“I’m sure she can’t show her cards with a complaint like that.”
“She said I should talk to my union rep and that she’d do what she could to see that this was reviewed quickly.”
“Sounds like she’s trying to make sure you protect yourself. You’ve worked closely with her this past year, right?”
The room started to spin. “I need to sit down.”
He took my hand, and we both sat on the couch. He coached me through regulating my breathing until I felt a bit more stable. After a few moments, he asked, “Why wouldn’t your mom come after me? I’m the one she called a groomer. Why accuse you?”
I patted his knee. “I’m so glad you don’t understand how the fundamentalist mind works.”
“Tell me.”
I took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “You’re already lost, Oz. An unrepentant sodomite, not worthy of anyone’s concern. I, however, have been drawn away from the righteous path, and according to that way of thinking, the only way to convince a lost sheep to return is to shun them and make them feel the consequences of their actions.”
“But she’s creating consequences for made-up shit. What would your dad do if he knew she was doing this?”
The mention of my dad hurt as much as anything. “My mom’s willing to be the nasty one, but she doesn’t do a thing without my father’s approval. If she’s saying it, he’s thinking it.”
“But—”
“He never liked me going to college. In their minds, everything I did to become a teacher led me down this path. They couldn’t keep me from getting my degree, so now they’re going after my ability to teach. If I get fired, they think I’ll have no choice but to go crawling back to them.”
“No you fucking won’t.” His voice was quiet, but it held a level of anger I couldn’t have imagined anyone would ever feel on my behalf. “One of us will hire you, if it comes to that, but you’re never working for them ever again.”
I’d been a smear on the sidewalk so many times I didn’t know how to process that I wasn’t in this alone. Sure, Ozzie was sitting next to me, holding my hand, but he wasn’t the only one who cared. Lost Boys didn’t let other Lost Boys hit the ground. That included me.
“Thank you” was all I could say.
He squeezed my hand and kissed my temple.
After a beat, he said, “I don’t get it. If you hadn’t been in that accident, you’d have gone to college on your scholarship.”
“Don’t bring reason into this, Ozzie. It’ll only give you a headache. And don’t imagine for a second that they aren’t figuring out a way to make you pay for dragging me down.”
“Bring it,” he said decisively. “Do you want to hear what I think?”
I nodded, hoping he’d give me somewhere to land.
“I think Dr. Gardner has always been an advocate for you and will continue to be an advocate for you. They don’t have anything to back up their claim, so this can’t go anywhere.”
“That’ll only piss them off. If I don’t come to heel, they’ll get louder, just you watch.”
As much as I’d have liked to keep a positive attitude, a dark plume of anxiety settled into my chest, choking me, strangling my internal organs. Resting my elbows on my knees, I dropped my face into my hands. “What am I going to do?”
“Dr. Gardner said to contact your union rep, right?”
I nodded.
“Then do that. Do it now. I know you’ve dealt with your family your entire life, but I’ve dealt with homophobes my entire life, and I know how this works. They try to make us feel like shit, and sometimes it works so well we lose our will. But gay history is full of people who fought back. You’ve got an entire pantheon of queer rebels to look to for inspiration. I know this feels awful, but we act and we actnow. We don’t let them make us feel defeated for even a single second.”
“We? Oz, this could affect the bar, your new restaurant. If they somehow make people think that we’re abusing kids together, it’ll ruin your life. And it wouldn’t stop there. This could take down Joel, Tristan… It’s like I’m a fucking atom bomb in the queer community, and I just showed up.”
Ozzie’s jaw clenched. “That is not the truth, and it is not the way any reasonable person would see it. If there’s any blowback, that’s on bigotry. That’s on your parents. That’s on anyone who has known you your entire life and would believe them over you. Your parents are grasping at straws, and they’re about to see what it’s like to come up against the queer community. It will not go well for them.”
“I don’t want to destroy my family, Oz,” I cried.
Ozzie took my face in his hands and kissed my forehead, as if trying to infuse me with his strength. “I don’t wanna destroy them, either. But I will fight fire with fire.”
