True Letters from a Fictional Life (18 page)

“Hey! I have something for you,” said Hawken, ducking into his car.

When he came out, he handed me a black-and-white photograph. It was from Pirate Shakespeare Night, as Derek referred to it. Topher and I sat on the porch railing, his arm around my shoulders. My smile was cloudless.

“I like this photo a lot. You look really happy.”

“Yeah, that is a good shot. I was hammered.”

“Naw, it was before you were hammered. Anyway, I have to split.”

I tried to hand the photo back to him. “Thanks for showing it to me.”

“No, it's yours.”

“Oh.”

“Unless you're uncomfortable having photographic evidence of your gayism lying around.”

“Yeah, maybe.” I tried to hand him the photo again.

“James, I was joking. It's yours. Frame it.”

“Right. I'll hang it in the living room. That won't make anyone uncomfortable or anything.”

Hawken grabbed a towel from his car and pulled off his shirt.

“Does this make you uncomfortable?” he asked, stepping close to me, trying but failing to keep a straight face.

“Does this?” And I stomped on his foot.

He howled, then limped to the driver's door, laughing, wished me luck, and left.

I was just out of the shower when my mom knocked on my door and called from outside.

“Are you telling your friends to just show up, knowing that I won't have the heart to send them away?”

“Derek's here?”

“No, it's a young man named Topher.”

I think I actually jumped a little. I rubbed my chin, wondering what he'd said to her.
Hi,
all casual,
I'm James's boyfriend.

I stuck my head out the door, “So it's okay if he stays for a while?”

“Is he a friend from school? I don't remember you ever mentioning him.”

“Yeah,” I started to lie, and then realized I'd never be able to sustain it. “I mean no, he goes to another school. We just know each other. From, like, around.”

“Well, he's very charming and polite. I'd been thinking that some new friends might do you good, so I'm not going to send him away. But don't leave this house.”

She'd been thinking I needed new friends.

I did a quick survey of my room. Clothes covered the floor and my schoolbooks were scattered across my bed. The
place was a disaster. And I knew that if I told my mom to send him up here, she'd listen from the hallway.

“Tell him I'll be right there,” I said, shutting my door. I tried to fix my hair and put on cologne at the same time, but I wound up spraying on too much. Grabbing the nearest sock, I wiped my neck, then stuck two sticks of gum in my mouth, thumped down the stairs, and tried to stroll casually into the kitchen.

“Hey, man,” I said when I shuffled in. Topher was sipping a glass of water. I attempted to fist bump him, which we'd never done before. He tried shaking my hand and then realized what was happening and sort of slapped my knuckles instead.

I saw him glance toward my mom, who was glancing toward us, and then he coughed nervously, and said in a voice he probably had when he was ten, “Hi, James.”

Could my mom read me? Could she see that I couldn't control my smile around this kid? I wanted to get him out of my kitchen as fast as possible, but if I'd immediately suggested that we go outside, my mom would've wondered if he was selling me drugs. I hoped he had a plan.

He didn't. He just sat there grinning with his head tucked into his shoulders. “How was your weekend?” I asked, and sauntered to the fridge, hoping that slow movements would disguise my panic.

“Good, good. Nothing big. I had play practice and then some homework.”

“Oh, you're in a play?” my mom asked enthusiastically.

This is good, I thought. Neutral conversation. This is okay.

“Yes,” he replied, and smiled. Not
yeah
or
uh-huh
or
yup
.
Yes
. “I'm Hamlet in, well,
Hamlet
.”

“Oh my God, your school is putting on
Hamlet
?”

“Not my school, it's a nearby community group, and it's just an adaptation,” he explained, and he told her about how the director has rewritten a bunch of Shakespeare's tragedies for the high school stage. While he was talking, I came up with a plan to get us out of earshot of my mom. Before she could ask him to recite his lines, I interrupted.

“Hey, Mom, Topher is friends with Theresa's friend, Kim. She sent him over to give me some advice about that whole thing.”

“What whole thing?” she asked. “Your drinking?”

There was silence for a moment.

“The whole Theresa thing,” I said.

“Oh.” She looked surprised.

“Yeah. So, is it okay for us to hang out on the front step or something?” Before she could answer, I turned to Topher and pretended to explain, “I'm under house arrest. I threw up in my room.”

“While Topher's memorizing Hamlet's soliloquies, you're vomiting rum. That's lovely,” sighed my mother. “You may talk on the front steps. Or in the living room, where it's not buggy. Topher, please talk some sense into James. It's too bad you're not rehearsing the part of Polonius.”

Evidently, that was hilarious. I went to grab my sneakers,
and Topher's laughter followed me up the stairs. He is a good actor.

