by AnonYMous
“Pastor Colbert saw it?”
“Oh yes, my little fruity football star. He called us. The pastor called us. His daughter woke up to a text message with the video on her phone.” Dad pounded both fists against the dining room table, making the laptop bounce.
“Amy?” It dawned on me that this meant Monica had seen it. Monica. What was I going to tell her?
“Boyd!” Mom stood and grabbed both my cheeks in her hands. They were cold like ice against my skin. “Pastor Colbert said there is a good counselor we can take you to who can help you not be confused.”
I stepped away. “I’m not . . . confused.”
“Oh, so you know you’re a homo? How can you kiss that little fag like that? I keep watching this video, and—”
“Stop it!” Tracy stood up and screamed at Dad. Her eyes were as red as her face from tears and frustration. “Just shut up! You’re so mean. Jon is nice. And stop yelling at everyone.” She ran out of the room. I followed her, slowly climbing the stairs.
“Don’t think this is the end, buddy!” Dad yelled after me. “This is just the beginning. No fags allowed in this house. You think the coach at USC is gonna keep you on after this little stunt? You’ll turn it around or I’ll turn you around. I’ll ship you off to military school for your last semester—”
There was a lot more, but I don’t remember what it was. When I got into my room, I sat on the bed and saw everything like it was the first time. Has the area rug on the wood floor in my room always been tiny stripes of orange, red, blue, and green? How did it get there? I’d never noticed how many books there are on the shelves over my dresser. Did I read all those books? How did that happen?
How did any of this happen?
Tyler. Jon. That’s how this happened. I turned on my phone. As I waited for it to power on, I pulled this journal out of my bag and tossed it onto the bed. I looked up and saw Tracy standing in the doorway.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“A journal,” I said.
“You write in it?”
I nodded.
“What do you write?”
I stared at her for a second. She waited. “Whatever I want,” I said. “I write about who I really am.”
Slowly, she walked over and sat down on the bed next to me. She reached over and slid her hand into mine. We sat there for what seemed like a long time. When the phone rang downstairs, I jumped a little. Tracy stood up and kissed my cheek, then walked into the hallway and stood at the top of the stairs. We could hear Mom’s voice downstairs.
“Hello? . . . Oh yes . . . Mrs. Statley, no, I do not wish to discuss this with you. . . . No. No, I do not. . . . That is not my problem. Your son is sick. He has influenced our boy in his sin, and he needs to ask God for help and get his heart right with the Lord. . . . No, I will—No . . . You keep your boy away from my son.”
The tears were streaming down my face again by the time she hung up the phone. I turned around and walked back into my room.
Sometimes the only thing left to do is cry.
And write it all down.
My phone keeps jumping and buzzing. There are almost twenty-seven text messages from a lot of random people. They’re all about the video. Some of them are calling me a variety of names:
Fag
Fairy
Homo
Fudge packer
Cocksucker
Queer
Sissy
Several are from numbers I don’t recognize congratulating me on “coming out.” I have three voice mails from numbers I don’t recognize.
I don’t have a single text or call from Tyler. Or Monica.
I just got one from Jon:
Please. I can’t do this without you. I love you.
And Monica just pulled up in the driveway.
Later . . .
She was actually nice about it. I was half expecting her to slap me when I stepped out on the porch. Dad’s truck was gone when I got outside. I’m sure he’s at the Deadwood Lounge, drinking beers and trying to forget that he has a fag for a son. Monica saw me staring at the empty space where Dad usually parks his truck.
“I’ll bet he wasn’t happy about this at all,” she said.
I sat down on the top porch stair. “Nope.” She sat down next to me. We stared out at the trees for a while. It was quiet. Our neighborhood is strangely silent during the days. Big homes, huge trees, everybody at work. Green and ghostly.
“I think I sort of knew.” When Monica spoke, I’d forgotten she was there somehow.
“Knew what?” I asked.
“That you were . . . with Jon.”
“I’m not with Jon.”
When I heard her sniff, I looked over at her and there were tears rolling down her cheeks. She quickly tried to wipe them away.
“I’m not crying because I’m upset with you,” she said. “I mean, I wish you would have just told me, but I feel so bad for you and Jon. It’s just . . . here . . . I mean . . . it’s so . . . hard.”
“There is no ‘me and Jon.’ ” As I said it, I felt something twist inside of me, a sharp pain in my chest. My voice sounded like a stranger’s, cold and hard around the edges.
Monica wiped her face again and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Then that’s gonna be even harder,” she said. She stood up.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Home.” She smiled at me, the smile that I’d loved so much on the dance floor at homecoming two nights ago.
Suddenly the tears were in my eyes again. “I’m sorry,” I choked out. “I’m so sorry, Monica.”
“You know, there was always some part of you that I knew I couldn’t have,” she said. “I’m disappointed about this—don’t get me wrong—but it feels good to know that there wasn’t something I was doing wrong.”
I stood up and followed her over to her car. She opened the door, then turned around and gave me a big hug and reached up on her tiptoes to kiss me softly on the mouth. “Don’t keep that part to yourself for too long,” she said. “You won’t be happy until you give it away.”
