“What are you doin here?” I looked at my mother incredulously as though I had never seen her before. I hadn’t really seen her in almost a week or more. She was sitting on the couch with a very stern expression on her face. I just stood there unable to really believe that she was sitting there. I hadn’t seen her car in the driveway or anywhere along the street – but at the same time, I really hadn’t been looking.
“This is my house, Brandon. I live here.” My mother said angrily. She looked over at Chris, the bitter look on her face only worsened. “And who are you?”
“Chris. ” For a moment, my mother didn’t say anything. And then she finally said very delicately while trying to keep a calm expression: “It’s nice to meet you Chris.. but now is not the best time for you to be here. I need to talk to Brandon alone.” My stomach was twisting in all kinds of knots and I could feel myself slowly becoming numb all over. Chris took a step backward, away from me, in the direction of the door.
“Alright,” he said politely. To me Chris said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, B.”
I didn’t answer, I just watched, angry and disappointed as Chris walked out of the door. A few minutes later, I heard the sound of his engine starting and I heard him drive away down the street. At that moment, I felt really alone.
“Sit.” my mother said, her voice sounding very cold.
Reluctantly, I sauntered over to the chair across from the couch where my mother sat. Her eyes were still had that ferocity in them that made me nervous. After about a two minute lapse of silence, my mother said, “I got a call from your Spanish teacher, Ms. Navarro just a few minutes before you came home. She told me that you were caught copying off someone else’s exam.”
It felt like my chest was caving in and I couldn’t breathe. I hadn’t expected Ms. Navarro to call my home that soon, and I sure as hell didn’t expect my mother to be here to answer the phone. “She told me you were cheating off a boy named Christopher Green,” my mother continued. “That wouldn’t happen to be the name of the boy who just left here would it?”
Looking down at my shoes I replied, “Yes.”
“Since when do you cheat on tests, Brandon?”
“I…” I didn’t know what to say at all.
“This woman told me some other things involving you and this boy that really has me concerned,” my mother said. “You never told me that you’ve been having detention for practically the last three weeks. Your teacher told me you were suspended for three days for having sex in the classroom with this boy. What’s that about Brandon? Tell me, because I’m not really understanding why you’re having sex at school with a boy I didn’t even know existed until ten seconds ago.”
I still didn’t know what to say. “I don’t know.”
“Well you need to know quick, Brandon Newman. I’m very upset with you. Your teacher told me that both you and this boy should’ve been expelled by now. The only reason why you haven’t been is because you’re a good student. Brandon, send you to school so that you can get detention and get expelled. The only two things I’ve ever asked you to do, is be a good student and take care of the house when I’m not here. I trusted you to be responsible, to make good decisions and you’re not doing any of those things. How many times has that boy been over here?”
“I don’t know…a lot.”
My mother sighed deeply. “Your teacher says you have a week of detention starting tomorrow. If I were you, I would do whatever is that I needed to do so that you don’t have to do that detention. I don’t care whose ass you have to kiss to get out of it, but I want you to be here tomorrow afternoon before six o clock. Hopefully I’m making myself clear.”
“Sure,” I answered bored. I got up and started to go to my room.
“And I don’t want you being around that boy anymore.” It was just like she had just stabbed me in the stomach with a rusty knife or something.
“What?” I asked, obviously shocked.
“You heard what I said. That boy is causing you a lot of harm, and I don’t want him getting you into anymore trouble. Stay away from him, Brandon.”
“He’s my boyfriend.” I said defiantly. “I’ll see him whenever I want.” Before my mother could respond, I rushed into my bedroom and slammed the door shut. I landed heavily on my bed and peered out my bedroom window. Tears were trying to force themselves to fall from my eyes, but I didn’t allow them to. I had learned how not to cry long time ago and I wasn’t going to cry now, especially not over this. I wasn’t going to cry ever.
Chris came to mind, and I recalled how that past Saturday, we had spent most of the time in my bed, talking, thinking, fucking…I wanted him with me at that moment, and I was mad as hell with my mother for making Chris leave. She was wrong, Chris wasn’t causing me any harm. He used to, long time ago, but not anymore. And who gives a fuck about what Ms. Navarro has to say anyway? She doesn’t know me and she doesn’t know Chris. I wasn’t going to allow her, my mother, or anyone else to fuck up what I had with Chris.
