All the characters and events in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people, either living or dead, is entirely unintentional.
The story is copyrighted and may not be reproduced in any way without the express permission of the author who can be contacted at: pjalexander1753@gmail.com
I've been getting push-back from some readers of this story, telling me it's got stuck in a rut and has turned into nothing more than the tedious ramblings of a pretty pathetic teenager gay-boy. In response I would like to ask how a boy like Jack, whose life has imploded after being forced out of the closet and making a serious attempt to end his own life, might be expected to react to those events, other than by feeling trapped and becoming self-obsessed and insular? Your feedback would be welcome.
A Very Ordinary Boy (Part 2)
From Chapter 6:
How'd you get on with my little experiment? Did you manage to keep (it) up? You can tell me all about it tomorrow. Sleep tight.
Chapter 7:
And I thought my life was a fuck-up. It turns out that I've got it easy compared to some. Like Tani. What a shit-show she has to cope with. Anyone would feel sorry for her. I do. Yeah, I know, I know, you would never have expected to hear me say that. And you're right, before today it's pretty certain that you wouldn't have. Okay, so the whole violent boyfriend thing made me not hate her as much as I did when I thought she and Noah were dating, but she didn't stop being a total bitch towards me or making me feel like a big lump of nothing, whenever she came into FfT. Except it turns out that she wasn't being a bitch at all. Those shitty looks I was always getting and her determination to keep me and Noah apart as much as possible were nothing to do with her being possessive or jealous. No, she was trying to protect me from him. Can you believe it? I couldn't when she told me, at least, not to start with. I thought she was just trying to make excuses for treating me like something nasty on the bottom of her shoe.
Okay, okay. Yeah, you're right, I need to start from the beginning. So, you remember I told you that Granny Smith knows old Mrs. Harrington from way back when they were in school? And that they'd got talking and it turned out that Tani was keen to talk to me, just like Michelle told me she was, that day when I escaped from here and cycled into town? Well, it turns out that they'd been speaking on the phone -- that's granny and Mrs. H, not Michelle -- and they'd set up a meeting between me and Tani. Like, today. This morning. Yeah, without asking me or trying to find out how I'd feel about it. Oh no. They just decided, the two of them, that me talking to Tani was exactly what I needed to help me get over the whole Noah thing and start to `move on'.
What do you mean, how did I feel about it? How'd you think I felt? I was fucking mad, of course. That's how I felt. How dare they go behind my back like that? What right had they got to decide what's best for me? What? Oh, yeah. Sorry. No, really, I am. I didn't mean to go off at you like that. Yeah, I know that what they did was nothing to do with you and definitely not your fault. No, I promise not to be mad at you or shout at you again. But I really lost it with them and said some things that I can't believe I even thought, much less actually said. To my gran and Rosa of all people. The two people who've done so much for me since, well, forever, not just since I hurt myself. And they didn't shout back or call me out for being rude and disrespectful, which they totally could have. True, Rosa looked pretty upset and went very quiet -- not her usual style at all - but gran explained that they genuinely believed that both of us, that's me and Tani, would benefit from the chance to talk things through. That's what Doctor Gutless keeps telling me, that I need to, "Articulate any underlying issues in order to restore my emotional equilibrium," which means, I think, that I won't get `better' until I start to talk. Of course, he doesn't know about you, and nor do gran and Rosa. They only know you come here to bring me stuff from school. They have no idea what a difference it makes to me, having you here most days, being able to trust you and tell you everything that's gone on. Oh yeah, and the kissing helps!
So anyway, they said they'd got it fixed up for me to meet with Tani this morning and that they'd cleared it with my mum and dad for them to take me out of the house. Gran said they hadn't told them the whole truth, just that they were taking me to see an old friend who I'd not seen since before the incident'. She said she and Rosa knew that I wouldn't want mum and dad to know the whole story and then Rosa said they didn't know it themselves anyway. And thank fuck for that,' I thought, though I didn't say that out loud. She said it with a sort of accusing look on her face, as if she felt she ought to be told more about Tani and suspected that "the bastard boy" was somewhere in the picture but didn't know where exactly and that she was pretty pissed off about being kept in the dark. Which was fair enough, I suppose, but there was no way I was gonna join the dots for her `cause I knew, if I did, she'd be in full bloodhound mode, trying to get me to tell her about Noah and that I'd never hear the end of it until she'd got his name out of me. She could teach the Gestapo and the Spanish Inquisition a thing or two about getting information out of people.
