“You know you’ll pass.”
“It hurts, Leif. My own mom wants me ruled incompetent. I thought she loved me. You asked me to give her a chance, but I’m done. I’m moving out. I’ll stay in one of those hotels or something.”
“What hotel?”
“The one’s you pay by the week. I have a job, and it’ll only be until I go to school.”
“Rid, once they drop the charges against me, you’ll stay at my house. Mom and Dad will be cool with it. We’re all adults, remember? They know we’re moving in together.”
“You sure?”
“Yep. My mom is convinced we’re going to get married someday. She and my dad started dating at nineteen, so I guess it’s a magic number.”
“Well she’s right. I already told you that.”
“Wait. No! Gabe, stop.” We hear coming from outside. Amanda’s voice yelling.
No time to cover, Rid holds me in his arms as we watch Gabe Cera walk into the men’s room with us. As always he looks good. But he’s also proof that once our kiss ended, evil existed again.
“So sweet,” Gabe says. “Must be true love.”
“Were you following me?” Ridley asks. Gabe ignores him. He had to have followed Rid.
“What do you want Gabe?” I ask, full of attitude as well as hope that he’ll end whatever this is soon so I can go back to doing what I came here for, that, being with my boyfriend.
“Should you two be seen together? I mean, those charges are pretty serious.” He places his hand at his collarbone. As if he’s shocked.
“What do you want?” I ask again.
“Listen Fraser, here’s the deal. You don’t want anyone to know you’re still seeing the retard. I want blowjobs.”
“What about your girlfriend?” Ridley asks. A good question. And I’m so proud of Rid not letting the retard comment get to him.
“Don’t think I was talking to you spaz. Fraser knows how I like it. Blowjobs buy my silence.”
“No,” Rid speaks up again. “He won’t have sex with you, when he’s in a relationship with me.” And he squeezes my hand.
I kiss his cheek and nod once, so he knows I’m with him. I won’t have sex with another man. Ridley is it for me. Blackmail or not, I won’t do it.
“Thought I told you to shut it.” Gabe steps forward, like he’s coming for Rid. I move myself between them. If he tries to hit Ridley, I’ll beat the shit out of him.
The air charges around us, an electric current feeding the vibe as we prepare to come to blows. And not the kind Gabe was originally after.
Saved by Amanda. She clears her throat. She’d been listening the whole time. With her presence, Ridley speaks up one last time, putting the issue to bed. “Here’s what’s going to happen, Gabe. You aren’t going to say a thing about me and Leif being together today. You don’t want anyone to know you like sex with men. All three of us know you do. The court will find me competent. I’m not worried. But what would your girlfriend think?”
“No one would believe you.”
“Really?” I ask him, sarcastically. “Because from my experience, all it takes is for someone to start a rumor. When three people start it, it’ll spread like a wildfire. I don’t like the idea of outing anyone. But if you force my hand, you get it.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Ridley.”
“And there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Leif,” Rid adds.
“And there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for either of them,” Amanda throws in. “They’re my friends.”
“Damn Amanda, we’re friends,” Gabe whines.
“We aren’t friends. Your girlfriend is my friend. My friend you’re trying to screw over by cheating on her.”
Gabe’s eyes go wide only for a second before he forces the cool persona out again. “Whatever.” He tries to recover. “We’re done Fraser. Don’t come crawling back to me when the spaz spazzes.”
The three of us stand in the men’s bathroom watching Gabe Cera leave. With the knowledge of what him finding us could have meant, could still mean, we just watch lacking the ability to speak.
Then Amanda breaks the silence. “One down. One to go.” Ain’t it the truth?
Even as Rid and I fall back into our clinch, arms tight as we hold each other, I look over my shoulder and tell her, “thanks.” I wish I had a better word to give her to express the sentiment of how grateful I am. But I’m not sure that word exists. And I have Rid in a clinch.
Amanda sighs long. “I remember those days. Enjoy you two. I’ll just be outside waiting.”
Ridley only gives me a couple seconds to feel bad for how I ended things with Amanda, and pretty much using her today. His lips crush against mine once again and I only feel Ridley for twenty more minutes.
