When someone pissed me off, I’d sidle up to his friend and convince him to take me home. Much more than once, I’d slip the guy some cash and tell him to drown his sorrows and buy himself a cab home. I enjoyed giving public humiliation. The more bitter the better. I was also lucky. I was only the brunt of revenge once. I completely shredded one guy’s dignity in the middle of a crowd of his friends. Payback’s a bitch.
It was a weekend and I’d run into a group of five guys who were throwing their friend a bachelor party. He was bi; they were gay and were giving him a night to remember. They were all in their 30s and were out for a good time, not necessarily to get drunk as quick as possible. They wanted to spread out the fun and halfway through their night out, they ran into me. I knew the best man pretty well and he asked me if I’d be interested in coming back to the hotel to be the entertainment. I recognized most of their faces, but didn’t really know them. They all seemed nice enough.
In the cab on the way to the hotel, we talked price and I got my cash. Once we got to the room, the best man asked me how much I would take to let the groom-to-be do anything he wanted to me. Alarm bells went off. Uh-uh. No way. The groom laughed. I didn’t.
"What do you mean by anything?"
He blushed a little. "You know, tying you up, making you do things."
Like that never happens anyway? I didn’t say anything.
"Come on, you have to have a price."
I looked at him. "Maybe. But there have to be rules. I’m not leaving it that open ended."
"Rules like what?"
"Like condoms no matter what."
He nodded.
"Like nothing that’s going to hurt me."
He looked surprised. "I don’t want to hurt you."
"Good. Nothing bizarre like peeing on me either."
"Ew."
"Yeah, well. You never know."
"I’m not into that kind of weird stuff."
"$700 on top of what I’ve already got."
The best man nodded. "Done."
I still had a strange feeling, but kept my mouth shut about it. Just looked at the groom.
"You shoot me in the eye and I’ll bite it off when I get loose."
His eyes got really big. I grinned and he laughed. The best man handed me $700. This wasn’t going to be so bad.
It really wasn’t. He wasn’t really bad, he just wanted to play bad. I don’t know if that’s an ego stroke or what. I’ve never really understood, but I didn’t much care. He wound up playing for a few hours before he untied my hands and fell asleep curled up next to me. It was a penthouse suite, so the rest of the guys who had been watching decided it was way past bedtime and slunk off to their respective rooms. After a few minutes, I went to sleep.
It wasn’t light outside yet when someone shook my shoulder. It was one of the groomsmen. He wanted to talk to me. I was completely bleary eyed, but I slipped on a pair of shorts and followed him to the little sitting room where he’d taken up residence on the sofa. He grabbed me by the arms and told me to shut up. I was much more awake. He stuffed a rag into my mouth and tied it around my head. Said if I screamed he’d throw me out the window. I believed him. While he tied my hands to the arm of the couch, I watched him, but I didn’t fight. I knew why he looked familiar. I’d grabbed his manhood one night in front of a bunch of his friends. Told him he shouldn't let that thing out in public by itself. It was too little to be left alone like that. He crawled home with his tail between his legs. Whatever. Some people are obsessive about getting revenge.
When he stood over me half an hour later, he had a coldness in his eyes that I’d never seen before. Without bothering to untie my wrists, he threw $700 on the ground beside me and spat in my face. "Get out." I untied myself with my teeth and washed the blood off my mouth before I found my clothes and made my way downstairs. The desk clerk gave me a funny look when I walked past him. I gave him the finger and took a cab to Emmett’s.
XIX
"What happened to you?!"
"Shut up. I don't want to talk about it."
He didn't step back to let me into the apartment. "I'm not letting you in until you tell me."
"Fine." I turned and walked away.
I could hear him yelling after me, but kept going. Fuck him. He was in his pajamas and I'd be gone before he got changed. I hitchhiked to an after hours back room club. By the time he caught up to me, I was leaning against a drugged out little slut who latched onto me as soon as I walked in the door. His hands were on my hips and when Emmett came over, he put his arm around my shoulders like he was protecting what was his. I laid my head back against his shoulder and Emmett shook his head.
"Come on.”
I raised my eyes. "That's all I get, huh?"
"What?"
"Why should I? What're you going to give me if I do?"
He looked confused. "Tom, what are you talking about?"
I slipped out from under slutbag's arm and pushed Emmett against the wall with one hand on his chest.
"I said, if I come with you, what're you going to give me?"
He looked away.
