Jay's Gay Agenda

by Jason June

  “Of course I knew that,” Reese whispered, and he lost all control of his tears. For the first time, he seemed surprisingly . . . human. Reese’s chest was the one that heaved now as he struggled to speak. “I wanted to be with Max more than anything.” His words were warped and distorted as he spoke through his tears. “I had to leave him. I knew if we stayed together, I wouldn’t focus. I couldn’t focus. My whole world was him, so much that I missed three auditions and my agent threatened to drop me. I couldn’t find the balance. I had to leave but I didn’t . . .” Reese stopped. His shoulders shook with sobs.

  I actually felt sorry for him. No wonder he was so standoffish when I first met him. I was with Max all the time. He must have thought I was helping Max leave any thoughts of Reese behind. If only he’d known how many times I’d seen Max look longingly at Reese’s Instagram and tear up any time he saw a picture of Spencer.

  Wait a minute.

  “Oh please, this is all an act,” I said. “If you were this torn up about Max, why are you dating Spencer?”

  Albert put Reese’s glare to shame. “Are you serious? Spencer is in Reese’s acting class. They’re just friends. Reese hated being alone after he broke up with Max. He even thought you two were dating until he found out that we were. Reese spent so much time with Spencer because he had no ties to Max. The connection you and I have. No, had”—the change in tense sent a knife through my heart—“and your closeness to Max was too much for him to handle; he told me after Pike Place. But this whole time I told Reese he had nothing to worry about. I told him you were a great guy. But we really don’t know each other that well, do we, Jay?” Albert scoffed, shaking his head. He said so much with the movement: he was disgusted with me, disgusted with himself, probably reliving everything his ex had put him through. “Guess I was wrong.”

  A glint of light caught my eye as Reese moved to wipe snot from his lip. Two matching gold bracelets slid down his wrist, just like Max’s. They’d been hidden all along in the folds of the NYU sweatshirt he always wore.

  That’s how I knew that Reese was telling the truth. He really missed Max.

  The bell rang, but nobody moved. Everyone kept staring at me—Albert, Reese, the whole student body—waiting for an explanation. I knew no matter how long we stood there, I wouldn’t be able to come up with something that could justify my actions.

  “I should get going,” I finally mumbled. “I’m gonna be late.”

  I whipped around, the backpack Albert gave me slapping my side with each hurried step.

  So much for making things better.

  I’d only made them worse.

  The hurt in Albert’s eyes haunted me for the rest of the day. No matter where I looked, Albert’s face materialized, going through the pained emotions of the morning: his betrayed stare when he mentioned Tony, his disgusted glare when I yelled at Reese, his gut-wrenching pain when I confirmed he was a part of the Gay Agenda.

  As I should have expected, word traveled quickly about the fight. People pointed and talked in hushed whispers as I walked past. By the end of the day, I was exhausted from trying to avoid Albert’s eyes in my thoughts and the judgmental stares in the hallways. But I still had the QSA meeting to go to. Every ounce of me wanted Albert to be there so I could try to explain myself one more time. Simultaneously, every ounce of me wanted to bail on the meeting. But if I didn’t show, I would just look like a coward. I couldn’t avoid things any longer.

  The push and pull of seeing Albert or not left my mind when I walked into Ms. Okeke’s room. I’d run on autopilot, arriving early so I could help Max get the meeting schedule in order. Max was there, alone, nervously twiddling his thumbs at a desk in the front row. He was mumbling to himself like he was practicing a speech, and didn’t notice me walk in.

  Seeing Max sent a wave of fury over me again. I was so focused on Albert that I didn’t think about what it would be like to see Max face-to-face after he spilled about my Gay Agenda.

  “I never meant to tell Tony,” Max mumbled to himself, still not seeing me in the doorway.

  “Then why did you?” I demanded.

  Max whipped his head toward me, blond hair flying. Dark circles were under his eyes, and his normally perfectly smooth hair had flyaways and frizz. He looked like he hadn’t slept all weekend.

  “Jay, it was a total accident.”