There's a sort of storeroom-come-office above FfT. The toilets are up there too and the small kitchen where Michelle does the baking. It's not very big and gets filled up with deliveries and anything that there's no room for in the shop, but there's a small table that was meant for the café but there wasn't room for it and a few chairs, mostly damaged, that have never quite made it to the dump. Anyway, that's where it had been arranged for me and Tani to meet. Once I'd run out of reasons why I didn't think a meeting with Tani was a good idea -- she didn't like me; I barely knew her; she couldn't have anything to say that I wanted to hear -- I gave up trying to get gran and Rosa to change their minds and just went with the flow. After all, I told myself, just `cause Tani and I were gonna be in the same room at the same time, didn't mean I'd have to talk to her or even listen to what she had to say. I decided I could just put in my buds and turn up Billie to the max.
When we got to FfT the place was flat-out busy and it was full-on for Michelle - taking orders, clearing tables, making drinks, plating up -- so when she saw us come in she only had time to smile and point to the stairs up to the room where we were gonna meet. To be honest I was glad she was too busy to talk `cause, by that time, I was feeling pretty nervous about the whole meeting-with-Tani thing and wouldn't have been able to handle Michelle starting in on me too.
The room is like I said, not much more than a place to dump stuff, but there, over by the window and overlooking the street below, is the table I mentioned before, and sitting at the table is Tani. She looks up as we come in and sort of smiles and, yeah, it obviously is Tani, but there's something about her that seems strange, unfamiliar, different. It takes me a couple of minutes but then I realise it's her hair. The last time I'd seen her it was with perfect, subtle-shades-of-blonde hair (think Barbie) which hung half way down her back, always immaculately washed and styled. But now it's gone! No, not completely shaved off but cut so short that you can see the exact shape of her skull, every bump and curve. I'm totally, well, I don't know what I am. Surprised doesn't cut it. Disbelieving I s'pose comes closest. And it isn't just her hair, oh no. Every other time I had ever seen Tani she looked as if she'd just walked out of a fashion shoot -- hair, make-up, nails, outfit -- everything inch-perfect. But today she looks like warm crap. Apart from the missing hair there are dark circles round her eyes, there's no make-up and the polish on her nails is chipped and peeling. I notice all this as I walk across the room and sit down opposite her at the table. This is definitely not the Tani I know and I'm racking my brain to try to think of an explanation and also wondering what to say to this girl who I've spent months hating but who, now, I barely recognise.
Next thing I know, Rosa is standing next to me saying that she and gran are gonna grab a coffee downstairs and they'll stay there until me and Tani are done talking. Then she looks straight at Tani and tells her that she's got to tell me "the whole truth", whatever the fuck that means, and then she's gone and it's just me and the girl who used to be Tani, sitting on opposite sides of the table, neither one of us knowing how to get the ball rolling.
It's soon obvious that time and silence is not a good combination and I'm feeling more and more uncomfortable but I can't think what to say that won't end up with me either yelling at her or bursting into tears. And I'm just telling myself that this whole meet-up thing is not my idea and I'm only there `cause Rosa and Granny S set it up and that there's nothing to stop me walking out, when Tani suddenly pushes back on her chair (which falls on the floor), stands up and pretty much throws herself at me. Her arms are around me and her face is buried in my neck and she's sobbing and shaking and making some sort of noise which I think is her saying something but I can't make any sense of it. I'm, literally, frozen to my chair and, if we're not careful, we're both gonna be on the floor with the one she's just pushed over. Carefully I manage to unwrap her arms and force myself to stand up. Then I sort of swing us both round and push her down so she's sitting and I'm standing right beside her. She's still crying and still talking and gradually I work out that, over and over, she's saying that she's sorry, that all she'd wanted to do was protect me and that it's all her fault, what Noah did to me. Well, that's a pole-axer for sure and the last thing I expected to hear her to say to me today. And what does she mean by wanting to protect me? From what? So anyway, I pick up her chair and sit down as she wipes her eyes on her sleeve. I think she's about cried herself out and she looks at me like she's come to confession and I'm the priest.
I don't know how long we're there for, it could have been minutes, it could have been a couple of hours, but by the end of whatever time it took she's told me so much stuff and filled in a lot of blanks and given me a lot to think about. She starts by going back to the apologising and blaming herself for what happened on the camping trip, but I don't need to hear any more of that so I cut her off (maybe I was a bit brutal) and straight out ask what it is I most want to hear: what's the deal with her and Noah? I know what he told me about their history -- you remember, he explained it while the two of us were driving to the campsite -- but I need to know if her version is the same. Well, it turns out that a lot of it is, but there are things about Noah I don't know and that's what she says she was trying to protect me from. She says it's true that their mums were friends and so they spent a lot of time together as little kids. She says she doesn't really know why but that they got really close when his mum walked out. She even says that, when they each started dating, they used to compare notes and make lists of what they most liked about whoever they were seeing at the time and what it was about them that most hit the spot. Yeah, yeah,' I think, I've heard all this before.' But it's now, when she gets to this point in the story, that things start to get interesting - weird but interesting.
