The Book of David (24 page)

I can't believe that they showed that clip on the news. I am so fucked. I can't stop crying, and I know why Dad is so upset. I deserve it. I can't stop myself. Even after all this, I just want to see Jon again. I must be sick. I must be totally screwed up. But the only thing that will make this better is seeing him again.

Jon just texted me back. He wants me to meet him by the walking bridge.

I just got back from seeing Jon. I'm so confused. I don't know what to do.

When Jon saw me, I looked awful. My nose was still bleeding and my eye was turning purple and really swollen from where Dad hit me. He took one look at me and started to cry.

“Oh my God, are you okay?”

I just shrugged.

“Did your dad do that to you?” he asked. “My parents said you can come stay at our place if you need to.”

I started crying again when he said that. Just being around him made my heart race, and I was sick of it. I was sick of all this bullshit. This had been a mistake. I shouldn't have come. There was no way I could be
this
. Even if it is who I really am, I've covered it up for this long. I can get used to covering it up for the rest of my life. I decided I just needed to get away from Jon.

I turned around to leave.

“Hey! Where are you going?”

I stopped. “I can't do this,” I said.

Jon came up to me and tried to kiss me. I pushed him away. I pushed him hard. He stumbled backward and almost fell.

“You're such a selfish dick.” I had never heard him speak like that. He marched up to me and pushed me back. “You think you're the only one suffering here, you asshole? You're not. After
you pulled that little stunt with our boy Tyler this morning, what do you think happened to me?”

He ripped off his jacket and pulled the neck of his sweater over and down on his shoulder. It was covered in deep purple blotches. “How many times do you think Tyler pushed me into the locker today? And how many times do you think he listened when Mrs. Harrison told him to stop?”

The tears were streaming down my chin, mixing with the blood still caked under my nose. I could taste the salt on my lips and ran the sleeve of my hoodie across my mouth.

“I went to the principal and told him I wanted to start a Gay-Straight Alliance,” Jon said.

I walked over and took a seat at the picnic tables by the parking lot and stared out at the lights of the bridge.

“It won't make a difference,” I said quietly.

“Maybe not to you.”

The way he said those words stung like I'd been smacked in the face again, and I laid my head down on the stone table in front of me and let the tears take over. I felt Jon put his hand on my back slowly, tentatively. I remembered that day in the hallway when we stared at the cast list on the wall. I remembered how I'd felt that with Jon next to me, I'd never fall down.

“Please,” Jon begged. “Come back to school and come out. Be the first out, gay, high school quarterback this place has
ever seen. I don't want to do this without you. I love you.”

I sat up and looked at him. He didn't understand. He'd never understand. This wasn't the way my life was supposed to go. Why couldn't I have what we had without having to be some big role model? Without having to tell the whole world about it? Why couldn't it just be him and me in private?

I shook my head slowly. “I'm not your boyfriend, Jon. I never was.”

Jon flinched like he'd been stung by a wasp. Then he smiled sadly, wrapped both arms around me, and kissed me on the cheek. “Were you ever my friend?”

The pain in my chest shot through me like an arrow. I laid my head on his broad, bruised shoulder and cried. “I love you, Jon,” I said. “I just don't know how to do this.”

“I know,” he said.

We sat like that for a long time. Finally he said, “I have to go. Will you be okay at your place tonight?”

I nodded. He kissed me good-bye, and I watched him get into his Jeep and drive away.

I'm back down by the river at that same picnic table. I've been working my ass off all morning. Dad woke me up before he left to meet his crew this morning at five a.m.

“Get up. You're not gonna lie around and write in that journal all day like some pansy,” he spat. “I've got a whole lot of shit that needs doing around here.”

I spent the morning raking leaves and cleaning gutters. I trimmed the hedges and hauled all the scrap lumber Dad wanted to get rid of from the garage to the curb, then swept out the whole garage. It was good to have projects to keep my mind off Jon and my dad and this whole damn mess.

I grabbed a bottle of Jack out of Dad's stash in the garage and brought it down here with me. It feels good to be buzzed, to turn off my brain—or at least try to. I can't really, though. I keep having the same thoughts over and over:

You're the one who started this. You're the only one who can make it stop.

I've been thinking about this all morning, and there's no good way that this ends. There's no out for me here. Even if USC still wants me to come and doesn't cancel my scholarship, everywhere I go, I'll be the punch line of the joke. The gay quarterback who got outed on the Internet. I don't think there's a way to ever put the gay rumors to rest. I hate that.

The thing I hate more is that they aren't rumors. I'm just a royal fuckup. Mom says that God made one man for one woman for life—and that anything else is an abomination. She says that it's Satan tempting me to do stuff with Jon. I tried to
explain to her that it's not “unnatural” or “perverted”—at least it doesn't feel that way when we're doing it. It feels like the most natural thing ever. But she says that's just the devil tempting me and that we have to pray harder that I'll be delivered from this homosexual temptation. Last night she cried and told me that it would be easier to go to my funeral than to have me be gay.

That made me cry really hard, and I don't know how to make this better. All I know is what I keep hearing in my head:

You're the one who started this. You're the only one who can make it stop.

Shit. I have to get back up to the house. Dad's going to be home soon.

I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to be strong like Jon. I envy him. Maybe it's because he's been through this before.

I don't know what I'm going to do.

I don't know how it all fell apart so fast.

I walked back up to the house from the river today and was in the kitchen filling up Dad's bottle of Jack with a little water so he wouldn't know I drank it. As I put it back in the garage, I heard a car park out front. It was Brent, Monica's uncle.

He got out of his car as I stepped out onto the porch. He smiled and waved to me. “Hey, man. Nice shiner.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked. I was scared my dad would come home and see Brent.

