Fever Pitch

by Heidi Cullinan

  Giles grimaced and gripped his mocha latte. “And then you were gay.”

  “The living poster boy of everything they hated, or at least a live-in outlet for their hurt and sense of alienation. I had a few good teachers in middle school but not in high school, and by then home had become a living hell. I took off. It didn’t go well.” He sipped his coffee. “It wasn’t so much the physical. That I’d accurately predicted. It was how much it hurt inside.” He ran a hand over his face. “The Cities were both better and worse. I got involved in a program in St. Paul at this youth center, but they were always in and out of funding, because this was right at the worst part of the Great Recession. There were more opportunities but also more dangers. Plus I was only sixteen. You’re not quite as ballsy as you think you are at sixteen.”

  This was like some kind of movie of the week, except awful because it was real, not because of the cheesy writing. “So what the hell did you do?”

  “I went home. I found a police officer and told them I was a runaway. I told my parents God had come to me and I was ready to repent.”

  “And your parents believed you?”

  Elijah lifted his gaze, and Giles shivered at the dark smile. “Eventually. I had to go to the crazy pastor they loved so much, who never actually did anything outright to me, but sure loved to touch my ass. He did get caught with another boy, which was bad for the kid but good for me. My parents moved me back to the Lutheran church, which is still so conservative it nearly broke off when the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America went faggot, as my dad likes to say, but at least the pedophiles stayed in their pews. It also meant all the Lutheran colleges were on the table once they decided I had repented enough. It helped how I stayed well past my eighteenth birthday. Seemed more legit that I stayed when I could legally walk out the door. It’s true, I could, but I’d learned well the lesson I needed better ground under me before I could do it again.”

  “So you’re doing this for three more years?”

  Shrugging, Elijah tapped out a nervous rhythm on the tabletop. “I worked like crazy to get a scholarship to Saint Timothy. I wanted a full ride so I could thumb my nose at them and run, but all I got was ten grand a year. So I’m stuck pretending to be a good Christian not-fag for three more years.” He shut his eyes. “Except I can’t. I don’t know if they’re worse because they’re convinced I’m up to something, if they think the liberal college is corrupting me, or if they’re not any different but getting away washed off enough of a scab and I can’t stomach them now, period. I can’t stand one more weekend at home, let alone a summer. It’s all I can do to bite my tongue when they visit, which is every weekend now. All the way from South Dakota they come, to make sure I’m not going to hell.”

  “You should talk to a counselor here. God, they whipped a full ride for Aaron out of thin fucking air in ten minutes.”

  Elijah’s face turned dark and angry. “Yes, well, I’m not your darling boyfriend. I don’t look like a stock photo ad for American boy. I’m not even a cute twink. I’m a femmy gay reject, and as you’ve pointed out several times, I’m not polite. And don’t start in on Aaron’s build-me-a-net crap. It doesn’t work that way. I know. Do you want to know how many people saw my parents treating me like their live-in pariah and did anything? How many people saw me on the street in Minneapolis and Saint Paul and gave me more than a few quarters or told me to go home? Or hit me, or—” He pursed his lips and drew his mug up against his body. “It’s not going to work. I’m not the kind of guy they move mountains for. I got the message loud and clear.”

  Giles stared at him, trying to figure out what to say, except he truly didn’t know how to counter that. He did get what Elijah was talking about. People liked to help pretty people, and Giles and Elijah weren’t pretty. Not just in appearance but total package. Elijah wasn’t ugly, but he was seriously rangy, his features feminine and yet not pretty or delicate. Giles, even hiding his scars, was the same. The battles they’d fought, inside and out, showed on their skin. They were not the poster boys. They were simply boys.

  “Look.” He pushed his coffee aside and leaned forward on his elbows on the tabletop. “I get what you’re saying. I’m going to point out, though, your attitude doesn’t help. If it came down to it, my mother and father would help you find somewhere safe to be. They’d do it because that’s who they are. I also don’t think anybody helping Aaron would be all whatever if they find out you’re in a similar sinking ship. And no. He has no idea how grisly the world can be. It doesn’t mean he’s an idiot. It means he’s not quite as scarred up and defensive as you and I are. This is not exactly a bad thing to be around. It’s easier to live in the world when you can forget it’s constantly trying to eat you raw.”

