The Big Summer

by Jamie B Laurie

  “Will?” Daniel asked sleepily after long minutes of delightful spooning. His voice was soft, right in my ear.

  “Yeah?” I whispered, smiling tiredly. I turned slowly in his arms to face him … and then my stomach turned over on itself. I was going to be sick.

  I shrugged desperately out of Daniel’s grip and threw back the covers, tumbling out of bed and half-crawling to the bathroom. With a weak kick to try to close the door, I pulled myself up to the toilet and fumbled for a frantic moment to lift the cover and seat.

  What followed was not pretty; I retched and heaved over the bowl, a gross burning sensation prickling at the back of my throat with each new volley. In between, I gasped and cried and spat and coughed.

  At a certain point, Daniel shuffled into the room, rubbing at his eyes confusedly. The next second, his hand was rubbing stiff circles on my back, the tenderness gone from his touch.

  When my insides were finished purging themselves of evil spirits, I raised a shaking hand to push the lid closed. It landed with a head-rattling bang, and Daniel was nice enough to flush for me.

  Feebly, I let myself fall to the bathroom floor and curled up on myself, holding a clenched hand to my writhing belly. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to steady my breathing. I thought ruefully that I had learned my lesson about drinking. Adults worldwide were cheering that there was another teen they could say, “I told you so!” to.

  Over the next five or ten minutes, I threw up one more time. I also managed to haul myself up into a sitting position—which was a small and very sad victory.

  After about fifty drawn-out breathing cycles, I was able to get to my feet. My clammy fingers slipped over the taps as I started the water running in the sink, bending down to take a long drink. I gargled and spat out the foul taste of stomach acid.

  “Never again,” I promised myself, wiping my mouth on my sleeve. I laughed at the totally teenage dumbness of the situation and expected to hear Daniel laughing behind me. He wasn’t.

  I turned around and stepped back into the bedroom. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, hands clasped tightly in his lap, nibbling on his lip. His expression was one of total confusion, most probably shocked by the amazing night we had shared together.

  Taking a moment to appreciate him, my eyes slipped over the lines of his body, got lost in the tussled bed-head hair, and zoomed in on the lips I’d totally dominated the night before … if I do say so myself.

  “Will?” Daniel asked after a moment, his voice thick and hoarse. A muscle in his jaw was twitching.

  “Yeah?”

  “What—” He coughed, shook his head, punched his fist into his leg. “What did we do last night?”

  I smiled at the thought. “We had an amazing night.”

  “Will,” he snapped angrily, shattering my belief that his look of confusion was a good thing. “What. Did. We. Do?”

  When he looked up at me, tears were burning in his eyes, and his face was screwed up into a deeply hurt mask.

  “Daniel, I don’t understand.”

  He sprung to his feet and jabbed a demanding finger painfully into my chest. “Did we … did we …”

  “No,” I replied fearfully. “No.”

  “Thank God,” he muttered, tugging a shaky hand through his hair and pacing around the room.

  I blinked rapidly, his words knifing through me. “Daniel, what are you saying?”

  “Will, what the fuck is wrong with you?” He was yelling now, rounding on me. “What the fuck?”

  “Daniel,” I mumbled sheepishly.

  “I was drunk!” he thundered. “You kissed me in front of my friends … my fucking girlfriend!”

  “We … we kissed each other. I mean, you kissed me back. You … liked me,” I whimpered. Tears rolled down my cheeks. The world was collapsing around me.

  “Sure I did,” he hissed. His fingers trembled, veins stood out against his tightened skin.

  “Daniel … you’re gay. Like me,” I whispered desperately. Privately, I added, “Please.”

  His face hardened, and he stalked forward. A deep panic bloomed in his eyes, and he grabbed me tightly by the shoulder. His voice wavered as he said, “I am not some … some … I am not a fag!”