Around ten o clock, I decided to call Chris to see what he was doing. It took seven rings for him to answer.“Hello?” Chris said.
“Chris, it’s me, Brandon.”
There was a brief second when Chris was completely silent, and then he said, “Oh. Hey.” His voice kinda sounded robotic, and I was getting the idea that he really didn’t want to talk to me.
“What are you doin?” I asked.
“Nothin,” Chris answered. He sounded very uninterested.
“Sorry bout what happened with my mother.”
“It’s cool,” Chris said. There was an awkward silence that lasted about half a minute and then Chris told me, “Listen B, I’m bout to get off the phone right now. I’ll see you tomorrow.” There was something strange in the way he said ‘tomorrow’ as though he were not telling me the truth.
“Why do you sound like that?” I questioned.
“Sound like what?”
“Like you don’t wanna talk to me,” I said. “Is there somethin wrong with you?”
“I rather not talk about this shit right now, B. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“You keep sayin that. There is somethin wrong with you. Just tell me what it is.”
“Look,” Chris said, “I really gotta go now.” I was about to say something else but Chris clicked off before I could say anything. At first I really hadn’t believed that he hanged up on me like that. But then I heard the dial tone, and then later the mechanical voice of the telephone operator telling me to hang up the phone. My first thought was to call Chris right back and ask him what the fuck was wrong with him and why he was talking to me like I was really annoying him or something. But then I decided against it. If he was bothered, I didn’t want to bother him any more. So I just laid there in my bed, bored and alone.
Chris didn’t come to school the next day. I really hadn’t expected him to, especially from our phone conversation the previous night. When he didn’t show up to first period, I was hoping that he was just a little late and would be there in like fifteen minutes or somethin. But then the whole period went by and he didn’t show up. The same thing happened in second period. There was just a empty desk right across from me where Chris usually sat.
During the fifteen minute break, I went into the large, dim-lit, empty gym that smelled like boys’ gym socks and old basketballs, and I called Chris on my cell phone. His phone rang many times, but he never answered the phone. Finally his voice mail picked up and I left a message. “Hey, Chris, this is Brandon. I was just wonderin why you didn’t come to school today. But um…call me back or whatever… if you want to.” I hung up the phone. I turned around and gasped to see Mr. Wilson standing behind me, arms crossed over his chest, a very grim expression on his hard, attractive face.
“What are you doin in here, Newman?” Wilson asked. “You’re not supposed to be in the gym unsupervised.”
“…I was calling my mother…” I said nervously. ‘It’s the only place I could get good reception…” Mr. Wilson was aware that I was a bit intimidated by him and that made him smile.
“You’re not supposed to be in here, and you’re not supposed to be using cell phones on campus.,” he told me. “Hand it over to me.”
I didn’t make any effort to give anything to him. I had to show him that I wasn’t just some damn scared pushover that he could just punk around. Instead of giving my phone over to him I said, “I won’t use it on campus anymore. I’ll go outside the gates.” I started to walk past him, but Mr. Wilson shot out a hand and grabbed me by the waistband of my jeans and jerked me back over to him. He stared at me very coldly with his arctic-blue eyes.
“You think you’re so fuckin smart,” he whispered, his warm breath brushing up against my face. His hand never let go of my waistband. In fact his grip on me had tightened even more. He stepped a bit closer to me, almost close enough for me to hear his pulse. Wilson let go of my waistband, but he wasn’t finished touching me yet. His hand slid over the curve of my ass. I felt a tingle spread over the place where he touched me. I wanted to move, but it was like I couldn’t, it was like Wilson had me under some kind of spell and I was forced to just stand there, looking into his cold, alluring eyes, basically helpless to my actions. My dick got a hard a little, hard enough to make the front of my jeans poke out a little.
