MY MOM picked us up after school exactly as planned. This was such an awesome thing, to have Bill with me on a weeknight, all evening, all night, and to see him first thing when I woke up in the morning.
Of course having people start to talk about me being a faggot was a real bummer. I had worked so hard for so many years to blend into the woodwork, to be transparent, to stay safely tucked inside my shell. To suddenly have all that work evaporate in a day was overwhelming. And it was a bit scary. I wasn’t a jock. I exercised and lifted weights, but I wasn’t a big hulking guy who could scare bullies away by flexing something. I knew that bigots were bullies and loved to mock what they didn’t understand. I dreaded what could happen at school, probably when I least expected it.
Bill had done an absolutely masterful job of deflecting the issue after calculus class that afternoon. I was so wowed by what he said, and how he didn’t punch the idiot. Watching the man in action was awesome. I couldn’t wait to get to my room and hug the stuffing out of him.
Still, I worried that I was the reason he was gonna get lots of crap. He was a jock. He was popular. He was well liked. People came to watch him at track meets and basketball games and cheered him on. Me? They didn’t know me. And now, if this spread—if? It was high school; news spread faster than an STD—he could lose so much. The higher you are, the farther you have to fall.
After school while we briefly cuddled on my bed, I was preoccupied with my fears that I was going to potentially be an anchor around Bill’s neck, dragging him down from his well-earned place in the school society. It had taken years and lots of work for him to get where he was today. I hated the thought that I might be the reason he lost this incredibly important part of his identity just for associating with me, and just when so much of the rest of his world was crumbling.
At dinner that evening, Bill asked my dad a simple question I had wondered about. “What happened in the house last night after we left?”
My dad looked at him for a moment and answered, “He will never be a problem for you again. And we didn’t kill him and bury the body back in the woods, if that’s what you’re thinking. Do you know how hard it would be to dig a hole when the ground is this frozen?”
I couldn’t help but laugh, which is exactly what he wanted us to do.
“I’m not gonna go into the details, but we’ve got a bit of a routine we’ve developed. Yours is sadly not the first family to suffer abuse at a family member’s hand. All I’m gonna say is that we had a little ‘come to Jesus’ talk.”
“Wait, wait. You’ve done this before? Who? When?” Bill asked, surprised.
My dad took my mom’s hand, and together they answered his question by telling a bit about what I had learned last night.
At the end of the story, Bill simply said, “Thank you.” That was about all he could get out. He was so overcome with emotion at that point that he seemed to simply be shutting down. He was still with us, but his expression was neutral, unreadable.
My mom told him that his mother was safe and that she had some really good folks with her to help her get through the days and weeks ahead. He wanted to know where, but my mom was adamant that the safe houses were safe because they were a secret. She assured him that he and his mother would see each other and talk, but that she had a lot of healing to do emotionally and psychologically… as did he.