by Dakota Chase
It still pissed me off.
“Yeah, I’m good. She said she kicked Doug out.”
“Great! It’s about time, huh?”
“I guess.” I was still feeling the sting of his cool reception. Mom might have taken a step in the right direction, but as far as I was concerned, Dylan had taken two steps backward.
“Jamie, don’t be mad, okay? You know how it is with me.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m not mad. Well, maybe a little,” I said, being honest. “Look, don’t sweat it, okay? I understand. I have to go.”
Dylan bit his lip, looking like he wanted to say something else. I didn’t want to hear it. Not then. For the first time in a long while, I was seeing a glimmer of light at the end of the dark tunnel I’d been living in, and I didn’t want whatever he had to say to snuff that tiny light out. I couldn’t handle one more thing—not one more. Whatever Dylan had to say could wait until the following day.
“Jamie, it’s just that I’m not like you. I can’t let my folks find out—”
“So all that talk about coming out and prom was just you blowing smoke out of your butt?”
“That’s not fair, Jamie. You were upset. I was trying to make you feel better, you know?”
“Oh. So you lied to me.” That hurt me, a lot. I felt like I’d been sucker-punched. Not that I’d ever thought we’d actually go to the prom together, but it had been nice to think he’d wanted to take me.
“No! It wasn’t like that, Jamie. I just—”
“Whatever. I need to go, Dylan,” I said before he could say anything else, and made my exit. I never looked in his folks’ direction as I stalked down the hallway and out the door.
I had the distinct feeling I’d just broken up with my boyfriend.
THERE WAS a large pile of trash at the curb when I got home, and it had “Doug” written all over it.
Bowling trophies, clothes, shoes, and an assortment of smaller odds and ends had been boxed up and put outside. Mom must have been serious. She’d really cleaned house.
I found her in the kitchen, the table spread with cookies, chips, and a nearly empty pint of Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk. That confirmed it: it was over between her and Doug, and she’d been trying to smother the pain with trans fat. Her eyes were red and puffy, mascara tracks marring her cheeks. The left side of her face looked swollen and discolored.
She jumped up when she spotted me, nearly knocking me off my feet as she threw herself at me. “I’m so sorry, Jamie! I was stupid and selfish and blind not to see what he was doing to you! I’m sorry!”
“Mom, it’s okay,” I said, giving her a hug and leading her to her chair. I touched her chin, tipping her face. “He did this, huh?” I asked, feeling anger roiling again, pushing out the last lingering feelings of self-pity and heartache over the way I’d left things with Dylan. “He hit you?”
“It’s nothing. He’s gone now, Jamie. For good. Forever.”
“He hit you. He hit you.” I couldn’t seem to get past those three words; they echoed over and over in my head. It was much worse than when he’d tried to wallop me with his belt—this was my mom. I no longer wanted him gone. I wanted him dead.
“Listen to me, Jamie,” Mom said, grasping both my wrists. I was surprised at how strong she was. “It ends tonight. We forget all about him, about the crap he put us through, and we move on. Understand? I already called a lawyer and started the divorce ball rolling. It’s over.”
“He. Hit. You.”
“I know, and I’ve already filled out a report with the police. The lawyer asked for a restraining order against him. He won’t be able to come within five hundred feet of me or you. Your dad had friends who are still on the force. They won’t let him near us. Okay?”
“Mom—”
“Please, Jamie? Please? Promise me you’ll stay away from him. Promise me.”
I didn’t want to promise, but she looked so bad, so hurt and brittle, I couldn’t say no. I nodded, and hugged her. “I’ll get you some ice.”
The freezer didn’t have an icemaker, so I slid the ice cube trays out and popped a few cubes into a Ziploc baggie. I handed it to Mom and watched as she held it gingerly to her cheek. “You’re pressing charges, right? You’re not going to let him get away with this, are you?”
“I don’t know. I want it all over with, Jamie. Done and forgotten. I want to start over, you know? If I press charges, everyone will know. I have to go to work, and I don’t want people looking at me, knowing that—”
“Mom!”
