Chapter Nine
Faggily Ever After
The bullying wasn’t bad over the next couple of days. Tame, really, compared to before. There was some “accidental” shoving in the halls and a lot of whispered insults, but nothing noteworthy. It was almost disappointing. “What’s with them?” Hilary demanded. “We’re acting gayer than ever.”
“Maybe not gay enough.”
So Hilary leaned over, there on the school steps, and kissed the boy.
It was nothing to write home about. The kind of peck your great aunt might give you at someone’s birthday party. Hilary laughed at the look on Trenton’s face. “Too much?”
“Do it again. I wasn’t ready.”
That was funny. As if he were someone you had to prepare for. “Was that your first?” he teased.
“The first one I wanted.”
Hilary didn’t dare ask any questions after that. He thought that was the end of it, sure the event would disappear as just another one of their jokes, but that night Trenton asked for another.
“You’re not going to kiss me goodbye?”
The boy seemed genuinely distressed at the thought of going without. It had Hilary rolling his eyes. “You’re the one who told me to get back inside.”
“It would only take you a second.”
So Hilary turned back around, ducked in through the open window, and kissed him.
Albert’s eyes were dancing when he got back in. “I saw that.”
Hilary hoped his stiffness passed for dignity. “Congratulations. You still need reading glasses.”
As usual, Trenton shook him awake the next morning, a thermos smelling of cinnamon already waiting on the dresser—only this time there was a tax to pay first.
“Can’t I brush my teeth first?” Hilary asked.
“No,” Trenton said, and kissed him.
It was weird, those kisses. Mostly because of how easy they were.
He didn’t have to be nervous like he’d been with anyone before, or plan them out like he had with Varda.
Maybe it was just the way Trenton was, so Hilary couldn’t help but get swept along with it.
But not everyone thought so. The second time they kissed at school didn’t go down as well.
They were in the cafeteria, Trenton waiting in line for them both since the waiting didn’t bother him as much, while Hilary held the table so no one else would take it.
He was only halfway through the first poem of the new book Trenton had lent him when the milk hit his face, a great splashing wave that instantly soaked him and ruined the book he was holding.
He could only stare, dripping, too surprised to say or do anything. By the time Trenton got to him, the perpetrator was gone.
“Who was it?”
“I don’t—” It was even dripping from his eyelashes. The attacker had used two bottles, one in each hand. “I don’t know their name.”
“But you could identify them for me?”
Probably. The guy had been wearing a hoodie, but it wasn’t like his face had been hidden. “What are you going to do?”
Trenton said nothing, just sponged at him with some non-absorbent paper towels.
“Krinkle said no violence. You can’t—”
“I said I would protect you.”
The look on Trenton’s face was frightening. How hard his eyes were. Hilary took hold of the boy’s hands. They were in the bathroom by then, so it was safe—maybe. “Don’t do it.”
That only made Trenton angrier. “So they can do whatever they want, but I can’t—”
“It was just milk. I wasn’t hurt.”
“And if they hurt you next time?”
“They’re hoping you’ll retaliate. They want the excuse to ramp it up, but if we act unbothered—”
“I’m bothered.”
“I know, but if we—”
“I’m bothered, Hilary. I’m fucking bothered.”
It was his first time hearing that word from Trenton’s mouth. It stopped him.
They put the wet shirt into a bag, and Trenton buttoned him into the sweater he kept in the car for when the Shitheap’s heater was malfunctioning—which was always.
There in the bathroom, Hilary kissed Trenton and didn’t play it off like a joke, just praying it was enough to mollify him. “We’ll be done here soon.”
It was something he’d avoided talking about before, not ready to think of an after and what it would mean. But Trenton was ready.
“I hate it here. I want to leave this town, but your parents are here.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the town. Once we’re out of school, it won’t matter anymore.”
The boy’s eyes were still so serious, burning and burning, the anger in him smoldering. “I’ll be wherever you are. Wherever you go.”
“And if I suggest somewhere hideous?”
“You’re what’s important.”
The question itched at Hilary, begging to come out. “Why?”
“Places never mattered. The books were always better, anyway.”
“I mean, why am I what’s important? Why are you willing to go this far?”
Trenton’s eyes flashed again. “Except I haven’t gone anywhere. You won’t let me do anything.”
“You care too much. You have to see that. We don’t even know each other.”
“I know you.”
“This is Romeo and Juliet shit. Two stupid teenagers—”
“I know you, Hilary. And you know me. We’re friends. We’re always going to be friends.”
