Carter's Shadow - 13. Chapter 13

"How was school today?" his mom asked, as West took the vegetable knife from her to finish chopping the carrots while she went to go check on the chicken.

"Odd," West admitted truthfully.

"Oh?" She looked across the kitchen at him.

He shrugged; he always felt close to his folks, they shared everything with him and he tried to do the same with them. However there were a few things that he still felt awkward talking about.

"What is it?" she asked, getting a puzzled smile on her face, closing the door to the oven and coming back across to him. "Did something happen at school today?"

"A couple of things," West replied. "Actually, it's been... a very strange week."

"Everything okay?" she asked him as she set to work to make some pasta to go on the side of the meal.

"Yes..." he stopped and shrugged. "Actually, I don't know."

"Oh?" She set a pot onto the stove and turned up the heat.

He set his knife down and turned to look at her, "Well, it started out with Matt hitting on me the other night."

His mother gave him a puzzled look, "Matthew, little Matthew?"

"Yeah, he..." West shifted uncomfortably, "got very excited at his place the other night." West felt his own cheeks redden, he couldn't believe that the only people he could talk about this stuff to were his parents--how screwed up was that?

"Did you two...?" his mother asked carefully.

"No!" West replied quickly. "I mean, well, he wanted to but I thought he was just messing with me, and then he..."

"And then he?" his mother looked at her son quizzically.

"...got very excited." West finished again.

"How excited?" his mother inquired suspiciously.

"He... well he... you remember Uncle Roger's dog?"

"Yes," his mother laughed, "I thought that thing would never leave your father's leg alone... oh!" She looked at West again, trying to stop her laughing.

West turned red again. "It wasn't that funny...." he muttered petulantly.

"Don't... mind... me," she gasped, trying to stop her bouts of laughter, "I am just picturing little Matt... doing that..."

"Please don't!" West insisted.

"What's so funny?" his dad asked as he tramped in from the farm, looking at his wife holding onto the kitchen table as she roared with laughter, and his very embarrassed son.

"Nothing!" West insisted firmly.

His mother composed herself, still fighting the occasional giggle, "His friend Matt...got a little excited."

"It's nothing!" West stated again.

"Excited how-?" his father asked cautiously, as his mother leaned in to explain it to her husband. Pretty soon both members of the older generation were roaring with laughter at their son's expense.

West crossed his arms, "You know, you two are supposed to be supportive."

"I know a good vet you could take him to," his father chuckled.

"Funny, dad," West replied crossly. "But seriously, I'm not sure what to do about it. I like him as a friend but I don't want to sleep with him, that'd be just wrong..."

"Horny teenage boys," his mother shook her head. "Some days I am glad I was born a girl."

"Yes," his father admitted, "so am I. But right now you're the one with the most experience with fending off boys."

"True," she replied. "I often found that horny boys backed off when I introduced them to my big hick boyfriend..."

"Now that's going to do me a lot of good," West replied. "Where am I going to find a big hick boyfriend?" He shook his head as he went back to finish chopping, "Though that is the other thing... I have a date."

"With the leg humper?" His dad's eyebrows shot up.

"No," West shook his head, adding water to the pot of vegetables and putting it on the stove, "with Blake."

"Who's Blake?" His mother had a decidedly inquisitive look on her face, and West knew instinctively he was in for the third degree now. So far he had managed to avoid the whole dating thing, quite content to wait till college to begin and thus avoid the whole parental inquisition on the subject. So much for that plan.

"Blake's a guy from school, the guy I'm working on my English paper with." He shrugged.

"Well, what's he like?" His mother came and leaned on the counter curiously.

"He's handsome, a bit younger than me, but he has the whole tall dark thing going on..." West sighed, "I don't know that much about him, which is why I want to... well, go out and find out and stuff."

"What night?" his father asked, stuffing his hands into his pockets and becoming suddenly very fatherly.

