Enlightened (9 page)

While making small talk with this overly enthusiastic girl about her quest to become first chair in band, I happened to look over and notice that Jamie was flirting with Emma. He was smiling that secretive campy smile that I thought he saved for me, and then he pushed her frizzy hair back behind her ear. Something in me broke as I watched the exchange. I excused myself quickly, thanking Mrs. Mayfield for letting me stay as I walked purposefully toward the door. Jamie tried calling me back, but I never slowed.

He called my house three times that day, and each time I asked Carolyn to tell him that I was unavailable. Technically, that was true, because I had a lot to think about.
What if Jamie wasn’t gay? What if it was just some different form of our deeper friendship and I was keeping him from a much less complicated life?
He could go on to marry a girl, have kids, and be normal. With me, the only thing he could look forward to was a life of hardship and ridicule. On the other hand, I thought after last night things had changed between us. I thought that we were becoming closer, that we were becoming more than just friends. For him to flirt with someone else right in front of me was like a slap in the face, and I didn’t appreciate it. I hated feeling so damn insecure all the time, so unsure about Jamie. It would be funny if it weren’t so fucking dangerous.

When he called the final time, he left a message, and Carolyn came up to my room to deliver it.

“Brian, darlin’, Jamie called again. I don’t know what kind of disagreement you boys had, but he wants you to meet him tomorrow before school so y’all can talk.” She came over and sat on the bed next to me before continuing. “You and I know that I’m not your real mama, but I love you just the same.” I looked up at her, startled. It was the first time she had ever said those words to me. “I know that I’m not supposed to get attached to the children who stay with us. Richard says that only leads to a broken heart for me, but with you, I can’t help it.”

Deep down, I really wanted to tell her about Jamie and me, to finally be able to let it out. I just couldn’t stand to see the disappointment in her face, especially right after her admission.

“You’re the only person I can remember ever wanting to call Mama, Carolyn. I don’t remember my own mother at all, and you’ve treated me better, with more care and respect than I’ve ever had,” I told her sincerely, because I meant every single word. “I wish I could talk about what’s been wrong lately, but I just can’t bring myself to do it.”

“I can understand that. We all have our demons, Brian. When you’re ready, I’ll be here.” I nodded, and she gave me a quick hug before leaving the room and heading back downstairs.

Shuffling through my room aimlessly, I got my school bag ready for the next day, changed into my pajamas, and lay down on my bed. The cracks in the ceiling were almost mocking me as I tried in vain to sleep.

T
HE
night felt like it had lasted an entire week, but eventually Monday morning dawned with muggy slowness. As I watched, the sun rose outside my bedroom window, creeping higher and higher, obliterating the darkness where I could hide my insecurities. Finally, I rolled out of bed to escape its bright and cheery implications of the new day. I knew he wanted me to meet him at the tree house, so I planned on getting there about an hour before we had to leave for school.

When I was dressed, I grabbed my backpack and headed downstairs. Reaching the first floor, I saw Carolyn sitting at the table, waiting to make me breakfast. I was surprised; I thought for sure she would still be asleep.

“You’re up early,” I commented as I shuffled into the kitchen and tossed my bag onto one of the empty chairs.

“Jamie wanted to talk to you before school. I figured you’d be up early.” Too tired and full of trepidation to make small talk, I stared morosely at the smooth, polished tabletop. In no time at all, it seemed, a plate of bacon and scrambled eggs appeared in the spot at which I had been staring. As she passed to go back upstairs to wake Richard, she ruffled my long, barely controlled hair.

“Whatever it is that’s going on with you and Jamie, just remember that some misunderstandings look entirely different in the light of a new day.”

I nodded, knowing that she was right. Looking back at the situation yesterday with Jamie and Emma, I had probably overreacted and let my jealousy get the better of me. It was just so unsettling not to be sure of his feelings for me, or his intentions. While he had said that he wanted us to be together, if the stress got to be too much, he could easily change his mind about me. He could just decide that the foster kid charity case just wasn’t worth the hassle.

That thought was like a stabbing pain in my chest.

Scraping and rinsing my breakfast dishes quickly, I headed out the back door and took a left into the alley at the end of the sidewalk. My feet instinctively knew to take me to Jamie’s house; it was the place I went more often than any other.

Occasionally, I saw men heading for their cars, going off to work, and I saw Karen Simmons’s kid brother delivering the morning paper on his old dirt bike. Mostly though, it was very quiet on the short walk to the Mayfields’ house. The silence was broken only by the sound of early morning sprinklers in their perfectly synchronized watering of well-cared for lawns.

By the time I had reached the end of our alley and turned onto Elm Street for the four-block walk to Jamie’s house, I had decided that the very first thing I would do when he finally got into the tree house was apologize. Jamie was always late—to school, to church, probably even to his own funeral when the time came.

My spirits had been lifted, the weight off of my shoulders by the time I reached his back gate. I was being stupid, and I was going tell him that. Lifting the latch up quietly, I swung the chain link gate open. Being careful to close it behind me, I walked over to the tree house ladder. Luckily, there were no signs of life from the house. No one needed to know why I was there to see Jamie so early or why I went to the tree house instead of their front door.

I climbed the old rungs of the ladder that were bolted into the tree and then reached above me to swing the trapdoor open. Hoisting myself through, I almost fell back to the ground when I was startled by the lone figure that sat against the roughly hewn wall.

Jamie was already in the tree house waiting for me.

Chapter 5

I
LOOKED
at him, stunned that he had beaten me to the tree house. He was never anywhere on time, ever. Not only was he on time that day, he was early.