I led us out through the garage door. In the window of my mom's car, I could see the reflection of my worried eyes when Topher wrapped his arms around me and kissed my cheek. “Good to see you,” he whispered.

“We should go out front before my mom gets curious.”

We were two steps from the driveway when Rex leaped from behind my mom's car, spun in the air, and landed in his favorite ninja pose. Topher made a weird little barking yelp, but Rex didn't say anything—he was just breathing heavy, nearly panting. Not knowing what he'd seen or what he might say, I couldn't ignore him. I had to handle him carefully. Crouching, I circled him, drawing him out onto the driveway. Topher backed away.

“You want to fight?” I challenged.

“You going to die,” he whispered, and then he launched himself at me. I ducked low, and he landed with his chest on my back, his legs over my shoulders, his arms wrapped around my stomach. I stood up, grabbing his legs, and walked him upside down onto the lawn. He was half cracking up, half wailing. “Where should we put him?” I called to Topher. “In that puddle or in the bramble?” I started to spin.

“No!” yelled Rex, and he squirmed so much I really nearly dropped him.

“The bramble? Is that where we're going?” I set off across the lawn.

He went berserk, screaming and laughing, punching and kicking.

“Stop! I'm letting you down, dude. You're really heavy. Stop squirming and put your hands out so you don't drop on your head!”

Rex managed an awkward handstand landing. He was still cracking up as he stood. I got on my knees in front of him and took him by the shoulders. “How long were you hiding in the garage, you weirdo?”

“I hid behind the car when I heard the door open,” he panted. “Why? What were you doing?”

“Nothing.” I stood up. “Topher,” I announced, relieved. “This is my brother, Rex. Go shake, Rex.”

Rex charged Topher obediently and tackled him. It was tough to tell whether Topher's fall to the pavement was staged or real.

“Down, Rex! Heel! Heel!”

Rex stood and, placing his boot on Topher's chest, pumped his arms in the air. Topher looked stunned.

“Dude, don't put your dirty paws on him!”

Rex removed the foot. “Sorry!” he said down at Topher.

He is a good kid. I do like him.

Topher stood, brushed himself off, laughed less convincingly than he had earlier.

“You have to go inside,” I said. “Mom said she has something for you.”

“What? What does she have for me?”

“I don't know. You have to go find out.”

He sprinted to the house.

“Your brother's named
Rex
?” Topher asked as we walked to the front step.

“My older brother, Luke, and I wanted a dog. His real name's Daniel.” As I leaned back against the railing of the stone steps, I felt good for the first time all week. I'd missed Topher's eyes and smile.

“It's been a crazy few days,” I began, stretching my legs out so that my foot hit his. “Crazy, crazy.” I apologized for not being in touch more often and started to give him a brief version of recent events: “Someone stole a bunch of letters I wrote but never meant to mail out.”

The front storm door swung open just then. Rex banged both fists against the glass. “She had nothing!” he shouted at me. “She had nothing for me!”

My mother appeared, looking apologetic, swept him away, and shut the door again.

“So, yeah, I wrote all these letters to people just to get my thoughts out on paper, like an escape valve for steam, you know?” I paused and scraped the front steps with a stick. I hadn't even reached the weird part yet, and I was already embarrassed. I just kept going. “And then Hawken and Theresa and Aaron Foster all got these really personal letters in the mail that were humiliating for me, as the author of them, although they were all pretty cool about it. I don't know what other letters are missing. I thought it was Derek who stole
them, but Hawken asked him about it, and, apparently, it wasn't him. And Hawken says Mark wouldn't do that kind of thing, but I'm not sure—”

“Why didn't you say anything about all of this, James? It's crazy. Are you kidding?”

“I mean, what could you have done? What can anyone do? I figured I might be able to find out who it was and that would sort of be the end of it.”

“You keep way too much to yourself, dude. Way too much. You're going to go off like a gun one of these days.” He shook his head. “And you're not going to be able to figure out who stole those letters just by sitting around thinking about it. Talk to everyone involved. Be honest with them.”

“You think I should interrogate Mark?”

“Maybe, but first you should tell him that you're gay. Steal that from
him
. He's probably waiting to use it against you. And you have to talk to your parents.”

“I want to wait until they're over Rumscapade.”

“Well, man, you have to talk to someone about all of this. If you're not going to talk to your parents, go talk to someone at school. Guidance counselors are paid to listen to this kind of stuff. And think about it—it'd be a career highlight for them, helping a kid like you come out of the closet.”

I'd been peeling bark from a stick, but I forced myself to smile. He kicked my foot.

