Nothing was said. Nothing was spoken and for a week, Kerass remained silent outside of calling plays during football practices. No one seemed to notice a difference in him, or even cared for that matter. His alarm clock woke him up. Before he had gotten into this funk, he never needed his alarm to wake himself up. Now he needed 3 alarms just to ensure that he would arrive at school on time. He needed more sleep. In the past he always got this on the bus, but seeing as he was driving himself to school now, he needed extra time in bed. He loved living in the dreamscape. It wasn’t scary, it was fairly stress free, and he had an innate ability to wake himself up if he was having a nightmare. He would do anything to simply stay in the dreamscape, but today was different. He had set his alarm up a solid hour earlier than he had all of the past week. He quickly dressed and dashed down the stairs silently, hoping he could just leave without running into…
“Kerass?” his father asked half asleep. “What are you doing up so early? It’s not even 5:00 in the morning.”
Kerass bit his tongue in an attempt to disguise his disappointment. “I’m just…” Kerass exhaled. He wanted to lie, but he couldn’t. He didn’t see the point in lying. His father couldn’t stop him once he was in the car anyways. “I’m going to see Mom.”
His father’s eyes drooped. He stated that he understood how Kerass felt and it was very sweet and all. “We should discuss your mother.”
“No,” Kerass shook his head. “I’m later already than I planned to be because we’ve just wasted 5 minutes chatting.”
“Kerass, please can’t we just talk about this now?”
“It’ll have to wait,” Kerass said as he walked out the door. His itch to talk to her, to verbally process with her wouldn’t be satisfied until he sat down by her bedside at the hospital. He knew he was ditching, but he would be back for football practice. School could wait, but his private time with his mother could not.
Taking a deep breath standing outside the classroom, Jay struggled to move. Oak Stream’s Gay Straight Alliance, abbreviated GSA, was meeting in E68, a classroom in the History hallway. He had been looking forward to the first meeting ever since the school year had begun. Color guard was no longer enough to distract him from the reality that his birth mother had given him a restraining order. He needed this group.
Stepping into the classroom, he was surprised by the lack of people in the group. He was there with three other guys and a girl. The teacher wasn’t even there. Two of the boys avoided eye contact. They were fellow marching band members. He was bewildered why they were there because they were extremely heterosexist. Jay thought they must have been a couple, but they weren’t out yet…very interesting. The girl put her finger to her mouth motioning silence.
The other guy walked up to him and held out his hand. “You’re Damien’s boyfriend, right?”
Jay corrected him saying he was his ex. “The name’s Jay.”
The other boy shook Jay’s hand without stating his own name. There was an uneasiness in the room that Jay couldn’t quite grapple. Although it was hard to focus since the other boy just wouldn’t shut up. Jay felt bad, but he tuned out the other boy for a good three minutes of persistent chatting, with not a single pause asking his opinion or asking him questions about himself.
“Gosh, I feel like I already know you! We’re getting along so well.”
“Yeah,” Jay added slowly. “Just peachy.”
“It must be so cool being so comfortable with who you are. I mean, you’ve been an inspiration to me. You’re out! I don’t know if I’ll ever get that far as long as I’m here at Oak Stream.”
“I’m not as happy as you’d like to think.”
The other boy shook his head beaming. “I don’t believe that. Listen, do you want to maybe grab a coffee later this week?”
“I’m sorry,” Jay said and just walked out of the room without a word. He could tell that the other boy was calling out to him and said something, but it didn’t register. He understood what he had done wrong then. He had invaded their turf. The GSA was a safe place, but only for closeted people. For people who were out, it was only a dating pool. He wasn’t sure if he was happy that he was out now. He wasn’t dating Damien anymore and his father remained distant, despite this past summer. He was more alone than ever. The group was anything from irresistible as the flier had promised.
The other boy called out again, louder this time. “You don’t want to go in there, trust me!”
Jay wasn’t even thinking of stopping by another classroom, another meeting, but he’d do anything to avoid the GSA boy who wouldn’t be quiet even after he had left the group. There was a guy in a black shirt and jeans handing out fliers in front of room E63. He was familiar with the room having taken Advanced Government his sophomore year there. Mr. Baganz, his old history teacher was standing at the front of the classroom, a definite plus.
“Hey, do you want to join us? Everybody’s welcome.”
Looking at the flier he understood the GSA boy’s warnings. It was the Christian group. He couldn’t explain why, but when he heard ‘everybody’s welcome’ he believed it. He needed some place to be safe, even if it was a place that would condemn him for his sexuality. It made no sense, he acknowledged that, but he needed to get away from the GSA asap.
“Sure, I’ll join.”
“Excellent!” the guy said holding the door open for him.
As he entered he had this strange inkling that the guy in the black shirt was going to become a very close friend of his. He knew it was illogical after only exchanging one sentence with him, but for some reason, he felt drawn to him. He wanted desperately to be his friend. Not his boyfriend, simply his friend.
