The Bravest Thing

by Laura Lascarso

  The look in his eyes is lethal, but I know he’s in extreme pain. I apply a bit more pressure and he gasps, the muscles in his neck straining, the vein in his neck popping out. He swallows tightly, then nods. I release him, giving him a little extra shove at the end so he’ll stumble backward. Him falling on his ass is accidental, but it’s definitely the best part of my day.

  Trent groans, still holding his arm, and I turn away. If he comes at me again, he’ll have to kill me. I grab my clothes and head for the showers, glancing at Berlin as I pass as if to tell him his secret is safe with me.

  With a friend like Trent, it seems Berlin is the one in need of protection.

  Berlin

  WHERE DID that kung fu trick even come from? When Hiroku passes by me in the locker room, I’m so stunned I forget I’m staring, openmouthed and catching flies. Makes me wonder if he only did it to keep me from getting involved, like he knew I have something to hide. But if he’s got some kind of martial arts training, why is he letting Trent smack him around at all?

  Meanwhile, Trent’s flopping on the ground, gripping his arm like it’s broken, and the guys are all looking to me for a sign.

  “I wouldn’t mess with that kid if I were you,” I tell them, then offer my hand to Trent. He climbs up and skulks off to his locker, grumbling under his breath. Serves him right. After I dress, I see Hiroku breeze out of the locker room without looking back. He might be my new personal hero.

  I’ve got to talk to Hiroku, but how? School’s out of the question—that’s a death wish for both of us. I tried friending him on Facebook but got no response. I want to meet up with him somewhere outside of school. Then it occurs to me—maybe I should just grow a pair and ask him out.

  It doesn’t have to be a date or anything, just two guys hanging out. That’s normal enough, right?

  Later that night, I ask my best friend Google for advice. How do you ask a guy out? How people got by before the Internet, I have no idea. My dad hardly talks about anything other than the farm or football. Sex, even the straight kind, never comes up. My youth group preaches abstinence, and my mother… she passed on too early for all of this. I like to think she might have been able to help.

  I’ve never asked out a total stranger. Kayla and I were friends already. It was easy because I knew there was a pretty good chance she’d say yes. I’m not so sure about Hiroku.

  Luckily, wikiHow has some pretty good advice, even if it does assume I’m a girl. Pick a place that’s private at a time when he’s not stressed. Don’t make a big deal about it or give off creepy vibes. Okay. Have a date in mind. That might be a little harder. I review what I know about Hiroku so far.

  He likes music and wears band shirts nearly every day to school. (I haven’t heard of any of them.)

  He rides a motorcycle.

  He’s good at basketball.

  He’s had some kind of martial arts training.

  He may or may not have been expelled from his last school.

  He’s pretty decent at applying eyeliner.

  He turns me on without even trying.

  I’ve already figured out his schedule. He has Digital Arts during first period, which is in B-wing. The kids in that class are always going out on assignment around campus. I pass through B-wing while I’m delivering hall passes during first period. Maybe I can hang around there and intercept him.

  I also look up the bands on his T-shirts. One of them, Petty Crime, is coming to Austin this weekend. It’s last-minute, but maybe Hiroku would go with me. The music on their website is decent. The lead singer, Seth Barrett, is openly gay and posts a lot of pictures of himself with guys on Instagram. I check out one of their music videos, shot in black and white, set in some kind of opium den or something. Lots of flimsy curtains and smoke curling around Seth and another shirtless guy. The other guy’s face is turned away from the camera, but his body is on full display as Seth kisses and touches him everywhere—shoulders, bare back, chest. His fingers scale down his abs to the waistband of his jeans, undo the button, reach inside his pants….

  “Dinner’s ready.”

  I slam my laptop shut, but I don’t turn around since I probably look guilty as sin. I hope my dad’s far enough away that he can’t see what I’m watching. He probably knows I’ve been looking at porn pretty regularly, but I don’t think he knows it’s gay porn. Not that the video is porn or anything.

