I didn’t want things to be normal. I didn’t want to feel better.
I didn’t want to feel anything.
And I didn’t. Or at least I thought I didn’t.
Until the Fourth of July rolled around.
I DON’T think I’ve mentioned my dog, Clark. He’s part Jack Russell terrier and part something else nobody can quite figure out.
He’s been my dog since I was eight.
I love him a lot.
But he’s not great when it comes to loud noises. Thunder is bad. Fireworks and firecrackers and all that kind of stuff are even worse.
They totally freak him out.
So when the first stuff started going off around my house, it was no surprise when he started running around the house, crying, trying to find a place to hide.
But what I didn’t expect, what I hadn’t even thought about, what had never occurred to me, was how I’d react.
Badly, as it turns out.
I freaked out even worse than Clark. And like him, I had no control over myself.
Animal survival mode, I guess.
Which freaked me out even more.
When the first pop pop pop went off, I jumped.
My heart started racing.
I started sweating.
When the next round started, my hands started shaking. And I couldn’t make them stop.
As more and more went off in loud sporadic bursts, pop pop pop, then pop pop POP pop, I started pacing around my room. Faster and faster. I wanted to run. I wanted to escape. But there was nowhere to go.
I turned the music up to try and drown it out. It didn’t help.
I was seeing that night in flashes. I was in my room and I was at the club. Flashbacks, I guess they’re called. And I couldn’t make it stop.
The shots. The screaming. And even worse, the sound when the screaming stopped.
I could even smell the gunshots. The smell of piss and shit. And the blood. So much blood. Everywhere.
It kept going and going and going….
I needed it to stop. I cried out for it to stop. I even prayed for it to stop even though I don’t buy into any of that stuff. But it just got worse and worse.
The sense of panic, my sense of panic, was overwhelming. And real.
Clark was cowering on the floor of my closet; I got down on the floor, shaking and sweating, and joined him.
And I held him. Both of us shaking. Both of us whimpering and crying.
My face was buried in his warm fur. His face was pressed against my shoulder.
But neither one of us could help the other or do anything to bring each other comfort.
We were lost in our own worlds of panic and fear and terror.
I wanted to start screaming. But I didn’t want my parents to hear, so I didn’t.
I still had that much control at least.
Besides, I was scared that if I started screaming, I’d just keep going and would never be able to stop.
There I was, lying on the floor of my closet. Crying and petting Clark and hating myself for acting like the little gay boy I promised myself I’d never ever be, unable to get myself under control. I was freaking Clark out so bad that he took a break from his own fears to lick my forehead to try and comfort me.
It felt like it would never stop. Like the explosions and loud noises and pops and smell of the firecrackers coming up into my room would never end.
After a couple of hours that seemed like they went on forever, people began running out of supplies, and it eased up and finally stopped.
I pulled myself out of the closet, shaking and exhausted and soaked in sweat. Clark stayed behind, tightly curling himself up and quickly falling asleep. I figured even he’d had enough of me by that point.
I know I had.
I snuck downstairs to my parents’ liquor cabinet, grabbed the first bottle I could find, which turned out to be Dad’s good tequila, and drank. It burned. I coughed and nearly puked, took a breath and let things settle, and drank some more.
Anything to stop the shaking.
I went back up to my room and lay down on my bed, hoping to pass out, waiting for my body to stop trembling and for my hands to stop clenching and to stop hearing gunshots and screams in my head and realizing that I wasn’t handling things nearly as well as I thought I was.
And not knowing what to do about that.
Chapter Eight
I SPENT the next three weeks at home. In my room. Still hiding myself away from everyone.
From the world.
And, I guess, hiding away from myself as well.
I knew what was going to happen once school started. It was obvious. There’d be people staring and trying not to stare. People asking questions. Talking about me. About Nate. About it. About what happened.
The few friends I had did try to call right after it happened. Or tried to text or messenger, but I just wasn’t responding. To anyone.
About a week after the Fourth, though, I did answer one text from someone I never expected to hear from.
Ziggy.
It was short and to the point.
You need to get out of the house. Meet me outside in fifteen minutes.
I did.
I didn’t feel like I really had a choice.
He rolled up, and within a minute of helping me get into his truck—I still hadn’t quite gotten the hang of the crutches—he handed me a tightly rolled fatty that I gratefully took a couple of deep hits off before passing it back.
We drove in silence, each in our own world. It was nice to get out of the house, and even nicer not to have to talk or think about anything but the feeling of the smoke and the music entering my head.
Finally, he said something. “Sorry, man.” And that was enough. The look in his eyes said it all.
He drove over to the Freezie Treats where I used to work. We ordered gigantor slushies, icy cold and just what we needed after the joint. Especially after Ziggy poured some of the vodka he had in a paper bag stashed under his seat into each one.
More silence, and then he started talking, like it was something he’d been waiting to say to me for a while.
