15
Tean couldn’t sit down, so he paced. He made a circle around their little kitchen. He crossed the living room. He looped back past the front window. He caught himself with his hands tucked under his arms.
Daniel was on the couch, sniffling as he petted Scipio.
The boy had his knees drawn up to his chest. He was wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt and a satin baseball jacket and joggers, and with the mascara still running down one side of his face, he looked more like a child than a man.
Scipio, pressed against him for maximum petting, was in heaven.
In one of the armchairs, Jem sat with his phone pressed to his ear.
“Uh huh,” he said. “Uh huh. Yeah, he’s fine.”
“I am not going back there,” Daniel said.
Jem put a finger over his lips and listened. After a moment, he said, “I didn’t tell him to come here.”
“If he tries to make me, I’ll go somewhere else. He can’t make me go back there.”
“Dude,” Jem whispered. Then, into the phone, he murmured, “Yeah, just upset.”
Tean found himself in the kitchen, gripping the edge of the counter so tightly it bit into the heels of his hands.
“Right,” Jem said. “What do you want to do about school?”
“I’m transferring schools,” Daniel said. “They have schools up here.”
Jem sent Tean a pleading look.
Forcing himself to let go of the counter, Tean said, “Daniel, do you want something to eat?”
“No,” Daniel said. His eyes were still fixed on Jem.
Jem mimed a kick at him.
A hint of color came into Daniel’s face, and he muttered, “No, thank you.”
“Okay,” Jem said. “Let me talk to him, and I’ll call you back.”
As soon as Jem put down the phone, Daniel said, “I’m old enough—”
“Hey,” Jem said.
“—to decide who I’m going to be and how I’m going to live, and I’m not going to let that—that homophobic asshole—” His voice rose into a shout that was, improbably, directed at the phone. “—tell me what I can and can’t do.”
“Okay,” Jem said. “So—”
“I don’t have to live there if I don’t want to. They already fucked me up. I don’t have to go back and put up with more of that.”
“Look, buddy—”
“All they care about is what other people think. That’s all that matters to them.
What their friends think. What people at church think.
They talk about how they love me and how they want me to be happy, but what they really want is for me to be like everyone else, and if I’m not, then there’s always a reason why what I want is stupid or bad or wrong. ”
“Daniel,” Jem said. “I’m trying to—”
“Did he say I had to go back? Because you can’t make me. I can stay with friends. If you take me back, I’ll hitchhike—”
“Hey! Boner!” In the wake of the shout, the house was silent.
Jem got to his feet. “Just shut up for five seconds, okay? He didn’t say you had to go back.
Your parents are upset. Obviously. You ran away, dumbass.
You scared the hell out of them.” Jem’s tone shifted to something between disbelief and approval. “And you stole their car.”
For the first time since he’d arrived, Daniel seemed to register disbelief. Then he started to cry again.
Jem rubbed the boy’s head for a moment. He shot Tean another look.
Tean filled a glass with water and brought it over to the couch.
Scipio—always so thoughtful—squirmed around enough for Tean to sit down, probably because he thought Tean might want to pet him too.
Tean pressed the glass into Daniel’s hand, and Daniel managed one sip, and then another.
The tears stopped. He dried his face with a handful of tissues.
“All right,” Jem said. “What’s going on?”
“He’s an asshole,” Daniel said thickly. “He’s repressed.
He’s so fucking screwed up. And he’s a huge homophobe.
” When neither Jem nor Tean took the bait, though, he wrenched another handful of tissues out of the box and mopped at his eyes again.
“I was just trying this new eyeliner that Skye gave me, and my door was closed—” The word got extra emphasis to convey his outrage.
“—and he walked in on me and lost his shit.”
After about two seconds, Jem said, “And?”
Apparently Tean and Jem hadn’t grasped the full extent of the outrage because Daniel levered himself upright and stared at them with a look—Tean was beginning to suspect—Ammon and Lucy had seen before. “It’s my room. He can’t just walk in whenever he wants. I’m an adult. I deserve privacy.”
“Daniel, it’s not that simple,” Tean began.
But Jem made a buzzer noise and said, “What else?”
The shape of Daniel’s mouth suggested disbelief and, most likely, even more outrage, but somehow he managed to say, “I told you: he lost his shit. He yelled at me. He is so fucking homophobic—”
“Use that word again,” Jem said, “and I’m going to make you look it up in the dictionary.” To Tean, he said, “Wait, do we have a dictionary?”
“What was he upset about?” Tean asked.
Daniel yanked another handful of tissues out of the box.
The pile of discards was growing. With one finger, he pointed to the mascara—or eyeliner, or whatever it was; Tean wasn’t sure if there was a difference—and made a scoffing noise, like perhaps Tean was too stupid to see what was in front of him.
