InstegerMale.sixteen.com

Sixteen.

Needless to say, I quit basketball, I quit working out, I quick looking at Woodcock, Ell, Stevenson, and Cardle as humans. They weren’t. I wouldn’t look at them at all, and they didn’t look at me. They left me alone for the most part, probably just waiting for wounds to heal some before creating more. I wonder if they know those wounds will never heal. They’re open scars. I’d never forget what those boys did to me that day. I’d never forget the feel of blood running down my naked, shaky legs.

Mell and Mikey worried about me. They could tell something was different in me. Something was way wrong. It wasn’t just them who noticed, it was everyone. I didn’t feel like doing anything. I never felt like moving, getting up and walking to the next class, sharpening my pencil, simple things like that. It took so much effort just to make myself eat, but I knew I had to. I love Mikey, Mell, and James too much to leave them behind. Though, I thought about breaking it off with Mikey; telling him I really wasn’t gay. It was all just a rouge to hurt him, but I couldn’t stand the thought of it.

Maybe this whole thing was just a rouge, a dream, a nightmare, a trickery my mind decided to play on me as I dozed off in Civics class. I pinched myself and cried out in the middle of Literature. We were reading silently and my little outburst got everyone’s attention.

“Is there a problem?” Mr. Carlson asked.

“No, sir,” I answered.

“You okay?” Mell whispered to me.

I silently nodded and looked at my arm where I pinched myself. There were deep indentions where my nails sank into my skin and, slowly, a small amount of blood began to form along those lines. How long had I been pinching myself?

I looked down at the white paper with rows of words, of sentences, of meanings and phrases, strung together to create a story. We were studying Poe. My, how he lived a troubled life. I guess it could’ve been worse. Everyone I ever knew or loved could’ve died of tuberculosis, not to mention the whole marrying his cousin thing. That was his first mistake. Who was I to talk? I was gay. Then I wondered, which would be more likely to secure you a place in Hell; incest or homosexuality?

Red dots began to drip on the paper as I thought. I looked at the thick, warm liquid curiously. What was this? Then I knew. I felt a line of snot run down from my nose, rest on my upper lip for just a second before sky diving to the landing pad of the paper; only, it wasn’t snot. It was blood.

I slowly, calmly, and quietly, so as not to disturb any of the other readers, excused myself from my seat and followed my legs to Mr. Carlson’s desk. Mell looked at me questioningly.

“Go see the nurse and get yourself cleaned up,” Mr. Carlson said, handing me tissues, before I even said anything.

I turned and left, leaving the tissues on his desk. As I walked down the halls I allowed the blood to run freely from my nose and dribble onto my shirt, often missing the shirt and dripping on the floor. I had never felt like that before. It was a feeling of absolute freedom, of simply not caring. Sure, there were things I still cared about—Mell, Mikey, Melly and James’ baby—but nothing I cared about at that precise moment. A comet could be heading for Earth, and I wouldn’t care.

I didn’t know if I was in some kind of post-pone shock, or post trauma stress, or something, but it wasn’t all bad. My head was spinning, of course, that could’ve been blood loss; my nose was still bleeding profusely. I wondered if that’s what it felt like to be high or maybe drunk.

I walked into the nurse’s office and she immediately stopped talking with Coach Weebly and turned all of her attention to me, seeing me covered in blood. She and Coach Weebly had been courting for a little while, now—so everyone speculated.

“Nose bleed,” I told her, nonchalantly.

“Oh my, that’s quite a nose bleed,” she commented and got up to get some tissues. More tissues for my nose. Maybe that was the problem with the world; people seemed to use tissue for everything. “What’d you do?”

“Nothing, just started bleeding in Mr. Carlson’s class.”

She returned to me with a warm, wet wash cloth and tissues. She instructed me to insert the tissues to soak up any more blood, and then proceeded to wipe the blood off my face with the cloth. The warmth felt nice on my face.

“How long has it been bleeding?” she questioned.

“I don’t know. Two, three minutes.”

“Would you like to lie down? You look kind of pale. That’s one heck of a nose bleed.”