Hilary didn’t argue. Not because he couldn’t, but because he hated to. He didn’t want any of Trenton’s words to be untrue. “You’ll take care of me?”
“Like you take care of me.”
“But I only say mean things to you.”
“You don’t.”
“I call you stupid and an ogre—”
“I like being your ogre.” And Trenton kissed him, taking hold of his face with both hands to do it. “If I’d known how much, I’d have become one from the start.”
The next morning, Hilary woke because his mother shook him awake. “Go and stop him. He’s got a frightening look on his face.”
It was Trenton. The boy was taking pictures of the words in the driveway that read Faggily ever after.
Albert still wore a smile. “I didn’t know that could be an adverb,” he said, but his eyes were frightening too.
“Why are you taking this seriously?” Hilary demanded of Trenton when the boy tried to head to the sheriff’s office. “This is preschool-level shit.”
“It’s vandalism.”
“We’re going to be late.”
“Who cares?” It was said with irritation, dismissively, but then the meaning seemed to dawn on the boy. “You know, we don’t have to go.”
“Of course we do. We can’t just drop out.”
“We’ll take the GED.”
“You want Mom to blow her top?”
“I can convince her.”
“I don’t want you to convince her. Trent, it’s our last year. Our only time to be in high school together. Don’t you like that?” But if he thought appealing to nostalgia would work, he was hopelessly mistaken.
“I told you, I don’t care about our environment. And anyway, you’re always bored in class. Dropping out will be better.”
But it didn’t feel better. It felt like too many changes and too fast. If they dropped out of school, it would be real, something he couldn’t just play off. “Let’s wait a little. Just a short while.”
“How long is a while?”
“A month.”
“No.”
“Then two weeks.”
“I’m not bringing you back there.” And so saying, Trenton shut off the engine and dropped the keys back into his lap.
“One week then.” Was he begging? When had he become so desperate? “Just one week. I like going to school with you. The window heater and the cafeteria clementines and all the books. Don’t you like it with me?”
“I like everything with you. And I can buy you clementines.”
“It’ll be fine, Trent. I promise.”
Trenton wasn’t convinced, but he was weakening. “I’m signing us up for the GED. It’s only until then.”
As expected, Annette wasn’t thrilled about the GED plan. “I don’t think colleges look favorably on that sort of thing.”
But Trenton didn’t see the problem there. “I’m not going to college.”
It was a surprise even Albert hadn’t seen coming—and he was the king of surprises. “Uh-oh.”
Uh-oh was right. Annette was furious. “What did you say?”
Trenton had no idea what kind of landmine he’d just stepped on. He had decent intuition, but was also a stubborn idiot. “I can learn better on my own, and these days a college degree isn’t much more than a slip of paper.”
If he’d slapped her, Annette would have been less offended. “Paper? A slip of paper?”
It was time to intervene. Hilary took hold of his mother’s arm. “He’s just upset. He’s not trying to—”
“But I never planned to go to college,” Trenton insisted, ignoring the life raft being thrown to him. “And I’m even more sure of it now. Once I have my GED, I’m getting a job.”
Annette really couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You already have a job.”
“A real job.”
It was another shocking upset. Everyone knew how much Trenton loved the bookstore—his dream job in every aspect. Well, maybe not in every aspect.
“One that can properly support Hilary.”
Now he’d stepped in it. Annette seemed to stretch with her anger, her cheeks taking on the pink heat that meant death was imminent. “So you need to support him, do you? His parents must be a real pair of deadbeats if a child needs to step in to help. Is that it?”
Trenton should have been scared. He should have seen how outmatched he was and switched straight over to apologies and abasement.
But he set down the onion he was holding and said, “His parents are the best I could have asked for, but this has nothing to do with them. As someone who has made his own promise to Hilary, I have certain duties, and one of them is to—”
“Your duty, my dear, is to go to school. All children—”
“But I’m not a child. I turned eighteen on Tuesday.”
They all stopped. “Tuesday?” Annette had taken up the onion as if to throw it, but it dropped from her hand, forgotten. “Tuesday? But you were here Tuesday.”
It was the proverbial icing on the cake. It seemed impossible that Trenton had fumbled himself into such a position by accident. “Yes?”
Hilary couldn’t save the boy. Nothing could. Inwardly, he said his goodbyes. But Annette didn’t shout. She didn’t throw anything. Instead, she went to the cabinet and took down the little box with the recipe cards. “Chocolate or vanilla?”
Trenton was thrown by the question. Then again, it wasn’t really a question. It was the sealing of his fate. “Pardon?”
“For your birthday cake. Chocolate or vanilla?”
“Oh, I don’t need—”