  Elijah stared at the ceiling. “It’s more difficult when I connect to people. Makes it impossible to fake it.”

  “Then stop faking it. Don’t go home with them. Ditch your phone with the tracking software. I’ll spring for a pay-as-you-go.”

  Elijah kept his gaze pinned upward, but his hands tightened on his mug. “They’d cut me off the second they figured it out. They’d come here and make a scene. I mean, a scene. If they couldn’t get me to leave, they’d work to get me thrown out. My father hates the idea of me a lot more than he ever loved me. If he can’t mold me into the son he lost, he’ll take me out. He’s said so more than once.”

  Giles fought a shiver. “So you’re—what? Saying they’d what?”

  It killed Giles how hollow and empty Elijah looked. “I’m saying I have no idea what they’re capable of. I’m saying you don’t get it.”

  Shadowed, sharp memories of Aaron, stunned and sock-footed, trudging through ice and snow while his father gazed on, eyes burning with fury, washed out of the dark corners of Giles’s mind. “I get it more than you think I might.” He shut his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose as he tried to massage out a plan. “Okay—here’s the thing. Crazy parents aside, you’re not sixteen and friendless now. Even though, weirdly, you needed more help then, the narrative is a lot better today. You walk up to one reporter and tell them your fundy parents have kicked you out on your ear? First question will be what’s the college doing for you, and Timmy doesn’t want bad publicity. But this is all assuming we can’t find ten different sponsors for you to live with.”

  Elijah lowered his glare to Giles. “You’re living in a fucking fantasy. Why would people who don’t know me help me out?”

  “Because all the people I’m thinking of are gay or have gay sons. Because we live in the age where a Make-A-Wish kid says he wants to be Batman and a whole city turns itself inside out to let him play superhero. Because even I could figure out how to package this and sell it and get you a GoFundMe account on social media, but I’d let Walter handle it because he could probably get a parade tossed in. Because though you’re mocking it, you do have a net, and it starts with Aaron. And me.”

  “Ooh, maybe your glee club could be my flash mob. I could live off the YouTube proceeds.”

  “See, that’s the kind of asshole comment not helping you out.”

  “It’s the kind of asshole comment that’s kept me from taking one of my dad’s guns and applying it to my brain stem.” Elijah shut his eyes and rubbed his temples. “You people are exhausting. Is this friend of Aaron’s going to coo all over me too?”

  Giles got a sudden image of Walter Lucas and Kelly Davidson taking on the prickly Elijah Prince, and he couldn’t help it, he laughed out loud. “God. I can’t wait. I’m getting popcorn.”

  Elijah flipped him off, but it was a weary gesture. And though Elijah didn’t smile, Giles would have sworn the guy looked a baby bit relieved.

  In the week after Elijah’s confession, Aaron’s roommate was ten thousand times more caustic than he’d ever been, and yet not one of the barbs made Aaron tremble. One night as Aaron stood with him at the Dumpster while he smoked, Elijah got frustrated he wasn’t
getting any purchase and switched tactics. “You do get that all you’re doing is projecting onto me, thinking if you can save me, somebody can save you?”

  Aaron leaned against the brick wall of the dorm, watching his breath come out in white clouds as he stared up at the clear night sky. “Maybe. Except I’m starting to feel like you’re my training wheels to figuring out how to save myself.”

  Swearing under his breath, Elijah stomped out the butt of his cigarette. “I liked you better when you were a cowering doormat.”

  Aaron had to bite back a smile. No, Elijah didn’t. But he wasn’t going to point that out, because unlike Elijah, he wasn’t cruel.

