End of the Innocence (23 page)

That seemed to relieve him, and he sat back down. “We’re friends now?” he asked as the show started.

“Well, let’s not get carried away,” I said back. “It got us some free food.”

He almost choked on his drink. “You got this for free?” I nodded. He shook his head. “I swear, you do not live in the same world as the rest of us.”

I decided to take his statement as a compliment and just smiled.

The next few hours passed without one word about Facebook or the video, which I thought was a good thing. By the middle of the first season, the sky was darkening, and we still hadn’t moved from the couch. I paused the show so we could stretch and take a much needed bathroom break.

“You want some help cleaning up?” I asked him as we looked around the living room.

“Nah,” he said, falling back into the couch. “My parents aren’t going to be home until tomorrow, so there’s plenty of time.”

I sat down on the arm of the couch. “How do you think they are going to react?” I asked cautiously.

He began to channel surf. “Probably lose their fucking minds.” I thought desperately on what to say to counter that, but honestly, his words sounded right to me. He turned the TV off and looked over at me. “You want a ride home?”

“Sure,” I said, taking the hint that I was being asked to leave.

I grabbed my stuff and waited for him to find his keys. When we opened the door, what we saw caused us both to freeze in shock. Someone had taken some red spray paint and written the word “faggot” over both sides of his truck. The sound of Kelly’s keys falling to the ground was like a thunderclap in the silence. He just turned around and went back inside the house.

I pulled out my phone and called Brad. He answered on the third ring. “Hey.”

“Hey. Someone spray painted all over Kelly’s truck.” I picked up the keys and waited for his reaction.

“Fuck,” he said into the phone. “I’ll be right over.”

“How do you get paint off a car?” I asked, realizing I had never thought about it before.

“With more paint,” Brad answered sourly. “I’ll see what we have in the garage.”

“And hey,” I added before he hung up.

“Yeah?” he asked, obviously upset.

“How long are we going to be mad at each other? I only ask because I’ve never actually had a boyfriend before, so I don’t know how fights are supposed to go,” I said bluntly.

I could hear him sigh, and I could imagine him running a hand thorough his hair in frustration. “I don’t know Kyle. I’m just pissed.”

“So am I,” I responded instantly.

“Well then, I guess we’re going to be mad longer than this.” His response was angry, but I could tell he had no idea how to handle our argument either.

“What did you do when you fought with your girlfriends?’ I asked, curious.

“I’d have no idea we were fighting, then find out, apologize for whatever they thought I did, and that was it.” I could hear him pick up his keys in the background. “I’ll be right over.”

He hung up, and I smiled despite my frustration with him. I bet he was easily as mad as I was, yet he still dropped everything and got in his car when I called. I had a feeling no matter how pissed off we got, things would work out in the long run.

I did not feel the same about Kelly.

He wasn’t in the living room, so I decided to look in upstairs. I found him in front of his computer. He was cussing under his breath as he clicked the mouse. I could see there were images of his truck, posted multiple times all over his wall, no doubt by the douchebags who’d done it. “Fucking assholes,” he growled. “They’re bragging about it!”

“Turn it off,” I said softly. He was upset, and I knew a thing or two about dealing with people who were perpetually angry. Rule one was never try to match their emotions because hate just begets more hate. If you were stupid enough to engage with someone who was insanely pissed, always come in soft and quiet. Thinking about it, it was like dealing with a wild animal.

Quiet, subdued tones, show no teeth and never turn your back on them.

“I’m just supposed to let them get away with it?” he demanded, slamming his fists down on his desk.

“Do you want to call the cops?” I asked, trying to introduce the only sane course of action open to him.

“I want to kill them!” he said, standing up, his chair falling over as he kicked it. “Why is this happening to me?” he screamed.

I didn’t say a word, because I was still waiting on the answer to that very same question.

He looked over at me. “Aren’t you going to say I deserve it? That this is just karma or some shit?”

I shook my head.

“Why not? It’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”

I shook my head again. “No one deserves this,” I said, trying not to break eye contact because that can come off as sounding insincere.

He looked like he wanted to hit me, but I know this had very little to do with me. “Why the fuck are you even here?” he asked, walking past me and out of his room. “Just leave!” he bellowed as he went down the stairs.

