Page 58 of Deviant
The taillights disappear around the bend, and as I stand there in the dark, I think about Aunt Aria’s voice on the phone when I was fourteen. I think about every year since that I spent being exactly who I am without apology. And then I think about how none of that prepared me for the specific feeling of watching someone run from something I didn’t even know I was still hoping for.
I go inside, moving through the house, before picking up the full beers from the coffee table, dumping them, and cleaning up the evidence of a night that meant something to exactly one of us, apparently. Or maybe both of us.
That’s the part I can’t figure out—whether he ran because it meant nothing or because it meant too much. And I hate that I’m still standing here, trying to work out the difference.
Rhett’s voice is in my head.
“Get the fucking beers.”
I’ve never needed to perform in my own life. Not once—not after that day, not for anyone.
But I watched him perform tonight and then I watched him stop, and what was underneath was worth something. I know what I saw. I know what it felt like.
He still left.
I sit on the edge of my bed and check my phone more out of habit than hope, and that’s when it comes in.
Unknown Number:
I know everything. I’m going to expose you both, because Rhett Thornwood doesn’t get to walk around like he’s the golden boy when we both know he was underneath you only an hour ago. I saw the way he ran, just like he does from everyone else that tries to get close to him or love him. He doesn’t deserve to keep this hidden.
My blood goes cold.
I read it again. Then a third time.
Is this what Rhett was talking about? The texts he thought were from me?
He knew something was wrong. He’s been carrying this all summer, and I didn’t believe him. Someone has been watching us this entire time. They know his secret.
My thumb moves over the keyboard before I’ve fully decided to respond.
Me:
Who the fuck is this? How dare you threaten us like that.
Unknown Number:
You don’t need to know. But tell me this, how does he feel? From the looks of it, you both enjoyed that.
Me:
When I find you, I will put you in the fucking dirt. You don’t get to fuck with me and mine and walk away. I will burn this town to the fucking ground to find you.
Unknown Number:
Good luck, Colton.
I set the phone down and rub my face.
Here’s what I know about being outed: you don’t get a warning. You don’t get to decide who hears it first, or what words they use, or whether the timing is right, or whether you’re ready. Someone just makes that choice for you and then you’re standing in the middle of it, at fourteen years old, trying to figure out how to survive something you never got to choose.
Rhett is not ready.
Whatever happened in that room tonight—whatever walls came down, whatever was real about it, he still drove home, and he’s lying in his bed right now.
He is not ready.
That still belongs to him, though. The timing, the words, the who and the when and the how all of it belongs to him in a way that no anonymous coward with a burner phone gets to touch.
