Social Skills (16 page)

Was
it? Connor didn’t know. He didn’t even know if he
was
afraid…or just
fed up. “You’re not even dating her, and she still gets to be such a big part
of your life.”

“I spend
time with you, too. I just have to keep things balanced.”

“Yeah,
so no one finds out.”

Jared
fell silent, a frown cutting through his handsome features. Then he shrugged. “Yeah.
But like I said, I’m still gonna hang out with you.”

“And
you don’t think that will tip them off?”

Jared
barked an angry laugh. “This isn’t high school, Connor. I can be friends with
whoever I want.”

“Are
you telling me your friends don’t think it’s weird you spend time with me as it
is?”

No answer
this time.

“Oh,
that’s right,” Connor continued for him. “They don’t even know, do
they? You make things up to keep your dirty little secret hidden.”

Jared
gritted his teeth. “Are you about to give me some sort of ultimatum? Because
let me tell you, I’m not into being bossed around.”

Connor
opened his mouth to fire back, but his retort died as the thin veneer of Jared’s
anger evaporated into a much more pitiable—and familiar—emotion:
fear.

“No.”
The fury slipped away. “Of course not. I would never force you into anything. But
what happens if people do find out?”

“They
won’t.”

“They
might, Jared. And sometimes…it worries me. I don’t know that anyone would care
if I’m gay, but your life is…different. You’re a football player…you’re popular…and
I don’t want to be responsible for ruining all that for you, but what if—”

“Quit
being so melodramatic,” Jared huffed. “I have things under control. No one is
going to find out.”

Connor
closed his eyes. “Someone already has.”

“What?”

“I
said someone already has. Rebecca.”

A
frantic gasp sent Connor’s eyes shooting open again.

“
What?
You told her?”

“Did
I say I told her?” Connor snapped. “I said she
found out
. You have boy
handwriting, apparently, and she caught me watching you. For like the tenth
time. She’s not stupid, you know.”

“You
could have told her nothing was going on.” Jared stuck both hands into his hair
and pulled. “What the fuck, Connor.”

“So,
what, you want me to lie to her? I mean, more than I already am?”

“Yes!”
Jared flopped back, banging into the seat. “No…shit, I dunno.” He folded over
and rested his head against the steering wheel. “Shit, Connor. I don’t know.”

The
lump in Connor’s throat promised tears, and he struggled to keep it down. “Yeah.
I know.”

They
sat in silence for several minutes as Jared ran his fingers over his face,
smashing his features into parodies of themselves. “Look, I think I’m gonna get
going,” he finally said.

There
was something off in Jared’s voice—something distant and
strained—something very different from his usual warm tone.

Connor’s
pulse jumped.

“But…I
thought…I thought you didn’t have anywhere to be right now.”

Jared
shook his head. “Not tonight, Connor. Just go on up. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Um…yeah…okay.”

He pulled
his case off the backseat and stumbled from the car.

Once
in his room, he set himself on autopilot. His violin went against the wall
beside the bed. Wallet and keys went on top of his nightstand. The tux came off—first
bowtie and cummerbund, then pants and ugly pleated shirt. He hung them all the
way in the back of his closet, but putting them out of sight didn’t help him
forget the rejection.

He
sank into his desk chair, clutching his stomach. It threatened to upheave its
limited contents, and the feverish chills racking his body made the churning
even worse. Things were all wrong—more wrong than they’d ever been before.
Jared wasn’t supposed to push him away like that. Jared wasn’t supposed to look
at him with fear in his eyes, wasn’t supposed to speak to him with that cold,
unfamiliar voice. Jared was the one who had an upbeat solution for every
problem, the one who made every obstacle seem surmountable. He was supposed to
tell Connor everything was going to be okay.

So how
could Connor think or do anything else right now without hearing those words?

An
hour of staring and dozing with his head on his desk produced no
answers—because only Jared had those. He gathered himself up and dialed
Jared’s phone. It rang several times, but eventually went to voice mail. He
tried it again, and again got no response.

All
the sixteenth notes in the world couldn’t keep back his panic. The music in his
head was a cacophony, violins shrieking up the E string and piercing his stupor.

Only
Jared could stop it. Only Jared could fix him.

He
threw on jeans and a t-shirt and took off into the darkness.

***

By
the time he reached Jared’s suite, he was trembling. Just raising his arm to
knock left him weakened.

A
redheaded boy with freckles opened the door and peered at him. “Who do you
want?”

“I…um…is
J-jared here?”

The
guy shrugged and let him pass, then took off down the hallway.

Connor
made his way to Jared’s room—a room he’d only been in once before. The
door was halfway open and the faint click of keyboard keys came from inside.

As
before, half the room was in disarray while the other half was relatively
pristine. Jared’s roommate sat hunched over at his desk with the tiny white
buds of earphones firmly rooted in his ears, bopping his head to the music and
tapping his foot against the floor to an uneven beat. Jared was nowhere in
sight.

Connor
backed up, but it was too late. Ben turned at the movement, his face first
registering confusion and then recognition.

“Hey,”
he said, his voice louder than necessary. He removed the earphones and
continued at a normal volume. “You were Jared’s tutor, right?”

“Y-yeah.”

“I
thought Jared quit going to tutoring.” Ben cocked his head. “After last
semester.”

Connor
swallowed, but there wasn’t enough saliva to moisten his dry throat. “H-he did.
I…um…I just look over his papers sometimes.”

