That Feeling - 11. Falling

Yeah, so the weekend was hell. The party was shit and everything after it was shit even if I didn’t realize it at the time. The one maybe bright spot at all was my dad and even that isn’t the best because now he looks at me differently. Not a bad different, not like “there’s-my-gay-son-what-did-I-do-wrong,” more like “I-love-you-no-matter-what-and-this-look-is-meant-to-convey-the-new-bond-we-have” and that’s cool or whatever but it’s weird. Everything is just weird now. Monday at school is the worst, because I don’t know how to even be here with all the weirdness. I was purposefully late by a few minutes, telling the office I overslept. I’m avoiding Avery, Knox, and Jake at all costs, which has been kind of hard because they are basically the only friends I have besides Carson and Sara. Carson did intercept me once before third period. Even though I wasn’t technically avoiding her, I didn’t exactly feel like pouring over my problems right then either. She kept it brief with a hug and a round-a-bout promise of some kind of future conversation I’m not looking forward to. Lunch finds me sitting in some obscure table, where, I had hoped, people would ignore me. Which is where I am right now, sitting at lunch, not being ignored at all. Because I sat at a table filled with freshmen anime nerds who keep glaring at me and whispering. A few tables over are some juniors, who I mostly know, but don’t necessarily talk to, who keep looking over at me. I wonder what they know. Surely they’ve heard and/or seen that Avery and I are over, because 1) I’m sitting next to a girl with purple braids and 2) as much as I tried to avoid it, even I saw Avery and Knox earlier. Not hugging or kissing or even holding hands - just together. Which hurt in a way I had tried to prepare myself for, but had obviously failed. Because it hurt in two very distinct, yet equally horrible ways. Because at the party when Carson asked me what hurt worse, I couldn’t quite conceptualize then that both hurt. Because even though I wasn’t in love with Avery, I still loved her. We’d been in a relationship since seventh grade and while I hadn’t been totally honest with her, I’d never really been dishonest either. I’d never cheated, never kissed someone else, never even touched another person, as much as I wanted to. But to make it all worse, it’s with Knox, something I’ve barely even processed for fear of completely shutting down. Because I was crushing major hard on him, and now that’s over. Oh, I still like him in a weird, twisted kind of way. I’ve tried hard to hate him, just to see how it feels and I just can’t.

I can’t see my usual table from here and that worries me. Jake walked by earlier with his tray and he glanced at me. He quickly looked away as I glared at him. I really want to be angry about everything, but strangely I’m not. I’m just tired. A part of me wonders who all Avery’s told. No one has said anything about that specifically. There has been the odd look, but I can chalk most of those up to pity at my very public debacle with Avery. I’ve yet to hear queer or fag or even one of the giggly bottle blondes asking me to go shopping with her, so it must still be pretty hushed with Avery, which right now I’m happy about. None of my food looks particularly appetizing, mainly because I don’t have an appetite, but whatever. Purple-braid girl next to me keeps looking at me and I want her to stop, but I am the intruder after all. After about fifteen minutes of not saying anything, she looks at me closely and speaks, her purple braids barely moving.

“Not to be rude or anything, but who are you and why are you sitting here?”

The girl was pretty in an odd way, the purple braids oddly accenting her otherwise average face.

Being in the mood I was in, I felt like a bit of verbal sparring, especially since this girl was below me in most ways. “I could ask you the same question.”

“Well, you could, but seeing as I sit here everyday with these same people, most of that question is pretty obvious.”

“Yeah, well, it’s a free country.”

“Oh, wow, so creative. I might need some ice for that burn.” She rolls her eyes. “But for real, what’s the deal?”

“I’m Caleb and my life is shit?”

“Okay. I’m Mickey and mine is too. I figure most teenagers have shit lives, but that has nothing to do with the fact that you’re sitting at our table. What grade are you even in?”

I look around at her friends. There’s a guy who’s tall with greasy looking black hair, glasses, and acne. Another girl has bushy brown hair and braces and is wearing a Harry Potter t-shirt. “Eleventh.”

“So why is, Caleb, the junior, whose life is shit, sitting at our table?”

“Why do you even care?”

“Because it’s the most interesting thing that’s happened to me today.”

I had to smile at her spunk. “Do you really want to know?” She enthusiastically shook her head as her friends looked like they might barf at the social contact. “Well, my normal table is occupied by people that used to be my friends.”

Mickey smiled. “Oh. I’m not a gossip magnet or anything, obviously, but you did sit at our table, so I feel it’s my duty to ask: what happened?”