***
“Happy birthday to me.” Ridley shouts over the phone. No hello. But he doesn’t need to say hello because I know what that happy birthday means.
“I’m on my way, babe. Be there in twenty.”
“We didn’t even have to go into a courtroom.” Ridley’s excitement is palpable. I feel it thought the receiver. “Back when I had my test, I went into a room with the psychiatrist. He had a laptop open in front of him. He asked me questions from the laptop and typed my answers. It took about an hour. Then I had to wait, that’s what I’ve been doing, waiting for today. I saw my mom walk in, but I didn’t say hi or anything. After another hour me and my mom were called into an arbitration room where we were told I’m perfectly competent to make decisions on my own life.”
“I knew it, babe.” My call waiting beeps. “Hey hang on. It’s my lawyer.” I click over to the other line. “Hello?”
“Leif?” My lawyer asks.
“Yes.”
“Happy to report, all charges have been dropped. Your friend was found mentally competent. Since any case they might have had against you rested on those test results, they had no choice.”
“I know. He’s on the other line. Thanks.”
“Well then, I’ll let you get back to him.” And the lawyer hangs up.
I switch back to Rid. “All charges dropped.” I yell into the phone.
To Rid’s responding, “Woo-hoo.” Followed by a joyful belly laugh. “Best birthday ever,” he shouts then.
“Best birthday ever,” I agree.
We keep up the phone conversation the whole way to the courthouse where I find him standing out front waiting on me. I roll up for him to hop in. Rid and I lean into each other for a quick kiss before I peel out again.
First things first, clearing out twenty years of oppression from his mother’s house while the woman is supposed to be back at work.
Of course, she’s not at work.
Why do people insist on making situations harder than they need to be? All she had to do was stay away. Ridley won’t even look at her. But he openly holds my hand as we walk into the house. He’d spent the last couple of days collecting boxes. We march right up to his room to begin packing.
Amanda once again shows up to the rescue to help us pack. I use the time between my hug and cheek kiss, and her giving Rid his hug and cheek kiss, to reaffirm my promise to be a better friend to the woman. After everything, she still has my back. Doesn’t need to, no one would blame her if she didn’t. Yet, here she is having my back.
A few hours in, the room looks a shell of the room we’d first walked into. His entire life packed up in boxes. One call to my parents later and we’re done, well, just about done. All it’ll take for us to be done is to move the boxes to the front lawn and wait.
Lugging box after box down the stairs, the tedious job takes place by the three of us all while Ms. McAllister stands off to side by the wall in her living room, her arms folded over her chest. She looks to have been crying but as bad as it makes me, I couldn’t get myself to care. Rid is upstairs and Amanda’s outside when she catches me.
“Leif?”
Despite my better judgement, I turn to look a
t the woman knowing these will be the last words I’ll allow her speak to me for a while, if not forever.
“Don’t take my son from me,” she whispers.
“I’m not taking him. You sent him away.”
After our little run-in, I don’t dally outside, dropping the box next to Amanda and dashing back inside. Rid’s inside and although he stood up to Gabe for us, his mom might be a different story. Especially if she turns on the waterworks. It’s ingrained in guys, we aren’t programmed to deal with female tears. Women know it. Women have been using it to their advantage against us for years, probably since time began.
When I get back in, Rid’s carrying two boxes down the steps. I run up, make the shift of one of those boxes to my empty arms and slowly make the trek back down. Him just two steps behind. Posed photos of Ridley at every age line the wall of the stairs. So unlike the ones my mom has back home. She only ever wanted natural, organically captured pictures. Capturing not just an age, but a memory of a fun or milestone time. Ms. McAllister has none of that. Nothing natural or organically captured. All posed. Just Rid. She and Rid. A few with other people, I’m assuming are relatives. Maybe one of those is his cousin Jordan that he told me about.
And it hits me. My original assessment of the situation was right. But at the same time, it was wrong. Not accepting Ridley being gay has nothing to do with Ridley being gay, or not completely. She’s worried about appearances. What other people think. My mood shifts with this realization. I’m no longer angry with her. I’m disappointed. Disappointed because now I have no way to know if she homeschooled Rid because she thought it was best for him, which being autistic, it wasn’t, or if it was best for her.
