Commencement - 6. The Resistance Begins

“You did what?!?!” Brett exclaimed when I told him the story of what mom had done, and how I’d left my insulin pump behind.

 

“I told you, I’d rather die than live with her anymore,” I replied.

 

“Billy, when most people say they’d rather die than do something, they usually aren’t actually in danger of dying! I can’t let you do this. You have to go home.”

 

“I’m not going back there,” I insisted.

 

Brett shook his head. “No. I can’t let you do this. It’s not just the pump. Billy, I watched you rip yourself apart over your dad this past year. Your family means everything to you.”

 

“My father meant everything to me, Brett. Not my mother. Fuck her!”

 

“No,” Brett said firmly. “This isn’t right.” He stood up and grabbed his coat and hat and then he walked to the back door. “You stay here. I’ll be back.”

 

“Where are you going?”

 

“Stay here, Billy.” Brett insisted. Then he left. He was gone for quite a while. I went up to his room and played around on his computer. His menagerie of pets had greatly diminished since the days when I’d had to take care of them when he went to New York with his mom. The guinea pigs had died and he’d sold the iguanas to Joey, just leaving old Sneaker the snake. Just like so many things in his life, Brett had lost interest in them when he’d moved on to something else. His electric guitar sat in the corner of his room collecting dust, next to the trumpet that he’d borrowed from school. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d played piano, and he’d quit playing organ at the church when he lost interest in it. I wondered why, out of all the things in his life that he’d been obsessed with only to abandon them when the next shiny thing came along, that he’d stuck with me for so long.

 

About two hours or so later Brett returned. He sat on his bed and reached into his pocket. Then he presented me with Navi.

 

“Here,” he said, placing my insulin pump in my hand. “Now please go home.”

 

“How did you get this?” I asked.

 

“It doesn’t matter how I got it. What matters is that I love you too much to let you do what you’re doing. I want you to go home.”

 

“Why are you doing this, Brett? I don’t want to go home. I want to stay here with you. Why are you giving up without a fight?”

 

“Who said I’m done fighting? The fight is just beginning. But you need that thing to keep you alive and I’m not going to be responsible for you not having it. I want you to go back home and make peace with your mom.”

 

“Why would I want to do that? I hate that bitch!”

 

“Hey! I don’t care how pissed off you are at her. Don’t call your mother a bitch,” Brett scolded me.

 

“Seriously? Dude, you call your mother a cunt all the time and you’re going to yell at me?”

 

“Billy, your mom actually gives a shit and doesn’t fucking lie to you about everything in your life. I know what she’s doing hurts. It hurts me even worse. Your mom has been more of a mother to me than my own mother. Once she gets her head out of the preacher’s ass she’ll be our biggest supporter. You’ll see. But that’s not going to happen if you don’t go back home and work things out.”

 

I lowered my pants to reattach my pump. “Can we at least have sex before I go?” I asked.

 

Brett just looked at me.

 

“Fine,” I said. I reattached Navi and then pulled my pants back up and slipped my pump back into my pocket. “This isn’t going to work you know. She’s not the same person she was when dad was alive. There’s not going to be some magical moment where she suddenly accepts you again.”

 

“Billy, you’re not doing this for her. You’re doing it for me. Please…”

 

I put my coat back on and left to go back to the dungeon known as my house, not even kissing Brett goodbye. I was so angry with him. How could he send me back after the way my mom treated us? I stomped through the woods and down the hill back to my house. I opened the door and then slammed it after I’d entered, rattling the whole house. Mom and Dave were sitting at the dining room table.

 

“Billy…” mom started. But before she could say anything I exploded.

 

“Shut up!” I shouted. “I don’t know what you said to Brett, or why he sent me back here, but let me tell you one thing. I will never forgive you for this. Never. If you think your god approves of this, then your god is evil, and you’re even worse than your minister. I will never love you again.”

 

I stormed past them to my room and slammed the door, forgetting that it would always ricochet back open when I did that. So I slammed it again, and that time it stayed shut.

 

Mom was wise not to try to talk to me for the rest of the evening. I found an old Metallica cd and blasted it for a while as I just lay there in bed thinking. Why did my life have to suck so much?

