Crush (8 page)

The approaching pink and red romance of Valentine’s Day makes myfeelings for him intensify. I’m going to explode if I don’t do something, so I buyhim a card. It takes up all mystrength as I carefully pour my heart out to him. I want to sign it, but I’m not stupid. Nothing will come of this. He’ll believe it’s from one of his female fans and I’ll scratch my itch. Nobody will be harmed. I excuse myself from last period to go to the restroom, and I leave it on the windshield of his car.

Two days later, I find a beat-up white envelope in my locker. No note, no card, just three conversation hearts.
You’re sweet.
Love me.
My love.
They’re probablyfrom Lydia. Poor thing.
But I keep them.

The next months are painful as I begin to realize that soon he will be graduating and I won’t be seeing him around school next year. I try to savor every moment I can, but dashes of bitterness begin to taint. One day I hear a couple of girls talking about him, describing how he’s slept with everyeasygirl in school and is now working on those from surrounding schools. Of course, I
knew
all along, deep down, but hearing it from those girls...I wait until I get home to cry.

And the hits keep coming. One morning Stacyconfides in me that she and Ray have had sex. It hits me hard, and I flee to the restroom and have a bizarre panic/crying attack.

All myfriends, all the people who claim to care about me are leaving me behind.
I’m so afraid and so angry! Damn, I hate them! I hate them all!
So now she’s a woman and I’m still just the undersized dweeb in love with someone he can’t have, now or ever. In the locker room I overhear Ray regaling his jock buddies about “finally” getting my best friend into bed. “She was ready, and she was willing!” I won’t talk to her for at least two days. I feel so left

home one day after school and a soccer ball bounces near me. I go to pick it up and I hear a familiar voice roar, “Don’t touch that ball!” I’m already bent halfway down and my fingers touch it when Tammyruns up to me. “I said, don’t touch it! Are you
deaf?!
” I’m too stunned to react as he grabs it from under myfloating fingers and jogs back to where he and the team are practicing. I continue walking home, and as soon as I’m safely away from school grounds, I no longer try to stifle my sobs of despair. Stacy is wrong. He doesn’t like me at all. He
hates
me, and I have no idea what I’ve done to provoke such rancor.

Obviously, that’s
still
not enough. Even though she’s now married and no longer in school, Lard-Ash begins to spread venomous rumors around town that I’m gay. How do I know? Because kids at both school and church are walking up to me, the ones who have never liked me taunting, the ones I get along with simply informing, “Yvette says you’re a queer.” And then one day, I’m walking home as usual when three sophomores jump me. I’m out of school for three days waiting for the welts and bruises to fade a little.

Stacy notices the subtle change in me after that. “Don’t let them get to you, Baby.”
“Everyone hates me…”
“You can’t let them get to you.”
Then Ray tells me that Tammy is moving to L.A. after graduation, to attend broadcasting school, and my torment is complete. I’ve been thinking,
Well, at least I’ll see him around town
. But no. He’s going to L.A. Might as well be going to the other side of the galaxy. He’ll find a new harem to service him. Stacyand Ray will probablybe getting married soon.
And I’m just going to staythe same, the same little loser that nobodyloves.

It isn’t a full two weeks after the first attack when I’m beaten up again, by the same three guys. They call me a faggot and pound me unconscious and leave me laying on the sidewalk, my homework scattered all around me like smaller victims.

I dream. I hallucinate. A voice says, “Come on, Jamie.” My bodyis swooped into the air. I hear a door slam. The world around me is rumbling.

“Everyone hates me,” I murmur.
The voice is familiar. “Don’t worryabout those assholes.” “Why does everyone hate me? What have I done? Even