“We can talk about it in the morning, okay? I’m not sure what I want to do right now,” she said, looking away from me. “Oh,” she said, brightening a little, “Billy called the house looking for you. He said you weren’t answering your cell phone.”
“Billy?”
“Yes. He’s home, I guess. He sounded like his old self too. Why don’t you go and call him—he’s probably left a million messages on your phone.” She nodded toward the counter where she’d left my cell phone after using it to call me at Dylan’s.
If there was one way to distract me from our problems with Doug and my own with Dylan, this was it. Billy. I’d almost forgotten about him. I grabbed my phone. “Okay, but we’re going to talk more in the morning, right?”
“Sure, hon. In the morning.”
I didn’t believe her, but I went anyway. There really wasn’t anything else I could do. We’d only continue to butt heads if I stayed and tried to talk her into pressing charges against Doug. I didn’t want to fight anymore. Not with her, and not with anyone else.
My phone was beeping with that annoying high pitched sound that meant the battery was low. I took it out and plugged it into the charger before checking my messages.
There were fourteen missed calls and nine voice mails—eight messages from Billy and one from Mom. I deleted Mom’s, since I already knew what she had wanted to tell me, and went on to Billy’s messages.
It was good to hear his voice, even if it was recorded, and even if I was still angry with him.
“Jamie? Dude, where are you? I need to talk to you!”
Click. Beep.
“Jamie, call me!”
Click. Beep.
“Goddamn it, Jamie! Where the hell are you? Call me!”
Click. Beep.
The remaining five voice mails got progressively more vulgar; the last one was just a string of swear words linked by death threats if I didn’t call Billy back immediately. Regardless of the day I’d had, a smile spread across my face. That was the Billy I remembered—the stubborn, opinionated, self-absorbed potty-mouth. I hit his number on speed dial.
He answered on the first ring.
“Dude! Where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling you all night!” Billy cried, as if he hadn’t been missing for days.
“Me? What about you? Do you have any idea of what you’ve put me through? First that whole thing with Robbie, and the motel, then the hospital, and then what happens? You fall off the face of the earth for two days! Billy, I ought to come over there and wring your freaking neck!”
“I know, I know. I should have called. I was pissed, okay?”
“You were pissed?” I began to pace, but the recharging cord kept me from walking very far. It nearly jerked my phone out of my hand. I had to be satisfied with pacing in a very small, tight circle.
“Yeah. You were being a dickhead about everything.”
“Me? You were talking crazy, Billy! I—”
“None of that matters anymore, bro. I got my test results back.” I could nearly hear him grinning over the phone. He was the same old Billy, able to forget we’d ever fought, sometimes while we were still fighting. Thank God. He’d come to his senses, he was negative, and everything was going to go back to normal. He’d help me deal with my mom and get over Dylan.
“I’m positive, dude! Isn’t that great?”
I brought the phone away from my ear, staring at it as if there were something wrong with it. T
here had to be: it was impossible that Billy had just told me he was HIV positive and happy about it. The phone was broken. It had to be. There was no other rational explanation for what I was hearing.
“Jamie? Jamie, did you hear me?” Billy’s voice sounded small and far away as I slowly returned the phone to my ear.
“Billy? You’re kidding me, right? Tell me you’re joking. Tell me this is some sort of weird, twisted practical joke.”
“No. It’s true! I’ve spent the last two hours packing up all my stuff. I’m moving in with Robbie.”
“Have you told your parents?” I still couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Billy. HIV. My God. Maybe he was in shock, or denial. Yeah, that must be it. Hadn’t Robbie told me that he and Billy were through? Had they hooked back up, or was Billy refusing to see the truth about that too?
“Why? So they can ship me off to another boarding school? No, thank you. I’m heading over to Robbie’s in a few. I’ll leave them a note.”
A note? How did anyone write something like that in a note? Hi, Mom and Dad. I’ve got a possibly deadly, incurable virus which I contracted on purpose, and I’m moving in with the guy who gave it to me. Oh, yeah, and we’re out of milk. Love, Billy. Not even Billy could be that cruel, could he?
