I wouldn’t ever wish being gay on anyone, though obviously I didn’t have a problem with it. But it was a quiet, cold world to live in at times. No matter how caring and loving your family was, no matter how many friends you had, no matter how certain you were of yourself, being gay threw every aspect of your entire life into the limelight. It madeyou the target of public speculation and ridicule. It made you the topic of far too many hushed conversations.
But there was nothing I wanted more than for Ryan to be gay.
There was nothing more I wanted than for him to want me as much as I wanted him.
I was never one to hate school. But like anyother red-blooded teenager, I loathed waking up at the crack of dawn just to haul ass to school and sit at a desk for six hours. But this morning was entirely different.
I couldnotwait to get to school just so I could see Ryan again. The more I thought about it, the more I knew I couldn’t be imagining the connection we’d shared yesterday. And the more I thought about him, the more the imagesof my dreams replayed in my head.
Knowing how my body would react, I had to push those thoughts far, far away. School was pretty much the worst place to be hit with a random hard-on. And since the one I woke up with this morning took me a solid two rounds to rub out entirely, I wanted no part of dealing with that in third period Spanish class.
By the time woodshop rolled around, my mind, andmy dick for that matter, had finally calmed the hell down. Trying my best to play it as cool as possible, I walked over to my seat. Ryan wasn’t in class yet, so at least I had a few minutes to pull my thoughts together before spitting out some random shit that made me look like a fool.
The bell rang.
Mr. Morgan began speaking.
And Ryan was nowhere to be seen.
Like a puppy who had lost itsowner, I kept turning around in my seat waiting for him to show up.
He never did.
By the end of the period, I had been paired up with some other kid for our next project.
It was stupid, but I was worried about him. I barely knew him, but I had this odd premonition that something was wrong. And it killed me not to know what it was. We could barely be considered friends, so shooting him a randomHey, what’s up?text in the middle of the afternoon would be weird at best. Patience was never my strong suit, but where this was concerned, I’d have to wait for whatever was supposed to come next.
Turned out waiting four days to see him nearly drove me to my breaking point. When he finally strolled into class on Thursday afternoon, I was more annoyed at his absence than concerned. But at thesame time, I couldn’t express either of those emotions.
After running through a laundry list of ideas of what to say to him, I finally said, “Hey.”
Now there’s some poetry, Shakespeare.
“What’s up?” he greeted with a subtle head nod.
Before we could carry on the rather spectacular conversation we were having, Mr. Morgan began talking to us about how to use the jigsaw. “Where’ve you been allweek?” I asked as the teacher spoke and ran the saw.
“Out,” he snipped and turned in his seat. It was then that I saw the yellowing edges of a bruise on his cheek. My stomach flipped and anger raged. Just as I was about to ask him to tell me everything that had happened. Mr. Morgan stopped speaking. The saw was silent.
And we were told to work in our groups.
Korey bounced alongside me, smilingand excited. “I’ve got a great idea for this part over here,” he rambled on, pointing down to some plans in his hand. I didn’t see a thing. The image of Ryan’s bruised face was seared into my vision, and I knew I needed to get to the bottom of it eventually.
“Mr. Masterson,” the teacher called out. “Nice to see you again.” They were standing right next to our work station, the perfect distancefor eavesdropping without being suspicious. “You’ve missed a few days and everyone else is paired up. You’re going to need to tackle this project on your own, okay? You think you’re up for the challenge?”
“Yes, sir.” Ryan’s words were directed at our teacher, but his eyes were still on mine.
“That’s some shiner you got there,” Mr. Morgan mused, pointing to the bruise. “What happened?”
“Justa game of touch football with my dad and brother on Sunday. Got knocked in the head. Doctor said it might be a concussion, so I had a few doctor’s appointments and they told me not to go back to school until today.”
“Ouch.” Mr. Morgan winced at the thought of being hit that hard in the head. “Well, I’m glad you’re back. Come on over, so I can catch you up.”
Ryan shot one more glance my way beforewalking to the front table with Mr. Morgan. He’d lied and we both knew it.
Now, more than ever, I was determined to get to the bottom of the enigma that was Ryan Masterson.
