"What makes you think I was assaulted?" I asked Landon.
"Nine times out of ten, people in this school are here for getting their ass kicked. I mean I know that people call school prison, but this is ridiculous. It's like the powers that be say," he adopted a deeper voice to imitate the school board members, "'how can we punish all the little queers and homos? Send em to a school by themselves so that we can get rid of 'em.' Ooh, that's good!" He picked up his pen and scribbled down a few lines before turning to look at me again.
"I somehow doubt that the school board plans on ways to get us away from their kids," I told him. "I think it's a good idea that we have this school. It's safer for us here."
"That's what they want you to think," he responded, a gleam in his eye. "But it's all just a part of another conspiracy. It all started with Loch Ness."
I rolled my eyes and turned my attention back to Mr. Thompson, who was going over some theorems that I had learned at Riverton already. I quickly realized that he was as boring as any other teacher I had ever had the misfortune to listen to, and laid my head down on my folded arms. He had a way of not finishing the ends of his words, leaving you with the impression that he was either too lazy to care, or that he was so out of shape that a third syllable was just too much for his old body to handle.
Mr. Thompson talked right up until the bell, and only assigned homework as it was ringing, much to the dismay of the class. "Liam, what lunch do you have?" Landon asked me once the two of us were out in the hallway. I consulted my schedule, and was slightly perturbed to see him reading it over my shoulder. "Oh, you've got the same one as me! We should eat together. Meet me at the table just to the left when you come out of the line." He was off in a flash before I even had a chance to deny him. I didn't particularly want to eat lunch with Landon, but he was the only friend I had made so far aside from Jake, and I didn't know where he would eat.
The band at R-SALT was not even close to what I was used to playing with. The teacher, a small red-haired man with glasses who I judged to be in his late forties, had control of his class for about twenty minutes of the hour-long class. The rest of the time was spent making random noises on instruments, flirting with each other, or just sitting in chairs staring at the ceiling. Needless to say, I left in a much worse mood than I was in at the beginning.
Third hour passed uneventfully. I didn't know anybody in the class, and it was fairly boring. I had too much free time and, as my mind usually does when it's unoccupied, it wandered. I started wondering if changing to R-SALT was a good decision. I was at a school full of gay teens and their supporters where I could finally be myself, but I had to wonder if it was really who I was. I shook the thoughts from my head as class ended. I had made my decision, and now I had to live with it. No point wondering about the past.
I walked into the masses of students making their way slowly to their next classes. I pulled out the tiny, almost unintelligible map that I was mailed when I enrolled and tried to find my way from my class to the cafeteria for lunch. I was suddenly hit by a pair of arms, which wrapped around my waist from behind. "Hey there," I heard Jake say in my ear.
"Better watch out," I joked. "That was almost rape."
"It's not rape, it's a surprise hug from behind," he responded with a grin. I just rolled my eyes. "You got first lunch, right? You're totally eating with me." Before I had a chance to protest, Jake grabbed me by my arm and started dragging me through the crowd. I held onto my falling backpack with my other arm, doing my best to apologize to the people that Jake pushed our way through.
"Jake, this is a bad first impression," I told him as he dragged me into the large, open building that was the cafeteria.
"Why's that?" he asked innocently. "They won't even remember you here within ten minutes."
"Oh that's reassuring," I sarcastically replied. We went to the line and saw Tommy there, a few people from the end.
"Tommy boy!" Jake called out. Tommy pushed a small boy behind him to the side, and the spot was quickly filled by Jake, who dragged me in with him. Jake wrapped his arms around Tommy's bigger frame as we made our way through the line.
I got a slice of pizza and a cup of fruit, two of the only things I could tell what they were, and I followed the two apparent boyfriends to an empty table. I sat across from them and listened to their easy conversation, having nothing to contribute from myself. "Hey, I thought you were gonna eat with me," I heard a voice whine from behind me as Landon settled himself into a chair beside me.
"Sorry," I responded. "I kinda got dragged here."
"Hey," Jake protested. "You didn't exactly fight it!"
"Hi," Landon replied animatedly. "I'm Shake, creative genius." He reached across the table and shook Jake's hand as I wondered if the twitchy teen had ever heard of decaf.
"I thought you said your name was Landon?" I interrupted.
"Real name Landon Isert," he rattled. "Codename Shake. As in Shakespeare. As in amazing literary mind, the likes of which have never been seen again. Until now."
"Jake Westwick," Jake replied. "Sexual genius."