"Friday night," West replied. "He has to wear something other than black and I'm supposed to wear a tie."

His mother smiled at him, "We have the tie your aunt bought you for Christmas that you only wear for sports banquets."

"And you should take the Bronco for the night," his father said. "I'll run Joey downtown freeing you up to stay out as late as you want..."

"Not too late..." his mother warned.

"Martha," his dad placed a hand on her shoulder, "boy's growing up, there shouldn't be a curfew on a date night."

"That's exactly the reason there should be one," she protested.

He leaned down and whispered in her ear, and first her features softened then she looked over at West and her features hardened again, "I know all about you Harding boys and date nights... I accept no responsibility for this."

His dad threw him a look that said West should go, let him deal with consoling a mother who was coming to grips with the fact that her little boy wasn't so little anymore. He nodded at him and went through to his room--he had homework to get started on.

He was sitting at his desk in his large director's chair poring over his chemistry notes when his MSN trilled for attention, causing him to look up from his books.

Jenny-Lynn: Are you avoiding me?

He blinked at it; leaning forward to reach the keyboard he typed back. No, why would you think that?

There was a pause, and the screen showed she was typing. I just haven't spent any time with you this week. And I was hoping to do my English Essay with you.

We always do our papers together, West replied, I just wanted to do something different this time, that's all. Besides, you heard Greenwood, you'll probably get a better grade working with Mel than you would with me.

What are you doing Friday? She asked.

I'm going out for the night.

Out with the guys again? She was fishing for something, and West frowned. If she wasn't dating Brad he'd think she was trying to ask him out. But she was with Brad, and so couldn't be doing that.

I'm going out. he replied, not liking the feel of the conversation one bit, it made him feel uneasy.

Would you like to come to the club with me? she asked.

I can't, not this week. I have plans, he replied, and I have homework right now. I should get back to it.

I'm sorry...

It's okay, I just have to work. I'll talk to you tomorrow okay?

Okay.

He sat there staring at his screen feeling uneasy. Brad was one of his closest friends, and he trusted him. Add that to the fact that he was gay and really wasn't interested in Jenny-Lynn to begin with.

He sat there staring at the screen wishing he hadn't been so rude; maybe if he just told her he was gay she'd understand and leave him alone. But again the old fears stopped him; if he told her and she told someone else and it got out around school? True he only had a few weeks left at school before the summer. But did he really want those last few weeks to be hell?

He let his head roll back against the headrest of the comfortable chair, torn between what he should do and what he wanted to do. He wished life were easier, that he could walk into school proud of who he was, instead of trying to hide behind who he should be.

"If you do decide to do it," Highmore said in his head again, "it's not going to be easy; but the simple ability to look yourself in the mirror each morning and know who's looking back at you..."

He leaned forward and typed into the MSN, I'm gay. And he hit send.

He felt his heart stop; the dull rhythmic clicking of his clock echoed every heartbeat in his chest as he felt it tighten. His stomach knotted as the full impact of what he had just done hit him with the full force of a Mack truck.

Time seemed to stretch out as he watched for her response; finally the indicator told him she was typing.

You're gay?

He was hyperventilating, his heart racing; he could lie right now, take it back, but then... why? What was the point of hiding any more? It was either tell her the truth and risk hurting himself, or lie to her let her continue to believe he was interested in her and hurt not just himself, but her and Brad along with him.

I'm gay, seriously.

His phone rang, and he stared at it mutely a second, before reaching out a nervous hand to scoop up the receiver, "Hello...?"

"You're gay?" she demanded, sounding incredulous.

"Y-yes," he said finally.

"If you don't want to go out with me why didn't you just say so, instead of making this up?" She sounded pissed.

"Why is it people never believe me when I tell them?" West demanded. "Yes, I'm gay!"

His door cracked open as his mother and father leaned around the door to see what the yelling was about; West looked up at them and swallowed. "I'm gay," he repeated firmly, "it's not a lie."

