Chapter 5 - Jackson
“You really don’t have to rush to move out,” Bodie says as we walk across one of the campus parking lots. “I know how much you’re dreading moving back into your dad’s house.”
“That’s if he even lets me,” I mutter. “He’s still not happy about me changing my major.”
“You can still become a lawyer with an English undergrad degree.”
“But he knows I don’t want that.”
It’s just after five o’clock on Friday, and I have my last class in about an hour.
I decided to kill some time—and maybe help distract myself—by walking Bodie to his car.
I’m having dinner with my dad tonight, and that’s when I plan on asking him if I can move back in, as long as he hasn’t forgotten or decides work is more important.
“So just stay with me and Erin then.”
“I really appreciate that, Bode. But I’m taking up too much space, and you know it.”
Bodie Thompson and I have been best friends since we could walk. Our moms grew up together too. I was the first person he came out to, and I became even more protective of him after that.
After I left my apartment the night Molly and I broke up, I went straight to his place and came out to him this time.
I haven’t told him I’ve been dealing with some fallout from it because he went through his own after he came out to everyone else.
He still deals with it, honestly, and I don’t want to make anything worse for him.
He and his roommate Erin live in a small two-bedroom apartment, and I’ve been crashing on their couch. Erin is my friend too, and she’s been super cool about letting me stay. But I don’t want to be a burden longer than I have to.
“You know you’re always welcome there no matter what,” Bodie says as we reach his car.
“Thanks, man. Hopefully my dad and I don’t try to kill each other so I won’t have to come crawling back though.”
He laughs and smacks me on the shoulder playfully before opening the door to his car. “Oh, you still would. Don’t even pretend you wouldn’t come back to haunt me.”
“I mean, obviously. You’ll never be rid of me even in death.”
Plopping into the driver seat, he laughs again and peers up at me through the blond hair hanging in front of his brown eyes. “Good luck tonight. Just know you always have a place to go.”
“Love ya, bro.”
He blows me a kiss, and I grin and roll my eyes as I shut the door for him.
As he starts his car and drives away, I walk back the way we came.
Even though I’ll be a little early for my class, I head toward Old Main anyway.
There’s a small study area on the first floor where I can wait and maybe get a little work done. But probably not.
As I pass by Professor Kendall’s classroom, I try not to think about how he’s stopped calling on me during his lectures. I know I’ve been a bit more quiet this week and have been trying to avoid too much attention, but I can’t help but take it personally.
What if he heard my big news too and now wants nothing to do with me?
Maybe the majority of those rumors about him and Dylan Ross were wrong. Maybe he’s not gay, and he’s actually as homophobic as a lot of other people around here.
That would be incredibly disappointing.
Not because I’ve thought about pursuing my crush now that I’m single, but just because I genuinely liked the guy. I liked how he saw me. Not as some kid fumbling through ideas but as if my thoughts actually mattered.
I guess that’s over.
Molly texted me the other day to say she was sorry. She had told one of her friends about me coming out to her, but she should have known her friend was a gossip. I blame them both.
Heading down the hallway, I turn left into the open study hall and am relieved to see it empty.
I choose one of the armchairs and set my bag with my laptop on the end table beside me.
I almost always write my notes by hand in classes, but I still carry my laptop with me in case I want to do homework during my time in between.
For now, I decide to read the last pages of The Iliad that we’re supposed to have done for Professor Kendall’s class next week.
That turns out to be a bad idea because as soon as I dig the book out of my bag and open it, I’m thinking about him again. About how his voice sounds when he quotes Homer. How his expression changes when someone surprises him with a good answer.
I stare at the page as all the ink seems to bleed together, swimming on the paper until it paints a picture of my teacher’s face. Faint voices reach my ears from somewhere in the distance, but somehow all my brain hears is his voice.
Damn, I really need to get over this stupid crush.
“Oh, look, it’s VFU’s newest gay boy.”
That’s definitely not Professor Kendall’s voice.
