Chapter Six

THE MORNING DAWNED a little cool, and I shivered into my clothes as quickly as possible. It would warm up once the sun broke through the clouds and the wind died down. But it must have rained during the night, for the ground was a little soggy.

I ran to the bathroom and came back to everyone in the cabin starting the day. As we did our chores, Gavin, Ryan, and I studiously ignored one another. Ryan’s face was always set, as though he wanted to spit at me or yell at me, but he’d frozen it instead so as not to show how much he hated me. Gavin kept letting his eyes wander to me, and then he would look away quickly. I could sometimes feel his eyes on my back or see him staring at me out of the corner of my eye, but I ignored him.

We took extra care with the chores, and Wade’s inspection was still harsh. He yelled at Ryan for a few creases in his sheets. He pointed out a few spots of dust I’d missed. Satisfied we had cleaned enough, he let us line up for breakfast.

As I left, I felt a hand on my shoulder. Someone trod on my heels, and I turned and saw Gavin. I gave him a dirty look. “What?”

“Can you just talk to me for a second?”

“No, I can’t.”

His face fell, but he reached out and grabbed my shirt as I began to walk away.

“Let go of me,” I ordered him.

He did, but I turned and crossed my arms over my chest. “What?”

He steeled himself. “I just thought you should know the truth.”

“About what?”

Gavin flicked his eyes to the other boys, who were passing by us with curious glances thrown in our direction. They undoubtedly wanted to listen in. Once they were gone, he said, “About what Ryan was planning.”

“I don’t want to know.”

“No, I mean about me.”

“What? That you were baiting me? That you were going to lure me in to get hurt? That you lied about being friends with him? That you lied about being okay with me being trans? Save it, Alex told me the truth.”

It was satisfying to watch the blood drain from his face. With bloodless lips he said, “No, that’s not what I was doing. I wasn’t going to do it. I didn’t think that…”

“Really?” I was unconvinced.

“Yes, really,” he said, anger suddenly transforming his face. “Ryan was ordering me to do it, otherwise he would out me to my parents. My dad…” He slammed his mouth shut, but I caught a quiver of his lip.

“And I should care?”

“Because I wasn’t going to do it!” He half shouted it and looked around furtively to make sure no one had heard him. “You must not have heard the part where I was arguing with him.”

It was true I hadn’t heard the entire conversation. Ryan had been the loudest speaker, and I’d only made out what he’d said and mumbles from everyone else. But it didn’t matter. “You should have told someone about it. I could have been hurt. You lied to me.”

“I know! I didn’t get a chance to tell anyone! That was the first time he’d said anything about doing…that. And I hadn’t lied…just…”

I didn’t want to let him finish the excuse. I didn’t care why he and Ryan had been making fun of me. “Why were you hanging around him anyway?”

“Because he was my only friend for a long time. He’s an asshole, but he’s sometimes nice.”

“Gavin, that’s not a reason to stay friends with people,” I said. “That’s called abuse, you know? And why would you laugh along with him when he made fun of me? Of me being trans?”

He whitened again, his freckles standing out starkly against his pale skin. I felt empathy creeping in, and I didn’t want it. I felt bad for him—that he stayed with someone who was clearly abusing him, blackmailing him, but he had allowed it. He’d enabled Ryan’s bad treatment of others, was a bystander to their pain. He had laughed along with him, even though he knew it was wrong.

“I know,” he mumbled. “But I don’t have anyone else.”

“I wonder why?”

I was done with this conversation. I pushed past him and went to join the others. Almost everyone had lined up to go down the mountain, and I found Wade and Alex and stuck by them rather than be anywhere near Gavin, who moped along after me.

At breakfast, Alex, Ella, and I sat together. Lily and Nick were sitting with some other friends, so we had our side of the table to ourselves. To my consternation, Gavin sat down at the end of the table, a few seats away. Damn him.

“Are you ready for tonight?” Ella asked brightly as she passed me a croissant and then the butter.

I looked at Alex, who nodded. “I think so,” I replied. “If we can get in one more practice, we’ll be good.”

“Do you think they’ll let us skip afternoon activities?” Alex asked. “Or Quiet Time?”

Ella shrugged. “Activities aren’t required. I mean, they’re strongly encouraged, because the counselors have to keep an eye on people in groups. But I think if Lars is with you, you don’t have to do activities.”

We planned on that, vowing to check with Lars after breakfast to see.

