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Hot fudge sundaes with rainbow sprinkles.
It was the gayest day of my life.
Fast-forward eight years later, and now I’m what I always wanted to be: a high school counselor with one attitude-filled unappreciative teenager after another sitting in that same chair where Frederick is right now, arms folded and lips pouting.
It’s my first year. Barely one month has gone by. And all I do is endure teenage attitude and paperwork every day while gently convincing these kids that I’m not the bad guy. Is this what I have to look forward to? Rolling eyes and tightened smiles?
Really, I’m the best damned person they can talk to at this school. It isn’t my job to discipline, to tattle, or even to scold. I’m a safe haven. All I do is counsel them and somehow marry the best interests of the parents, the school, and—most importantly—the student. Those interests don’t always align.
I take a deep breath, then turn back to Frederick importantly. “Did … your uncle really …?”
He rolls his eyes. “No.”
“You know I have to take those kinds of things seriously. Even if you said it as a joke, I still have to—”
“I don’t even have an uncle.”
I consider him for a moment. “Do you think there might have been a better way to handle yourself in front of your coach and teammate?”
Just then, the bell rings, interrupting whatever progress we had made. Frederick rises from his chair, swings his backpack over a shoulder, then heads for the door.
“Frederick.”
He stops at the door, sighs demonstratively, then speaks to me without even turning around. “What, Mr. Caulfield?”
“We’re not finished.”
“I have to catch the bus.”
“You have a future, too,” I tell him. “A bright future. A future that you can’t enjoy if you don’t get your grades—”
“We both know damned well that I can become a billionaire with or without the stupid grades,” he spits back. “Bill Gates didn’t even graduate high school.”
“College,” I correct him. “Harvard. And he still completed two years of it.”
He barely hears half of my sentence before the door shuts behind him, cutting off my words and leaving me in a vacuum of my own musky office as the murmur of excited, chatty teenagers echoes outside the door.
I bite my lip and collapse against my desk, exhausted. Am I really cut out to be a school counselor?
A dream job certainly feels a lot different when you’re paid in nothing but reality checks.
All I know is that I’ve dreamed for years to be right here where I am now. Really, I just always wanted to help kids find their way. I was fortunate enough to have that special brand of help when I was young and confused. Through high school, I had nowhere to put my feelings. I really thought all boys “looked” at other boys in gym class. I thought that’s why athletes looked in the mirrors at the gyms while working out, or why they swatted each other’s asses after a game.
Seriously. I actually thought that. I didn’t realize not all of them were “excited” by it in the same way that I was.
Oops.
All it took was one really encouraging, positive interaction with a school counselor—her name was Becky Lemont—to protect me from the chaos that had spawned inside my head the first time I even let myself think the word: gay. Becky Lemont doesn’t work here anymore, I was sad to learn when I was hired, as she moved to Minnesota with her husband. Thanks to her, by the time I graduated, I was totally secure in my feelings, understood what they meant, and didn’t have to fear them entering college.
And I know other youth are out there just like I was, and they are lost and confused … and they think they’re alone. I want to be there for them just like someone was for me.
Except maybe for Frederick. Who is totally above it all. And way too cool for school.
Sigh.
I drop by the staff break room to grab my lunch box that I’d left and run into Dana, one of the school receptionists in the front office. She gives me a beaming smile. “Thank God it’s Friday!”
I blink. “Really? It is?”
“I know! The week really flew by, didn’t it? It will be winter before you know it!” She rushes up to my side. I smell her perfume in fruity, heated waves. “You’re the new counselor, huh? How are you liking it here?”
“It’s great,” I answer.
She gives me a quick once-over while biting her lip, which doesn’t go unnoticed. Then she asks, “So you want to grab a drink with me, handsome? It’s Friday and I’m in desperate need.”
I smile. Maybe it’s a wince. I never know how to respond to women who come on to me. Assuming this is what this is, judging from the way she’s leaning into me with her boobs in my face. Really, she is any straight guy’s fantasy: gorgeous, slender, curls of dirty blonde hair, and eyelashes that go on for miles.