After her taillights rounded the corner, I stood in the driveway for a long time and cried.
Tuesday, November 13
English—First Period
I cannot live like this. I had to walk through cameras and microphones this morning to even get into the building today. Fucking Tyler was standing inside at our lockers, and when I walked up, he yelled, “Hey, dude. Heard you’re switching sports from football to baseball. You catching or pitching these days?”
I almost slammed him up against the locker, but the whole reason I’m even at school today is so that I can play in the semifinals this weekend. If I don’t play, I could lose my scholarship. And I will not let Tyler take that away from me.
When the alarm went off this morning, I woke up like somebody had fired a gun. For a second, before I remembered what was going on, I felt okay. Then it all fell on me like a ton of bricks. I rolled back over in bed and decided I just wouldn’t go back to school today, but Dad threw open the door, like, two minutes later.
“Get your ass up,” he barked. “You’re not hiding out in your room. If you miss practice, Coach won’t let you play this week.”
I sat up and swung my legs down so my feet hit the floor.
“You’ll be lucky if he lets you play at all. Now, I’ve been thinking about this. You need to tell everybody that it was just a joke. That you guys were just fooling around. Or maybe drunk. Whatever you think will make more sense . . .”
He was still talking when I closed the bathroom door and turned on the shower.
The principal made the news teams stay fifty feet away from the school entrance, but when they saw me park, they rushed over and swung the cameras and mics into my face. I had to battle my way through these guys in blazers and too much makeup until I got within fifty feet, and one of the school security guards told them to back off. They shouted questions at me all the way through th
e front doors.
After I successfully didn’t pound Tyler into the floor at our lockers, I walked toward the English room, and Mrs. Harrison met me at the door. She pulled me over into the alcove by the stairs and gave me a big hug.
“This will be okay,” she whispered.
I felt like I was going to throw up again. “No, it won’t,” I said quietly.
“You look at me.” She took my face in her hands. “I have had you in class for four years. You have never backed down from a challenge yet. I’m not saying it won’t be hard, but you can do it.”
I nodded, but I don’t feel her resolve. I feel numb. I can’t believe this is my life.
Jon just walked in the door. He’s five minutes late, and he looks like he hasn’t slept at all. I’m sure he wasn’t in the pool this morning. He just handed Mrs. Harrison his hall pass and sat down. I can feel him looking at me, and I can’t look. My eyes are welling up again, and I can’t
Later . . .
I’m at home now.
And I’m fucked.
When I was writing in English class and Jon walked in, Tyler fake coughed “faggot,” and the whole class burst out laughing. Something inside me wouldn’t let that go. I stood up and turned around and grabbed Tyler by the shirt. I heard the fabric tear as I picked him up and hurled him onto the floor. His right knee hit the desk as I did, and he screamed like I’d stabbed him.
I wish I had. I wish I’d kicked him in the teeth and just kept kicking him until he could never scream again.
I got sent to the principal’s office. He suspended me for fighting for the rest of the day and tomorrow. I can’t play in the playoffs this weekend.
Tyler is ruining my life. Where does this end? When does it get better? How does it get better? This feels like the most hopeless thing ever. I hate myself for ever even thinking about my secret, much less writing it down in this stupid-ass journal. How can I make all this stop?
I just want it to end, but I know that it won’t.
Later . . .
Mom just had to pry Dad off of me. I think he just gave me a black eye. We were watching the news to see what the cameras got this morning. Dad was on his fourth beer since getting home.
Roger Jackson’s profile of me is supposed to come out in the Gazette tomorrow, and Channel 7 had him on tonight. They played a clip from the video—the one where my face rolls toward the camera—and interviewed him about me. He told them that I’d be missing the first game of the playoffs this week. As the anchors were asking him all these questions about the future of “gays in high school athletics,” they played another clip of the video with Jon pulling me in for a kiss. Dad yelled and stood up and threw his beer can at me. It hit me in the chest, and then he jumped on top of me and slapped me so hard, my nose started to bleed.
Tracy screamed and ran upstairs. My mom had to pull my dad’s hair to get him off me for a second. I ran up here to my room.
I can’t believe that they showed that clip on the news. I am so fucked. I can’t stop crying, and I know why Dad is so upset. I deserve it. I can’t stop myself. Even after all this, I just want to see Jon again. I must be sick. I must be totally screwed up. But the only thing that will make this better is seeing him again.
Jon just texted me back. He wants me to meet him by the walking bridge.
Later . . .
I just got back from seeing Jon. I’m so confused. I don’t know what to do.
When Jon saw me, I looked awful. My nose was still bleeding and my eye was turning purple and really swollen from where Dad hit me. He took one look at me and started to cry.
“Oh my God, are you okay?”
I just shrugged.
“Did your dad do that to you?” he asked. “My parents said you can come stay at our place if you need to.”
I started crying again when he said that. Just being around him made my heart race, and I was sick of it. I was sick of all this bullshit. This had been a mistake. I shouldn’t have come. There was no way I could be this. Even if it is who I really am, I’ve covered it up for this long. I can get used to covering it up for the rest of my life. I decided I just needed to get away from Jon.
