My Name Is Kyle

This school requires uniforms, which I wouldn’t be a fan of. Except the uniforms we wear happen to be hella dope, so I don’t really mind. The only bummer is that you don’t really get to pick out whatever you want when you go school shopping, which is usually my favorite part of the school year. I make sure to find out what the boys’ uniform is, which is a white dress shirt, red tie, black slacks and grey argyle sweater vest. The girl’s is the same, but with a knee length skirt instead of slacks and a big floppy red bow type deal around their necks rather than a tie. I try on my outfit the day I get it, and I must say, I like it more than I thought I would .
My stomach rumbles with nerves as I briskly walk towards the school, the morning sun heating up my back. I’m more excited than anything; a whole new school. A fresh start is just what this boy needs.
I hurry up to my locker, and am immediately greeted by someone. It’s a girl, and she’s pretty with wavy blond hair and green eyes. She has faint freckles over her nose and is wearing kitty ballet flats with her school uniform .
“Hi! You’re new here, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” I reply. With a proud smile, I decide, “I’m Kyle.”
She grins, baring braces, and responds, “It’s nice to meet you! I’m Lee. Would you like me to introduce you to my friends? They’re really nice.”
“Sure,” I agree, following her down the hallway.
She stops in front of a girl with auburn hair and grey eyes and another girl with black hair and almond eyes. She gestures at the girl with red hair, telling, “This is Maria.” She then touches the other girl’s forearm, adding, “And this is Hadley.”
I smile at them, and ask, “How are you guys?”
“Good,” they respond in unison. They giggle at each other before turning their attention back to me.
“So, where are you from?” Hadley asks.
“I lived about two hours away,” I answer.
Maria’s jaw drops, and she responds, “No way. Why’d you come here, Podunk U.S.A.?”
Lee forcefully reminds, “It’s called Asherville! ”
Maria makes a mocking face before playing with some strands of her hair.
“I um, my mom moved here for business,” I lie.
“What’s your mom do?” Hadley asks.
“She’s an at home accountant,” I mutter.
“Wait, what?” Maria asks.
Luckily for me, the bell rings. I start off for my first class, which is English 1.
I’m one of the first kids there, and a handful are late because they don’t know their way around the school quite well enough yet .
I quietly watch the students file in, and one boy catches my eye. He’s wearing a ratty school uniform with some muddy Converses. His light brown hair looks greasy and hangs in his eyes and down his neck, in a style that actually strangely reminds me of a sheep dog. But the boy’s cute, with dimples and cornflower blue eyes shining beneath the mess of hair.
He sits down in the far opposite corner, next to the window.
“Mr. Rapp,” the teacher calls. The cute boy looks at him, so I guess that’s his last name.
“I’m sure I can trust you enough not to jump out, correct?” the teacher, Mr. Andrews, asks .
“Ummm….” The cute boy frowns and shrugs.
Mr. Andrews shakes his head.
Once everybody is in, Mr. Andrews stands in front of the class smirking. He holds a piece of paper in front of his face and reads off of it.
“My name is Mr. Andrews, and I’m looking forward to another productive year of English 1 just as much as you students are. Please feel welcome to ask me any questions if needed; I want this to be a comfortable, open environment where you can learn with not only success but pleasure as well. We will be reading Shakespeare later on, but I find it painless. You have a journal every day that you will be working on as soon as the bell rings (it will always be written on the board).As you can see, today’s journal is already written up there . While I only grade five of your every 25 entries, I will read them all to get to know you better. So please, no swearing, although I don’t want to constrict your writing. Every Friday, I will give you a writing prompt. It may be a sentence, a color, or a picture, but I want you to write a piece inspired from it. Some weeks it will be a short story of a minimum of 1,000 words, but others it will simply be a Haiku. Again, I’m looking forward to getting to know all of you. To get to know you better, I’ve decided you will write an essay to introduce yourself to me. Please answer each following question in a paragraph at least (4-5 sentences). Feel free to add whatever details you find necessary about yourself. I’m anticipating reading yours.”
I glance over at the cute boy I saw at the beginning of class, Mr. Rapp. He’s currently throwing paper balls out the window and watching them hit the ground with delight .
“Thurston!” Mr. Andrews screams.
The boy throwing the paper balls freezes, and then drops another clump of paper.
“Would you be kind enough to pull your head out of your butt and pass out these papers?” Mr. Andrews asks.
Thurston, that must be his name. Anyways, Thurston smiles and replies chirpily, “Sure thing!” He walks up to the front of the class, his steps small and cluttered. He takes the paper and goes down the rows, handing them to each student with the sentence,
“Here you go, insert name here.”
