by Anna Martin
It was like Tumblr and his blog had opened up a whole other world of people who were also hiding behind a mask of Internet anonymity. For the past few years, Caleb’s parents had monitored his Internet usage, restricting him to using it for homework or assignments or research for his photography projects, although he had to ask permission for that. He’d never thought of their actions as particularly strict. It seemed reasonable that they didn’t want him wasting his life online.
Now that he’d turned eighteen, his father had lifted those restrictions. Caleb had still asked if it was okay for him to start a blog for his photography. His dad had been curious at first, asking why Caleb even wanted to do that. Caleb told him to think of it like an online portfolio that would help with his college applications—this was what Mr. Andrews had told him. When he’d dropped his photography mentor’s name, and the fact that his mom had encouraged the idea, his dad had agreed.
And with a few clicks, the world opened up.
Curious now, Caleb dedicated himself to clicking back through hundreds of pages of Luc’s blog. It was a huge mishmash of different things. The band pictures, music clips, and song lyrics gave Caleb some idea about Luc’s taste in music, even though that was the one thing he’d never be able to hold a conversation about. There were also pictures from different TV shows and movies—Luc seemed to be into comic book movies, which was good, Caleb was too—and the odd personal post or “selfie” photograph.
From clicking through on some of these photographs, Caleb learned Luc sometimes submitted pictures of himself to other goth/emo blogs. Some of those blogs seemed to be focused on pictures of young, androgynous boys with dyed hair and facial piercings. Luc had a look, and Caleb decided it was quite beautiful.
From those other blogs, Caleb also learned Luc had his belly button pierced. For a while he wasn’t sure what to think about that. Then he decided it was very, very hot.
In the weeks that followed, what had started out as a quick conversation a few times a week soon turned into daily messages, then multiple interactions every day. Caleb didn’t own a phone, so he didn’t have WhatsApp, but he did have an iPad. He set up a notification so every time Luc sent him an Instagram direct message it would pop up on the front screen. It was better than texting. None of his teachers cared when he kept the iPad out during class or looked up something while they were giving a lecture.
He thought of Luc as a friend already, and wondered if they could be more than just friends. He didn’t really have friends in school and only a few at the stupid Deaf Youth group his mom forced him to go to. The thought of finding someone who was just his—not a person he’d been introduced to by his parents—was a strange sort of thrill.
“Caleb?”
His mother tapped his arm for his attention and signed his name in their “home sign,” a shorthand of sign language they used within the family. He was distracted from dinner, still thinking about the conversation he’d been having with Luc on and off all day. Luc had been teasing him in a friendly, familiar way about the fact that Caleb preferred Captain America to Iron Man. Luc said he related most to Loki, the dark, outcast youngest brother. Caleb wanted to know more about what that meant, but he didn’t want to push.
Caleb nodded to his mom.
“Are you okay? You’re… distracted.”
“I’m fine,” he signed back. “Tired.”
He hoped she would leave it at that, let him finish his mashed potatoes in peace so he could get back upstairs and maybe talk to Luc some more before going to bed.
Luc wasn’t online that night, or if he was, he was hiding. That was one of Caleb’s favorite things about being on an Internet forum—he could be present and interactive if he wanted or just sit back and watch the conversations if he didn’t. So he couldn’t exactly blame Luc for wanting a night off. It was still a little disappointing.
Even though he’d been the one to send the last message, Caleb sent another, a good-night message, before he turned his lights out and rolled over in bed, hugging a pillow to his chest as was his habit.
In the dark, he wondered how Luc liked to sleep.
His parents noticed the change in him, Caleb was sure of that, but he didn’t tell them about Luc. It was the first time he’d specifically kept something from them, something important. They didn’t know he was gay. Caleb wasn’t even completely sure himself, although the way he felt about Luc was starting to clear things up. It had been there for a long time, this attraction he had to other guys. He had just been unwilling to put a name to it. Luc was open about labeling himself as “pansexual, biromantic, homosexual.” Caleb had been forced to look that up to find out what it meant.
He was close to his parents, closer than most teenagers he guessed. They had taught him about sex and relationships at a young age, making it not a big deal and repeating the lessons when he reached adolescence, letting him know he could ask them if he had any questions. Caleb thought they would probably be okay if, or when, he told them he was attracted to boys rather than girls. For some reason, though, he was wary about asking them about pansexuality.
When Luc had asked, in tactful way, if Caleb was interested in boys too, he had blushed hard and had been very grateful for the computer screen hiding his embarrassment. He’d typed a message back saying he wasn’t sure yet, and Luc had accepted that. Caleb was very aware that if Luc wanted to, he could cut off all communication between them without Caleb even realizing it had been done. That was scary.
Sexuality—an abstract concept at the best of times, was at the forefront of Caleb’s mind for the next few days. He took a stronger interest in his fellow students than normal, watching the handsy couples who pawed each other in the hallways, looking at the girls and boys with interest, wondering if he could guess which of them might be interested in people of their own gender.
The thought that he might not be the only gay kid in school was a strange sort of comfort. After poking around on the Internet, he discovered that some researchers thought up to ten percent of the population might be gay. That made him look harder still. He went to a fairly large high school, so there should be plenty of other kids around who were maybe gay. Or thinking about whether they were gay.