I ran through my head all the possible responses. “We had a shit weekend.”

“Do explain.” This girl was too adamant, almost like Cassie, but I found myself wanting to talk to her.

“It’s a long story.”

“If you don’t tell us, I’ll have to hear Rob talk about his favorite yaoi, with interjections from Maggie, fangirling over book-version Ronald Weasley and I’m just really not in the mood today. So talk.’

I glance at her friends as she says this, but their faces remain steady, as if what she had said didn’t reach their ears quite right.

“Well, I was dating this girl. And now we’re not, for lots of reasons, and it’s awkward and that’s all I’m saying.”

She looks at me for a while with a scary look in her eyes, like she was scanning me over and all my secrets would be revealed to her. “That’s not a very long story. Or a very interesting one. Maybe Rob’s yaoi fantasies would have been better after all.”

“What even is ya-wee?”

All three kind of look at me weirdly, and Mickey smiles. Rob looks like he might disintegrate at any moment. He’s tugging on Mickey’s arm and when she finally looks at him, he shakes his head, still not speaking. She seems to ignore whatever he was trying to say to her and turns back to me.

“Ya-oh-ee is like weird Japanese gay cartoons. Rob loves thems.”

Rob looks like he might faint. Maggie’s face hasn’t moved.

“Oh, so Rob’s...gay.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Are you gay, Rob?” He ignores her, staring at his tray instead.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter.”

“He’s shy around cute boys.”

I look at him. “I don’t care if you are or anything. I mean-” I take a deep breath, because I don’t even know these people, but it’s got to start somewhere, “that’d be pretty hypocritical of me.”

He looks up fast, but doesn’t say anything. “Oh, so you guys play for the same team. Hmm, hey Rob, would you fuck around with him?”

Rob blushes and so do I. I start to feel uncomfortable, mainly at Mickey’s seemingly lack of couth and/or human empathy.

“You’re such a bitch, Mick.” He says it low, his voice fragile, like it might break any minute. She kind of looks at him and smiles, and then pops a tater tot into her mouth.

“Yeah, I am, but you...” I stare back at my lunch as they go back and forth a bit, Rob’s voice never rising above a barely audible buzz. After a few minutes, Mickey turns back to me. “I’ve decided your appearance at our table probably has something to do with the fact you enjoy the male form, right? I’m guessing people found out and that didn’t go too well. Populars can be such pricks.”

“Well, yeah, my friends all found out, but it was only a problem for my girlfriend, for obvious reasons. And my best friend and I kind of had sex, which is- weird. And now the guy I like and my girlfriend are dating. So it’s easier to just avoid everything.”

The girl with the frizzy hair looks at me and says, for the first time, “That’s rough.”

I smile a wanly at her. “Yeah, it is.”

And it’s the truth. Everything is just rough. Because it seems like no matter what I can ever say or do it’ll always be this way. Because I can’t go back and I guess I can go forward but that has never looked particularly appealing. Because I can’t pretend anymore and I can’t have who I want and who I can have is so complicated it makes me nauseous and while I’ve enjoyed my limited texting relationship with Ethan, I’m not sure that’ll go anywhere soon. Mainly because of me and my inability to even string together enough good minutes to even be considered anywhere near okay.

That’s the problem I’ve been avoiding: I want to be okay, but I’m not. I want everyone to look at me and say, “Caleb, he sure is doing okay, despite everything” even if I really feel like everything is all jumbled and mix-matched and probably decaying inside, which is why I go in the bathroom during 5th period and bawl my eyes out in a bathroom stall. Knox is in that class and he actually looked at me when I walked in and smiled. And that killed me. I keep trying to take my mind of it by imaging gay anime characters having sex with each other and that just makes me more depressed because not only does my life suck, but apparently so does that Rob guy’s. People come into the bathroom occasionally and I try to contain myself. I don’t do such a good job, but no one even attempts to figure out who I am losing it in stall 3.

I’ve been gone from class for over fifteen minutes when someone comes into the bathroom and calls my name. Hearing that, I realize how dumb it was to come to the bathroom closest to class, because how obvious could I be. The voice calls again and I realize who is is: it’s Knox. I start to whimper a little, so I try to stifle my blubbering by putting my hands over my mouth, which doesn’t really help at all.

“Caleb, I know you’re in there. I can hear you.”

I try to stay as silent as possible because I’m trying to pretend like I don’t exist. Not existing would be so much better than the current situation. The door to my stall rattles a little, and I see his shoes under the door. He moves, the backs of his sneakers facing me. He’s obviously leaning against the stall, something I don’t want. I want him gone, I want to be gone, I just want to be away from it all. But he’s here and I feel like I might vomit.