 

When I woke up in the morning, I wasn’t looking forward to seeing my mother at the breakfast table, but I was more hungry than angry for the moment. Fortunately for everybody, Dave had already gone to work and mom was busy in her room getting ready for work. I grabbed a bowl of cereal and ate it quietly, hoping that I could slip off to school without having to deal with her. I wasn’t nearly as good at the silent treatment as Brett was. If I saw my mother I knew I would just have to start a fight. It was just who I was. After I finished eating, I went back to my room and got my bookbag. Brett would be coming by soon to pick me up and I wanted to be outside when he got there.

 

As I was walking toward the front door mom stopped me.

 

“Hold on,” she said.

 

“Why would I want to do that?” I asked. “Brett will be here any minute to pick me up.”

 

“Well if you had decided to talk last night instead of throwing a hissy fit you would have known that Brett agreed not to come here anymore. He won’t be picking you up any time soon.”

 

“What?!?!”

 

“Now before you blow a gasket, I know it’s not cool for a senior to ride the bus so I arranged for someone else to take you to school.”

 

“Who?”

 

Just as I asked the question a car horn beeped in the driveway. I peeked out the window.

 

“Joey McKenzie? Are you serious?”

 

“Yes. I needed someone I could trust.”

 

“Fuck you. I’ll take the bus.”

 

“The bus has already left.”

 

Joey beeped the horn again.

 

“You better get going,” mom insisted.

 

I was too angry to even say anything. I just walked out the door. Joey waved at my mom as he waited for me in the driveway. I marched toward his car and got in.

 

“Hi, Mrs. Bland!” Joey said cheerfully from his car.

 

Mom waved from the door of the house, looking at Joey with the same kind of awe I saw on her face whenever she was listening to Pastor Carl. Once she saw that I was safely in the vehicle, mom disappeared back into the house.

 

“What’s up, Roberts?” Joey said.

 

“What’s the deal, McKenzie?” I asked.

 

“Just doing your mom a favor. Anything that makes your life a little more miserable makes me happy.” Joey pulled out of the driveway and started toward our school.

 

“You know, if you’d just get yourself a car you could drive yourself to school. Oh… That’s right. Your family is broke.”

 

“Yeah. Ha ha. We can’t all have fathers who buy our love with expensive toys.”

 

“I guess we can’t all have fathers, period,” Joey snapped back at me.

 

“You’re seriously going to rip on my dad dying? Jesus, you’re an even worse douchebag than before.”

 

“Hey, if you’re going to insult the guy who so graciously offered to take you to school…”

 

“I didn’t ask you for shit, Joey.”

 

“No, you just fucked me in front of my father. I mean, I know you’ve always hated me, but I never thought you’d sink to that level.”

 

“First of all, you started it. You were threatening to out me and that was after you tried to shove your dick in my mouth!”

 

“God, you’re such a fucking baby. Who gives a fuck who started what? You really think I would have told people you were gay? I mean, yeah, I hate you, but I wouldn’t have really done it. I was just mad. Besides, you’ve done a good enough job of outing yourself. The only person who doesn’t know you’re a fag is you. And I wouldn’t have really made you suck my dick. I was just fucking around with you. I’m sorry you thought I was trying to, like, rape you or some shit. No, the only reason you destroyed my reputation is because you’re a dick. You know, my dad’s been on my ass for a year since you fucked me over. I’ve had a year from hell because of you. I almost got thrown into military school. Did you know that? My dad was so pissed at me, talking about how I’d ruined the family’s reputation and shit.”

 

“Well in a way you kind of did,” I replied.

 

“No more than he did,” Joey mumbled.

 

“What did you say?” I asked.

 

“Nothing,” Joey said quickly. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand just like Brett did when he was trying not to cry. After that, we rode silently. It didn’t take too long to get to school. Joey parked next to Brett’s car, where Brett was waiting.

 

“I brought you something,” Joey said to Brett.

 

“Thanks, dude,” Brett said. The two of them gave each other a fist bump and then Joey left us alone.