  At that, I snapped. The word was a knife in the heart, a bitter reminder of my ex-friends. I shoved his hand off of me and shouted, “You’re a goddamn asshole!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You don’t get to call me a fag!” I all but scoffed. “Yeah, you were drunk. I was drunk too. But we didn’t have sex, Daniel. We kissed and cuddled, and you seemed pretty goddamn into it at the time. Why is that, Mr. High and Mighty Heterosexual?”

  “Get out!” he bellowed. “Go!”

  “What is going on here?” Hannah demanded, suddenly appearing at the door. Michael was at her heels, dressed in nothing but a pair of boxers worn backward.

  “Hannah—”

  She ignored me, honing in on her twin brother as he clenched and unclenched his fists, legs shaking and face flushed. Tears spilled from his eyes and raced down his cheeks, and his lower lip quivered as he mumbled brokenly, “Hannah.”

  “Oh god,” she muttered, brushing past me and pulling Daniel into her arms. He didn’t return the embrace. “It’s okay. I’ve got you, you’re okay.”

  “Hannah,” I tried again.

  “I think you’ve done enough, Will,” she snapped, whipping her head toward me. I barely recognized my best friend through the fierce expression on her face.

  I blinked in shock. “What did I do? I—”

  “What were you thinking?” she demanded. “With my brother?”

  “Hannah,” I pleaded. “You know me … I told you about me. And I don’t know why he’s making it seem so awful, but …”

  “No,” she told me. “No, it doesn’t work like this. You don’t get to just come to our town and fuck everything up.”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I think it would be best if you just left, Will,” she told me, releasing her brother and settling her hands on her hips. Hannah’s mouth was set in a hard line that was so out of place on her usually cheerful face. “I’m serious.”

  “You can’t do this,” I whispered, tears prickling in my eyes. “This can’t … can’t happen to me. Not again. I can’t be … alone.”

  Hannah shut her eyes. “Stop it, Will. Please, just go. Just go.”

  I shook my head incredulously, pointing at Daniel, who was staring dejectedly at the carpet. “He wanted this too. Daniel, I don’t know why you’re doing this to me … but Katie doesn’t just have to worry about you checking out other girls anymore.”

  Daniel let out a choked cry and sat heavily on the edge of the bed, putting his face in his hands.

  “Go, Will,” Hannah told me abruptly. “Now.”

  “That’s it?” I asked. By now, Blake and Emma were also standing at the door. It was an army against a scared little boy.

  “I don’t know what you want me to say right now,” she answered. Shaking her head, she sat next to her brother, “I really, really don’t.”

  And just like that, with the same swiftness as being tossed into a pool, I was severed from my friends. They wanted nothing more to do with me. My best friend deserted me. The boy I loved didn’t return my feelings. My heart felt like it was gripped in an icy fist.

  I moved like a ghost past my friends and up the stairs. The front door of Blake’s house closed behind me with a sound like a gunshot, the bullet killing the new life I had made for myself.

  I was back to square one.

  . . .

  The bright morning sunlight burned my bleary eyes, and I sucked down the cool air in desperate gulps. My legs were on fire as I ran. And by the time I arrived at the door to our apartment, I was vomiting into the garden.

  In all ho
nestly, it was a wonder that I was able to make it back home without getting hit by a car. I existed in a teary blur, everything mashing together around me like a beautiful watercolor painting left out in a violent rainstorm.

  I wrenched open the door and half-crawled up the carpeted stairs, burning my knees as I dragged them along the rough fibers. Looking back on it, I was the definition of pathetic.

  “Will?” Aunt Nellie squealed as I pulled myself up the last stair, curling up like a potato bug to hold myself in one piece as my body shook with each heavy sob. “Will!”

  Her hands took me delicately by the arms and pulled me with surprising strength into a standing position. Aunt Nellie held me at arm’s length, her face twisted up in concern.

  “What happened?” she demanded, her eyes wild.

  “I’m gay!” I shouted brokenly, with strength and conviction, spitting out the secret that was acid inside of me. “I’m gay, and he doesn’t love me!”

