End of the Innocence (22 page)

“I don’t want to be gay!”

I pushed past Brad as Kelly’s words from last night came echoing from the computer. I saw the screen and felt my blood turn to ice water. It was Kelly and me talking last night. Someone had been standing with the door cracked holding a cell phone, recording us. It had been edited and was looping almost everything Kelly had said over and over again. Someone had posted it on his Facebook wall with the title “Who’s the fag now?”

There were over one hundred comments and twice as many Likes on it.

“Oh God.” Kelly began to cry when he saw it had been shared over forty times up and down his wall.

Someone had just publicly outed Kelly to the entire school.

B
RAD

Y
OU
know that whole thing people have about the zombie apocalypse? They are so sure the dead are going to rise again and get a taste for takeout that they have these plans. I know it isn’t real, but it is like the worst thing in the world they could envision. Out of all the ways the world could end, the very worst to them is ending up a happy meal for a pack of dead guys. I’ve seen a few movies and watched that one show a couple of times, but it really didn’t strike me as scary as everyone else thought it was.

That was because in my mind, the worst way for the world to end was what just happened to Kelly.

I just stood there stunned as he tried to erase the video from his wall, knowing it had been seen by half the school already. His phone was on the desk next to him, vibrating like it was on speed with each new text that came in. I couldn’t blame him for not checking them; after all, what was he going to say? No, that is not me crying about being gay on that clip. It is obviously a CGI Kelly. Can’t you see how it looks like Jar Jar?

As we watched, more and more responses came streaming in from Facebook. It was obvious that most of Foster High was waking up and checking their e-mails. Within five minutes, the video popped up three more times on his wall; there was no putting that genie back in its bottle now.

“Who sent it?” Jennifer asked between Kelly’s vocal explosions.

“I don’t know!” he raged. “I deleted the original post; these are repostings.”

“It’s a YouTube clip,” Kyle said, pointing at the video. “Click that corner.” Kelly didn’t quite get what Kyle was saying, so Kyle clicked it himself. Another browser opened to YouTube. The video was titled “Kelly Aimes: who is the fag now?”

It had over a thousand views already.

“People are commenting here too!” Kelly exclaimed, pointing at the page.

“Turn it off,” Kyle said quickly, reaching for the power switch.

“What are they saying?” Kelly asked, pushing his hand way.

“Don’t read it,” Kyle insisted, reaching with his other hand to shut the computer off.

“Knock it off, geek,” Kelly snapped, pushing him away. Kyle pinwheeled back, hitting the floor with a thud.

“What’s it say?” I asked, curiosity winning out over caution.

The second I read the words, I wished I could take it back.

“Fucking kill yourself, fag.”

“All fags should die.”

“God will laugh when you die.”

“I always knew Kelly was a fucking fairy.”

I reached over and turned the computer off myself; this time Kelly didn’t stop me.

“I’m dead,” he said in a voice that sounded like it was made with his last breath.

“No you’re not,” Kyle said, getting up off the floor. “This will pass.”

All three of us looked at him like he was nuts.

“It’s just Facebook,” Kyle said, obviously not aware of what he was saying. “You have a couple of weeks before school starts. By the time it starts up again, people will find something new to talk about.”

“And if they don’t?” Kelly demanded more than asked.

“Then we deal with it,” he answered, his tone of voice laced with steel. “This is not the end of the world,” Kyle assured us. I didn’t say anything, but I couldn’t help feeling he was dead wrong. This was how the world ended, at least for guys like Kelly and me.

“Can you guys take off?” Kelly asked after a few minutes of silence.

“Do you want us to help clean…?” Jennifer started to ask.

“Just go,” he barked.

She looked at me, and I just shrugged. “Let’s give him some space,” I said and to Kelly, I added, “If you need us, just call, man.”

Kelly didn’t even look up. The only sound in his room was his phone vibrating again and again.

I followed Kyle out as Jennifer closed the door behind her.

“We’re just going to leave him alone?” Kyle asked, his voice straining with disbelief.

“He doesn’t want us here,” Jennifer answered.

“And we are just going to do it?” Kyle asked, getting more upset.