Jenny-Lynn paused on the line, and West stared fearfully into the eyes of his confused parents; his father had wrapped a protective arm around his mother and was staring at him questioningly.

"You're not lying..." Jenny-Lynn sounded as if she was finally letting realization set in, "you're gay..."

"Queer as a three-dollar bill." West paced the length of his room, he had too much nervous energy to stay sitting, and his parents were there.... It was like a nightmare come true, but what had been his other option?

"Wow," she said quietly, "do your parents know?"

West looked up at them, "They're looking at me right now as if I have just gone nuts, but yeah, they know."

"But you're a hockey player..." She sounded incredulous.

"Yep." He swallowed, "Now you know, I didn't want to hurt you..."

"Wow, you're gay," she said again, repeating it slowly. "Like one-hundred-percent gay, or are you bi?"

He chuckled. "No, totally gay," he reassured.

"Wow, it makes sense now," she said thoughtfully.

"What does?" he asked, again glancing at his parents who were only privy to his side of the conversation and utterly confused as to what he was doing.

"Well, you never asked me out, I thought it was me. Mel just thought you were too shy..." Jenny-Lynn hesitated, "I thought it was just me..."

"No, it was never you," he reassured, sitting on the edge of his bed cradling the phone against his neck as he grabbed a sheet of paper and wrote 'Jenny-Lynn' on it and held it up for his parents to read.

"What are you going to do?" Jenny asked him.

"You know what?" he said, making up his mind. "I don't care; I have a few weeks left of school and I am off to university where who I choose to fall in love with doesn't matter at all. I don't want to hide who I am any more, it's causing hurt to other people, all because I'm lying to everyone around me. And I don't want that." He was staring straight at his parents as he said it, "I have to be me."

"I have to go..." she said after a moment.

"Okay," he replied, "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Thanks," she said, "for telling me..."

"You needed to know," West replied as they hung up the phone.

There was a silence settling over the room, his parents standing there, looking at him worriedly. And him sitting there looking up at them, realizing that he wasn't a little boy anymore, one who was content to deny the world around him. He had to be himself, easy or hard, he couldn't just lie to himself that he was happy.

He looked up at them again, swallowing back a knot of emotion, "I have to. They either accept me for who I am, or they don't. It doesn't matter, I'm the one that has to look at myself every morning and know who's looking back at me."

"You always liked melodrama," his father said with a half-smile, despite his concern. "Well, it's your life son; just know we love you very much, and we just don't want to see you get hurt."

"Yeah, I know," he replied, standing up and replacing the phone in its cradle. "But what was I going to do? The prom's coming up--was I supposed to take a girl and pretend I'm like everyone else? Or go bachelor and try to explain then why I don't have a date?"

"Whoa," his father smirked. "You're not thinking of taking this Blake are you? You haven't been on your first date yet."

West laughed, "No, I just didn't want to go through it then; school's nearly done anyway, and what's the worst they can do to me? I'm just not happy lying to everyone."

"This takes a lot of courage," his father warned.

"I know," West replied, "I got it from you two."

"You should see your father around spiders," his mother remarked breaking her silence. "Squeals like a little schoolgirl. Well I'm worried about this," she met his eyes, "but if you have to do this, then you are going to do it. And you know we're here for you."

"Yeah," West grinned, despite the emotion in the room, "I know that, which makes it easier. It was scary coming out to you guys, I was terrified." He shook his head, "Going to school and telling the truth is easy compared to that."

"Your dinner's nearly ready." his mother said, dabbing her eyes as she pushed past her husband to go into the kitchen.

His father hung back a moment, looking at his son, meeting his eyes and holding them a moment. "You should never have to hide behind a lie," he said firmly. "I'm proud of you for doing this. I don't know if I would have the strength."

"Thanks," West replied, crossing the room to hug his father tightly. He felt the old man squeeze him close and hold him there a moment.

"Just be safe, okay?" his father murmured.

"I will," West reassured.