"I'm getting detention today," Landon announced suddenly, after our morning hug. He seemed excited about it, back to his usual twitchy manner and talking faster than most people could understand. I had gotten pretty good at it by now.
"Wait, what?" I was confused. I hadn't slept much the night before, running over everything that had happened between Landon and me, and if he had any interest in me. I thought maybe I misheard him.
"I'm gonna get detention," he repeated slowly.
"OK, I got that. Why?"
"Well, the guy in my next story needs detention. Seeing as how I've never had detention before, I figured that I needed to get detention so that I'll know what it's like. Duh."
"Oh, well that makes perfect sense," I responded sarcastically.
"You mock me now, but we'll see who's laughing when I'm a famous author," he quipped back. He stuck his tongue out at me, and I grinned at him.
"I know something that you can do with that tongue."
"Oh yeah? Maybe I'm interested in that," he responded suggestively. Before I could respond, Tommy swung his long legs across the chair next to me and took his usual place with us in the cafeteria.
"Hey, Tommy. Jake," I greeted the two lovers as they joined us before classes started.
"'Sup, Liam?" Tommy asked with a cocky nod. That was one thing I envied about him. No matter what, he was always extremely confident.
"I was just telling him about my plan to get detention," Landon cut in. I could tell he was trying to keep us from talking so that we wouldn't bust into a spontaneous argument.
"You're getting detention?" Jake asked as he assumed his place next to Landon. The author nodded. "I'd suggest throwing twinkies at that fat ass Mrs Stone," Jake suggested, "That's something I've wanted to do for a while."
"I think she seems nice," I chimed in.
"She keeps rejecting kids from coming here," Jake told me, "I've heard of all kinds of guys that the principals of other schools wanted to send here, but she says that she won't take them unless it's their decision."
"I think that's only fair," Landon added, "I mean, I don't want to be herded up like Jews in the holocaust. That's just creepy."
"But more guys here increases the probability (to land) of landing a cutie," Jake whined.
"You already got all the man you can handle," Tommy told him.
"For a relationship, yeah, but there's more than just that."
I rolled my eyes, and was thankfully saved by the bell that told us to get to our first classes of the day. As predicted, Mrs. Stone came along right after the bell, and hurried us off to class as if our lives depended on it. "Yeah, 'cuz we definitely need ten minutes to get to class," Jake murmured to himself as we stood up lethargically.
"What was that, Mr. Westwick?" Mrs. Stone snapped at him, "Do you want yet another detention?"
"This is going to be easier than I thought," Landon commented to me as we walked towards our first class of the day.
"So, are the other principals really trying to force kids to come to this school?" I asked as we settled into our usual seats and resumed our daily ritual of ignoring the teacher.
"Yeah, rounding em up like cattle, basically. Stone's not letting em do it though. She's really fighting against it. She says that it's not a good idea to shove all the gay kids into one school together. Not only does she not want 'her school' becoming a raging sex brothel, she's afraid it's gonna promote intolerance and yadda, yadda, yadda."
"Excuse me, Mr. Isert, would you like to give us the answer to the problem I was working out on the board just now?"
Shake looked up at the board, adjusted his glasses, and confidently stated, "Seven."
"That's correct," the disgruntled Mr. Thompson responded.
Landon turned back to me and resumed our conversation. "That doesn't seem right to me," I said, "They shouldn't be allowed to throw kids into the school just to get rid of them."
"I know. So far, it's not been too bad. But Stone isn't going to be able to hold 'em off forever. You were one of those kids, by the way."
"What? It was my choice to come here," I told him.
"Oh, let me guess. Your principal suggested you come here to avoid stress or some such shit, right?"
I bit my bottom lip as I often did when I was unsure of myself, and nodded, "Yeah, I guess he kinda did."
"That's their strategy," Landon told me darkly, "They make it seem like it's your choice, and then you won't report them for abusing their power like that."
"I somehow don't think that's what happened," I told him. I hoped I sounded more confident than I felt.
The rest of the day was pretty much the same boring, monotonous dribble that I had come to expect from R-SALT, and high school in general. Sixth period was a different story. For the first time since I had come to R-SALT, Kenneth started a conversation with me, "So I'm guessing Tommy told you all about me, huh?"
"What? I asked," my voice showing my obvious surprise. We had been given a worksheet by the teacher, and had been working silently for the past few minutes to get it completed before he brought this up out of the blue.
