The Secret Life Of Billy Chase 9 - 17. Chapter 17

Sunday

- I heard my phone receiving a message before I even opened my eyes this morning, and all I could think to myself was...

"Mornin', Jimmy."

Sure enough, when I rolled over to see who was hitting me up, there was a message from Jimmy LaPlane saying:

"Good morning, Sunshine! Sleep well? :)"

Was I mad at him? Of course not. Jimmy was just being his usual sweet self. But there was a certain level of frustration that I felt building up within me anyway. Not because of him, but because of the fucked up aura surrounding this who situation. I mean, I know that Sam told me to steer clear of him, but...what does that mean? Do I just go back to ignoring him again now? Do I just turn my back on him until he gets tired of trying to get in touch with me and gives up? Or do I just call him up and try to make it clear to him that we're just going to be friends from now on? Aren't I breaking his poor little tortured heart either way?

I'm trying to be mature about this, but I'm starting to think that the term 'maturity' is synonymous with 'take everything god and happy about your life and make it SUCK as much as humanly possible'!

I'll to just...put some distance between us for right now. Just...like...we don't need to talk two or three times every single day. I don't need to be such a chicken and he doesn't need to be so clingy. We can just find some new kind of 'normal' by balancing things out a bit. That's all. Give Jimmy enough free time to get out of the house and do something besides think about me all the time.

I dragged myself out of bed and went to relieve myself. I looked at myself in the mirror, trying desperately to avoid the sight of that monstrosity on my face. The weird thing is, the more I tried to ignore that one silly pimple, the bigger and angrier it seemed to get. In fact, I could swear that it was suddenly drawing blood into it like the fat belly of a Summer mosquito, getting redder in color while the rest of my face was getting more pale to make an even bigger spectacle out of the damn thing. Shit...how long do these things last, anyway? Is it going to...fade away, or melt, or pop, or...hell, I wouldn't mind if it actually HATCHED and a baby chick flew out of it! Just get on with it already!

I got to talk to my dad today. I was SO glad that he called the house! I don't know, but there was a moment of unrestricted joy that came with seeing the name 'William Chase' show up on the display. It was awesome to hear his voice, but the feeling was bittersweet. I don't know what it was that had been keeping this at bay since he packed up that truck and moved out of state, but I think was the first time that I really experienced that feeling of him actually being 'gone' as far as just being able to take a short ride to go see him. I mean...he went from that guy who was just in the other room, to a guy who was in another apartment somewhere, to someone who...well...was basically just a disembodied voice on the phone. It was strange. Strange in a really sad way.

That didn't stop us from having a decent conversation though.

"So how are you, Champ? I hope you're behaving yourself. You're not giving your mom too much grief, are you?" He says.

I'm like, "ME? No way. Mom's the grief giver. I'm the innocent victim in this house." He chuckled to himself. I missed hearing him laugh. He says they're still opening boxes and stuff, but the new house is starting to take shape and getting back and forth to work is a lot easier now. Which...is good to hear, I guess. It sounds like he's building a whole new life from scratch. I suppose I should be happy that it's such an effortless transition for him.

Oh who am I lying to? I'm totally not happy that it's such an easy transition for him.

While I was thinking about missing him myself, I also took a moment to ask, "Say, Dad? I was just wondering...I mean, have you talked to Trace at all? Recently, I mean?"

He was like, "I called as soon as we got here and safe and sound. So it's been a couple of weeks, I s'pose. Why? Is anything wrong?"

I'm like, "No. Nothing wrong. Just...he asked about you."

My dad asked, "Are things still going good with him and his dad?"

I said, "As far as I know. Trace doesn't talk about him much, but I think he's giving the guy a chance."

He told me, "Well, good. I hope they both stay on the straight and narrow. Maybe I'll try to give him a call this weekend, just to check in with him. Alright?"

With a smile, I'm like, "Cool. I think he'd like that. He misses you." I giggled, and I was like, "Mikey lost a tooth. I'm sure he'll be excited to tell you all about it."

My dad said, "Lost a tooth? Well, I'll be! I guess it's about time for the milestones to start up for the little guy. I don't know if you even remember it, but when you lost your first tooth you were so proud that it took three days to get it away from you. Hahaha!"

I said, "What? What are you talking about?"

He says, "Your mom and I told you about the Tooth Fairy and you said it was yours and she can't sneak into the house and just take it from you. Not for any amount of money. You walked around with that thing in your pocket like it was a pet. We had to 'rob' you while you were sleeping."

With a bit of shock, I told him, "Shame on you! How could you steal from a sleeping child?"

He's like, "It was pretty easy, actually. You're a hard sleeper."

I'm like, "Omigod, you're an awful person! Hehehe!" I told him, "Thanks for taking my pride and joy away from me, Dad."

He said, "Don't worry, you missed it for all of five minutes before you were on to the next big thing."

I grunted like, "I wish you could take this newest big thing away just as easy." When he asked me what I meant, I said, "I think...well, I know, that I kinda got a zit. It sucks."

My father chuckled to himself, which sort of surprised me. Then he's all like, "Oh noooo! It begins!"

I froze! My breath got caught in the back of my throat. I'm like, "Begins? WHAT begins? What the...what's beginning?"

"The inevitable pimple parade." He says, "Don't get yourself all stressed out about it now."

I'm like, "Dad...the only thing that could get me to stress about this is having you tell me not to stress about it."

But he just tells me, "You know, you actually held off for quite a long time. I just figured you for a bit of an extremely lucky late bloomer. The parade caught me like 6 months after my 13th birthday! My face couldn't wait to break out."

He was smiling! I could tell that he was smiling over the phone. What the heck is so funny about this? I'm like, "Was It bad???"