Keep the flesh and blood kid with issues hidden. Put on the façade for the world. Posed family portraits. Polos, golf shorts and Keds. Now that he’s of age and she’s unable to hide him any longer, the only thing missing would be the pretty girl on his arm. All about appearances.
I glance over my shoulder at him. He peeks over the edge of the box granting me a Ridley Smile. Damn, he must have been so lonely growing up. I feel my face drop and I know he sees it because his face drops. So I suck it up and mouth, “I love you.” To which his face doesn’t just perk back up, but goes megawatt with the amount of love radiating off him.
Since these are the last two boxes, we have no reason to come back. As he passes, Ms. McAllister holds her hand out to him, tears shimmering in her eyes. “Ridley.”
He pauses a moment, not giving her the chance to speak. “You should call Mr. Trucker. He wants to date you.” That’s all he’s willing to give her. We move out the front door single file then drop side to side. Slowing the pace. And I know he’s drained. He did what he had to do, but it’s drained his beautiful spirit.
“Stop Rid,” I order. Setting my box on the ground, he follows suit and looks to me to make him feel better. I don’t know if I have that power, but do the only thing that might work, and hug him. A long, strong embrace. Nothing more than a reassuring transfer of love from me to him. When he wraps his arms around me, I think he gets it. When he squeezes harder, I know he gets it, absorbing everything I aim to transfer.
The scene must be crushing for someone like Ms. McAllister, someone whose whole life revolves around outward appearances. Her gay, autistic son hugging his boyfriend on the front lawn. What would the neighbors think?
A rumbling diesel engine from my dad’s pickup signals it’s time to end our embrace. Not that I want to. My folks pull up along the curb in front of the house. My dad hops out and immediately starts hefting boxes into the truck bed. Amanda jumps right in to help. Me and Rid stare at the scene before my brain kick-starts propelling my feet forward. I use my chin to gesture Rid forward, where his brain kick-starts his feet too.
We spend the next ten minutes filling the truck bed. Amazing how hours of work packing only takes minutes to stack. When we’ve finished, we invite Amanda back to my parent’s house for dinner. As Rid and my dad secure the tarp over the stacked boxes, my mom jogs up to Ms. McAllister, placing her hand on the woman’s shoulder, she leans in to say something. Ms. McAllister doesn’t respond in any way. Yet another missed opportunity. Again, I’m disappointed.
Amanda is the first to pull away, followed by my parents. Rid and I climb into my car. I ask him if he wants to drive but he shakes his head in the negative, never tearing his eyes away from his mother still standing on the front lawn. Is he waiting for her to come to him? She doesn’t. Only stares back at him.
Happy freaking birthday. Here’s your present Rid. With conditions. Your new life awaits, though you have to completely cut ties with the old one, the only one you’ve known, in order to receive it. I don’t know if the universe listens to birthday wishes made by third party wishers, but watching Ridley watching his mom, and knowing there’s nothing I can do to ease this kind of heartbreak, I make my third party wish to the universe that his mom will get her head out of her ass someday, sooner than later. Maybe, hopefully, try to repair what she’s broken. Seeing her blank face, I’m doubtful. But for Rid, I have to hope. Even if she did have me arrested.
Chapter Twelve
Most of Ridley’s boxes get stacked in the back corner of the garage, as he only needs his summer clothes and a few sundries, toothbrush, hairbrush, shaving gel, razors, basic bathroom necessities. We’ll move the rest to our apartment when we get to school.
I make room, emptying two drawers for him, clearing out space in the closet. Clearing off space on my desk for his laptop.
Mom and Amanda spend the time we’re getting Rid sorted out in my room to prepare salads, a macaroni and a potato. Dad happily takes his position as Grill Master seriously, grilling up steaks tonight because they’re the fastest to grill.
When I pull Rid outside with me, holding his hand, he pauses to watch my family, his new family, setting up for the cookout. Tears in his eyes.
