151 Days (38 page)

I nodded and tried to keep breathing.

Two more people poked their heads in, looking around to see what an alliance meeting was all about, no doubt. “In or out,” Axeworthy chided them. “This isn’t a staring zoo.”

I didn’t recognize the two guys. They were obviously freshman by their age, and it was the first time I looked at someone who went to this school and thought of referring to them as kids. They looked at each other, silently questioning if they wanted to enter. After about thirty seconds of silence, one of them nodded, and they both walked in and sat down. I tried not to stare in amazement at their presence.

Andy, Jeff, and Mike walked in, their binders of
Magic: The Gathering
cards in hand. They waved at me, which made me smile as they sat down too. Andy looked over at me and whispered, “If things get weird, we can pull out our foil cards again.”

That made me laugh for the first time in forever.

We waited another couple of minutes, and then Mrs. Axeworthy closed the door.

Every one turned toward me and waited for me to say something.

I took a deep breath and began reciting the speech I had memorized.

“Welcome to the first meeting of the gay-straight alliance for Foster High. I’m Kyle, and I am gay.” A couple of people smiled as I nodded to them. “This is a safe room. Nothing that is said inside of it leaves. It is the first and only rule of this club—what is said in here stays in here.”

Mike said quietly, “The first rule of gay club is there is no gay club.”

Everyone laughed nervously, which broke the tension.

“This is a place for everyone, not just gay people. It is a place of welcoming, and no matter who you are, you’re always welcome here.”

Which is when the door opened, and Sammy stood there.

I smiled, and I nodded for her to walk in.

“No one is turned away,” I continued as she took a few steps into the room…

…and Jeremy walked in behind her.

Something in my mind snapped. “Get the fuck out,” I snarled. I couldn’t ever remember feeling the rage I felt at that moment. Both of them froze as I glared at Jeremy. “Don’t stop. Turn around, and get out.” I did my best to keep my voice level, but the anger had begun to seep underneath the words and escape into the library.

My raw rage crashed across the distance between me and the door. Between me and Jeremy. His jaw dropped open, and he took a slow step backward.

“Kyle!” Sammy interjected. “He’s sorry and wants to….”

“Sorry?” I roared striding around the table toward them. To Jeremy, I snarled, “You’re
sorry
? Oh well, then that makes it better, doesn’t it?” Sammy looked like she was thinking of stepping between us for a second, but when she saw how pissed I was, she backed away. “It doesn’t matter what you did as long as you say ‘sorry’ at the end. Is that how it works?”

Jeremy’s mouth opened a few times, and he looked like a fish trying to breathe on land. “I-I just wanted….”

“I don’t care what you wanted, you dick!” I could hear people moving behind me, but I ignored them. “You didn’t care what he wanted, right? So why should anyone give a flying fuck what you want?”

His face went white as he realized what I was talking about.

“Kyle,” Mrs. Axeworthy asked quietly from somewhere just behind me. “Kyle, what’s going on?”

“Jeremy was leaving,” I said, not breaking eye contact with him.

“I thought anyone could be here,” Sammy argued. “Wasn’t that what you were just saying?”

I looked over at her in complete shock. “Really? You want him to stay?” Before she could answer, I looked back to Jeremy. “Sure he can stay. He can stay as long as he wants. As soon as he tells everyone what he did.” I heard both Jennifer and Sammy gasp. “So go for it, Jeremy. Share with the rest of the class, and you can have a seat anywhere you want.”

“Please don’t do this,” he pleaded.

“Leave, or I will tell them what you did.” My voice sounded severe even to me.

I tried not to imagine a dog that had been kicked as he turned around and walked out the door. I forced myself not to care about his feelings as he marched out of the room looking like he had a gun to his head. As soon as the door closed, I glared at Sammy. “Why in the world would you bring him here?”

Now it was her turn to sound outraged. “I tried asking you. I’ve been trying for weeks now, but you’ve been so busy being an asshole because
you
broke up with your boyfriend, you haven’t had time. He’s hurting, Kyle. He’s talking about killing himself, he’s so torn up about all this. He needs a place like this. He needs friends.”

