151 Days (31 page)

I pulled out a stack of takeout menus from under the counter. “Pick a cuisine from Foster’s own illustrious restaurant row.” I fanned the menus out like a deck of cards. “I’m buying.”

Since three of the menus were from Nancy’s, it was no surprise we ended up with burgers for lunch.

A
COUPLE
of days passed, and I had heard nothing from Kyle.

His gay-alliance thing was Monday, and I had been curious about how it went over. The whole thing sounded like some weird gay-superhero thing to me, but the boy had insisted it was a huge first step for Foster High, so I was as supportive as I could be for something that sounded like an excuse to cosplay. By the time Friday rolled around, I had almost forgotten about the whole thing and had gone back to obsessing about the envelope.

Stop—don’t judge me. Of course, I hadn’t opened the damn letter yet. It was like a ghost reaching back from the past, and I was simply too terrified to take its hand. Also, it was the last new thing Riley ever said to me. I know it sounds stupid, but after he died, I refused to change our voice mail message because his voice was on it. I still hadn’t deleted the videos I had taken of him on my phone where he yelled at me to stop filming him. I had memorized every second, every minute detail of those moments like I was afraid if I didn’t they would just fade away.

That letter was the last new thing I would hear from him, and I didn’t want it to end.

I know it ended, but shut up, it’s complicated.

So anyways, by Friday afternoon, the envelope had crept back into my thoughts, and I felt myself rolling into a weekend with Prince Valium. I thought of sending the letter to Nicole FedEx and having her read it to me over the phone, but even that seemed too chickenshit to me. So instead I sat behind the counter and stared at it, willing it to jump and roll over or do some other trick besides making me miserable.

So imagine my shock when Tyler came barging into the shop.

“You have some fucking nerve,” he said, his face red with anger. “You just can’t leave shit alone, can you?”

I slipped the envelope into my back pocket as I mentally donned my armor. Yes, it does resemble the armor Wonder Woman wore in
Kingdom Come
and there is nothing wrong with that, and why don’t you pay attention to the story instead of what’s going on in my mind, huh?

“Excuse me?” I said, standing up, letting the stool fall behind me. “You did not come crashing through my door all Hey! Kool-Aid style, screaming like I owe you money. I told you last time to get out, and I meant it.”

“You know, if you hate me, hate me,” he said, ignoring my words completely. “I get what I did was wrong, and there is no way to fix it, but do you have to poison everyone else on me too?”

“How would you know there’s no way to fix it?” I shouted back at him. “You never tried! You just ran away and then lived your life like it never happened. And I have no idea what you’re talking about.” It was true, I had no earthly clue why he was yelling at me, but I knew I wasn’t going to let him.

“You made it clear you wanted me out of your life, Robbie, so I gave that to you.” His voice was husky with emotion, and he looked as upset as I was, which was impossible. “I fucked up that night, and I did what you wanted. I left you alone. I never said a word, good or bad, about you to anyone else. I never warned anyone about you. I let them come to their own decision about you, and I thought you’d do the same about me.”

“I made it clear?” I tried to catch my breath, but I was too far-gone now. “How in the fuck did I do that, Tyler? Telepathy? Smoke signals? Did you get a telegram from me? You know, if you have absolved yourself of the sin of what you did that night, fine, but don’t come in here yelling like you were being the bigger person by ignoring me. I didn’t out you, did I? I didn’t scream from the rooftops that you were a fucking fag just like me, though I should have. I didn’t bring you up to the cops when they asked if there was anyone else there who saw a thing. You did what you did for the same reason you do everything, Tyler. To make yourself feel good. That’s it, and if you think it’s going to be any different with your little spy of a boyfriend, you’re nuts. Because you are incapable of loving anyone else, because you’re too busy hating who and what you are.”

“Do not bring Matt into this,” he warned me.

“Why? Maybe he could get hit crossing First Street, and you could look up and see me drive off instead.”

It was easily the worst thing I had ever said out loud. I mean, to even make light of that, much less make a joke? Well, suffice it to say there are many reasons I’m going to hell besides liking men.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a few moments of silence. “It was wrong, and I was stupid. But you have to get past your hatred of me because it’s affecting the kids.”