“Sure,” I answered. I didn’t feel like walking back to class anyway.

She led me to a small cot in a back room and helped me to lie down before returning to her main office. In a moment, Weebly came in the room to talk to me. He sat in a chair across the room. If there was an overpriced office desk and I didn’t have cotton tissues shoved up my nose, I would’ve felt like I was in a shrink’s office. Then he spoke.

“I haven’t seen you in the weight room the past couple of days, and I’ve heard you quit the basketball team,” he asked, genuinely concerned.

“Yeah, well, I’m a kid, change my mind a lot,” I answered. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but it was what I wanted to tell.

“Is that really the reason?”

“I know, I know, it’s not what you want to hear. You want to hear that I’m miserable, that I was playing basketball to please my father, that I get picked on by the other guys because I’m small and pathetic, and I couldn’t take their shit anymore, right? I’m sorry, but that’s not the case this time. I simply decided I don’t like basketball anymore.”

“It’s okay to talk to me. Everything you say is completely confidential, you understand that, right? You don’t really seem to be yourself these past couple of days. Normally, kids come in with nosebleeds, they have tissues shoved up to their brains, wiping blood from their faces, and cursing when it gets on their clothing, but you, you just came in like there was nothing going on at all. You let it flow anywhere it liked.”

“I don’t have to take this.” I began to sit up to leave, but a sudden head rush stopped me and caused me to put my head back down. I held onto it until it quit spinning.

“Don’t think I don’t hear what kids say to you or do you. I know a lot more than anyone thinks. It’s my job as a counselor. I have to know things in order to survive.”

I was silent. I didn’t want to talk to him. I liked Coach Weebly, he was a good guy, but I wasn’t about to go off telling him all about my problems.

“Why did you quit basketball?” he asked, again.

“Completely confidential, right?” I asked.

“Absolutely. You have my word.”

“Okay, mind if I ask you a question?”

“As long as it’s appropriate, I’ll answer.”

“Have you ever had to pretend like you’re someone you’re not? People, every single one of them know what you are, but they won’t say. Only the ones who don’t know for sure say it, trying to make you say it. Have you ever said it?”

“I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking.”

“What I’m trying to get at is, who are you?”

“I’m Andrew Weebly. I coach girls’ softball at Ellisville High School. I am also the main counselor at EHS,” he answered confidently.

“No,” I answered. I wasn’t satisfied with that. “Who are you, behind all of that, behind these school walls? What are your secrets, your fears? Who do you love more, mom or dad? Did you cry when your last pet died? What did you want to be when you were a kid? Do you have a wife or kids? Are you and Nurse Betty dating? Who is Andrew?” I began. If I got the focus on him, he’d forget about me. I felt empowered somehow. I couldn’t overpower anyone with strength, but I knew how to turn the tables when it came to wits.

“You promise you can keep this a secret. It’s rather inappropriate to be discussing with a student, and I don’t want the school board to find out I was discussing this with a student and fire me. But if it can possibly help you, I’m willing to risk it.”

“Of course,” I nodded in agreement.

“I do not have a wife and kids and I’m not dating Nurse Betty. I’m gay. That’s who Andrew is. He’s a thirty year-old gay man afraid of his own shadow. I hear what kids say to you, especially Pete Woodcock, but it doesn’t have to be that way. I want you to know, I am in no way implying you are gay, but I want you to know it doesn’t have to be so hard, whether you are or you aren’t. I know exactly what you’re going through.”

There it was. Coach Weebly spilled his guts and was now Andy. Andy was a good guy trying to help a student in dire need of his help.

“If I may ask, are you gay? I understand that’s a highly inappropriate question and if you don’t feel comfortable answering, I won’t be offended.”

I thought for a moment. The only person who knew was Mikey. I still hadn’t even told Melly.

“There is only one person who knows the answer to that, Andy. Do you know who that is?”

“Yourself, of course,” he was so sure of himself I had to laugh.

“No, I still don’t even know. No, Andy, the only person who knows is my boyfriend, Mikey.”

I caught him by surprise and he was forced to laugh a little at the answer. It was definitely not what he expected.