Bad Things (31 page)

“
Ali didn’t. But I had an erection. The way my mom looked at me was awful. Not just surprised or angry. There was this shock, this horror. Like I was standing over a butchered dog with a bloody knife in my hand.

“
I don’t know what she said to Ali’s mom when she came to pick him up, but Ali never came to the house again.

“
Mom sent me up to the attic. Whenever one of us was bad, that’s where we had our timeouts, because the house only had three bedrooms, so Alex and Brandon shared a room, and me and David shared a room, but for timeouts, we were supposed to be alone.

“
I was so scared of what was going to happen when my dad got home, I was almost puking those whole two hours of waiting. I mean, he wasn’t abusive. He’d spanked me a couple of times, but it’s not like he knocked us around. But I was terrified he was going to look at me the way my mom had looked at me. I was terrified of what he was going to say.”

Carson took another hit. Dario’s face wasn’t gray anymore. Actually, the guilt had faded out of both of their eyes. Now they just looked sad, which was a relief. It was easier to bear their sadness than their guilt.

“From up in the attic I heard his car pulling into the driveway. Heard the motor pulling up the garage door up and lowering it. My heart was going crazy. I kept thinking I was going to throw up.

“
By then the parents had picked up all the kids from my mom’s daycare, so it was just my family in the house, and I remember it got weirdly quiet, the way it did any time one of us was in trouble. My mom would send us kids to our rooms so she and my dad could talk and decide on a punishment. Usually it would just be five or ten minutes. But that terrible silence of the house lasted at least an hour. It felt like more, you know, because I was so scared. But realistically, I’m pretty sure it was an hour.

“
Finally I heard my dad’s footsteps on the stairs. I could always tell when it was him, not my mom or any of my brothers. He had this steady, even way of walking. And the door opened. He came in, holding a white piece of cloth that I knew right away had something to do with how I’d be punished, without knowing what it was. He came over to where I was standing, and looked at me. I think the look on his face shocked me even more than how my mom had looked at me. Even after all those hours of building up how bad it was going to be. Because he didn’t look angry or disappointed. He looked blank. Like he wasn’t even seeing anybody, even though his eyes were right on me.

“
He said my mom had told him what I’d been doing in the bathroom with Ali. Except he didn’t say Ali’s name. He said, ‘That other boy,’ in this way that made it sound like Ali wasn’t a person. Then he told me that doing what I’d done with Ali meant I was a fag.”

Aidan flinched, even though Carson could see he’d more or less known what was coming. Dario didn’t flinch. He was perfectly steady, his gaze never faltering.

“He asked me if I knew what a fag was and I said yes, even though I didn’t really understand very much about sex. I just knew that thinking about boys and being around boys made me feel things I wasn’t supposed to feel, so when my dad said ’fag’ I knew that’s what he was talking about.

“
Then he told me he was going to show me what it would mean, if I decided to stay a fag. And he gave me the white thing he’d carried in with him, and told me to take off the shirt I was wearing, and put it on.”

The grass had given Carson a nice, mellow buzz, so he shouldn’t have been crying. But he couldn’t help it.

“It was just a plain white T-shirt. But in letters almost as tall as my torso, my mom had drawn the word FAG in thick black marker. My dad said I had to wear it for a week. And at the end of the week, I had to decide if I wanted to be a fag or not.”

Jaw muscles flexing, nostrils flaring, Aidan looked livid, like he would have beaten his father to a pulp if he could have gotten his hands on him. Dario just looked sad. Sadder than he could remember having seen anyone looking. It was weird, incredible. He’d never in his life felt like this. Like two people were so completely on his side.

“He made me take off the shirt I was wearing, and put on the T-shirt. Then he said my timeout was over, and I could go downstairs. I would have rather stayed up in the attic all week long than go downstairs wearing that shirt, but I knew he wouldn’t give me that choice.

“
Obviously, they’d already talked to my brothers. Because when I came downstairs, in perfect sync, as if they’d practiced for weeks, they all acted like I wasn’t there. No gawking at the fag shirt, no sideways glances at me to see if I’d been crying, no one snuck me a secret smile of commiseration. Not even Alex.”

Startling, how much that still hurt.

“Alex was the oldest, and even though I was third, he and I were always the closest of the four, and he’d always been on my side when I’d gotten into trouble before, always cheered me up after a spanking or a grounding.

“
The family ate dinner like I wasn’t there. There was no plate set out for me, no silverware. I was trying to be brave, not to pout, maybe to show my dad I wasn’t a fag, or maybe to make them think their stupid punishment wasn’t hurting my feelings. So I went and got my own plate and glass and silverware. I had to circle around the table, reaching in between them to get myself each serving of food. Then I sat down in my chair and started eating, while they all talked about their days as if nothing unusual was going on.

“
No one said goodnight to me. I slept up in the attic because there was bed up there for when we got grounded, and I guess I was mad at David for going along with the stupid prank of pretending I was invisible, which wasn’t really fair of me, because he was the youngest, so how could I expect him to be the one to stand up for me? But I didn’t feel like sleeping in our room and seeing whether or not he’d talk to me in whisper so Mom and Dad wouldn’t hear once the door was closed.

“
In the morning, breakfast went just like dinner, everyone pretending I wasn’t there. David looked sad and wound up, but everybody else was acting surprisingly normal. Not even like I’d died and was missing, but more like I’d never existed in the first place.

“
I got ready for school, but when I came downstairs my dad shuffled me into his office and closed the door. He told me that he wouldn’t have a son of his going to that school and corrupting the minds of the good Christian boys there, so I had to stay home that week while I was deciding whether or not I was a fag. He forbade me to use the phone or watch TV, and told me the only thing I was allowed to read was the Bible.

