once in those weeks after I got out of the hospital, had suddenly shown up at the door, implying that I was somehow responsible for my own assault?
I want to know what you were doing in that backyard with those boys.
I don’t want to find out in front of an entire courtroom full of people that my son’s a whore, the way I found out in front of all those people at the hospital that he’s a fag.
The humiliation, the hurt. I couldn’t repeat his words, not even to Adam. I wouldn’t have told Mom either, but I didn’t have to. She’d walked in on the tail end of it, her shock and anger distracting Dad just enough for me to escape. I ran—no car keys, no shoes. God, why hadn’t I let her get the door? What chance did I have in court if my own dad was so willing to believe the worst?
“The defense attorney is gonna try to make us look like perverts,” I said finally. I took a deep, unsteady breath. “He’s gonna try and convince the jurors that I wanted it.”
“He’s just doing his job, Nate. You’re not on trial here.”
“They’re going to ask about us. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know. I have to testify too.”
“What will you tell them?”
“The truth. I’m not ashamed of anything we do. ‘I will wear my heart upon my sleeve. For daws to peck at.’ ”
“Shakespeare?”
He smiled. “Othello.”
“Do you think the world is ready for the truth?”
“It’s not immoral to tell the truth, Nate. It doesn’t matter if the world is ready or not. Truth is truth.” He fingered the rubber bracelet on my wrist, the one he’d had made for me last fall as a reminder to stay true to myself. Stamped in the rainbow-colored band were the letters WWND?—What Would Nate Do? “You’re wearing it again,” he said.
“I want a tattoo.”
“A tattoo, huh? People are going to think I’m a bad influence on you.”
“Yeah, you’re so bad.”
Later, in the musty-smelling equipment room, which was really just a temporary building outside the field house, we made love. Afterward, he cleaned up my bloodied toes with some antiseptic wipes he found in a cabinet. “It’s just superficial,” I kept telling him.
Chapter 5
I knew that night had scared him. I looked at his text again.
Seatmate: u look sad. Me: Leaving boyfriend. No more seatmate.
LOL.
God, I loved him. I took a deep breath and fisted my hands around the phone, trying to quiet the trembling. I still needed him, but I was on my own now. There’d be no Adam to talk me off the cliff the next time I danced with self-destruction. The key was to stay off the cliff.
I cut the engine, and the temperature in the car immediately began to rise. In the front window of Ratliff Music, the Open sign glowed. My shift didn’t start for another hour and a half, but I had nowhere else to go. I tucked my phone in my pocket and went in.
“Hey,” Juliet said as she hooked a little plastic bag of guitar strings on a wall peg behind the counter. She flashed me a grin. It faded quickly. “Oh, Nate.” She dropped the rest of the bags into a box on the floor and hurried around the counter.
“He’ll be back,” she said, throwing her arms around me. More than anyone, Juliet knew what Adam’s leaving was doing to me. But I can’t say I welcomed the embrace. It gnawed at what little self-control I’d managed to amass on the drive over. Fortunately, it didn’t last long.
From the office doorway, Juliet’s dad cleared his throat, and she let go. I swiped at my eyes with the collar of my shirt, embarrassed, but Mr. Ratliff pretended not to notice.
“You’re early,” he said.
“Yeah. I dropped Adam at the airport and didn’t really have time to go home, so I just came on in.” I stepped behind the counter and retrieved the bags Juliet had dropped.
Mr. Ratliff slapped me on the back as he slipped past me to the scheduling book. “Great. I could really use a guitar sub today. Gary can’t make it in until noon, and he’s got a new student scheduled at eleven. Danial Qasimi. I was planning to cancel, but since you’re here ...” He looked up at me cautiously. “You up for it?”
I told him I was and then glanced at the clock on the wall behind him. Ten twenty-three.
He told me to grab a guitar off the shelf—acoustic. I chose a Takamine I’d had my eye on for a while.
While we waited for the new student, I sat on a bench and tuned the strings and filled Juliet in on how things went at the airport, leaving out the more embarrassing lapses of control. She laughed at the homophobic seatmate. “Was she afraid she might get zapped by some flash discharge when God sent the lightning bolt down on the gay guy?”
I laughed a little. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Getting pretty bold, aren’t you?” she said fingering my T-shirt.
It was a simple black shirt, printed across the front in white letters: Closets are for brooms, not people. “Every crusader needs a slogan.” That’s what Adam had said when he gave it to me that morning before we left his house. I smiled, remembering how he’d helped himself to one last appreciative look as I switched shirts. I shrugged.
“He dressed you, didn’t he?”
I pressed my finger just behind the fifth fret on the D string and strummed both the D and the G strings, then tightened the tuning peg until the notes echoed each other.
Juliet watched me, a grin pulling her lips wide.
“What?” I said, looking up at her.
“He’s marking you, you know.”
“I resemble that remark.” I showed her my Sharpied arm. She shook her head.
When the door opened a few minutes later, Juliet tweaked my shirt and got up. “Showtime, hot stuff,” she said.
The name hadn’t registered with her earlier, but her eyes lit up when the new student stepped into the shop and pushed the door closed behind him.
“Danial Qasimi? I thought that name sounded familiar.” She gave him a good once-over with her eyes. “Whoa. You’ve grown up.”
“Whoa, yourself,” he said, grinning widely. “Juliet, right?”
He was tall. Middle Eastern—Pakistani, I found out later. His skin was a rich brown, almost the color of burnt bacon, but beautiful. His hair black. A dimple on the right side gave him a boyish look when he smiled. Juliet explained that they’d been office aides together in seventh grade, back when Danial was a scrawny nerd. Apparently he’d grown up a whole lot since then. He looked like a linebacker.
I