“Just thought I'd stop by. Monica is worried about you. Saw the story on the news last night.” He shrugged. “Dunno, just thought you might wanna talk.”

I shook my head. “What is there to talk about? There's nothing that makes this better.”

“I know that it seems that way right now,” he said. “But I promise you, this part is as bad as it gets.”

“Yeah?” I said. “Well, it's pretty fucking bad, so I hope you're right about that.”

As I said it, I heard Dad's truck pull into the driveway and squeal to a stop. He threw open his door and hollered, “Hey!”

Without even turning around, I knew I was screwed. “Looks like you were wrong, Brent. It just got worse. But thanks for stopping by.”

“You don't have to do this alone, man.” Brent reached out and handed me a card, but by that point, my dad was running up the stairs.

“You! You get the hell away from my son.”

Brent held up both hands like he was walking away from a man with a loaded weapon. “Just trying to help,” he said.

“Oh, you people are
always
trying to help, aren't you?” yelled Dad. “Help yourself to some high school quarterback
ass? Is that what you thought, you fucking pervert? Get the hell out of here!”

He pushed me inside, and I saw Brent shake his head and raise his hand to his ear like a phone. He mouthed the words
Call me,
and then Dad slammed the door. The phone was ringing, and he ran to grab it.

“It's for you.” He tossed the wireless receiver at me, and I put it to my ear.

“Hello?”

“Hey, buddy. It's Dave Joseph, USC.”

My heart stood still. “Hi,” I said.

“Heard you aren't suiting up for the playoffs this weekend.”

My head was racing, I was trying to explain, but my tongue wasn't keeping up. I was stuttering and sweating, and finally he stopped me.

“Was that your dad who answered the phone?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“He still in the room?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay then, I'm gonna ask you a few yes or no questions. I talked to your coach earlier today. He explained about the tussle in English class. That over this video?”

My stomach sank. “Yes, sir.”

He paused for a second. My cheeks were bright red. I was
mortified. Of course he knew about the video. Everybody knew about it. They probably wanted to take away my scholarship because of it.

“I want you to listen to me.” Dave's voice was low and intense. “You've got the best passing game in the country. I don't give a shit who your arm is wrapped around off the field as long as that arm is passing for us on the field.”

I slumped down onto the arm of the couch. My knees were shaky. I couldn't believe my ears.

“No more fighting?”

“No, sir,” I said.

“They're gonna give you all kinds of crap down there. I'm sure of it. You have to not throw a punch in the halls. Go throw a punch into a bag in the gym. Throw a ball. Go for a run. You hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I have to put your scholarship on a temporary hold due to a technicality in our program out here,” he explained. “As soon as your suspension is lifted and you're back on the field next week, we're right as rain. I'll keep it outta the press. Got it?”

“Yes, sir . . . Thank you, sir.”

“One more thing. Are you safe?”

I frowned and glanced at my dad, who was pounding a beer in the kitchen. “Uh . . . I, um—”

“Do you have someplace else you can go?”

I reached into my pocket and felt the outline of Brent's card in my pocket.

“Yes, sir.”

“Get there. Now. Text me when you do. You understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

I stood there, stunned, holding the phone after we hung up. Dad reached out and took it from me.

“That USC?” he asked.

I nodded.

“And?”

“My scholarship is on hold because of—”

Dad threw the phone against the wall with such force that it exploded into tiny bits. A shower of plastic shards rained down onto the floor of the kitchen. I tried to explain. I tried to tell him it was just a technicality—that everything was probably going to be fine—but he kept yelling over me and pushing me. He grabbed a dining room chair and shoved it into the wall so hard, it cracked the Sheetrock.

“Boyd! What's going on?” Mom and Tracy had just walked in from the garage. They stood there, frozen in the doorway.

Dad looked at me for a long time; then very quietly, he said, “You have disgraced us all. Tomorrow you get out of my house.”

Mom ran to me and said, “Don't you listen to him. He's not
serious.” But I knew that he was even before Dad pulled her away from me by the arm and smacked her.

“I'm dead fucking serious,” he growled at her. He turned on me and held out his hand. “Give me your keys.”

“How am I supposed to leave if I don't have my truck?” I asked.

“Guess you shoulda thought about that before you decided to become a fucking fairy, huh?” he sneered. “Maybe one of your faggoty little friends can come pick you up.”

I stood there, frozen in place, but my whole body was on fire. Everything I'd ever hated about my dad welled up inside of me. My hatred and sadness and hurt was a torrent that threatened to knock me down. I bit my lip. I would not cry.

Dad lunged at me, but he was already buzzed and I sidestepped him. He tripped on the corner of the couch and landed in a heap on the floor. I tossed my keys onto the coffee table. “Tomorrow!” he screamed at me. “You're out.”

Mom and Tracy were crying. Dad struggled to his feet, and as I walked up the stairs to my room, I heard him crack open another beer. I didn't want to risk Dad hearing me on the phone, so I texted Brent:

Can you meet me at the bridge over the dam?

Then I texted Jon:

Not safe here. Can I still crash with you?

I threw as much as I could into a couple of duffel bags and then grabbed this journal. I wanted to write this all down before I left the house. I don't know what the rest of this night looks like.

Or the rest of my life.

I know this doesn't stop because I go to Jon's house. I know there isn't a “happily ever after” for my family. There's no big play. There's no Hail Mary pass that's going to pull this one out as the clock winds down.

I wish I could make all this stop. I wish I could make things go back to the way they were before Tyler posted that video. I wish I could make my dad love me no matter what. I wish I could make my mom stop crying. But I don't have the power to do any of that.

I only have the power to do one thing, and that's get out of here.

Jon and Brent both texted me back just now the same single word:

Yes.

I told Brent I'd see him there in ten minutes. It'll probably take me about that long to walk down there in the dark.