Enlightened (3 page)

Ignoring Jamie completely, I rushed through my charcoal representation of a birdhouse and was cleaning up long before the bell rang. For the remaining twenty minutes of class, feeling Jamie’s worried gaze as he worked, I stared unseeingly out of the classroom window, trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do. When class ended, Jamie looked at me once and then left the room without another word.

I had a feeling I would have to get used to that. It did nothing to help the sick feeling in my stomach.

“Brian? Could you stick around for a minute?” Mr. Barnes requested quietly as everyone else filed out of the room and into the hall. I looked around wildly at the slowly emptying wooden tables with loose benches, but I didn’t see anyone looking or whispering. No one seemed surprised or even interested in his request. I had to get a hold of myself, or I would be the one to expose my secret.

Packing up my stuff, I tried to look like everyone else, but I felt trapped, panicky. Once the rest of the class had left the room, I sat back down at the art bench. My breathing was shallow and uneven as I used my nail to pick at a spot of dried paint. Not even having the balls to look him in the eye, I just sat there, waiting for the axe to fall.
He knew. He had to know or why else would he want to talk to me?
I’d never been in trouble, never been disrespectful. I felt sick that now everyone else would know too. My life would be over. Maybe the Schreibers would even send me back to the State. I mean, who wanted a perverted freak in the next bedroom?

“Brian, I’ve noticed that you have been fairly distracted the last few classes. You seem upset about something,” he started, sitting down across from me. He folded his arms delicately on the worn and scored wooden table. I could feel his eyes on my face. “Is everything all right at home?”

“Yeah,” I said quietly, only it came out more like a croak than an actual word.
Why was he dragging this out? Couldn’t he just get on with it? My life was going to be ruined now; didn’t he have the decency to make my end swift?
It was like he was trying to perform surgery with a dull, rusty scalpel.

“Brian, unless someone is physically hurting you, which I don’t think is the case, anything that you tell me will stay between us,” he reassured gently. Finally, I raised my head.

“It’s not… No one is hurting me,” I started hesitantly. “I just… I can’t talk about it.” I really wanted to talk to someone, anyone who could help me not feel so fucking scared all the time. But I was afraid that once I said it out loud, it would be true. It would be real. I would be gay, and my secret would be known by everyone. My friends, the other kids at school, the Schreibers… Jamie. They would all know.

“Does it have anything to do with Jamie Mayfield?” My eyes shot up to meet his, and I saw that they were solemn; his normally impassive face had softened. “I noticed that you two were distant today. Usually you’re two peas in a pod,” he mused, and I blanched.
If he had noticed what Jamie meant to me, would other people notice too, or was it just because he was gay?
I couldn’t drag Jamie down with me in this. His parents were such zealots about their religion, they would never forgive him. Shaking my head violently, I tried to quell the panic rolling in my stomach.

“I know I’m a teacher, but I might just understand,” he offered, patting my arm as he stood. “If you change your mind, my door is always open. Please, come and see me any time, okay?” Nodding as I grabbed my bag, I practically ran from the room. I had debated about just telling him, just saying the words. All I had to say was that I thought I might be gay, but the fear of saying it out loud, making it tangible, pushed me out the door without looking back.

F
OR
the rest of the week, I did my best to appear normal. I went to all of my classes, spent time in the cafeteria at lunch, and tried to be actively engaged in conversations with our friends. The last thing I wanted was for anyone to suspect that there was something bothering me—or more to the point, something wrong with me. I’d been scared of how I felt for years, but now that my feelings for Jamie had been more clearly defined, and labeled as evil, it was all I could think about. Only Jamie had really figured out that I was having some kind of problem. I caught him watching me a few times—in class, at lunch with our friends, and at our lockers. I had made a point of not being alone with him. If we weren’t alone, he couldn’t corner me to ask what was wrong. I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep it up forever, but it was all going fairly smoothly—until Friday afternoon.

Gym had never been my favorite class, but I tolerated it because it wasn’t exactly optional. I didn’t mind the physical exertion or the games that we played; it was the drill sergeant they called a teacher. It wasn’t the fact that Coach Williams was recently back from his overseas deployment that made me crazy, it was the fact that he worked us like we were storming the beaches at Normandy rather than just trying to earn high school credit. However, lately gym had become almost physical torture. Being in the showers, naked near Jamie, it was all I could do to think of baseball stats and multiplication tables to stop myself from getting hard. I had to force myself not to watch as he used his bare hands to lather up his skin. Those were images to feed the fantasies I would have later at night as I lay alone in bed.

Friday, however, I had one more factor working against me. In my quest to become more normal, I had refrained from masturbating all week. If I didn’t masturbate, I couldn’t think of guys while doing it. If I thought about sex at all, the next thing that popped into my mind was that stout preacher man. That, in and of itself, was a wonderful way to kill my libido. In my imagination, he was standing there, using his huge ham-like hands to push me straight to hell to atone for my sins.

Only right then, it wasn’t working.

Unfortunately, without that release, I was paying for my pent-up sexual tension. I hadn’t even taken off my gym uniform of short shorts and tight T-shirt emblazoned with our red and white school colors, and I was already hard. I knew there was no way I could strip and get into the showers. Completely mortified, I stood in the boys’ locker room, surrounded by thirty of my half-naked male classmates. Looking over in alarm, I noticed Jamie watching me. My locker was open in front of me, the door blocking my bulging shorts, but I had to get out of there. I couldn’t let him or anyone else see I was aroused by the sight of other naked boys. After throwing the jeans and T-shirt I had worn to school into my backpack, I ran, not really having any kind of plan as to where I would end up.

