Wiping the steam off the mirror, he looked disgustedly at himself. This time last year, he was finally happy. He was dating a sophomore; it was in secret though. Blake was everything he always wanted. Sweet, caring and genuinely liked talking to him. They didn’t have tons in common, but they were both eager to give each other’s interests a shot.
It was just after winter holiday that everything went to hell. Cody was staying with Lindsay and her grandmother because his father had kicked him out. Besides not picking up after himself Lindsay said it wasn’t that bad. But then he couldn’t leave well enough alone. Unbeknownst to Ted, Cody had seen him and Blake together. So, when he was trying to shove his queerness into his father’s face, he used him. He didn’t know any of this until after a Ford F-350 ran his mom’s minivan off the road. If he would have been in his own car, he didn’t think he would have come out of it with just an ugly scar.
Cody’s father ran him off the road into a gully that had long ago dried up. He had noticed the truck following him before and somehow knew it was bad news. That was the only reason he got on Cameron Road. It didn’t get much traffic since the Camerons sold their farm years ago. Now there was only two houses on the road, and neither were occupied. It was only by a miracle that Mrs. Jenkins’ thought that the dead-end road was a thru road.
Now he had an ugly jagged scar from the broken window glass. He had been knocked unconscious from the van flipping, even wearing his seatbelt. The scar went from right under his left nipple to his bellybutton. It was disgusting, he was disgusting.
Someone started to pound on the door. “Mom said you have to take us to school,” his little sister said smugly.
“I don’t have time.” The middle school was fifteen minutes in the other direction from the high school. It was a small town but had a lot of land for only one high school, one middle school and four elementary schools.”
“Do it or I’ll tell Dad.”
Ted wrenched the door open, letting the steam from his shower escape. “You will do no such thing. Dad worked all night.”
She grinned wickedly at him while eying his scar. “Then take me and Joe to school.”
Joe and Anna were his little brother and sister. They weren’t twins but they might as well be. They were born eleven months apart. Anna had a very dominant personality and ran all over his meek parents. Joe was her little follower too.
“Fine, but if you’re not in the car when I get out there, I’m leaving you,” he growled, shutting the door in her face, it was a little louder than he wanted. His dad worked nights at the dog food factory, everyone almost worked at that factory.
“Don’t forget to take an extra shirt for gym, you don’t want them to pick you for skins,” she called through the door.
After he dropped Anna and Joe off at school, he knew he wouldn’t be there on time. Before his injury he was really focused on never missing even one day. But going to school with Cody Bell after what he did was torture. No one believed him that it was Mr. Bell who ran him off the road. Only when he confronted Cody did he tell him the reason. Now every Thursday at work Ted would have to see the man who tried to kill him. Mr. Bell would come into Eckerd’s Drug Store where Ted stocked shelves. He would grab the local newspaper and sit in one of the chairs that people sat to wait for their prescriptions to be filled. He knew it was all an imitation game. Mr. Bell wanted him to know that at any moment he could kill him, and Ted got that loud and clear. Because of that and the scar, he had broken up with Blake last year. He hated his life.
He pulled into the school parking lot about ten minutes after the homeroom bell rang. That meant by the time he got inside it would be time for first period. Groaning, he locked his car and headed to the office. Signing in late wasn’t that big of a deal before first period.
As he entered the building, he knew something was way off. Instead of empty halls, there were kids all around. He could hear teachers trying to get them inside their rooms.
Looking around, he looked for someone he could question. His eyes landed on Melanie. Melanie was a short girl with a mouth of a sixty-five-year-old sailor. Going up to her, he had to speak loudly to be heard. “What’s going on?”
“Shit Teddy, where have you been? You’ve missed the show,” she said, grabbing his arm and pulling him back outside.
“What show? What happened?”
“You just missed the cops leading Coach Sandson out of here in handcuffs.”
“What? Why?”
“My cousin who works in the Sherrif’s office was here, he said they got a video tape of Coach Sandson and one of the boys from the Boys’ Ranch early this morning.” The Boys’ Ranch was where kids that were too much of a handful for a foster home lived. There were several houses and they had state guardians who lived there with them.
“Who?”
She shrugged. “Don’t know. Do you think this is because of Cody?”
“I can’t see how it’s not. Things like this just don’t happen.”
Suddenly cars started to pull up in front of the school. This didn’t look good, so he and Melanie walked back inside. He saw Brian and Lindsay hurrying down the hall. Him and Melanie ran after them.
“What’s going on?” he asked Brian.
“Getting the fuck out of here before the whole school burns down. That little shit wasn’t lying. He fucking dropped a bomb on the school this morning. Emmett and Michael seemed to come out of nowhere to join them. Ted saw the new boy Justin looking confused and lost.
“Should we invite the new kid?” Ted asked.
“I don’t fucking care, we’ll all meet at Lindsay’s, her grandmother and Judy are in Branson this week,” Brian said, not even breaking stride as he went out the double doors. It didn’t escape Ted’s notice they went out the doors by the Pit, it was the closest to student parking. What the hell was going on?
Melanie stopped where she was and dug something out of her bookbag. Justin came over and joined them.
“I’m not sure what’s going on,” he said.
“I’m not either. We’re meeting at Lindsay’s right now. Do you want to come?” Ted said.
“And skip class?”
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want,” Melanie said. They started to hear shouting done the hall near the entrance, it echoed in the hallway.
“I think I would feel better away from here,” he said, looking around nervously.
Ted had no idea what that psycho did but knew this wasn’t going to end as fast as he hoped.
