by Rhett Heath
“That’d be awesome, Jate, and I’ll never think you’re a dork. I’ll write you one, too, and tell you all the other reasons why I’m into you. Oh, and hey. Put it in my football locker, it’ll be safer that way. People won’t see you.”
I nodded.
“Here,” he said, getting back into his truck, reaching for a pen sticking out from the ashtray, “let me see your hand.”
I stuck out my hand and he wrote three numbers. “This is the combination to the lock.”
I looked at it as a lump came to my throat.
“I love you, Jate,” he said.
“I love you too.”
Then he shut his door, put the truck in gear, and slowly pulled away.
I was only four blocks to my house, and I was so, so happy that I sang all the way home! It was pretty loud, but not loud enough for people to hear. It was a song from a musical called Bye Bye Birdie! that they’d done at the school a few years back. Substituting the name, I sang:
I love you, Bobby! Oh, yes I do.
I love you, Bobby, and I’ll be true.
When you’re not near me, I’m blue.
Oh, Bobby! I love you!
When I was settled in my bed with my notebook and pencil, I took a few minutes and contemplated what this all meant. What it meant for my future.
For one thing, I was definitely going to hell as thoughts of my Christian upbringing bored into my skull. I was pretty sure Bobby wasn’t worried about a god that would smite him; he swore too much to be too Christian—if he even was. Would he go to hell if he didn’t know about or believe anything about Christianity? Could I stop believing?
Yes. I could.
I began my letter to him—listing all the things I loved about him. It was sort of a poem.
Chapter Six
Bobby
ARE YOU shitting me? Are you shitting me? A jillion emotions swirling, I was the happiest I had ever been. I’d never been more excited. I had a boyfriend! And, though I could tell no one, I could still tell myself. Could I possibly tell my mom? My dad? This sucked, but was awesome!
Before I’d gotten halfway home, I pulled the truck over, opened the door, finagled my crutches, and got out.
“I have a motherfucking, buttfucking boyfriend!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. “Are you fucking shitting me? Here I am, a stupid, gay loser with a fucked-up knee, and I am on top of the world because I am boyfriends with the greatest guy in the world!”
Snot drained from my nose and pain raced up my leg, but I’d never been happier.
“Aaah! I can’t believe it! I. Can. Not. Believe. It. Oh My God!”
A cold wind hit me, and I laughed. The wind was whipping around.
“Oh, are you happy for me, wind? Are you dancing around me in congratulations? Well, thank you! Thank you so much!” The wind hit me again.
“Oh, so you know him, then? Isn’t he great!” I took in the night and howled at the moon. I imagined that the wind was cheering for us, taking the place of all the people that I wanted to tell, that I should have been able to tell.
I stood there a moment longer, took in a deep breath, then got back in my truck. I didn’t have to announce it to anybody; I had just announced it to the world! This whole experience was such a dream come true for me, I could hardly believe it was happening.
Most of the time it was awesome that my parents weren’t home at night. I was glad, because if they were home and saw me writing something, my mom would wonder what was going on. I got some paper and pencil from my mom’s desk. She was the bookkeeper for all the farm stuff.
I was confident as I wrote, knowing Jate wouldn’t judge me for not being a good speller.
All the things I love about you.
You are sexy, smart, nice to evrybuddy, and funny. Your a great acter and singer probaly the best in the hole town. You all ways dress nice. Your pozativ about evrything, and are all ways smiling. And I rilly like the fact that you love me.
ALL MORNING on Thursday, I couldn’t focus at all during class. I was planning my future with Jate. Teenagers believing we were in love. It was overwhelming, really; in a good way. It was all happening really fast. I had put the letter I had written him in his locker; nobody had seen me.
The morning dragged. I got nothing from any of my classes; what was new? Jate walked past the senior staircase at lunch, and we made eye contact; my heart leapt with just that glance. Just before fifth period at the end of lunch, I was able to check my football locker, as it was on the way to my history classroom, and underneath some workout clothes, there it was. I died. When had he slipped the note in? At lunch? Before? Had he gotten mine? My body topped out with adrenaline, my heart rate raced out of control.
I slipped it in my history book and headed off to history. Generally, I loved history because the teacher was so hot, but today, I loved it because of Jate’s letter. In the back row, I opened the sheet of paper.
From shallow to deep.
I marvel at your Massive. Mountainous. Muscles.
I want your strong, rough hands to never stop touching me.
Your smoother-than-silky-soft skin makes me utter guttural noises (and you know it).
You’ve a perfect head of hair and… perfect “other” hair.
I enjoy your mouth and all its perfect parts:
(pearly white teeth, probing tongue, pressing lips, perfect smile)
Your piercing, bright liquid-brown eyes light up a room—
Clever, funny quick thinker, the way your mind works and thinks is really—like magic;
uh, so your mind is magical!
You’ve the biggest heart of any guy I know, and I’m so glad it’s mine.
Jate was so good at describing things. It’s even easy to believe what he’s saying. Seeing me through his eyes is sort of cool. Is that what everybody’s really thinking?
