Page 78 of All That History
“Hope the drive back was okay.It was great to see you.F.”
Barely any lines to read between, any hidden meanings to decode.Not that I could really blame Flynn, for either his brevity or the shallowness of his words.Not when we’d both so cleanly boxed-out anything deeper than that, standing in the cold on the sidewalk that Sunday.
“We need more paper towels.And dishwasher detergent.”My mom flashed me a look which asked whether she was tempting fate by even bringing it up.Enough to set a sick feeling of guilt roiling in my belly.
“I can get that.”
She nodded, just once.“There’s a shopping list on the fridge.”
A pointless reminder: there’d always been a shopping list on the fridge, since before I was tall enough to even see it.
Pulling the truck out of the driveway, I glanced at the rearview mirror only to desperately stomp on the brakes.Kyle’s grin framed through the back window.
“Do you have a fucking death wish or something?”
He only smiled wider, at my anger.Walked around to the passenger side, climbing up into the pickup with me.
“Where’re we headed?”
I narrowed my eyes at him, resisting the urge to punch him in the thigh.A dead leg felt like a reasonable taste of what people who popped up behind reversing trucks could expect out of life.
“Errand, for my mom.”
Kyle nodded, then gestured out at the windshield.“Then drive on, Mister Grumpy.”
#
Catherine thought shewas the first person I’d come out to, and I’d never disabused her of the assumption.It was a pretty safe one, after all: female friend, less risk of a violent reaction, perhaps a touch more emotional understanding.If I’d planned to tell the people in my life that I was gay, she’d have made the perfect trial run.
Problem was, I hadn’t planned to do that at all.That secret was meant to stay buried inside me, shameful and confusing, until I either figured out how to integrate it with the Oli everyone thought I was, or until I died.Whichever came first.
My browser history gave me away.Or, more accurately, its autocomplete.
I was cunning enough to wipe all traces of the stuff I looked at online.Log out of any websites that demanded profiles; clear the records of my sordid surfing.My parents weren’t particularly tech-savvy, but I knew I couldn’t take ineptitude for granted.And so, fifteen, and confused, and desperately horny, I burned the ground my fledgling gay feet had walked upon, and salted the earth after it.
At least, I thought I did.Enough that I didn’t think it was dangerous to leave Kyle alone, in my room, while I went to shower after school.Enough, even, that when I walked back in - towel around my waist, hair still damp - to see him sitting at my desk in front of the computer, my body didn’t even have the courtesy to summon a sense of foreboding or dread.
That meant I was left blinking, confused and suddenly terrified, when he called out his question.Delivered so very casually; without even bothering to glance back over his shoulder.
“Who’s ‘JesseJockBoy’?”
I tried to swallow, but it felt like my body had frozen.Throat so thick, I wasn’t even sure air was making it through.“S-sorry?”
Kyle turned, looking at me curiously.“I said, who’s ‘JesseJockBoy’?”
A normal person, an innocent person, would frown right now.I tried to coax the muscles in my forehead into compliance.“I don’t know...I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Kyle’s frown looked like mine was supposed to.“I went to check my email, and that address automatically filled in.”
It was like a hiccup, blended with shock.As harsh as a punch to the ribs.“You...you read my email?”
He cocked his head to the side.“No, just the address filled in.Not the password.But you’re saying it’s your account, then?”
I needed an excuse, a justification.Something believable, preferably, but really anything would do.Whatever it took to drown out the chant of “stupid, stupid, stupid” ringing loud in my head.
“Who calls you Jesse?”
My stomach was threatening to invert, to empty itself across my bedroom rug.So far only a handful of guys had called me Jesse, and that was because they thought - or they were content believing the lie - that it was my name.Just like they were happy to believe I was 19, and headed to college, and a football jock with his life figured out and a sports scholarship to consider.Which was why, naturally, I wasn’t keen to share photos of myself with my face in them.