 

“Okay, first of all…” I started.

 

Brett just laughed. “You’re so cute when you’re angry.”

 

“Shut up!”

 

“Look, I know you’re mad at me, but…”

 

“Oh, you have no idea! You make me ride to school with Joey McKenzie?”

 

“That was your mother’s idea. Although I couldn’t have planned it better if I tried.”

 

“Okay, whatever. But why did you decide to let my mom have her way? She’s trying to break us up and keep us apart and you’re letting her!”

 

“Billy, you have to trust me. I know what I’m doing. I’ve dealt with you for ten years. I know how to deal with a stubborn ass.”

 

“What does that have to do with my mother?”

 

“Well, I hate to tell you this, but dealing with your mother is just like…”

 

“Don’t even think about saying what I think you’re going to say! I am nothing like my mother!”

 

Brett laughed again. “Okay. You’re right. You’re nothing like your mom. You don’t feel the need to win every little detail of every little argument at all.”

 

“I… Shut up!” I replied.

 

We walked toward the school together.

 

“So, your mom doesn’t want me to be seen with you and she told me not to call the house. So I’m going to get you a cell phone.”

 

“I can’t afford a…”

 

“You don’t need to worry about that. We have to let your mom think she’s winning. At least for a little while.”

 

“And then what?” I asked.

 

“I don’t know. We’ll think of something. You know I don’t plan that far ahead.”

 

“Oh great. I’m going to be living with my mother and Dave until I’m thirty waiting for you to figure out what’s next.”

 

“It’s kind of exciting, really,” Brett said as we walked into school. “We’re like Romeo and Juliet.”

 

“Yeah, except that they killed themselves at the end of the book,” I said.

 

“They did? Shit, I didn’t get that far. I should probably re-write that essay for English class…”

 

As we walked through the hall on the way to our homeroom, I couldn’t help but notice that people were looking at us and whispering to each other. It was getting a little bit awkward. Then we saw Emily coming down the hall.

 

“Guys, what happened yesterday?” she asked.

 

“Billy’s preacher decided to tell the town we’re a couple of queers,” Brett informed her.

 

“Oh I know! Seriously, everybody is talking about it. They’re saying you slapped the preacher, Billy!”

 

I laughed. “Oh, I wish I’d have slapped that asshole! I just told him I wasn’t going to put up with his shit anymore. And mom told me that the only way that I could still live at home was if I broke it off with Brett forever.”

 

“You see how well he listens,” Brett said, throwing his arm around my shoulder.

 

“Well, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t think anyone is really surprised, I think it’s just shocking that someone’s sex life would become public knowledge like that,” Em said. “People don’t know how to react.”

 

“How about they just mind their own business?” I suggested.

 

“Like anyone is going to do that in this place!” Em scoffed.

 

“So people know,” Brett said. “Good. Let them know. I’m glad. Now we can all get on with our lives.”

 

“Maybe we should just forget about this whole thing,” I suggested.

 

“What? You can’t turn back now! Dude, this is the moment we’ve waited years for! We never have to hide again. I don’t care who knows or what they think.”

 

“I know you don’t, Brett! But it’s still scary. What if someone decides to beat us up? What if someone tries to stuff me in a locker? What if someone calls us faggots? What if people hate us? What if… What are you doing?”

 

As I was ranting, Brett was looking around at the people who were beginning to fill the hallway. He smiled as he started inching closer toward me. He put his hand on the back of my neck and pulled me gently toward him.

 

“Brett, what are you…”

 

I didn’t get to finish. There, in front of dozens of witnesses in the middle of a crowded school hallway, Brett kissed me passionately right on the lips. I heard a couple of ‘oh’s’ and ‘ah’s’ and somebody whistling around us. He seriously kissed me for a good ten or twenty seconds, right there in front of everybody. When he finished he smiled at me. My legs were a little wobbly afterward.

 

“There. Now they really have something to talk about,” he said, licking his lips. “I’ll see you in homeroom.”

 

Brett walked down the hall with a swagger in his step. To be honest, it really turned me on. I think if he’d have said he wanted to fuck me in the middle of that hall I’d have agreed in that moment.

