Chapter 2
Liam lay on his bed, thinking about his first week at his new high school. It wasn’t easy, it seemed, for a shy sixteen-year-old boy to find new friends. He had met another guy in chemistry class whose situation was similar, and they had ended up doing lab work together. The boy was crazy about ice hockey and miniature airplanes. They didn’t seem to share any common interests, and Liam thought they were unlikely to become close friends. Still, it was nice to have someone to work with during class. At least he wasn’t completely alone, which was a good starting point.
The best thing about his new school was the blond jock. There was no denying it. Liam thought about his athletic body and felt slightly aroused. How can somebody be so cute and so unreachable at the same time? He sighed but couldn’t help smiling at the image of his dream boy with his well-defined pecs, not too big but just perfect. That, combined with his narrow waist, would have made Liam guess that he was a swimmer even without the swim team’s t-shirt the boy had worn today.
Liam wasn’t much of a sports fan. In his hometown, he had felt quite different from the other boys, who were always competing with each other in sports. He had realized quickly that this lack of interest was something he shared with Matthew, who loved playing Carcassonne with him in the school library. Matthew had also liked to listen, with admiration, when Liam played the piano. Liam had even tried to teach Matthew how to play; after a couple of weeks, they agreed it wasn’t worth the effort.
Sometimes, Liam watched sports on TV, but it was mostly diving or men’s one-hundred meters—and his motive wasn’t athletic. He enjoyed watching the young male athletes in their revealing uniforms. Liam imagined how the blond jock would look in his tiny speedo, and his imagination quickly produced the smallest speedo in the history of sports. The suit fit perfectly on the blond boy, his swimmer boy.
Just as he started to enjoy this image, jealousy slammed him in the face. The dark-haired girl in the pink sweater, the one who had followed the jock around all week like a puppy trailing its master—she must be his girlfriend. The observation was so depressing that Liam closed his eyes and clenched his fists in anger and disappointment. Obviously, he understood that there were far too many ifs in any scenario in which the jock was gay and in love with Liam. He had been naïve and felt embarrassed.
Liam had been sure that he was the only gay in his old high school. His hopes had been higher when he entered Fairmont. Unfortunately, the corridors at the new school hadn’t been populated by cute guys wearing signs reading, “I am gay. Please be my boyfriend!” Maybe he was being too impatient. After all, he had spent only one week at his new school. And then there was his obsession with the blond swimmer. Since the swimmer boy was obviously not playing on his team, he decided to start focusing on other guys.
It had been three years earlier when Liam fully realized that he was developing a crush on Matthew. They had been playing soccer at school. It was morning, and the teacher had insisted that the sweaty and dirty boys needed to take a shower before their next class. That was when Liam had seen Matthew naked for the first time, and it was a moment he would never forget. He had never told Matthew about his feelings. First, he had been too afraid, and then, Matthew had left.
Matthew hadn’t had a girlfriend, which was common enough for boys their age. Liam hadn’t dated either, not that he would have wanted a girlfriend. The whole concept of being with a girl had been too scary, never mind being intimate with a girl. At first, he couldn’t understand how anybody would feel comfortable doing that. Later, when his schoolmates started to date girls, he had accepted that it was possible but still hadn’t wanted it.
Coming out to his parents was something that Liam had been thinking a lot about ever since Matthew disappeared from his life. He was proud to be gay and felt that it was something that made him strong and unique. Still, he was struggling to tell his parents. He was fairly sure that they wouldn’t kick him out of their home; they were at least that reasonable and open-minded. The reason for not telling them was that he couldn’t bear the idea of disappointing them. He was afraid that they would see him as weak or, even worse, as a failure.
Should I do it now? Liam wondered as he rose to sit on his bed. The thought of coming out felt right but scary, and he wished that he had a fag hag with whom he could talk about his feelings. Too bad that fag hags existed only on television and in romance novels.
He would have called Matthew, but he didn’t know his number. Liam wasn’t sure what Matthew would have said upon hearing the news. They had never talked about gay people, but now it would have felt safer to talk about it because Matthew lived far away. If Matthew’s reaction was negative, Liam could simply hang up the phone.
Mom, I am gay. Liam repeated the line in his mind. He was nervous and had been pacing in front of his window for over half an hour. It’s now or never, Liam decided finally and walked to the kitchen, where his mother was cooking dinner.
“Mom, I need to talk with you,” he started timidly.
“What does my baby have on his mind?” Jenny Green asked, not noticing the unusual tone in her son’s voice.
“Mom, I am…,” Liam started, but he swallowed the most significant part of the well-practiced sentence. “I am going shopping tomorrow, and I need some money for new clothes,” he said quickly, feeling both relieved and disappointed.
The big moment was over, and there was no way Liam could turn the conversation back onto its intended track. What a loser, he thought as he walked back to his room with the bills that his mother had generously given him.
Liam remembered having the same feeling on an earlier occasion when he had spent a whole afternoon wondering how to tell Matthew about his feelings. He had even arranged the meeples in their Carcassonne game to resemble gay couples, but the wooden characters standing hand-in-hand on the game board had apparently not been a clear-enough hint. One could hardly blame Matthew for not understanding such a lame message.
