Chapter 11
Eleven
In the days that followed, Caleb truly wished he could believe what he told his uncle. That he was ‘all right’. He didn’t believe it. He didn’t feel it. After three days, he stopped trying to get Levi to answer his phone or his door, and went from not all right to miserable and lonely.
That source of unwavering support had wavered right out of existence—a mirage he’d finally focused on, only to recognise it wasn’t real after all. And until it was gone, he’d had no idea how much he’d counted on it.
“You have to have something to keep you busy.” This gem of advice came from the oddest place. Angel had cornered him in the cafeteria one day and asked why he hadn’t been helping to organise the coming fundraiser that seemed to be the only thing anyone on the entire campus could talk about.
“I’m not on the Council, Angel,” Caleb reminded him, wiggling out from where the bigger man had trapped him against the milk cooler. “I don’t have to help.”
Sure, he was part of the Benevolent Fund Committee, but his involvement there was in helping to organize the actual party. It had nothing to do with fundraising for it.
“What about Mitchell?” Angel asked. “He came to you first. He expects you to be a part of this.”
“I told him right from the start I wasn’t on the Council. The only reason he came to me was because of the clothes. He got what he wanted without my help, anyway.” Caleb dropped a can of vegetable juice onto his tray and walked on.
“He keeps asking where you are. Why you aren’t around.”
“Because Levi doesn’t want me around.” Caleb knew it sounded pitiful and self-absorbed. He dug his teeth into his lower lip as he slid his tray along the shelf in front of the cold sandwiches. He’d lost his appetite.
“Don’t make this about Levi.”
“Like it hasn’t always been about Levi. The only reason I was ever anywhere near that office was because of Levi. Let him sort it out.”
Angel shot him a surprised look.
“What?”
“Why don’t you care about this? I would think you, of all people, would want to be a part of it, to support what Mitchell is trying to do.”
“What? Make a spectacle of himself and every other guy who wants to buck your butch, hetero-normative world? Let him. Maybe they’ll knock him around for a while, whisper shit about him, and leave me the hell alone.”
“You’re an ass.” Angel sighed and set his tray down beside Caleb’s. “Mitchell’s a nice kid. A freaked out, panicking, nice kid. Why would you even think that kind of shit?”
“Do you seriously not see what’s going to happen when he gets his show on. People are going to go ballistic. They won’t be nice.” Caleb picked up his tray and turned his back. “Better he finds that out sooner, rather than later. Let him go be an accountant before he gets hurt.”
“You would really rather duck and cover than stand up beside him and help?”
“I’ve been picking myself back up all my life, Angel! The first time someone called me a fag, I was in first grade. My father told me I heard wrong. No son of his was any kind of fag. I was five years old.”
“And so the best thing for you to do now is exactly what your dad did and walk away from someone who needs your support and understanding?”
“I’m tired.” He ran a thumb-nail along the side of his tray, picking at a scratch in the plastic that stuck out from the rest. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Angel reached over and pulled the collar of Caleb’s T-shirt over, obscuring a thin strap of satin that had been peeking out. “Pick that up and come with me,” he ordered, pointed to Caleb’s lunch.
Not having any reason not to, Caleb did as he was told, paid for his food, and followed Angel to a table at the back of the Great Hall.
“So.” Angel poked a fork through his mashed potatoes and corn, mixing them together. He didn’t look up form his plate, and spoke between bites.
Caleb sat fiddling with the wrapper on his sandwich and listened.
“When I was a kid, I did a stupid, stupid thing. I have to live with it for the rest of my life. And you know who took the heat for it? Dwayne Sayer. He went to jail for something I did. To protect his little cousin with the glowing future, and every day since he’s been out, he’s had to deal with the shit that happened to him in there, with people’s attitudes about who and what he is because he’s been in the slammer.
He used to tell me how exhausting it was just to get out of bed in the morning.
To face the people who didn’t want to give him the time of day.
How he didn’t have the energy left to let anyone close to him. ”
“What is your point?”
“My point is that one day, Eric came along and everything changed. Eric looked past the prison tattoos and the piercings, and let himself fall in love with a scary man. He changed his entire life to fit around Dwayne’s needs, his fears, his absolute need to control things, and I’m not saying he never once questioned Dwayne’s reasons.
He did. Plenty. They had fights and both walked away more than once, but the fact is, Eric saw the Dwayne who protected me and very nearly destroyed himself in the process, and he was brave enough not to let go.
“Everyone deserves to have that kind of support. I had Dwayne. He has Eric. You have Levi?—”
“Levi doesn’t even get any of it.”
“No. Of course he doesn’t. How can he? He comes from a happy home with two loving parents and enough money to pay his way through school, and he likes what he’s doing with his life.
And he has a gorgeous boyfriend who most everyone around him is telling him to ditch because frankly, you don’t deserve him.
And how could he know what’s going on with you if you don’t talk to him? ”
“Well”—Caleb picked up his tray and stood— “you got your wish, then, because he hasn’t talked to me in a week. Hasn’t answered my calls or opened the door when I knock, so there. You’ve got through to him.”