The clock chimed at 2:30. Practice would begin soon. Julia stressed out. She didn’t want to be late no matter what. She felt liberated on the field, but if she were late, she’d have to do 10 pushups, which was not going to happen…ever. She waited outside the band room. The door was locked, making her completely perplexed. As the minutes ticked away, she knew now that she would be late. Then it dawned on her. There was no after school practice on Wednesday and Thursday’s practice began after 6 p.m. Feeling liberated, she started to make her way out of the school towards her car.
Cadence was standing outside the theater classroom. Julia waved ever so slightly at her. Cadence nodded with a hint of a smile on her face. Cadence walked out of the hallway, neither saying a word to one another. Lyra, the new girl who had moved in just down the street from her, walked over to the bulletin board for the drama department.
“Lyra, right?” Julia asked.
Lyra nodded embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” she began in an attempt to excuse away her behavior. The cast list for You Can’t Take It With You had just been posted after school that day. “I was supposed to see it with Cadence. Have you, by any chance, seen her?”
“You just missed her actually.”
“Oh…” Lyra trailed.
Their nonverbals confirmed it was most likely bad news for Cadence. Julia wasn’t quite sure why she was staying.
Lyra backed away from the list her hands covering her mouth. She backed up against the wall and slid down it crying uncontrollably. Theater kids…always taking things too personally, Julia thought bitterly.
“I got the lead,” Lyra got out amidst her tears. “Cadence is my understudy.”
Julia wasn’t confident she knew what an understudy was, but she didn’t really care to know either.
“Listen,” Julia began. She said she was heading out and stated that since Lyra lived down the street that it only made sense. “Do you want a ride home?”
Lyra shook her head silently.
“You sure?”
Lyra smiled wiping the tears away from her eyes. “I think I’m gonna walk home.”
“But that’s 3 miles away…” Julia said befuddled.
“I know, I,” Lyra paused letting out a small laugh. “I just need some time to think.”
“Cool, whatever,” Julia said leaving. All the better, she thought to herself. Lyra was one bizarre chick and Julia wasn’t convinced that she really wanted to get to know her. There was something odd about her. It could have just been typical theater kid bull, but there seemed to be this dark cloud surrounding her. As she got in her car, the more she thought about it, the more Julia realized that she wanted nothing to do with Lyra.
“I’m sorry, I just can’t give you any more hours,” the manager of the comic book store on Main Street said.
Cadence sat on the bench outside of the store trying to see Gus at his job. She couldn’t help overhearing the fact that Gus was seeking more money. It was all very curious. She wanted to know why…
“But if I don’t help you, we’ll, we’ll…” Gus said his voice cracking.
It was astonishing. She had never heard Gus have so much emotion in his voice. No matter what, she knew she couldn’t be seen.
“I’m sorry, Gus. I know how much this store means to you.”
“No!” Gus shouted. “You can’t just give up.”
“I can’t pay to hold onto you anymore. I’m gonna have to let you go,” the manager said lamenting.
“Please,” Gus said straining his voice. Cadence looked into the store. Gus’ eyes were shimmering. Tears started to slowly creep down his face. “I did, I did everything I could to help save-”
“I know, son. You don’t have to say it. I know what you’ve given up for me, even that spot on the varsity team.”
“It was nothing…” Gus said his voice trailing.
“I knew how much you wanted that after you tried out. You couldn’t stop talking about it for days.”
“Please! You’re like a father figure to me. Please don’t let me go,” Gus pleaded.
“I didn’t want to share this. It will only make it harder on you, but I realize now that I must.” The owner said something muffled about how painful it was to share things and how much he didn’t want to. Cadence wanted to shout at him to simply spit it out. She had to bite her tongue to control her impulse. She could not reveal what she knew. “I can’t keep the store at all. There’s just not the audience anymore for a comic book store here. Maybe there never was.”
Gus started sniffling. Cadence watched as the store manager went over and hugged him. Gus clung to the manager balling into his shirt. The manager patted his back.
“It’s all right, let it all out.”
“I can’t be left again,” Gus said between sobs.
“Look at me! Look at me,” the manager said sternly, but with a comfort Cadence had never heard from an adult before. “I’m not going anywhere. You are like a son to me and you know that I love you with everything I’ve got.”
“Stop trying to protect me,” Gus said after he had stopped crying.
“That was wrong of me, I know. But I’m not going anywhere. I’m still going to be here in Oak Stream for you.”
“What will become of the store?” Gus asked.
Quietly Cadence got off the bench going on her knees to avoid being seen through the window. She had heard enough. Seeing Gus be so emotionally vulnerable was uncomfortable for her. Was it even possible that she could care for him even more than she had before? She couldn’t remember what she had been meaning to tell Gus, but one thing was for certain: it wasn’t anywhere near as important as Gus staying connected with quite possibly the only solid authority figure in his life.
Squeezing her hand to say goodbye, Kerass started to walk out of his mother’s hospital room. He had stayed with her all day, well past the end of school. He had intended to make it to football practice, but talking to his mom, spending what little time he could with her as she lay in a coma, he had lost all sense of time. It was time to leave. He could feel it in his gut.
Waving ever so slightly, he started to walk out of the room and just before he left, he saw something odd. She was smiling at him.
No comments:
Post a Comment