Terry was standing at the front of the cafeteria line again the next day when I got there. He smiled at me, then simply turned around without saying anything and we walked to the same table we’d used yesterday.
After we sat down and had our lunches arranged on the table in front of us, Terry asked me, “Did I scare you, what I said when I was leaving your house yesterday?”
“Yes, you did. I thought about it, too. You want the truth, I know. So here it is. Yes, I’m scared. And yes, I want to be your friend, and I’ll tell you when to back off. Okay?”
“Not okay, perfect! That’s very brave of you, Tim. I can see in your eyes you’re worried, but I see courage there, too. You don’t need to be worried. This is going to work out, and you’re going to be happy. Now, let’s talk about your story.”
Uh-oh. If he saw worry in my eyes before, he could probably see terror now. The thing was, only my father had ever read any of my stories. He said they were great, but he was my father; he had to say that. No one else had read any of them. And I guess you could say I really cared about my writing. I don’t think anything else mattered to me as much. I spent a lot of time with it and tried hard to do it well. As well as I possibly could. So, someone talking about it, that was scary because they could hurt me really badly. What if he didn’t like it at all? What if he told me it was silly or juvenile or badly conceived or poorly written?
The story I’d given him to read had been written just recently. Not surprisingly, it was a little autobiographical, which so many stories are. I’d read somewhere that if you’re going to write, it should be about things you know because the stories will have more reality in them and so be more appealing and meaningful. What is real seems often to be more captivating than what is just made up. People can relate to real events, real motivations, real emotions more than fake or forced ones. I tried to do that, to keep much of the main character’s actions and reactions believable, even when the basic theme isn’t. This time, I’d written about a boy about my age coming to a new town in the middle of the school year and no one noticing he was there. He found it strange that no one seemed to see him or hear him when he spoke. They appeared not to notice him at all. Not knowing how else to handle this, he sort of just accepted it, thinking the other kids were snobs or way into themselves or something—maybe it was a game they played with new kids—and he just went to class, laid his homework on the desk in the morning with everyone else, brought his lunch from home and ate it outside under a tree every day by himself. He kept doing this until one day when he raised his hand in class and the teacher never called on him. He started to realize that he actually was invisible. No one could see him! So he tried some things. He tried to interrupt other kids’ conversations, he tried jumping up and down in class, he tried several other antics and nothing worked. Then he thought to bump into someone, and he walked right through them. And so, slowly, he realized what the problem was. He was dead. No one had told him so he hadn’t realized it, but he’d died some time back. The story ended with him realizing this, and then just sitting at his desk at school, different conflicted emotions running through him as all the other kids left the classroom.
I thought I’d written it pretty well, but it was certainly a dark and unhappy story, and I wondered if Terry, a happy and fun-loving kid, had been disturbed by it.
“Tim, I read it last night. I couldn’t put it down. I read it, then I went back and read it again. You know, it was amazing! I can’t believe you wrote that! You got the mood just right. It started out just normal, just a kid going to a new school and how he felt nervous and all. As the story progressed, it slowing began getting creepier. You changed the lighting in the building, the days began getting colder, leaves were falling off the trees in a chilly wind—you just changed the entire atmosphere to keep it running parallel with his feelings.
“But it was all done subtly. I had to read it again to notice it. As it moved along, the story began to get really edgy. I knew something was wrong, or more like weird, and it just kept getting more and more so. I was actually getting goose bumps. Then, when he figured out he was dead, you did the perfect thing. You just ended it! You didn’t go into a lot of talk or thinking or explaining or anything, you just pulled away from the scene and left him sitting there, knowing he was dead. I was really impressed. I can’t believe how good a writer you are!
“I got to thinking, afterwards, how I’d have ended that story. I know what I’d have done. I’d have tried to take it further, explained things, come up with a resolution for the kid, you know, taken the edge off. But you didn’t! You left it all hanging out. You seemed to know what I was thinking, ramped up the tension at just the right time, then left it hanging there. I had all these emotions in me at the end, just like the kid! How did you know what I was feeling? Damn, man, you’re just really, really good!”
