Page 28 of Reaching Roland

“Usually, I was the class clown, or I tried helping lighten the mood when it got too volatile, but that morning, I sat helplessly with tears in my eyes, too stunned to move. Too angry. I was so… broken… about him being so close to getting out of that fucking town and creating a life of his own. It felt so senseless.”

“Oh, shortcake. I understand that.” I remembered back to when Cameron was in high school, how young he was, and how impossible it was for him to visualize a life after high school. How stuck he and his friends felt in that existence. Hell, hadn’t it been the same for me until recently? Takoda wasn’t some little shore town, and yet, most of my friends were merely acquaintances that I’d spent my whole life with, raising our families side-by-side. Until this moment, I’d never really understood how stuck I’d felt all these years after Rhonda passed, so how must it have felt for a young boy from a small town with only one friend and what must have seemed like no options?

“And then it happened.”

“What?” I asked, pulled from my own wayward thoughts

“Knight, a junior and the best football player our school had ever had, stood up and whistled. Immediately, everyone went quiet and looked at him. He'd made some pretty rousing speeches before football games at the pep rallies, so I think everyone, including the teachers and coaches, were expecting him to say something uplifting.”

“And what happened?”

A slow, brilliant smile bloomed across Kenny's face. He said,I am so ashamed of myself for never saying this before, for never letting Scott know he wasn’t alone. He pounded his chest with his fist over his heart and said,I'm bisexual and proud of it.You could've heard a pin drop. Someone yelled out,Dude, you're lying, and he shook his head in their direction and said,No, I'm not. I won't just sit here and let all you people who persecuted him and made fun of him and made him feel like shit think that it's okay. It was never okay. And now you’re all sitting here like you’re mourning him, and it makes me sick.”

“Wow. That’s impressive.”

“You have no idea. Knight wasn't treated the best when he was younger, either, because he’s half-black and half-white. People didn't always love him. But then he had this amazing aptitude with the football, and the whole town went crazy for him. He still never dated, but I’d assumed that was simply because our town really was racist. And that might have been part of it since he’s bi, but really, he’d been hiding his truth like I did.”

This sounded like an afternoon special, and I needed to know more. “So what happened after that? Did you hunt him down and let him know you were gay, too?”

“Nope.” He popped the P, sounding so happy, I smiled. “This other guy, Ace, who was a sophomore at the time, stood up. His father owned the local auto repair shop. He was just a nice, good ol’ boy type. He said,Don't feel too bad, Knight. I should have told Scott that I'm gay, too. Then he whispered,I should've had his back.”

“Holy shit. How did everyone react?”

“Dead silent. The principal was completely red-faced and reached for the microphone. I knew he was going to cut them off, maybe even send us all back to class, so I jumped up and threw my hands up in the air and said,Me, too. Someone near me whispered,No shit, and some of the kids around him laughed. Knight headed my direction with a scowl on his face, but he didn't need to bother because the town misfit, Joshua, jumped up and pointed a finger down at the guy and told him to shut the fuck up, and then he said,I’m bisexual, too. He leaned toward the guy who called me out and asked,You got a problem with that?That dude crab-walked backward so fast, shaking his head and bumping into people. To this day, it’s one of the funniest things I've ever seen. At that point, it was like it broke everyone out of their shock. People started talking excitedly amongst themselves, which was good in a lot of ways because all of the fake crying stopped.”

Hugging him to my chest, I rocked him. “Damn. I'm so sorry you went through that.”

He shook his head against my chest. “I'm not. I’m sorry about Scott, and I mourn what could’ve been for him, but I found my forever people. The four of us were all suspended from school for three days.”

Jerking back, I stared down at him, completely outraged. “What? They suspended you for coming out?”

“They said it was for making a spectacle out of what should have been a grieving time for Scott.”

“That's ridiculous.”

Kenny nodded. “It was, but it was also worth it. When we walked out of the principal's office, Scott's parents were there waitingfor us. I tensed, expecting them to rail at us and be angry, but they weren’t. His mom broke down and hugged us all, and his dad shook our hands and thanked us for not letting them turn his son's death into a mockery. We were glad they were so forgiving, because for us, we knew it was too little too late.” He pushed in closer, and I squeezed him tightly.

“But you gave them something to hold onto. In the end, someone stuck up for their son.”

Kenny sniffled, and his voice came out thick. “Yeah, that's what they said. And those next three days were some of the hardest but best in my life. Knight, Ace, Joshua, and I bonded. We spent hours together, just talking and getting to really know each other. We shared our fears and our dreams.”

“That's good, Kenny. I'm so happy you found that.” Affection swelled inside of me for these three young men I’d never met, and I wanted to. I wanted to know the people who’d changed the trajectory of Kenny’s life in such a positive way.

Kenny curled in more and sniffed harder. As much as I wanted to go get him a tissue, I didn’t want to let him go while he shared this story that I’d been the one to push for. “And then on Friday, instead of going back to school, we skipped and went to Scott's funeral. There weren’t too many people there, but my parents and Ace’s father went. Fern was there, too. She told us what really happened the night he took his life, and then we never saw her again.”

“She left town?” I asked, surprised since it sounded like she was still in high school, too.

“Ran away.”

In my heart, I whispered a prayer, hoping that she’d made it. “Did any of you ever even hear from her again?”

Kenny shook his head. “Her family moved away soon after. So…” He shrugged.

I didn’t want to pour salt in a wound that I’d asked him to open up, but I desperately wanted to know what had derailed this poor young man who was so close to at least graduating from high school. “What happened that night? Can you tell me, or is it too much?”

“Fern said it wasn't our peers or the homophobia of the town that finally got him. It was his grandfather. His parents had gone out of town for the weekend, and his grandfather went over and knocked him around, screaming and yelling at him that he'd made their family a laughingstock and that he was an embarrassment. After he left, Scott called and told her what happened. He was crying and saying his life was never going to get better. She offered to come over, but he said he wanted to clean up and just go to sleep. I've always wondered if she blamed herself for not going over there.”

He peeked up at me with so much emotion in his shimmering eyes, compassion and empathy for what she must’ve been feeling and fear and sorrow at not knowing what became of her. I sympathized with that, and I’d never met Fern, either, but hearing Kenny’s retelling was impacting on such a soul-deep level that I knew I’d be thinking about this for a long time to come. But right now, he needed me to soothe it better. “Let’s hope that wherever she is, she knows it’s not her fault and is living her best life.”

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