Being True (23 page)

I ignored the insult as always and continued on my way to class. Although part of me wanted to tell Javi that Rance hadn’t buried the hatchet at all, I couldn’t do that to him. I cared about Javi too much to hurt him in any way, and if keeping him in the dark about what an asshole his best friend truly was kept Javi safe, then that was what I aimed to do.

The next thing I knew, my foot caught on something and I went crashing to the floor. My books flew out in front of me and slid halfway down the corridor. I half expected to find Rance looming over me, ready to make my face a bloody mess, but it wasn’t Rance who’d tripped me. It was Rance’s even dumber and uglier friend, Oscar Gomez.

He wasn’t as big as Rance, whose larger frame benefited him in his role as catcher for the team. But Oscar was at least twice my size. He reached down to snatch me up, and no doubt toss me around the corridor, when Javi suddenly appeared between us. He shoved Oscar, and he fell hard on his ass, skidding backward a few feet before he eventually came to a stop.

“What the fuck, man?” Javi asked. His angry voice rebounded off the walls. He was ready to pounce again if need be, but he obviously didn’t want to leave me on the ground unprotected.

I got up as quickly as possible and backed out of the way. While it was slightly embarrassing to have someone come to my rescue, I had to school the smile that wanted to crawl across my face in appreciation of how much Javi clearly cared for me.

“Who the fuck do you think you are, Javi?” Oscar asked once he got up. The rest of the Jock Brigade had cleared a path between them. They glanced back and forth between Javi, Oscar, and Rance, obviously unsure what they were expected to do. Rance’s expression held no such confusion. He was ready to intervene. “You don’t get to push me and walk away.”

“Well, come and get it, then,” Javi challenged. “I’m not scared of your fat ass.”

Oscar charged, but Rance snagged Oscar and held him back. “Chill, man,” Rance whispered. “This isn’t the place or the time.”

“Fuck that, Rance!” Oscar cursed. “Javi needs to remember his place.”

“And what’s that?” Javi asked. “Knocking down people smaller than me? That’s never been my place and never will.”

“No, man,” Oscar said. “Your place is with us. The Bulldogs. The team you’ve been a part of for almost four years.” He nodded at me. “Not that fucking fag you’ve turned into your little pet.”

Javi lunged toward Oscar, and the rest of the Jock Brigade responded. They surrounded Oscar and blocked Javi. A few of them even held him back from doing what Javi most obviously wanted to do—rearrange Oscar’s face.

Oscar raised his hands in front of his chest, the universal sign that violence was no longer imminent. “That’s what I’m talking about, Javi,” Oscar said. “You come to his defense, ready to fight your teammate over some loser cocksucker the world doesn’t even care about.”

Javi’s face twisted in rage. “You better shut him up now, Rance. Or Oscar’s going to be gumming his food for the rest of his life.”

Rance nodded. “Calm down, man,” he told Oscar with a pat to his back.

Oscar shrugged off Rance. “You better make a choice,” he said to Javi. “It’s either the butt muncher or your boys. You can’t have both.”

Javi strained against the Jock Brigade who still held him tight. “You don’t tell me what to do, fuck face.”

“I’m not,” Oscar said as he took his book bag from Rance. “You get to decide and live with the consequences. Show everyone you’re a man and come back to us, or stay with the fag and let everyone know you suck his cock.” Oscar turned to walk off as the tardy bell rang, and the rest of the Jock Brigade followed him down the hall.

Only Rance stayed behind. He stood on one side of Javi, and I was on the other. Javi surveyed the hall as the students who’d witnessed the scuffle silently waited on what he would do.

Javi headed for his book bag, which he’d tossed aside in order to come to my rescue, and yanked it from the floor. He then stormed off, but instead of following the Jock Brigade by going straight, he turned left and disappeared around the corner.

Rance glared at me. He didn’t say a word, but the sly smile that slithered across his lips told me he couldn’t have been happier.

T
HANKS
TO
Oscar and Rance, the rumor mill Javi and I had attempted to keep from spewing its gossip started to spin. Most of the school had heard about the fight in the hall by the time seventh period ended.