  But then a mass of students piled in, ready to create clock decorations and paint the giant Homecoming in Hindsight banner that we’d be putting up in the gym the next week. They immediately fell into an awkward silence, giving me looks that ranged from Oh gawd, I wonder how he’s doing after that fight to Jay’s a piece of shit for stomping on Albert’s heart like that.

  “I, uh, I think I’ll go make copies of the Best Costume ballots,” I said. It was still on the dance to-do list I’d made on the whiteboard, giving me the perfect excuse to get out of there. I avoided everyone’s eyes as I grabbed the finished ballot from Ms. Okeke’s desk and shouldered my way through the throng of staring QSA members. I guess I’d accomplished one more item on the Gay Agenda. I wouldn’t be known as the new kid anymore. Instead, I’d go down as the asshole who didn’t care how many broken hearts he left in his wake.

  I made it to the office and hit Print on the copier with so much force I thought I might have jammed the button. The last thing I needed was for Mr. Hammond to be pissed at me too. But the printer started shooting out copies just fine, and I thanked the homecoming gods for sending me to a school with so many students. With 1,800 of us, I’d be standing at the copier for a long time and wouldn’t have to worry about seeing Max.

  “Jay?”

  Or not. Max had followed me.

  “Can we talk?” he asked.

  I motioned toward the printer. “I’m pretty busy.”

  I turned back around, the copier effortlessly shooting out ballots while I searched for anything that could make it look like I wasn’t just standing there. But of course, there was nothing.

  “Fine.” I whipped back around. “What?”

  “I swear to gawd I didn’t mean to tell Tony about the Gay Agenda,” Max said. He bit his bottom lip, and his eyes darted to his feet. “Okay, I might have meant to a little. You were instantly crushing on Albert, who’s friends with Reese over that dumb Digimals thing, and I wanted to have a friend who had no connection to Reese this year. So when I saw Tony checking you out at the drag brunch, I let it slip. I thought he might distract you away from Albert. I made Tony promise not to say anything because I didn’t want you to be embarrassed. And I . . .” Max hesitated, nervously twirling his hair around his finger so hard I thought he might rip it from his scalp. “I may have encouraged you not to bring up your virginity so Tony wouldn’t tell you he knew about the Gay Agenda. I know it sounds bad, but honestly, Tony didn’t care if you had a list of all the things you wanted to do. I actually think he was kind of turned on by it.”

  Max’s excuses showed that he didn’t get it at all. “I don’t think you understand what you really did,” I said. “This isn’t about being embarrassed. The Gay Agenda wasn’t about accomplishing some checklist that I could insert just anybody into. It was about bonding with gay guys for the very first time. It was about feeling wanted, and someone being attracted to me, not taking my virginity in some sort of weird pity handout. I wanted to cross those things off when the connection was real.” I never thought I’d be backing up such flimsy science, but Gay Agenda items were meant to be accomplished when the universe brought the right person my way. “You took that from me, Max. You made me just a . . . a tally on somebody’s list of conquests.”

  Ohmigawd, the tallies on Tony’s door. That’s all I was, another notch on Tony’s belt, and it didn’t matter to him who he hurt to gain that notch. Which was exactly what Albert had said that morning. I’d made him think he was replaceable, that anybody’s name could be inserted into the Gay Agenda and I’d be happy, when that was the furthest thing from the truth. I imagined Albert in all those items a
bout dating and love because my connection with him was real. It was natural and organic. It had to be Albert.

  Honest, thoughtful, sexy, beautiful, goofball, uninhibited Albert.

  “Jay.” The dark circles under Max’s eyes were magnified by his tears. “I don’t know what to do. How can I make it up to you?”

  I didn’t want to talk to him anymore. Max’s loose lips sank ships, and my life was the Titanic. He blabbed to Lu that I didn’t have a boyfriend, and blabbed to Tony about the Gay Agenda, setting off a whole chain reaction that ensured I wouldn’t have a social or romantic life ever again.

  “Think of this like you and Cami and Damon,” I said. “I just need some space. From you.”