“Jamie, I….”

He put a hand up to stop me, and I climbed all the way through the trapdoor and then sat on the blanket in front of him. He was wearing his typical jeans and screen-print T-shirt that he wore to school every day, but he looked defeated. His black canvas messenger bag was thrown into the corner, and from the way he was sweating, it looked like he’d been in here for a while.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, his face full of remorse, and it broke my heart. Every bit of anger and resentment I had felt over the last twenty-four hours dissipated. I had been an irrational, jealous child, and he needed to know that.

“No, Jamie, I’m sorry,” I told him, and his eyes went from the blanket to my face. “I had no right to be jealous. You and I have no kind of commitment.” As I spoke, I could feel the anger and resentment start to rise again. “To be honest, I think it was that you were flirting with a girl. It made me think that maybe you weren’t… that you weren’t being honest with me about… well, about the way you said you felt about me.” I felt a familiar burning in my throat, but this time I ignored it.

“That’s just it, Brian, I don’t like her,” he said, and it was my turn to be surprised. “Well, she’s nice and all, but I don’t like her like that.”

“But then why….”

“I heard a few of the girls, including Karen, talking about how much time we spent together, how close we are, how comfortable we are with each other. One of them was talking about how you ran out of gym when you saw me. Apparently her brother told her. I overheard Karen telling Emma that maybe I don’t like her because I was… well, because I didn’t like girls. It scared me, and I wanted to do something to prove them wrong before rumors started to spread. You know how girls are.”

I nodded, and guilt gnawed at my stomach. He had done it to protect us. He was pretending to like a girl, forcing himself into that mold for us, and I had run away like a child.

“I’m so sorry; I should have asked, given you a chance to tell me,” I started, but again he cut me off.

“No, I should have told you about the girls talking. I had planned to when you stayed over Saturday night, but we kind of got… distracted. Knowing that I would see them in church on Sunday, I’d been planning to flirt a little with Emma to shut them up. I meant to tell you. It made me so upset to know that I had hurt you.” Turning around quickly on the blanket, he sat beside me and held my hand. “There are so many ways that this could go wrong, and I’m scared every day, but I don’t want you to ever think that I don’t think what we have is worth every bit of it.” Lifting his hand, he caressed my face. I would never get tired of feeling his skin against mine as he touched me.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, elated by his admission. Sitting there in the sweltering heat of the early morning sun filtering through the open window, we held each other. Everything in our relationship was uncertain, except how we felt about each other.

I promised myself that I would never doubt his feelings for me again.

We got to school just in time to make it to first period. Talking and kissing in the tree house, we had almost forgotten we were supposed to go to school. Sliding into our seats just as the bell rang, we grabbed our books from our bags and faced the front when the teacher entered.

That was when Jamie got the note.

The note was passed from teenager to teenager through the line behind him and tossed over his shoulder by an excited-looking Gina Trammel. A curly redhead from the same group of friends as Karen and Emma, she watched eagerly as Jamie opened the folded projectile under his desk. Following the obvious path the note had taken, my eyes landed on Karen. She was practically bouncing in her chair, her eyes lit with excitement. An embarrassed-looking Emma sat next to her, trying to make herself disappear as she scooted lower and lower behind her institutional desk.

Glancing over at Jamie, I saw that he had a small smirk, and his face was flushed from his neck to his ears to his forehead. The change in color was subtle, but having spent so much time looking at him, I could tell the difference. While the teacher wrote notes on literary irony, Jamie did some writing of his own and then sent the note back through the winding path of students to its originator.

Karen’s face lit up like she had just won the lottery, and she leaned over to relay whatever Jamie had written. At first Emma’s face went blank with shock, and then it blossomed into a tentative smile. Her face held a dreamy expression through the rest of the lecture. When I glanced at Jamie, all I could garner from his expression was self-satisfaction.

Finally, after an excruciating hour of discussing stuff we were never going to use again as long as we lived, the bell rang, and we were free. I packed up quickly and waited for Jamie. Before he threw his backpack over his shoulder, he looked back at Emma and winked. Her face went scarlet, and she made a beeline for the door. The rest of the students soon followed, but I grabbed Jamie’s arm before he could tag along with the group.

“Okay, spill,” I said, not in the mood to be coy.

“We have a double date Friday night,” he said without missing a beat. I raised my eyebrows incredulously. Karen was all right to hang out with, I guess, but to actively date her? I wasn’t sure I could keep up that kind of façade; I barely even knew her.

“What if, after spending time alone with us, they figure out that we’re more into each other than we are into them?” I whispered, and he turned to me, paling slightly.

“I hadn’t thought of that. I just thought it was the perfect cover,” he said, and I could see his mind going over all of the different possibilities, the varied outcomes of the night. “I think we’ll be all right. I mean, it’s only going to be a movie or whatever. We can handle it, and it will help solidify our cover.”

“What if she wants you to kiss her at the end of the night?” I asked, maybe a little louder than I’d meant to. Our teacher looked up and shooed us off to our next class. After heading up the hall, we ducked into the boys’ bathroom to continue our conversation. Jamie checked the stalls to make sure we were alone.

“I will tell her that kissing is important to me, and not something I take lightly,” he shrugged. “That’s actually true, too, so it’s not like I’m lying to the girl. You are the first person I have ever kissed, and that meant everything to me.” I nodded as the door opened and a senior I recognized faintly from the wrestling team entered. Jamie started to wash his hands, and I followed his example. Then we picked up our bags and headed for class.