by Greg Herren
“There’s no point in asking,” I replied. “Of course you were attracted to me. How could you not be attracted to my physical perfection?”
“Tell yourself that,” he said with a big grin. “Someone else will believe it someday, you know.”
“I mean, it was hard enough dealing with all the girls lusting after my hot body, but then to worry about—”
“Yeah, fuck you, man.”
We smiled at each other, but my heart was still racing.
He wiped at his eyes. “I love you, Tony, I don’t want anything bad to ever happen to you.”
“I love you, too.”
“I mean, genetics already cursed you with that horrible face, after all.”
We both started laughing, and the orderly bringing in my long-delayed dinner looked at us both like we were crazy.
Which of course made us laugh even harder.
Glenn stayed for about another hour, and I couldn’t stop thinking how wrong I’d been, how wrong the girls had been. Sure, some weird things were going on, but it was all easily explained. Even the sudden muscle growth he was experiencing—maybe he’d been at a plateau for a while and had just broken through. How closely did I pay attention to the way his body looked, anyway?
He told me about the football game I’d missed, and the victory dance. We talked about just about everything, it seemed, until he decided it was time to head home after I yawned a few times.
We talked about just about everything except Sara.
He never brought her up, and I didn’t want to. I wanted to enjoy his visit and forget about all the weird things that had been going on. It was like old times, laughing, joking, just two teenaged boys having a good time, hanging out, doing nothing.
Just like it was before she showed up.
And when he left, I felt good. How could I have ever thought that he was trying to kill me that day in the car? How could I have ever thought that he had somehow been responsible for what happened to Noah and Zack?
As for Sara, well, I just didn’t like her. That didn’t make her some kind of supernatural creature.
I found out about Randy Froelich the next morning.
Chapter Ten
Randy Froelich was going to get as drunk as he possibly could.
This was unusual. He didn’t usually drink—he took being an athlete seriously. His father made it very clear he couldn’t be an athlete if he drank and smoked—and Randy liked being a jock. He didn’t have the size to play in college—unlike his older brother Keith, who’d played at Pittsburg State—but he took pride in being good at sports and would ordinarily never do anything that might jeopardize that. He loved lifting weights, he drank protein shakes to help add muscle bulk, and he jogged three miles every morning to stay lean. He couldn’t do anything to add height, but he could control his body. As he stepped out of the shower he caught a glimpse of his naked body in the mirror. His stomach was flat, his muscles were defined and hard, and he was tanned a golden brown. His torso was hairless—which bothered him, but both of his older brothers were the same way. He grabbed a towel and started drying himself off.
Tonight he was going to get stinking drunk—and he didn’t give a damn.
He’d stolen a bottle of Jack Daniel’s out of his parents’ liquor cabinet and hidden it in the trunk of his car. His parents weren’t heavy drinkers either, but every once in a while they’d indulge with friends or relatives. He knew neither of them would touch whiskey—the Jack Daniel’s had been left over from the time his dad’s best friend from college had come to visit for the weekend. His mother sipped red wine and his father would only drink vodka. He himself had never had Jack Daniel’s, but he knew some of the kids who did drink always talked about Jack, so it would have to do.
He toweled himself off, staring at himself in the mirror. Everything is going wrong, he thought, this isn’t the way this year was supposed to be. We were supposed to go undefeated and go to the state play-offs. I was supposed to be Homecoming King and—
Glenn Lockhart wasn’t supposed to come out of the closet.
He looked away from the mirror and draped the towel over the shower curtain rod. He pulled on his underwear and a pair of jeans, daubing on some antiperspirant. Damn you, Glenn. He looked in the mirror, rubbing his chin. A pimple was forming just under the right corner of his mouth. He squeezed the little purple spot until his eyes watered, but nothing happened. He shook his head again and pulled on a Trojan Football T-shirt. He walked out of the bathroom and down the hall to the bedroom. He could hear the sound of a football game coming from the living room—his father and younger brother Ben were watching. His mother and sister were over at the church working on a food drive. He stepped into his bedroom and closed and locked the door. He sat down at his desk, touching the space bar so his computer screen came back to life. Nervously he clicked on the bookmarks bar until he found the one he’d labeled Physics. He took a deep breath and clicked on the link.
He licked his lower lip. He usually never went to this site when anyone else in the house was awake, and he never did with his bedroom lights on.
It wasn’t pornography, really. It was a male model site he’d found accidentally one day when looking at a Facebook page he didn’t dare “like” in case anyone else ever found out. But the male models were all beautiful, with rippling muscles and handsome faces. Some of them were just in underwear, some were in bikini bottoms, others were shirtless. His personal favorite was a nineteen-year-old fitness model from Hernando, Mississippi. His name was Adam. He had dark hair that he brushed up to a faux-hawk, dark blue eyes, and not an ounce of body fat on his perfectly chiseled body. Adam’s page on the model site also had a link to his personal website, which also had videos of him working out shirtless.
Randy had watched those videos countless times in the middle of the night, while the rest of the house was silent, with the sound on his computer turned off and his underwear at his ankles.