His years of detachment from his peers had left Caleb with terminal difficulties with reading people and understanding them. He could look, and he could compare to what he’d learned from television or movies or things he saw online, but only with real interaction could he learn more about someone’s sexuality. In some ways, that was a comfort. No one was about to look at him and know right away that he fell asleep at night thinking of flat chests and thick penises. There was also a sort of shield that was cast by his disability. He might get picked on for being deaf, but no one was going to tease the deaf kid about being a “fag.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Luc rubbed his eye sockets carefully with his fingertips and sighed. He’d been trying to nap at his desk in their homeroom class over lunch, but it seemed Jay had tracked him down and was interrupting his attempt at sleep.
“I was trying to sleep, you asshole. What do you want?”
Luc sat up and rolled his shoulders. They were stiff and sore from sitting hunched over his laptop all night, and he wanted a massage. He wanted a couple of Tylenol and some Ambien.
Jay slid into one of the desks next to Luc. “I’m worried about you, man. You’re all over the place.”
“I’m fine,” Luc said with a sigh. It didn’t come out very convincing, so he tried again. “I’m fine.”
“Okay,” Jay said with a shrug. He tossed a bag of Doritos at Luc from his backpack. “Eat something. You look like you’re about to pass out.”
While Luc munched on the chips, grateful, Jay caught him up on the group’s plans for the weekend. If possible, Luc tried to avoid Manhattan on Saturdays, especially when the weather was good. He didn’t like the crush of people or the lost tourists or the way people wearing cashmere sweaters and pearl earrings looke
d at him as though he were scum of the fucking earth for wearing torn-up black clothes. Though those looks mainly came from his mother’s friends.
“So, you in?”
“Sure,” Luc said. Anything other than acceptance would be immediately shot down, so he’d agree now and bail later, if he decided against trying to get to Central Park at 3:00 p.m. on a sunny day. Fuck that.
“Luc?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you dating someone?”
“What?” Luc choked on the word. “No.”
“Fucking someone?”
“I wish.”
That was the right response. Jay snorted and kicked his feet up on the desk in front. “That could be easily arranged, you know.”
“I’m not sticking my dick anywhere if I’m not absolutely sure it’s not going to get bitten while in there.”
“Vaginas don’t have teeth, dude.”
“I know that.”
“How about someone sticking their dick in you?”
Luc’s shrug was perfectly nonchalant. “Maybe another day.”
“I was just curious. You’re different at the moment. Moony, like the girls get when someone’s writing them bad poetry and sending dick-pic selfies to them on Snapchat.”
“I am not moony,” Luc said, trying hard to sound offended. He was fairly certain he couldn’t tell Jay about Caleb and had no intention of doing so. Caleb was different from these friends. He wasn’t New York worldly; he was shy and sweet and fragile and innocent. And for some reason, he was interested in talking to Luc.
“Would you tell me? If you were dating someone?”
“Maybe,” Luc said. It was the truth. If he were dating someone—and he wasn’t—and that person was someone other than Caleb, he’d probably tell Jay about it.
“You should probably know,” Jay said, examining his nails and flicking a bit at the chipped polish, “I got sent in here to dig for information. I think Ellery is interested in you.”
“Interested?”
“Interested,” Jay said pointedly. “Like, she wants your boy parts to poke at her girl parts.”
Luc wrinkled his nose. “Shit. I mean, I like her a lot. But she’s not… I mean….”
“Can I have her? If you’re not interested, I mean.”
“She’s not a fucking chew toy, Jay,” Luc snapped. “Leave her alone.”
“Okay, okay. Don’t get your panties all in a twist. I’ll leave her alone. For now.”
Luc was going to protest, he had the perfect snappy, witty comeback right on the tip of his tongue, but the bell rang and startled the thought out of his head. With a weary sigh, he shouldered his backpack and straightened his T-shirt before heading for the door.
“Luc?”
Jay hadn’t moved.
“What?” he asked, not bothering to turn back.
“I don’t believe you, you know. About you not dating anyone.”
“Whatever,” he muttered and stalked out of the room.
That afternoon, when Luc returned home from school, the house wasn’t the cold, empty shell he was used to finding. Instead there was a warm, sweet smell wafting through from the kitchen.
Dumping his bag next to the door, Luc quickly crossed through the rooms until he found his sister at the stove, wiggling her hips to the radio as she filled a big triangular bag with what looked like frosting.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
Ilse looked up and grinned. “Baking,” she said simply.
“I can see that. Why the fuck are you baking?”
She shrugged. “Because it’s fucking fun?”
He watched in a sort of detached fascination as she piped a heavy swirl on top of a dainty cupcake, the skill strangely at odds with the crude language they used around each other. Luc could remember being little and watching Ilse bake, but that was years ago. His sister was the eldest of the three Le Bautillier siblings. She’d been fourteen when Luc was born, a surprise late baby for their mother and the bane of his father’s life. His brother, Johannes, or Jo, mostly, was two years younger than Ilse.