Wilson continued to rub my ass gently while still staring deeply into my eyes, never blinking. There wasn’t any sign of real emotion on his face, just that blank stare. But I knew what he was feeling: that he had control over me, that there was nothing I could do to stop him. He also knew that there was a part of me that didn’t want him to stop touching me, even though we both knew it was inappropriate. Mr. Wilson brought his hand around to my front and squeezed my dick through my jeans. This was all I needed to get fully hard. I looked around the empty gym, hoping that nobody would come in and see us. I looked down and saw the imprint of Wilson’s ten-inch cock hardening in his charcoal-colored slacks. I wanted to reach out and touch his dick to, but I didn’t allow myself.
Finally, the school bell rang, and I felt like the trance I was under broke. I pulled Mr. Wilson’s hand away from my dick. He gave me a taunting smirk and as he walked away, he said, “I’ll be seein you in detention.”
“I can’t come to detention today,” I said, finally getting some of my courage back. “there’s something important I got to do. I have to be home early…”
Without turning around, Wilson said, “That’s just more private time you have to make up with me.” And he walked briskly out of the gym.
* * *
I got home at a quarter past four in the afternoon. My mother was in the living room when watching Oprah when I returned. “Did you get everything straightened out with your teacher?” she asked, her eyes still on the screen.
“Yeah.” I lied.
“So that means no more detention, right?” my mother questioned.
Again, I said “Yeah.”
“Good,” she said.
My mother asked me no more questions so I went right to my room. I thought about calling Chris again, but I figured if he really wanted to talk to me, then he would call me. I stretched across my bed and went to sleep for a little whole. About a three hour and a half later, my cell phone rang. I jumped up, anticipating that it was Chris and I answered it on the second rang. “Hello?” I asked.
“It’s me,” Chris said. He sounded so glum.
“Hey. You wasn’t in school today. I missed you.” I probably shouldn’t have said that last part, but it was true.
“Yeah. Shit came up. Couldn’t go. Got your message. Are you doin somethin important right now?”
“Just sittin here lookin like an idiot,” I told him.
“Will your mom let you come out of the house on a school night?” Chris joked.
“I’m not twelve, Chris. I can go out anytime I want to.”
“Good,” Chris said. “Be outside in twenty minutes.” He hung up the phone. I got really excited, jumping out of my bed, putting on my shoes. I didn’t know what I was gonna say to my mother when she asked me where I was going. But all I knew was that I wasn’t going to stay in that house all night doing nothing. The living room was clear twenty minutes later, as I made my way to the front door. However, just as I was about to open the door, I heard my mother’s voice coming from the kitchen asking, “Where are you going, Brandon?”
“Just around,” I called back.
My mother emerged from the kitchen, drying her hands off with a cloth towel. “Around where?” she asked.
“The block,” I said, growing panicked.
“It’s almost eight o’ clock at night, what do you need to go walking around for? I hope you don’t plan on going to see that boy when I told you not to. I already told you how I felt about him.”
“And I already told you how I felt about him. He’s not a bad person.”
“Well how am I supposed to know that? You haven’t told me anything about this boy -”
“Stop calling him ‘boy’, his name is Chris. And how could I tell you about him? You’re never here. I’m old enough to know what I’m doing and the type of people I wanna be around. I don’t need you tellin me who I should and shouldn’t be with.”
“Brandon, I’m trying to watch out for you. This boy…Chris – whatever his name is, do you ‘really’ think that’s somebody you should be with?”
I opened the front door. “If you knew him the way I do, then you wouldn’t ask me that question.” As I was about to walk out, I said, “I’ll be back before eleven.” Just as I went outside, I saw Chris’ truck approaching. He stopped right in the middle of the street, in front of my house. I jogged around the truck and got inside on the passenger side. Chris pulled off, drove down the road a little bit until we were past my house, and parked along the curbside.
“Was your mom trippin?” Chris asked.
“Pretty much. But I’m not worried about her right now.” I looked over at Chris. He looked as beautiful as always, but there was something slightly different about him; he didn’t seem like his usual self. “Chris, is there somethin wrong with you?” I asked. If there was, I figured he wouldn’t tell me, but I wanted to at least try.