I look up to see Pierce Grant standing a few feet away with two of his dipshit friends behind him, all of them with smug smirks that I’d really like to punch off their stupid faces.
Instead, I force a stiff smile. “I’m bi, actually.”
Pierce rolls his eyes. They’re the same light brown ones as his father’s. In fact, he looks like a spitting image of Professor Grant, only younger.
I hate them both.
Not that there’s anything really wrong with Professor Grant, I guess. He taught my technical writing class when I took it a couple years ago, and I hated the class itself. However, he also spawned this piece of shit, so I figure that’s enough to hate him too.
Pierce was one of Bodie’s biggest bullies when we were all in high school.
Bodie was always pretty good at letting shit roll off his back, at least in front of everyone else.
He’d keep his head up at school and then tell me how much it sucked when we talked on the phone or hung out in the afternoons.
He rarely let me see him cry, but I know he did.
One day senior year, something happened that made him a complete wreck.
He showed up to my house a couple hours after school, his eyes rimmed red and glassy.
He wouldn’t tell me what happened. We sat in my room in complete silence while he refused to speak, and he didn’t go home until well after his curfew.
I tried to get him to open up for a while after that, but he never did.
He stayed closed off for weeks. To this day, I don’t know what happened.
I noticed Bodie was more afraid of Pierce after that, but he wouldn’t confirm it was him.
If I knew for sure Pierce was the one responsible, I probably would’ve put him in the hospital.
“Whatever you say, Ellis,” Pierce retorts. “I’m curious how you figured it out though. You and Thompson been spending too much time sucking each other’s dicks, huh?”
“Not any more than you suck your dad’s dick.”
“The fuck did you just say?”
As Pierce crosses the room, I stand, my book falling to the floor.
He reaches me just as I get to my feet and shoves me hard.
I stumble backward and barely keep myself from falling into the chair.
Once I get my footing, I shove him back, my pulse already thrumming in my ears.
His buddies stand behind him, ready to help in case I get the upper hand.
Because of course the spineless rat is too much of a coward to fight his own senseless battles.
He’s never fought a fair fight in his life.
“You’re fucking disgusting.” Pierce spits the words as he stands his ground. “We’re all hoping you’ll be the next Dylan Ross, you know. The poor gay boy who disappeared without a trace.”
“You really keep tabs on all the missing gay boys, huh? Closet getting a little tight?”
Pierce swings.
His punch comes fast, connecting with my mouth.
Fuck, that hurt.
I was in several shoving matches with Pierce back in high school, especially when it came to him bullying Bodie.
However, it was always stopped by a teacher before it could escalate.
I’ve never been in a fight like this before and definitely underestimated how much a punch to the face fucking hurts.
Adrenaline carries me through the sting long enough to return the favor.
My fist catches him in the eye hard, and he goes stumbling backward into his friends.
Yup, that fucking hurt too.
At least the pain in my hand momentarily distracts me from the one in my face. I can already feel a trickle of blood making its way down my chin.
The bigger of Pierce’s two backups starts rushing toward me while the other moves to check on their friend who shoves him away while cursing.
“What the hell is going on here?!”
The shout cuts through the room like a blade.
Everyone freezes before our heads snap toward the entrance of the study hall to see Professor Kendall standing there, the hard lines of his face set in fury, the kind that can silence an entire room. His bag hangs over his shoulder like he was just leaving for the day.
Pierce’s friends take several steps away, distancing themselves and selling us both out. Of course, it’s pretty clear which two of us were fighting.
“Mr. Grant. Mr. Ellis. My office. Now.”
Fucking perfect.
I’m so riled up and enraged that Pierce is the reason I just might get fucking expelled that I don’t even bother grabbing my bag and my book before marching straight past Professor Kendall.
As I do, I briefly catch the look of disappointment on his face. Not anger, not disgust. Just that cold, quiet disappointment that hits harder than a punch.
It hurts worse than the busted lip.