In the Middle of Somewhere (Middle of Somewhere, #1)(118)

I haven’t gotten along just fine. In fact, I’ve barely gotten along at all. And always, always, some of it has been because of Colin.

I’ve been mad at him and—if I’m being honest—scared of him for so long that I’ve forced myself to forget that I used to worship him. When Mom died, he was the one I ran to after the nightmares woke me up. When I was eight and he was fourteen, I’d watch him get ready for high school, wishing that I looked just like him. He was the one who first got me into music, blaring rock stations whenever he was in the shop instead of sports radio. He had a great voice too, and he would wail along with Steve Perry, Axl Rose, and Freddie Mercury while he changed oil and rotated tires. I’d sit in the doorway to the kitchen and listen, thinking maybe we’d start a band someday. When I was ten and he was sixteen, even though by then he was too cool to bother with me, he crashed our dad’s car and broke his arm and I ran back and forth from the kitchen to the living room to bring him sodas and chips, desperate to make him feel better.

He was never exactly nice to me back then—he’d always pat me on the back a little too hard and take the last cookie out of my hand—but it felt fraternal, just regular brotherly shit, the same as he gave to Brian and Sam gave to him.

It changed before he ever found me with Buddy McKenzie, though. Around the time I was twelve or thirteen, I gave up on trying to be like the rest of them. I stopped pretending I was watching the football games or that I cared when they discussed the fall lineups. I didn’t hang out in the shop anymore, letting my dad tell me which tool was which. I stopped laughing at their unfunny jokes and pretending that I didn’t care when they “accidentally” ripped my library books. I stopped talking and asking questions. I pulled back every overture that I’d learned from experience would be met with disapproval and rejection because that’s when I knew.

Knew I was gay. Knew that I wanted to get the f*ck out of that house. Knew that I wanted a different kind of life than beer and ball and cars. And they knew it too.

Colin was the worst, but it was all of them. They took it as disapproval. They became convinced that I thought I was better than them when the truth was that I just knew they would never like me if they knew who I really was and what I really wanted. Love me. They would never love me.

And they didn’t. Not really. They stopped. But only Colin turned truly poisonous, as if he saw my retreat as an attack.

Now, though. What? Did he see me doing what he wanted to do? I don’t think so. Colin may be gay—Christ, the sentence even sounds insane in my head—but he loves working at the shop, loves the cars, loves sports. And he f*cking loved our dad. Would do anything he said. So, when he saw how badly my dad reacted when I told him that I was gay, it would have made it a thousand times harder for him to do the same. If he even knew then.

And instead of confiding in me, he turned it inside out and terrorized me instead.

I can’t imagine how it must have felt, calling me a faggot all these years and seeing my dad and my brothers go along with it. Fuck. How could he do it?

We’ve been walking for three or four miles when Rex breaks the silence.

“Can we stop for a coffee or something?” he asks, startling me.

“Yeah, of course,” I say.

We duck into a café and I order coffees to go while Rex uses the bathroom. I realize, as he comes back, that he probably meant he wanted to stop and sit down to drink a coffee and get warm.

“Did you want to sit?” I ask, hoping he’ll say no.

“Um, no, it’s okay,” he says, uncertainly.

I really think he wants to stay, but I jump on it and walk out the door. I just can’t be around any of these people right now, sipping their f*cking chai lattes and triple skinny caramel whateverthef*cks.

Rex slides his hat back on and takes the coffee.

“Thanks,” he says. I can tell he wants to say something, but he just keeps walking with me.

After another few blocks, he drains his coffee and tosses the cup.

“I never went to my mom’s funeral,” he says.

“What? Why?” I ask, realizing that while I’ve been busy wrapping myself in a blanket of my own shit, Rex is probably dealing with some pretty heavy memories of his own.

“When I took up with Jamie,” he says, his voice low and his chin tucked into his jacket, “I started spending all my time with him. Just, he was the only one who talked to me, and that felt… good. I didn’t see much of my mom in the evenings because she had this boyfriend, John, who didn’t like me, and she was working all the time during the day. So, I didn’t think anything of staying out with Jamie. Maybe six months after I met Jamie, John got a job in Colorado and my mom told me we were moving out there. But I didn’t want to leave Jamie, didn’t want to start all over again.”

He pauses, looking around for something to do with his hands. I hold up my half-drunk coffee to him. He takes it, smiling gratefully and wraps his hand around it.

“I told her I was staying. We had a real go-round about it. The only time we ever really fought.” He shakes his head. “I told her I was tired of following her all over. Told her I was staying. And I did. Jamie said I could stay at his place, said his parents wouldn’t mind, but of course they did. So I’d sneak into his room after they went to bed and sneak out again before they got up in the morning. I’d eat breakfast and lunch at school and scrounge something up for dinner. Then—” He stops short to avoid a dog-walker’s tangle of leashes and looks longingly after the dogs.