Accept Me or Except Me

I just can’t believe that Lee told me he loved me. I guess it’s a good thing he did, because it reminded me of what I was doing. I was doing it with a guy. A faggot. I would never live that down. I don’t even want to see him again. Why is he messing with my mind? Why can’t he learn to stay away from me?
It’s the Tuesday after our long weekend at the lodge, and I was not prepared for what came next. Josh ran up to me and punched me in the gut.

“I knew you were a faggot,” he said, as he spat at me. “Have a nice time feeling Lee up?”

How did he know? He couldn’t know, could he? He was probably bluffing. He had to be bluffing! There weren’t any cameras! Was there CCTV? Even if there was, they wouldn’t just hand it to some kid! What if he hacked in, or rather, bullied some nerd into hacking in? Oh my god, my life is officially over.

This was the first time I felt this way. I meant it literally, because Josh, and the people who said they were my friends, almost beat me to a pulp. After what seemed like hours of humiliation and torture, they were done, so I walked slowly to my locker. Everyone stared at me silently, like I was some freak. What was wrong with these people?

I can’t believe Lee could put up with this! It’s bad enough for me, but I’m much fitter than Lee! How could he take it? I saw Lee reach his locker a little down the hall. I wasn’t too close, but I could hear the conversation.

“Rumor has it that Danny’s gay…” Matt began.

Lee froze in shock. He relaxed slightly, enough to listen, but he was the most tense I had seen him. I could see the cogs working in his brain. He was trying to process what Matt was saying. I could have just stared at his face forever. There’s no harm now, since everyone seems to know. He looked seriously worried for me. I think I kind of zoned out too. There was nothing but me and Lee.

“As if I, of all people, could get with Danny Jockling. Get real,” he laughed suddenly.

This hurt so much. It was true a week ago, I would have killed him if he said he wanted me, but now I realized that I wanted him just as much. Then he just goes and dismisses me like that? I thought I actually meant something to that guy! I slammed my locker door shut and left for Geometry. The problem was, the only shape I could think about was Lee in bed.

* * *

I went home and thought about the great times we’d had at the lodge. Those four days were easily the best of my life. I spent four whole days with Lee Nickelson. I loved that experience of just loving someone. And making it with them.

Love. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s the guiltiness I was feeling a week ago. That’s the reassurance I wanted to give him. That was the fireworks in my gut as we kissed. It was the jealousy of Matt this morning, when he got to see Lee and I didn’t. It all made sense. I love Lee Nickelson!

I thought about him. How he looked, his shy but almost always chuckling voice. I remembered everything he told me. I remembered his witty jokes, his reassurances about the scale and his love for me. The scale! That’s what I needed to prove it was all real. I needed to see my sexuality before my eyes. I needed closure.

I grabbed a piece of paper in my hands, shaking as I realized what I was doing. I was confessing who I was. I got a pencil and began to draw a line. On the left, I wrote a zero and drew the best stereotypical straight man I could. On the right, I wrote a ten and drew the best not too stereotypical gay man I could. I placed every number in between and I looked at the gray area. Any one number could’ve been my sexuality, but it wasn’t.

I wrote Lee’s name on the nine as neatly as I could. He wasn’t here for me to know exactly where to put it, but it seemed big enough to need to come out, and he definitely hadn’t had a girlfriend. I looked back at the scale, thinking about where to put myself. This is what it was all about. I looked at the ten, and wrote my name there. Damn, I could never be with a woman if I tried. Believe me, I tried.

Suddenly my dad knocked on the door and told me it was time for dinner. I scrunched up the piece of
paper and threw it in the trash and left the room. It was only when I got to the dining room that I realized that dad was still upstairs. His voice surprised me.

“Hey son, what’s this piece of paper in the trash?”

I froze.