  “Be right there,” I say. It takes me a few minutes to cool down. Images from the video are burned in my head. I rub my hands against the outside of my jeans, then go into the bathroom, wash them, and splash some cold water on my face. I meet my dad out back on the deck. We usually eat outside, whatever my dad grills that night. He’s a boss at grilling—vegetables and potatoes along with every kind of meat. He even uses the grill to heat up things like beans still in the can. It makes for fewer dishes, and the food’s always good.

  Dad says a prayer, then catches me up on what’s been going on around the farm. With school and football practice every afternoon, we haven’t seen much of each other lately.

  “We need to fix the fence in the back quarter so we can put the bulls on the cows before too long,” he says.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You got practice Saturday?”

  “Yeah, but I’ll get home early enough to put in a few hours. We can pick it back up Sunday morning.”

  “After church,” he reminds me. I wouldn’t mind missing church, but my dad’s devout.

  “Yes, sir.”

  He glances up at me, wrinkles lining his tanned forehead. “Saw Mrs. Carmichael at the Pac N Sac. She told me you and Kayla broke up.”

  “Yes, sir. Last weekend.” I was hoping he wouldn’t ask me about it.

  “Everything all right there?”

  I sit back and try to appear casual. “We had a good run. It was time.”

  He nods, and I sense that’s the end of it. I lean in to take another bite of my steak.

  “How’s your steak?” he asks.

  “Perfect. As always.”

  Later that night I shut my door, turn the TV up loud, and watch the music video again with my headphones on. Petty Crime is coming to Austin. I’ll ask Hiroku to go with me to their show. It doesn’t have to be a date, just two guys who appreciate the same music.

  What if he says no?

  What if he says yes?

  I DON’T have to wait too long. At school the next day, I see Hiroku leave the multimedia room during first period while I’m out on one of my errands. My eyes center on his back like a target, and my heart speeds up so fast I feel it pounding in my throat. I take a deep breath and give myself a pep talk like I’m amping up for a football game. I jog a little to catch up with him.

  “Hey,” I say. “Hiroku, right?”

  He glances over and scowls at me. Still hot.

  “Just Hiro,” he says, like it would kill him to say anything more.

  Maybe I’m wrong about him, or about trying to talk to him.

  “I’m Berlin,” I say, which is stupid because we already know each other’s names, even if we’ve never talked to each other before.

  “Yeah, I know. I’ve been playing basketball with you for the last two weeks.”

  I glance around to make sure the hallway’s still empty. I don’t know what I’ll do if someone sees us. Maybe run like hell in the other direction. For now we’re alone and he’s talking to me. We’re having a conversation, even if it’s a lame one.

  I try again. “So, where you headed?”

  “Why do you care?”

  Damn, wikiHow didn’t prepare me for this. What if he thinks I was in on that stunt Trent pulled? “Just making conversation, I guess.”

  “When your bros aren’t around.”

  I don’t have an answer to that. He’s right. I’ve never talked to him before now. I know when I’m losing. I’m about to bail when he lifts the camera in his hand.

  “I’m going to the football field to film the cheerleaders’ practice. I’v
e never heard of cheerleading being an actual class. That’s crazy.”

  “That’s Lowry,” I say. He snorts in agreement. It isn’t much, but I’ll take it. “I guess your old school was pretty different.”

  He nods. “Yeah. Just a little.”

  We’re nearing the football field, which means I’m running out of time. I wish he was wearing his Petty Crime shirt. Then I could bring it up without it being weird and creepy.

  “Where are you going?” he asks, glancing over at me. He looks a little uncomfortable.

  I point ahead of us. “Oh, um, this way.” I run my hand through my hair. I’m sweating all over and I feel like I just sprinted the length of the football field. This must be what it feels like to have a heart attack. “So, you like that band Petty Crime?”