“Then maybe he shouldn’t go around bullying people into killing themselves,” I shot back.

No one breathed. I teetered on the edge of a razor blade, seeing myself from the outside. Every muscle in my body knotted in order to keep me in one place.

“Okay.” Mrs. Axeworthy spoke into the silence. “I think we’re done for this week. I want to thank everyone for coming. Obviously this is a work in progress and we….”

“So he doesn’t deserve help? Because of what he did, he is forced to wander through life without friends, period?” Sammy asked me, both of us ignoring the adult in the room. “Because he was a dick once he never gets forgiven?”

“Something like that,” I spat back.

“You sound exactly like Robbie,” Jennifer said behind me. I felt a chill go up my spine as I turned around to confront her. “So Jeremy isn’t gay enough to help?” she asked me. “He doesn’t pass your test, so you just hope he kills himself?
Really
? I thought you were different.”

I wanted to tell her that was not what I had been saying, except that was exactly what I had been saying.

And I didn’t care.

“We’re done,” Mrs. Axeworthy said in her best authoritative voice. “Everyone except Kyle, please leave. We will meet again same time next week. Thank you for coming.” She made it clear the topic was closed, and they were all leaving.

One by one they got up and began filing out of the room. The library crew wouldn’t even meet my eyes, and I heard the new guys I didn’t know say to each other, “I had no idea it was going to be that exciting. We are so coming back next week.”

At least someone enjoyed themselves.

Sammy looked at me like I was a monster. “I know you’re upset because of Brad,” she started, voice shaking, “but what you just did, the Kyle I know would have never done. Because if he could have, I never would have become friends with him.”

I looked over at Jennifer. Face unreadable, she shrugged and said, “We’ll talk later.”

Silently, both Jennifer and Sammy left the library without a look back.

Which left me and Mrs. Axeworthy alone.

She went and sat down at the desk, a look of extreme disappointment on her face. “When you came to me about this, Kyle, I really thought you wanted to make a difference here. I honestly believed that your intentions were good.” I began to protest, but she kept talking, “However, if you formed this alliance just so you could be in charge and dictate who is and who isn’t worthy of membership, then you are sadly mistaken.” She picked up some papers off the desk and began to look them over. “We’ll try this again next week,” she said, not looking at me. “If the Kyle I just saw intends on showing up again”—she looked up at me—“don’t bother coming.”

I moved to start putting the chairs away, and she said, “I’ll get someone to do that,” dismissing me completely.

I grabbed my backpack and stormed out of the room. I’d always thought that “a haze of red” was just an expression. It’s not. It’s real. And it had dropped over the entire world. I started to head to my next class, because following routine had always been a good thing for me. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I said, “Fuck it” and walked off campus. I charged home, muttering to myself like a crazy person the entire time. I felt equal parts betrayed and confused. How could Sammy do that? She
knew
what Jeremy did to Kelly. She knows what he was responsible for. Did she really just expect me to forgive and forget?

I opened the door to the apartment and froze when I saw Tyler and his boyfriend sitting on the couch.

My mom turned around in the chair and looked at me, confused. “What are you doing home?”

I closed the door and made straight for my room.

“Kyle!” my mom called after me. “You aren’t even going to say hello?”

I was almost to my room when I heard the boyfriend mutter, “Told you this was a bad idea.”

Dropping my backpack, I turned around and looked at him. “What was a bad idea?” I asked furiously. “Coming here or threatening to hit a teenager in the face?”

The looks of confusion on both my mom’s and Tyler’s faces told me the boyfriend hadn’t shared our conversation. Tyler looked at me, and then asked his boyfriend. “Did you say you were going to hit him?”

“Actually he said he wondered if popping me in the mouth was worth a couple of nights in jail, to be accurate.” I wished I had remembered this guy’s name, because it was pretty obvious he wanted to beat the shit out of me at some point.

“You said that to my son?” my mom asked him point-blank. I tried not to smile as I saw him squirm.