“
Ohh
.” Ben nodded slowly, eyes widening
as if he had received a sudden burst of clarification. “I get it. Well, he’s
not here right now. Some of his teammates came and snagged him…think they went
out to CiCi’s Pizza for dinner.”

Bitter
disappointment sapped Connor’s last powers of discourse. He stared blankly into
space.

“So,
do you want me to give him a message? Or like, do you have his paper to drop
off?”

Connor
glanced down at his empty hands, then back up at Ben, who had an eyebrow raised
and was beginning to give him a look he was very familiar with. A
hello? Are
you retarded or something?
look.

Noise
erupted in the suite as a good six pair of footsteps trailed in, coupled with
booming masculine voices.

“You
sure you won’t come with us, Jared?” one voice said. “Last hurrah before spring
break, man. After that your first year is almost over, and I really don’t think
you’ve been drunk
nearly
enough.”

“Nah,
man, some other time,” Jared responded with a light-hearted chuckle.

Connor
shirked back against the doorframe. How could Jared sound so carefree? What had
happened to the heavy, sad tone he’d had earlier?

But
once Jared caught sight of him, his brow furrowed—in concern, or maybe
even in anger.

“Hey,
the little anthro tutor,” Michael announced from behind him, and suddenly
Connor found himself the focus of five football players, Jared, and Ben, who
popped out from the room to stand beside him. “You still getting tutoring,
Jared? Man, you must be dumber than I thought.”

Jared’s
laugh was strained. “Whatcha doin’ here, Connor? Need something?”

“Right.”
Ben snickered. “Like he doesn’t
help
you with your papers.”

“Nice.”
Michael guffawed, slapping Jared on his back.

Connor
stood frozen, like a
fermata
had
descended upon him, drawing out the agonizing moment. What could he do to steer
things in the right direction? Toward him and Jared alone, preferably in each
other’s arms? He stared at Jared, silently pleading for him to do the work. If
Jared would just look at him with a smile, or move a little closer, his
paralysis could be cured, and he’d at least be able to say
something.

But
Jared was barely making eye contact, and when he did, it definitely wasn’t with
a smile. “You’re finished looking over that history paper for me?” he
eventually prompted.

“Uh,
y-yeah,” Connor rasped.

Michael
turned with the rest of Jared’s teammates and began to walk away. “As thrilling
as this sounds, we’re gonna head out. See ya, man.”

That
left Connor alone with Jared and, unfortunately, Ben, who didn’t seem to be
going anywhere.

Jared
sighed. “You need a ride home or something? We were using my car, so I left it
at that little lot down the block.”

Connor
nodded, skin hot but insides shuddering with cold.

Jared
moved abruptly. “Let’s get going then.”

Silence
reigned for the first minute of the walk. When less people were passing by,
Jared finally turned to him. “What were you thinking, coming here like that?” He
tugged at his curls. “I mean, that was just…really not cool on your part.”

They
reached the car, and Jared got the door for him as usual, but nothing else felt
as it usually did.

It
was wrong. All wrong.

“I’m
sorry. I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Then
you should have called.”

“I
did. You didn’t answer.”

“Because
I was
busy
, Connor. You’re smart. You could have figured that out
before you came over to my dorm and started talking to my roommate. And what
exactly did you tell him, anyway? That I buy papers off you?”

“I
didn’t tell him anything, I swear. I didn’t say anything at all! He jumped to
that conclusion on his own!”

“Yeah,
okay. Sure. Now what do you want?” Jared pulled into the lot nearest Connor’s
dorm. He left the engine running and kept both hands on the steering wheel.

“I
just…today…you were upset…and I …”

Jared
shook his head. “Can we talk about this some other time?”

No
. No, they
couldn’t. Not if it meant another minute with this weight in the pit of Connor’s
stomach—the terrible fear that he was
losing
Jared…and probably
himself in the process. “C-can’t you come up? Can’t we talk tonight?”

“I
don’t really feel like it.”

“Please,
Jared—”

But
Jared wasn’t listening, and his next words had that sick feeling crawling up
from Connor’s stomach and into his chest. “Connor…maybe we should cool it.”

“W-what?”

“I
think…I think we need to take a break. Maybe I didn’t think this all through. I
just got so caught up in…I dunno. I just got caught up. I don’t think I’m
handling things the right way anymore.”

An
intake of breath turned into a hiccup as tears filled Connor’s eyes. “J-jared…no…I…I
won’t let anyone else find out, I promise.”

Jared
blinked, staring straight out his windshield and into the darkness. “You were
right before. My life
is
different from yours. And I’m just…I’m not
ready for it to change.”

“Jared,
please. I don’t want…I don’t want to take a—”

“What
do you want, then? Because the truth is, I don’t really know if this
should
be what you want…and I don’t have much else to offer. Look, I like you. I
like having fun with you…but…that’s all. I think maybe this whole time I’ve
only been thinking about what
I
want…not what’s best for you.”

“N-no,
I want this, too! Please, I n-need—”

“I’m
sorry, Connor. I’ve been trying to figure this out for a while now, but it’s
just not going to work.” Jared turned to face the window, his knuckles white as
they grasped the steering wheel. “I’m so sorry. I…I never meant to hurt you.”

An
instinct of self-preservation guided Connor to dash from the car before the
tears could overtake him. They sprang freely as he ran off toward his building,
though, blurring his vision and smearing the world into an impressionist
painting.

He
reached the safety of his room and slammed the door behind him. With his eyes
closed, he was able to still his breathing and stop the crying, but he knew it
was only the calm before the storm.