Texting and Facebook sure made gossip fly faster than the speed of light.

As I made my way to my locker, whispering voices followed me down the halls.

“Can you believe it?” someone asked as I spun the combination on my lock and opened the door.

“Not really,” another voice answered.

“Why
is
Javi his friend?”

“I don’t know. That’s what
everyone’s
been wondering for months.”

I grabbed the books I needed for homework, shoved them in my backpack, and headed down the stairs. If only I could escape the low murmurs that followed me wherever I went.

“That’s him, right?”

“Don’t you recognize him from the picture in the paper?”

“Yeah, I wondered how that happened and what that meant. I question it even more now.”

I left the staircase, my heartbeat pounding in my ears. Terror gripped my intestines and ruthlessly twisted them. Why didn’t I just dash out of the halls and away from the words that pursued me like ghosts? Because reacting that way would only validate suspicions that had already begun to circulate.

“He just jumped right in there and pushed Oscar flat on his ass.”

“Good. I hate that guy. He’s a jerk.”

Now that was one comment I agreed with.

“Tru.”

But the eyes of the school had been forced open, and they were now scrutinizing our relationship instead of dismissing it as they had before. Most likely, everyone considered Javi befriending me as Javi being Javi. He was everyone’s friend and an all-around good guy. Being nice was part of his reputation.

Now, his character was being called into question, and it was all because of me.

“What do you think it means?”

“I don’t know, but it can’t be true what they’re saying. Can it?”

“Hey, Tru.”

I had to find some way to fix this. There had to be something I could do to save Javi from the torment I’d lived with for years. It was nothing new to me. I’d grown accustomed to shouldering the burden, but Javi had always been liked. He had no clue what life on the outside was like. And if I could spare him that knowledge, I had to at least try.

“I’ve heard that they spend most afternoons together at the park.”

“Really? How do you know?”

“My cousin lives along North Park, and she sees them almost every afternoon. Just sitting there and talking.”

“Are you serious? Wow! That really makes you wonder. Maybe Javi is….”

I shoved the door open and exited the building before the whispering voice could finish the thought. The refreshing chaos of engines revving in the parking lot and students laughing as they left school drowned out the lingering phantasms that had followed me outside.

And I was finally able to breathe.

What I needed the most right now was Javi. Only he could make me feel better, and together we might be able to come up with a plan to do damage control.

I bounded down the stairs and toward the bike rack, where I typically waited for him after school on the days he didn’t have practice. But before I made it to the bottom, I stopped in my tracks.

My bike was there, chained exactly where I had left it that morning.

Javi’s bike was gone.

“Dammit, Tru,” Claudia suddenly said next to me. “I’ve been chasing you down the damn hall. Didn’t you hear me?”

I turned. Where had she come from?

“Tru, are you okay?”

“He’s gone,” I said as I turned my attention back to the empty slot where Javi’s bike had been. And the hole in my soul Javi had filled with his presence suddenly cracked open once again.

C
LAUDIA
INSISTED
on taking me home. Since I didn’t feel like arguing, I tossed my bike in the back of her parents’ SUV and ordered her to drive by North Park. Javi wasn’t there.

“Tell me what happened,” she said.

I said nothing. I continued to stare at our spot under the tree as misery slowly ate me alive.

For the rest of the drive, Claudia didn’t speak, and I made no effort to carry on a conversation. How could I? Javi had apparently been so angry or embarrassed he had skipped and gone home.

Although I couldn’t even fathom the prospect, I suspected my life was about to change in a way I wasn’t going to like.

When Claudia pulled up to my apartment, I got out of the car, retrieved my bike, and headed to the front door. I couldn’t make out what she was saying. Her words sounded like some alien language I’d never heard before, so I focused on chaining my bike to the front rail and unlocking the door.

“Damn it,” she said as she closed the door behind us. “Will you fucking talk to me?”