I couldn’t get over it.
In English class, my teacher introduced Romeo and Juliet to the class by handing us all a copy of the script; it had Shakespeare’s words on each left-hand page and the modern English on each facing page. She said it’d be easy to understand, even for us. I didn’t even care that she was, again, implying that we were all stupid.
She summarized the storyline and it sounded pretty good. She mentioned how young Romeo and Juliet were, how madly in love they were, and how they would marry and kill themselves all within less than a week’s time.
I was in “dumb English,” which was a class for juniors and seniors but comparable to Freshman English. The way my teacher described Romeo and Juliet, I decided that it’d be stupid. It was supposed to be a tragedy because they kill themselves, but it was ridiculous because they were both our ages. Would Jate and I ever run away together to San Francisco or somewhere, just to be together? Maybe. Would we kill ourselves if we couldn’t? No.
Bryce killed himself probably because he was so lonely and miserable being gay. We were far from lonely and miserable.
Anyway, I then sat through “dumb math,” then school got out, and I headed to the training room, making good time on my crutches. Jate walked ahead of me; I raced to catch up, then sidled up beside my boyfriend! I whispered, just loud enough for him to hear, “Hey, fag, want some of this?”
“Absolutely!” he whispered back, a big, goofy-for-sure grin spreading across his face as he nudged me with his hip.
“How’s your knee?”
“It’s fine. The painkillers work great! I missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
Having him walking beside me, I could feel a buzz of happy energy. “I hated seeing you at lunch, not being able to say or do anything. Just walking with you feels so good.”
“Same. Oh, and thank you so much for your letter. I love it.”
“Could you even read it? My handwriting sucks, and I can’t spell. Your letter was amazing!”
“Yours was so amazing,” he said, not seeming to care about my writing skills. “Your feelings were obvious. You love me! It’s awesome! I
wish all of what you said was really true; it is easier to believe because you wrote it!”
“Good!” I said. “Even if you don’t believe it, it’s true. Just like I’m going to believe what you wrote to me.”
“Good. And I hope we’re alone again today. I just want to be alone with you, and just talk and just be together. It doesn’t even matter to me if we always do sexual stuff, you know?”
“Yes! I love it, too, but just being with you is enough for me. It’s like I can just relax.”
“That’s exactly it for me too. I mean, I love your cock and your perfect body, but it’s just like we’ve got to…. It would be so much easier if I was a junior or senior so we could just hang out, like, as friends.”
“I’ve been thinking about that and I have an idea.”
We got to a side door of the gym. He opened the door for me and I hobbled through. We stopped the conversation, not knowing if there was going to be anybody around. Some seventh graders walking down the hallway passed us, and Coach Lafferty’s substitute was just locking the door to the coach’s office.
“Oh, yeah,” she said, after she saw us, “Coach Lafferty wrote a note saying you’d be coming in, Bobby. The training room is open.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Wright,” I said, smiling.
“How’s your knee?” she asked. “Will you be able to play next week?”
“Afraid not.” I felt suddenly shy. “But hopefully the following week.”
Jate had gone ahead into the training room to turn on the water, I guessed. Mrs. Wright said nothing, so I presumed she knew he was a manager and was helping me. She had no idea, though, that I was homosexual and that we were a couple. That was hot; we were a couple!
“Well, I’ll be praying for you.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it.”
She walked away as I went into the training room, closing the door behind me. A moment later we heard the outer door close.
“She was totally infatuated by you,” he teased, his voice raised above the sound of the water hitting the metal tub, as he measured and dumped salt into the tub near the water spout.
“No, she wasn’t!” I leaned up against the training table and peeled off my shirt.
“She so was! Just like everybody!”
“Oh my God, you think everybody loves me.” I kicked off my boots.
“Okay. They may not love you, but we all gawk at you, just like she did, because we can’t look away because your face is so stunning.” He came over. He kissed me.
“But she’s a married, substitute teacher,” I argued as he squatted to help me off with my socks.
“So? She still has eyes!” he said, carefully pulling off my pants.
“Is this going to be our first fight?”
He smiled. “If it’ll lead to make-up sex, then yes! Any sex will actually do.”
We both started laughing as we got my pants completely off.
Before standing and setting my pants aside, he licked my dick. “I think it’s so hot that you don’t wear underwear.”
There I was, naked. Jate was fully clothed. “I’ve never had sex, except what we’ve done together. I’ve only made out with three girls and hated it.”
“Ew,” he squeaked. “Vagina.”
I snickered at the expression on his face and pretended to gag at the thought of a vagina. He laughed. Then I made an exaggerated face as to look so disgusted by having to even be near a vagina, and he fell to the floor, snorting as he tried to catch his breath.
He moaned, trying to sound like he was having sex. But he couldn’t stop laughing, so it came out all wrong. I crumpled to the floor, he was hysterical.
I tried to pretend to be aftergasming, and he let out a howl. Tears were streaming down both our faces. I couldn’t even breathe, which made it even funnier.