I turned around to leave.
“Hey! Where are you going?”
I stopped. “I can’t do this,” I said.
Jon came up to me and tried to kiss me. I pushed him away. I pushed him hard. He stumbled backward and almost fell.
“You’re such a selfish dick.” I had never heard him speak like that. He marched up to me and pushed me back. “You think you’re the only one suffering here, you asshole? You’re not. After you pulled that little stunt with our boy Tyler this morning, what do you think happened to me?”
He ripped off his jacket and pulled the neck of his sweater over and down on his shoulder. It was covered in deep purple blotches. “How many times do you think Tyler pushed me into the locker today? And how many times do you think he listened when Mrs. Harrison told him to stop?”
The tears were streaming down my chin, mixing with the blood still caked under my nose. I could taste the salt on my lips and ran the sleeve of my hoodie across my mouth.
“I went to the principal and told him I wanted to start a Gay-Straight Alliance,” Jon said.
I walked over and took a seat at the picnic tables by the parking lot and stared out at the lights of the bridge.
“It won’t make a difference,” I said quietly.
“Maybe not to you.”
The way he said those words stung like I’d been smacked in the face again, and I laid my head down on the stone table in front of me and let the tears take over. I felt Jon put his hand on my back slowly, tentatively. I remembered that day in the hallway when we stared at the cast list on the wall. I remembered how I’d felt that with Jon next to me, I’d never fall down.
“Please,” Jon begged. “Come back to school and come out. Be the first out, gay, high school quarterback this place has ever seen. I don’t want to do this without you. I love you.”
I sat up and looked at him. He didn’t understand. He’d never understand. This wasn’t the way my life was supposed to go. Why couldn’t I have what we had without having to be some big role model? Without having to tell the whole world about it? Why couldn’t it just be him and me in private?
I shook my head slowly. “I’m not your boyfriend, Jon. I never was.”
Jon flinched like he’d been stung by a wasp. Then he smiled sadly, wrapped both arms around me, and kissed me on the cheek. “Were you ever my friend?”
The pain in my chest shot through me like an arrow. I laid my head on his broad, bruised shoulder and cried. “I love you, Jon,” I said. “I just don’t know how to do this.”
“I know,” he said.
We sat like that for a long time. Finally he said, “I have to go. Will you be okay at your place tonight?”
I nodded. He kissed me good-bye, and I watched him get into his Jeep and drive away.
Wednesday, November 14
I’m back down by the river at that same picnic table. I’ve been working my ass off all morning. Dad woke me up before he left to meet his crew this morning at five a.m.
“Get up. You’re not gonna lie around and write in that journal all day like some pansy,” he spat. “I’ve got a whole lot of shit that needs doing around here.”
I spent the morning raking leaves and cleaning gutters. I trimmed the hedges and hauled all the scrap lumber Dad wanted to get rid of from the garage to the curb, then swept out the whole garage. It was good to have projects to keep my mind off Jon and my dad and this whole damn mess.
I grabbed a bottle of Jack out of Dad’s stash in the garage and brought it down here with me. It feels good to be buzzed, to turn off my brain—or at least try to. I can’t really, though. I keep having the same thoughts over and over:
You’re the one who started this. You’re the only one who can make it stop.
I’ve been thinking about this all morning, and there’s no good way
that this ends. There’s no out for me here. Even if USC still wants me to come and doesn’t cancel my scholarship, everywhere I go, I’ll be the punch line of the joke. The gay quarterback who got outed on the Internet. I don’t think there’s a way to ever put the gay rumors to rest. I hate that.
The thing I hate more is that they aren’t rumors. I’m just a royal fuckup. Mom says that God made one man for one woman for life—and that anything else is an abomination. She says that it’s Satan tempting me to do stuff with Jon. I tried to explain to her that it’s not “unnatural” or “perverted”—at least it doesn’t feel that way when we’re doing it. It feels like the most natural thing ever. But she says that’s just the devil tempting me and that we have to pray harder that I’ll be delivered from this homosexual temptation. Last night she cried and told me that it would be easier to go to my funeral than to have me be gay.
That made me cry really hard, and I don’t know how to make this better. All I know is what I keep hearing in my head:
You’re the one who started this. You’re the only one who can make it stop.
Shit. I have to get back up to the house. Dad’s going to be home soon.
Later . . .
I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be strong like Jon. I envy him. Maybe it’s because he’s been through this before.
I don’t know what I’m going to do.
I don’t know how it all fell apart so fast.
I walked back up to the house from the river today and was in the kitchen filling up Dad’s bottle of Jack with a little water so he wouldn’t know I drank it. As I put it back in the garage, I heard a car park out front. It was Brent, Monica’s uncle.
He got out of his car as I stepped out onto the porch. He smiled and waved to me. “Hey, man. Nice shiner.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked. I was scared my dad would come home and see Brent.
“Just thought I’d stop by. Monica is worried about you. Saw the story on the news last night.” He shrugged. “Dunno, just thought you might wanna talk.”