"Tommy Jones," he said, "Your best friend. You two probably got to talking (to) about me after I left."
I couldn't help but laugh at that, for which he shot me a glare. "Sorry, but Tommy is far from my best friend. In fact, he almost kicked my ass after you left. I didn't get the story from him, I got it from-" I started to disclose Landon telling me of Kenneth's past, but trailed off before I did.
"From somebody who likely doesn't know shit from the facts," he said, "How about we hang out after school and I can tell you how it really happened?"
"I would," I said, trying my best to make up an excuse as quickly as possible, "but I still have a lot of homework to catch up on from transferring schools." It wasn't entirely a lie. I hadn't done much of my homework that I had been assigned, but it was far from a pressing matter. Something about Kenneth just made me anxious though.
"Oh, I get it," he said, "You're with that Landon kid."
"What? Why would you say that?"
"Well, it's either that or you just hate me before you've even gotten to know me. I know Tommy and Jake are together, and that leaves only Landon to be your boyfriend if you're making excuses."
"I'm not making excuses," I said. I stopped myself so that I wouldn't raise my voice, "I have homework to do."
"Yeah, sure," It was obvious by his voice that he didn't believe me at all.
"You know what? Fine. You wanna explain yourself, we can hang out after school."
"Good," he responded with a confident smirk that let me know that he felt as if he had won, "Meet me in the student parking lot after class and we'll go grab a burger or something."
The two of us didn't talk to each other for the rest of the period, which was fine by me. After school was over, I went to my locker and grabbed the books that I would need for homework before heading towards the student parking lot.
Before I had made it out of the school, I ran into a very excited Landon. "Guess what?" he practically shouted in my face. Before I had a chance to answer, he continued, "I got detention!"
"Congratulations...?" I said, unsure of how to properly reply to so bizarre of a statement.
"Thanks," he responded joyfully before depositing a quick kiss on my cheek.
I felt myself start blushing from the point where his lips made contact with my skin. I gave him a shy smile, and he ran off. I walked out to the parking lot, where I saw Kenneth leaning up against a black Toyota Camry. He smirked when he saw me approaching, "I was beginning to wonder if you'd show up."
"My word is my word. One hundred percent."
He walked around to the other side of the car and opened the passenger door. I climbed in, feeling a bit uneasy to be getting into the car of a boy whom I hardly even knew.
"Any preference on where we go?" he asked me as he got into the driver's seat.
"Nah," I said with an awkward shrug, "I really just wanted to hear your side of the story, like you said."
"Well we can talk about that when we get there," he told me sternly.
I sat in silence for the entire ride over to the small burger joint that Kenneth decided we should go to. Once there, I got out of the car and followed him inside. He ordered himself a burger and fries. I just got an order of fries and a drink, which he insisted on paying for. I followed him to a booth at the front of the small store, and took a seat across from him.
I followed him to a booth at the front, and took a seat across from him. (It's not really a store.)
I suddenly noticed that he was very attractive. I wondered what Landon would think of me thinking that. Kenneth's eyes sparkled as the sun hit them at just the right angle, and the light seemed to reflect from them into the rest of the restaurant. He also had amazing posture for a teenager.
"So, shoot," I demanded.
"Well that's no way to talk to a friend," he toyed.
"I'd hardly consider us friends," I snapped at him.
"Well first I wanna know what you think you know."
"Well, from what I heard, you and Tommy had a fling. Once you cheated on Tommy, he dated your sister and you called him a pedophile." I watched Kenneth's face as I told him what I'd heard from Landon. He simply sat there eating calmly, his expression blank and unchanging.
"That's a really one-sided explanation of things," he said after the awkward pause which followed my statement, "For one thing, you don't even know why I did what I did. For another, I never cheated on Tommy. We broke up before I ever got with Rusty."
"So you're telling me that everything Landon told me was a lie?" I asked him suspiciously.
"Landon Isert?" I blushed as I realized that I had given him away.
"That's not important, I told him, hoping to make him forget the name."
"Well, yeah, everything he told you is a lie," he said boldly, "Tommy is a self-centered, conceited asshole who's only out to prove himself as the better guy. He doesn't think that he can do anything wrong, but he's nothing but a coward."
"How am I supposed to take your word over his?" I asked looking at Kenneth across the table.
"Why don't you go ask him about it?" Kenneth challenged me.
"He won't talk about it," I told him, biting my lower lip slightly.
"And what's that tell ya?" he asked, taking a big bite of his burger.