I saw he was upset, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. “We can’t just stay here forever. He wants to be alone, he gets to be alone.”

“He’s in pain,” Kyle said, pointing at the closed door.

“And he will be in pain until he lets someone help him,” Jennifer said softly. She looked at me. “Let me grab my stuff, and we can take off.”

I nodded, and she went downstairs. As soon as she was gone, I said to Kyle in a lower tone of voice, “I know you want to do something, but he doesn’t want our help. You can’t force it on him.” I saw he wanted to argue, but he knew I was right. “I love you for wanting to jump in and do the right thing, but some people need time to adjust.”

Kyle looked back at the closed door and shook his head. “This isn’t something you just adjust to.”

He let out a sigh and his shoulders slumped. “I’ll go grab my clothes.” He walked away with an aura of defeat around him. I felt like I had just kicked a puppy, but I knew if it was me in there, I would want to be able to cry in private. We gathered all our stuff, and I called up the stairs. “Hey dude, we’re taking off! Call if you need something!” Silence was the only response. I saw the worried look in Kyle’s eyes. “He’ll be fine. I’ll call him later tonight on his parents’ line.” He accepted that answer, but I could see he didn’t like it at all.

I closed the front door, ignoring the feeling of dread that passed through my mind momentarily.

Once we were on the road to Jennifer’s house, Kyle started talking. “You guys know he is nowhere near okay, right?” I waited for Jennifer to answer, which was the wrong thing to do because I saw her look at me in the rearview mirror.

“Kyle…,” I began to explain.

“No. Don’t give me ‘Kyle, everyone deals with it differently’ or ‘Kyle, you have to give people space’. That guy is in nine kinds of pain, and we are leaving him alone.”

“So what would you have us do?” Jennifer asked from the backseat.

His answer was immediate. “I would sit on him until he realized the sky isn’t falling down on his head.”

“But it is,” I said, correcting him gently. He looked over at me like I had called him a bad word. “What?” I asked in response. “The worst thing that could possibly happen to him just happened. In his world the sky is blood red, and it is falling right down on his head.”

I saw him visibly swallow his anger to speak normally. “One, being found out you are gay is not the worst thing that can happen to a person. He could have fallen in a hole and had to gnaw his arm off. He might have been force-fed spaghetti until his stomach was about to burst. He might have even been hit by a bus in the middle of an intersection. Only in this backward fucking town would someone think being gay is the worst of all possibilities. And two, let’s pretend you’re right and that somehow being gay is the worst thing in the world. Isn’t that more reason to not leave him alone?”

We’d never really fought before, which meant I had never been on the receiving end of his temper. Staring down the business end of it now, I could see why people did not like arguing with him. “You can’t save everyone,” I said as we pulled up in front of Jennifer’s house.

Kyle opened his door the moment I stopped. “I’m not interested in saving everyone. Just that one guy.” And he slammed the door.

“What the fuck?” I asked as he began to walk away.

I looked back at Jennifer, who had a grin on her face. “Hey, sue me,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “I’m starting to like him.”

I turned off the car and jogged after him.

Kyle was serious. This wasn’t a dramatic, “I am going to walk away and wait for someone to stop me” kind of thing. He really was just leaving. “Come on, Kyle!” I called after him. “It’s Winter Break—don’t make me run!” He stopped and let me catch up to him. “Thank you,” I said, trying catching my breath.

He said nothing in return.

“So what’s your plan? Go back to Kelly’s and bust down his door?” I asked as we walked.

More nothing.

“Kyle, I want to help Kelly too, but he needs time.”

He stopped and shot me a look. “He needs friends. He doesn’t need to be alone or have space or deal by himself. He needs to know he has friends.”

My response came tumbling out of my mouth before I could stop it. “You aren’t his friend.”

“No. His
friends
are either calling him a fag or leaving him alone. So I am the best he has.” And he began walking off again.

I finally lost it. All the frustration and anger I had been holding back just came flooding out. “Fine!” I shouted at him. “Do whatever you want! You have all the answers, don’t you!”

He kept walking away from me.