  His eyes go wide, and he looks at me like I’m from outer space. “How do you know about them?” He looks pissed.

  “You wear that shirt a lot. I looked them up online. They seem… interesting.”

  He stops in the hallway and sizes me up. The intensity of his gaze makes me tongue-tied. I wipe my sweaty hands on my jeans.

  “Well, what about them?” He sounds so hostile. I’m pretty sure he hates me. I should give up, but I’ve come too far to back out now, so I barrel through it.

  “They’re playing a show in Austin this weekend. I was thinking about going. Maybe you want to, uh, go… with me?”

  His eyebrows draw together in confusion, his face softens, and he starts walking again, slower this time. I match his pace as his frown deepens.

  “I’m not that into them anymore,” he says at last. “I just wear the shirt because I like it. I’m not going to their show.”

  “Oh, okay.” I lag behind a little. I guess that’s a no. Is it because he doesn’t want to go with me? He probably has a boyfriend already. Or he’s just not interested.

  We reach the end of the hallway and the glass door that opens up onto the football field. If I go through that door, the entire cheerleading squad will see us together. I stop as he’s reaching for the door handle. He turns around.

  “Maybe some other time,” he says.

  I stare after him in a stupor as he crosses the track with his camera slung across his back, butt twitching, black T-shirt hugging his shoulder blades. Maybe I read him wrong. Maybe he’s not even gay and I just ruined my life by asking him out. But he did say some other time, and that must mean something.

  But what?

  Hiroku

  I’M A little distracted while filming the cheerleaders, going over the conversation with Berlin in my head. I’m pretty sure he just asked me out, unless he happens to have an interest in obscure emo rock bands. But he said he looked up Petty Crime because of me. Was he doing, like, research?

  Panic is what hits me first. And guilt, when I think about having to tell Seth about it. But I don’t have to, I remind myself. We’re not together and we haven’t been for months. Still, their show is about the worst possible place to bring another guy. The last thing I want is to confront Seth after months of no contact while on a date with Berlin. Talk about baggage. I wouldn’t want to subject Berlin to that shit show.

  Berlin could be setting me up. Maybe it was a prank he and his friend Trent came up with. But I don’t think so. The way Berlin looks at me…. Which means the reason he asked me out is because he’s interested in me. Enough to risk being outed for it. He’s either brave or crazy.

  But I’ve already decided I’m not going to Seth’s show. My parents won’t allow it, obviously. All forms of contact are forbidden, which is why I never go on Facebook. I might not be able to resist friending Seth again. Besides, my parents have all my passwords and probably check my accounts regularly. The NSA has nothing on my mother.

  “Are you getting this, Hiroku?” calls one of the cheerleaders, Tamara, as she high-kicks her long leg in the air. They’re dressed out in their navy-and-gold uniforms for today’s filming. Tamara’s the one who recruited me to make this video. I showed some of my past work to the kids in Digital Arts and word got around. She cornered me in the hallway and asked me to film the squad. She even batted her eyelashes a little. It wasn’t hard to convince me. I need to be working.

  “I think I’m going to need you to do that again,” I call to her with a flirty grin.

  She struts up to the camera and makes a kissy face, then whispers in my ear, “I’ve got other tricks I could show you.”

  I stop filming for a moment and tell her honestly, “I’m gay, Tamara.” I don’t want her to get the wrong idea.

  She tilts her head and looks me up and down. “How gay are you?”

  I laugh at her persistence. “Pretty fucking gay.”

  She sighs and winds one finger through her long, curly ponytail. “Too bad. We’d make beautiful babies.”

  “I have no doubt.”

  She sashays back to the other girls, and we take it again from the top. As I’m leaving she knocks her hip into mine and says, “See you around, Hiroku. If you ever get bi-curious, I’ve got dibs.” She licks one finger and dabs the air to make her point.

  “You’ll be first in line,” I assure her with a smile.