Adam was only twenty, and he lived in Miami now. His website also had a blog, and he had just signed to do a photo shoot for a fitness magazine—the cover.
Randy heard footsteps coming down the hall and quickly clicked on the Facebook bookmark. The steps went past his door, and he heard the bathroom door shut.
He got up and stretched out on his bed.
I begged you not to do it, he thought as he stared up at the ceiling. Why couldn’t you wait till we went off to college, like I asked you?
It was easier for Glenn. He had a father who loved him no matter what.
But Randy knew things would be different around the Froelich house if he’d done the same thing. His parents might not be as bad as Brother Zimmer or the people who went to his horrible church, but he knew exactly where they stood on gay people and abortion and premarital sex and liberals and feminists. How many times had he heard one or both of them go on a rant about any or all of the above?
He wasn’t even sure he was gay.
He found other guys attractive, sure—but he also liked girls. There were some old Playboys of his dad’s he’d found in the basement hidden deep inside his closet that he would pull out every once in a while late at night. Sometimes he looked at a centerfold at the same time he had a picture of Adam up on his computer screen.
Besides, he would have never acted on it. Ever. It was wrong for a guy to be attracted to other guys.
It was all Glenn’s fault.
He’d spent the night at Glenn’s. Glenn was helping him with his American History term paper. He couldn’t even remember how it had started. They’d both been in their underwear and started wrestling around. The next thing he knew he was on top of Glenn and they were kissing.
Afterward, he didn’t know what to think.
Other than he’d liked it—and wanted it to happen again.
He found himself thinking about Glenn at weird times—daydreaming about spending the night over at his house again during class, or at night when he was in his own bed and couldn’t sleep. Glenn was go
ing to go to Kansas State—and he started thinking about going there, too. They could share an apartment and—
The bathroom door shut again.
He missed Glenn, he really did, and not just for the sex.
He’d never known another kid like Glenn, who was so smart and funny. Glenn always seemed to be able to come up with the right thing to say. Glenn always seemed to be in a good mood, always seemed to be happy. Glenn was just fun to be around—it was impossible to be in a bad mood around him. He was genuinely nice and liked helping people.
But when he came out last summer and started dating Clark Murphy, Randy had reacted badly.
He shut his computer down and put on his socks and shoes.
He wasn’t proud of how he’d acted.
His parents had told him in no uncertain terms Glenn was no longer welcome in their house—and he was never to spend the night at Glenn’s again.
“He never tried anything with you, did he?” his father had demanded, his face twisted into a disgusted sneer.
“Of course not!” Randy had lied then, and went on lying. He lied to everyone. When kids started writing awful things on Glenn’s Facebook page, Randy had gone along with it. He unfriended him without a second thought, his heart pounding in his chest. All he could think was no one can ever find out.
When other kids called Glenn a fag, Randy’s stomach knotted into a ball and he said nothing even though he knew he should stand up for him, put a stop to it. But all he could think about in stark terror was they might think I’m one, too.
He couldn’t allow that to happen. He had to put distance between them so if Glenn ever told, he could deny it.
Every day he was terrified. Before, when what they did together had been a secret, he’d been fine with it. But now with Glenn insisting, on Facebook, that he was going to live his life openly and honestly, what other choice did he have?
He wasn’t proud of it, but there was nothing else he could do.
Glenn tried calling him a few times, but he didn’t take the calls or call him back. Glenn texted him a couple of times, and he deleted them without answering. He was terrified, absolutely terrified, that someone, anyone, might think he was just like Glenn.
And by the time he realized that actually quite a few kids stood by Glenn—even Tony Martin—without any repercussions, it was too late.
It was like he and Glenn had never been friends in the first place.
He’d tried to talk to Glenn once. They’d run into each other at the mall over in Kahola. Glenn was sitting in the food court by himself, eating a Quarter Pounder with cheese when he’d sat down. Glenn looked at him and then back down to his food without so much as a hello.
“How you doing?” Randy said into the awkward silence.
That was when Glenn put the Quarter Pounder down and looked him straight in the eye. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell anyone.”
Randy could feel the color creeping into his face. “Glenn—”
Glenn leaned back and folded his arms. The look of contempt on his face made Randy feel even smaller. “That’s what you’re worried about, right? That I might tell somebody that we had sex?” A corner of his mouth lifted. “You’re such a douchebag. I can’t believe we were ever friends.” He turned back to his food. “Now just go away and leave me alone.”
And Randy, rather than hashing it out, rather than saying anything in response, just got up and walked away.
He’d replayed that scene in his head any number of times since then, thinking about what he should have said, things he could have done differently. He didn’t blame Glenn for not wanting anything to do with him, for not letting him apologize. He just figured at some point Glenn would get over it and things could go back the way they were. He even wondered if the reason Glenn was so unforgiving was because he was seeing Clark Murphy.
But Clark had gone off to college and they’d broken up.
Nothing changed. Glenn still wouldn’t speak to him.
He slipped his wallet into his back pocket, and looked at himself in the mirror one last time before leaving the house. He picked up his cell phone and slid it into his front pocket.