He reaches me, and puts a hand on his hip, waggling one of his fingers at me. “I don’t know you. You must be new here, huh?”
“Thurston!” Mr. Andrews calls, his eyes still glued to the novel he’s reading. “Stop trying to make friends and sit down!”
Thurston laughs and hands me a paper, prancing back to his seat and starting his essay .
Towards the end of the class, Mr. Andrews informs,
“By the way, these will be peer-edited essays. That means that someone has to check it and sign their name before you turn it in to show that they read it. If they didn’t, and they just scrawled their name on there for whatever reason, the quality of your paper will say so. Turn in both copies, due Thursday.”
I glance around the room, wondering which one of the kids would be willing to read my paper. The bell rings, and Thurston clambers over to me, bouncing on his heels.
“Wanna switch papers?” he asks.
“Um, sure,” I agree. I hold out my paper, and he snatches it away and sets his own on my desk.
I read his while my teacher in the next class is blabbing.
“Thurston For More. By Thurston Rapp, Period 1.
My name is Thurston Alexander Rapp. My name came from the actual Thurston Moore, who is the lead singer to Sonic Youth (but guessing by your CD collection that I saw when I came in, you are fully aware of who Thurston Moore is). I love my name; I think it makes me sound worldly. I wouldn’t change it if I could; mainly because I think that I’d pick whatever dumb fad name I was currently into like Lebronx or Hakim or something.
I have a seventeen year old foster sister named Mya who is a senior. She is very condescending and self-centered, but she’s popular and smart, so she’ll probably get far in life. My younger foster brother is named Jeremy and he is eight and in the second grade. He’s really intelligent for his age and always tries to see the best in people.
I don’t work anywhere. I’m not applying for a job, because I want to wait until I can achieve the job I want to. I want to be an artist. I want to do all kinds of art: paintings, drawings, sculptures, the whole lot.
Representing Hufflepuff, the house of loyalty ! Pinterest is for middle aged mothers, and isn’t Tumblr a cup of some sort? I’m not Republican or Democrat. I don’t really care about politics; neither Democrats nor Republicans are fixing the country at all so why side with either of them?”
I think I could get to know this kid. The next day at class, we exchange papers again. I eye the bottom of my typed page to see Thurston’s name in his preschooler learning to write font in purple ink.
I grin. I’ll have to talk to him at lunch today. When I get to lunch, which is first wave, I sit down at my usual spot with Lee, Maria and Hadley. I idly sit there, not really paying attention to whatever Maria is jabbering on about but instead scanning the room for any sign of Thurston .
I finally see him, but he’s heading for the door.
I turn to Lee, telling, “I’ll be right back.” With that, I’m off and leaving through the door I saw Thurston go through just a few seconds ago.
The door leads up to the auditorium hallway, which is linked with the band, vocal, and World Geography room. Maybe… maybe he’s late for class.
I turn and am ready to go back to lunch, when I hear that tell-tale hacking cough coming from outside the door. I leave, and the warm sun greets me. I bask in its glow for a moment, and then realize that I am in the school’s back parking lot. What would Thurston be doing here? Maybe he’s getting something from his car? I hear him cough again, so I follow the sound until I see him sitting on the ground next to a huge dumpster, a lit cigarette in between his pink lips.
He sees me, and he’s so shocked that the cigarette falls from his mouth and onto the ground. He has to open his legs to let it fall to the cement through them, and he yelps because he probably just thought his dick was about to get burnt. He stands, toeing the cigarette until it’s nothing but a stamped out stick in a pile of ashes.
“Thurston…” is all I can manage to say .
“Hey Kyle,” he replies weakly. He’s so pale, and his eyes are bulging with fright. He looks as though he’s about to be sick. “You’re cool, right? You won’t tell anyone?”
I contemplate my situation as quickly as I can. I’d be a giant bitch if I just went and ratted out this kid I hardly even know. And, he wasn’t really doing anything that wrong, I mean, he wasn’t hurting anyone or vandalizing anyone’s property or anything like that. I don’t exactly like people smoking, but that doesn’t mean that no one should be allowed to. I can’t form the words I want to say, so I smile to assure that things will be alright as I try to get the language straight in my head.
“I won’t tell on you. We all have our kryptonite,” I reason.
Thurston, holding a hand nervously, and effeminately, to his breast, responds, “What?”
I blush . “Kryptonite. It’s the one thing that was Superman’s weakness.”
Thurston nods, but still looks a little confused . So I continue,
“What I’m saying is that even Superman had a weakness, so every human has one as well. Like, yours’ is cigarettes. Kurt Cobain’s was heroin. Mine is anxiety. You see what I’m saying?”