His throat clears a little and then in some kind of faux confidence, he says: “I’m not the enemy, you know.”

Something inside me wells, maybe anger or the dying of passion or even a manic upswing, and I want to tear the door down and strangle him. Through the tears, my voice croaks out, full and heavy and horribly groggy, with all the sarcasm I can muster: “Really?”

I want to say more and yet I can’t. Because yes, I’m angry, but I’m also tired. “No, I’m not. I mean, sure, things could have happened differently. I really wanted them to happen differently.”

“Hmph. Me, too.”

“But it is what it is.”

There’s silence for a few seconds, but they feel like hours pressing against the stall door, trapping me on the toilet.

“Avery told me. About you, being - you know.”

“Gay?”

“Yeah, that. I, uh, don’t have a problem with it or anything.I mean, it’s whatever.”

“Gee, I’m so glad my existence doesn’t offend you.”

“Hey, I’m trying to talk to you. I know it’s been rocky between us. But I’m not-”

“The enemy. Yeah, you said that.”

“Right. I only ever wanted to be your friend, Caleb.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“What?”

“Friends don’t steal their friend’s girlfriends.”

“Yeah, well friends don’t pretend to hate their friends to cover up the huge crush they have on them.”

My heart falls. I want to jump off a cliff. “What?”

“Yeah. I know.”

“How? I didn’t tell Avery.”

“I’m not dumb Caleb. I suspected even before Avery said anything. That’s why I wanted to talk with you the other night, but I chickened out.”

In an almost whisper, I ask, “How’d you know?”

“It was little things at first, like how you’d look at me or your voice when we’d talk. It was subtle and I didn’t even really think about it much. But recently, dude, you’ve been everywhere. I mean, barely even hiding it, just staring at me with your tongue out. I mean, you even got hard the other day. I think the whole school saw that one.”

I feel tingly everywhere, like my limbs are dematerializing and I’m about the self-detach. I gather myself as much as I can. “Please leave” is all I can say before I lose it. I can hear Knox somewhere out there telling me to calm down, but it’s like he’s at a distance. My head is full of white noise, like an old television set, and sounds I didn’t realize humans could make are coming from my mouth. I may have been able to handle this all somewhere else, under different circumstances, but it’s come to this here and now. The full realization that the only person I’ve ever really fooled is myself. I thought I could do it and get away with it, but here I am, sixteen years old, in full mental breakdown, because everything I’d ever built up, all the walls, all the fake smiles, all the fake hugs, all the crying, all the self-hatred, all the neat stories and alibis and lies were all for nothing because people could see through them. Maybe not right away and maybe not fully, but they could and I went through so much shit to make them work. I could have stopped years ago when I first saw Joey naked at his lake house and knew I was somehow different and maybe things could have been better and happier and easier, but somewhere along the way I fell into some trap. Somewhere, somehow I became neurotically obsessed with the closet and the maintenance of keeping the door as firmly closed as I could. But it was never closed at all. It’s been open for years with God knows who peeking their fucking pug noses in on me and smirking contentedly at my attempts at “normality.” I’m on the floor now, the smell of piss is strong, but I don’t care, because everything is shit anyways. I’m puking into the toilet and I can see my life in it. Knox is still saying something, but I don’t even really register his voice at all. After I’ve puked up my lunch and probably breakfast too, I sit back against the door, silent. I hear Knox and someone else talking outside the door. I don’t recognize the other voice, but I don’t really care at this point. It could be the Queen of fucking England and I’d tell her to fuck off.

“Caleb, is everything okay?” It’s Knox and I want to vomit again because he actually sounds concerned.

I sit silently, my arms around my knees, maybe I can stay in the stall forever and not move, or at least until Knox and whoever else is out there leaves.

The second voice speaks and I really want to dematerialize now, because it’s Mr. Kalinski, a history teacher I had last year. “Caleb, you need to come out, okay. Everything’ll be okay. Just come out.”

My arm lifts to unlatch the stall, but I bring it back, around my knees and stay still. I mumble something that vaguely sounds like “No” and continue sitting there. I really have no idea what I am doing, because this whole episode has been so counterproductive to any “progress” I’ve made it makes me kind of hate myself more. Because I’m obviously not getting better, I’m just transitioning problems. Because I think I’m sick.

I get up slowly and unlatch the door. When I open it Mr. Kalinski and Knox are looking at me like I’m some kind of alien. I say “I’m fine” flatly and walk towards the door.

