* * *
Bryson had heard the rumor. It snaked around, passed from mouth to ear, a hiss-whisper. It eventually came to Bryson through Remy Vaughn. If Remy didn’t try to act cool, he probably would’ve been the coolest kid in the school. But… nope.
“So?” Bryson shot back, slamming his locker door.
“So, that mean he gay.”
“No it don’t,” Bryson said, annoyed. “And even if it do, so what?” Bryson swung his backpack onto his shoulder watching Remy’s face, trying to work out why he cared so much about Ty and Slim. So Bryson asked him. “Why you care so much?”
“I don’t.”
“You do. I mean, here’s a better question. How many girls have you kissed?”
“I don’t know, a bunch,” Remy said, looking off. Bryson knew that was a lie and that he hadn’t kissed anyone. And Bryson didn’t hold that against him because he hadn’t kissed anyone either. But he never lied about it. It was no big deal. Plus, why lie to a person you know knows the truth? Remy’s best friend Candace was Bryson’s cousin, and she was always going on and on about how Remy was forever acting like some kind of lover boy that no one’s ever loved.
“Right. A bunch. I guess negative numbers are still numbers,” Bryson razzed. “I just think it might be best to mind your business.” He patted Remy on the shoulder and walked away.
In the cafeteria, instead of people leaving Ty alone, instead of them cracking their stupid jokes to each other, a bunch of them had decided they’d sit with him. Crowd around him at the lunch table. Tease him to his face. Including Slim.
By the time Bryson got there, they were calling Ty all kinds of names. Names that bite. Names that stick and mark. Names that catch fire and leave a burnt smell in the air. The boys mocked him, bending their wrists as if they’d just shot a basketball and were holding the follow-through. Holding. Holding.
“Yo, what’s goin’ on?” Bryson asked, coming up to the table. He stood behind Ty, his hair like an eclipsed sun. “Scoot over, Ty. Lemme slide in.” Ty inched to the left and Bryson sat next to him, set his tray of mozzarella sticks on the table. “What’s everyone talking about?”
“Oh, nothin’,” Slim said. “Just that Ty tried to kiss me because… he’s gay!” He said it like it was a your mama joke. Like he’d just chopped Ty down. Ty shook his head like it didn’t matter, but Bryson could tell it did. It for sure did.
“Hmm, interesting,” Bryson said, looking down at the fried cheese fingers on his tray. “Because I heard you kissed him.” He glanced up at Slim.
“Because that’s true,” Ty confirmed, relieved Bryson was there. His backup, just like in the game. Watch my back. Cover me, cover me!
“That ain’t true!” Slim barked, looking around to make sure everyone heard him. “I wouldn’t kiss no boy!”
“Hey, hey, hey, man.” Bryson put his hands up. “If you did, you did. It’s all good. I mean, you might wanna ask permission next time instead of just sneaking it. That’s a little weird, but… relax.” The other guys at the table didn’t know if they should laugh or ooh, or nod, or what. They couldn’t tell if Bryson was being serious or if he was joking around.
“You talking like you like boys, too,” Trey Larson, a fake tough guy who everyone knew got chumped by the smallest kid in the school, said to Bryson. Bryson started laughing.
“Am I? I think Slim is. Matter of fact, I think all y’all are.” Bryson pointed at all the jokesters. “Like my father always says, ‘Those that scar you are you.’ ” He checked their faces, and it wasn’t hard to tell that they had no idea what that meant. He looked at Ty, and Ty’s face looked no different. A gem dropped in the mud. “The point is, I don’t like boys. Not like that. But I like Ty.” He patted Ty on the back. “Matter of fact, I like him more than I like y’all, and for real for real, I don’t see what the big deal is. A kiss on the cheek? That’s what all y’all roasting him for? A kiss on the cheek? Really?” Bryson looked at Slim, held his eyes there for a while before looking at the other guys. “That’s it?”
And then.
Bryson leaned over and pecked Ty on the cheek. Mwah’d and all. Then put his eyes right back on Slim.
“Look at that. I’m still… alive.” He made his voice sound ghostly, shrugged, then ate a mozzarella stick. The table fell silent. Well, at least to Bryson and Ty. They wouldn’t have known if the other boys actually stopped talking and joking because they were no longer paying attention.
But attention would be paid. And it would be paid to Bryson. Because for the remainder of the afternoon, the rumor had become different. It had transformed. Switched from Ty kissing Slim, to Bryson kissing Ty, the mighty snake of gossip going from a harmless garter to a venomous python. Bryson did his best to ignore it all. To think about it as a stage in a game, a board beaten only by making it to the end of the day bell. But as soon as that bell rang and Bryson left school, he noticed that Slim and some of the other boys were following him down Portal Avenue. Bryson knew they were trailing him because he’d never seen them walk this way before and was pretty sure they didn’t live on his side of the neighborhood. He could hear them laughing. Hear them yelling things, and even though he couldn’t make out what they were yelling, he could still feel the sounds of their voices pricking him like staples in the back.
As soon as he turned down Burman Street, Bryson could hear their feet quicken, hear the footfalls on the pavement speed up like rain going from drizzle to downpour. And instead of running, Bryson just turned around, put his hands up, and did his best.
That was yesterday, and today, at school, Ty heard the whispers. The python had become a boa, strangling him. Wrapped all around his body, squeezing him, squeezing. Crushing his lungs and heart. The whispers did nothing but confirm what he’d already known. What he’d already seen online the night before. The rumors that Slim and Andrew and whoever else they were with had jumped Bryson. That Bryson had held his own as best he could, but there were four of them. That they were calling him everything but his name. So in Mr. Davanzo’s last class of the day, when the bell rang, Ty ran.
He ran out of class. He ran down the corridor. He ran through the double doors. He ran past Ms. Post. He ran down Portal Avenue as fast as he could for as long as he could until he was out of breath.
Then he walked. Fast. And stopped only when he got to a house a few blocks before Burman Street. A big beige-colored house with a big window. Beautiful green grass and shrubs that outlined the yard, accented by two large rosebushes. He looked around. To the left and right. Behind him. In front of him. Then he jammed his hand into the bush and snatched a fistful of roses, the thorns needling into his fingers and palm.
Hurt.
But he ran. He ran and ran, on and on. Left on Burman. Down Burman, left at Bryson’s, which looked nothing like the houses on Portal Avenue. No big window. No shrubs or hedges. No driveway. A metal chain-linked fence that opened onto a walkway that led to the front door.
* * *
If Bryson hadn’t paused the game to make himself a boloney sandwich, he wouldn’t have heard the doorbell. He’d been playing Call of Duty all day, fighting against computerized versions of Nazis and doing everything he could, mission after mission, to not get himself killed along the way. His headset had been on since just after the morning oatmeal, his world of school rumors replaced by bombs in his ear. His hands were sore from yesterday, but that didn’t stop him from thumbing the controller all day, even though his mother had warned him, told him it might be better if he’d read a book instead.