 

“I’d say he’s taking the news pretty well,” Em said. “I’d kill for a boy to kiss me like that.”

 

“Yeah…” I said, still in a bit of shock over the whole situation.

 

I spent the next few periods in a constant state of awareness. I noticed every side-eyed look and every whispered comment. I kept waiting for the axe to fall and for someone to try something. I knew it was coming. It was just a matter of time until someone tried to beat me up or said something horrible to me. It was so odd, not even Joey or Sarah were picking on me. I knew they were just waiting for the perfect time. As lunch time approached, I began to be filled with dread. The cafeteria was a mine field of potential disaster even on a good day. I knew someone was going to try something. I braced myself for the worst as lunch time came closer. I was surprised that no one had spray painted my locker with the word “FAG” in bright, bold, capital letters. But there was nothing. Everything was eerily normal. Didn’t those kids know that my mom and her preacher had revealed my homosexuality to the world? What were they waiting for? I felt like everyone who walked behind me was a potential violent opportunist just waiting to attack.

 

I sat anxiously at lunch, waiting for the beating. It was so weird. No one treated me any different. No one pushed me down, or knocked my tray out of my hands, or pelted me with food. It was so weird. When were the beatings going to come? When were my classmates going to reveal their true hateful colors and start endlessly harassing me for being a queer?

 

I sat across from Brett at our usual table.

 

“Hey, you’re not mad about me kissing you earlier, are you?”

 

“Nah. I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on. I thought Em said that everybody knew.”

 

“Yeah,” Brett said.

 

“So why aren’t they doing anything. Why is everybody acting so nice?”

 

Brett just laughed. “Dude, you think anything changed because of yesterday? Of course everybody knows about us. They’ve always known. The only thing that changed yesterday is that your mom and the preacher made asses of themselves.”

 

“But everybody knows we’re gay now!” I insisted. Why wasn’t Brett realizing the severity of the situation?

 

“I know. Isn’t it great?”

 

“No, it’s not great! It’s terrible! This is a disaster. Any minute now we are going to get our asses kicked for being gay. Why aren’t you worried?”

 

Brett laughed even harder. “Dude, you are so cute when you’re petrified.”

 

“This is not funny,” I insisted.

 

“Yes it is. Watch.”

 

Brett stood up and walked to the table next to ours and talked to some kid I didn’t know. He stood up and walked with Brett back to our table.

 

“Billy, this is Seth Butler. He’s a junior here. You ever met him before?”

 

“No,” I replied.

 

“Seth, you ever met Billy?”

 

“Nah. I’ve seen him around though. Hard to miss him,” Seth replied.

 

“Yeah, he’s, like, freakishly tall and hairy. Anyway, did you know that Billy here is gay?”

 

“Uh… Are you trying to hook us up? Because I thought he was your boyfriend.”

 

“Oh, he is. I’m just trying to prove a point to him that no one cares that he’s gay,” Brett replied.

 

“He’s worried about that?” Seth turned to me. “Dude, no one gives a shit. Trust me, everyone is too busy with their own shit to worry about who you’re sleeping with. Besides, Reilly’s a pretty cool dude. You’re lucky.”

 

Brett smiled. “Thanks, Seth. I think you’ve proved my point.”

 

Seth went back to his lunch table. I saw a few of the other kids turn and look at me, and then turn back around and continue their conversation.

 

Brett sat down across from me again and stole my milk with a satisfied smirk on his face. “So there you go. No one gives a shit. You’re all worked up and worried about nothing. This isn’t the fifties. Hell, it’s not even the eighties. People don’t care who’s gay anymore. Half of these kids don’t even know if they’re gay or straight themselves. The straight boys just see you as some kid who is not going to compete with them for pussy and the gay kids know you’re with me. You should be more worried about the teachers than the kids. It’s the adults who are all uptight and trying to keep us apart.”