“Stop!” he cried in between breaths. “Stop. I’m laughing because you are. And because you’re so funny! That’s another reason I love you! Wait. No, I put that in the letter.”
It took a minute to calm down.
“Oh my heck! That was fun,” he finally said, sighing and standing.
“I was so horny ten minutes ago, but now, I’m just content.” I panted quietly, also getting up, balancing on my good leg. “It’s just so nice to feel normal and talk normal and be able to be myself.”
I looked over; he followed my gaze. The water of the whirlpool edged close to overflowing; he rushed over and shut it off.
“Shoot!” he cursed, as I hopped over to the tub. “Should we drain some out?”
“No, it’ll be fine.” I grabbed hold of the sides and used my upper body to lift myself up and in.
Once I was sitting, the water was already too high.
“The jets.”
“Yep.”
If we turned on the whirlpool jets, the water would run over.
I yanked the plug with my toes. After letting the water drain a few inches, I replugged it at what seemed like a good level. While that was happening, he had started a batch of towels. He returned and turned the jets back on and the water began whirling. There were no clean towels for him to fold, so for a moment it got a little awkward.
“Blowjob?” I offered. It was weird that the mood didn’t seem right.
He looked at me. “Can I ask you a question first?”
I sensed some concern in his voice and put my hand on his shoulder. “Ask me anything.”
“What’s going to happen after you graduate and I’m still only a sophomore?”
“I won’t be going to college; I’ll be staying home,” I said, matter-of-factly. “So we can still be together, if you’ll still like me.”
“What?” he asked, surprised. “You’ll get a football scholarship. You’re a team captain.”
“Jate, I’d still have to take actual classes while I’m at college, and I hate school,” I told him. “I can’t read worth shit and I suck at math. I’ll just keep working on my dad’s farm and eventually take it over.”
I hadn’t wanted to get into this, but I truly felt safe talking about it.
“I get along well enough to not be in actual Special Ed,” I continued, “but I generally cheat however I can to just pass. And all of my classes are low-level classes.”
“I’m sorry you’re not good at reading. That’d suck. I love to read.”
I laughed. “Maybe you can read a book to me sometime.”
“I’d love that!”
“Really?”
“Yes! Oh my heck, there are so many books you’d like. We could actually read together, you following along as I read aloud. It could help you with your reading; I learned that in a book!”
“Really? I’d try it, if you really would want to, and if you think it’d help.”
“Are you kidding me? I would want to read to you even if it never helped; especially if we stopped to make out after every chapter! Oh, and I have just the book to start with too!”
“Maybe,” I said, smiling, “over the next three years, if we were constantly doing it, maybe by the time you graduated, I’d be good enough at reading that we could go to college together. If you’re not sick of me by then.”
“By then you’ll be sick of me!”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Couldn’t you be a walk-on, wherever we go to school? Even in three years?” he asked.
“I maybe could, but nobody from this Podunk school has gone on to play college football since that guy played for the Cornhuskers the years they won those two championships in a row. Nebraska always selects the best of the best. I’d probably not have a chance.”
“You’d totally make it. Hey,” he asked, “I’m changing the subject, but what was your idea for us to just be able to hang out together without anybody thinking it’s weird that I’m a freshman and you’re a senior? Because I just figured out a way!”
“Oh yeah, tell me yours first, though.”
“You could tell your mom and dad that you’re having to get a tutor. I can te
ll my mom and dad that because you’re in basic math and basic reading—which is a freshman level of both—they’re having me, a freshman, tutor you.”
“I hate that it’s called ‘basic’ math and ‘basic’ reading; everybody in there’s just not dumb enough to be in Special Ed, so they call our classes ‘basic.’ I know that everybody calls it ‘dumb’ English and ‘dumb’ math, but I love that you didn’t call it that. And, I think your idea would actually work.”
“Do you think?”
“Why else, in their minds, would a senior—” I caught his arm, excited. “Wait! I could probably talk to both our English teachers and tell them I was talking to you in here as you were helping me with my knee, and maybe if I brought it up just right, they may suggest it, and everybody would think it’s their idea that you tutor me! You said everybody loves me,” I said, excited, “this could totally work!”
“Let’s figure it out!” he coaxed, leaning in for a kiss. Jate brought over a chair, took off his shirt, sat down, and wrapped his arms around me, draping them down my chest and into the water. “I just want to sort of hold you,” he said, kissing my cheek.
“I love it,” I whispered. “Oh, we just started Romeo and Juliet today. Can you help me with that?”
“Oh my heck, yes! My class started it last week, so we’re a bit ahead. But that’ll be good because I’ll know what’s going on and will be able to help you better.”
“Awesome!”
“It’s actually pretty good.”
“I’ll like it because you’ll be helping me read it!” Thinking earlier that it would be stupid.
“Okay, now tell me your idea,” Jate encouraged.
“Oh yah, how well do you know Allie?” I asked.
“We’re pretty close. She and I have been in four plays together, and in all but Mr. Scrooge, we’ve been cast as the love interests, so we have spent a lot of time together.”
“So, you’re really good friends.”