“Honestly. You have to talk to someone before this gets any uglier. And if this jerk mails your letters to people who
aren't cool about it, you're going to regret not having had the guts to beat him to it. You'll want that moment back.”

The sun had dipped below the hill, and the black flies were out.

“I don't want to talk about any of this with someone I don't know.”

“Then what's your plan?”

“What's my
plan
?” I said
plan
as though he were an idiot for using the word.

He looked away, rubbed his eyes, and then stood up.

“Sorry, no. I don't have a plan. I don't know what I'm going to do. Please sit back down, Topher. I'm sorry.” I stood up.

“I should go, actually,” he said quietly. “I've got to help work on sets at the theater.”

“Tonight? On a Sunday night?”

“I'm supposed to be there already.”

“Don't go yet, Topher. I'm sorry. Please stay.”

My mom opened the front door just then. She peeked her head out and grimaced. “Aren't you boys getting eaten alive? Come inside!”

“Thanks, but I actually have to go,” Topher said. “It was really nice to meet you, Mrs. Liddell.”

“It was nice to meet you, too, Topher,” my mom said. “Good luck with
Hamlet
.”

“Thanks.”

I stood up, willing her to shut the door so I could walk
him back over to the garage and say sorry a hundred times over again out of sight, but she didn't move.

“You sure you can't hang out for a little bit longer?” I said.

“Yeah, really. I have to split.” He didn't seem angry, and he put out his hand. “I'll give you a buzz soon.”

“I'll walk you to your car.”

“It's cool. I'll talk to you soon.”

Why wouldn't she go inside and close the door? “Thanks for the advice, man,” I said robotically, shaking his hand and making myself smile. “I'll let you know when I'm ungrounded.”

Turning as he walked across the lawn, Topher gave us a little wave.

“What a nice young man,” my mom said as she shut the door behind us.

“Yup,” I agreed, and I disappeared upstairs to Luke's room to text Topher.
Thx 4 coming over!! Hope u r not mad. Love, James.

I stared at the
Love, James
for a few seconds, deleted it, and hit Send.

No response.

Still not ready to deal
with any messy conversations, I avoided everyone in school the next day. I sat on the opposite side of classrooms from friends and dodged down hallways to avoid talking. I did think about going to my school counselor that afternoon—I could've made an appointment for last period during my study hall. Instead, I decided to skip out and go running. The Mud 10K was less than a week away. Tomorrow I would talk to someone, I told myself.

In the locker room, I fumbled and dropped my combination lock trying to get out of there as quickly as possible. I had a sneaker on one foot and a sock on the other when I heard the locker room door open. Squeaky footsteps on the
tiles, and then Derek peered around the corner of the lockers.

“I figured you were here,” he said, his hands in his pockets. He took a seat on the wooden bench.

“Yeah?”

“I don't even get invited to go running anymore?”

“You want to go running?” I offered.

“Nope. I'm beat. No running for me.”

I just stood there. I'd managed to avoid him all day, and now he had me cornered. Should I talk to him here? Should I tell him I'd meet him later? Before I could decide, he said, “Hawken talked to you yesterday, huh?”

“Yeah. Yeah, he did. And you spoke to Hawken.”

“Right. It's almost like we spoke to each other, but not quite.”

“Ha.” One shoe still hung limp from its laces in my hand. “I'm sorry I called you a liar, man. There's a whole bunch going on and—”

He held up a hand. “Hawken told me about it. I'm sorry that's happening. But I don't know why you'd think I'd do that to you. I was so upset about that I couldn't even call you. I've
never
been cruel to you. Not once.” He looked away from me and bit his lip, held his breath.

“Derek, come on, man. I know.”

He took a deep breath, calmed down. “I'm sorry whoever it is has you thinking so crazy,” he said.

“Yeah,” I replied. “It has me thinking crazy.”

“Anyway, he's a nice dude,” Derek said. “Topher, I mean.”

I nodded for what was probably ten seconds and then whispered, “Thanks. He is a nice dude.”

“But you knew before you met him?”

It took me a moment to figure out what he meant, and then I nodded again, hoping that'd be the end of it. Derek was speaking too loudly. We were in one small section of a big locker room. There were showers at one end, a couple of offices for coaches at the other. Anyone could have been in there listening.

“It doesn't make a difference to me, James,” Derek continued before I could stop him. “You could've told me that you were gay and—”

Mark stepped around the corner of the lockers, grinning.

“What's going on? You two running away together?”

Derek stood up. “Mark, would you take off?”

“Whoa, whoa! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to interrupt anything between you two.”

“Well, you did,” I said, and I wished my voice had been steadier. “We're talking.” Suddenly, I was cold and sweating.

