151 Days (43 page)

By Monday I hated Kyle as much as I hated everyone else in the town.

When I got to school, Sammy was waiting for me in the drama room. I ignored her and put my stuff down and started to look over the schedule for the week. Tomorrow’s rehearsal had been scratched out and an emergency school board meeting had been written in. That didn’t sound like a good thing.

“So you plan on ignoring me forever?” she asked from across the room.

I looked over at her with a raised eyebrow. “Didn’t even see you there.”

She rolled her eyes and grabbed her purse. “Fuck you, Jeremy. I came in here to talk it out, but if you’re going to be shitty, I am out.”

I stood there as I watched the closest thing I had to a friend walk away.

“Wait,” I called after her. She stopped and looked back at me. “You pissed me off.”

She made a face. “Do you think you never piss me off? It is always about you, Jeremy, and it’s getting boring.”

I sighed and put the clipboard down. “You don’t know what it’s like to be gay in this town, Sam. It just gets to you.”

She looked at me sympathetically. I knew I had her. We talked it out for a while, but she was back on my side, and that was the only thing that counted. She didn’t know it, but by walking out on me, she had made the list too.

The next day we began to set up the auditorium for the school board meeting, and I came face to face with Brad and Kyle hiding in my theater. They were up in what used to be a balcony for the theater that had been closed down and was used for storage. I knew that sometimes people hid out up here to get away from it all, but that privilege did not extend to douche bags and their boyfriends. I did not plan on passing up the opportunity to make sure they knew whose house they were in.

“Oh,” I said, clearing my throat to get their attention. They both looked back at us. “What are you guys doing up here?”

Kyle held a paper bag up. “Lunch. More than enough room,” he said, gesturing to the other seats.

Sammy put her hand on my shoulder and whispered, “Let them eat, we can come back.”

I shook my head and said, “No, we don’t have to leave. They’re the ones who are lost.” I ignored the look Sammy was giving me as Brad stood up.

Kyle’s hand moved to his arm, no doubt silently pleading with the Neanderthal not to beat me senseless, as his type is wont to do. “We’re not lost. We’re just looking for a place to eat lunch.” It was obvious from his voice he was pissed to even be speaking to someone like me.

Todd said from behind me, “Jeremy, let it go.”

Mentally Todd went on the list too. “What’s wrong with the Round Table? Couldn’t get a reservation?”

Now Kyle’s caveman stood up and began to browbeat me. “Look, Jeremy, we don’t want any trouble. We just want to eat lunch. Why don’t we just all calm down and think a second.” He raised his hand, and I flinched, because people like him always hit first and ask questions later. “My name is Brad, and this is—”

When it was obvious he wasn’t going to slug me, I cut him off. “I know who you are. You don’t even know who I am, do you?” From the cowlike look of ignorance on his face, it was obvious he didn’t. “You and your friends threw beer bottles at me last year outside the bowling alley. You guys screamed ‘drama fag’ and took off. Ring a bell?”

He shook his head, looking like he had just eaten dirt.

“You don’t remember me? Or you don’t recall because you jerks have done it more than once?” I demanded. Since he was going to try to act nice in front of Kyle, I planned on taking advantage of it.

“Both,” he mumbled, not even looking me in the eyes.

Now it was Kyle’s turn to make an ass of himself. He got between Brad and me and said, “Come on, guys.”

I never stopped looking at Brad, since there was an even chance he was going to swing at me at any moment. “You can stay here, Kyle. You, I have no problem with, but he is going to have to go.” It wasn’t the entire truth, but I had to admit, if I could get Kyle to see what kind of asshole he was dating maybe, just maybe there was a chance he could see me.

“You know me?” Kyle asked, the shock obvious in his voice.

I tried to play it off cool, but the fact that I didn’t even register enough for him to remember me made something inside of me ache. “I’ve had a crush on you since the seventh grade. Pity you never noticed.” I could see the blood drain out of Kyle’s face as I went on. “Just because douche bag here is experimenting with his sexuality, it doesn’t mean he’s an outcast.” I glared at Brad. “It just means karma works and that bad things do happen to bad people sometimes.”