Thurston again bobs his head, and the confused look slowly fades. He peers up at me through his locks, withdrawing a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket. He smacks the box against his palms, shaking out two cigarettes and putting one in his teeth. He puts the box away and instead pulls out a lighter. He extends his hands, holding out the spare cigarette and his lighter to me.
“Want it?” he asks. He looks extremely innocent and sweet as he says this, which is strange because he’s a fourteen year old offering me drugs illegal for not only his age group but mine as well.
“I’m… I’m good,” I stammer.
Thurston makes a face like he can’t understand why anyone would ever turn down a cigarette. He then lights his own, and lets it go in his mouth as he puts away the offered goods, mumbling,
“It’d calm you down.”
He takes the cigarette from his mouth, and blows smoke up into the air. I must say, I think I’ve had a cigarette fetish I haven’t discovered until now . He holds the cigarette delicately in his slim fingers, holding it next to his face and gazing up at me with those blue eyes. He looks pretty damn hot, especially with traces of smoke still escaping his mouth and floating around his head.
I see a playful glint in his eye, and he pats the pavement next to him, ordering,
“Sit down, Kyle. Let’s have a real talk.”
I lower myself slowly onto the patch of cement, and I hold my breath for a bit to try to not smell the pungent odor of cigarette smoke. I cannot, so I just man up and sit there inhaling his secondhand smoke but not really minding, or at least not enough to say anything about it.
“So, what’s your deal?” he questions.
I laugh, just because it’s such a strange thing to hear coming out of a freshman’s mouth who happens to be smoking like a chimney. “What do you mean?”
“Well, why did you move here?” he chuckles. “I don’t know if you noticed, Kyle honey, but this aint exactly New York. People aren’t dying to come here in large mobs because of the culture!”
“Actually….” I decide I’m going to tell him the truth. “I was… a group of older kids at my school personally victimized me and…”
Thurston’s eyes get all big and sappy, and he finally cracks a small smile as he butts me with his head. “Hey. Guess what? I got bullied too.” He rolls up his sleeve, to reveal a long pink scar running from the top of his wrist to over halfway down his forearm . “That’s no birthmark.”
“How’d you do it?” I ask.
“Do what? Slit my wrist?” he questions.
“No, no. How’d you…” a lump pumps itself up in the back of my throat, and my eyes decide to water excessively as I ask, “How’d you learn to be so happy again?”
Thurston chews his bottom lip before pouncing on me in the form of a hug. He squeezes me tighter than I’ve ever been held before in my life, and I just want to stay in the warmth and comfort of his arms forever.
“Hey,” he coaxes, his voice velvet. “You’ll get there. You may not be able to see it now, but trust me, once you get there…” He throws his cigarette to the side to twist the now free hand through my hair. “You’ll never look back.”
I sob, clutching the back of his sweater vest with all of the strength that’s in me. All of the determination and willpower I have is currently being used to hold onto Thurston.
Unfortunately, the bell rings. Thurston holds me even tighter, which I didn’t know was possible until this very second. He then breaks apart the hug, takes a lock of my hair and tucks it behind my ear, his fingertips grazing my cheek. He pretends to blow on the end of his sleeve and then wipes the tears from my eyes and also gets rid of the streams that had streaked down my face. He grins this sad smile, and then leans in close, puling,
“Don’t you dare leave us. I believe in you more than myself.”
With that, he gets up and goes, and I watch his cigarette that had been thrown onto the ground slowly flicker out before I go back inside.
I decide that I definitely need to talk to Thurston. I… I know it’s sort of Romeo and Juliet , but… I think I love him. The best thing is that I know that it’s not his hair, or his shoes, or even his smile. It’s him. His body is not him. He cannot be described. He is Thurston’s soul, this tiny little ray of light that is all that I am so madly in love with. His body, his voice, his face is merely a shelling, an exoskeleton for that entity.
When I wake up in the morning, I feel great, partly because I actually went to bed before ten o clock at night, but more so because today is the day I tell Thurston!
I see him in the halls after English 1, so I make sure to catch him after class. I grab his forearm, greeting softly,
“Hey.”
“Hi!” he answers in that upbeat voice of his.
“I wanted to tell you….” I give him my best movie star eyes . “I really like you Thurston. A lot.”
Thurston beams, and presses, “Do you want to act on that at all?”
I don’t quite understand what he means, but he explains through his body. He places his hand on the small of my back and pushes me up into him as he kisses me, his lips as soft and flexible as melted butter.