After the meal, the morning activity we all signed up for was watercolor painting. I thought it would be boring, but Ella and Alex had both wanted to do it, so I went along with them.

We set up at the tables in Lincoln Lodge, and it was Angela again who was the counselor for the morning. She passed out paper and paint sets. It was then I noticed Gavin was there, too.

I nudged Ella and pointed him out. “He’s been trying to get back into my good graces,” I whispered.

She looked over, saw Gavin, and frowned. “What’s he been doing?”

“He tried to tell me the ‘truth’ about what he and Ryan had been planning.”

“Well, was it the truth?” Ella asked. Alex was watching us with wide eyes, leaning in so he could hear our whispered conversation.

“How can you say that?” I stabbed my brush into the water and then into the red paint. We were supposed to do whatever came to mind, and all I could think about was how angry I was at Gavin. And now Ella might be defending him?

“Well, you did only hear part of the conversation,” Ella said, and I suddenly wanted to be anywhere else other than here. How could she be saying this to me?

“So?”

“So? What if he is telling the truth?”

“Then he’s an asshole for not saying something to someone about it.”

“Did he have a chance? Did he say he was going to turn Ryan in?”

I jabbed my brush into the yellow, not caring I had smeared a big streak of red into it. I didn’t answer.

Ella eyed me, clucking her tongue. “Casey, I know this mood. You didn’t even give Gavin a chance, did you?”

“Why should I?”

My voice was getting too loud, and a couple people, including Gavin, looked over at me. In a lower voice, I asked it again, “Why should I?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do?” Ella said, and Alex nodded.

“I don’t believe this. You’re defending him! Both of you.”

“No, I’m not,” Ella slammed her brush down and glared at me. “If Gavin knew that Ryan was going to hurt you, and was going to turn him in, that’s something. You interrupted their meeting. You didn’t give Gavin a chance to explain. You didn’t even give him a chance to apologize to you.”

“They were going to beat me up for being trans, Ella. I don’t need an apology from him. Ryan and Gavin were laughing about me being trans. Alex heard them.”

Alex squirmed in his seat.

“An apology from Ryan, no, you don’t need that. But if Gavin wasn’t going to be involved, then you’ve vilified him for no reason.” She turned to Alex and asked, “Did you actually hear Gavin say those things, or was he just there when Ryan said them?”

I couldn’t believe this. Before Alex could answer, I said, “Vilified?”

Sometimes I hated Ella for always being so reasonable, for sounding so adult. Occasionally, she acted more like a parent than a friend, and those were the only times we ever fought. It looked like this was going to be one of those times.

“Yes, vilified. He likes you, Casey. You can still see it. I mean look at him.” She waved her brush in his direction. I didn’t look. “If he said that he was going to turn in Ryan, then maybe he was. Maybe Ryan pulled him in against his will.”

Gavin had said as much, but the nasty part of me didn’t want to admit that to Ella. It would only prove her point and make her even more insufferable. I stayed silent, loathing myself for it. But damn it, I wanted to be mad at Gavin. I wanted to hate him. He’d betrayed me and lied to me. It was quite possible he hadn’t been planning on turning Ryan in, but I had no proof.

Ella knew I was holding something back. She narrowed her eyes at me and set her jaw in that way I knew so well. We could read each other like books, and she saw the deception written all over my face. I felt my skin burn in a blush.

“Why do you hate him so much?” Ella shook her head, apparently meaning it as a rhetorical question, because she turned away and concentrated on her painting. She was done with the conversation, and from the set of her shoulders, I knew I wouldn’t be able to argue with her further.

My painting had become a spreading mess of red, orange, and yellow paint. It felt strangely symbolic.

 

WE HAD LUNCH and then set it up with Lars to practice during Quiet Time. Unfortunately, the only place where we could meet was cabin one. Both lodges were being used for afternoon activities, so they were off-limits as the counselors set up for them. We obviously couldn’t practice in our cabin, where everyone was resting.

So we trooped down to cabin one, which was far enough away we shouldn’t disturb anyone. Alex and I followed Lars as he unlocked the door and let us in.

I half expected it to be scary or creepy, considering what Ryan had wanted to do to me there, but it was just another cabin. There were only four bunks instead of five, and they held only bare mattresses. There was a closet that was open but empty as well. It was like any of the others, only deserted. Everything was dustier, though, as it obviously hadn’t been cleaned in a while. Footprints marred the carpet of dirt on the floor.