I threw up my hands at him and stormed back to my car. Jennifer was leaning against it with a package of Pop-Tarts in her hand, a Cheshire Cat grin on her face. “So did you try to lay down the Greymark law?”

“He’s nuts,” I replied angrily. I felt sick to my stomach because this was the first thing we ever really disagreed on, but I was too pissed to care.

“I thought he hated Kelly?” she asked, tearing off a piece and offering it to me.

I took it because I was stupid hungry. “I don’t think Kyle can hate anyone, one of the many reasons I love him.” I chewed as I thought on that. “Also, one of the many reasons I want to shake some sense into him. This isn’t going to end well.”

She nibbled on the edge of her pastry as she mused on it. “So let me get this right. Kelly tried to kill him, treated him like an asshole, and pretty much made his life a living hell, and now Kyle is walking back to his house because he is worried about him?”

I nodded.

“Wow,” she said finishing her snack. “He
is
too good for you.” She turned and headed up her driveway. “Call me if you hear anything on Kelly.”

I stood there and looked back in the direction Kyle had walked.

This was going to be the worst Winter Break of my life.

K
YLE

I
KNOCKED
on Kelly’s door, trying hard not to drop the bags in my hand.

No answer, so I knocked louder.

Still no answer, so I kicked the door a few times.

He swung open the door and glared at me. From the redness in his eyes, I could see he had been crying. “What?”

“Hungry?” I asked, holding up the two bags so that the Nancy’s Diner logo showed.

“Go away,” he said, starting to close the door.

I moved quickly, putting my body between the door and the jamb before it could close. “Yeah, not going to happen,” I said when he glared at me furiously. Even Kelly had to admit the obvious after a minute. I wasn’t going to move, so he opened the door enough to let me slip in. “Thanks,” I said, making sure I didn’t drop the bags.

He slammed the door behind me. “You can’t take a hint, can you?”

I went into the living room and sat down on the couch. “I take hints just fine. I just happen to be ignoring yours at the moment.” Putting the bags down, I began to unpack the food. “Gayle said you usually ordered the chicken breast sandwich, so I got you that. If you don’t want it, I’ll trade my cheeseburger with you.”

“I’m not hungry,” he said, standing over me instead of sitting down.

“More for me, then.” I shrugged as I unwrapped my burger. I turned, grabbed the remote, and turned on the TV before I took a bite. “There’s a
Teen Wolf
marathon on MTV. You ever watch that show?” I asked with my mouth full.

He just stared at me like I was an alien.

“The story is nice, but the guys in it are stupid hot,” I commented, ignoring the staring. “I mean it. It’s on par with watching porn.” I was lying since I had never watched porn, but I assumed it had to be a lot like watching Colton Haynes taking a shower.

After about five minutes, he sighed heavily and sat down next to me.

“I didn’t know what you put on it, so there is mayonnaise, ketchup, and mustard in the bag,” I said as he unwrapped his food.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked while he spread mustard over the bun, using the flattened packet as a knife.

“Doing what?” I asked innocently. “I missed the last few episodes, and your TV is better than mine.” Which was true of just about everything in the Aimes’s house.

He gave me a “Come on” look, but I ignored him and watched the TV.

He gave up and began to watch it with me.

It was exactly forty-four minutes before he started asking questions.

“So wait, that guy is a werewolf too?” he asked, pointing.

“Yeah, he is the new alpha,” I explained during the commercial.

“So he made him?” Kelly asked, confused.

“No, that was the other alpha,” I began to explain and then gave up. “Season one is on Netflix. Why don’t we just start there?”

“You’ve already seen those,” he protested.

“So? Did you see those guys?” I laughed. “Grab us something to drink, and I’ll load it up.” I grabbed the remote and pulled up Netflix.

He came back with a Pepsi in each hand. “How did you even get here? I didn’t see a car outside.”

I pulled up the first season of
Teen Wolf
. “I went by Nancy’s, and Gayle had Pedro the busboy give me a ride.”

He paused. “What did you tell her?”

I looked up at him. “I told her I had a friend who was having a shitty day, and I was bringing him some food to cheer him up.” He seemed to turn that over in his head for a few seconds. “I didn’t tell her anything. I wouldn’t do that.”