Luc had never been close to his mother. She was a difficult woman, or so everyone said, and Ilse had taken over the job of raising Luc for most of his early years. He’d been devastated when she’d moved into the city for college, then work, setting up her own small publishing company that produced very niche textbooks and reference guides on botany.
These days he was still closer to Ilse than anyone else in his family. She’d inherited their father’s striking dark hair and wore it long, often braided out of her way. Ilse wasn’t a beautiful woman, not delicate and pretty as one might expect a flower expert to be. She was striking, though, all dark eyebrows, haunted eyes, and broad shoulders that were slightly unfeminine. Their father had often cruelly remarked about how his daughter looked like a man and his youngest son looked like a girl. Only Johannes, tall, broad, and handsome like his father, managed to escape René Le Bautillier’s acid tongue.
Children of a French father and German mother, they were raised in New Rochelle, New York, where the family had lived before his father had died and everything had changed. Luc and his siblings had a far more traditional European upbringing than an American one. Despite having never been to Europe and being born and raised in America, Luc felt far more European than American sometimes.
Luc watched as Ilse expertly piped thick chocolate frosting onto each of the next half-dozen cupcakes, then leaned back, pushed her braid over her shoulder, and gave him a look that clearly invited Luc to help himself.
Which he did, enthusiastically.
“Thanks,” he mumbled around a mouthful of chocolate. “’S great.”
He chewed for a minute, idly helping her collect dirty bowls and piling them into the dishwasher so she didn’t nag about him never helping.
“Why are you at home in the middle of the day baking?” Luc asked when the cupcake was gone and the chores complete.
“I gave myself a day off.”
“You never give yourself a day off. You work more than Dad used to.”
Ilse gave him a wry smile. “Maybe that’s why I gave myself a day off.”
Their mother wasn’t home. Luc discovered this as he thumped up to his bedroom, dragging his backpack behind himself and eating another of Ilse’s delicious cupcakes. His mother was rarely at home, so he didn’t think about it much.
With the combination of a sugar high and his peak concentration time colliding, Luc managed to get all his homework finished before Ilse called him down for dinner. She’d ordered takeout again, not that Luc could really blame her. She’d spent all afternoon making sweets.
It was good Thai food, and he couldn’t complain. They sat on the slightly ratty tweed couch in the living room and watched America’s Next Top Model reruns, bitching happily about the skinny girls and their tantrums.
For a while Luc thought they might end up having a night on the sofa together watching bad TV and eating too much like they used to, like before. But when the show was finished Ilse got up and said she was going to go into her home office for a while, and Luc muttered something about apples falling not too far from trees and watched her go.
With a sigh, he collected up their dirty dishes and set them in the dishwasher. It was full, so he turned it on and then stood in the kitchen.
Like the rest of the house—it was Ilse’s house, not their mother’s—it was clean and nice and not at all what you’d expect from a girl of her background. They’d both rebelled in their own way, Luc and Ilse. Luc had become his parents’ worst nightmare. Ilse had become normal.
Her house was a small two-story brownstone in Queens. Their father had paid for it, but Ilse had picked it out over one of the apartments on the Upper East Side that their dad already owned and rented out. She could have lived there in luxury and instead picked a fixer-upper in a not-so-great neighborhood.
The kitchen was tiny, although Ilse had managed to cleverly fit everything into the room that s
he wanted or needed. The tiles were blue glass, over countertops of olive wood. Slate tiles covered the floor, and the sink was huge, copper, and set into one of the counters. There were pots of herbs on the windowsill overlooking a tiny courtyard just big enough for a couple of lounge chairs and more pots of plants.
Whenever Luc turned around in this house, he felt at home. It felt like Ilse, and when he was around Ilse he relaxed, probably more than at any other time.
After checking that the back door was locked and the front door wasn’t dead-bolted, so their mom could get in if she needed to, Luc went upstairs and took a shower, then crawled into his nice, safe, warm bed. He pulled his laptop over and pulled it out of Sleep mode.
Caleb was online.
Luc couldn’t quite put his finger on his melancholy mood, but he knew he wanted to talk to Caleb.
Luc: Hey.
Caleb: Hi! How are you?
Luc: OK. Bit tired.
Caleb: Me too. It’s been a long day.
Luc: Any particular reason?
Caleb: No… not really. I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, and I know they’re going to nag me about wearing my hearing aids.
Luc: You don’t wear them?
Caleb: No. Not if I can help it.
Luc: How come?
Caleb: Because I don’t like them. They don’t really help me hear much more than what I can hear without them. They just fill my head with this buzzing… sort of humming sensation instead. Like my whole head is vibrating.
Luc: That sounds awful :(
Caleb: It’s not great. I’m supposed to wear them, though.
Luc: Caleb? Can I ask you something?
Caleb: Sure.
Luc: It’s sort of a personal question.
Caleb: That’s okay.
Luc: How did you get to be deaf?
Caleb: I have a genetic condition which causes deterioration in my inner ears. I could hear when I was born, though the doctors knew there was something wrong when I was about six months old. By the time I was about five or six, they knew there was a really bad problem, something that they couldn’t fix, and I lost most of my hearing by the time I was 10.