Lars, who was wearing a fluffy green cardigan and violently orange corduroy pants, actually had some good pointers as he listened to us practice. I’d thought we were doing pretty well, but now we sounded downright good. If only my voice were deeper…

After Quiet Time, we were allowed to skip our afternoon activities as long as we stayed in our own cabin. I’d considered it, because I was still mad at Ella, but decided I could use some dodgeball to work off some steam.

I bid Alex goodbye, since he was going to go nap, and trekked down the mountain once more. The field was already full of kids starting up a tug-of-war game, and the pavilion was also full. A lot of people had signed up for dodgeball, and I wondered if we had too many to play effectively.

To my annoyance, Gavin was already there. I nearly turned around and walked back up the mountain. But if I could get on the opposite team from him, then it would be an excuse to chuck a ball at him. It wasn’t very nice, but at least it would make me feel better.

But Gavin maneuvered himself to be on the same team as me. I decided to ignore him. A few times when I was in jail, though, he threw the ball straight to me. I considered just letting someone else throw the ball, but my competitive side wouldn’t let me.

Why was he making this hard?

I think I knew the answer, because Ella had said it. He really did like me.

Which did not make me feel better.

People don’t change. Gavin had shown he was more willing to keep a jerk like Ryan as a friend than stand up to him. It didn’t matter if Gavin was gay or bi, he was still hanging around people like Ryan, who hated people like him. While it was possible he hadn’t laughed about me being trans, he surely hadn’t protested when Ryan had. That was just as bad.

I wasn’t about to involve myself with someone like him just because he was cute. My mother’s hard-fought lesson had taught me something. Abusers didn’t change.

But the thought nagged at me that Gavin wasn’t an abuser.

He was the abused.

That thought stopped me in my tracks, and I got hit with a dodgeball in the moment of my inattention. I went to the jail on the other side of the court, stunned in more than one way.

How many times had I, myself, kept silent when someone said something stupid, or mean, or phobic? It was easier to stay quiet, to not rock the boat, to not challenge your friends. Gavin was queer, so it was all too likely the only friends he had were the phobic ones. He might have managed to find another group of queer people at his school, if there were any. But he lived in a small town in West Virginia. There might not be any other out queers. We tried to hunt each other down, desperate to be around people who understood us. But for some, there might be no one. Or there was no way they could be out and open and hang with the other queer people without serious risk. Kids were still disowned, beaten up, or worse, by their families for being queer.

If Gavin was still closeted to his family, then perhaps his only choice was to be friends with the homophobes. Especially if their parents knew each other. He would be expected to hang out with someone like Ryan. It was like camouflage: do what you could to fit in and not stand out, otherwise be a target yourself.

I remembered Jessie, one of my friends from back home. He’d been one of the homophobes, laughing at all us queers. Until one day, he shyly approached Ella and asked her about a book she was reading. It was about being trans, and she gave it to him on the spot. While Jessie wasn’t trans, he did realize he was queer, and that book changed his life. He repudiated the haters and joined the rest of us, and became quite a good friend.

He had told me of the intense struggle he had with being a queer boy. His parents expected him to perform masculinity perfectly: he was a strong athlete, had a string of pretty girlfriends even at his young age, was competitive in grades and everything else. But he’d hated every second of dating, which was why he’d been so bad at it. He liked sports, but he was distracted all the time because he was too busy making sure he didn’t look too long at the other guys, or that no part of his personality or look came off as queer.

His word for it all had been “exhausting.” It was a performance, all the time, for everyone. When he found us, he was finally able to relax into being his real self. His parents nearly threw him out when they found out, calling him all sorts of names and stating that no son of theirs could ever be a “sissy.”

But they came around, and now, Jessie was comfortable and happy. But it had been terribly hard for him to break it off with those former friends. It had taken him all of one year to finally tell them to shut up when they said something homophobic, even after he’d borrowed that book from Ella. He wasn’t friends with them anymore, but at least he’d stood up and at last said This is Not Acceptable.

Maybe Gavin was still like Jessie. Maybe he didn’t know how to break away from Ryan. Maybe he didn’t know how to come out to his parents.

Or maybe I was making excuses for him.

I had to think about that some other time. The game was starting to wind down, and I was still stuck in jail. I finally accepted a ball from another camper, but missed my target. Gavin tossed me yet another one, and that time, I made it out.

I don’t know why, but I smiled at him and thanked him.