My lashes flutter with pleasure. I can’t believe I’ve never kissed before! With both people kissing, I mean. If I knew it was so cracked up to be about, I would’ve done it earlier, for sure.
He breaks it apart, and winks at me before he starts off in the opposite for his next class.
I have Biology the period after with Lee, so I totally tell her everything.
Lee’s jaw drops open, and the tips of her upper lip curl up into a smile. “Oh my Gosh! Have you dropped the L-Bomb on him yet?”
I shake my head. “No, I don’t want to scare him off.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about scaring him off,” Lee responds. “He’s a pretty simple guy.”
“You don’t understand,” I reply. “He… he showed me a really dark part of his past.”
Lee seems doubtful. “No way. Are you serious?”
I nod.
Lee looks thoughtful, and then she excitedly claps her hands and pleads, “Can we play the guessing game?”
“No…no!” I answer. “He trusted me, Lee. I can’t just give it away.”
“But you’re not!” Lee insists. “You can’t lie to your friend when she guesses right, either!”
“Well we’re not playing the guessing game,” I conclude.
“Was he… raped?” Lee whispers.
“OH MY GOD LEE!” I snap. “This conversation’s over, okay?”
“Fine!” Lee huffs.
I shake my head as I pull my Biology folder out of my bag to work on it. I want to smack myself as I poke Lee and ask,
“Psst. Lee! Can I borrow your notes?”
When the bell rings, I’m getting my stuff from my locker to go home when Thurston catches up to me.
“Hey, Kyle!” he greets cheerfully.
“Hey!” I reply.
“How’s… how’s it going?” he asks. He looks nervous . His foot taps and his hands are stuffed into his pockets, his shoulders lifted and tense.
“Fine,” I answer. “How are you?”
“Well…. I was just wondering…” he flips his hair out of his eyes and squints at me, his blue eyes twinkling. “D-do you want to hang out with me? Just for fun?”
I glance over at my locker, as if it’ll give me the answer. I shove my hand into my pocket and finger my cellphone, informing, “I’m going to call my mom quick to ask if it’s okay.”
“Alright,” Thurston responds, sounding very relieved.
I dial her number, and the conversation goes like this.
“Hey, mom? Can I hang out with a friend after school?”
“I don’t know. Are they a good kid?”
“Yeah mom, they’re fine. He’s a nice boy.”
“Ooh, it’s a he? Well I don’t want to stand in the way of-”
“I’M GOING GOODBYE MOM.”
I snap my phone shut and turn to Thurston, who is trying not to laugh . “I’m a ‘nice boy’?”
I chuckle with him and give him a light push, smirking, “Shut up!”
Thurston walks out of the school, and I follow close behind. When we get close to the high way, he grins.
“What are you smiling at?” I ask, amused.
“I love high ways! They’re really fun to run across super-fast like….” A car whizzes by, and Thurston grabs my hand, screaming, “BOOK IT!”
I laugh as I sprint across with him, even though the cars on either side of us are at least 30 yards away and going about 20 mph .
Thurston skids to a halt once we cross the high way, and reaches into his pocket, fishing out a cigarette.
I grimace and mumble, “I wish you wouldn’t smoke.”
Thurston has some mild difficulty with his lighter before getting it to work, and then retorts, “I wish you wouldn’t suck.”
I watch him blow on that cigarette as if it was a tank of oxygen and he were a choking patient. I lick my lips, and suggest,
“Well, I could try just one.”
Thurston smiles and ruffles my hair, cheering, “Atta boy!” He pulls out another for me and orders, “Open wide.” I open my mouth and he slips it inside. I close my lips around it and hold it with one hand as he lights it for me. I take one puff and
“ACH!” I shout. I start coughing ferociously, clouds of smoke bursting out of my mouth with each forceful cough.
Thurston takes the cigarette from my mouth, flicking it to the side.
“Oh shit!” I wheeze, pounding on my chest.
He wraps his arms around me and pats my back as my body heaves. I begin to retch, and he rubs my back as I vomit onto the grass. Once I’m done, I look up at him, my stomach twisting from smoke. “Sorry.”
Thurston replies, “Hey, it’s not your fault.” His eyes widen, and he apologizes, “I’m so sorry if I pressured you!”
“No, no you didn’t,” I assure. I chortle as I wipe my mouth, explaining, “Kyle’s dumb mistake. Not yours.”
“Do you want me to take you home?” Thurston asks.
“No, let’s… let’s walk around,” I suggest.
Thurston grins and continues to walk, reaching a hand back for mine. I take his, and he questions, “So Kyle, do you want to go to my house?”
“Sure,” I agree. Thurston turns sharply to the left, explaining, “We were going the wrong way for that.”