“No one’s ever gone through this much trouble for me,” he says.
“No trouble at all,” my mom says. Setting the second of two large pitchers, this one of homemade lemonade, next to the iced tea, both dripping with condensation, to sit on the sideboard table next to the salads she and Amanda made.
With hardly a fly or mosquito to bother us thanks to all the citronella candles my mom lit and placed around the patio, permeating the air with a wonderful citrus fragrance, we actually get to enjoy our time in the outdoors. All of us sitting around the glass-topped table, making a memory.
Rid is so comfortable with everyone now. So different from the first time I brought him here for mac and cheese with bacon.
Bellies full, the conversation flowing, my mom and Amanda abruptly stand and walk through the sliding glass doors back into the kitchen. Maybe two minutes later Mom emerges carrying a birthday cake lit up with sparklers. Amanda follows with dessert plates and forks.
Taking their cue, I begin to sing the happy birthday song. The rest of the family joins in. My dad, my sisters, Mom and Amanda. At the end of the song, mom tells Rid to make a wish. He looks around the table, stopping to acknowledge each of us, then closes his eyes.
When he opens them again, my dad hands off a wrapped gift. My parents went shopping for a gift for Rid? I couldn’t begin to express what that means to me after the shitshow his mother put us through. Damn, I have a great family.
A stunned Ridley takes the wrapped package from my dad and just holds it.
“Go on, open it.” My dad urges.
Rid tears into the paper. And stops. Frozen, staring at it like he’s afraid to touch it.
“Leif told us you’ll need one for school.” My mom offers.
“I don’t know what to say,” Ridley answers. And honestly, I don’t know what to say either. My parents bought him an iPad and an external microphone.
Best. Family. Ever.
Amanda turns to my dad and he hands her off a wrapped package too. She sets it in front of Rid. “Happy Birthday,” she murmurs, then bending down she pecks his cheek.
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He opens the Atlantic Tech T-shirt she must have ordered online. He’s so excited he whips off the shirt he’s already wearing right there at the table, and puts on the new one. There are more good tears.
I have a gift for him upstairs in my room. “My gift is upstairs. They didn’t tell me about the party or I’d have brought it down. I’ll go get it.”
“No.” Rid stops me. “Stay for now. Let’s enjoy the cake.”
“Okay.” I rest my hands on his shoulders. Then ask the others, “Will anyone here be offended if I kiss him?”
All I get are ‘are you stupid?’ looks from the family, so I don’t waste any more time and bend down to wrap my arms around his neck. “Happy twentieth birthday, babe,” I whisper in his ear before planting a chaste, but loving kiss on him.
I swear I hear my mom, Amanda and my sisters sigh in the background. Alright, enough of that. They’ve all been great so far, no sense pushing it.
When I stand, Dad actually pats my back. He just witnessed his only son kissing his boyfriend yet still pats my back like he’s proud of me. Part of me, despite all they’ve done for Rid and me, still finds it hard to believe.
Will they really ever get used to the new dynamic? I mean, my parents, sisters and Amanda at a backyard cookout. It could be two summers ago. Yet so much has changed. I’m no longer Amanda’s boyfriend. I’m Ridley’s boyfriend now. We’re moving in together.
And I seem to be the only one taking issue with any of it.
Time to pull my head out of my ass, I guess.
***
“Wow, so Leif, you’re gay?” Caitlin, Amanda’s friend, I guess she’s my friend too, asks it in the form of a question, though I can tell it’s really a statement to wrap her head around the idea.
Because she’s known me for years, known me for dating her best friend and because we’ve been at this bonfire for a couple hours now. Amanda and I threw it in honor of Ridley’s birthday since living with his mom never afforded him the opportunity to make friends let alone have them throw him a party.
We contacted all our old friends. Had them meet us at the old docks, an unused section of beach since the shipping company went belly up. It’s still private property so technically we’re trespassing. But it always made for a good spot for underage partying since it’s still private property, the cops don’t patrol through here. As much as for tradition as the fact we’re all still underage, party at the old docks.
Summer of the Boy Page 10