Chris didn’t say anything. He just shook his head.
It was getting dark really quickly. I looked on the clock on Chris’ dashboard and saw that it was past eight thirty. Chris saw me looking at the time and he asked, “You gotta be home by a certain time or somethin?”
“Told my mother I would be back before eleven.”
“Doesn’t give us much time,” Chris said softly. Looking at his face, I could tell there was definitely something wrong with him. I wish he would just tell me what it was, but I didn’t want to pressure him about it. To cover up the silence between us, Chris turned on the radio. “Where are we going?” I questioned.
“Where do you wanna go?” Chris asked back.
“Doesn’t really matter to me.” I leaned forward and kissed Chris gently on the lips. He didn’t seem too receptive to me. Usually he kissed me with such passion, but I felt like he wasn’t kissing me at all. I pulled away from Chris slowly, feeling a bit embarrassed and awkward. Chris just sat at the wheel for a while like he was thinking about something really important, and then he finally started to drive.
We ended up driving about ten blocks away. Chris took us to this playground that was next to my old elementary school. The playground was dark mostly, except for a few streetlights, and it was very isolated. “C’mon,” he said, opening his car door. I got of the truck too. We walked silently across a wide field of damp grass, then over some sand before coming to an empty swing set. Two swings sway back and forth gently, pushed by the wind, waiting for us to sit on them. Chris got on one of them, I got on the other. “I haven’t been on one of these things since I was like nine,” I told Chris.
Chris said, “Yeah…me either.” he sounded so melancholy.
“Tell me what’s wrong with you, Chris. You’re actin like somebody just died or somethin.”
“Just pissed,” he said.
“About what?”
“All the shit that’s been goin on lately.”
“Like what? What happened at school yesterday?”
“That and other shit,” Chris said. “. Can’t fuckin wait to move out of my house. My fuckin dad is always fucked up all the fuckin time. We got in a fight last night -”
“Like a fist fight?” I asked.
Chris only nodded.
“Are you okay? What happened? Did you get hurt?”
“I’m cool, B. It’s just a lotta bullshit that I don’t wanna talk about right now. All I know is, the next fuckin time he puts his hands on me, I’m gonna kill him.” What was scary was how serious he sounded. I really wanted to know what was going on, but I knew that whatever it was, Chris wasn’t going to tell me. He didn’t trust me enough to tell me, which really hurt me, probably as much as he was hurting now. “I’m just fuckin tired of everything and everybody right now.” I wanted to ask if everybody meant me but I didn’t. I reached over and touched his hand. It felt kinda cold. I didn’t want to same some lame shit like ‘That’s okay, it’ll be alright’ or ‘everything is going to be alright’ or some stupid shit like that.
Chris squeezed my hand tight and he started to warm up a little. “Sometimes I wish I could just go some where and never fuckin come back,” Chris said. “Everything in my life is so fuckin bullshit.” I wondered if he always felt this way or if it was just mainly tonight.
I finally got enough courage to say, “What about me? Are you tired of me, too?”
Chris looked over at me. Even though it was dark I could still see his face very clearly. “You’re just about the only thing in my fucked up life that I don’t hate. But…” Chris grip on my hand loosened a little. I was really starting to get concerned.
“But what?” I asked.
“Nothin,” Chris whispered.
“You’re not fucked up, Chris. No more than anybody else in this world is.”
Chris chuckled. “Then what the fuck am I?”
“Complicated, annoying, mean…and then you’re sensitive, deep, sexy as hell… and you’re really smart. I don’t think people really give you credit for the great person you are. I don’t think you give yourself credit for the great person you are. I think you put up this image of yourself, of how you want people to see you, but it’s not real. I do the exact same thing. It’s how we keep ourselves protected against a world that really doesn’t like us. But then it crushes you emotionally.”
“…I guess,” Chris said. “You didn’t have to get all Dr. Freud and shit.” Chris got up from the swing and stretched his arms above his head. He turned back to me and beckoned with his hand. “C’mon,” he said.
Slowly I got off the swing. My feet sank into the soft sand. “Where are we goin now?”