  I turned my back on him, grabbing the dozens of ballots that had already printed out.

  “Ow!”

  I snatched my hand back. A bright red streak marred my palm. A paper cut. It was actually a welcome distraction. The throbbing lessened the pain of the knife Max had stabbed in my back.

  24.

  Out with the Old and Start Something New

  The rest of the week was just as shitty. There wasn’t a statistical formula or some epic theory or an agenda that could salvage the situation. But one thing was completely certain, and I didn’t need a theory to prove it: I was such a dick.

  How could I have done that to Albert? How could I have gotten so caught up with a jerk like Tony? How could I not have seen that Reese actually did have a heart? How could I have kept everything from Lu for so long? How could I get out of this spiral of asking myself nonstop questions?

  Albert didn’t show up for either of the QSA meetings that week, and he was such a noticeable absence. I didn’t think I was making it up that people kept glancing toward the door, then sneering at me, rightfully blaming me for the sweetest, most caring, most loveable, hottest goofball of the whole group not showing up. Everyone looked at me like I was a VSB: a Very Shitty Boy.

  And they weren’t wrong.

  It looked like I wouldn’t ever get to cross off the framily item on the Gay Agenda. Nobody wanted to hang around me anymore. I couldn’t call Lu and ask for her advice, because she had officially blocked my number. The only thing I had to keep me company was the steady Seattle rain, which had been pouring ever since my hallway showdown with Albert.

  Max did try to talk to me in Fashion Design. But each time he opened his mouth to say sorry, I slammed down on my sewing machine pedal so hard that I’m pretty sure I left an indent in the floor. It felt surprisingly good to see his face fall when the pounding of the needle drowned out his words.

  I wasn’t ready to talk to him yet. If Max had never told Tony about the Gay Agenda, I wouldn’t have gotten caught up in this love and lust triangle. But because he had, I’d be spending the rest of my senior year as an outcast.

  “Someone sure thinks this assignment is the tops!” Mr. Bogosian said, this week’s dad jokes focusing on the T-shirts he’d assigned. “I appreciate the enthusiasm, Jay.”

  “I’m just thrilled,” I said, and slammed the pedal down while glaring at Max.

  Max sighed and flipped his hair over his shoulder, blocking me from his peripheral vision.

  When class was finally out, I lingered at my table so Max could get sufficiently ahead of me. I didn’t need him trying to strike up another conversation in the hall.

  “You know, you should really give him a chance.”

  Damon stepped into view. The angry thunderbolt on his jersey looked as chaotically mad as I felt.

  “Why do you give him such a break?” I asked, my anger at Max seething over into how dismissive he’d been of Damon. “He’s shut you and Cami out for the past six weeks. Take it as a gift from the universe and move on before he can shit all over your life, too.”

  “I can’t drop him like that.” Damon pulled out his phone, showing me his screen saver. It was the same picture Max had on his nightstand with Damon laughing and trying to squirm out of Max and Cami’s hug. “He’s part of the family. Cami was always the ringleader of our group, and whenever she got her mind set on something—like becoming my cheerleaders—Max was always on board. That’s how Max is: he wants to help whenever he can.” Damon stared at the three of them beaming from his phone. “I just wish he’d take some help for his own problems from time to time.”

  It seemed like they had a lot of history, and I wouldn’t take that away from Max, Damon, or Cami. But the good Max did in someone else’s life didn’t wipe away the bad he’d brought into mine.

  “Yeah, well, that’s not the Max I know,” I said. “His help led to a whole lot of hurt.”

  Damon’s worried stare turned into wide-eyed disbelief. “You don’t really think this is his fault, do you? All that went down between you and Albert has nothing to do with Max.”

  The past few weeks with Tony and Albert blew through my mind: me choosing to hook up with Tony, me deciding not to tell Albert about it when all he asked for was honesty, me forgetting about our date over the weekend so I could have sex and discover I was somebody’s dirty little secret all this time.

  Max didn’t make me do any of that. That was 100 percent Jay.

  I couldn’t meet Damon’s eyes. “I guess you have a point.”

