“English may be our first language, but that doesn’t make it the most important. It’s important not only to recognize but to celebrate diversity in this country. I mean, whether or not the conservatives like it, we minorities do exist.” That got a chuckle from about half the class.
I waited for the familiar buzz of my sound-dampened cell.
“Besides,” she said. “It would be boring if only one kind of person existed. More than one type of person makes life more interesting, gives us more to appreciate. You guys following me?”
A vibration in my lap like a jolt made me jump. I pressed unlock to read my phone and then the air felt denser, harder to breathe.
I miss you already.
The park was nearly empty when I got there, save for a few kids laughing and chasing each other across the jungle gym. Their parents leaned back on the benches, reading their books and finishing work assignments on their laptops, enjoying the nanosecond of freedom from parenting in the warmth of the sun.
I spotted Connor under the big, gnarled oak that provided a welcomed canopy of shade. He leaned against the trunk, looking up at the sky, a small smile resting on his lips.
I felt a tingling in my belly and tried to breathe, taking a seat next to him in the grass, stretching out my legs. He wore his favorite black board shorts, a fitted white tee hugging his chest.
“Hey,” I said. I sat there cross-legged, pulling at blades of cool grass nervously. My stomach wouldn’t settle.
He inhaled deeply. “You ever think about the atmosphere, all of those clouds, and all of it up past there? The stratosphere, the mesosphere, all the way up to the iotosphere and beyond into space…”
“You mean the ionosphere?” I asked, uprooting another blade of grass.
Connor finally turned to look at me. “Well, shit, look at the brains on you, Jack.” He laughed and tugged at my shirt, using it to pull himself up. I couldn’t help but stare, my gaze wandering down to his cheekbones, down the square of his jaw, to the bare skin of his collarbone barely visible…
He pressed his lips to my ear. “Do you want to kiss me?”
I shivered and nodded, unable to speak. Somewhere not so far away a little girl screamed and a mother started yelling, probably at her. I could almost feel the eyes of the other parents on us under this tree, some magnetic pull sparked by a protective urge to shield their young from anything unwanted lurking on the edge of the park.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. His lips grazed my throat and I gasped.
It took some hidden strength of will to pull away from him. I turned away from his pressing stare, watched a mother push her daughter on the swings. The little girl kicked her pink shoes into the air and squealed with delight. “Higher, Mommy! Higher!”
“I can’t,” I murmured at the ground. “I just can’t. I’m sorry.”
“You had no trouble with it the other night,” he said, but the playfulness in his voice was strained.
“It’s the park, all these people,” I said, fishing for some way out, some easy explanation. How could I explain it? How could I even begin? “I just…I can’t in front of them.”
Connor laughed and I finally turned to look at him and his upturned grin. He pushed back his shaggy black hair. “Alright, man, come with me.”
He stood up and thrust his hands in his pockets. I just sat there and looked up at him.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything. Scout’s honor. Just come with me.” He nodded in the other direction, away from the park. I stood and followed him.
We walked for a while in silence, the air cooling to a breeze. We went down a neighborhood street filled with holes in the pavement, past boarded-up houses and a billboard advertising bail bonds. We met the main roadway and turned a sharp right, flanked by speeding cars trailed by heavy exhaust fumes and a shopping center, chain stores, and pizza shops huddled together in their cement enclave. No sounds but the rush of road noise. Connor finally turned and started heading down a steep sloped hill of overgrown wild grass, a small forest meeting it at the bottom.
It was easier to just gun it down the hill, or so I thought it’d be. I tripped once but he grabbed my arm before I hit the ground. We finally made it to the trees. It was shady and cool in the forest, a little stream ahead that we jumped across.
“Where the hell are you taking me?” I finally asked, breaking our unspoken pact of silence.
He grabbed my hand and pulled me into a sunny clearing, a little grove encircled by forest, not a house or car or road in sight.
“I like to come here when I need a second to myself,” he said, pulling me down next to him. “Some guys deal here at night, but until sunset we’re solid. It’s beautifully quiet, isn’t it?”
And it was. All you could hear were the birds chirping in the treetops, the sounds of the freeway muffled to a distant, faint roar.
Connor pulled out a pack of cigarettes, smacked them against his palm and offered me one. We sat there smoking, soaking up the sunshine.
“So, talk to me, man.”
I shrugged and stared at my sneakers. “What about?”
“What are you so scared of?”
“What do you mean?”
He laid back in the grass and took a deep drag. “You know what I mean.” His voice was thick with smoke, sounding just like Mom’s after she’d filled her lungs and sinuses. “Of me. Of how you feel. It terrifies you.”
I bit the inside of my lip. “I’m not scared, just…confused.”
He frowned at me, eyebrows raised. “About what? That you like boys?”
My face grew hot. “I’m not a fag or anything if that’s what you’re thinking.”
He put his hands up in