  Her mouth opened a little in surprise. I expected judgment, questions, confusion, or even anger. I expected what you see on the news, picketers quoting the Bible and burning rainbow flags. What I got instead was a hug.

  “Okay,” she said. She pulled me close to her, squeezing too tight, holding me too lovingly. “Okay. It’s okay. That’s okay. It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay …”

  18. Cry with someone

  Chapter 18

  The Birthday Blues

  I didn’t know how much time had passed since the huge falling out with absolutely everything and everyone in my life; each day was just a continuation of the horribly monochromatic depression I’d sunk into.

  Whereas I used to see the sky as blue, I now noticed that it really wasn’t blue … but rather a muted version of its true potential, gassed over by aerosol chemicals.

  The ocean used to look beautiful and majestic, but now I saw it only as an angry bully. Its waves were hateful, battering children, churning up gray foam and ugly curls of seaweed.

  The boardwalk was no longer fun and whimsical. It was merely an annoying place where America’s most obnoxious families flocked to wreak havoc and cram fried ice cream down their always-gaping gullets.

  Aunt Nellie tried to improve my mood by going above and beyond her usual duties as Chiefly Awesome Aunt. She must have sold a sliver of her soul to the Gods of Cookery because I half-noticed in my zombified state that heaping piles of comfort food were gracing our table every night.

  Still, I didn’t eat much. I picked and nibbled and made the puppet-like gestures of being a living human being. I painted on a smile, but inside I was broken.

  So I wasn’t eating, or really sleeping, or talking to anyone other than my aunt. I was running all the time, when I wasn’t at work, because I was running from my problems. And I liked the burn I felt and the way that I could go farther every day. When I ran enough, I went back home and did pushups and sit-ups like a champ, because I still had all the energy I would usually expel with my friends to burn up. I got thin … maybe a little thinner than was healthy. But I didn’t care.

  And don’t you dare tell me that I was being pathetic, or that I was overreacting, or that I was blowing things wildly out of proportion. Because I’m a teenager, okay? I’m allowed to be immature and wallow in self-pity and feel sorry for myself without needing to put things in perspective. I’m allowed to believe that nobody fucking hurts like I do.

  One night over dinner, Aunt Nellie brought up the subject of Jacob Whitmore. They had been seeing each other for weeks and … let’s just say that Aunt Nellie was guaranteed a gold star at the end of her painting course.

  “What about him?” I asked somewhat harshly, stabbing my fork bitterly into a pile of delicious beef stew that was the kind of food one could devour by the barrel. Was I a little bit jealous of my aunt’s super-happy relationship? Yeah, a little. But I felt shitty about it, so that makes me less of a bad person.

  “He wants to meet you,” she told me, broaching the subject carefully.

  I shrugged, looking down at the plate my utensils were dancing around without really plucking anything up. “Okay.”

  “Good,” she said.

  The very next night, I found myself sitting in the exact same spot at the table, except there was a different meal on my plate and another person in the room.

  “This is excellent lasagna, Nells,” Jacob told her with a kindhearted smile.

  She grinned. “Thanks, Jake!”

  I had to admit that they were cute together … okay, maybe a little bit more than just regular cute … okay, I wanted to rip my heart out because it was dissolving into a bubbling pile of cuteness-filled mush.

  “No, thank you,” he told her, his smile crinkling up his nose. The two of them laughed together, and I saw a flash of the future wedding, Nellie in a handmade gown and me without a date.

  To her credit, Aunt Nellie had certainly picked a good one. Jacob was gorgeous. He was tall and broad in the shoulders, and his body was densely packed with muscle. His black hair was worn spiky at the front, and he had stubble along his mega-manly jawline.

  “How are you liking town so far, Will?” he asked me.

  My eyes started to prickle as the slideshow of hurt played in my mind. I started to choke out an answer, and Nellie, sensing disaster, quickly changed the subject.