 

“But…”

 

Brett stopped me. “Dude, don’t make me kiss you again. On second thought…”

 

After lunch, the day continued as it normally did. It wasn’t until gym class that I really got concerned again. It was one thing to be in class with those kids, but now I was going to have to strip down to my underwear in the locker room with them! I was sure it was there, in that intimate area with no teacher around, that Brett and I would be abused and terrorized by our classmates. I kept waiting for them to grab hold of us, strip us naked and do all manner of vile things to our exposed, naked bodies.

 

I kept wondering when the beating would come as we finished changing into our gym clothes and participated in the usual gym activities. Even as the boys changed back into their regular clothes and left the locker room, I knew it was all just a ruse. Soon, all that was left was me and Bobby Rush in the locker room alone together as the other boys had cleared out. I wondered, was this the moment when one of my closest friends would betray me? Had he been waiting for this moment to get me alone?

 

“Hey Roberts, you got a minute?” Bobby asked. Oh great. I was going to get splattered by a six foot four, three hundred pound linebacker.

 

Bobby sat on the bench beside me. “No one’s given you any trouble today, have they?”

 

I shook my head. I didn’t have a voice to say anything to him.

 

“Good. If anyone does or says anything to you, you tell me, okay?”

 

“W… Why?” I managed to ask. My mouth had no spit.

 

“Because you’re my friend,” Bobby replied. “I know what it’s like to be treated differently around here just because you look different or don’t fit in. Trust me. I get the looks, the suspicion when I walk into a store, the extra scrutiny from police officers when I’m driving. If you don’t fit in this place can be vicious. You and your mom have always been good to me. You guys don’t care that I’m black. I’ve never cared that you’re gay. I just wanted you to know that I’ve got your back.”

 

And so, my first day as an unwillingly out of the closet gay guy went so much better than I had ever expected. I couldn’t believe it. I survived the whole day without anyone calling me a queer, or beating me up, or threatening me. Nothing at all happened. It was as if nothing had changed. I didn’t get it. I kept waiting for something terrible to happen, but it never did. Maybe they were just waiting?

 

There was somebody during the day who was angry though.

 

“I can't believe she did that do you,” Miss Winston said after she’d asked me to stay after class. “Why didn't you call me immediately? I would have been there.”

 

“It’s okay. What could you have done? The deed was already done. There’s nothing we can do about it now. The cat is out of the bag. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. This is all new to me.”

 

“I understand how scary this is. But now you don’t have to hide anymore. You could really step up and be a leader for other boys and girls.”

 

“Really? Is that what you want from me? I guess it must be easy to sit back and have all the answers and not be the one who has ever had to be honest with everyone.”

 

“Billy, you know our situations are not the same.”

 

“Yeah, you and Susan are just really good friends who live together. I guess it’s easy to tell other people how to live their lives when you don’t have the guts to do it yourself.”

 

“That is not fair, Billy,” she replied.

 

“Whatever. I’m so sick of people trying to tell me how I should feel about this. I didn’t ask for this. I don’t want to be some role-model for gay kids to follow. I just want to be left alone and not have the whole fucking world know what I do with my penis! I don’t want to be your little gay hero when you aren’t willing to do it yourself. You’re a hypocrite!”

 

“Is that what you think?”

 

“In twenty-five years, have you ever introduced Susan as anything other than your roommate? Have you ever held her hand or kissed her in public? No. You do those things privately, but in public, you’re just as in the closet as I was until yesterday. And apparently, everybody already knows what you refuse to admit about yourself. You have had twenty-five years to do something, and you’ve done nothing but hide behind big words and phony actions.”

 

I stormed out of her room. I have to admit, most of my anger wasn’t directed toward her at all. But I was done. I felt bad as left school at the end of the day. I knew that Miss Winston was one of the good guys, and I’d just unloaded a lot of my baggage on her and she didn’t deserve it. I just felt so frustrated. Just when it seemed like things were about to turn around for me, it was like life just kicked me in the balls again. Just because one day had gone by without incident didn’t mean things were safe. I still had to go back to school the next day. And the day after that…

 

Still thinking about what a jerk I’d been to Miss Winston, I walked out to the parking lot where the kids parked. To my surprise, Joey’s car was already gone.

 

“Great. He ditched me,” I sighed.

