3. Peachy
3
Peachy
Friday morning dawned, but I didn’t get out of bed. I knew Dad would get a call to report me skipping school, but I didn’t care. I’d tell him I was sick or something.
Which wouldn’t have been a far stretch from the truth. Every time I remembered the weight of Boyt on my back or his rage-fueled pants in my ear, my stomach rebelled. I spent more than a few hours getting intimately acquainted with the toilet.
As much as I tried not to think about it—about him— my brain couldn’t let it go. It didn’t even make any sense. Boyt was straight and homophobic. He had a girlfriend and had spent our entire high school career hating me. He couldn’t have actually wanted me.
Which meant it hadn’t been about me at all, at least, not in that way. It had been about control. About power. About humiliating me, teaching me my place. Teaching me… respect.
What a sick fucking joke.
I wondered if he even remembered. He’d been tweaked out on something. He might have woken up sober and wondered how the hell he’d gotten his nose broken.
And here I was, too scared to leave my bed. The rage was all-encompassing, but it wasn’t strong enough to erase the fear. Or the shame.
When my dad did get home Friday night, he found me in my room, hiding under my blankets. I told him I was sick, and he believed me. He made me soup and left it on my bedside table. It was cold by morning.
The rest of my weekend passed in a blur of TV and Cheetos dust as I tried to fry the memories from my brain cells. I blew off work and theater set day. I didn’t change out of my pajamas. I didn’t answer my phone when my friends called, wondering why I wasn’t at the school to work on the set for the play. Other than informing my boss I was sick, I ignored my phone completely.Dad was worried, but I told him I was fine.
Because I was. I was . I was fine, I was fine, I was fine!
I wasn’t fine.
Monday morning, my stomach was in knots, and I ended up vomiting my meager breakfast of half a banana before I even made it to my truck.
Get a grip, Silas! I internally berated myself as I spat into the porcelain bowl. Stop being such a fucking pussy.
It wasn’t like I could keep skipping. It was my senior year. I was almost done. I didn’t want to risk that over some psycho like Boyt.
Climbing into my truck, I untucked my hands from the hoodie I’d taken from my brother Will’s room and gripped the cold wheel until my knuckles whitened.
“You can do this,” I said out loud.
My truck, Mabel, did not respond.
Once I got to school, I parked as close to the doors as possible and fought my nausea as I navigated the crowded hallways, hating the shoulders bumping me, the arms brushing mine.
I’d never been particularly touch-averse, but even the accidental shoves and grazes were overstimulating.
Gritting my teeth, I reminded myself to chill out as I rummaged in my locker. I bit back a curse when a passerby brushed against my back, causing a wave of nausea to roll through me.
Come on, Silas. You can do this. Just breathe.
Tucking my econ homework under my arm, I slammed my locker shut and turned to enter the flow of bodies moving down the hall only to rear back when I found myself face-to-face with the very last person I wanted to see.
The locker handle dug into my spine as I crashed into the metal door, and my momentary fright bled into irritation as I met his cool blue eyes.
“Jesus Christ!” I barked. “What is wrong with you, sneaking up on a person like that?”
Ben’s light eyebrows rose. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
He brushed a blond curl out of his face, and I glared at it as it fell right back over his forehead, internally groaning. I had a particular weakness for guys with curls.
When I did nothing but scowl at him, he offered me a shy grin, showcasing the most adorable dimple on his left cheek. I wanted to punch myself in the face so I would never see it again.
Of course, he had to be hot! I hadn’t noticed last week for obvious reasons, but the universe hated me and wanted me to suffer.
Why couldn’t I have been saved by a hunchback with horse teeth and acne? It would have made disliking him much easier. But no, Fate ensured I’d been saved by the freaking blond demigod of curls and dimples.
I crossed my arms over my chest to somehow shield myself from his crooked grin with my econ study guide. “What are you doing here?”
His dimple faded. “I just wanted to check on you.”
“Why?”
Peering around us significantly, he cleared his throat and dropped the volume of his voice. “How are you doing?”
My eye twitched. “Peachy.”
“You don’t look peachy,” he said, giving me an offensively unimpressed once-over.
“Thanks,” I deadpanned, and red bloomed immediately over his cheeks.
“Oh, uh, that came out wrong.”He grimaced and scratched the back of his neck. “You look fine. I mean, good.” His eyes widened, face flushing a deeper shade of red. “I mean, not that I’m—”
And ding, ding, ding! I’ll take insecure masculinity for two hundred.
“Dude, you don’t have to specify no-homo,” I muttered, already tired of this conversation.