Something he’d been practicing in his head.
“Look, bud, I know it’s all on me. I’m the one who hooked you up with the IDs. No IDs, no trip to Houston. No trip to Houston, no club. No club, no shooting.
“I get that. I can do the math.”
There was a long pause from Ziggy as he looked out the windshield of the car and not at me. He took a big gulp of his drink.
“And… even though she says she doesn’t, I know Kristen blames me, even though she’s the one who asked me to get you guys the IDs. It’s cool, though. I get it. She has to blame someone, and it might as well be me.
“And if I was her, I wouldn’t want me around either, know what I mean?”
I did. And while part of me did kind of blame him or wanted to blame him, even though I knew that was totally unfair, and really didn’t want to be around him much either, the other part of me saw how miserable he was and felt terrible for him.
“Yeah, Ziggy, I know what you mean. But it’s cool… you didn’t make us take the IDs… we wanted them.
“We’re cool, Zig. Promise.”
The moment I said that, Ziggy relaxed, I mean really relaxed, for the first time since I’d gotten in the truck. Maybe for the first time since it happened.
I knew or at least think I knew that he needed to hear someone tell him that. But that wasn’t going to come from Kristen or anyone else in Nate’s family.
Which left it to me. It had to be from me. He needed to hear me tell him. He needed to hear me say that I didn’t blame him for what happened to Nate. Or to me. And as much as I wanted to, as much as I wanted to unload on him, I couldn’t.
I was far too busy blaming myself.
I started hanging out with Ziggy a few days a week. I’d get a text telling me that he was on his way, and I’d make my way downstairs to wait for him. We’d smoke
a joint. We’d go to Freezie Treats and drink gigantor slushies with vodka. Then he’d drive me home, usually pushing a small package of excellent weed “for later” into my hand.
We barely said a word, but I was grateful for his company. And for the vodka. And the pot. And for the good painkillers he also silently pressed into my hand every once in a while, now that the doctor was cutting me off from anything that actually did me any good.
They all helped me to forget. Or if not to forget, to at least not think about it too much.
And giving them to me was his way of making himself feel better about what happened.
His way, I guess, of trying to help.
We were both a mess. But I appreciated his effort. I appreciated his being there and getting me out of the house. I appreciated the pot and all. I appreciated his silent company.
But most of all, I appreciated that he didn’t ask me anything. Ever. Not about Nate and being gay and what our relationship was or wasn’t.
And he never ever asked me anything about that night.
It was understood without saying a word. And it stayed not talked about.
Neither of us wanted to talk about it.
And that’s how my summer went: physical therapy twice a week, hiding out in my room, smoking pot and drinking with Ziggy.
Until school starting today, since it’s the end of August. And I am forced to return to what is commonly known as “real life.”
The time for hiding out had now come to an end.
Chapter Nine
ZIGGY OFFERED to drive me, but Dad insisted that he wanted to, so it was Dad who drove me for the first day of my last year at Eisenhower. He agreed, though, that Ziggy could pick me up after school.
Which is when I’d really be needing the weed and vodka anyway.
On the way in, Dad tried to get me to relax, asking me about my classes and telling me not to be nervous, as if that would actually help. “Gee thanks, Dad, I’d never thought of that before….”
I’d call him Captain Obvious, but that would be too obvious. Even for me.
I nodded enough (smile and nod, smile and nod) and made enough interested noises to make him think I was listening, but mostly I was staring straight ahead, attempting to get out of my own head, and trying not to be nervous.
It wasn’t working.
It would be my first time seeing all these people since June, the first time since it happened, the very first time since the fact that I’m gay became common knowledge, and the first time since Nate was killed.
But I went in anyway. What else could I do?
I stopped, well, froze actually, the moment I went through the door.
On the surface it seemed the same as last year: the usual excited voices of the freshmen, the older students yelling greetings at one another, the boys broing out big-time, the girls watching the boys broing out and whispering and giggling to one another.
It smelled the same. It looked the same. It felt the same.
It was the same.
But with one major difference. While my first three years there I’d been pretty much invisible, that was no longer the case.
My own cloak of invisibility was no longer there.
Because of what happened that night, people were looking over at me, then pretending not to and quickly turning away. Or they weren’t bothering to pretend and were blatantly staring and gawking at me like I had escaped from a freak show—like I was standing there still bleeding out or something. Or like they’d seen a ghost.
Maybe they had.
Maybe I was.
Maybe I am.
It got quiet. Really quiet.
It was awful. Really awful.
A couple of the guys from the soccer team who I’d kind of been friends with for years—well, team friends, anyway—came by to say “hi.” Or to just nod and give me the look that friends give to one another to show that they’re cool without actually having to say it.
Some of the girls made their way over to give me a hug. Or waved at me. Or looked at me not knowing what to say but clearly wanting to say something.