"I can attest to that," Tommy submitted.
My cheeks turned a shade of red, and Landon elbowed me playfully in the side. "I think we got a virgin on our hands!" he teased me. He stood up and I heard a large intake of air, but I pulled him back into his seat before he was able to do whatever it was he planned.
"So what if I am?" I asked defensively.
"Hell, if I left you alone for a half hour with Jake, we could change that," Tommy told me easily. "Tommy Baker." He shook Landon's hand.
"Wait a minute, aren't you and Jake together?" I asked looking at him.
"Sorta," Jake told me with a shrug. "But it's open."
"Oh, ok," I responded. I was sure my uneasiness played at the edge of my voice.
"What?" Jake asked defensively. "You don't think that it's right or something?"
"No, it's not that," I told him. I was quickly being put on the defensive. "It's just...I could never see myself being in one of those. I think that if I had a boyfriend, I'd only want to have that one boyfriend." I looked to my left and saw Landon scribbling something on his notepad. "What are you doing?" I asked him.
"That was a good line. I wanna use it in a story."
I rolled my eyes and before long the bell rang, signaling an end to the lunch period. We all rose from the table and exited in organized chaos, once again to become mindless zombies as we shuffled off to our remaining three classes of the day. My fourth and fifth hours passed uneventfully, other than the mountains of homework that were piled on me due to the time that I had missed.
My sixth and final hour of the day was biology. When I entered I walked over and met the teacher, a small woman named Mrs. Burke. She told me that I didn't have any work to make up, for which I was thankful, and pointed me to a seat next to a boy she called Kenneth. I followed her finger through the air and saw the mysterious boy from the bus ride sitting alone in the back of the room.
I walked back and sat in the empty seat next to him with a smile. "Hi," I said to him. He silently nodded his head to me. "I'm Liam Vale," I responded, continuing my attempt to get this boy to say something to me. My attempt failed. Kenneth never said a word to me for the rest of the class.
The bell rang and my first day at R-SALT came to a close. I joined the crowds as they shuffled one way or another to their destination. I got onto the bus much earlier than last time and actually had my choice of places to sit. I saw the seat next to Kenneth was once again open, but bypassed it in favor of an empty bench seat towards the back. I put my headphones in and turned on Emilie Autumn's "Save You" as I settled in for the long ride home.
As the bus rattled down the roads, I did my best to stare out the window for most of it. Something about seeing Kenneth made me mad. I never considered myself to be egotistical, but I had never been so coldly ignored by somebody that I had tried to talk to. I looked towards the front of the bus once and saw Kenneth looking back at me. As soon as our eyes locked, however, he sneered and turned back towards the front. I rolled my eyes to myself and turned back towards my window, watching the scenery as it passed by.
I got off the bus when it stopped close to my house and started walking down the sidewalk, where I was soon met by Brandon wrapping his arms around my legs. "Hey, Liam!" he said brightly.
"Hey there, Bubba," I responded as I picked the boy up in my arms. "How was your day?"
"Good," he told me with a smile. "How was gay school?"
I faltered a bit when I heard him say that. "Where did you hear it called that?" I asked looking at him.
"I told teacher today you was goin to a new school, and she asked if it was the gay school," he told me innocently.
"Oh, ok," I told him as I carried him into the house. "Well, that's not a very good thing to call it." He just nodded as I set him down on the island in our kitchen. "Now, where's Daddy at?"
"He's in his office," he said. "He says it's ok for me to meet you at your buff stop and said to get me a snack."
I looked at him suspiciously. "Let me go run that by the boss," I said as I walked down the hall to my dad's home office. "Dad, did you want me to get Brandon a snack?" I asked.
"If you wouldn't mind, Liam. I'm swamped with cases and whatnot. That Delmore case really got my name out there. Guess it's a curse and a blessing, huh?"
"Yeah, dad," I said laughing some.
"But wait, how was school?" He swiveled around in his office chair so that he could face me, kicking over a briefcase and spilling it's papers everywhere.
"It was ok," I told him as I helped him pick up some of the papers. "Jake Westwick goes there."
"The kid from your second grade class?"
"Third grade," I said as I stood up with a handful of his papers.
"Well I'm glad you had a good day." He took the papers from me, and we looked at each other awkwardly for a few minutes. He put the papers on his lap, and pulled me into a strange hug. "Your mom would be proud of you," he said softly.
I blinked back a few tears and basically let him hug me. "I know Dad," I told him in an attempt to get him to break the hug.