I looked at his computer. More and more messages kept popping up on his Facebook page. Shaking my head, I followed him downstairs.

He was in the kitchen. I could hear running water. He was filling a bucket up with water and soap as he grabbed some towels from a drawer. “I mean it, just fucking go,” he raged as the water began to spill over the top of the bucket.

“You want some help?” I asked.

“
I want you to leave
!” He turned and screamed at me.

“I can carry the bucket,” I offered, ignoring his shouting.

He looked like I had finally pushed him too far as he turned off the water and took a step toward me. Thank God Brad walked in and interrupted us. “Jesus, dude, I can hear you in the driveway,” he said to Kelly. “Calm the fuck down.”

“Awesome. And the other one shows up,” he said to himself. “Take your damn boyfriend and get out of here!” he said, pointing at me.

Brad stood there for a few seconds and then said to me, “Okay. Come on, Kyle.”

“He needs help with his car…,” I began to explain.

Brad walked up and put a hand on my shoulder. “He’s fine, come on.”

I shrugged him off. “He’s not fine,” I snapped at Brad.

“That may be so, but that’s his choice,” Brad said, pointing to Kelly. “Not yours.” He was pretty pissed because he had started to yell. “You did everything you could. Now let’s go.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do,” I said, not even sure where inside me my anger was coming from.

“And you don’t get to decide what is or is not good for someone else.” The words were like cold water being thrown in my face. “Seriously, he wants to be alone.”

I looked back at Kelly, who was just staring at the two of us like we were speaking a foreign language. “You really want us to leave?” I asked him.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Thank you for the food and the company,” he said in a more subdued tone. “But yeah, I just want to get that shit off my car and then go to sleep.”

“Okay,” I said, not sure what to do. “You’re going to be okay?” I asked.

Kelly laughed. “Dude, you earned your good-guy badge or whatever you were shooting for today. Yeah, I’m fine.”

I looked back at Brad. “Can I get a ride?”

Brad shook his head and smiled. “You gonna stay in the car this time?”

I ignored that and walked over to Kelly. I looked him straight in the eye. “Those people are fucking assholes and not worth the air they breathe. They do not and will never define who you are as a person. Please, turn your computer off.”

He looked at Brad and then back to me. “Are we going to hug now? ’Cause I think Brad would be pretty jealous if he saw you—”

“I’m serious,” I said, bypassing his bravado. “Turn the computer off.”

He stopped and nodded. “Okay, I promise to turn it off.”

I knew he was lying, but it was the best I was going to get.

“Okay, then. I will see you later,” I said to him, turning back to Brad.

“Wait, what?” Kelly asked.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said, walking out of the kitchen. “Count on it.”

B
RAD

K
ELLY
gave me a look like he was asking me if Kyle was serious.

I just nodded and followed him out the door.

Kyle was sitting in my car, not looking happy. I got in and fastened my seat belt. “You want to eat, fight some more, or just have me drop you off?”

He didn’t say anything for a few seconds as he stared forward.

“Come on,” I said, smiling. “You know you are always hungry.” Which was true for both of us, but I did know was truer for him than me.

He sighed. “Fine, food.” And nothing more.

I tried to hide my grin as I backed out of Kelly’s driveway and headed toward Starr’s, a local drive-in that usually was only crowded on the weekends when the high school kids in Foster cruised. We pulled up to a stall and looked over the menu they had posted. I saw Kyle look at the menu and then try to slyly pull out his wallet. I looked back at my menu and said, “Just ’cause we’re fighting doesn’t mean I can’t pay for you.”

He sighed and put his wallet away. “Okay, but I refuse to change my feelings based on how hungry I am or how much food you buy me.”

I had to laugh at that. “Are you saying I would try to bribe you with a chili dog?”

He didn’t answer, but I saw him force back a smile of his own.

I ordered us a ton of food and then turned on my radio while we waited. Well, I waited, and I knew he was stewing. I counted silently in my head.

When I got to forty-seven, he broke.

“Why is what I am trying to do wrong?” he demanded of me.

