Kenya

Kenya worked with his headphones in. Kurt and I talked a little bit to break up the painful silence.

“Are you playing soccer this year?” I asked.

He shook his head “no.” “I’m too busy with football,” he explained.

“Oh.”

Kenya chewed on an unlit cigarette. He finally pulled his headphones out of his ears and walked out of the bathroom.

“What’s his problem?” Kurt asked.

I shrugged. I hoped it wasn’t about me though.

Kurt and I scrubbed until Kenya came back in about two hours later. He sat down on a closed toilet seat and put his feet up. He looked a lot better than he did before.

Mr. Michelson came in and told us to take a lunch break. We were all happy to do so.

Kenya lit up his chewed on cigarette as soon as we were outside. Kurt coughed dramatically and sat on the other side of the small patio area.

I didn’t really want to talk to Kenya, but I also didn’t want him to see me as some huge asshole. I just didn’t want him to be mad at me.

“Is everything okay?” I asked him.

“Sure.” He sat down on the bench with a sigh and tipped his head back to look up at the sky. “What does it matter to you anyway?”

“I just want to make sure that it’s not about me. I try not to be an asshole if I can help it.”

“Why would you think it’s about you? Do you really think that people care about you that much that every small thing you do impacts their lives?”

That burned. Even Kurt made a grimace.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Yeah, sorry you can’t even go two seconds without thinking about yourself.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Then what is it?”

I just shook my head. Kenya gave me a condescending look. Kurt just watched the two of us. “I can feel the sexual tension from over here. Maybe you guys should just fuck and get it over with.”

“Go to hell,” I said.

“Shut it asshole,” Kenya snapped at the same time.

Kenya looked at Kurt. “What if I like you and not him?”

Kurt gave him a dirty look.

Kenya went and sat next to him. “Mmmm, Kurt, remember Sunday in your Jeep?”

Kurt’s face drained. It was just a hypothesis, but I kind of figured out that all the sexual tension was between those two.

Kenya whispered something to Kurt and then ran his tongue over the outside of his ear. Kurt pushed him off.

“You are so sick.”

“But Kurt baby, you told me you loved me.”

“You’re so fucking sick. I have no idea what you’re-…”

Kenya cut him off with a kiss. Then while Kurt was still too shocked to say anything, Kenya spoke. “Ashley already has it figured out hon, there’s no use pretending. So my suggestion is that you be nice to Ashley. He’s a smart kid.”

And so Kenya confirmed my suspicions.

But I just couldn’t see it. Not that I really wanted to be able to picture it, but Kenya and Kurt just seemed to hate each other so much, that I couldn’t even imagine them being a couple or anything like that.

Mr. Michelson came out to get us. Kurt asked if he could go to the nurse, so Kenya and I were confined to yet another bathroom, but this time we were alone and it was the last place that I wanted to be.

We cleaned for a little while.

Kenya broke the silence. “I know that you’re dying to ask questions.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Kurt and I are a thing. But we figured that it’d just be better if no one knew. But now that you’re in on the secret, you’ve gotta cover for us whenever you can.”

“I didn’t ask for this.”

“I didn’t either. Life just has a way of being unfair.”

I scrubbed the inside of a toilet. I could feel Kenya watching me. I asked the question I knew he wanted me to ask.

“If you and Kurt are dating, why are you always hitting on me?”

“Not always, Ashley. But I just can’t help but think that things would just be easier with you. I mean, you’re less pig-headed, so you’d be less hell-bet on keeping it a secret.”

“I’m not even gay.”

“You asked.”

He was right.

“This is just way too weird. I’m sorry. I think we should just be acquaintances and sit on the bus together and make very casual conversation.”

“Are you worried I might do something to ruin your reputation?”

“I don’t even have one.”

Kenya smirked. “Exactly. No one knows who you are except Kurt’s girlfriend and Perry. Maybe a few other girls who think that you’re cute, but you don’t even matter. So why do you act like the world revolves around you?”

Blood rushed to my cheeks and I looked down at the floor. “I used to be important.”

“Oh really? Then how come I can tell that you didn’t have many friends? You weren’t close to anyone really because you cut them off before they could find out who you really are. I don’t even think you know what you are.”

“What do you mean what I am?”

“Work on finding yourself. Find what makes you happy and let that define you.”

“You sound like a hokey fortune teller.” I added an afterthought: “Fuck off.”

“I’m going to go find Kurt.”

I pretended that I didn’t hear him, or care about anything that he had to say. The truth was, I was hurt because I sort of thought that Kenya was a decent person, or at least I thought I did.

I cleaned toilets in almost solitude until the end of the day when Kenya and Kurt magically reappeared. Kurt looked really pissed off (as he usually did) and Kenya looked smug. Kenya’s hair was all pushed to one side of his head and I could barely see a hickey poking out of the top of his shirt collar. I felt blood rush to my cheeks and I tried not to pay attention to them.

“Thanks for helping boys.” I hadn’t even realized that Mr. Michelson had shown back up.

“No problem sir.”

Kenya ran his fingers through his hair, trying to calm it down, after he saw his reflection in a mirror.

“Ashley,” he said, “will you sit with me on the bus?”

I was sick of his games, but I said yes anyway.

“Alright. Walk with me?”

Kurt didn’t even take a glance at the two of us. He undoubtedly went to go and find his girlfriend. I felt kind of bad for the girl because she definitely did not know that Kenya and Kurt were fucking.

“Shouldn’t Kurt break up with his girlfriend?”

I didn’t know why I was so worried about Kurt using a girl, I was doing it to Perry, but it just felt wrong to cheat on her when she’d never done anything wrong.

“She’s his cover-up. Duh.”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s not fair to her.”

“She’s sleeping with four-times as many people behind his back.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’m one of them.”

“That is fucked up.”

Kenya raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Duh,” I said using his choice of language against him.

“I figure that if I get with her every once in a while it’ll make me less suspicious.”

“Doesn’t everyone know that you’re gay anyway? Why does it matter? Are you even gay?”

“It matters to Kurt. He wants to play professional sports, and they’re really not easy on the people that play for the same team up in the big leagues. It’s better for him if we keep it quiet. And I’m willing to live with that.”

I shook my head. “Do people actually care that much?”

“It’s crazy, but they do.”

“Jesus.”

“It’s hard to be fabulous.”

“What?”

Kenya just laughed.