“When someone barges in with only one thing on his mind, and that would be making Tyler feel like shit for something that happened years ago, I don’t care much how old they are. An attack is an attack, and if the kid can’t learn to watch his mouth now, then I assure you
someone
is going to come along and teach him that lesson.”

“Matt,” Tyler said, obviously trying to control his voice, “you can’t go around threatening to hit kids. You know that.”

Matt stared coldly at me. “Tell me you had a reason other than making him feel like shit when you walked in there.”

If he thought I was going to wilt away at the question, he was dead wrong. “He watched a man die,” I spat back. “He should feel like shit.”

Matt surged to his feet; he had obviously had enough. Tyler stood also and stopped him from coming at me. My mom just looked at me with a confused look on her face. “Why in the world would you talk to Tyler like that?”

“You don’t know what he did,” I responded, trying my best not to whine. “You don’t know—”

“I know exactly what happened,” she said quietly, cutting me off. “And I am willing to bet you don’t.” My mouth fell open as I wondered how she could forgive him for such a thing. “I honestly thought you were a better person than this, Kyle.”

“Better than what?” I could not believe I was suddenly the bad guy.

“Better than to torture someone with something they did in the past. Wasn’t that the whole lesson you were trying to teach with Kelly?”

My words sputtered out in amazement. “You’re chastising me?” I pointed at Tyler. “After what he did, you are going to look at me and say I did wrong?”

The look of disappointment on her face was devastating. “Just go to your room.” When I didn’t instantly move, she snapped, “Go to your fucking room. I don’t think I can look at you right now.”

I wanted to fight some more, but it was obvious Tyler, Matt, and my mom were against me. All I was doing was making things worse for myself. Without saying a word, I bolted into my room and slammed the door. I grabbed my pillow and screamed into it until there was so little oxygen to breathe that my world grew fuzzy. When had everyone turned against me? Exactly when did life stop making sense?

No answers seemed to be forthcoming, so I just passed out.

You know how they say hindsight is 20/20? Which means looking back, it’s easy to see what you missed the first time around. There I was with a gun at my head, and suddenly I could see it perfectly clearly. I was a complete asshole. I mean, it was easy to say with some time and the threat of my life ending and all, but I just couldn’t see it when it was actually happening. I really thought I was right and everyone else was wrong.

Which, by the way, should be a warning sign for everyone out there. If
everyone
you know is telling you the same thing, you are either wrong or everyone else has been taken over by aliens, which means you’re screwed anyways. There are no aliens in this story, so that means I was dead wrong.

Sorry, the dead part was unintentional.

It should come as no surprise to anyone to find out that the next day at school, instead of calmly talking to Sammy and telling her what I felt she had done wrong, I came at her that morning like a raging bitch.

“What the hell were you thinking?” I asked her as she sat on the music room steps.

She looked up at me with utter shock and disdain on her face and just glared at me for a few seconds. “Really? You still don’t see how much of a dick you’re being?”

“You brought Jeremy! Why are you even talking to him?”

She stood up, her anger growing. “Oh, are you going to tell me who I can and can’t be friends with now? His dad called me and told me Jeremy was miserable trying to find a way to make up for what he did. He is losing his mind over Kelly.”

“
Good
!” I shouted back at her. “He should spend the rest of his life stark raving mad for what he did. He can never make it right!”

“So he shouldn’t try?” Jennifer asked from behind me.

I hadn’t heard her approach and was startled to find myself suddenly surrounded. “Let him try somewhere else.”

“Where?” Sammy asked. “The alliance is a fucking gay-straight club, Kyle. It’s the very place he
should
be talking about it, and you know it.”

I did not know it. In fact, I thought the exact opposite at the time. “He isn’t walking into that club as long as I am there.” It was an ultimatum, and both of them knew it.

Sammy grabbed her purse. “I never thought I’d say this, but I miss Brad being around. He was much better at dealing with your insanity.”

“I’m serious,” I called after her as she walked away. “Tell him to stay away.”

She turned around and shouted back, “I don’t think you have to worry about
anyone
showing up, you asshole.” To accent her words, she flipped me off.

I glanced over at Jennifer with a look that asked her if she believed her attitude.