Sightless

Chapter Seven
Alex quietly slipped through the back door that lead into the kitchen, his mind was heavy with thoughts of the boy who had tried to kiss him earlier. He wasn’t really paying attention to much of anything because of it, so his mother’s outburst took him by total surprise.

“Alex! Where have you been? How did you get home? I was so worried when I went to the school and you weren’t there! I almost called the police, but I thought maybe your father had picked you up early for some reason so I called him and he said he had no idea what I was talking about! If I hadn’t just hung up with him I would be on the phone with the police right now!”

Alex’s brain must have really been broken because all he could say was, “Mom, I think I want to take piano lessons here. Do you think we could find a teacher willing to take me on?

Marie just blinked at Alex. “What?”

“I have so much on mind now that I’m in this school and piano always helped me take my mind off of things back home. Besides I miss playing all the time; this weekend made me realize that.”

Marie was perplexed by her son’s total disregard for her panic, but something compelled her to keep up with the conversation. “Alex, honey, Mrs. Pevency taught you everything you need to know about playing? I could maybe find you a club or something where you can compete. But what’s this about really? Does this have anything to do with where you were?”

Alex sighed and sat on one of the stools at the island. Marie took this opportunity to lean against the counter containing the sink. Alex started trying to explain himself. “Remember when I told you about the boys I sit with during lunch?

Rodney and Casey, right?” Marie asked confused, but glad her son seemed to be trying to cooperate.

“Yeah, well Casey wasn’t at school today. He had something to deal with, but he still wanted to see me so he had Rodney more or less kidnap me after lunch was over. He dropped me off at the park a couple blocks away and Casey was there waiting for me. He had something important to tell me, but then he changed his mind. It really seemed to be bothering him and when I was getting ready to ask him about it again something happened..” Alex trailed off.

He had always told his mother everything, that’s why he told her as much as he had, but he wasn’t sure that telling her what happened next would be too much for her.

Marie didn’t like what she heard, but she knew if she pushed Alex right now while he was so confused and conflicted it wouldn’t end well. He was sixteen now, he was bound to pull a few stunts like this eventually. She would have to be okay with it as long as he told her about it and didn’t get into trouble. She couldn’t shelter him from everything and control every aspect of his life forever.

“What happened, honey?”

“I’m afraid you won’t like what happened next,” Alex said barely above a whisper.

Marie gasped. “You didn’t try any drugs did you? I know they say everybody experiments, but I thought we warned you about that?”

“No, no, mom, it wasn’t anything like that,” Alex breathed. He had never had problems telling his mother something before. But nothing like this had ever happened before.

“You can tell me, it’s okay,” Marie said feeling relieved. She had regretted having to take her son out of his old school, she was afraid he wouldn’t be able to handle public school again. But she was just going to have to trust him.

“I think he tried to kiss me. I couldn’t tell for sure though, but he put his hand on my hip and I almost fell scrambling to get away from him. The worst part is I kind of wanted it to happen,” Alex said, mumbling the last sentence. He was afraid of how his mother might react. He was afraid of how he might react for that matter.

Marie pushed off from the counter and hugged her baby boy. “Alex, do you like Casey like that?”

Alex leaned into his mother’s embrace feeling a little bit better that it was out in the open and she hadn’t reacted badly. But that was only a small fraction of the battle. “I don’t know. I’ve never thought about stuff like that, with boys or girls. But I really enjoy Casey’s company and he helps me so much at school. But he makes me uncomfortable sometimes because he likes to talk about stuff like that a lot, especially at lunch.”

Marie sighed quietly to herself and patted her son’s back. “You’re at the age where you need to start thinking about this stuff, Alex. You’re not a little boy anymore, I thought I was the only one struggling with that, but now I think we both need to realize that you are growing up. Now I don’t care whether you like girls or boys, but you need to figure something out about Casey, because even if he really likes you he’s not going to wait around forever for you to figure things out.”

“Thanks, mom,” Alex said feeling a lot better.

He got up out of his chair and started counting the steps to his room. But just as he was about to turn the door knob he changed his mind and counted the steps to his father’s study instead. He felt for the smooth wooden bench and sat down at the piano. Without having to give it a thought he started playing the song from this past weekend, as if playing the song would help him work out his feelings for Casey.