  When I get home that afternoon, I put together the footage of the cheerleaders. The school’s editing equipment is subpar, and their computers are maddeningly slow. At home with my software, it takes me about two hours to create a bitching video that makes the cheerleaders look hot and cool and independent all at once. I add in some comic book transitions like Bam! Ka-Pow! Bang! and set it to a superhero-sounding fight song. It’s a far cry from creating music videos, but it’s something, at least.

  After I upload the cheerleading video to the YouTube page for Lowry’s Digital Arts class, I go onto my Facebook page for the first time in weeks. I miss my old school, my old friends. It wasn’t like I had a ton of them, but I did have some good ones. I can’t hang out with them anymore, though. A lot of them are still using.

  I notice a friend request, and my heart jumps. Is it Seth again? Earlier in the summer he tried friending me, sometimes using other people’s accounts. I didn’t see the requests until I got out of rehab, and I ignored them all. Avoiding past triggers is part of my treatment plan.

  I click the icon, but it isn’t Seth. It’s Berlin.

  Berlin, whose friends would all know if I accepted his request. Wouldn’t that look suspicious? I don’t know how he’s managed to stay in the closet this long.

  As I sit there staring at Berlin’s profile picture, a chat box pops up from Sabrina, Petty Crime’s drummer and my best friend.

  How are you?

  Sabrina is the one who called my parents from the hospital after I overdosed and told them about the drugs and Seth. She’s part of the reason I’m on extended vacation in Lowry. I haven’t talked to her in months. At first it was because I was mad at her. Then it seemed easier to cut her off, since she’s still part of Seth’s life and I don’t want to be tempted. Still, I miss her.

  Pretty shitty.

  :(

  How about you? How’s the tour going?

  Not the same without you.

  Wish I was there.

  Everyone misses you.

  Ditto.

  Seth misses you too. He wants you to know he’s sorry.

  My breath hitches. There’s no way in hell Sabrina would ever mention Seth to me, and especially not like that. He’s a dirty word as far as she’s concerned. She stays in the band because she loves the music, but she’s warned me again and again I need to get away from him.

  Seth?

  I wait, drumming my knuckles, my heart beating faster, my knees bouncing up and down underneath my desk. Is he using Sabrina’s account to contact me? Does she know he’s doing it?

  I miss you, baby.

  I stare at the screen until my vision blurs. When I left Seth, I had to cut out internal organs, like you would an arm with gangrene. He’s poison, and I know that. But I still miss him. He was my first and my only. He nurtured the artist
in me, made me feel things I’ve never felt before or since. He made me cool and accepted. For three years he was my whole world.

  He also got me hooked on pain pills, embarrassed me in front of our friends for fun, and pressured me to do things I didn’t want to do. Sometimes he got violent.

  I can’t…, I start to type.

  Can’t what?

  I can’t talk to him, can’t see him, can’t listen to his music or any other music that reminds me of him, can’t look at old pictures or movies. I can’t even wear my own clothes without thinking of something we did together when I last wore them, which is why I only wear black now. My room is a mausoleum because his fingerprints are on every goddamned thing I own. I can’t think about the past three years of my life, because he’s so wrapped up in everything I did and everything I am.

  I can’t anything with him. I delete the words and start over.

  Tell Sabrina and the band I say hey.

  Don’t go. I just want to talk.

  I type nothing, just sit there and stare at the screen, waiting for I have no idea what. My next instruction? I’ve already made up my mind it’s over between us, so why am I giving him an opening?

  Come to my show. I need to see you. They can’t keep you locked away in a tower forever.

  He includes a link, and against my better judgment, I click it. It opens a new screen with a single ticket to Petty Crime, their Austin show, the one Berlin invited me to. My name is already on the ticket.

  I sign out of Facebook, determined to never open it again. It isn’t safe for me. Seth took that away from me. My friends, my school, and Austin too. It isn’t my parents who locked me away in this tower.

  It’s him.

  Berlin