Did I even know Billy well enough to answer that question? I was forced to admit I didn’t, but I had to try to reach him again.
“Billy, why don’t you come over here? We can talk about this, reason it out, okay? What about school? College?” I was babbling and I knew it, but couldn’t help myself. I had the feeling if Billy moved in with Robbie, I’d never see him again. He’d be lost.
“You’re not understanding, Jamie. There’s nothing to talk about. This is my life, and I made my decision. I love Robbie and he loves me. We’re going to be together now. I don’t need school, I don’t need my folks.”
“I guess you don’t need me either, then?”
There was a moment of silence, filled only by the hum of my alarm clock and the faraway sound of music playing in Billy’s room. “Maybe not. Look, I have to go. I just wanted to call to tell you the news so you’d be happy for me.”
“Happy for you!” I screeched, losing it at last. “How can I be happy that you might die? Huh, Billy? What’s so great about that?”
I was screaming at dead air. Billy had hung up. He was gone.
I threw the phone down in a fit of impotent anger, not caring if it broke. In the mood I was in, I didn’t want to talk to anyone ever again. Not that I really had anyone left to talk to, anyway. No Billy. No Dylan. Mom was a mess.
I was alone again.
And it sucked.
Chapter Eighteen
I DIDN’T go back to school or to the meet against South Westfield. None of it seemed very important anymore. Instead, I plugged in my ear buds and turned up the volume on my iPod, shutting the entire world out. Those few days were like a gray haze, hours spent staring at the ceiling of my room trying hard not to think about anything. If I didn’t think about Billy or Dylan or Doug or my mom, I wouldn’t hurt anymore. I wouldn’t be so confused. It would all go away.
It didn’t.
I remember my mom coming in and out a few times. At one point, she yanked my earphones out of my ears and yelled at me for a few minutes. I don’t even remember what she said.
My stomach was so twisted up in knots that I didn’t eat. I lived on Coke and a few handfuls of chips when hunger pains forced me to get up and get something from the kitchen, but the meals Mom made for me went untouched. I didn’t shower, didn’t brush my teeth. I slept a lot.
Finally, on late Tuesday afternoon, there was a knock on my bedroom door. I heard it, even with my tunes blasting in my ears, but ignored it. Mom would come in anyway, even if I told her not to, so why waste my breath?
The door opened, but it wasn’t my mom. It was Dylan.
“Oh, man. Jamie, you look like crap.” He sat down on the edge of my bed, and I rolled over, turning my back to him. I didn’t want to see him, or have him see me. Not like this.
“Go away.”
“Jamie, talk to me. Your mom called me and said that you were bumming, that you wouldn’t talk to her or eat anything. Come on, Jamie….”
“Go away, Dylan. We don’t have anything to talk about.” I could barely hear him over the music blasting in my ears, and that was just the way I wanted it.
“Bull! We have plenty to talk about,” he growled, yanking my earphones off and tossing my iPod to the foot of the bed. I’d had it on so loud, I could still hear the music floating out of the ear buds. “I came out, Jamie. To my folks.”
“Yeah? You want a medal or a chest to wear it on?” I snarled. I didn’t care. I wanted to curl back up into my nest of self-pity and be left alone.
“Okay, that was cold, dude, but maybe I deserve it,” he said. “No, I stand corrected. I know I deserve it. I acted like a jerk when you came to see me. I should have explained more, talked it out with you, but I was scared. You needed me and I bailed on you. I’m sorry.”
“It’s over. No big deal,” I said, reaching for my iPod again. He ripped it out of my fingers and tossed it across the room onto a pile of laundry. “Hey! Give that back!”
“No! It’s not over. Listen to me, Jamie!” Dylan said, grabbing both of my hands. He held them firmly, not letting me wriggle away. “I made a mistake. I blew it. I was so afraid of everything—how I felt about you, what my folks would think, my friends…. But you know what? After you left I felt even worse because I knew you weren’t coming back. What I said to you the other day was true, Jamie. I didn’t like hiding—not us, and not who I am. That’s over. I’m out, I want to be with you, and I don’t care who knows it.”