I looked at him three different kinds of confused for a second. “Are you trying to be funny, or did we have offspring at some point?”

“Brad and Kyle, jackass,” he threw back at me. “It’s bad enough they’re in a fight, but you whisper in Kyle’s ear about me, and he charges into the store and confronts me on it.” I paused because I hadn’t thought about it even for a second. “So now he hates me. Is that what you wanted?”

It wasn’t at all, and he could tell by the look on my face.

“He is in a bad place, Robbie,” he said, his voice imploring me. “I don’t think he’s going to take Brad back, but I do know there is no chance of them working it out if they end fighting about us too. I’m not saying we need to bury the hatchet or become friends, but we need to find a way to let them know we can agree that they should be together.” He paused. “You do agree they should be together?”

I had no idea what to say to that.

Tyler opened his mouth to press the point, but his phone beeped before he could. He read the text and looked like he was going to throw up. I opened my mouth to ask him what that was about when my phone went off too. I glanced at the text and knew instantly.

I wanted to throw up too.

“Come on,” he said, shoving the phone in his pocket. “My car is faster.”

I followed him out and locked the door behind us. “What exactly do you think we can do?”

Tyler stopped before getting into his car. “I don’t know. I’ll figure it out on the way.”

I got in the passenger seat and closed my eyes as we pulled out of the parking lot.

It was the first time I had prayed since Riley died.

B
RAD

FML.

I know it isn’t eloquent or as descriptive as most people would like, but seriously? Fuck my life. Here I am, inches from going to the state championships, an offer from A&M for a full ride, all the popularity I had lost when I came out back tenfold, and I was miserable. That word doesn’t really get how bad I feel right now, so you’ll have to trust me that “miserable” doesn’t even begin to cover how horrible I felt.

In fact, if you had asked me, like, four years ago for three wishes, I would have said a perfect baseball season that would lead to state, a chance to play ball at A&M, and to be the most popular guy in school. I have to be honest with you—fourteen-year-old me was a pretty sucky guy. I mean, who the fuck cares about baseball or a stupid college when you can’t share it with the most important person in your world? I guess I can’t fault fourteen-year-old me too badly; if I had a fourth wish, I might have gone with being the fifth ninja turtle or owning a Charizard.

But all of this was nothing to me, because Kyle kept ignoring me.

Jennifer at first assured me he needed space, and sooner or later he would come around. Well, it was later, and he had enough space to fit the Astrodome in, and still nothing. I should have known it was going to be worse than I thought when, that first Monday back at school, Sammy came and gave me Kyle’s iPhone back, box and all. She said she was sorry it had come to this, and it looked like she meant it, which was something. When I turned the phone on, the lock screen was empty; he had deleted the picture of us I had put on it.

That one action made me cry more than all the times I had bawled during
Field of Dreams
combined.

That week we lost our first game, and it was my fault. I mean, if I had been on their team and infiltrated our team as a spy, I couldn’t have done as much damage as I did in that one game. I dropped balls, let easy pitches sail past me, and worst, I just sat in the dugout without trying to cheer my team up once. It was a quiet ride home that night. Even in my funk, I knew they were all glaring at me in the dark. When we got back to school, I waited because I was pretty sure Coach Gunn was going to kick me off the team or something. Only Josh talked to me afterward. He patted me on my shoulder and said quietly, “He’ll take you back. Be patient.”

It was hands down the nicest thing a straight guy had ever said to me.

Coach Gunn didn’t even look at me as he walked past me into the locker room. “Go home, Greymark. We lost. Nothing you can do about it now.”

“You aren’t mad at me?” I asked him, shocked.

He paused in the door and turned around. “Son, I have gone to state and won. I have had perfect seasons, and I even went to college. Nothing you do on that field is going to change that. If you were waiting for a lecture from me, I am fresh out. What you should be thinking about is the fact that the rest of that team follows your lead, and if you don’t care to play anymore, they won’t either. You may not care if you get into college or not, but I’m betting some of them do.” I felt my eyes sting as he leveled a look at me. “I am not the person you should be playing for—it should be them.”