If anything, Ben grew even more distressed. “Oh my God, no! No, that’s not—”
“Do you need something?” I interrupted him again, and his face fell.
“Shit, this is not how I wanted this conversation to go.”
I frowned. “Well, I don’t want this conversation to happen at all, so I’m gonna leave.”
When I tried to shoulder past him and join the flow of moving students, he stopped me with a soft grasp on my forearm. I stiffened and glowered at his hand, and he removed it.
“Sorry, I just wanted to talk.”
“Can we not do this?” I said under my breath, leaning into him so we wouldn’t be overheard. I instantly regretted the nearness as his spring soap washed over me, causing an odd warmth to crackle through my chest. Shaking away the frustratingly calming aroma, I leveled him with a cool stare. “I don’t know you, and you don’t know me. Last week, we were nothing but strangers. Let’s keep it that way, yeah?”
Without awaiting a response, I spun on my heels and shoved my way through the sea of teenagers drowning me. Yes, I was grateful for Ben’s help. No, that did not make us friends. I didn’t owe him shit.
Whispers and stares followed me most of the morning, and since this wasn’t necessarily a new development in my life, I didn’t waste brainpower over it. Of course, that changed the moment I passed a group of basketball players and caught Boyt’s and my names spoken in the same breath, and my stomach lurched.
Seriously?
Ben had a big fucking mouth after all! Why did it surprise me? How many times would I go through this before I got it through my thick skull not to trust anyone? My life was hard enough without him running his mouth about shit he didn’t understand. I was going to smash his beautiful face in when I found him.
Bubbling with righteous anger, I charged through the halls toward the cafeteria while I envisioned Ben’s expression as I smashed his perfect teeth to smithereens. I searched through the crowd, but I didn’t see him. Which meant he was still in the lunch line getting food. Or he wasn’t in this lunch period at all. Lucky for him.
Abandoning my plan for revenge, I changed course and headed toward the table where the theater crowd usually congregated. I wasn’t particularly close with any of them, but they didn’t talk shit about me behind my back, which was kind of the best case scenario for me as the only out gay guy in the school.
There were two lesbians in the choir who’d been dating since sophomore year, but no one bullied them because, according to disgusting, misogynistic straight guys, “lesbians are hot.”
I couldn’t wait to get out of Indiana. One more year.
Kim rose from the table and waved me over unnecessarily, and I slumped into the seat opposite her as the table fell silent. Everyone stared expectantly like they were waiting for a parlor trick or something.
“What?” I demanded.
Kim brushed a box braid out of her face and said, “I told them it isn’t true.”
“What isn’t true?”
She hesitated at that. “You haven’t heard?”
“Not the whole story, apparently,” I mumbled, and she cringed. “I’d rather hear it from you than some asshole in the hallway.”
Everyone continued to stare at me as Kim repeated the words circulating around the school. “Eric said he was smoking pot with his friends, and when he went to use the bathroom, you cornered him. He said…” She faltered, biting her bottom lip.
“Spit it out, Kim,” I instructed through clenched teeth.
“He said you begged him to let you blow him, and when he rejected you, you punched him and broke his nose.”
I literally felt the blood drain from my face, leaving me cold. This wasn’t the worst rumor to be spread about me, but it was somehow worse coming from a would-be rapist saying I asked him for it.
“Motherfucker!” The curse flew from my mouth, and I gritted my teeth, ducking down to hide from prying eyes. “Now I wish I was the one to break his nose, along with every other bone in his worthless body.”
“I know. It’s sick,” Caroline agreed from her seat beside me as I fidgeted with the sleeve of my brother’s too-large hoodie. “But no one believes him. I mean, you’d have to be crazy to want to get anywhere near his junk.”
“I’d rather fuck a cactus,” I muttered, barely noticing the few responding chuckles as I caught sight of Eric Boyt.
His face was bruised, the area around his eyes a deep purple like a raccoon, and he wore several bandage strips on his busted nose. No wonder he needed a cover story. It was impossible not to notice his stupid, broken face. Evil pleasure surged through me at the sight.
Fingers wrapped around my wrist, and I jumped, jerking my arm away as I refocused on the table. Kim matched my startled jolt, and I took a deep breath, willing my heart to stop racing. “Sorry,” I mumbled.
“Silas, are you okay?” she asked, and I nodded past the panic inching its way up my throat.
Kim was nice, probably the closest thing I had to an honest-to-God friend, but she was too observant for her own good. She rested her hand on mine, and though it was an attempt at support, her touch made me cringe.
“He’s not worth getting suspended over, so whatever revenge plan you have cooking up, I strongly advise against it.” She patted the back of my hand. “No one believes him anyway.”