 

“Hey, looks like you need a ride,” Brett said as he caught up to me.

 

“Yeah. Your best friend Joey left me high and dry.”

 

“Isn’t that too bad? Come on, I’ll drive you home. Dustin has basketball practice so it’ll just be you and me.”

 

I didn’t say much as we rode along. I had a lot to think about, and I still had to deal with my mother when I got home. I felt terrible about the way I’d yelled at Miss Winston.

 

“You’re awfully quiet today,” Brett said. “You okay?”

 

“Yeah. I just… It was a weird day.”

 

“I know. But it felt good, didn’t it?”

 

“I don’t know how it felt. It was just weird. It was like spending the whole day naked. Everybody knew something about me that I’ve been keeping to myself for a long time. I wasn’t ashamed about it. It was just different and weird.”

 

“Oh. I get it. You’ve spent so much time in the closet you didn’t know what it’s like to come out into the light.”

 

“Yeah. I mean, you’ve never tried to hide who you are, so you haven’t had to adjust to anything. I don’t know how you can just not care about what people think of you.”

 

“Well, I’ll tell you. It’s not that I don’t care. I do. It’s just… I don’t know. It’s hard to explain, to put it into words, even with you, because I’ve never talked about it. It’s like, okay, when I was a little kid, before I moved here, everybody knew I was stupid. I couldn’t hide it, ever. It was relentless. In school, everybody picked on me constantly. I was the stupid kid with no daddy who couldn’t read. I hated going to school. I hated the people there. I hated the teacher who let it happen. Then one day I just fucking snapped. I beat the shit out of Tommy Bloomberg when he called me a retarded bastard in front of everybody on the playground. I mean, I kicked his ass like Dustin did to me. That’s why I got kicked out of school. Mom tried another school, and it was the same thing. Once the kids found out I couldn’t read, it started all over again. I’d go home and bawl every night. My teacher called me a stupid retard. Mom didn’t believe me. I just couldn’t take it. So I took a piss on the teacher’s desk right there in front of everybody during reading class. Jumped right up there and whipped it out and just let it loose. Needless to say I got expelled again. They called it “oppositional defiant behavior.” No one believed me. Everyone thought I was making up what the teacher called me. Anyway, my grandparents would have home schooled me, but then they died and my mom moved us here before the next school year started.”

 

“Wow, I always knew you got kicked out of school, but I never knew why.”

 

“Oh, I totally deserved it. Tommy was a dick, but he didn’t deserve to get his ass kicked. And I went way too far with the teacher. Anyway, when I moved here mom obviously couldn’t put me in another private school with my record, so she sent me to our public school. But you were there, so I didn’t want to get expelled again. I had to learn not to let what other kids said about me being dumb bother me. I started wearing my own mask. I became “Reilly.” I became the kid who said bad words and did crazy shit. Suddenly, instead of kids picking on me I became popular. Everybody wanted to see what “Reilly” was going to do next and nobody cared that I couldn’t read. But “Reilly” was just a mask. Only the people who really know me even call me Brett. Everyone else just calls me Reilly. So that’s why it looks like I never care about what people say about me. “Reilly” doesn’t care. “Brett” still does. That’s kind of why it really hurts what your mom is doing to me, because she knows the real me, not some front I throw out there. I let her in, and that’s what hurts the most.”

 

“Yeah, I get it. You know, none of what you’ve said surprised me. I guess I’ve just always known that there’s the you who everybody knows and there’s the you that only I know. Like, I’m the only one who knows the real you.”

 

“Yeah. For all my talk about hating fakes and phonies, I’m the biggest fraud of all.”

 

“I wouldn’t say that. There’s really only one Brett Reilly. You just allow people to see only so much. You let others only see that wild and crazy side of your personality. But you let me see everything, even the parts that you don’t like to share. It’s all you, but you keep some parts hidden from others. I mean, no one goes around completely exposed all the time. Right?”

 

“Yeah, I guess so. I’m glad we talked, because I was starting to feel like a real phony telling you to be all open and honest while I haven’t been doing it myself. I guess I should drive you home before your mom gets home.”