  When Jacob left and my aunt looked to me for my approval, I nodded and forced out a smile. “He’s great, Aunt Nellie. I’m really happy for you guys.”

  She squealed excitedly and hugged me, and I hated myself for having to force myself to be happy for her and not be miserable for me.

  . . .

  The formerly fun hours spent at work dragged by with torturous sluggishness. Each bang of the second hand ticking by was another blow from the hammer nailing shut my coffin. A little bit melodramatic, perhaps, but that’s how it felt.

  And not only was it a misery, but it was also the most awkward situation I’d ever been placed into in my life. Because I still worked hand in hand with Hannah … and she had most definitely not forgiven me.

  For what? I didn’t know. I couldn’t acknowledge that there was anything for her to be upset with me about. I knew from talking with her that she wasn’t homophobic, and she often encouraged me to try to find love … so I’d found that with her brother. She should have been happy. Or she should have at least listened to my side of the story.

  Because, if I was to be perfectly honest, her brother was not the saint she—or I, for that matter—had made him out to be. For all his kindness and calmness and level-headedness and big-fat-lovey-dovey-goodheartedness … he was kind of an asshole. Daniel Clark was actually a lowly human being like the rest of us. He was worse than the rest of us, because he was a fake. He hid his true assholey nature behind a mask of vegetarianism and veterinary aspirations and dimpled smiles. It was infuriating!

  He’d charmed his way into my heart with his easy good looks, like some gorgeous ax-murderer. He was the beautiful Venus flytrap attracting a helpless little fly. Though, in the time since our falling out, I had come to realize that he wasn’t the perfect physical specimen I’d thought him to be. I picked out his flaws (his too-long neck, his few crooked teeth, his disproportionate nose, etc.), and it made me happy to know that he was not totally flawless.

  But I digress; I was talking about working with Hannah.

  It was difficult because Daniel’s evil manipulations had brainwashed her into believing that I was the enemy. She dealt with me as she would a complete stranger. It was all clipped sentences and minimal eye contact. I felt like the new employee again, considered a dummy. She gave me my tasks and shifts as if I hadn’t become best friends with her … as if I hadn’t shared deeply personal secrets with her.

  And at first, I tried. The day after the big falling out, I’d approached her in a panic. “Hannah, what’s going on? I … I don’t know what happened!”<
br />
  “Please,” she told me in a voice that sounded like she was more pained at the situation than I was. “Just don’t.”

  “Hannah,” I persisted, following her into the staff room. “Talk to me. Don’t do this. Don’t just toss me aside. I can’t deal with that. Not again.”

  She gritted her teeth. “Daniel’s upset … he’s my brother, my twin. That’s all there is to it.”

  “No, it’s not,” I told her. “That’s not all there is. There’s me, who you know. Who you’re friends with. And you know that I would never do anything to hurt you or Daniel. I … I really don’t know what happened between us but—”

  “Stop it,” she told me. And then she walked away.

  That was the extent of our heart-to-heart conversations since Daniel had tossed me out of everybody’s lives. For those two weeks, we existed in a state of detached friendship limbo.

  And so it was that the day before my birthday arrived. It was sort of depressing that my passage into the land of seventeen-year-olds wasn’t going to be celebrated with the pomp I’d been expecting and that I was going to be spending it alone (or possibly with Aunt Nellie and Jacob, which was even more demoralizing).

  I spent the day at work. Mopping floors and plunging toilets was fun as always. I had the pleasure of directing a birthday party for twenty little kids. And the highlight of my day was when I got to eat lunch by myself in the staffroom because Hannah was out with Emma.

  And so I sat alone, munching on a sandwich of some kind. I washed it down with a juice box, which made me feel like a kindergartner rather than an almost seventeen-year-old.

  You know that feeling you get as the clock slows to a halt just as it reaches three o’clock on the last day of school, where you hang on the edge of your seat willing time to move faster? That’s how I felt through the whole afternoon. Not because I had anything particularly fun or exciting to get home to, but just because I so didn’t want to be there anymore.