Marek locked his hands behind his neck, his eyes bleak. “Looking back now, I can see they were yanking my chain and harassing me a little bit just to have something to do. Straight guys call other straight guys gay all the time when they're trying to needle them and get a reaction, figuring it's a pretty effective insult. They didn't know anything; they were just being dicks. But at the time, Christ, Colin, I was so panicked and scared they saw the truth I had tried so hard to hide. After all, I did want what they were teasing me about. I fantasized every night about kissing another guy or touching his cock or him touching mine. Shit, Morales was an asshole, but he was so fucking hot I'd thought about him naked and imagined myself giving him a blowjob more than once. And there he was, standing there with his buddies, hinting at things that, deep down, I really did want. I thought for sure they saw something in me, and I was so terrified it would get back to my brother or parents, and that I would be dead, so I unloaded every bit of homophobic shit I could on you.”
Colin's head spun dizzily. “Why would you do that?” He could not wrap his brain around what Marek shared.
“To cover my own ass!” Marek looked off balance, as if he slipped back to reliving the fear and emotions of that day right in this kitchen. “To shift the focus off me; I didn't care how. It didn't even make any sense, but all I could hear in my head was the word 'boyfriend' from them, about me, and I knew I had to get the stink of it away from me.” Marek shook, and his face paled with every layer of confession. “I said you were the queer, and that I was just being a good guy by talking to you because we crossed paths on the way home. I told them you wouldn't stop talking, though, and making jokes, and that I thought you were trying to hit on me, and I was pretending I didn't notice until I could get away from you.”
Night edged deeper and deeper into the kitchen, but neither man moved to switch on a light.
“I even embellished more and said I thought I'd caught you staring at me before, and now I knew why, and now that I was thinking about it, I think you might have been waiting for me so it wouldn't look like a big deal if you asked to walk home together. I'm so sorry.” Marek's voice was thick and raw. “I loved that walk, but less than five minutes later, I twisted it and mutilated it and turned it into the start of something brutal and ugly. I'm so sorry I got you hurt.”
Colin swiped an answering tear from the corner of his eye, but at the same time fought a growing ball of anger edging its way into his core. “Don't tell me you're sorry. Tell me the rest.”
“Right.” Straightening, Marek's jaw ticked, but he kept going. “I told the guys I was going to steer clear of you from then on, because I didn't want to worry about some fag trying to kiss me, and that if you didn't leave me alone, I would have to do something to take care of you.”
Hands curling into fists, Colin rumbled an animal noise and took a menacing step forward into Marek's space. “You told them you were going to beat me up?”
“As good as.” Marek nodded. “Then, because I had to get away from them, I said I couldn't hang out and shoot hoops because I had a date with Jennifer Beecher.” He shook his head and looked up to the ceiling, and his Adam's apple bobbed in overtime. “I didn't even have a date set up with her, but I knew she liked me, and I needed to show I was with a girl. The second I got inside, I called her, and she was happy to pick me up.” Each sentence Marek spoke etched a haunting line on his face. “She was a nice person, and I used her to cover myself. I dated her until I moved away when I graduated a few months later. I made sure people—Tiggs, Street, and Morales, for sure—saw me making out with her.”
“Oh my God.” Reeling, Colin slammed his fist into the counter, making both him and Marek jump. “You set the whole goddamn fucking thing in motion, and I never even put the two together. After we walked home together, the next day was when I started getting the whispers and name calling between classes and during lunch at school. I thought it was because of something Jenna said, but it was you.” Even as rage coiled in Colin, he still put his hand over his mouth and worked with every bit of willpower in him to keep the flood of emotion from pushing more tears to the surface. He couldn't let himself cry in front of this man anymore, so he yanked up his shirt and let the anger run free instead. “You did this to me!” He slapped his hand against his scar.
Marek doubled over as if he'd been shot. “I know! I as good as knifed you myself.” Stripped bare of his secret, Marek's voice was raspy and raw. “I called
