Chapter Twenty-One
“Just let me do it!”
It came out harder than I intended, my tone harsher. I could tell, from the pinched expression on my mom’s face, that any goodwill my assistance might’ve generated had already been outweighed by my surly temper.
I’d been in a foul mood ever since I got home. Fuse short; patience practically non-existent. At first my parents could blame it on the long drive; I was fine with letting that tiredness excuse me from conversation, cloistering myself in my room with my headphones on.
As the days went by, though, there was no escaping the truth that I was being a grumpy asshole.
Scathing with my dad when he asked me to fix his ancient flip-phone yet again. Biting in my criticism of the people at work: for not sorting old sweaters in the way I felt they should be sorted; for not answering the phone properly; for not filling in the log book of sales only ever read by me.
And terse with my mom, when I stalked into the kitchen to find her trying to unclip the dishwasher racks. Leaning - bad back and all - over the gaping door, top half of her body practically inside, fumbling and sighing at the little plastic tags.
I was angry at myself, as I took her place and tried to open the clips without snapping them off. Angry for how I talked to her, and for the voice in my head that I talked to myself with. And furious, too, at my mom for not giving me as good as I dealt out.
I wanted her to shout back at me, to call me a rude, ungrateful little bastard.
For things to escalate into an all-out argument, our barbs whiplash-sharp and just as fast. Something I could get my teeth into, maybe relieve some of the ache in my gums as I chewed on my frustrations and - irony of ironies - ignored the man who was causing them.
It went without saying that I was too much of a coward to call Flynn. To talk with him; to bring up the stuff which was gnawing away in me, and which I’d repurposed into a thick mist of meanness to spread around in all directions.
Not something I could discuss with my parents, of course; as far as they knew, Flynn was the former friend whose mom I now rolled my eyes at.
Nor with the people at work, or even Catherine and Kyle.
My friends, I was sure, would have all manner of cold, rational truths to share: splashes of reality that would readily puncture my ire.
Right now, ire was the only thing keeping me going.
He’d texted me the day after I got home. Not long after 9am, the workday we’d both been so diligent in observing only just beginning.
“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 she was 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.
“Nobody,” I insisted, “it’s not... it’s not what you think, okay?”
Kyle’s expression was skeptical. “What do I think?”
Everything I could say, everything I could try, only seemed likely to dig up fresh questions I couldn’t answer. Or, at least, that I couldn’t answer without telling my friend something which might completely destroy our relationship.
I sat down on the edge of the bed instead. Lips tight, eyes pleading. Hoping Kyle would, if not forget everything that’d just made the last couple of minutes so unbearable, then at least be willing to ignore it. Conspire with me in pretending that life was okay. Normal.
“You’re scaring me, dude.”
My shrug was jerky, lopsided.
His frown deepened. “Are you in trouble?”
I shook my head.
“Are you hacking into other people’s accounts or something?”
Another shake.
Kyle looked frustrated. “Oli!”
“It’s just... it’s just a name I use, sometimes. Online, I mean.”
“Who with?”
“Just...” I winced. I’d been about to say “guys,” but that was far too close an admission for comfort. “Just, y’know... people.”
“But why?”
The frustration simmered up in me, before I even realized it was there. Seeping between the cracks of my anxiety and fear: at how unfair this all was, at how foreign the very idea of it would be to Kyle. Because he never felt obliged to hide who he really was.
I hissed annoyance through my clenched teeth. “Don’t you ever want to be someone different, for once?”
He looked at me, his gaze steady. Challenging. “Who is it you want to be?”
“Don’t,” I said, turning away.
“How can I treat you like the person you want to be, if you won’t tell me who that is?”
It was the sort of beguiling argument that makes you think, maybe it’ll all be okay. Maybe someone else knowing wouldn’t be the end of the world.
“I can’t,” I told him, softly.
“Can’t, or don’t want to?”
I sighed. “Axolotl454.”
“What?”
I gestured with my chin, at the screen behind him. “The password. Axolotl454. With a capital A.”
He turned on the swivel chair, and a moment later I heard him typing. Strangely clear, despite the fact that the sound of my rasping lungs and my thundering heartbeat were competing to drown me.
The mouse, clicking. Part of me wanted to watch over his shoulder. To see what Kyle was seeing at the same time as he did; to be able to piece together my argument, my excuses, in real-time.
“This isn’t you.”
I looked up, to see a shirtless, headless torso filling the screen.
“Just a photo I found online.”
Kyle nodded as he scrolled on. “But you wanted people to believe it was you.”
Was that a question, or a statement, or an accusation?
“Yeah.”
A beat.
“These are all men. That you’re emailing with, I mean.”
“Yeah.”