“My bad, my bad.” Mark pretended to apologize again, his hands up. “But let me ask you one question: Who's the man in this relationship and who's the—”

Derek's punch cut him off. He hit him square in the jaw. Hard. Mark staggered backward two steps and put his hand to his mouth, then looked at his fingers, checking for blood.

I froze, my shoe still dangling by its laces in my hand. As Derek crouched, fists clenched, ready to fight, Mark stepped
forward and landed a punch with all his weight behind it . . . right in my eye. The clang I heard must have been the back of my head hitting the metal lockers when I fell, but at the time, I thought it was the bone cracking around my eye socket.

I remember being on the ground, then back on my feet, and I remember Coach Williams, the baseball coach, pinning Mark to a locker with both hands while yelling “Hey! Hey! Hey!” in rhythm with my throbbing skull. I remember Derek and Mark screaming curses at each other. I remember Derek walking ahead of me to the principal's office, and Mark howling at his coach behind me, “That queer just made a move on his friend.” I kept walking.
One foot shod
, I remember thinking,
one foot and one eye socked
. And I remember somehow wanting to grin, not only because of the dumb pun, but also because it felt like something was over. Something was finished.

As ordered, Derek and I sat on the wooden bench outside Ms. Reed's—the principal's—office. I was holding an ice pack against my eye, when suddenly Derek put his arm around me. I turned to see him with my good eye, but he was looking past me at Mark, who was being escorted toward us.

“Oh, I know,” said Mark as he passed us on his way in to see Ms. Reed. “Believe me, I know. You don't have to make a show of it.”

Even though I hadn't hit anyone, the school insisted on calling my father to let him know that I'd been in a fight. “We're
not sending you home with a black eye and no explanation,” Ms. Reed said as she dialed my father's cell phone. Of course he wanted to immediately come pick me up, and Derek and I were back on the bench when he arrived. Ms. Reed tried to reassure him by saying, “James didn't actually throw a punch.” I did my best to glare at her with one eye and an ice pack.

“What was this all about?” my dad asked. “I thought you two were friends with Mark.”

Derek pretended to laugh.

“It's complicated,” I said, standing up. “I'll explain it all when we get home.” I looked at Derek, who was opening and closing his bruised hand, and turned back to my father. “I'll catch up with you, Dad.”

After he left, I kicked Derek's foot lightly, twice. “Dude. Thanks for the black eye.”

He laughed.

“Come over later,” I said.

“I'll try. I might not be allowed out of my house.”

“Will I be allowed in?”

“Yeah.” He looked confused and then caught on. “Yeah. Are you kidding?”

“You can explain everything to your folks if you want. I'm about to do the same, and they'll probably end up calling your parents anyway. I'll see you later on.”

“I'm not sure I know enough to explain anything, but, yeah, come over—unless they keep me here forever.” He
turned to the woman who ran the office. “Maggie, seriously, when can I go?”

My dad was ten yards ahead of me on the way to the parking lot. Three baseball players, Mark's teammates, were standing outside the gym.

“Liddell!” one of them called.

I didn't know who had heard what, so I waved.

“You faggot!” the kid yelled back.

Ducking my head, I walked faster, but my father had stopped in his tracks. He stared at them as I caught up to him.

“Let's go,” I muttered, and grabbed his elbow. “Let's go, let's go, let's go.”

I was glad we lived so close to the school. It meant a short, silent drive home. My mom's car was in the garage when we pulled up the driveway. My dad must have phoned when he got the call from school, and she'd left work early.

We calmed her down about my eye. “He does not need to go to the hospital,” my dad reassured her as he opened the freezer. He tossed me a bag of frozen peas, which I tried to catch with one hand and one eye and missed. “He just needs to sit down and explain what happened,” my father continued. “I still haven't heard the whole story.”

“You guys might want to fix yourselves some drinks,” I said quietly.

My mom now looked even more tense, and she lowered
herself into a chair at the kitchen table. I think she had suddenly connected some dots.

My father slapped my shoulder as he walked past. “James, I'm sure we can handle whatever it is you have to tell us.” He squeezed between my mom and the wall to get to the chair by the window. She looked frozen. She didn't even scoot in to give him room. “And we are not fixing drinks at this time in the afternoon.”

“Well, can I have one?”

My dad shot me a look. “Sit down and relax. What happened?”

I slumped into a chair and with a shaky hand held the frozen peas against my punched eye. I closed the other. “That kid after school, Dad,” I began. I took a deep breath and opened my good eye. My father looked puzzled. “That kid after school,” I tried again. “The one who yelled that stuff at me. That didn't come out of nowhere.”

