The Year I Stopped Being Invisible - 9. Chapter 9

I'm lying alone with my head on the phone

Thinking of you till it hurts

I know you hurt too, but what else can we do?

Tormented and torn apart

I was lying on my bed with my Walkman on, listening to a cassette tape of Air Supply, tears running down my face and my heart aching like never before.

Thankfully, Rex and Tynah had already gone to bed when I came in through the sliding-glass door to the backyard. I wasn't sure if I would have been capable of answering any questions at that point as to why a second sleepover in a row had ended with one of us leaving while the night was still young.

My mind raced with images and sounds of what had happened at Taine's house two hours before, and it was all jumbled up with what had happened in this very room less than twenty-four hours ago.

It was a lot to take in, and my 15-year old mind and heart weren't quite ready for how...intense it all was.

So I lay on my bed with my eyes closed, trying to process it all, listening to the sad, sweet songs, and letting the feelings just come as they would.

Was it real? Did it really happen? Did he run away from my kiss, only to kiss me back the next night...and then run away from it again?

And why had Taine kissed me tonight? Was that even me he was kissing, or did he just need someone in all of his pain and longing for his late mother, and I had just happened to be there?

I knew my love for him, my devotion to him, my thoughts and dreams of him were real...but what did he feel for me?

Anything?

Did he just ask me to leave because he was afraid that kissing me would mean he was gay, or did he ask me to leave because, in all of his pain over his mother, he realized he had made a terrible mistake?

Was I his mistake?

Always denied the right to live my life the way I want

I want to share it with you

"I want to share it with youuu," I sang along in a hoarse whisper, and that just made me burst into tears again, because I had no reason whatsoever to suspect that such a life was even remotely possible, and I couldn't stand it.

When my tears subsided, I finally faded off to sleep, with the sweet memory of Taine's kiss on my lips and nothing but confusion and longing in my heart.

* * * * *

Thursday was a pretty bad day. Taine didn't sit with me in the morning, wouldn't even return my gaze, and rushed off the bus and into the school building as soon as we got to Polk.

I was afraid that he had scared himself so badly by the intensity of what had happened in his room the night before that he was going to shut down completely, fold into himself as he so often did, but this time the brim of the cap would never come up for me again.

My fears were only compounded in Mrs. Colby's class when the cap didn't rise at all for the entire fifty minute lesson. And then came lunchtime, and when I got to the cafeteria, Taine was nowhere to be seen.

That day it was me who was picking at the food, leaving it mostly untouched at my table and scraping my tray sadly into the trash as the next bell sounded. By the time Drama rolled around, I couldn't even muster any enthusiasm for that as we prepared for the first tournament of the year, which would take place in eight days across town at Chamberlain High School.

I ran listlessly through my Humorous Interpretation cutting, a ten-minute selection from Titanic by Christopher Durang. It was a raucously funny, somewhat racy choice, and when I picked it, I had been sure I could bring the requisite high-camp flavor to each of the three characters in the piece.

But that day, I ran the lines in a flat, subdued manner, raising some eyebrows from Mr. McRory, who had been very impressed with my delivery and character differentiation when I had first performed it for him two days before.

"What's the matter, Rick?" he asked. "It's like you're not even trying."

I mumbled an apology while hiding my face from him and asked to be excused to the restroom. I ran down the hall, clutching my pink hall-pass in my hand, and got to the boys' room just as the tears of despair started to flow again.

I'm all out of love

I'm so lost without you

My hands on the sink, I leaned in toward the large, water stained mirror and looked myself in the face. I looked like a wreck, and I was.

I'm all out of love

What am I without you

I got back to class just as the bell rang, and I was relieved to just be able to slink back out of the class with everyone else before Mr. McRory made me do the piece again.

I didn't see or hear from Taine for the rest of the day, and after going home to feed the birds and eat dinner, I spent that night in the same way I had spent the previous one: laying on my bed and crying to Air Supply.

I wish I could carry your smile in my heart

For times when my life seems so low

I tried to think optimistically. I really did.

Maybe Taine just needed some time to process what had happened, just as I obviously did. Maybe tomorrow, things would be normal between us again.

I didn't even dare to think that maybe there might be some progress in our relationship. I would just be happy to return to the status quo, but I had the sinking, awful feeling that things would never be the same between us again.