He was looking at me with his eyes filled with admiration, and if I read it right, something that looked like pride! Like, he was feeling proud of me! I felt like crying; the emotion he evoked in me was that strong! His praise was almost more than I could take. I was expecting him to tell me I needed to see a psychiatrist and, instead, he was telling me I was a good writer! I couldn’t find the words in 100 years to express how good that made me feel. He’d said the one thing that was really, really important to me.
He had something else in his eyes, too, something a little vaguer than the other two emotions I could read. I couldn’t define it, and I was too happy with his praise to wonder much about it anyway.
I blushed. Then I said, “I guess you liked it then?”
He burst out laughing, and then so did I. I felt the best I’d felt in, well, I didn’t know when. This was wonderful. I really couldn’t remember when I’d last laughed like this.
He was well liked at school, and I mean by everyone, and his laughter drew people to him. Very soon there were a number of kids around the table, wanting in on the joke, wanting to share his happiness with them, probably really just wanting to be close to him. What did he do? He sort of nonchalantly and with a smile sociably brushed them away without them even being aware of it, with no ego bruising at all. Within a couple of minutes of stopping laughing, we were alone again. I still can’t figure out how he did it. I could never do that.
“Tim, that story was remarkable,” he said when we were alone again. “You have a great deal of talent. But you know what?” He reached down into his bag and pulled out the story, then handed it to me. “It’s your story. I’m not going to even suggest you do anything with this. It’s yours. I’m honored you let me read it, but it’s yours to do with as you wish. Thank you for letting me read it.” He met my eyes. Whatever I’d thought I might have seen in them before was no longer there. I took the story from him and put it in my backpack.
“Could I ask you for a favor?” I looked up at him. He was asking me for a favor? That was odd.
“Sure, Terry. But I can’t imagine what favor I can do for you.”
“Well, see, I don’t like to ask, we’re still just getting acquainted, but you know, we’re going to get together again this afternoon, aren’t we?” I nodded, he nodded back in confirmation, then continued, “I’d really appreciate it if we could go to the park today, and you’d let me bring a friend of mine along.” He must have seen my expression change because he rushed ahead, somewhat apologetically. “I know I’m imposing, but I can promise you I won’t say anything at all that will embarrass you or do anything like that. I won’t be asking you personal questions. See, it’s just that I usually get together with this guy every week, and today’s our day, and I sort of forgot about that. Tim, I really think you’ll like him once you get to know him, and it would mean a great deal to me. Can I bring him along?”
He was right. I immediately froze up a little. I felt like he was imposing. I felt something else, too, and thinking about it, I realized what it was. I was feeling jealousy. I didn’t want to share him. Why was he doing this, anyway? We were supposed to be getting together so he could ask me questions, get to know me, write a report on me. He couldn’t very well do that if someone else was tagging along. I thought I ought to clear that up.
“How are you going to do your assignment, get to know me well enough to write it, if you don’t ask me the questions you need to ask if this, uh, person is there? That’s the whole reason for meeting in the park.”
“Part of the reason, not the whole reason. Remember, I said I wanted us to be friends. This is part of that, just being together at the park. And maybe it’s too soon, but meeting another kid our age who needs a friend as badly as I think you do, well, I want that to happen, and maybe I’m asking you to trust me a little. I won’t embarrass you and throw questions at you. This is just for fun, just for us to get closer. Maybe you need a rest from my inquisition.”
My false smile and then a slow shake of my head seemed to be telling him I wasn’t buying it.
“No? Well, okay, so maybe I should just be more straightforward. Truthfully, I just want you to meet John. I told you I’m friendly with lots of people, but good friends with only a few. He’s one of those. One of my very best friends. He’s very special, just a really great guy that few people bother to get to know. You’re sort of like that, too, but there’s more to it than just that. There’s something else, but I’m not going to tell you. You have to trust me, but I really hope you’ll let this happen.”
