A gay story: Once a Nerd Ch. 08
Editor’s Note: I really did miss writing these two, obssessive/oblivious is one of my favorites. The only things I’ll mention is I fucked up the month in the last chapter, and this website either doesn’t let you edit things after they’ve posted or I’m too stupid to figure it out, but it’s JUNE in the last one, not July. Also, I try to be as accurate as possible, but I had to fudge it a bit. Berkeley and Fresno are like, three hours apart, not less than hour. But I wanted to use those schools specifically, so for the sake of the story, it’s less than an hour apart lol
It hurts more than I thought it would watching Dean cross the stage.
He did it, he graduated. His final semester is over. It feels like every person in the school, student and faculty alike, are crowding him, and it’s just a bitter reminder that there’s no room for me in the brilliant corona he casts. Like a diseased appendage, I need to cut him off for both of our sakes. What he needs now is to focus on his future, as I know it’s a bright one. One of the student’s is throwing a house party, Dean mentioned, and it’s one the faculty is turning their cheek to. He’s obligated to show his face, so that leaves me some time to gather my wits tonight.
Dean proved to be as stubborn as a tick. I’m not an idiot, I know simply graduating won’t rewire his brain. If anything, it’ll make him more confident in his harassment. He’ll show up at my house like he always does, and I’ll let him in after a little begging, touching, because I’m fucking weak. Hell, he might pull a B&E if I don’t grant him entry. I can’t be here. I have some extended family upstate, and if we’re close enough to exchange Christmas cards, one of them should let me stay for a few days.
I call my uncle on my father’s side, verifying there’s a bed he’ll let me take, and shove a rucksack full of the bare necessities. I’m pulling out of the driveway before ten. Is it running away? Yes. Cowardly? Of course.
But, what would you do?
What would you do if you were in my shoes? I’ve failed time and time again to put my foot down with him. He tramples all over the boundaries I’m too fragile to uphold. I like him, I’m attracted to him, even though every moral fiber in my body burns like a demon suffering a spritz of holy water. I can’t tell anymore if I’m a terrible person or if he’s too good to resist. Maybe it’s both. It feels like there’s no other choice left to me. If I want this to end, I have to put physical distance between us.
My uncle, Rodney Powell, is retired from a relatively successful career as an electrical engineer. He’s thrice divorced, though it’s not so much a damning critique of his character as it is the biggest example of his gullibility. We were never close, but we’re amicable. He was audibly surprised by my plea to hide away in his guesthouse for an unspecified amount of time, but he accepted after a brief, lacking explanation [“I just need to get out of this house for a bit, you know how it is.”] He and my father were very, very close, so he understood.
Rodney lives in Springfield, a three hour drive. I’m sure he’ll want to fill our time with cheap beer and reminiscence, which I’m not looking forward to. I don’t mind remembering my father fondly, but it’s the last thing on my mind. The only thing on my mind is trying to keep Dean off of it, and that’s certainly not something I can discuss with Rodney ‘Trump is the best thing that’s ever happened to this country’ Powell. My father was only marginally less conservative, and neither did he learn of my orientation before his passing. My mom knows, but again, ethics. I can’t adequately describe my hang-ups without bringing up the fact that Dean’s a teenage student, and she’d probably report me herself.
The drive feels longer than three hours for how miserable I am, and no amount of upbeat Spotify playlists make it better. Rodney lives in the eclectic, affordable neighborhood of Oak Ridge, where the houses err just on the side of too small and too close. Dear ol’ Lincoln is supposedly buried in the Oak Ridge Cemetery, his giant copper bust watching over visitors and ghosts alike. It’s not on my sightseeing to-do list. In fact, I’m sure the only thing I’ll be seeing is the four walls of Uncle Rodney’s shoebox of a guest house, or the inside of my eyelids from sleeping off a catchpenny hangover.
When I pull into his driveway, he’s either eager to see me or suspecting there’s more to my visit than I initially told him. He hobbles down the steps of his porch, bum leg but too stubborn to use the cane he’s prescribed, hollering my name: “Sam!”
“Hey, Uncle Rodney.” I accept his impromptu hug. “Thanks for letting me stay.”
“Anything for Thomas’ boy.”
I flatten my mouth into something less than a smile. Thomas’ boy, because that’s the beginning and end of who I am in his eyes. It’s fine, as I don’t seek anything like validation or a deep, interpersonal connection from my uncle. Just a refuge from an insatiable, obsessive teenager. It goes much like I expect it to. We share a few stilted meals, small talk that goes nowhere, and he graciously grants me my space. The most depth we achieve is over a nightly twelve-pack and half a carton of Pall Malls that I can’t bring myself to turn down.
The conversation often veers to the political, and as his affiliations are on the opposite end of the spectrum as mine, it tends to go in one ear and out through the other. When he brings up my father, he gets weepy. He talks about my childhood, curious things and antics. Trips we’ve taken together, my flippant aspirations that all children peddle through. He tries to disguise his distaste for my mother, but the drunker he gets, the more it slips out. It doesn’t bother me, as we’re using each other. Company in exchange for temporary escape.
The quasi peace lasts three days. The third evening, after retiring to the guest house, stumbling and halfway blind off seven cans of Busch Ice, my phone rings. It’s an unsaved number, but I know who it is as well as I know the sun rises in the east. I let it go to voicemail as I fight my way out of my clothes. Seconds after the call ends, a text comes through. I put off reading it as long as possible, which is maybe five minutes. Drunk as I am, I can’t fall asleep knowing Dean’s words are festering in my message threads. It reads:
[12:10AM Answer the goddamn phone]
Like some sort of magic, it rings again as I’m scanning the simple sentence. I stare at it, mumbling to myself: “Don’t answer it, Sam, come on. You know better, you know better…”
I manage to let that one go through too, somehow. Seconds later, another text:
[12:17AM If u don’t answer, I’m showing my ass at the station]
Well, what choice is there now? I clap the phone against my ear after answering it, closing my eyes. “When did I give you my number?”
“Where the fuck are you?”
Oh, he’s pissed. Like, really pissed. I frown, and I’m feeling belligerent. “It’s none of your business, asshole. You’re not my fuckin’ mom.”