A weird look began to come over Kyle’s face, and I wondered briefly if I had bit off more than I could chew. I could recognize the cold fury in his eyes; I had seen it in the mirror every day of my life looking back at me. Was it possible that Kyle was making a list as well?

Brad saw it too, ’cause he looked at Kyle and said, “It’s cool. I’ll see you after school.” He had to walk past us to get out of the room, and from the look of outright disgust on our faces, it was obvious he wasn’t our favorite person.

He did stop and say to me, “For what’s it worth, I’m sorry.”

I like that he added for what it was worth, because it was worth shit, and we both knew it.

I looked back to Kyle and was ready to lay into him when he exploded at me. “What the fuck was that?”

I must have looked shocked, because I just stared at him for a second in silence. Finally my brain engaged. “You can’t tell me you are attracted to that asshole?” Of course, I knew he was attracted to that guy. I mean, who wasn’t? Brad Greymark had the face, the body, and the car that made everyone want to just kneel down and kiss his feet. I mean, I wouldn’t, but I could see how looking like a model and having a six-pack could do that to people.

Kyle just ignored my question and came screaming at me full force. “I get that he and his friends were dicks to you, and that sucks. But you know what it’s like to walk around this town and have people hate you for no other reason than you’re different, right?” I nodded. “Then why the hell would you treat anyone else like that?”

I felt my stomach lurch as he went on.

“You may not like him, but he stood right next to me when no one else would. He came out to the entire school for no other reason than he liked me. He didn’t have to do that. It would have been so much easier to deny everything and stay who he had been, but he didn’t. So whatever problems you may have had with him, he is ten times the man of anyone else I have ever met. So back the fuck off.”

I wish I could say I didn’t find him ten times hotter than I did an hour ago, but I can’t. The fire in his eyes, the anger in his voice—I was now more convinced than ever we were more alike than different. So it was in a moment of weakness, I asked him. “Would you have even gone out with me?”

He sighed, and I knew the answer instantly. People like him never went out with people like me. Life wasn’t a fairy tale. It was a horror movie, and no one but the one pretty chick got out alive. The rest of us were just there to add to the body count.

He surprised me by asking a question. “You said you’ve known me since fourth grade?” I nodded. “And in those eight years, did you ever talk to me? Just walk up and let me know how you felt?” I opened my mouth but then shook my head. “He did.” He pointed to where Brad had walked out. “He came after me and told me that he liked me. You don’t get to say that I wouldn’t go out with you. You never even asked.”

It felt like he had gut-punched me. Hard. My mouth was dry, and I felt my eyes starting to sting as I tried to get a grip on my emotions.

Luckily Sammy jumped in and saved me. “Jeremy, we have to get those chairs set up, and we’re losing time.”

At the moment I could give a shit. “The school board can bite me.”

Kyle popped up. “School board?”

She nodded at him. “They are having some emergency meeting tonight, and we have to get the auditorium set up for it.”

I wanted to tell her to shut up, but before I could, Kyle just mumbled something and ran out the door.

“I hope they make your fucking boyfriend burn,” I said as he ran out the door.

I stood there in silence for a couple of minutes, realizing no matter how much I hated everything, there was always more I could hate it.

“Jeremy,” Sammy said carefully.

“Get the damn chairs,” I said, shrugging her off and pushing past them.

My list continued to grow.

Of course, the school board didn’t do anything to their golden child. In fact, I’m not sure they even bothered to have a meeting. Suddenly gay was okay, as long as you looked like an extra on
Teen Wolf
. Everyone was talking about how Brad had stood up for everyone, and it made me sick. Once again the masses just followed along behind a pretty face like lemmings just dying to go leap off a cliff. I found that I could find even more hate in my soul for Foster and its denizens.

Leave it to Sammy to not see the truth around her.

“It’s a good thing,” she tried to tell me during lunch. “If people can accept the two of them, then maybe they can accept everyone.”

I said nothing as the bile in my heart began to simmer. There was nothing wrong with Sammy, nothing she didn’t do to herself. She insisted on dying her hair a ridiculous color of blue and dressing like she had just come from a funeral, but all those things were just superficial. She was as normal as everyone else in this fucking town, and just because she felt like rebelling, it didn’t mean she understood one second of my life and my pain.