Melanie wasn’t allowed to drive her motorcycle to school, so she rode with Ted. Lindsay’s grandmother lived over by the Dam. It was where people with money lived, not that they would let the old woman join them. Lindsay’s sister was at UT Knoxville, she barely came home to visit, Lindsay had told them.
He saw Brian’s car in the drive, he pulled up beside him. Brian was standing on the porch smoking a cigarette and pacing, Michael and Lindsay were just watching him. Emmett wasn’t there, he wondered where he was.
“Tread carefully with Brian,” Ted said to Justin and Melanie. Mostly this was to Melanie because they were always fighting.
They got out of the car about the time Emmett was coming back outside with a pitcher of iced tea.
“Alright, we’re all here. What’s going on? Is this something Cody did?” Ted asked.
Brian kicked a decorative metal pig in overalls off the porch. It broke into two pieces in the driveway.
“I think we should compare notes on what we know,” Lindsay said, looking at the carcass of the metal pig.
“We all saw the video,” Brian roared, kicking the pig’s partner that was in a dress with daisies on it.
“What video?” Ted asked, looking at Melanie, she just shrugged again. She knew more than she admitted earlier.
“Cody was running the announcements last year, remember?” Lindsay asked.
“Yeah.” It was just stupid announcements. Tara Jones would stand in front of a wall and read.
“That little freak has been following us around, all of us,” Brian said. Another kick, this one to a flowerpot.
“Brian, please stop,” Lindsay begged.
“Just tell me what was on the video,” Ted told them. No one spoke.
“It was a lot of different things,” Justin said after a moment.
Ted turned around and looked at the new boy. “Like what?”
“There was a male teacher and a male student having sex.”
“Not you?” Ted asked Brian.
“No, that kid Hunter, he was a freshman last year. He’s only what fourteen? I can’t believe Sandson did this. What if I made him want that kid?” Brian asked, sounding very un-Brian-like.
“You didn’t. There is no telling if he acted out his fantasy before you, but you didn’t cause this,” Melanie said. “Good people don’t just up and become pedophiles. If he weren’t one, he would have pushed you away and probably made a report about it.”
Ted looked at her shocked, surprised she would be the one defending him.
“Was that all that was on the video?” Ted asked. He knew why Brian was so upset. They had all known about his shower scene with the coach freshman year.
Lindsay shook her head. “No, Cody did what he promised. There was video of All-American, boy next motherfucking door, Drew Boyd. Guess his football season is on the line now. He also outed Mr. Murray who apparently has been fucking the janitor. That kid on the newspaper, video showed him kissing some dude that looked to be in college. The band geek, Blaine, or Blake, he was on there jacking off the curly haired boy that plays the violin. Brandon from the baseball team with the foreign exchange student from Spain last year. David Cameron getting a blowjob from Todd on the debate team. Dusty, the captain of the softball team, her kissing some girl I didn’t recognize. One of the Donaldson twins.”
“Which one?” Ted asked. He didn’t know why he asked.
“I don’t know, their identical,” Lindsay said. “It was only a two second clip.”
“Leda,” Mel said.
“Really?” Emmett asked.
“Trust me. There was also Kip Thomas and some others that I didn’t know,” Melanie said.
Ted watched as Brian stubbed out his cigarette and lit another one.
“What are we going to do?” Ted asked.
“What do you mean?” Brian shot back, raising an eyebrow.
“We all know what hell it is when people find out about us,” Ted said, sitting down on one of the porch steps. Emmett handed him a glass of tea.
“And that’s our problem how?” Brian sneered.
“They’re like us…they are us,” Melanie said.
Ted could almost see the steam coming out of Brian’s ears. He threw his cigarette down and stomped on it. “It’s not our responsibility to help them out.”
“We have to help them, we’ve been through this,” Lindsay said, running her hand over Brian’s shoulders.
Pulling away, Brian spun, facing them all. “No, we don’t. Where were they when I got kicked out of my house and had to live in a barn for weeks? Where were they when you got kicked off the cheerleading squad because you made the other girls uncomfortable? Where were they when faggot was written in paint on Michael’s car? Where were they when Melanie was asked to step down as Debate Club president because that wasn’t the image they wanted for the school? Where were they when Ted was in the fucking hospital?” He could tell that Brian was working himself up into a right state.
“Hiding,” Ted said sadly. “But I will tell you where I was when you got kicked out. I was asking around for someone to rent a room to a sixteen-year-old, I found it too. I can tell you were we all were when Michael’s car got defaced, with the help of Mr. Sutton in auto body, we repainted it. When Melanie had to step down from the debate club, we helped her start her own club, that club is now the debate club people want to join. And I know where you were when I was in the hospital because I was never lonely. It was either Michael coming to talk about comic books, Lindsay to cheer me up, Emmett to make me laugh, Mel bringing me my homework, or you quietly sitting in that uncomfortable chair keeping me silent company while giving my mom time to go home and shower in those early days. If we don’t help them, they won’t know that acceptance can be found, love can be found, friends stick with you through the good and bad.”
He had thought he was winning Brian over but that end bit was too much. “Friends? They are not our friends. They wouldn’t even look at us yesterday but now you expect us to be best buds. Fuck that,” Brian said moving around Ted and going down the steps.
Brian opened his car door. “Want to get the fuck out of here?” Brian asked the new kid.
The blond nodded and got into Brian’s car. And just like that, Ted didn’t have a chance in the world with the new kid because Brian fucking Kinney. He rubbed his scar over his clothes and knew that he didn’t have a chance anyway, not with the scar.