I spun around. The tears I had been holding back burst free. “What do you want from me, Claudia?” My words were broken by the sobs that strangled my throat. “Javi left. He took off without so much as saying good-bye, and I don’t know why. I have no fucking clue what’s going on or why he’s so angry with me. But he is.” I collapsed on the couch, shoving my head into the pillow that still held Javi’s scent from yesterday when we’d made out before my mother came home. “I don’t know what to do.”

Claudia sat next to me and rubbed my back. “I heard about his fight with Oscar,” she said. “Did it really happen the way they said it did? Did Javi punch him for kicking you? And who had the knife? That’s the part I’m
really
confused about.”

I groaned. “God! Can’t the rumor mongers get
anything
right?”

“Then why don’t you tell me what really happened?”

I sat up and told her the truth.

“So after being asked to choose between you and the team, Javi went a different direction. And you think that means he’s mad at you? You realize he stood up for you against his friends, right? That has to count for something.”

“It does,” I said, wiping my runny nose with the back of my hand. “I’m grateful for that. No one’s ever done that for me before, but when he didn’t show up after school, I knew something was wrong.”

“It could mean he’s busy. Or just needs to think. He had a pretty major confrontation in front of the school, Tru. And the whispers you heard today, he likely heard them too.”

“I know,” I answered with a nod. “But we’ve been following the routine for the last few months. Every day. To suddenly throw that away tells me something has changed.”

Claudia sat back. The curiosity she’d hounded me with over the last few weeks no longer sparked in her eyes. She had no doubt figured it out, like most everyone else at school. “Are you going to tell me what’s been going on between you two or do you want me to say it?”

“I promised Javi I wouldn’t.”

She nodded. “Okay, then. You can keep your promise and not tell me a thing. But let me tell you what I now realize to be fact. You and Javi have been dating ever since your weekend at the zoo. He figured out he was attracted to you, and the two of you have since decided to make a go of it, but you planned on doing it in secret. Probably because you didn’t want to deal with the shit storm being together would stir up.”

She waited for me to reply, but I said nothing. Her nod indicated she took my silence as agreement. “But today, when Javi saw you getting bullied, he ran to your rescue, not thinking about the ramifications shoving a teammate might have on him or you. All he saw was his need to protect you. But now that Oscar has called him out about you and told him to make a choice, you think him not walking you to class or being there for you after school is a sign he has made a choice. And it’s not you.”

I nodded.

She grabbed my hand and held it between both of hers. “Tru, I say this with all the affection in the world, but you need to get your head out of your ass.”

I recoiled as if she’d slapped me. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means you’re being a tad selfish,” she said after releasing my hand. “You’re only looking at this from your perspective. Sure, what happened today sucks ass, but your world hasn’t really changed, has it?”

“You mean besides Javi abandoning me at school?”

She rolled her eyes as if I was some silly child incapable of seeing my faults. “You’re gay. You’ve known that for years, right?” When I nodded, she continued. “Javi’s just figuring this stuff out, and the two of you have been doing it on your own. And I can certainly understand why. You’re walking a minefield, and you don’t know where to step. I get it. But today changed things a bit. Today, Javi was presented with a choice he’s been foolishly trying to avoid. He can’t walk both sides of the fence. That’s not how life works, and that’s definitely not how high school works. We operate within the social circles we fit into. Sure, Javi’s been able to weave in and out of most cliques because he’s not had to pick one. Everyone accepts him because he’s a great person. But today, he was told for the first time in his life he can’t do that. He’s basically been given an ultimatum. Do you realize how confused he must be right now?”

Claudia was right. I had been selfish and shortsighted. Earlier I’d been trying to think of ways I could make Javi’s life easier, but I’d forgotten all that once faced with my fears of losing Javi. This wasn’t just about me or us. This was about Javi too.

“I have to find him,” I said as I stood.

She smiled. “Good boy.”

Someone knocked on the front door. “Can you get that?” I asked as I darted for the kitchen. “I’m going to call Javi.” I didn’t have a cell phone, so I couldn’t call his cell or text him. I had to rely on the landline and hope he would answer when my number showed up on the caller ID.

“Sure,” Claudia said.

I picked up the phone and dialed Javi’s number. When it started to ring, Claudia was suddenly at my side. “What?”