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I peered at Maddix’s unclear features, my mouth parted in shock. What the fuck? Those hands that had thrust me into the locker were the same ones that had grabbed my face earlier when he kissed me. How could a tender touch turn so cruel?
“The next time we ask you to do something, you freak,” he said, “you do it, or we won’t be so nice. Don’t let us catch you alone.”
Another shove in my chest had me banging into the metal, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the way my heart hurt. Maddix and his crew walked off, but not before he kicked my books farther away from me. I flinched. He might as well have kicked me. It sure felt like he had. Right in the gut.
“Troy, you okay?” Ashlee ran up to me. “Of course not. Let me take you to the nurse. No, we’ll go to the principal’s office first so he can see exactly what they’ve done. Someone needs to teach those assholes a lesson.”
I shook my head, averting my gaze so she didn’t see the tears stinging my eyes. “It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not fine. They need to pay.”
But tattling to the principal wouldn’t change the most important thing: Maddix had deceived me. All this time, he had been using me for sex. He didn’t care about me. I’d convinced myself he kept our relationship secret because he was in the closet still, but that wasn’t the reason. He didn’t care about me at all. I’d known it all along but always made excuses for his behavior.
Today, he’d done the unforgivable.
1
MADDIX
Iwiped the beads of sweat from my forehead with my T-shirt. Damn, was the sun brutal today. Squinting against the scorching glare, I resumed my work on the porch of my small, weathered house. If I could ignore the sun for half an hour, I could get the job done.
The familiar rumble of an engine sounding like it was on its last leg interrupted the rhythmic sound of my hammer connecting with the wood. My elderly neighbor, Gladys, pulled into her yard. I’d told her not to drive the death trap anymore, but Gladys being Gladys didn’t listen. The truck had sentimental value, so she refused to part with it. I had an engine on back order to fix it for her, but it wouldn’t get here until next week.
The tall, willowy woman in her seventies with the skin of dark brown leather got out of the truck, opened the passenger door, and took out a bag full of groceries.
Shit.
I dropped the hammer in my toolbox, ran toward the fence separating our properties, and vaulted over it.
“Gladys, let me help you with that.”
“It’s okay. I’ve got it. You can go back to what you were doing.”
But how could I watch her struggle with bags of groceries when her arms were like twigs? Just like his.
“Not on my watch, Glad. Let me do all the heavy lifting.”
I picked up two of the bags. They were as heavy as they looked.
“Well, if you insist,” she said. “Don’t mind me. I’ll just stand here and watch. But you know what would have been even better? If you’d left your shirt over the fence.”
Laughing, I followed her up the steps to her cozy bungalow-style home. “Are you flirting with me, Glad?”
“Darlin’, I may be all old bones right now, but I got glasses for a reason. I need to see all God’s precious handiwork. And you’re a mighty fine piece if I say so.”
As usual, she cracked me up. I stepped into the hallway and tried but failed not to stare at the framed photographs of him.
Her affection for her grandnephew was evident in the shrine she’d built of him. The picture of him when he was eleven always made me pause. The photograph had been snapped the day he’d moved in with his grandaunt. I’d watched from my bedroom window as the sad kid wearing glasses with stooped shoulders who dragged his feet up the driveway. Later, my father had told me he’d lost his parents in an accident and his grandaunt had taken him in.
The other photographs were of him when he was older. Many were of him holding a prize or certificate from winning academic contests: debate, math league, robotics, programming. He’d been good at it all while average students like me struggled.
I would never forget the day it had happened. Our first kiss. We hadn’t been friends, but my dad had asked him to tutor me because I was failing precalculus. I’d been embarrassed my dad had gone to him behind my back.
We’d been sitting on the couch in the living room, him getting more and more upset that I had a video game on when I was supposed to be paying attention. I’d wanted to piss him off and drive him away. If any of my friends knew I was hanging out with him, I’d become the butt of their jokes. My old man chipping away at my self-confidence was enough.
Instead of leaving like I’d thought he would, Troy had told me in a calm but commanding voice to turn the game off. Or else. It was the “or else” that had gotten me and the way he hadn’t shouted. Such quiet confidence without a hint of cockiness had been rare in guys our age. I’d collared him, intending to punch him in the face for giving me orders like that.
I’d ended up kissing him.