My father stared at me for a moment, then crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. It creaked beneath his weight.

“What did he yell?” my mom asked weakly.

Neither of us answered her. I pushed the pack of frozen peas so hard against my eye it hurt.

“What did he yell?”

“He called James a—” My father leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees, then his hands on his head. “He said James is gay.”

I had the pack of frozen peas over both eyes now and
heard my dad ask, “And you think it's true?”

I nodded.

“James, answer me.”

“Yeah,” I said, letting my hand holding the ice pack drop to my leg. “It's true.” And then I said it, as if it weren't already clear. Two words if you count the
I am
as one mumbled contraction.

My dad looked up at me, and then he winced and gazed off out the window.

“Excuse me?” said my mom quietly. I thought at first she was talking to my father. I thought she might've seen the disgusted look on his face and was challenging him: “Excuse me? How dare you react to our son that way?”

But she wasn't. She was talking to me.
She wants you to repeat it,
I told myself. You just made the most painful admission of your life, and she wants you to repeat it.

I rocked back in my chair, which drives my mom crazy, and cleared my throat as if I were about to speak, but I didn't say anything. I looked to my father for help. He rubbed his jaw as if he were making sure he was awake, making sure this was real, and then he rocked back in his own chair, too.

“How long have you thought this?” he asked quietly.

I shrugged. They were supposed to be saying it was okay.

“Months?” my dad offered.

I closed my eyes and shook my head.

“Years?”

I didn't move. When I opened my eyes again, he was
looking at my mother. Her jaw was tense, as if she were clenching her teeth, and she stared at the kitchen table.

“Why didn't you say something?”

The front legs of my chair banged onto the kitchen floor.

“I just did,” I said, much more loudly than I'd meant to.

My mother's head snapped up, and I thought she might scream at me.

“I just did,” I repeated more quietly. “And I don't know what else you want me to say. Look at my eye. This is why I didn't say anything to anyone. People find out and this happens and you guys look like you don't want me for a son.” Somehow I was managing to speak coherently while tears poured down my face.

“We don't look like that,” said my dad, “We don't think that, James. My God . . .”

“Yes, you do look like that.”

“James, please, stop.” My dad had his hands over his face, his elbows on the table. Sliding his hands down across his jaw, he gazed out the window.

I turned to my mother, but she didn't say a word. She didn't even look at me.

I stood up and walked out of the kitchen, down the hall, and up the stairs to my room, waiting for one of them to call me back. Neither of them did.

My eye, as I inspected it in the mirror of my bedroom, felt like a throbbing golf ball, and it was so red and purple that
it might have been turned inside out. I couldn't see out of it anyway, but the tears made it doubly blurry. I'd been up in my room only five minutes or so, first examining my reflection in the mirror, then sitting at my desk, staring out the window, imagining following moose tracks over the hill and disappearing into the forest forever, when my father knocked and opened the door at the same time, as he does. He didn't say a word as he walked in and sat on the bed. I turned back toward my window, and the index card I'd stuck above my desk caught my eye:

IF YOU AIN'T SCARED STANDING UP
FOR WHAT'S RIGHT,

THEN YOU AIN'T STANDING UP FOR MUCH.

—NOT MARK TWAIN

“You took us by surprise, James,” my dad began. “You know your mom and I love you no matter—”

“Then where is she?” I said without looking at him.

“Listen, it's a lot—it's a lot for her to digest. For us to digest. I mean, we've both always thought of you as one way, thought of your life as going one way, and now, all of a sudden, out of nowhere—”

“I'm someone else.”

“You're not someone else. Obviously. We know that. But we thought we knew you better than we did. It's alarming. It's unsettling to find out that—”

“Disappointing?”

“I didn't say disappointing. I said unsettling.”

“It's not like I'm coming home with a mohawk and tattoos and a pierced lip. It's not like I made a bad choice.”

“You're sure about that? You're sure you're not making a choice? Sometimes we make choices without realizing that we're making them.”

I turned from the window and looked straight at him. “Believe me,” I said. “Believe me, I didn't make a choice.”

“At seventeen? You're sure of this at seventeen? I just don't know if you can be sure of these things when you're your age.”

“You met mom in high school and
married
her. Did you make a choice to like her?”

“It's not the same.”

“How is it not the same?”

My mom appeared in my bedroom doorway. She'd been crying. “Is it the boy who was over here the other day? What was his name? Topher?”

I nodded. “Yeah, Topher.”

“He's very polite,” she started to say, but her voice cracked, and she stared at the ceiling. “You wore cologne for him,” she managed when she'd regained her composure. She walked into my room and dropped next to my dad on the edge of my bed. “How did you meet him? On the internet?”