"Thanks for the info," I responded as I stood up from the booth, "but I better get heading home."
I walked out of the restaurant with my cup in hand and started the walk home. To say I had a lot on my mind would be an understatement. Tommy wouldn't give me any answers, of that I was sure. The only possible source that I had to go on was Landon. Unfortunately, he was closer to Tommy than to Kenneth. To doubt that that would play into his opinions would be extremely foolish.
Tommy and Kenneth obviously had some problems in the past, and that confused me as I wondered which of them was telling the truth. The other thing that played almost constantly at the forefront of my mind was Landon. Did he like me? Did I like him? What did he see us as? What were we, actually? We hadn't been out on a date yet, so I doubted that you could call us boyfriends. But the way he behaved certainly made me think that he viewed me as more than just a friend. I didn't know at (the) this point how I viewed him, or how I could possibly have a boyfriend if that's what things turned into, but it was certainly something that played at my mind.
The wind chilled my cheeks, and I pulled my jacket up a little over my ears as I walked past my old school. Then, leaning on the fence, I gazed at Riverton High, home of the Rebels. Things seemed so much calmer and easier when I was a Rebel. I didn't even know what the mascot was at R-SALT. I paused to think if we even had a mascot. I hadn't heard of one yet.
I was brought out of my reminiscing by a voice to my left. "Hey, Vale!" I turned in time to see a baseball flying towards my face. I caught it in my bare hand, wincing slightly from the sting that it left there as I threw it back to the guy who had called my name. It was one of Jaymes' friends from the baseball team. I had never been bothered to learn his name before.
"Hey," I responded after a bit of a pause. Jaymes was walking next to him.
"Where you been at, man?"
"I told you," Jaymes told him, "He's transferred to the new school."
"I wanna hear it from his mouth, though."
"Yeah, I'm going to R-SALT now," I told him.
He shook his head as if he was disappointed in me. "You know, Vale, I didn't think you'd turn out that way."
"Come on, man, let's just go," Jaymes said to his friend. The larger boy didn't move.
"What're you, some kinda fag-lover?" he drawled. I bit my lower lip as I watched Jaymes back down from his friend at the challenge. Things were not looking good.
"Don't use that word," I said a bit louder than I had wanted to.
"Oh, so you're growing a backbone now?" He took a step towards me, and I flinched automatically. I had never been taught to defend myself. He laughed at me.
"Come on!" Jaymes said, "This isn't funny anymore, man."
"Look," the baseball player said to me, completely ignoring Jaymes, "If you wanna hang out with those pillow-biters, that's your choice." He was very close to my face by now. I wanted to run, but something kept me glued to the spot that I was in. "But don't be showing your queer face around my school again. Got it?"
I nodded meekly, and he shoved through me on his way past the school. I watched the two walk away and saw Jaymes turn to mouth the word sorry to me. I gave him a one-finger salute and walked the rest of the way home.
I slammed the door behind me, and was on my way up to my room when my dad called out my name. "Liam? You OK?" he yelled from his office.
"Yeah, Dad, fine!" I hollered back, stopping on the landing to talk to him.
"Why are you late?"
I huffed slightly to myself, and gave a small smile as I remembered that was something that Mom always did when Dad refused to leave a room to continue a conversation. I walked into his office, and leaned against the door frame.
"I went out for a burger with...a friend."
"Was it that Landon kid? I hope we didn't scare him too much last night."
I rolled my eyes since Dad was focused on his work. "No, Dad. I have other friends you know."
"That's true. I forgot that you all tend not to stick with one friend for very long." That was all I needed to hear before I turned and stormed my way up the stairs to my room.
I threw myself onto my bed and turned my iPod on to a louder-than-usual volume. I was tired of the way that people were treating me once they found out I was gay. At times I wished that I never had. I could have stayed at the regular school, Dad wouldn't act some of the ways he did, and I wouldn't have to worry about how people would react when they found out about it. Being straight was certainly the suggested way to be in Riverton.
I started on my homework, and must have been a couple of hours into it, when I was tapped on my shoulder by my dad, who was holding our house phone. "Liam, it's Mrs. Isert," he told me once I had pulled my heaphone out. I hit pause on my machine and took the phone. "Hello? I asked curiously." I had no reason why Landon's mom would be calling me.
"Liam, it's Mrs. Isert," she said unnecessarily. "Landon had your number in his cell phone as one to call in case of an emergency, and I wanted to let you know that he's in the hospital."