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The bell rings at noon on the last day of junior year, high and shrill and defiant, and the tension that had been building since the day started finally breaks. From behind him, Brian hears a group of popular girls cheer loudly, probably not so different than the cheers they do at football games, and some boys whistle.
There’s a flurry of movement, everyone around him picking up their books off their desks in almost synchronous harmony, pretending like they hadn’t already had them stacked, neat and ready to go, for the majority of the period. Brian’s just kind of watching them, thinking if he can’t beat the rush he might as well wait it out and hope nobody nabs him on the way out. Anyway, he had his notebook out and ready, his textbook opened to the correct page so it’ll take him that much longer to gather his things.
“Have a nice summer!” Mr. Kent, their math teacher calls as the class floods out.
As the last of the students leave, Brian stands up and grabs his books, pressing them to his chest like a shield, even if it is a girly way to carry books.
“You take care this summer, Brian. Let me know if you need anything, alright?” Mr. Kent shoots Brian a poignant stare.
Mr. Kent’s a nice guy. He’s young, pretty soon out of college, from somewhere in the city where things are actually exciting, as opposed to Shermer, where nothing ever happens. He lives a few streets over from Brian in a duplex with an old, beat for rent sign in front. Sometimes Brian sees him at night when he’s walking his dog and they wave and maybe talk a little if they’ve both got time.
“Yes, sir. You have a nice summer too.”
With a final nod to his teacher, Brian exits the room and enters into the great beyond that is the hallway. Some of the students have already cleared out, wasting no time in leaving on the last day of school, but others still linger, laughing by the water fountain or cleaning out their lockers. Brian glances both ways before he heads for his locker, sending up a prayer that nobody thinks today is the best time to pick on little nerdy Brian Johnson.
It’s been better since the Breakfast Club in March. Not great, sure, but better.
Andrew doesn’t really go for him or Larry anymore, though he doesn’t do much to stop his fellow jocks who do. He’ll just look away or walk away or maybe say something non-confrontational like “look at the time, maybe we should get to practice.” He looks uncomfortable, maybe, but not uncomfortable enough to say anything.
Bender, though, one time he did step in.
It was in April, a Friday afternoon, and three football players had Brian up against the lockers, face pressed against the cold metal grate. Bender had came in and been, well, Bender. He’d made some snappy comments, told the guys that if they didn’t stop, he’d put all three of them in that locker, dismembered and all, a leg here, an arm there. They must have believed him because the next thing Brian knew the pressure was off his back and he could see more than just red painted steel.
Bender had given him a pat on the head, ruffled his hair up some, rough palm rubbing through Brian’s blonde hair and then been off without another word, his rescuee staring after him with big eyes, long red indentations from the slats on the locker crossing his cheeks.
(That night, something had stirred deep in Brian’s gut as he stared at the ceiling and thought of Bender’s hand practically feeling up his head. He couldn’t get it out of his mind and that had scared him, that and the way he’d liked the other boy’s hand on him a little too much.
Finally, Brian had made himself get out of bed and redo his entire math worksheet twice to keep it out of his mind, pencil scratching away in the dim light of his lamp.)
Today, though, there’s no sign of Andrew or Bender and Brian sighs, relief and disappointment mixing together.
He grabs his things from his locker: an old coat he left in there in case it got cold again, an umbrella in case it rained, an SAT prep book he worked on if he had extra time during lunch. There was no flare gun, not now, not ever again he liked to tell himself, and for that he was glad.
Making it out of the school unscathed, Brian walked the three blocks to where the middle school was located, a squat brick building that looked even more torturous than the high school. His sister Katie was sitting on the curb beside it, books grasped tightly in her hands. When she saw him, she grinned and stood up, running towards him.
Katie’s eleven, though she looks younger, short and skinny and dressed in a pink dress that looked like something a toddler would wear. Her hair’s held back in two braids their mother had done for her this morning, neat, but a little tight. Sometimes, Brian thought that she was on her way to someday being the female version of him, ridiculed and geeky, and it made him hurt for her.
They walk to Christy’s, a faded diner that like just about everything else in their town looks like it’s seen it’s better days. Brian orders cheeseburgers and milkshakes for them, chocolate for her, strawberry for him, and pretends he’s here out of his choosing, rather than only having his little sister to hang out with on the last day of school.
The milkshakes come first, in big glass mugs, and Brian shows Katie how to make snakes out of their straw wrappers, marveling at how the little crinkled up pieces of paper expand, slithering along the fake wood table.
“That’s so cool!” Katie squeals, and Brian grins, glad he could make someone smile.