  Of course, now Aaron knew Elijah was cruel because he couldn’t stand for the world to be unkind to him first. Accepting affection made him uneasy, whereas deflecting taunts was business as usual. The first time they walked through the union together and a group of frat boys shouted a fag comment, one clearly aimed at Elijah, Aaron had tried to call them on it, but Elijah only rolled his eyes. “Put down the shield, Cap,” he murmured, dragging Aaron away. But five minutes later a group of choir people stopped them on the bridge between buildings for a visit, trying to politely get to know Aaron’s roommate, and Elijah looked like he wanted to jump through one of the windows.

  After that, Aaron introduced Elijah to people slowly, more deliberately. He started with Jilly, whom he thought of as bottled sunshine and happiness, but Mina connected with Elijah more strongly. They sat in the Titus lounge for hours just talking, sometimes even laughing. It was Mina who got Elijah to admit what all those notebooks were for: they were stories. Elijah was a writer. He wrote steamy gay erotica as Naughty Nate, posting some of it online but mostly hoarding it because someday he wanted to publish.

  He wouldn’t let Aaron see a word of it, but he let Mina read his works in progress.

  Next Elijah met Marius. That was accidental, because Marius came up to them in the coffee shop to ask Aaron a question, but since it was just him, and since Marius was cool and sex on a stick, Aaron gave it a go. Though Elijah was clearly nervous at first, he unraveled pretty quickly, at least enough to behave like an actual human. When Marius invited him over to the White House for movies on Friday night and Elijah had to decline, Marius winked and said, “Some other time.”

  The only thing Aaron didn’t like was that Elijah kept going to Bible study. They fought about it constantly, and every time Aaron lost the argument.

  “You need to get it through your fat head,” Elijah ground out as he worked the knot of his tie up to his throat, “that the toads report directly to my parents. They’ve already noticed I have all these new friends and my fag roommate has become super chummy with me. My dad shouted at me for an hour about it last night.”

  Aaron sat up straighter on his bed. This was news to him. “What did he say? What did you say?”

  “He told me I wasn’t to speak to you. He’s already called the college six times trying to get me a new roommate, but the dorms are slammed. He’s threatening to move me off campus so I can stay with a fundy family.”

  “What? He can’t—”

  Elijah rolled his eyes. “No, he can’t. Freshmen need a special dispensation to live off campus, and I asked the dean of students not to give me one.”

  He’d talked to the dean? “Are you telling me you actually reported them, finally?” From the locked-down way Elijah stared at himself in the mirror, as if he were trying hard not to be terrified, Aaron got his answer. He wanted to hug Elijah, but he hugged himself instead. “God, leave it to you to bury the lead.”

  “Yes, well, I don’t know if it helped much.” Elijah gave up on his tie and went to the window, parting the blinds to stare out at the common. “Mostly the dean didn’t know what to do with me. Now I have an appointment with the campus pastor tomorrow morning.”

  That made Aaron stand up. “You what? Oh, fuck.”

  “For counseling, dummy. Not rehabilitation.” Elijah laughed. “You’re so funny, the way you hate religion. You hate it more than me, I think.”

  Yeah, Aaron wasn’t much of a fan. He hadn’t seen it do much good for anyone so far. “How do you know this guy isn’t going to dump Jesus on you?”

  “Because it’s Pastor Schulz. You keep forgetting I got here by saying I’m majoring in religion. I’ve had him for two classes now, and I know the whole pastoral staff. Some of them are lemmings, yes, but my dad would pass out to know how liberal they all are. I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of knowing how out of sync what they’re teaching me is with what my family would like me to be learning.” He stood over Aaron, amused but also…grateful. “Schulz won’t haul me off to the gulag. I don’t think there’s much he can actually do, but you’re right. It’ll be good to talk to someone who can help me process the finer points of how to deal with them. And that’s all happening because of you, Cap, so thanks.”

  Aaron was pretty sure he never said go talk to the campus pastor, but if Elijah was okay with it, he guessed he would be too. “Walter and Kelly are coming tomorrow afternoon. They’ll get here before your parents, don’t worry.”