He was having me trust him a lot, but so far, so good. He hadn’t disappointed me yet, and I was a very wary critic. This time, I thought it likely he’d be wrong, that I probably wouldn’t be enthralled with this guy, that after meeting him I’d be feeling annoyed that it wasn’t just Terry and me alone together. I was pretty sure of that. But he was asking me, letting me make the decision, and he had requested it as a favor. I was still feeling the glow from his praise of my story, and maybe that played a part in my giving in. But I thought it would be churlish of me to deny it, even if I wasn’t too happy about it at the same time.
Being truthful was part of our deal, so I was. “Terry, if you want me to say yes, okay, yes. You can bring him along. I can’t tell you how I’ll react when I meet him because I haven’t met him yet. But you know, you know, how I am with people. You’re the one who gave me the spiel about how I’m alone all the time. You did stop to think that maybe I like it that way, that that was my comfort zone, didn’t you?”
He didn’t reply immediately. He seemed to be studying me before he spoke again.
“You’re uncomfortable with this, aren’t you? I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I’m sorry, Tim. Why don’t we forget it? I’ll just tell John I can’t make it today. He’ll understand.”
“Now stop that! You’re being manipulative! You’re making me the bad guy here, making me feel guilty!” My voice was rising as I said this. I was all ready to get angry when I looked into Terry’s face. He had a hangdog grin. Then it changed into a sad smile. Not a Terry smile, all teeth and happiness and sunshine. Just a little wan, regretful smile that made him look irresistible. I tried, believe me, I tried. But I couldn’t help it. That smile did me in, cut right through my anger and started my heart fluttering. I smiled back.
“Aw, Tim, you’re cute when you smile, you know that? You should do it more often.”
“Shut up. I’m trying to be mad here.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have smiled. I hate it when I’m trying to be mad and someone smiles at me. Kicks the hell out of my mad. Damn, that pisses me off!”
He grinned at me, and I grinned back. Well, so much for getting mad at him. He had this personal relationship stuff down a whole lot more pat than I ever hoped to. I didn’t have a chance with him. He could get me to do whatever he wanted, and we both already knew it.
“So we can meet at the park after school? How about four o’clock? That okay? By the bridge again?”
I told him that would be fine, trying to regain a little dignity and reserve, which was really hard against his persistent grin.
I rode home after school thinking about meeting Terry and John later. I had plenty of time to go home, have a snack, change into shorts, and ride to the park. I wasn’t sure how I was feeling about it. It was hard to be mad at Terry. I was starting to understand that he really did have my best interests at heart, at least what he thought were my best interests. I was growing more attached to him than I liked, more than I had allowed myself to be with anyone in quite a while, more than I had told myself I would ever be again.
I got to the bridge a little before four and they were waiting for me. I got a shock, too. I knew who John was as soon as I saw him. He was the kid in the wheelchair I had frequently seen Terry high-fiving.
Terry was sitting on the bench we’d used when we’d first met there and John was in his chair in front of it. They were talking together and it didn’t look like John was all that happy. It looked to me like Terry was trying to be about as persuasive with him as he’d been with me at lunch. Well, that would give me something to think about. Terry had given me the impression he had a weekly meeting with John and John would be disappointed if he didn’t show up. Now I had the distinct impression John wasn’t very happy about something, and it wasn’t difficult to figure out it might be about meeting me. Or was John perhaps just as disgruntled as I was about sharing the time he spent with Terry with someone else? Was that possible? Or were they just discussing something else that had nothing at all to do with me?
I got off my bike at the bridge and walked it over to the bench. By the time I was there, Terry was smiling at me. John was just looking at me. This was the first time I’d seen him up close. He was blond, which I’d already known, but he was also quite good looking, which I hadn’t. In fact, I’d have to say he was even more than that. He had the sort of looks that made you pause when you looked at him, that made your heart pound just a little bit faster. That made you turn away because, otherwise, you knew you’d end up staring at him too long. My first thought was, what’s a kid who looks like he does doing in a wheelchair? Then I felt bad for thinking that.