He walked down the stairs and out the front door without saying anything. His car was parked in the driveway right in front of the barn. The car was a 1980 sky blue El Camino his brother Keith had lovingly restored and passed down to him. He checked the glove box for the bottle of Jack Daniel’s and smiled to see that it was still there.
Good, he thought. He started the car and backed down the driveway, checking to make sure nothing was coming, and drove toward town. The sun had already set in the west, and he knew most of his classmates had probably already headed into Kahola for the night. But he didn’t want to go anywhere near Kahola. He headed through Carterville, stopping at intersections and wishing he could think of somewhere to go. After he left the town limits, he turned right onto a dirt road.
He drove aimlessly for a while. Usually there would be a party somewhere—but that wasn’t likely tonight. Noah’s death after Linda Avery’s party probably had the kids who usually drank running scared—at least for this weekend. Besides, he wanted to get drunk, good and stinking drunk, and he didn’t want any of the other kids to know. He’d never been drunk, and if he was going to make a fool of himself, he’d rather do it in private.
No matter what, he was Randy Froelich, after all, and he had an image to maintain.
But even that, he thought as he drove along the dirt road, throwing up a cloud behind the El Camino, isn’t really who I am. Nobody knows the real me.
Except for Glenn, another voice nagged inside his head. You could be yourself around Glenn, and look how you repaid him for that!
He pushed that thought out of his head. It was true, though. He’d never been himself, not really. When he was a kid, he’d had the image of Keith to follow, to be like. Keith had been good-looking and popular—everyone loved Keith. He’d been such a great athlete he managed to shine even though the football and basketball teams he played on at Southern Heights lost almost all of their games. Keith was everything Randy wasn’t—he got straight A’s effortlessly, he had an easy way with girls, he was tall, and everyone liked him. He’d tried to be like Keith, but he always failed. He had to study almost constantly to match Keith’s grades. He had to exercise and lift weights and practice sports over and over again. Everything had come so easily to Keith. He’d even walked on at Pittsburg State and made the football team, eventually earning a scholarship. Keith had been perfect in every way. His parents adored him. Every girl in school wanted to date him. The guys liked him, teachers liked him—and he even took church seriously, looked forward to going to services every Sunday.
Randy knew his parents looked at him and saw a pale copy of perfect Keith. Hell, even as much as he wanted to resent his brother, he couldn’t. Keith really was perfect. He was the perfect brother, too. He always had time for Randy, whether it was to toss a football around or shoot baskets. Before he went off to college, Keith never missed one of Randy’s games. And of course, when he bought his new car, he’d given his younger brother his old one. Every time he called home he wanted to check in with Randy, make sure everything was okay, would apologize for not making it back to see Randy’s game on Friday night.
It would be so much easier if he’d been an asshole—like everyone else’s older brothers were.
Randy had always been shy around girls, and when he went steady with one, he was always shy, afraid to try anything with them.
Because you really like boys.
“Shut up,” he said out loud, and turned up the car stereo. Even that had been a gift from Keith—a new stereo system for the car for his birthday. Keith worked in the off-season, and worked full-time in Pittsburg in the summers. He never forgot a birthday, and his gifts were always thoughtful ones.
Randy slowed the car down when he realized he was getting close to the turn-off for Kahola Lake. He smiled. Maybe his subconscious mind had led him this wa
y—Kahola Lake was the perfect place to come hide out and get drunk. There was a public beach where kids came in the summertime to hang out, get tan, and drink—but he’d just follow the lake road around from there. There were some cottages with docks that belonged to people with money so they could come spend days down there in the summer, but they should all be abandoned since it was fall. He’d find one, park in the driveway and sit on the dock, drinking Jack Daniel’s till he was falling-down drunk.
He took the turn toward the lake. The road sloped down between two fields. He could see the road around the lake and the moon reflecting on the lake’s flat surface. He slowed down and turned right. The public beach was just ahead, but there were no cars parked down there. He slowed down and looked out at the raft anchored about twenty yards offshore.
Before Glenn came out, we used to hang out there, he remembered.
He reached over and opened the glove box as he slowed to a stop. He opened the bottle and took a swig. His eyes watered and his throat burned. The taste was horrible, and he almost gagged. His stomach felt like it was on fire, and the warmth started spreading through the rest of his body. He took a deep breath, and his mind began to get a little bit woozy. He wiped at his eyes until they cleared, and he stared out at the raft.
The last time they were here was about a month before Glenn came out.
School had just let out the week before, but it was a weekday. He’d taken a summer job shelving groceries at the Safeway in Kahola, but it was his day off. Corey Barlow had broken up with him right before school let out, and he hadn’t wanted to hang around the house. He called Glenn and they’d headed out to the lake. It had been a nice day—no tension, just relaxation and quiet. They’d both fallen asleep out on the raft, their legs touching lightly. It was nice, and when he’d dropped Glenn off at home he had no idea that it was going to be their last time together as friends.
The next week, Glenn had started hanging out at the country club pool where Clark Murphy worked.