"What's the matter? Are you too good for me? Up there on your pedestal looking down at poor little Tommy? Hmm?"
Still he didn't look at me.
I slid my body down his until I was on my knees. "I could make your eyes roll but you're too good for that, aren't you."
Without any warning, he grabbed me by the shirt and hauled me to my feet.
"I said we're going." And he dragged me out of the club.
I twisted loose once we got outside but he had me by the wrist. "Let go."
"No."
I screamed at him. "Let me go!"
He didn't raise his voice at all. "No."
I don't know what happened exactly. I just lost it. I went crazy. He held onto my wrist as long as he could until I bit at him. Then he locked both arms around my chest, pinning my arms to my side. I was yelling and cursing at him. I couldn't get loose. I screamed and cried at the same time until finally I broke down. My knees gave out and he let me slide onto the sidewalk in a heap. He knelt down beside me. I could feel his hand on my back.
"Come on. Let's go home."
XX
Everything came pouring out on the way back to the apartment. It was dark in the car and I faced the window the whole ride. It's easier to say things when you don't have to look someone in the eye. I'd stopped crying and my voice was flat as I told him about being tied up; about being punched in the mouth. Being flipped over and having my face shoved into the cushions. I couldn't breathe. He held me down while I earned my $700.
The rug in Emmett's bathroom felt so soft under my bare feet while I turned on the shower. It stung and burned, but the warm water felt good. He'd left out clothes for me. Comfy flannel pants and a worn t-shirt. They were cool against my skin. The kinds of things that make you want to wrap your arms around yourself to feel them closer. It was like I was in a fog. Like nothing was really happening. My head had gone to sleep and I was just left there standing in front of the bathroom mirror. All I could see staring back at me was a scared little boy, and I realized how much I hated him.
I made my way to the bed and laid down. Emmett was reading a Tom Clancy novel. The curtains were pulled so even though it was light outside now, it was dark in the room. He turned out the little bedside lamp and I rolled over so my back was against his chest. His arm was under my head. I felt safe there. I stretched my toes down into the corner of the sheets. You know, that spot where nothing's touched yet so it feels new. I know I couldn't have been awake for very long before I drifted off.
When I woke up, he was sitting against the headboard reading. I watched him for a few minutes until he realized I was awake. He smiled at me and put the book down. I was stiff and didn't want to move, but I sat up anyway.
"You look like shit."
I gave him a sideways look.
"You want me to lie?"
"Yes."
"You look... uh..." He scratched his forehead. "...well rested."
"You're a crappy liar."
"I know."
He drove me home that day. I usually took the bus, but he wouldn't let me. Neither of us really said much, but that didn't mean we weren't thinking about a lot. No one was home when we got there and he sat in my room for a while watching me put away the clothes I'd thrown onto the floor a couple nights before.
When he left, he kissed my forehead. "I hope I don't see you again."
I knew what he meant. I wasn't upset. I half smiled and looked at the ground.
He didn't see me again. I never went back. I'd had such big plans a year ago. Now I had nothing but a closet full of new clothes and no sense of self. It took me a long time to get my life back together. That sounds funny coming from a teenager. But it wasn't funny. I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I didn't really have a desire to go to college now. It seemed so far out of reach. Almost silly. I guess it was good I'd saved what I'd made over the last week. It was enough to keep me out of the red with rent while I looked for a job.
Nothing paid the kind of money I was making before, so I started working two jobs. I haven't bought new clothes since I quit. I can't afford it now. But I'm getting there. It's been a while, but I've managed to pare down to one job that I really like. My friends have taken me back with open arms. It was weird for a while, convincing myself they were sincere. I was too jaded to trust them. My crush? We've had our bumps, but we're doing okay.
I haven't spent a lot of time talking about what was going through my head when I dumped everyone I cared about by the wayside. Maybe that's why I'm writing now. I'm building up my courage to be able to talk to them. I'm not sure. Any way I look at it, it's been therapy. The other day I asked myself if I had the opportunity, would I change anything that's happened to me? My answer...I don't know. I believe everything happens for a reason and what happens to you over the course of your life effects who you are.
Am I a better person than I would have been otherwise? Maybe. Am I stronger? Maybe. I guess that's part of what life is. You can't go back, and wondering how changing the past would change the future is worthless, so you keep going. Life only happens once and you're only dealt one hand. You can choose to play or fold. One just brings the end quicker than the other, and who knows what good things, and good friends, you might miss if you just give up and lay down your cards.