We reach a large house, with a tree house in the front and an underground pool in the back. The pool has a freaking diving rock, and adjacent to it is a koi pond. My mouth hangs open as we approach it, and I can’t help but wonder,
“Are you rich?”
Thurston laughs, “No, but my foster parents are .”
We head inside, to see that indoors is almost as mind blowing as it looked outside. Everything is so carefully planned in the den, the black sleek coffee table matching the TV stand, the red leather couches with a little red love seat. There’s a bunch of fancy pretentious looking modern art hung up everywhere, the kind that’s just a bunch of random shapes and splashes of colors that look neat but, between you and me, aren’t all that artistic.
“I know, the paintings in here suck,” Thurston complains.
“Agreed,” I respond. I follow Thurston up some fancy twisted stairs, and down a large hallway. The hallway has a grey carpet, black doors and dark grey walls with bird decals on them and even more paintings hung up.
“I love your hosue!” I compliment.
“Lydia’s really into decorating,” Thurston tells.
“Is that your foster mom?” I guess.
He nods as he swings open the door to what must be his room. He has this great big room, and it’s spic and span. He has a loft bed, and underneath it is a neatly organized desk with a cute little blue spinny chair. I can’t help but notice that he has a Pikachu stuffed animal sitting up on his bed, sticking out from his basic black and grey plaid comforter with neon green sheets, which are not so basic. He also has a stuffed Dalek and a Lumpy Space Princess pillow. He has a full length mirror on one wall, and a closet that I’m 98% positive is a walk in. He has a large TV hung up on the wall facing his bed, and a couch too. A cage sits in one corner on a dresser, so I head over to see what’s inside.
It’s… it’s a rat. The rat is white with grey patches, one covering one of his eyes.
“That’s Charlie,” Thurston informs as he heads up to the cage, lifting the top off to refill the food.
I back away, grossed out. “You got a rat… and you named it Charlie?”
He nods his head, replying, “I certainly did.” He picks the rat up, and holds it to his chest. “Wanna hold him?”
“I hate rats,” I explain, now pressed all the way up against the opposite wall.
“He likes you,” he mutters as he pets Charlie. He kisses- no really- kisses Charlie on the head before putting him back in his cage, replacing the top.
“Thanks for keeping him away from me,” I thank.
Thurston cocks his head. “You don’t like rats. Why would I bring him towards you?”
“Long story,” I reply, rolling my eyes at the memory and shivering at the same time .
“Want to go swimming in my pool Friday?” Thurston invites. “You can bring some of your friends… my friends Bo and Naioki are coming over that day…”
“Sounds good,” I respond. “My friends, you probably know them. They’re Lee, Maria, and Hadley?”
“Oh yeah, I know them,” Thurston responds. “They’re nice.”
“So… I probably have to go,” I admit.
“Oh, okay. Do you want me to walk you home?” Thurston offers.
“That… that sounds great,” I agree.
On the walk home, we’re about halfway there when Thurston asks, “Kyle? Do you… have a girlfriend?”
“I like boys,” I reply.
Thurston stops and turns to look at me. He takes my hand, and presses my palm to his chest. “Do you like this boy?”
I break out in a smile, and nod, biting my lip as I answer, “Yes. I like this boy a lot.”
Thurston grins so wide I fear his face will split, and he pulls me into a hug and lifts me off the ground.
“Wait! Thurston, there’s something I have to tell you,” I interject.
Thurston puts me down, his arms still around me. “What is it?”
“I’m… physically, I’m a girl,” I confide. I glance up at him anxiously, adding, “I hope that doesn’t change anything.”
Thurston grins even harder and pecks me on the cheek, replying, “Of course it doesn’t!”
I laugh, and he kisses my neck. He then smiles at me really delightedly once more before breaking the hug, but outreaching his hand for me to take a hold, which you can bet I do.
When I get home, I immdiatley dial Adair’s number. I wait just about forever for her to pick up, and when she does, it sounds like she’s eating.
“Kyle?” she asks. “How are you, kiddo?”
I’m so happy that I’m crying, and I try to make my mouth form words.
She stops eating, and her voice turns serious as a heart attack. “Kyle? What’s wrong?”
“I have a boyfriend!” I sob. “I have a boyfriend and he’s perfect!”
“Kyle! I’m so happy for you!” Adair cheers.
I nod, even though she can’t see me. “Tell Carmen and Jessie the good news! I miss all you guys!”
“We’ll see you at Christmas, man,” Adair reminds. “Bye!”
“Bye,” I choke out. I lay on my bed, blissed out. I fall asleep, and I dream about Thurston and I talking under the stars.