Tammyhates me.”
For a moment, I think the voice talking to me has left me, then
I hear it say, veryquietly, “That’s not true.”
“He hates me…He yelled at me when I went to pick up the
ball…I wasn’t going to steal it…I was going give it back to him…
but he screamed at me…He’s mean…He’s hateful…I don’t
understand what I’ve done to make him hate me…”
I feel a hand touching myhair, myface. “He doesn’t hate you,
he’s just a prick sometimes.” Then, “I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have
yelled at you. I was just…”
I shake myhead violently, and even with myeyes closed, my
head spins and aches. “He hates me…Nobody loves me…
Nobodywill ever love me…” Myworld blackens.
When I finally come to, I’m in the E.R. at Davis Hospital. I’m
surrounded bybright, glaring white.An IVdrips into me. I’m cold. I
hate the plastic, medicinal smell all around me. My right arm is broken. For a while, they think my jaw is fractured, but the x-rays say it’s just bruised. Stacy is here and she has the most idiotic
grin as she says, “Tammybrought you here!”
She’s so happy…The pain in my jaw is becoming
unbearable.
“He chased those fuckers awayand
brought
you here!” I shrug and turn my face away from her. All I want is for
everyone to leave me alone.
“He said he’s been following you home since you got beaten
up last time! He was worried about you! He told Lloyd not to let you
walk home alone again!” Stacyis so excited it’s sickening. I look up to see myfoster dad smiling at me.
I see it in his eyes…
He knows! He knows I’m in love! He knows I’m in love with
Tammy!
He nods. Winks.
How did I get such a great Dad? Why did God give Lloyd to
me?
I manage a weak smile, willing to reassure him, but I’m too
exhausted and beaten in body to keep it up for more than a few
seconds.
“Here, let me sign your cast,” Stacy says, gingerly adjusting
my arm and using her teeth to pop the lid off a dark blue marker.
Lloyd writes on the cast too.
I’m in the hospital for two days, and several friends from
church and school have come by.
Back home, I finally muster enough interest to read all the
autographs on the graffiti-decked shell holding my mending
bones together:

Get well, Baby. Don’t let them win. Don’t let them have that power. People who hate you obviously don’t knowyou. I knowyou and love you. Your bestest friend in the world, Stacy

You’ve been here before, and I know you’ll be okay. Love, Lloyd.
I’ve never called him “Dad.” I feel like an asshole for not calling him that. It’s just that I don’t want call anyone with a
good
heart, “Dad” or “Daddy.”
Hi Baby, hope you feel better soon! Love Lydia
Miss you, Take care, Deanna
Heal up, Ray.
Baby, get well soon. Sylvie
Babe, I hate those assholes and I hope they get what they deserve. Hurry back, Patti.
Benny, home on a three-day furlough, simply signs his name.
And on the underside, where the cast covers my elbow, in blue, wavychicken scratch, as tiny as the felt tip had allowed, and palpablybashful,
You’re wrong. Everyone does not hate you
.
I read it again.And again. I nearlytear myrotator cuff reading it over and over.
I wrack my brain until it hurts, but I can’t remember anyone writing in that spot, and it’s not signed.
Twisting myarm painfully, I ask Stacy, “Who wrote this?!”
“Tam did, while you were asleep.”
I shake myhead. “No…he didn’t.”
“I watched him, Babe.”
“Whydidn’t you wake me up?!” I’m riotous.
She just shrugs. Smiles. “He didn’t want to bother you. He sat beside you and wrote where he could reach.”
He’s been shadowing me.
He’s been worried about me,
He chased those guys away.
He drove me to the hospital.
He cares about me.
And it scares me.
I’d almost rather go on believing he doesn’t know I’m alive.

After my insults from the second beating heal, there are only a few more weeks before school is out. Now everyone sees the difference, and Stacygentlytells me it’s not a change for the better.

But it’s my last line of defense. Now I’m just as curt to Tammy as he has been to me whenever we come into contact in anyway. Whenever he and Rayand anyof the other jocks walk up to us to ask us if we want to go to The End or to the mall or to a movie, I always mutter, “Look, Stacy, here comes Tammy and his nerd herd.” I refuse to acknowledge him, turning my face away at everyopportunity.