Chris took me by the hand and started to drag me along. I gave up any efforts to resist him. “Just come with me.” We walked across the field and stopped under a large tree, whose many branches bent down toward us, their leaves making little whispering sounds as the wind rushed past them. Chris sat down, his back against the trunk of the tree, I sat in front of him, my back against his chest. He wrapped his arms around me. I felt warm and protected. Chris kissed my ear, making my body squirm in his hold. I looked up at the sky and was surprised to see that there were many stars in the sky, at least over three dozen, which from my experience is a rare thing. The night was quiet and peaceful. I rested my head on Chris’ shoulder; he held me tighter. “Sometimes I wish it was just stay like this forever,” I said.
“No such thing as forever,” Chris whispered.
I thought about what Scott Howard had said earlier that day on the bus, about how he thought that loving someone was supposed to last forever. But then he realized that it didn’t. Scott was only fifteen and he didn’t believe in love. I was seventeen and I believed in love–or at least I wanted to – I just didn’t know if it believed in me.
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“`Cause it’s true,” was Chris’ simple answer. “And if you’re talkin bout relationships, then that shit definitely doesn’t last forever.” Chris sounded very sad when he said that.
“Well, my grandparents have been married for over thirty years and they still seem happy,” I said.
“That’s not everyone’s story, Brandon,” Chris responded.
“It could be ‘our’ story.” I knew I shouldn’t have said that. But I really wanted to say it, regardless of the consequences. I thought Chris was going to get defensive or tease me, but he didn’t say anything at all. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.
“B, I don’t want you gettin too excited about…” I waited for Chris to go on, but he didn’t.
“You don’t want me gettin too excited about what?”
“Us,” Chris said flatly. “You know what I’m talkin about.”
“Chris, you’re just about the only thing I do excited about. It might make me sound kinda desperate, but nothin and nobody else makes me happy the way you do.”
“I just don’t want you to get all invested in all this shit…” Chris said. “I don’t want you to take it so seriously.”
I pulled away from Chris and turned around so that I could see his face. “What do you mean I shouldn’t take it seriously?”
“You keep talkin about ‘forever’ and shit like that. We’ve only been together for a couple of weeks. Don’t make it more than it really is.”
I couldn’t believe I was actually hearing this. Slowly I stood up. The air around me started to get really cold. I should’ve brought a jacket or somethin. “Why are you sayin all this to me? Why do you always go outta your fuckin way to hurt my feelings all the fuckin time?”
Chris just looked up at me nonchalantly as though he really didn’t care at all. “I’m just tellin you how I feel. You keep wantin me to be your boyfriend and that’s not what I want right now, B. I told you before, I just wanna chill and have fun without havin to worry about stupid stuff. I don’t want that kinda relationship right now.”
“What about all the things you said Saturday? You said you loved -”
“I never said a loved you,” Chris interrupted loudly. For some reason he looked around to see if someone had heard him. Of course they hadn’t because we were the only two people in the park. After Chris said that, I felt like my whole body had just went numb. “You’re the one that said you loved me,” Chris said.
“You said that you could love me one day,” I told him.
“Well, sorry, B. But that day isn’t today.” Chris said it so effortlessly as though there was no emotion coming from inside of him. “Do you know how fuckin hard it would be for me to love someone, Brandon? I’ve been fucked over by everyone I’ve ever known, mostly from my own fuckin family, so I’m really not all that anxious to get fucked over by you. I like you, I think you’re a cool dude, but you want me to give you somethin that I can’t give right now. I wouldn’t know how to give it to you, I wouldn’t know ‘what’ to give to you.”
“I’m just askin for you. I’m not askin for nothin else.”
Chris stood up. He leaned against the tree. “You say you love me, B. But I think you only see the parts of me that you wanna see. If you know what kinda person I really am, how fucked up things I’ve done -”
“I know what kinda fucked up things you’ve done, Chris. You’ve done them to me for four years. And yeah, I do love you, the good parts and the bad parts. There’s a lot of times I wish I didn’t like you at all. But I don’t wish that now. I can’t wish it.”