I had sprinted about a block from the high school when I realized that it was raining, but my momentum and my adrenaline continued to carry me forward anyway. I ran through the streets and past the quiet houses, until finally I stopped at a garage overhang where I could catch my breath out of the rain. Bent over with my hands on my knees, I gulped down air. Extremely pleased that my erection had finally gone down, I remained partially stooped, breathing heavily. The mist dripping off the roof cooled the back of my neck as I tried to get myself under control. The noise of the driving rain on the tin roof over my head masked the sound of heavy footsteps pounding toward the garage. I didn’t have any indication that Jamie was approaching until he stood in front of me. When I tried to make a break for it, he grabbed my shirt.

“Fuck no,” he said in a stern voice, and I gaped at him. I don’t think I had ever heard him swear before. “You and I are going to go to my house to talk—now.” I looked away from the alley. With a sinking feeling, I realized that we stood just yards from his house. Without even thinking about it, I had run right to him, or at least to his home. He dragged me the few remaining feet to his back gate, and, resigned to my fate, I let him push me through it.

Seeing the house that held so many good memories for me, I felt my insides go cold.
What the hell was I going to tell him? I couldn’t tell him the truth.
As we climbed up the stairs of the large wooden deck, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to lie to him. He was the best friend I had ever had, and deep down I knew that I cared for him much more than I should. The rain spattered against the large bay windows that overlooked the Mayfields’ kitchen. The white trim around the window seemed to set off the light-gray siding perfectly. Everything about Jamie’s house, from the expensive brick patio to the perfectly cut lawn, said “upper middle class.” It was just another reason why Jamie and I could never be more than what we were. His parents tolerated me as the local charity case; they would never accept me as anything more.

When we got to the back door, he swore again. I turned to look at him and for the first time noticed that he was still wearing his gym uniform. He must have taken off right after me. The white and red T-shirt clung to his chest, and while I didn’t check, I was sure the shorts were clinging too.

“I left my fucking keys at school.” He looked around, and I saw his eyes fix on the tree house. We had spent so many hours in it when we were younger. It was one of the first places I had ever felt safe after coming to live with the Schreibers. I had mostly forgotten about it now that we were in high school. At nearly seventeen, we were a little old to be playing in tree houses. In fact, I think Jamie had said his dad was going to take it down at the end of the summer.

I still remembered how completely impressed I’d been the first time I had seen it. It was masterfully built from sturdy pine with a real roof like that on their home. Apparently Jamie’s father had built it around the time they’d had their roof retiled, and he’d used the leftover material to build a roof for the tree house. The wood looked old and a little rough, and there were large openings on two sides with shutters tied closed to keep out the elements. The whole tree house looked battered now. Even the wooden ladder, which was simply the front part of a painter’s ladder disassembled and affixed to the huge oak where the tree house was built, was starting to show signs of wear.

The model of the tree house sitting on my dresser was in much better condition.

Climbing up the old ladder and pushing through the trapdoor at the top, we stood hunched in the small space, which seemed to have shrunk since the last time I had been up there. A six-foot-by-six-foot space seems so much larger when you’re just a kid. The pictures of different comic book heroes that we had drawn as kids still hung on the walls. Most of the paper was molded and yellowed with age, the tape that held them up peeling and brittle. The bean bag chairs that Mrs. Mayfield had made for us were long gone, but the milk crates and scrap wood we’d used for a table were still there. Playing cards and various broken crayons were strewn over the table and floor.

Sitting down in the corner, I brushed a cobweb from the ceiling just above my head as Jamie shrugged out of his wet T-shirt and hung it on a nearby nail. The sight of him, so close and shirtless, made my temperature jump in our impromptu confessional. It was already hot and musty in the closed space, but his proximity intensified that, and I felt the sweat bead on my forehead and cheeks. He sat down on the floor, cross-legged, right in front of me and stared into my face for a long moment. Then he spoke.

“What did I do?” His voice was tender but strong, as though determined to get an answer. “Please, just tell me what I did.” The pain in his eyes was heartbreaking to me. I couldn’t believe he thought I was mad at him, that he had done something wrong. But looking back at my behavior over the last week, I could understand how he might have come to that conclusion. Stunting our conversations, avoiding him, running from him in gym—yeah, I certainly followed his logic.

I had to tell him.

I couldn’t tell him.

He would hate me, and I would lose my best friend.

That thought was like a knife through my heart, and I felt my throat start to burn.
Oh God, I couldn’t cry in front of him too, not after everything else that had happened today.
He already had to think I was a pansy. Looking up at the ceiling, I tried desperately to calm myself, but it was no use. The tears began to fall.

“Brian, please,” he murmured and scooted closer. Then his arm was around my shoulders and my forehead was pressed against his neck. He was holding me, and it felt so fucking good. This wasn’t like the quick hug I’d given him when his aunt had died last year, or even the tight squeeze he’d given me last week when I’d thought I was going to fail my math test. The way he was holding me, comforting me, was something else entirely, and it felt so fucking good to not feel like a freak, even if only for just a few minutes. His temple was pressed against my shoulder, and I could feel his quick breath against my wet skin. It was like every dream I’d ever had about being with him, only better because he was actually here, touching me. Jamie’s touch felt so tender that I could pretend for that one moment we were everything I had wanted us to be. Before I could sink too far into my fantasy, I began to pull away, but slowly, hesitantly, he turned his face to the side and kissed the exposed skin of my neck. I sucked in a breath, stunned. The feeling of his soft lips on my throat, even just in that small comforting gesture, shocked me into complete and utter silence. I had no idea what to say, no idea what to do next. All I knew was, in that moment, I needed to look into his eyes. I had to know what he felt.

When I pulled back, I saw the shock and utter terror that I was feeling reflected back at me from his perfect face.

Chapter 2