Beyond The Ideal (Chapter 6)

The next day, I woke up feeling nervous and queasy. It’s easy to feel brave when you’re surrounded by your friends, but it’s a whole different story when you’re by yourself. I didn’t know how people would react at school, but it seemed worse and worse in my head. I had no idea how I’d be treated if the rumors got around from Anthony. I mean yeah there were one or two kids who were pretty openly gay at school, but they weren’t really like me; one of them was on the cheerleading team, and the other hung out with the ‘goth’ kids.

I rushed through getting dressed, almost walked out with my shirt on backwards, and even put my shoes on the wrong feet for a few seconds. I took enough time to eat a yogurt so my stomach would stop feeling empty, and then ran outside to meet Eric.

Getting to school was uneventful, and there weren’t any crowds of people pointing at me, or anything like that. Just forcing myself to get to school was really the hardest part of the day for me. Now, I know that makes it sound like nothing happened, but that’s not the case.

I went to my first class, which was Biology this day. That’s when I started to see it; the girls in front of me kept whispering to each other, and then looking back at me for a second and giggling. I tried to ignore it, but I noticed a couple of others doing the same. I got a pass from the teacher to go to the bathroom so I could escape the class for five minutes. I decided I did want to go though, so I walked into the bathroom and went to one of the urinals. I heard the door open and someone walk in behind me. I heard him approach the other urinal next to me (there’s only two), and then he saw me; he muttered “Oh,” and went to a stall instead. This bothered me a lot more than a bunch of dumb girls gossiping about me. I didn’t like to think that people would change the way they acted around me, just because I was into guys. It was pretty depressing, and when I got back to class I just laid my head down and waited for the bell to ring.

After that it was two more classes, and exactly the same thing. When people asked me if it was true, I ignored them and walked away. In short, I was disgusted by how easily people will believe something. It wasn’t just the rumor that I was gay though; it was the story of how I apparently came on to some jock.

When I saw Eric in English, he looked worried. He kept looking at the clock, then me, then the door, and then the clock all over again. He tried rushing me out of class when the ball rang, but I had to see the teacher about any assignments I missed Monday, so he had to wait. Then, he tried to get me to leave school for lunch, which we never do. I kept thinking that maybe he was ashamed of the looks he was getting for being with me. I told him that I wanted to do everything the same as usual, and started walking up the hall to the cafeteria without him.

Out of nowhere, someone grabbed my shoulder and tried forcing me into an empty classroom. I heard laughing from inside, and I had an idea of who could have set this up. I turned and shoved the guy behind me into the wall, but another hand grabbed me from inside the room. Soon, there were three of them, football players if my memory was right, and I couldn’t fight them off. I heard a yell, and then Eric tackled two of the guys off of me and onto the floor. I took advantage, and kicked backwards where I thought the third guy’s crotch was. From the way he just quietly hit the floor I think I was right.

When I turned, the other two were both gone. Eric was sitting on the floor against the wall, holding his head in his hands. “I didn’t want to tell you what they were planning, I thought I could keep you away from them,” he said, not looking up. I walked over and sat next to him, putting my arm around his shoulders. “I understand,” I said, “but I can’t hide from these people forever.” We sat there like that for most of the lunch hour. People pointed and whispered to each other, but we both refused to move anyways.

When he left for class though, I felt the hopelessness of the situation crashing down on me. Eric couldn’t keep watch over me forever, and while I wasn’t by any means a weakling, I wasn’t able to hold off many people at once. It was just a depressing realization. My next class was down the hall, but I couldn’t bring myself to walk back into that cruel environment again, to hear them all enjoying themselves at another’s expense.

I walked into the bathroom again, and splashed some water on my face, trying to calm down. I figured I’d actually use the bathroom before I went to class, and again I heard someone walk in behind me. I was waiting for a comment, an attack, anything. I was expecting the guy to go in the stall like the one from the morning, so I was surprised when he went up next to me and used the other urinal.

“Heard you’re having a hard day,” he said. I looked and recognized him right away. His name was Derek, and he was the guy in my gym class I had kind of had a crush on.

“You could say that,” I answered, moving to wash my hands at the sink. He finished and joined me at the sink. I was about to leave when he called my name.

“You know they’re gonna do something in gym class right?” My heart sank a little more at that, even though I should have figured it out.

“Not too much I can do about that though, is there?”

He looked at me for a second, like he was thinking, and said “Wanna just skip it for today? We could just go catch a cheap movie instead or something if you want.”

I was surprised, and kind of hopeful, but I’d seen him kissing that girl a few times around school, so I didn’t let myself get my hopes up too much. He was probably just concerned. It didn’t sound like a bad idea though.

“Yeah, let’s get out of here.”


I called Eric’s cell and left a message saying I was skipping and not to worry when I wasn’t at school later. Then, we left for the cinema.

The area was pretty empty, since all the kids were still in school. We went to the arcade first; Derek wanted to play all the racing games, and I wanted to play the shooting ones. It took us about an hour to get tired of that, and we had a lot of fun before we decided to go check out the movies that were playing. We decided on Spiderman 3, so we went and ate at Burger King and then sat down in the theater to wait for the movie. We started talking about irrelevant things to get past the previews, but we ended up talking through the whole movie.

As much as I had kind of had a lust crush on him before, Derek was actually very articulate and insightful. The good traits I recognized only amplified the physical traits I appreciated; his hair was a dark brown, bordering on a reddish color, and his eyes were such a light shade of blue that they seemed transparent sometimes. He was a little shorter than me, but he was better built, and his arms always kind of bulged out of the tight shirts he wore. I had to keep forcing myself to look away sometimes, or I’d lose track of what he was saying.

The most interesting, or maybe the most relevant, part happened a while after the movie, when we were sitting outside in the parking lot hanging out. And it’s not what you’d expect either, not really.

“I saw what those pricks tried on you at lunch time,” he said, looking down at the ground. “You’re not a small, helpless little guy that can’t take care of himself, and you did alright when your big friend stepped in, but he won’t always be around to stick up for you.”

I wasn’t sure what he was leading up to with that. “Yeah, of course I know that, but I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

“I think you should learn how to defend yourself, more efficiently,” he said, looking up at me.

“Are you offering to teach me?” I asked, cracking a smile, a smile that faded away at his answer.

“Yes, I am, what do you say?” he said with a very serious look on his face.

I said nothing for a few seconds, taking in the random change in topic, the very random offer, everything he’d said. Eventually, all I could do was agree, because if I had to admit the truth, he was right.

And that's how I ended up behind an abandoned building, getting ready to have a fistfight with the boy from school I had a crush on. Go figure.