I turned the music down. “It’s not wrong; it’s just not the right thing in this case,” I tried to explain.

“Why?” he asked.

“For a few reasons.” I began to count off on my fingers. “One, Kelly doesn’t want you to. Two, you aren’t Kelly’s friend, and even if you were, he wouldn’t want someone to do that. He is deathly embarrassed and having someone like you around makes it worse for him.”

“Like me?” he asked, his voice dropping the temperature in the car a few degrees.

“Yeah, someone he actively picked on like five minutes ago. I have no idea how you are able to just let it go, but I assure you, Kelly hasn’t yet.” He didn’t like that answer at all, but he knew it was the truth.

“So you’re telling me that because Kelly has shitty friends coupled with the fact he treated me like crap means I should leave him alone when he needs people the most?” I was pretty sure I hadn’t said any of that, but the calm and collected way he said it made me think back over my own words.

“You know I am not going to leave him alone,” he said in the silence.

I nodded.

“And there is nothing you or Kelly can do about that.”

More nodding.

“And you’re okay with that?” he asked, sounding kind of shocked.

“Of course not, but I am not going to stop you,” I answered, laughing. “I’ve learned a few things since we started dating, and one of them is never try to stop Kyle when he has his mind set. I think you’re wasting your time and that you are going to end up getting hurt, but I am your boyfriend, and I’ll support you no matter what.” It was an odd thing to say since I hadn’t realized I felt that way until the words came out of my mouth. My anger was gone, and I understood I had been more worried about him than mad.

“You mean that?” he asked, unsure if my words were a verbal feint.

“I think I do,” I said, sounding more surprised than he did. “You are aware Kelly is still a complete asshole?”

He cocked his head and asked me back, “Do you think I got hit on the head or something?”

“Hey, I was wondering,” I said, laughing. “I just worry he is going to end up telling you to fuck off.”

“So he tells me to fuck off,” he answered as the carhop came rolling up to my window holding a tray of food. “Not the first time I’ve heard those words. Hell, not the first time I’ve heard him say those words to me.”

The girl looked at all the food we had ordered and then at just the two of us. “Did you guys need some bags to go with this?”

I shook my head as I took the tray of food from her. “Nope, this is fine.” I handed it to Kyle as I dug some money out of my pocket. “Keep the change,” I said, shooting her a smile. She looked in the backseat just to make sure and then skated off. I looked over to Kyle, who was already three bites into his burger. “You know she thinks we have an eating problem now, right?”

He said something back with his mouth full.

I answered him as I grabbed my own food. “I don’t care what she thinks, I’m just saying.”

We ate in relative silence as we both agreed the fight was over.

K
YLE

At ten the next day I knocked on Kelly’s door.

It took him almost five minutes before he appeared at the door, his hair standing straight up and his eyes barely open. Once his vision focused on me, he let out a wail. “Oh fucking come on!”

I held up a bag and announced cheerfully, “I brought donuts.”

He stared at me silently for almost a minute.

Then, sighing, he stepped out of the way. “Fine, come in.”

And that was how I became friends with Kelly.

That weekend, we watched the first season of
Teen Wolf
, cleaned up his house, and spent an afternoon scrubbing the paint off his truck. We ended up sanding it down to metal, which made it look like shit, but at least faggot wasn’t in glowing red letters on the side of it. I left early Sunday because his parents were coming home, and he wanted to deal with them alone.

I totally understood that.

Monday morning I showed up at Robbie’s place, ready to work. The door was locked, so I sat down and waited. And waited. And waited. It was almost eleven by the time he pulled into the parking lot, the soundtrack of
Mama Mia
blaring from the open windows. “I know, I know!” he screamed as he parked the car. “I ended up on the phone with a friend from back home who kept threatening she was going to cut her hair because of a bad breakup, and I had to talk her down.” He got out and ground his cigarette butt into the sidewalk. “I should have just let her cut the damn stuff and get it over with.” He rushed past me and began rummaging through his keys. “But,
no
. I have to be her official drama enabler, and to be honest it was better than anything on TV last night, but she went on and on, and I fell asleep on the couch.” He pushed the door open. “But I am here now, and we are open,” he declared, flipping the sign in the door proudly.