He closed the door on me, leaving me to sit in my car, screaming at myself as tears rolled down my face.

The next day at practice, I put a wall up around my heart and ignored my problems.

We won the next game and the game after that. I put all my effort into winning and tried to forget that something inside of me was dying. I had a job to do, and damned if I wasn’t going to do it. Even with my newfound zeal for baseball, I had a lot of extra time on my hands, time I spent with Tyler in his shop. He didn’t mind the help or the company, so it was a good fit.

What wasn’t a good fit was his new boyfriend, Matt.

Matt wasn’t thrilled to have me hanging around Tyler all the time, though he never said a word to me about it. It was just the way he acted when he came in and I was there, a coldness that just made me feel like I was doing something incredibly wrong. When we were alone in the shop, I asked Tyler about it, and he just nodded and looked embarrassed. “It isn’t you,” he assured me. “Well, it is you in the fact you are young, in great shape, and are stunning for your age….” I felt my face grow warm at the compliment. I had no idea Tyler even knew what I looked like outside of help around the shop. “I am
not
hitting on you,” he added when he saw my reaction. “I’m just saying why Matt is so standoffish. He just came from a world where a lot of guys my age would jump at the chance to date someone like you. Straight guys get red shiny cars and try to date strippers when they hit middle age. I guess some gay guys go after young guys in an effort to prove they still got it.”

He shook his head, obviously disgusted with the entire concept.

“So he thinks we’re fooling around?” I asked, kind of shocked that someone would think that.

“No,” Tyler said, getting up to get us a couple of Cokes. “He’s just insecure about where we are, so it’s messing with his mind. Don’t stress about it, Brad. He’ll come around.”

His words did nothing to cheer me up as I mumbled, “Yeah, you said that about Kyle too.”

He gave me a sympathetic look as he handed me a Coke. “Don’t give up faith yet.”

I tried to ignore the “yet” in his sentence. I didn’t know what to do with his “yet.”

I
GOT
home one afternoon and found my dad talking to a stranger in the living room.

“And here he is in the flesh,” my dad said, a smile that I had never seen plastered on his face. “Bradley, put your stuff down and come in.”

Bradley?
Since when did he call me anything but “boy”? I put my practice bag down and kicked off my shoes before walking into the room. “Sorry if I still stink. We’ve been practicing so much I lost track of clean clothes in my locker,” I said, hoping I was still on the right side of ripe. The truth was, Kyle had taken it upon himself to remind me to grab my clothes after practice, and I had spaced it out by myself.

I tried to ignore the pain in my chest as my dad introduced the man.

“This is Mr. Perkins. He is from A&M.” My dad’s eyes locked with mine, and I could hear the “Don’t fuck this up” even if it was silent.

“Coach Perkins?” I asked, taking his hand. “You played for the Mets with Nolan Ryan!” I had this guy on a baseball card under my bed, and now he was in my living room.

He looked over at my dad and chuckled as he shook my hand. “Okay, you were right. Almost all kids his age have no sense of history anymore.” He looked at me. “Pleased to meet you, son, I’ve heard a lot about you.”

I fought the urge to ask him to hold on as I ran upstairs to grab his card to get him to sign it. Instead I just nodded and thanked him as we sat down.

“Your dad here tells me you’ve always wanted to play for A&M.”

I nodded as I pointed to the pictures on the bookshelves. “There’s a picture of me dressed up as an Aggie for Halloween. I still have that cap.”

Perkins smiled and nodded. “I saw it. We like that in our new students. We have a rich history and tradition that has been passed down year after year. We don’t like to think of ourselves as just another school. We are something different.”

“I know,” I answered quickly. “I’ve dreamt of going to Midnight Yell forever.”

“Well, we sure would like to make that dream come true,” he said kindly. “I’ve been talking with your dad, and we were talking about you coming by the campus for a tour. Something you’d be interested in?”

I literally jumped up out of my chair. “Seriously? I’d love it, sir!”