“Hey, Tim, hi.” That was Terry. He stood up when I arrived. I leaned my bike against the back of the bench, then turned around.
“Uh, hi, guys,” I replied, not really meeting their eyes. Even my words were sort of a mumble. Damn, I hated being shy. I hadn’t been in the past.
Terry was Terry, not a bit awkward, no matter what the social occasion. “I guess you guys don’t know each other. John, this is Tim, and Tim, this is John.” He held up his hand like a crossing guard does. “Before either of you says anything, I want to speak first.” He looked at both of us, as though daring either of us to interrupt him.
I glanced at John and he glanced at me and neither of us spoke. Terry watched us, seemed satisfied, and continued.
“First, I want to thank you both for coming when neither of you wanted to. You already have something in common: neither of you wanted to meet the other. Okay, now you both know. There’s something else you both know, and that’s something about me. You both know that you can trust me.”
He stopped and took a deep breath. He looked at me for a moment, and I pretty quickly dropped my eyes. Then he did the same with John. Except John just stared back at him, some defiance showing in his look, no shyness apparent at all. I knew right then there was some depth, something complicated in their relationship.
Terry sighed.
“You guys, both of you, are important to me. Don’t take this as condescending or belittling, I don’t mean it in a negative way at all, but I want to help you both. Everyone needs help now and then. Nothing wrong with that; it’s human. I’ve promised you both things, and those promises are sacred to me. So, I’m not going to do what I want so badly to do. I want to tell you, John, all about Tim, and I want to tell you, Tim, all about John, and you know what I’m going to do? I’m not going to do either of those things. Instead, I’m going to go for a walk in those woods over there. I’m going to come back in half an hour. What you guys are going to do, I don’t know. One thing I suppose you could do is think up names to call me when I come back. But I will tell you both this—you two have more in common than you can imagine, and you’d both be better off having more than one friend, even if it is me.”
Then he chuckled self-deprecatingly, turned around and walked off. We both sat watching him. Pretty quickly, he’d reached the woods, and then was out of sight.
What the hell!? I just sat there looking at the spot where Terry had disappeared. I sat doing that for a couple of minutes. Then I realized John wasn’t saying anything to me, any more than I was saying anything to him. And I remembered he’d been arguing with Terry when I arrived. I suddenly realized something that should have been clear all along: he was as surprised and unhappy and unprepared for this situation as I was. Which was saying something.
I turned to look at him. He was sitting in his chair, a scowl clouding his face, glaring at me. Even scowling, he was gorgeous.
Who’d speak first? I thought there might be some advantage in being first, so I said, “I imagine you’ve known him a lot longer than I have. Does he pull crap like this all the time?” I tried to keep my tone very neutral, tried not to show any of the mixed feelings I was experiencing. I was never good with new people or new situations, and this was both, in spades!
At first, I didn’t think John was going to answer. He just kept staring at me, and kept scowling. When the silence had become a little embarrassing, about when I was thinking I should grab my bike and just leave, he relented. “No,” he said. He looked at me some more without speaking, and the silence lasted for at least a full minute. Then, finally, he said, “He told me all about you, you know.”
It felt like someone had just sucker punched me, hit me hard square in the gut. I don’t think my mouth dropped open, but it might have. Terry had told him all about me? All that I’d said to him? What I’d said to him in private? That I spent my time all alone, that I ate lunch with someone that I never spoke to, that I spent time alone writing things I never let anyone read? Stuff like that?
Terry had told me he could keep secrets. He’d told me the things I told him were between just us. He’d told me he was my friend and I could count on him. What was this, then? What was, “He told me all about you?” Terry knew I was a private person! He’d told me he recognized this. How then could he betray me like this? I’d trusted him! After I told myself over and over never to trust anyone again. I had, and now—
As I realized all this, as the full impact hit me, I felt tears come to my eyes. I’d trusted Terry. Against my best judgment, I’d trusted him. I felt almost sick. I was shaky. I turned around, almost stumbling, grabbed my bike, and started walking, then running toward the path. As soon as I reached it, I jumped on and started pedaling as fast as I could.