“You want to be accepted?” I snapped, tossing the rest of my lunch into the trash. “Wash your face off and dye your hair back, and like magic you’ll be accepted. I’m gay, and there is nothing I can do about that. I will
always
be hated and always will be an outsider.”

I guess I had expected her to just sit there and take it like she always had, but this time she jumped out of her seat and screamed back. “People hate you ’cause you’re a dick, Jeremy! And you’re an outsider because you hate everyone else. Brad and Kyle are just as gay, and trust me, they are going to change things in ways you could never do because it is always about you.”

My hand clenched into a fist, and before I could stop myself, I took a step toward her to teach her to keep her mouth shut. The look of terror in her eyes stopped me cold as I realized it must be what I looked like when my dad came at me.

“Fuck you” was all I could spit out, and I rushed past her and out of the auditorium. This was why I hated people, because they always made me do things I didn’t want to do. She couldn’t just keep her mouth shut, could she? Screams of insatiable hatred bubbled just below the surface, but I held them in because I knew. I knew the day was coming when I would get even against all these people. I needed to bide my time and just keep it together.

And then make them all pay.

The next month all people could do was talk about the perfect couple and the water they walked on. I wasn’t shocked to see Sammy start to hang out with them. I suppose when one is a fag hag, you take the jobs that are available. When a new popular fag comes along, you need to go where the hagging is needed. She wasn’t the only one who began to change sides.

Everywhere I saw people begin to suddenly care about homosexuality who literally have spit on me as they walked by. I muttered to myself as I walked through school. Now that a couple of perfect people had caught the gay, it was suddenly a thing to be okay with it. My loathing threatened to spill over as each day passed. More and more people made their way to my list as I waited. As we went into winter break, I was at the end of my rope. The only thing that gave me solace was slaving on my computer, making mashups. I don’t know why, but throwing myself into the music were the only times I could escape my anger for even a second.

It was the week before school got out that Sammy came crawling back into my life.

My dad opened my door and screamed down, “That freaky raccoon girl is here for you.”

It took almost everything in me not to scream back, “Tell her to go fucking die.” Instead I closed down my computer and walked up my steps to the front door. She stood there looking like there were a million places she would rather be. I reveled in the fact she understood maybe a millionth of how I felt about being in Foster.

“What?” I said, standing in the doorframe, making it clear I did not want her to come any closer.

“Look, I get we’re in a fight, and we both said horrible things, but I need to talk to you.”

I stared at her like she was a lizard or something. “One, I didn’t say horrible things, you did, and two, we aren’t in a fight. We aren’t an anything.”

If this was a Stephen King book, her eyes would have glowed as her hair was blown back with a wind machine. The music would have gotten all dramatic as I burst into flames. She literally closed her eyes and took a mental deep breath before talking again. “Can you just think past your monumental ego for like three seconds and at least pretend to be a human?”

My right hand really, really wanted to slam the door shut in her face something fierce. “What?” I asked again.

“So Kelly is throwing his party this weekend.”

I waited for her to continue. “Yeah, Douche-a-palooza is this time every year. What’s your point?”

She looked down and took a deep breath. “Kyle thinks we all should go.”

“And I assume when you say
we
you’re actually speaking French?” I replied.

Her look was scathing. “He thinks everyone who never gets invited to the party should crash it by showing up.”

I rolled my eyes at her. “Crashing a party
is
showing up, and Kyle is an idiot.” Before she could retort, I kept going. “He’s not worried about his ass getting kicked since he is dating his own personal jock, so it sounds like a setup to me.”

“You do know that Brad got his ass kicked in the locker room by those very same jocks?”

I didn’t even hesitate. “Good. He deserved more.”

The anger in her eyes was like burning coals deep inside of blacksmith’s forge. “You know, I told him this was a waste of time. I tried to explain to him that you were a complete and total asshole who cared nothing about anyone save yourself, but he still begged me to come ask you. So I have, and I was right.” The silence that followed said clearly that she hoped I died in a fire.