Liam had read so many internet horror stories about teenagers coming out to their parents. Maybe it was better that he hadn’t found the courage to tell his mother, after all. Still, his eyes were getting moist, and he couldn’t help crying.
Undoubtedly, there was no one he could tell at school, but it would have been nice to talk to somebody. A little while ago, he had thought that somebody could be his mother, but now he decided that it would be better to delay telling his parents until he had moved away from home. Knowing that he would have to keep the secret for a few more years was a heavy feeling. Even though the shopping trip had been a lame excuse, Liam decided to buy some new clothes tomorrow after all. Maybe that would cheer him up.
Half an hour later, Liam’s mother came to his bedroom, totally unaware that her son had been crying. “Dinner is ready,” she said cheerfully. “I tried a new pasta recipe that I saw in a magazine.”
Liam smiled at his mother. “Thanks, Mom. I’m super hungry, and it smells delicious,” he said. Until he said it, he hadn’t realized how hungry he was.
Jenny Green was an excellent cook, and this wasn’t just the biased opinion of her husband, Matt—all their friends and relatives happily accepted dinner invitations to their home. Tonight’s meal was no exception. Roasted chicken, blue cheese, and pineapple made a perfect companion to penne paste and pepper cream sauce, not to mention the freshly-baked garlic bread, which was beyond delicious.
“How was your first week at school?” Liam’s father asked.
His mother followed this with a series of questions. “Did you get a lot of homework? Were the teachers nice? Did you make new friends?”
“And, were there any cute girls?” his father asked, grinning at Liam. “Have I told you that I met your mother in high school?”
“Yes, darling. You’ve shared that story plenty of times,” Liam’s mother interrupted.
“My week was good. I didn’t get too much homework, and the teachers were okay, too. I also found a partner for chemistry class,” Liam ans
wered.
He hoped that his father wouldn’t notice the missing answer to his question about cute girls and was relieved when Mr. Green focused his attention on his wife instead. Liam listened while they went through their schedules for the next workweek. Their new home still lacked some items, and they agreed to visit the mall on Wednesday.
Mr. Green was a salesman for Locke Diagnostics, a global company that produced medical analyzers and other equipment. He traveled a lot but typically took only domestic trips, which meant that he spent most of his nights at home.
Liam considered his father to be a fair and decent person, as parents went. Mr. Green had played baseball in high school, but he was aware of Liam’s lack of interest in sports and had encouraged him to take piano lessons. Liam was grateful that he didn’t live in a family of sports lunatics.
Why can’t I tell them? Liam moaned to himself as he ate the last pieces of his dinner. The pasta was delicious, but his incapability to open up to his parents was agonizing. It was tearing him apart, and he felt that he might start crying again. It was hard to swallow the pasta and his tears at the same time.
“Something wrong, honey?” his mother asked, obviously aware that her son wasn’t okay. Liam swallowed again and waited long enough to make sure that his voice wouldn’t crack.
“No, Mom, I’m just tired. First week at a new school and all,” Liam answered.
“Oh, I see,” his mother said and started to collect the dishes to put them in the dishwasher.
Liam realized that his second chance to come out had just passed, and he returned to his room and took his PlayStation from the last unopened moving box. He connected the HDMI cable to his television and was delighted to notice that the wireless controller still had some power left. For a moment, he browsed his collection of games until he found the one that he was looking for. A moment later, the machine gun of Sergeant John MacTavish was singing its deadly song.
Several hours later, Liam felt both relaxed and tired. He hadn’t realized how exhausted he was until it became impossible to shoot enemies because his eyes wouldn’t stay open. He remembered a night he had spent at Matthew’s home where they had been sitting next to each other, watching some boring movie. At some point, Liam had woken up and noticed that Matthew had fallen asleep and was leaning against him. The boy felt warm, and Liam could barely resist the temptation to stroke his hair. He did not, however, and the next time he woke up, Matthew was no longer in the room.
Damn. It’s two o’clock on Saturday morning, Liam thought when he saw the clock on his wall. He turned off the console and walked to the window to draw the curtains. Then he saw two boys, about his age, walking down the street. The light from the street lamps was dim, but Liam was sure that the boys were holding each other. One guy was resting his head against the other’s shoulder.
A young gay couple! This cannot be happening, Liam thought. Astonished, he stared at the guys and recognized one of them. It was Sam, the rebel whose late arrival he had witnessed in his very first class. Sam had displayed the same “fuck the world” attitude throughout the week.
Sam couldn’t be gay, Liam concluded. He wasn’t. When the boys came out of the shadows, Liam saw that Sam was heavily drunk and could hardly walk. The other boy was doing his best to keep Sam standing. Good to have friends that will take you home, Liam said to himself, though he didn’t think too highly of Sam. The guy was a bully and a loser.
Maybe, in Fairmont, the idea of a young gay couple walking hand-in-hand was quite unrealistic after all, Liam thought as he got into bed. Life felt unfair. A boy and a girl could walk everywhere as a couple, but he couldn’t walk hand-in-hand with his boyfriend. Not that he had one. Then his mind returned to the blond swimmer boy, and all of a sudden, the world was beautiful again.