 

“Hey, if she’s home, fuck her. Can you do me a favor first?”

 

Brett was willing to drive me back to the cemetery where dad’s grave was. I hadn’t been there since the day I’d found out I was diabetic. As we walked toward the grave, I reached out and grabbed Brett’s hand. He smiled at me as we walked together and stopped at the graveside.

 

“Your hand is cold,” Brett said.

 

“Yours is nice and warm,” I replied. “I’m sorry I haven’t been a very good boyfriend.”

 

“Who says you haven’t been?”

 

“Well, I was a real dick after dad died.”

 

“Billy, your dad died. How were you supposed to act? I knew how much it hurt you when he died. I knew you needed time. It was a rough year, but I knew it would be. I just want you to be happy again.”

 

“I know. You’re a much better boyfriend than I deserve. I don’t know how I would have made it through this year without you. And that was before I got sick. I wish I had held your hand more often. It feels right. You know?”

 

Brett smiled. “I didn’t do anything special. All I did was love you and be patient, because that’s what you needed. I love you.”

 

“I love you too,” I replied. “Always have, and I always will.”

 

Brett smiled and laughed a little bit to himself.

 

“What?” I asked.

 

“Dude, you said that to me the first time I made love to you.”

 

“Really? God that was so long ago. How do you remember that stuff? All I remember you saying the first time we did it was ‘shut up and fuck me.’”

 

Brett laughed. “I remember that! Oh wow, I was such a little horn dog! You were so sweet. You said you love me all passionate and stuff, and all I wanted was to get laid! I’m such a dork!”

 

“That seems like a lifetime ago. I still remember it though. God, I was so scared that I was going to hurt you.”

 

“Oh yeah, and I was like, trying to get you to fuck me harder.”

 

“You always knew what you wanted. It’s like, from the first time we met you wanted to get together with me.”

 

“I did. I knew you were the one, even before I knew what that meant. The first time I met you I fell in love with you. We were meant to be, Billy. I’ve always believed that. Your father believed that. And that’s why no matter what your mom says or does she won’t be able to break us up, because she can’t change our destiny. I will always love you. Nothing will ever change that.”

 

“I know.” I let go of Brett’s hand and knelt down at the side of the grave. I brushed a few leaves off the headstone and sighed. “I was so angry the last time I was here. I blamed him for getting sick. I was so fucking scared when I found out I was diabetic. I felt like the world was going to end. But you know what? Since then, things actually got better. I feel better than I have in a year. That’s what it’s going to be like now. It’s scary that people know we’re gay. But it’s going to be better now. I believe it.”

 

“I think so too,” Brett replied.

 

“Yeah, sometimes the hardest part is just getting the words out. Just like… Like…”

 

“Like what?”

 

“Like… I don’t know if I should ask it.”

 

“Whatever it is, just ask me,” Brett replied.

 

“Okay,” I said. “Like… Do you ever wonder if your mom told you the truth about your dad?”

 

“No,” Brett replied firmly.

 

“You don’t?”

 

“No, I don’t wonder, because I know she lied,” Brett replied.

 

“You do?” I asked.

 

“Yeah. She thinks she’s protecting me by letting me believe a happy little lie. And I let her think that. But I know she’s not telling me the truth.”

 

“How?”

 

“Dude, I knew she was lying even as the words were coming out of her mouth. I can always tell when someone is lying to me.”

 

“Do you ever think about who your real dad is?”

 

“Sometimes. It’d be nice to know if I have a brother or sister out there. I’d kind of like to have a brother. But that’s about it. At this point in my life, I just don’t give a fuck who he is. As far as I’m concerned, my real dad is in that grave right there. I don’t care who the sperm donor was. Fuck him.”

 

“You don’t care who it is?” I asked.

 

“Why? You have any ideas?”

 

“Nah,” I replied. “I was just wondering. I didn’t think your mom was telling the truth either.” I stood back up and kissed Brett gently. “Your mom home?”

 

“Probably not,” Brett replied.

 

“Cool. Let’s go to your place and fuck like a couple of horny teenagers.”

 

“Sounds good to me,” Brett replied.