“But I just can’t do it, B. I’m sorry, I just can’t.” Shadows covered Chris’ face, and I couldn’t see him as clear as I could before. “I just…” he stopped for a few moments. “I think we should just cool off for a while.” Those words were sharp enough to kill me. I didn’t understand how we had gotten to this conversation. Everything seemed to be moving so fast and nothing was making sense to me at all.
“Are you serious?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Chris said.
I could feel those tears coming back again. But once again I refused to let them fall. I was glad it was dark enough so that Chris couldn’t see the expression on my face. “Why did you let me think that you liked me? Just five minutes ago you said I was the only person you don’t hate. And now you’re sayin you don’t wanna be with me at all.”
“I did….I do like you, B.”
“No you don’t Chris, not really. I was just a convience for you. You never really cared.”
“Brandon, I do fuckin care about you!”
“So why are we havin this fuckin conversation then? You made me promise not to mess around with anybody else, and I haven’t because you didn’t want me to. I don’t believe in promises but I made one for you. I could’ve maybe started somethin with Jason Coleman, but I didn’t, because I wanted you, because I thought that you wanted me. But you didn’t want me to be with you only because you liked me so much, you just wanted to keep me to yourself because you a fuckin greedy ass, selfish bastard. You said that you don’t wanna love someone because you don’t wanna get fucked over. Well, goddammit, you’ve done nothin but fuck me over and I still love you anyway. But that’s not enough for you.”
Chris didn’t say anything.
“I thought you brought me here `cause you wanted to spend time with me, but you brought me here to tell me that you wanted to break up with me.”
“I didn’t want to tell you over the phone,” Chris said.
“Oh, because then you wouldn’t be able to see the expression on my face when you told me to fuck off.”
“It’s not like that, B.”
“I’m tired of liking people who don’t like me,” I said to Chris. “I’m tired of puttin effort into people just to get disappointed. It’s people like that make me hate every fuckin body. If you don’t wanna be with me…”
“Brandon, I didn’t say I didn’t want to be with you -” Chris said.
“Then what the fuck are you sayin Chris? Tell me, so I can know.”
“I think we should just let things settle for a while. We’ve been goin non-stop, spendin all this time together. I just think we need to be apart for a while,” Chris said. “Not forever, just for a little while. Just give me a little time.”
It sounded weird for Chris to say forever, especially since he said he didn’t believe in the idea of the word ‘forever’. “I don’t wanna wait around for you forever, Chris. I don’t wanna waste time waitin for you to realize that you want me. If you want me, you should want me now, not later. If not, then just forget the whole thing.”
“If that’s how you feel about it,” Chris said casually. “Fine with me.”
I felt my heart go cold. I turned in the direction of Chris’ truck. “I’m ready to go home now.”
We walked in thick silence to his truck. The ride home was even more torturous. We didn’t say one thing to each other. There was nothing I needed to say to Chris. And there was nothing I really wanted to hear from him. Five minutes later, Chris pulled up into my driveway. I opened the car door, and Chris said, “Brandon…” but he didn’t say anything else.
“What is it?” I asked.
Chris’ eyes looked really sad. “Nothin,” he said.
“No. Tell me what you were about to say.”
“…I can’t…” Chris said. It sounded like he was forcing himself not to cry.
“You’re such a fuckin coward.” Annoyed I climbed out of the truck, slammed the door shut, and went inside of my house. I didn’t hear Chris’ truck pull off down the street until a good five minutes later. My mother was sitting on the couch again, watching TV. When she saw me, she said, “I’ve been waiting for you to come home.”
I walked over to the couch slowly and sat next to her. I felt like crying and my body felt weak, as though I didn’t have control over it. “What happened?” my mother asked. She actually sounded like a concerned mother and not a dictator for once. I gazed at the TV screen and rested my head on her shoulder. I couldn’t say anything. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
“You were right,” I said a few minutes later. I hated to admit that. I didn’t want it to be true.
My mother didn’t ask me what I meant by that because she already knew. She didn’t say anything and I appreciated her silence. I just stared at the television screen, looking at the images but not really looking at them. Finally the tears came, and I thought they would never stop.

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