I heard Foxy whining at my bedroom door, so I got up to let him in. He frisked in happily, tail wagging a mile a minute, beside himself with joy to see me, even in my sullen despair.

Closing the door again, I went back to bed. Foxy jumped in behind me, and I let him lick the tears from my face and cuddled with him -- my loyal, loving doggy -- until morning.

* * * * *

Friday's school day passed much as Thursday's had, with me being sullen and Taine avoiding me.

The only noteworthy thing that happened was when Kathy Witcher came into my Drama class to hand in her tournament entry form for the Chamberlain meet. This was her senior year, and she would surely add to the impressive amounts of hardware which she had already earned for the team trophy table.

Besides that, this would be her last chance to do well at the Texas Forensic Association State Tournament in March and qualify for Nationals. To do that, she was hoping to qualify for State in as many events as possible. That's why she was entering a whopping five events at Chamberlain: Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Original Oratory, Dramatic Interpretation, Girls' Extemporaneous Speaking, and Student Congress.

As she handed Mr. McRory her form, Kathy's eyes caught mine and she came over to my desk.

"Are you still coming out with us tonight, little one?" she asked with a faint, seductive smile playing on her lips.

Depressed as I was, I decided that I had to do something to get my mind off of Taine, so I nodded.

"Good!" Kathy exclaimed. "Be ready at eight."

With that, she hurried away. My fourth period was her lunch period, and seniors at Polk could go off-campus for lunch. I imagined that she was off to Bill Miller's Barbecue across the street, where many of the seniors spent their lunch hours. I wished I could go to Bill Miller's for lunch. I had grown very addicted to their pulled-pork sandwiches and gigantic cups of sweetened iced tea.

Meanwhile, the school cafeteria's offering that day -- only picked at by me -- had been a square, slightly cardboard-tasting "pizza" covered with an oily white cheese like substance and disturbingly dry nuggets of what I assumed was the leftover ground beef from the previous day's Sloppy Joes.

Blah.

Anyway, I somehow managed to put some effort into my performance into Titanic that day, drawing some appreciative laughs from my classmates and Mr. McRory, who only gave me a few minor notes about my character transitions but complimented me on my work.

Ms. Ogretz was flirting with Mr. Arispe when I went into my Biology class that afternoon, and I wondered if her date with Sly had been mentioned between them. It was too much to consider, so I just spent the rest of the day thinking about Taine.

* * * * *

Back in black

I hit the sack

It's been too long

I'm glad to be back

We were tooling down the highway in Kathy Witcher's car, blasting AC/DC on the cassette deck and feeling young, free and alive.

I sat in the backseat with Mark Urrutia, a good-looking Hispanic junior with an amazing smile and a mouth full of shiny silver braces. Kathy was driving, and in the passenger seat was Jeff Salzburg, a sophomore with a perfectly chiseled face, piercing blue eyes and jet-black hair.

I didn't know Mark, but I had talked with Jeff once or twice in Drama class. Jeff was pretty open about his homosexuality, and I knew that he and Kathy often frequented the Saturday midnight showings of the cult erotic musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the local theater. I had never seen the film, but what I had heard of the music struck me as tantalizing, sexy and forbidden.

Then again, the AC/DC tape we were listening to struck me much the same way. KISS was about the hardest music I had previously been exposed to, but these Australian head bangers sounded new and different and wild to me, adding to my euphoria about the speed of Kathy's driving, the older kids in the car, and the night air buffeting my face through the open windows.

I was so excited to be out at night with these upperclassmen, zooming down the road toward unknown adventures, that I actually managed to stop thinking about you-know-who.

Well, at least I only thought of him once every few minutes instead of all the time.

I didn't say much in the car, because I was a freshman and I was already learning that it was best to not speak to upperclassmen unless spoken to. I didn't want to say anything stupid and risk the amazing privilege which I had been granted, but it wasn't like I was too intimidated to have fun. It was exciting, especially when Mark produced a bottle of whiskey.

My only personal experience with alcohol (other than negative observations involving what it did to Rex's temper) had been an aversion experiment by my biological mother back in South Carolina when I was around ten years old. She gave me about two fingers of vodka in a coffee cup and told me to drink up, obviously foreseeing my look of revulsion, followed by my spitting it out into the sink, vomiting, and rinsing my mouth out about a zillion times.