“Keep up the attitude,” Jem said. “That’s a really cool thing to do right now.”
More color rushed into Daniel’s face. He sank down on the couch, and with his free hand, he resumed petting Scipio. For a few seconds, he stared at the Lab, his eyes unseeing. Then he said, “He told me I wasn’t allowed to wear makeup.”
“Today?” Tean said.
Daniel hesitated. Then he shook his head. “But it’s so unfair! It’s my body! And it’s not like I’m hurting anyone. It’s not permanent. Even though I showed him those tattoos you and I picked out, and they’re, like, perfect, and I can get them when I turn eighteen.”
Jem shot a look at Tean, and in the voice of someone trying to hurry the conversation past a troublesome point, said, “So, you argued about the makeup. What else?”
The blankness of Daniel’s face was its own answer, but a moment later he said, “That’s it.
He was super—” The word was probably supposed to be homophobic, but what came out was “—hateful about it. And I’m sorry.
I know he’s all fucked up because of my grandpa, but he’s a grown man.
He chose to live like this. He left, and he came back, and fine, whatever, if he wants to be super repressed and unhappy and fight with Mom all the time, that’s, like, his choice.
But he shouldn’t get to tell me how I live my life. ”
“All right,” Tean said. “What’s your plan?”
“I’m going to live here,” Daniel said as though this were obvious. “You guys have an extra bedroom. Plus, you live close to everything. I’ll just get my GED and get a job.”
“Oh my God,” Jem said and rubbed his eyes.
Tean frowned at him, but Jem didn’t see it. “Jem and I need to talk about this.”
“If you make me go back, I’ll—” Daniel began.
“Threaten me one more time,” Jem said, dropping his hands, “and Scipio and I will whip your ass.”
Daniel shut his mouth. But a grin spilled out. He yanked another handful of tissues from the box.
“These aren’t free, boner,” Jem said, snatching the box. “Goddamn teenagers.”
“Stay here for a minute,” Tean said. “We’ll be right back.”
But Jem sat there, studying Daniel. Then he held out one hand and said, “Keys.”
Daniel made a face, but he handed over the keys.
Jem still sat there.
“Jem?” Tean said.
“I’m trying to decide if I need to take his shoes. Smartasses can’t run if they don’t have shoes.”
“I’d just steal some of yours,” Daniel said. “You have, like, a million of them.”
“You little rat,” Jem said, not quite under his breath. He pointed a finger at him. “Your ass. Right there. Scipio, if he moves, tear his foot off.”
Scipio was busy cleaning himself, head between his legs, so the threat lost some of its impact.
After Tean shut their bedroom door behind them, Jem said, “Did you hear him?”
“I did.”
“A million pairs of shoes? I have maybe—maybe!—ten.”
“Jem—”
“And they’re all badass. That’s why I have them. I wouldn’t keep them if they weren’t badass.”
“I don’t think—”
“And they’re vintage. Does he know how rare some of those sneakers are?”
“Jem, please.”
Hands on hips, Jem blew out a breath. “I just had to get that off my chest.”
“Daniel can’t live with us.”
“That pair of Adidas are worth, like, two hundred bucks.” He held up his hands. “I’m done. I promise. That was the last one.”
“Did you hear me?”
With a grimace, Jem flopped onto their bed. “What’s he supposed to do?”
“He’s supposed to go home. He and Ammon fought. That’s not unusual. They’ll get over it.”
“Yeah, but that’s so shitty, babe. I mean, he’s right, Ammon is super homophobic. And Lucy is—God, I don’t even know. Passive-aggressively supportive? Who knows? Daniel hates it there. He’s a lot happier here.”
“He has a conflicted relationship with his parents. That is not unique in the history of gay teenagers. He also has parents who are trying to be loving and supportive, who care for him, who feed him, who make sure he has clothes and he gets to activities.”
“And if he doesn’t act like a straight boy, they go crazy.”
“Parents always hate how their teenagers act. They hate how they dress. They hate the music they listen to. They hate their friends.”
“Nobody wants to grow up like that.”
“Everybody grows up like that.”
Jem’s eyebrows went up.
“You know what I mean,” Tean said.
“I think you grew up in a house where you were afraid to come out, and you know how shitty it is.”
“And I’m fine. Daniel will be fine too.”
“He’d be better if he lived with us.”
“No, he wouldn’t. That would be teaching him that the way to deal with difficult relationship problems is to leave. He would have created a serious rift between himself and his parents.”
“They want him to be straight! That’s not going to change, okay? God, I don’t know why I’m arguing on the side of ‘stay away from your shitty brainwashing family,’ and somehow you’re the one telling me I’m wrong.”