It was difficult to see, riding home, pedaling with a fury and an inner ache that was filling my soul and tears that were filling my eyes, but I managed. I dropped the bike in the back yard and ran up to my room. There, I didn’t know what to do. I sort of looked around, almost dazed. How could he do this? How could he? That thought kept running through my mind, and I never had an answer for it. How could I trust someone so instinctively and be so wrong? What was wrong with me, anyway? I could answer that one. I was a loser. A dumb, fucking loser.
I was so upset, upset with Terry but mostly with myself for being so weak. I’d been trying to open up to someone, and now? Why was I so needy? Why had I needed to trust someone? I’d done that with someone I didn’t really know, and what… what could I do now? Everything was ruined.
My room was too small to pace in, and I suddenly realized I was sort of just standing in the middle of it slowly turning in circles. My phone had been ringing but I’d ignored it. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I stopped turning, frustrated, alone again, hurt, and then did what I always did when I was upset.
I don’t know how much later it was, but I became aware of a hammering noise coming from the front door. Then I heard my name being called, over and over. Terry. Well, fuck him. FUCK HIM!
The hammering finally stopped. Then, a minute later, I heard the back door crash open, my name being called again, then footsteps racing up the stairs. And suddenly he was outside my room, gasping for breath, one hand on each edge of my doorframe, leaning against it, holding himself up, looking in, sweat rivering down his face.
He just looked at me and I looked back from my desk, my journal spread open in front of me.
I jumped to my feet. “What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked him angrily. “Get out. Get the fuck out of here. I don’t ever want to see you again. Get out! Now!”
He didn’t move. He leaned against the door frame, his chest heaving, trying to breathe. Then, slowly, he backed off the frame, backed all the way across the hallway outside my door till his back hit the wall there, then slid down the wall till he was sitting on the floor with his back against it. His hands were on the floor beside his hips. He looked a picture of complete and total dejection. I stood in my doorway looking at him, some of my anger abating as the sight of a very defeated, despondent Terry seemed to sap some of my hostility. Some. Not all by a long shot.
“What are you doing here? Why did you come?” I asked in a slightly more measured tone of voice, anger still its main component but with less outrage.
It was apparent, with his continual gasping for breath, that he really couldn’t talk much. He looked up at me with his expressive eyes, however, and then managed to gasp out two words. “Your story.”
I just stared at him, puzzled, and then suddenly I understood. I knew what he meant. The panic in his eyes and voice when he’d run up to my room suddenly made sense.
I thought back to lunch today when we’d been discussing my story. He’d handed it back to me after telling me how much he admired it. But thinking back, he’d told me I was a good writer, that my skill in writing the story had blown him away, but he’d never actually said he’d liked the story. And, I remembered the look in his eyes that I couldn’t quite understand. Thinking about it now with him slumped against the wall, I realized it could have been some sort of agitation or worry. Maybe the subject of the story, the content of it, disturbed him, as I’d thought it might. Maybe while praising me, raising my spirits, he was also worried about what the story said about my state of mind.
Now I pictured him at the park, walking out of the woods after I’d already left and seeing John alone. He surely would have asked John where I’d gone. Had John told him what he’d said to me? If he had, could Terry have guessed how betrayed I might have felt, how it would have affected me? If so, he would have been afraid, maybe even terrified, about what I might do. I’d written a story about a kid being dead. Quite obviously death had been on my mind when I’d written it. What if I’d been thinking about that for some time? What if Terry had figured me out and realized how fragile I was?
It made sense. After John told him why I wasn’t there any longer, after he told him what he’d said to me, if he did, and the state I’d been in when I’d left, my emotions showing in the tears running down my face, Terry had thought I’d gone home thinking about killing myself.