As for the attack on Connor that night in the garage, well, Connor didn’t want to press charges. He just wanted the whole thing to be over with.
Toby was sentenced to juvie until he turned eighteen. Then it was the county men’s prison for the next three to five years. But he could be paroled for good behavior, could get his sentence lessened. He could appeal. I read all about it online, in a bunch of forums and sites where people were absolutely obsessed with his family and the case.
I thought about visiting him, asking him why he’d done it all to me. I thought about being a witness at one of his trials or appeals.
But I decided that it was over. I was done. I stopped reading the forums and the articles.
I didn’t owe him anything.
But I did start talking to Max again. He’d called me a bunch of times since the night of the attack to see how I was doing, to make sure I was okay. I was still kind of mad at him for all the shit he and Toby had pulled together, but I couldn’t really fault him for it. I’d done some terrible things myself.
Connor’s return to school wasn’t a total disaster. He insisted on going back as soon as he was well enough to leave the hospital. I stayed over at his house the night before, and we stayed up all night and talked about it, like how things would be from now on. In the morning, Jess picked us up and drove us to school in her brand-new Toyota Corolla, courtesy of her hoity-toity mother.
It was 6:30 a.m., and dark bruises were blooming across Connor’s cheek. His swollen eye was just starting to open. It hurt when he breathed. One of his fingers was broken and in a splint. But he was healing, and he was going back. We were doing this together, even though it made me so nervous I thought I’d throw up right in Jess’s brand new car, which she couldn’t stop raving about, blasting rap music as we pulled up to the school. There was a sizable crowd forming out front, waiting around for the first bell. My stomach dropped at the sight of them.
“We’re gonna be okay,” Connor said, and leaned in to kiss me for the first time in front of Jess. It didn’t help the thumping in my chest.
Buses were pulling in, and kids were crowding around in their usual packs. Connor and I walked hand-in-hand into the fray. Some people stopped talking and started staring and whispering. Jess trailed behind us. She was there for moral support. She also had plans to formally introduce Connor to the Spot after school.
One girl tried to approach Connor and ask him a question, but her friend quickly reprimanded her. I spotted some asshole taking photos of us on their phone, probably sending out a video to everyone they knew. It was funny how Connor had come to Burro Hills High a kind of celebrity, and now he was even more of one.
A group of freshmen guys started yelling something at us, something that was anything but friendly.
“Just phase them out,” Connor said in my ear, and I nodded. “Remember that they’re young and ignorant.”
“We’re young and ignorant,” I said, and he smirked. I took a deep breath, counted to infinity, and leaned in. Fireworks went off in my stomach. I kissed him, and it was no Girl Scout kiss either. It was a kiss for every time I’d been called a faggot, every time I’d feared for the worst, or pushed him away, or hurt myself for how I felt about him. It was a kiss for loss and heartache and hatred, for spilled blood in the garage and screams and silence. The voices around us faded to a dull, white noise. Nothing else mattered. The sun hit us full on, and with his lips against mine, I smiled.
To my surprise, some people started cheering. There was booing and a few homophobic slurs mixed into it all, but the roars of applause and whistles seemed to drown it all out. Just for that moment, we were the center of everything, orbiting the solar system of our school, until a security guard who’d been perched nearby swooped down and broke us up.
My whole body was tingling, radioactive and alive.
“That was amazing,” Jess told us moments later, after the crowd has dispersed, hecklers and cheerleaders alike. I inhaled her familiar conditioner and perfume as she pulled me into a warm hug. “That was so fucking brave, Jack.”
I shrugged. “I just made out with someone in front of the entire student body and administration. I’d call that more exhibitionist than brave.”
“Fair point.”
Whatever it was, our public make-out session didn’t cause the uproar that I thought it would. I went to class that day with my stomach full of acid, anticipating the worst, but people were surprisingly friendly and nonchalant. The Rudoy brothers were still douchebags, of course, but they kept their distance even when they gave us the side-eye. Rumor had it they were on behavioral probation of some kind, and one more infraction would get them kicked off the football team for good. I gave them two weeks.
Jason Xiang even approached us at lunch and asked how long Connor and I had been dating. My face got so hot, and I started to stutter like a loser, which made Connor start cracking up. But Max saved me by interrupting with an invite to his house party next weekend.
Smooth. He had my vote for SGA president.
It was so bizarre, like living in a dream world, a stark punch to the gut of a not-so-bad reality.