A snarling sigh burst from Angel. “Sit the fuck down, drama queen.”
Caleb pursed his lips and tightened his grip on his tray.
“Swear to God, I have not wanted to smack someone so much as I do you right now. Get your head out of your ass and look around. This thing is going to happen. Be a part of it! Take fucking control of how and when you own your own fucking life! This is your chance, so if you won’t take my advice as a friend, do it for the sake of the Council and the kids we’re trying to help.
Please. Help Mitchell out. Just talk to him.
Calm him down. Let him know there will be people there. Let him know we’ll make it work.”
Caleb swivelled back to face Angel. “You want me to make him a promise we might not be able to keep? You hear what people are saying? Half of them are laughing their asses off, and the other half are not going to be seen within a mile of the place, in case everyone thinks they’re there to find a new outfit. ”
“So now you don’t think he should do it.”
“Now? I’m not sure I ever did.”
Angel made a soft, growling noise in his throat. “You encouraged him. You said you liked his work.”
“He does good work,” Caleb hedged.
Angel pointed his fork at the seat Caleb had vacated, and Caleb grunted as he sat back down.
“You know this campus.” Angel still spoke so casually as he ate, but his eyes blazed, and his jaw popped.
“Do you think he’s doing it because people will love him for it?
Do you think your uncle told you to go into business because he likes being a villain?
He did it to try and protect you. Because people can be assholes. You’re absolutely right about that.”
“Then what are we arguing about here?” Caleb opened his juice and swigged half of it back.
“Putting me in the business world is just his way of putting me in a suit and tie—a package he can be comfortable with. He might as well put a bullet in my head now, if he thinks that’s going to protect me from anything. ”
Angel made a visible effort to relax his tense shoulders.
He wiggled his jaw loose from the teeth-clenching tightness it had taken on as Caleb spoke.
“The right thing isn’t always the popular thing, Caleb.
It wasn’t for Dwayne. And it isn’t for you.
Either you conform, or you don’t. You have to choose—live the life your uncle is setting out for you, hide behind the suits and the books, or be the guy Mitchell came to.
” He finally looked up. “The guy none of us could talk Levi out of, and take a stand.”
The irony that Caleb himself had ultimately been the one to talk Levi out of their relationship made Caleb’s chest tight enough, he rubbed at his solar plexus.
“You good?” Angel asked, his fork stilling and his gaze going to Caleb’s rubbing fingers. “Where’s your puffer?”
“I’m fine,” Caleb snapped.
“Fine. You’re fine.” Angel shrugged and went back to his meal.
“We all agreed, since the Council had talked it out, that Mitchell deserves our support for going out on a limb. For being authentic. He wasn’t wrong when he pointed out the Council exists to support the students.
Not just the little kids who want a party and a stupid dollar-store gift.
Everyone on this campus has the right to feel safe.
None of them, including you, should feel like they’re going to get their ass kicked for showing up to the bar in a kilt. ”
“Skirt,” Caleb corrected quietly, face flushing hot as he peeled the cellophane away from his sandwich. “Everyone knows it’s only a kilt if you don’t wear anything underneath.”
“You see?” Angel grinned, thumping a finger down on the table between them. “Was that so hard?”
Caleb drew a breath in through his nose, and bit into his ham and cheese.
“I’m asking you,” Angel said. “Help us out. Help Mitchell. He’s high-strung. He needs someone who gets what he’s doing. As much as I might admire his guts, I don’t get it. You do.”
Caleb chewed and swallowed before he replied. “You think getting up there and showing off what I am is going to help me feel safer around here? Do you know what people say? You don’t hear their shit.”
Angel snickered. “I heard you laid some jerk out for making a comment. I think you’re real used to looking after yourself and being tough and scary, and I think you should give your friends a little more credit.
So, people talk. So what? Do you ever listen to the ones telling you they admire you for at least trying?
” He pushed his empty plate away and pulled his dessert plate to the front.
“Or do you just punch out the ones dumb enough to say shit out loud?”
Caleb snorted.
“You may not see it, Caleb, but some of us admire that you have the guts to walk on campus every day and at least try. If I had to deal with the shit you do every day—and I’m black—I’d fold like a card house. You don’t give yourself enough credit.”
Caleb thought about how he couldn’t give up the skirts or the silk or even the eyeliner to make Levi feel better about dating him, or his uncle feel more comfortable around him. But he couldn’t be honest with them, either, because he couldn’t lose anything else in his life.
“I could lose everything,” he whispered, more to himself than Angel.
“Think what you could gain, though.”
“No one is going to think any better of me because I wear it all on the outside. They’ll just have more reason to?—”
“The people who matter will. Give them a chance.”
Caleb closed his eyes a moment, trying to imagine what it might be like not to have to glance around every corner or wonder every time someone whispered as he passed.
He knew it was a dream, but how much longer could he go on watching everything that mattered to him slipping further and further away?
What he was doing obviously wasn’t working.
How much worse could it be to try something new?