I had been in no hurry to taste alcohol again, so I guess her experiment was a success in keeping me sober for the next five years. But this night was different. I felt like I was with "adults," doing adult things, so I wanted to prove myself.

I accepted the bottle from a grinning Mark, his braces catching the lights from the Walden Road strip as we drove along, and took a good-sized shot into my mouth. I grimaced, swallowed, and forced myself to hold down the burning liquid. To my surprise, this tasted a lot better to me than the vodka had, and the burn was actually a good one, spreading warmth through my body. Now, I was a man!

I started laughing crazily, and Mark joined in, squeezing my leg encouragingly through my tight Sergio Valente jeans. Kathy pulled the car behind the local elementary school, where -- to my surprise and delight -- there was already quite a party going on. Six other cars were parked behind the school, and I recognized most of the other Drama upperclassmen milling about, drinking and smoking and talking.

Kathy grinned and got a joint out of a black enamel cigarette case in her glove compartment and handed it to Jeff. He lit it, inhaled and held the smoke in, suppressing a cough.

I watched his technique carefully, as I had never done that before either and didn't want to look like a jackass rube when my turn came. Mark took a swig from the whiskey bottle and passed it back to me. I now felt confident about this drinking thing, so I took another big swallow and smiled. Mark smiled back, the security lights from the school dancing in his rich, chocolatey brown eyes.

I got nine lives

Cat's eyes

Usin' every one of them and running wild

Jeff passed the joint back to Mark, who cast me a sly, sidelong glance which I couldn't quite read. Then he took a long, sucking drag off the joint and held it in without coughing. Jeff and Kathy were sharing the bottle, and I caught Kathy watching me in the rearview mirror.

"Breathe out, little one," she said. "Let all your breath out."

I did as instructed, and Mark took my head in his hands, pressing his lips to mine. Startled, I opened my mouth, and Mark began blowing pot smoke into my mouth, hard enough that I didn't even have to inhale. The smoke filled my lungs. It felt hot and thick, but Mark's hands felt good on my face, and his lips felt warm and soft.

"Now hold it in," said Mark gently as he released our lip lock. His eyelids had grown heavy, and he had a goofy, sexy smile on his face. I was really not sure if I wasn't over my head as Jeff took a swig of whiskey and I felt the first spread of a warm fuzziness which I assumed was from the pot.

"That's called a shotgun," Jeff said, wiping the bottle and handing it back to me. "You like it?"

I slowly released the smoke, took a swig of the whiskey, and began to answer.

"Yeah, it's pretty coo..."

I was cut off by Mark's mouth on mine, his tongue probing my own as it forced its way past my startled gasp. His kiss was hard and clumsy and wet, and both his stubble and the press of his braces hurt my sensitive lips, but my cock still responded to the new and ruthless sensation.

I felt Mark's hand moving up the inside of my pants leg as the bottle was taken from my hands. Mark pushed me back against the door and then he was climbing on me, the intensity of his kiss increasing as his hand closed on my balls, rubbing its way up my hardening penis through the thin denim of my jeans.

I dimly registered Jeff and Kathy making out in the front seat, or maybe they were shotgunning. I don't know, because the pot and the whiskey had seriously affected me by that point, and I was both distressed and aroused by the fervor of Mark's kissing and rubbing. He had his arms around me now, his obviously hard erection insistently grinding against my own as his hot pink mouth-muscle explored my lips, teeth and tongue.

Suddenly, he stopped, and he got out of the car. Kathy did too, and came around to Mark's side, climbing into the backseat next to me.

Kathy's eyes blazed with obvious desire as she looked at the stiffened bulge in my jeans.

"That looks promising," she smiled.

Her gaze traveled up to meet my own, and she slowly unzipped her tight black blouse. Jeff and Mark had left the car, moving into the group of Drama kids sitting and smoking by the bike racks in back of the school. I watched, unable to speak, or even to breathe, really, as Kathy took off the blouse, then undid the front hook of her lacy black brassiere.

"Come to me, little one," she whispered, as her large, creamy breasts fell free of the bra and she moved carefully to lay on top of me.