“
That was it. The whole week. I didn’t leave the house. No one hugged me or tucked me in. I passed by my mom and dad and brothers in the halls and sat next to them at meals like a ghost nobody saw or heard. And no one said a single word to me all week, except for Dad telling me on Sunday that he wasn’t going to offend the Lord by bringing a fag to church, so I’d have to stay home.

“
When the seven days were up, when my dad got home from work he came up to the attic. I’d prepared a bunch of things to say to convince him I was good, that I wouldn’t do things like what I’d done with Ali again. That I was a normal boy who should be allowed to go to school and go to church, a good boy who deserved to be asked how his day was at the dinner table, and tucked into bed and kissed good-night.

“
But he just looked me in the eye and said,
‘
Carson, are you a fag?’ And I said,
‘
No.’ And that was it. He told me I could take the shirt off. He took it from me and threw it in the trash. And that night at dinner the whole family acted like nothing had happened.

“
I’d been waiting all week for that, thinking I was going to feel happy, grateful that they’d forgiven me and taken me back. But I didn’t feel grateful. I felt sad. I could hardly eat. It was weird, but it was even harder to eat, that night, than it had been during the week of them pretending I didn’t exist.

“
They never let me go back to school, after that. Any of us. From that week on, we were home schooled. And my mom stopped taking care of the other kids in the neighborhood. My brothers still did some outside activities, you know, church sports teams, things like that. But I pretty much kept to myself, except for getting into photography the next year. But that was always something I did by myself.

“
I guess I still loved them. But after that, I never felt like they loved me. I mean, I know they all believed they were doing it because they loved me. I knew they believed they were saving my soul. But no matter how much I argued with myself, I could never make myself believe that people who would pretend me out of existence because I liked boys, truly loved me.”

That wasn’t it. Not quite.

“Or, maybe it was more that, as much as I tried, some part of me, buried way deep down, knew I couldn’t change. That I was the thing they’d rejected and ignored. I knew that if they loved me at all, they only loved the little boy I was pretending to be. Not the person I actually was.”

Dario stood up, bent down, took Carson’s hands, and coaxed him to his feet. And when he stood too, Dario wrapped him up in a tight hug, and that embrace shattered whatever little bit of armor he had left, and he was crying again. Dario just held him for however long it was before he finally calmed down. Aidan stood there, waiting quietly, and when Dario let him go, Aidan put his arms around him, holding him more tentatively, as if he was afraid of breaking him, but that hug felt like it was fixing things that had broken inside of him.

By the time they went downstairs, they were stoned and ravenous. They threw together a few incongruous dishes from whatever they could find in the fridge—lentils, scrambled eggs, and an Asian noodle soup, and when they were sated, they lounged around, Aidan intermittently playing guitar and singing, Carson horsing around with the lights and photographing Aidan as he played, until they were all dozing more than anything else.

They went upstairs. On the landing, Carson told them good-night, and, feeling weirdly shy, turned toward his room without hugging them, even though he really wanted to.

“Carson.” Dario’s gentle gaze and warm smile. He lightly stroked Carson’s arm. “Don’t sleep in the guest room tonight. Come to bed with us.” Maybe he looked startled or worried, because Dario immediately added, “After today, I think a collective cuddle is in order. Don’t you?”

When he’d gotten ready for bed he came back to their room, but they were still in the bathroom. Maybe Aidan didn’t appreciate Dario’s impromptu offer. Who could blame him? He’d sucked up their whole afternoon and evening with his drama. They deserved a break. A night to themselves.

But when they emerged, Aidan was as warm and tender as Dario. They all stripped down to their underwear, and got into bed together. They put Carson between them, curled up under the blankets, arms wrapped around each other, and fell into thick, heavy sleep.

When he woke, he vaguely remembered dreaming about Xavier, and that in the dream, he’d felt good. Been happy. The only way Carson could make that make sense was by reasoning that the man in the dream had really been Dario, or Aidan, or an amalgam of the two of them, that he only looked like Xavier.

Even before he opened his eyes, he knew Dario wasn’t in the bed. As soon as he stirred, Aidan opened his eyes, like he’d been lying there waiting for Carson to wake up.

“
Morning.” A luminous smile. His shyness utterly gone. Incredible how good that made Carson feel.

“
Morning.” Carson tried to mirror that radiant warmth, but knew he’d failed.

“
Did you sleep all right?” Aidan asked.

“
The best I’ve slept in weeks, I think. I hope you haven’t been waiting for me.”

“
Why not? You’re so pretty when you sleep. I could watch you for hours.”

When Carson blushed, Aidan laughed.

“What?” It came out sharper than Carson had meant it to.

“
I’m sorry. It’s just, I’m usually the one blushing. It’s nice to be on the other side for a change. But I should know better than to laugh. It just makes it worse, doesn’t it?”

Who could pout in the face of that guileless charm?

Aidan’s playful smile faded, and suddenly serious, gentle, he said, “And I meant it as a compliment, but maybe you don’t like me saying you’re pretty.”

Carson laughed, still blushing, but almost not caring. “How could I not like it?”

Aidan flashed a fleeting but luminous smile, and planted a kiss on Carson’s arm, just above the crease inside his elbow.

That tiny, innocent kiss instantly flooded Carson with a wonderful warmth, but in its wake he felt embarrassed, and didn’t know what he should do, so he asked, “Where’s Dario?”

“Dario had a meeting, so we’re on our own.”

“
Okay.” It was stupid, how nervous he was getting.

“
I need to get some exercise. Do you run? Or, do you like swimming at the beach?”

“
A swim in the ocean sounds amazing.”

“
Perfect. Let’s do that. Unless…”

“
What?”