“He’s full of shit,” Jordan agreed as Harris and Caroline nodded along. “No one would touch him with a ten-foot pole.”
Everyone laughed, and they spent several minutes verbally abusing him in hushed tones. It was nice having people on my side, though they talked out of their asses. Whether most of the students believed him or not, they would still talk about it. Every person in this school was a gossip whore, and I was in for weeks of torment for this.
“Asshole alert,” Kim warned, and I braced myself as several guys from Boyt’s usual lunch table walked past us.
“So it begins,” I muttered, groaning inwardly. Things were about to get unpleasant.
“Yo, Brigs!” Jake Thompson called out as he swaggered past. “When are you gonna beg to suck my cock? I’m feeling left out.”
Without missing a beat, I gave him a sugar-sweet smile. “Aw, sorry, Thompson, but I only suck dicks I don’t need a magnifying glass to find.”
Jake’s face flushed as the surrounding students laughed. To add fuel to the fire, I sent him a flirty wink and leaned back in my chair with a smug smirk.
“Better watch that mouth of yours, or it’s gonna get you into trouble someday.”
“Oh, I’m so scared! I’m shaking in my homosexual boots.”
Sneering in disgust, Jake moved on without offering a comeback, and his lackeys followed diligently behind him, tossing a few stereotypical insults my way as they went.
“Show’s over!” I barked at the students still gawking at me. “Don’t they have better things to do than stick their noses into my business?”
Caroline patted my shoulder as Kim grimaced in sympathy then shrugged with a flippant, “People are assholes.”
I snorted humorlessly. Wasn’t that the understatement of the century?
Thankfully, the conversation shifted away from me and the newest rumor. I pinched the bridge of my nose as I fought off a headache. I was always anxious to hear the new stories being spread about me, most of them ridiculous enough it was easy to laugh them off. But this one hit too close to home.
It wasn’t hard to shake off a stupid story about me blowing the whole soccer team on a dare or letting the principal fuck me to keep me from getting expelled. It was gross that complete strangers acted like they knew more about my love life than I did. Or rather, lack of love life, as the case definitely was.
According to the school’s rumor mill, I was quite the active slut, desperate for every and all dicks I could get my hands or mouth on. Odd, seeing as my sexual history consisted of my right hand and a total of one boy.
But it didn’t matter because the rumors weren’t true, and I didn’t give two shits about what these hypocritical socialites said about me. I would be graduating this year, and hopefully leaving for a college far away from here. I would never see them again, and silly rumors about me selling sex for money wouldn’t matter. It didn’t matter. At least, I told myself that. Most of the time, I believed it.
“Psst,” Kim hissed, and I blinked away the depressing thoughts and angled my head in her direction.
Her dark eyes danced with mirth as she sing-songed, “Someone has a secret admirer.”
“What?”
Pointing behind me, she barely smothered her excited smile. “Behind you. Swimmers’ table.” Dread flooded my gut. “Oh, he’s cute, Silas. Isn’t he the new diver?”
“Yeah, that’s him.” Harris checked too, nodding as he brushed his brown hair from his forehead. “My cousin’s dating one of the swimmers. Apparently, he’s really good. Everyone hopes he’ll carry the team to State this year.”
“Oh my God, Kim, he is cute!” Caroline gushed, ignorant of Jordan’s frown behind his hipster glasses at her comment. “And he’s staring right at you, Silas.”
I buried my face in my hands. “Let’s get the whole table involved. Then we can all stare at him like he’s an animal in the zoo!”
Kim and Caroline giggled, clasping hands across the tabletop, and I groaned, wishing the floor would open up and swallow me.
“He’s probably just trying to get a good view of the violent queer that everyone’s talking about,” I muttered darkly.
I couldn’t tell them the actual reason Ben was watching me. I could never live with the shame.
Pushing away from the table, I stood and stuffed my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “I’m not hungry, and I have to talk to Acker about what I missed Friday and Saturday.”
“Yeah, where were you?” Kim asked.
“Sick,” I said shortly.
I waved in farewell and headed toward the theater classroom by the auditorium. As I left the cafeteria, the prickling sensation of being watched skittered over my back. Against my better judgment, I glanced over my shoulder. I met a pair of worried blue eyes attached to a stunning face, and I shifted my gaze away quickly, only to freeze under the dark glare of Eric Boyt.His dark eyes speared right through me, an evil smirk playing at the corners of his mouth, and I wanted to cower. His eyes said it all: they promised retribution, the kind that only came in the form of blood and pain.
I was completely and utterly fucked!