  Elijah’s eyebrow went up. “You’re all frowny. What’s up?” When Aaron averted his gaze, Elijah sat beside him on the bed and took his hand, patting it with mock tenderness. “Come on. Spill.”

  Aaron swallowed the lump of guilt in his throat. “Walter shouldn’t be able to get here so early because he’s supposed to have an internship. He doesn’t anymore, and it’s because of me.”

  Elijah snorted. “Please, hubris much—”

  “He worked for my dad’s firm. He’s pissed at what my dad did, and as soon as my dad showed up at the office while he was there, Walter laid into him and got fired. He hasn’t worked there for weeks now. I just found out.”

  An awkward pause ended with an even more uncertain pat from Elijah on Aaron’s leg. “I’m…sorry. Except…damn. Talk about Captain America.”

  “Walter’s a lot more Iron Man.” Slumping, Aaron shut his eyes. “I hate that it happened because of me. He says not to worry about it, he already has a new one lined up, but I still hate it.”

  “Be glad you have friends who love you.” This time Elijah’s leg-patting was a lot more self-assured. “I need to go kiss a few toads. I have to meet them in the lobby because Reece is terrified of the guy who lives across from us after their last throw-down. Don’t wait up for me, sweetheart.”

  “You know I will.”

  “I do.” Elijah squeezed Aaron’s hand, then, tentatively, pressed a kiss on Aaron’s cheek as he rose. “Polish your shield. We’re gonna storm Asgard when I get home.”

  Aaron did wait up. Giles came over and waited with him, snuggling with him on the bed as they stared at the door.

  “He’s been a bigger wreck every night.” Aaron drew Giles’s arms tighter around him, trying to squeeze out the lump of fear in his belly. “I hate it when he goes. All they do is fuck with his head.”

  “You said he’s talking to the campus pastor tomorrow. Maybe he’ll help.”

  “Maybe he’ll make him worse.” Aaron had to work to unclench his jaw. “I’m glad Walter is coming. He says he has some ideas.”

  “A lot of people are helping. Damien came up to me in the lounge a little bit ago—that’s why I was late coming over. He says the house had a meeting, and they’ll take Elijah in if it comes to it. Make the butler pantry into a bedroom like it used to be. They’ll split his rent between them, and Baz said he’d cover food and incidentals, help him find a job in Campustown. Obviously it’d be better if Elijah could stay in school, but it’d be a hell of a lot better than home or the streets.”

  That was good news, though Aaron wondered again what the connection between Baz and Elijah was, and if Elijah would accept help from him. “What about next weekend when we’re all gone to semifinals? What if his parents go psycho and kidnap him while we’re gone?”

/>   “Then we take him with us as water boy or something. Or he goes with Walter. We’ll figure it out, babe.” Giles hugged Aaron tighter and kissed his ear.

  The kiss had morphed into something a little more delicious when Aaron’s phone buzzed on the desk beside his bed. He broke away to check it, then winced and tossed it back down as if it had burned him.

  Giles immediately scooped it up. “What’s wrong? Who’s texting you?”

  “My dad.” Aaron burrowed into Giles’s chest, shutting his eyes. “It doesn’t matter how many times Brian blocks him. He just gets a new number. The RA said he’s been calling the school too.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell me about this?” Giles thumbed at the phone for a few seconds, then went rigid in Aaron’s arms. “Fuck. Have you read any of these texts, hon?”

  The hollow in Aaron’s belly expanded. “No. Why?”

  “Because he’s been threatening you with all kinds of crap all week. He’s coming tomorrow to talk some sense into you, says this last message.” Giles threw the phone onto the desk. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

  “It’ll be okay,” Aaron whispered, though he had to step on terror to get the words out.

  Giles had his own phone out and was texting madly. “I’m telling my parents to come. And warning Walter it’s going down. God, it’s gonna be the fucking O.K. Corral tomorrow night. Maybe we can put your dad in with the Princes and they’ll kill each other.” When Aaron shivered, Giles put the phone down and held him close.