“Well, good for you,” I said sarcastically, jerking my hands out of his. “What about me, huh? Doesn’t anybody on this goddamn planet care about how I feel? My mom didn’t when she let Doug talk trash to me. Billy didn’t when he threw our friendship away and set himself up to die. You didn’t either. You were only concerned with what people would think about you. You didn’t care about what I was going through, only about how it would affect you.”
“News flash, Jamie. I’m human. I make mistakes like everybody else! All I can do is apologize and try not to make the same ones twice. That’s not true, what you said. I do care about you, about us. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have come out to my folks, and I wouldn’t be here now.”
“You came out because of us? Puh-leeze,” I said irritably, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “If that’s true, then you did it for the wrong reason, dude, because there is no ‘us’.”
Dylan sighed, closing his eyes for a minute, running his fingers through his hair. “Don’t say that, Jamie. Look, no more lies, okay? This is the truth. I felt like I was lying to myself and everyone else for the past year. It was really hard trying to pretend to be someone I wasn’t—I had nightmares sometimes. So I came out because it was the right thing to do for me. But you were a big part of the reason too, an important part. I really want there to be an ‘us,’ Jamie.”
Oh, man…. He knew exactly what to say to get to me. The self-pity I had wallowed in, the anger I’d tried so hard to hold on to, leaked out of me like air from an old, bald tire. “How did your folks take the news?” I asked, not ready to admit I still wanted there to be an “us” too.
Dylan shrugged and gave me a sad smile. “Not too well. There was a lot of yelling and crying and stuff. Things are a little chilly at home right now, but they’ll come around. At least they didn’t throw me out.”
“I-I’m glad for you.”
“Jamie, please, can we get past this? I really want to be with you.” He looked sincere, but I was scared, still hurt, and not sure I could trust him again.
“I don’t know. So much has happened in the last week, I just don’t know what end is up anymore.”
“Maybe we can figure it out together. We’ll go slow, just hang out together if that’s all you want. Please?”
; What do you have to lose? I asked myself. Things couldn’t get any worse, right? I felt myself nod, and for the first time in days, I smiled.
Dylan reached for my hands again, and this time I let him hold them. A part of me wanted to stay mad at him, but a bigger part of me wanted that warm oatmeal feeling again. When he leaned in to kiss me, I met him halfway.
He leaned his forehead against mine. “Is it always like this? So complicated, I mean?”
“I don’t know. It feels that way most of the time.”
“Sometimes I feel like everything’s jumbled into a big fat knot, like a tangled ball of Christmas lights, and I can’t find the beginning or the end no matter how hard I try.”
“I know the feeling,” I said, nodding. “It makes you want to trash the whole thing and start over from scratch.”
“Yeah. Well, at least we’re good now, right?”
“Yeah, we’re good,” I gave him a smile, a real one, and his beautiful turquoise eyes lit up.
“Jamie? Now that we’re friends again, I have to tell you something,” he said, giving my hand a squeeze.
Oh, God. Now what? “Yeah?” I asked, feeling that familiar knot begin to form in my stomach again.
“You reek. Go grab a shower. You’re making my eyes water, dude.”
I laughed with relief and gave him a push that nearly toppled him from the edge of the bed. “You jerk! I do not!”
“You do too. You smell like an open sewer,” Dylan said, laughing. “Like something crawled up your butt and died. We’re talking a combination of decaying flesh, rotten eggs, and compost heap, Jamie.”
“Sweet-talker,” I grinned, rolling out of bed. I took a whiff under my arms and coughed. The stench singed my nose hairs. “Smells like roses to me.”
“Then you have something seriously wrong with your sniffer. Go on and hose off, then we’ll go and grab something to eat, okay?”
“You’re buying.”
“Only if you scrub yourself down and spray yourself with disinfectant.”