She tells me that, after a while, she started to get a strange vibe from Noah, as if the things that he was saying about his dates somehow didn't ring true. She says she can't really explain it but the way he talked about what he liked and didn't like about his girlfriends sounded, sort of, off. Almost as if he was making it up or repeating what he'd heard other guys say. Definitely not convincing. Of course, he was never seen without a girl hanging off him - he seemed set on going through every one of the girls in his year - and everyone knew he was the number 1 stud, but, still, Tani wasn't convinced by the picture that Noah seemed desperate to paint. Then one of the girlfriends, who obviously knew that Noah and Tani were really close, came to her one day, obviously upset, and asked for her advice. She wanted to know what was wrong with her and when Tani asked this girl what she meant, she told Tani that she can't get much further with Noah than making-out, no touching below the belt, no mutual wanking, nothing oral and definitely no full-on sex. The girl told Tani that she was in love with Noah and was totally ready to sleep with him but that he kept putting her off saying it was too soon or that he had too much school work to do (as if!). And that's what got Tani totally suspicious.
Over the next few weeks she managed to find ways of talking to a shed load of Noah's old dates, on the quiet and totally confidentially, cause, obviously, she didn't want him to know that she was sleuthing on him. And it was the same story from all of them, all these previous girlfriends, he hadn't slept with any of them. His rep as a total stud was a complete fraud. Yeah, they all said how nice he was to them and how good he was at making-out, and one or two of them even said he'd let them blow him, but never anything more than that. He never wanted to see them naked, would put his tongue in their mouth but never anywhere else, wouldn't stroke their tits or finger them. And Tani said that the weirdest thing about it was that not one of those girls had ever ratted on him, hadn't told another single person until she, Tani, had started asking questions. It turned out that the deal was that, as long as they kept quiet about him not having sex with them, he'd tell all the guys how fantastic they were and how good they were in bed. That way the girls were always popular with all the other guys, never had to worry about getting a date -- you know how number one important that is in high school -- and Noah kept his rep as greatest living stud'. So it was win/win all round.
But Tani didn't buy any of it, especially as it seemed to tie in with her other suspicions about him. It wasn't long before two and two started looking very much like four, and then, one night, she got the clincher. She and a gang of friends from college were out clubbing. It was getting near time to go home and they decided to go for one last drink before heading off. They were walking to a place that was popular with Tani's crowd. It's on River Street and they were almost there and walking past Mr. B's, you know, the gay bar on the corner with West Street, when she saw Noah come out. And he wasn't on his own. He was wrapped round another guy, older than Noah and not someone that Tani knew or recognised. But it was 100%, definitely Noah, she was sure of that. No doubt about it. She told me that she didn't think that he'd seen her, partly cause she was on the other side of the street, but mainly cause he was too busy making-out with the guy. And that's when the light went on, Tani told me, seeing Noah that night explained everything -- the unconvincing conversations about his dates, the not having sex with any of them, the deal to keep up his stud rep -- it was all `cause he was gay and desperate to keep that information well away from public knowledge. Social media would have lit up like Christmas.
And the minute she finishes telling me her story, things instantly make sense. Noah was a text-book case of hiding in plain sight - playing the big, macho, straight stud in order to make sure no-one even suspected the truth, the fact that he's a scared and closeted gay-boy. Just like I was. So why didn't I see it? All the clues were there, like Noah's interest in Italian art, especially pictures and sculptures of beautiful young guys. Then there was the amount of time he seemed to want to spend with me and inviting me on the camping trip. And, fuck, how good he was at getting me out of my clothes and that amazing blow-job. And, of course, he totally knew his way around another's guy's body. Even when he cut me dead as soon as he'd done with me, how did I not work it out? So much for gaydar. Aagh, I've been such a pathetic, fucking idiot. Yeah, I have. I shouldn't have been so naïve and trusting. And Tani said she felt totally let down and betrayed by him too. But then everything for her went completely tits up. I'll tell you about it later. Why not now? Well, `cause you've been here all this time, sitting there and listening to me moaning and complaining, and right now, what I really need, is to hold you and kiss you.
As an author, it's REALLY encouraging to know that there are people out there who are taking the time to read what I've written, and then bothering to send a response. So please, do feel free to write to me at the email address given at the top of the chapter. I welcome all comments and guarantee to write back. PJ
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