  “If Max is actually trying to talk about this problem between the two of you, you should take him up on it. He’s trying to make it right.” Damon sighed with his whole body. He really missed Max. “Which is new, since he usually avoids conflict or anything that might make him feel bad.”

  Damon was right. Max was putting in the effort to make it better between us. Meanwhile I was just making it worse by pushing him further away. Kind of like Max was doing to Cami and Damon. I guess I’d learned a lesson from my Gay Guide after all:

  How to blow up relationships that matter.

  I ripped off my rain boots the next afternoon and threw them to the apartment floor. The resulting splatter looked just as disgusting as I felt. I’d spent the whole day trying to come up with a way to fix everything, but no inspiration had struck.

  “Something wrong?”

  Dad leaned against the wall, as stoic and collected as ever.

  “That’s an understatement.”

  He frowned, then motioned for me to follow him. “Step into my office.”

  We walked into the living room. SportsCenter played on the TV, and a Bud Light in a beer cozy sat on one of the side tables. The sofa already had the beginnings of a solitary indent in it. It was the spot where Dad sat each night, alone. He made sure he was home every day for dinner, but I’d been so caught up in boys and Gay Agendas that I hadn’t made any time for him. And I’d blown him off on the weekend when he’d tried over and over to get me out of the house. With Mom gone for work the majority of the time since we moved, Dad had been waiting for anyone in the family to spend time with him.

  Yet another person I’d let down.

  “Gawd, Dad, I’m so sorry.” I dropped onto the couch and put my head in my hands.

  “Sorry for what?” he asked.

  “For leaving you here with no one to talk to. For running out to spend time with guys. For holing myself up in my room when I’m home. For making you feel as alone as I feel right now.” All this time I’d focused on the Gay Agenda to bring me closer to people, but it ended up just pushing me further away from the relationships I already had.

  Dad sat next to me, put his hand over my shoulders, and pulled me into him. He still smelled like motor oil and pine trees, despite the fact he hadn’t worked in a car shop or lived in the woods for over a month now. “At this stage in your life, you’re supposed to be finding out who you are,” he said. “I don’t feel abandoned at all. You’re becoming a young man, and that means leaving the nest.”

  After four days’ worth of being avoided, it was a little jarring to hear someone sound so understanding. I didn’t feel like I deserved it. “You’re not mad?”

  Dad shrugged. “You haven’t done anything to me to be mad at. You’re just becoming J
ay, and you should be proud of that.”

  “I really don’t think I’ve done much to be proud of lately.”

  “We all make mistakes as we develop into the person we’re meant to be. It’s how you make up for those mistakes that matters.”

  I scoffed, head still in my hands. “Easier said than done. I really screwed up, Dad. And now Lu and Albert won’t even talk to me. How am I supposed to apologize if they just keep shutting me out? And I’ve totally taken out my anger on Max.” He’d finally had enough of my being a dick to him, and steered clear of me in the halls that day too. The weird irony was that when I had been the only gay kid at school, friendships were easier. They were way less complicated than when romance and feelings and hormones and horniness became a part of everything.

  “You just got to keep at it,” Dad said. “Don’t take no for an answer. Let them know how truly sorry you are.” He squeezed my shoulders. “You know what always cheers me up?”

  “What?”

  “Monday Night Football. I DVR’d this week’s game.”

  I laughed. If only it were that easy.

  “Want to watch together?” Dad asked. “Like old times?”

  He grabbed the remote and started the game. The camera panned to a coach beside his team, the players lined up in a row of muscular butts in tight pants.

  “I guess my timing is perfect,” Dad said, pointing to the TV. “It’s your favorite view.”

  I smiled weakly. “Ha. I do feel like an ass, that’s for sure.” Dad must have really been trying to make me feel better because he didn’t scold me for cussing. “If only I felt like one that looked that goo—”

  I stood straight up. Everything clicked.

  I was an ass. I had to give everyone an apology that let them know I felt like one.

  I slapped Dad on the back. “You’re brilliant!”