But other than that, it was silence and giggles and staring and pointing.
It was understandable why.
I’d been outed in the most public way possible. I’d been to a gay club. I’d been shot in what was the biggest local news story of the summer. And my best friend, who I know they all thought had been my boyfriend, had been shot dead.
Oh, Nate.
I need you here. Why aren’t you here?
Why am I here?
I stood there unable to move, frozen in time and space, not knowing what I was supposed to do. Or even knowing what I should do next.
It felt like I was onstage in a play and everybody was waiting for me to say something, to say anything. But I didn’t know my lines. Or I’d never been given my lines. And nobody was giving me my cue.
The school principal, Ms. Hernandez, seeing me standing there frozen like a deer in the proverbial headlights, came to my rescue.
“Collin, it’s good to see you. Would it be okay if we had a chat before your first class?”
And so with her hand on my back pulling me inside her principal’s protective force field—everyone else suddenly got even more quiet—she walked with me to her office and asked me to take a seat.
She gazed at me silently, looking at my face and eyes and trying, I think, to figure out what my mood was like and where my head was at.
I wished I knew. I wished I could tell her.
After a minute that seemed a lot longer than that, she quietly said, “Collin, I’m sorry about all that out there. I should have been at the door, waiting to greet you, although maybe that would have made it just worse, I don’t know. But I’m glad to see you and glad you’re here and back at Eisenhower.
“I’ll be honest with you; I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you that night, or what it’s like for you now. And I’m not going to ask you if you’re okay because I know there is no way that you can be. Not yet, anyway. But how are you getting by? Do you have anyone you can talk to?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” I said. “Best I can do for now.”
She gave me a look that was half smile, half something else.
“There’s something I want to tell you, Collin. Friday’s assembly is going to be in honor of Nate. His parents will be here, and it seems likely that there will be local TV newspeople here for it as well.
“I have to ask you, and I promise you, Collin,” she said, raising her hand, “before you even say a word, that you’re under no obligation to do anything you don’t want to do, and that you’re not ready to do. But would you be able to say a few words about Nate?”
I tried to hold myself together, to not burst into tears or start screaming or agree to do what I knew I should do, but there was no way.
And Ms. Hernandez knew it.
“It’s okay, as I said, you’re under no obligation, although I did want to ask and give you the opportunity. But let me ask if you’d at least be willing to sit on the stage with Nate’s parents and just stand up when your name is mentioned?”
I was freaking out so badly that I couldn’t even say no, but I think the look on my face told her all she needed to know.
“It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to speak, and you don’t have to be on the stage. Done. Can you do this one thing for me, though? Do you think you can be in the audience? I think it would be good for you and maybe provide some kind of closure. I mean, you weren’t able to go to his funeral, right?”
I flinched at that like she’d slapped me across the face. She’d been doing so well. I couldn’t believe she had asked me that. She knew I wasn’t there, that I couldn’t be there. Did she have a clue as to how much not being at Nate’s funeral was hurting me? How could she say that?
“And, to be honest,” she added, “I think it will be good for the other students to have you there as well.
“Can you do that for m
e, Collin?”
As much as I wanted nothing to do with it, she had me. I had to do it. For Nate. Only for Nate. Screw her and Nate’s parents and the other students and everything and everybody else.
Though there was part of me that wanted to hear what Nate’s parents were going to say. I hadn’t spoken to them or even seen them since before it happened. And while Ziggy hadn’t actually said it out loud, he hinted around and made it clear that I was as much on their shit list as he was.
Probably even more so.
So along with all the other things giving me nightmares day and night, waking and sleeping, I now had this assembly to worry about as well.
Deep down I think I knew what was going to happen. And what I was going to hear. I knew what his mom was like. And how she felt about me even before this happened.
But I went anyway.
For Nate. I’d be there for Nate.
And just maybe in some weird way to finally get the punishment I thought I deserved.
Chapter Ten
WHEN I walked (so to speak) into the auditorium, I was one of the first ones there. On purpose. I took a seat in the middle of a row around halfway back, slid my crutches under my seat, and hoped I would be noticed as little as possible.
It turns out that was a big mistake all the way around.
A huge miscalculation on my part.
The stage was getting crowded: Nate’s parents, Michael and Susan, and his sister, Kristen, were front and center, alongside some minister who I thought might have been the minister at Mrs. Jonson’s church, a couple of reporters with cameras, Ms. Hernandez, some guy I was pretty sure was the school superintendent, a couple of policemen, and a few others, although I had no idea who they were.
When everyone was in and as settled down as they were ever going to be, Ms. Hernandez tapped a couple of times on the mic to get everyone’s attention and thanked us all for coming. After the usual welcome back for the year let’s make it a great year study hard support our teams, rah, rah, rah, blah, blah, blah stuff… she put on her serious face and started.
What Happens After Page 4