He was like, "For me? Oh wow, it was terrible. I had braces too. Hahaha, yes...it was quite an adjustment, believe me." There he is...laughing at me again. He heard me whimper involuntarily, and said, "Oh stop. It'll be alright. I'm sure that you won't get them as bad as I had them. I can't remember your mom ever saying that she had them too bad growing up. Maybe you got her skin genes."

Another gasp from me! I'm like, "Wait...are zits genetic???"

He chuckled again. Ugh! I wish he'd stop that! This is serious! He's like, "Genetic? I don't know, Billy. They're just a natural part of growing up. Not just for you, but for everybody. It's nothing you really have to worry about."

Nothing for me to worry about??? I've got a boyfriend! We're rebuilding our whole relationship this Summer! I can't just suddenly show up at his door with a throbbing lump of pus filled disfigurement on my FACE and ask him for a kiss! This isn't a rite of passage! It's horror movie in ZIT form! It's bad enough I had to live through getting the hardest boners EVER in Junior High for no reason at all! Bad enough that I had to go through waking up at 2 O'clock in the morning to the tingly sensation of having sticky spurts of warm liquid flooding my undies and soaking through my sheets! Now I've got THIS to deal with? I was kinda hoping that I only had shaving, driving, and learning how to handle my alcohol better, to look forward to. This added little teenage bonus hardly seems fair to me right now!

He was like, "I'm sure if you take good care of yourself and stay away from the chips and soda, you'll work your way through it just fine."

I said, "Well...I hope you're right. I'm not being crazy about this right? It seems kinda dumb."

That's when he said something that sorta...made me lose focus for a second. He's like, "One day, you'll grow up and have kids of your own. You'll look back at all the stress and struggle you're feeling right now and it won't seem so bad. I know everything seems so dramatic at your age, but eventually you'll think back to your teen years and wonder what all the fuss was about. Then you can try to calm down little 'William Chase III' someday when he comes to you with the same issues."

He smiled when he said it, but I just...I felt this little sink in the pit of my stomach. Almost as though I had just swallowed a whole jar of wet cement. I had almost forgotten...my father still doesn't know that I'm gay. He doesn't know about me and Brandon, he doesn't know that I came out to Mom, he doesn't know that I basically told everybody at work...I still have to wait for the moment to have that discussion with him. But I don't know when that moment is going to present itself when he's so far away. It hardly seems like the kind of thing that I should do over the phone.

He asked if I was still there, my dead silence extending for much longer than I expected. I'm like, "Yeah, I'm here. Just...multitasking with something...online."

So my dad was like, "Well, I won't keep you for too long. Just wanted to give you a ring to see how things are going with you guys. Is your mom around? I wanted to have a quick chat with her."

My mom was actually doing laundry and watching TV in the other room, but for some reason I got this silly urge to lie to him and say, "Actually, she's sleeping right now. Umm...do you want me to wake her up?" I don't know why I thought I needed a stall tactic but...whatever.

MY dad was like, "OH sure. The 'Grief Giver' is so much more pleasant when she just wakes up. Hehehe! It's no big deal. I'll call back later on. Tell her I said hello. And I'll be sure to give Trace and Mikey a call too. Alright?" I agreed, and he said, "You be safe, Billy. I love you."

I'm like, "Love you too." And I hung up. I can't really claim to be relieved that my parents didn't have and 'chats' today. If anything, I'm probably setting myself up for more torture, waiting to find out if my mom is going to mention the whole...ummm...well, my orientation. On one hand, I don't think my mom would just randomly rat me out and tell him my sexuality behind my back. She's more the type to nag me to death until I do it myself. However...the whole thing of her walking into the house while my boyfriend and I were feverishly sucking each other off like there was no tomorrow? That's the kind of thing that my parents wouldn't hide from one another. Not for long, anyway. When I got caught for having that party while my mom was out of town, I had to go live with Dad almost immediately until they were both satisfied that I was straightened out. I think this might be a bit higher up on my mom's emergency scale.

I don't know if I'm ready to dump that drama at my father's feet just yet, but my mom have sort of been at odds these past few days. What am I going to do? Ask her for a favor now? Tell her to keep it quiet? Sweep it under the rug? Or maybe I should just keep quiet myself and assume that she won't bring it up? Because if I bring it up, then she'll start thinking about it, whereas she might not have been thinking about it before.

It's not that I don't want my dad to know, ok? I just...I want to do it my way. And since I don't have any idea what 'my way' is just yet, I want to take some more time to figure that out.

Great. Another message from Jimmy. He says:

"Just out of the shower! Squeaky clean! Wanna trade? Hehehe! J/K"

And he attached a selfie of himself in this slightly fogged up bathroom mirror, wearing some white, nylon, gym shorts and no shirt. Hair wet. What can I say? He's still super cute.

That message was followed by:

"Say, call me up some time! We can hang out! I missed you! :P"

I probably shouldn't answer this one. In fact, it's best that I delete them both and pretend that I never got them in the first place.

Missed me. Past tense. I noticed that. Like...like he didn't have a reason to actively miss me anymore because we were officially talking again. Maybe I screwed things up a little bit worse than I thought.

Sorry, Jimmy. I really DO want to be friends again, but you're still a little too intense for me right now.

Alright, I'm going to give my sweetheart a call and see what he's up to before it gets too late. I want to hear his voice. I always get chills when I hear his voice. That boy needs to give me some serious face time. You know? Hehehe, that boy is too pretty for simple aural pleasantries.

Got all of my work days in a row this week, starting on Tuesday. So that's cool. I'll let Ian know the deal so I can get together with him and Bobby. And once Trace is feeling a little more upbeat, maybe I can grab him and Simon to come over and join us! That could be cool!

I'll write more later! Seeya!

- Billy