“Caleb, do you need to go to the counselor?”

“I’m fine, Mr. Kalinski.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. But please tell Knox to never talk to me again.”

I walk out into the hallway and back into the classroom. As I enter, the whole class looks at me as I take my seat.

“Is everything okay, Mr. Abernathy? Did Mr. Brashier recover you?”

I look up at the teacher and give a small smile. “Everything is fine.”

The teacher nods her head once and continues talking about the proper way to write an argumentative essay. Sara looks over at me and frowns. I ignore her and watch the door until the bell rings. Knox doesn’t come back to the classroom until the bell’s rung. He doesn’t even glance at me. As I walk through the halls, I start to feel empty. I’ve felt dead and unreal and all sorts of feelings, but never truly empty. Sixth period is hell. All I can think about is how nothing matters anymore. I might as well throw it all away because it’ll never matter. Mrs. Denueve is talking about the economy of the Southern colonies but I can’t even pay attention. I haplessly scribble in my notebook. Not anything particular, just shapeless scribbles. The girl who sits next to me, Meghan, mouths, “Is everything okay?” I nod my head unenthusiastically and try to ignore her concerned looks.

When the bell rings, I stay in my seat for a while as people file out. Clark McDonnell and I reach the door at the same time and he politely says “Excuse me” as he tries to exit. But I’m feeling weird and probably depressed and slightly self-destructive, so I grab his arm. He looks at me strangely, maybe a little confused, or even fearful.

“Um, hey, Clark, can we talk for a minute, in private?”

He looks around, confused, and rightly so because I’m not sure we’ve ever talked, in private, about anything. “Um, sure.” The classroom is empty except for Mrs. Denueve, so that isn’t an option. The hallways are still fairly crowded, but we walk out anyways. “My locker is over on the math wing, it’ll be pretty dead over there by the time we get there.”

“Yeah, that’s good.”

We walk silently through the crowded halls, people mostly ignoring us as they leave the school. The occasional person looks at us strangely. It feels different, knowing that when people look at Clark, they already know the thing I’d tried so hard to hide about myself. I pretend like we’re a couple and stare blankly at anyone who looks at us.

At his locker, he opens it up quickly, talking as he digs around in it. “I never expected you to come to me with this. Not many people do, we say tell me or Kaitlyn but the majority of people, especially the guys, usually go to Kaitlyn.”

“Huh?”

“Your idea for homecoming. What is it? I was thinking like a werewolf theme, since we’re the Wolfpack and it’ll be close to Halloween, but Kaitlyn said Misty Wiggins and Clare Whitstone hated it. They want to do something more...fun. I think they aren’t considering the possibilities a werewolf theme could offer. Besides, werewolves are totally on trend right now- Sorry, I’m rambling.” He looks away from me, with a slight blush on his cheeks.

“Um, no, I, uh, didn’t want to talk about that though. I, um, wanted to ask you, uh, something…” I falter and look down, because he’s staring at me intensely now and I start feeling incredibly uncomfortable.

“What?”

I look around a little and start to speak a few times, but can’t seem to get it out. As I continue to struggle with my words, his facial expression changes to one of annoyance and disappointment. He lifts his hand up. “Stop. Just stop, okay. I know what this is about. Jesus, all you guys are the same.” He slams his locker shut. “‘Oh, let’s ask the gay guy to give us head. I’ve always heard guys do it better and my girlfriend sucks’ Well, fuck you Caleb, I thought you were better than that.” He starts to walk off.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m not sucking your dick. I’m not a whore.”

“Clark, no, that’s...that’s not what I was trying to say at all.”

He looks at me for a few minutes, his hands on his hips. “Really, then what were you gonna say? And just say it, okay.”

I look at him for a few minutes and shrug. “This was a bad idea.”

“No, if that isn’t what you were gonna say, say what you were gonna say.”

My heat beats fast and I just blurt it out. “I’m gay.”

He looks at me for a second, his eyes kind of scrunched. “Is this a joke?”

I shake my head. I might have cried, but at this point I’m so over crying. “No. I just, I’m tired of all the shit.”

He walks up to me and gives me a hug. “I could be cliché and say it gets better or something, and it does mostly, but it’s always a little shit no matter what.” He lets go and backs up a little, taking out his phone. “I have to go to Red Cross Boards. But I’d love to talk to you more, about everything. What’s your number?”

I give it to him and he smiles at me before walking away. I stand in the hallway, alone, still feeling conflicted about everything I ever thought could, would, should make sense.