I’m decent. I thank him for helping me when I was jumped by those three shitheads (who were
expelled
bythe way).
But I’m careful. I have to be. The way he’s treated me (especially screaming at me over that stupid soccer ball) has made it arduous for me to dare to open myself to any more hurt. Better to just enjoywhat little I can get.
I’m still in love with him.
I still love the verysight of him.
And I know he cares a little…
At this juncture though, I’ve had enough of the mean looks and the Jeckyl and Hyde mood swings. I can’t let him hurt me anymore. I won’t. Passive weapons I had stowed away are taken from their holsters, dusted off, and put to use again.
But there’s something else. I’m shamed. I’m horrified that Tammy has seen me like that, beaten and bloodied and humiliated. I’ve been free from my childhood dungeon for a year, and now, I feel like I’m being thrown back in, the locks engaged with echoing clicks and snaps. I’m irreversibly damaged, and the jagged pieces are precariouslyhanging together. I’m on the verge of losing hope. The beatings I’ve recently suffered are threatening to set loose those feelings that pound and claw against mychest, screaming to escape, to be recognized bytheir host…feelings that I am hated, hated by everybody, hated by my parents, hated by God, hated by all decent, godly society, that I should never have been born. It’s easy to forget that Lloyd and Stacy would give their lives for me. I only know that I have to protect myself. I can’t have anymore hurt, anymore rejection...
I must remember the lessons I learned. I must remember the value of control…
In moments of unguarded softness, when I look at Tammy, I cannot believe myeyes when theydetect an emerald nanosecond of tenderness before he looks away. I protect myself by looking into mirrors, reminding myself of my eternal ugliness, and by treating him coolly.
But no matter what icymethods I employ, I’m always, without failure, startled over and over again by what I see shimmering in his dark teal eyes.
Can it be?
No…no way. I might be a little flaming pervert, but Tammy’s straight. I should know by now who he likes to sleep with. I can’t have him, and I have got to stop torturing myself. He’s going to L.A. and he’s going to be a famous news anchor. Women will be all over him. That’s that.
“You don’t fool me for a minute,” Stacy says with stern sweetness.

Their fists pummel him into a bloody pulp as they call him, “Flaming faggot,” “Pervert,” “Pussy-boy.” I scramble out of my car and charge at the three pukes, but they’re already on the run. He yelps when I shake his shoulder, and gentlyas I can, I gather him up and put him in mycar.

I’ve been following Jamie since the first time they jumped him. He makes his way home on foot, walking the mile from the high school, down a stretch of paved road, past the town limits, to his house. I follow, my car slowly crawling a few hundred yards behind, keeping enough distance to monitor him without making mypresence known.

I’ve caught those sonsabitches red handed, and they’re going to pay.
I keep one eye on traffic and one eye on Jamie. God, he’s so little. Fucking cowards beat the holy shit out of him. I hate seeing him like this.
He stirs. “What’s…?”
“It’s okay…I’m taking you to the hospital.”
Slurred words squeeze their way through his swollen lips. “Why does everyone hate me? What have I done? Even Tammy hates me. Why did he scream at me? I wasn’t going to steal that ball…I don’t understand what I’ve done to make him hate me!”
Remorse assails me as tears and blood begin to ooze out of his nose. I find an old napkin from Burger King or someplace and dab at the mess carefully.
“Nobody loves me.” The way his breath hitches in his chest makes myeyes sting. “Nobodywill ever love me…”
“I don’t hate you, Jamie. I’m a prick…I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to yell at you.”
But he doesn’t hear me. He’s passed out. I smooth myhand over his forehead, cheek and chin, and he recoils. I think his jaw’s busted.
I stayfor two hours. His jaw isn’t broken, but his arm is.
When I get home, I shut myself in myroom and cry.
It’s not just that he’s small for his age. He’s different, and it makes him an outcast, a target. Until Queen Bitch spread that shit around town about him, he’s been overlooked. He’d probably be invisible if not for Stacyand Rayand the girls…
I want to be his friend…
I’m “popular.” I’m constantly surrounded by people…football teammates, fawning girls, the journalism staff, but I have no real friends. Ray and Benny are the closest thing, but I can’t say that I’m “friends” with either of them.
I don’t have friends. I have laughs in the locker room. I have groupies, each hoping they’re next on my list of conquests. I have colleagues that I discuss the latest campus news with.
That’s all.
I haven’t known how lonelyI am.
I want Jamie to be myfriend. And I want to be his.
I’ve always wanted to be his friend.
I could never hate him.
But I’ve been a prick to him.
Because I’m scared.
I’m fighting a losing battle with my attraction to him, and I don’t
want
to fight anymore.
If he likes me and I like him, whyshouldn’t we see where this leads? Whyshould we care what the world thinks?
But, I
do
care. I
am
afraid of what people will think.
There isn’t a person on earth besides my Mom who truly cares about my happiness in life. Yeah, she’s flubbed up and made me mad at her, but all her actions have had the best intentions. Nobodyelse gives a shit whether I’m happyor not.
But they’re sure going to have something to say if I let them see I love Jamie. The Asshole, Queen Bitch, Ray, Benny, the guys at school, the girls…They’d crucifyme if I dared to reveal mycrush on the petite freshman with the bright red and yellow hair and the spectral blue eyes.
I’m worse than the ones who openlyhate him, because I’m a poltroon…I’m afraid to face the truth, afraid to stand up and tell the world.
That I want Jamie.