He let go of me and looked into my face. "You look a lot like her. But she'd seriously be proud. You're taking all these changes really well."
I just nodded at him. "Yeah, well, I gotta go get some homework done. I'm swamped." He nodded, and I left his office.
"Is it my snack time now?" Brandon asked.
"Give me a few minutes, buddy. I have to use the restroom." I brushed past him and rushed into the restroom, shutting and locking the door behind me.
I looked at myself in the mirror, and frowned. I had completely changed since we lost Mom. I used to be happy at least while I was at home. Now I wasn't able to have a single event happen in my life without somebody trying to tell me that Mom was looking down on me and happy, or that she would be happy for me. It wasn't that I didn't believe it, I was Catholic just like the majority of Riverton was, but I didn't enjoy being reminded anytime that something good happened that my mother had been taken away from me due to cancer.
I looked in the mirror at myself and tried to smile. It had been a while since I really smiled at home. Usually it was a forced smile to get my dad to leave me alone about being upset. I hadn't been open about my emotions in a while, either. Any time I went to my Dad feeling emotional, it just got him upset thinking about Mom. Not to mention he was completely stressed with work and trying to take care of Brandon and me, so I felt bad adding onto his already burdened mind. I blinked back my tears once again, and literally shook the thoughts from my mind. There wasn't any time to be sad.
I walked out of the bathroom and back to the kitchen, where Brandon was sitting at the table, looking impatiently out our window. "Ready for that snack?" I asked him, trying to put on my 'bright' voice.
"Yes," he said jumping out of the chair. "I want graham crackers and juice," he demanded.
"Now how do you ask?"
"Pleeeeeease?" he said, looking up at me with giant 'puppy-dog' eyes.
"Damn kid, you know how to play me," I responded as I handed him a couple of graham crackers on a plate and poured some juice in a cup.
Just as I set the cup and plate on the table for him, the doorbell rang. "Be right back," I said to Brandon and walked to the front door. Opening it up, I saw Jaymes, one of my friends from Riverton High. "Jaymes?" I asked, stepping out onto the front porch with him.
"Hey, man. You weren't at school today." I had a sarcastic response in my head, but I kept it there and let him continue. "I kinda missed you. Where ya been at?"
"Well I was suspended a week ago. I didn't go back to school till today."
"I just said you weren't there today, though."
"I know. I kinda transferred schools. I'm at R-SALT now."
"What?" he asked surprised. "You're going to the fag school? Why would you do that?"
"Don't call it that," I snapped at him.
"Woah, Liam, are you one of them?"
"Why does everyone keep saying that?" I asked. I was really starting to get pissed that everyone kept referring to me as "one of them." "Yeah, I'm gay. But I'm not 'one of them.'"
He just looked at me. "Look, Liam, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to come out that way."
"Well, I didn't mean for me to come out that way," I responded with a chuckle.
"It's cool, man." He quickly hugged one of his arms around my shoulders and let go. "So you're really..."
"Yeah," I told him. "You know, not all gay guys want Abercrombie models to attack them and rip their clothes off."
He laughed at that. "Yeah, I know. But you always acted so interested in girls."
"Yeah, that's the thing. I always acted interested in girls."
"So it was really all just an act?"
"No," I reassured him. "The only thing I ever lied about was the part about being interested in girls."
"Wow. You're really never gonna be back at Riverton? You ain't a rebel anymore?"
"Come on, man," I said with a laugh. "We both know that's a stupid mascot anyway."
"That's true. It's just hard to wrap my mind around the fact that we won't ever see each other again."
"Who said that?" I asked. "Just because we don't go to school together doesn't mean we can't hang out, man."
"Yeah, I guess that's true."
"But, as for tonight, I gotta go get Brandon a snack and stuff. Wanna hang out this weekend, though?"
"Sure, man," he said and he walked off.
I watched him go, then turned around and walked back inside.
I sat across from Brandon at the table and got myself a snack to eat with him. "Hey, boys, you wanna order Chinese for dinner?" my dad asked as he walked into the kitchen from his office.
"Sure," I replied, standing up from my chair. We hadn't had many home-cooked meals lately, due to Dad's overwhelming inability to cook. That was something I always told myself that I needed to change but, like many things around our house, it hadn't been done yet.
I grabbed the phone from the receiver as Dad picked up Brandon and carried him off to play. Things were normal again in our household, but I wondered how long that would last.