Their mother’s waiting when they get home, all reaching hands and questioning eyes. They don’t even have to ask because they know what she wants. What else could she want, but their report cards, no more than slips of paper that’ll probably make or break their summer.
They pull matching manilla envelopes out of their folders, twin torpedoes ready to inflict damage. Mrs. Johnson looks over Katie’s first. She must find it’s satisfactory because she nods, giving her daughter a slight smile and patting her head. “Good job, dear. Run along now.”
She reaches for Brian’s next and he gives it to her, knowing resistance is futile. Dread grows in his stomach, heavy and burning because he knows what she’ll find. Five A’s, but that’s not what’ll matter, of course. It’ll be the one B, the one B plus that’ll catch her eye and keep it.
His mother stares down at the paper in front of her for a long time, not looking up, barely blinking. Brian twists his fingers together, braiding them and then pulling them back, again and again. He feels like he’s about to puke all over the only nice rug they have, the one his dad got for his mom on her last birthday.
“What is this?” His mother finally says. Her voice is as cold as the liquid nitrogen he learned about last year in Chemistry.
“I’m sorry,” He says instead of answering and glares down at the laces on his sneakers that despite his best efforts are starting to fray. “I tried, Mom.”
She sighs and shakes her head. Brian almost wishes she’d yell. “Go to your room and stay there. We’ll talk about this when your father gets home.”
When Brian doesn’t immediately do it, she slaps his arm lightly. “Go!”
This time he leaves, hearing her murmur something about disappointments as he climbs the stairs.
Brian considers slamming the door to his room, but doesn’t. That’s something Bender would do, he thinks. He’s not Bender, though, so instead he shuts it quietly like he always does and lays down on his bed burrowing his face in a pillow. He doesn’t stop the tears as they start to roll down his face, though he hates himself for it. God, he’s such a fucking sissy.
Sometimes, he wonders if things would be different if they knew he’d been this close to offing himself with a flare gun. If maybe they’d lay off or not put so much pressure on him if they didn’t think the gun was just a stupid stunt for attention and some fun. Sometimes he wonders what would have happened if he’d actually gone through with it and it hadn’t worked. Would he be institutionalized somewhere?
Sometimes he wonders what would have happened if it’d actually killed him.
When his dad gets home, there’s a lot of screaming and gesturing, mostly on his parents’ parts. Finally his dad sends him to his room with a plastic plate of the chicken and mashed potatoes his mom spent all afternoon making. He passes Katie on the way and she gives him a comforting nod and he musters a smile back for her.
He eats all his food even though it tastes gross in his mouth, dry and salty and hard, tapping his fingers against the wood of his desk. There’s a party going on in the house behind his, teenagers he recognizes from school milling around in the grassy backyard, drinking out of red solo cups. Brian’s not quite naive enough to think the clear and dark liquids are water and iced tea.
If he squints hard, he thinks he can see Andy. Andy, with a girl on his arm that is definitely not Alison, not with her model body and long blonde hair.
Alison and Andy had lasted a good month, which was honestly longer than anyone thought they’d last. A month was practically two years in high school time, a pretty good length for a relationship. It was certainly a lot longer than the six days Claire and Bender lasted.
When it was over, Alison had went back to her old self, for the most part. Sure, she dressed a little better and smiled a little more, but she didn’t run with the popular kids any more than Brian did. She smiled at him in the hallway, and for Brian, that was all he needed. Sometimes she came over and sat with him at lunch when Larry had band and Billy was hanging out in the physics classroom. She’d sit at the table and cross her arms and not really eat, but, boy, could she tell a joke. Once, she’d gotten chocolate milk to squirt out of Brian’s nose, which made his cheeks flush like tomatoes.
Brian’s knocked out of his thoughts when his bedroom door opens with a loud burst. He’s never been allowed to have a lock on it.
His dad stands in the doorway, obviously still angry, but calmer now, more contained. “I just made some calls. It’s worked out.”
Brian blinks. “Dad-“ He starts to question, but is cut off mid-sentence.
“Listen to me closely, Brian.” His dad slaps a hand down onto his desk. There’s danger hidden behind the ice in his voice. “You’re going to help out with summer school for the next three months. You’re going to go in everyday and do whatever, and I mean whatever, those teachers ask of you. In exchange, you’ll be bumped up to an A in shop.”
“But Dad, that’s not fair! And, anyway, I’m supposed to be doing Physics II at community college.”
“Goddamn it, Brian, you’ll do what I tell you to! It’s your own fault for getting yourself into this situation, alright? If you don’t want to get into half decent college, fine. Don’t do it.”
With that, his father leaves the room, slamming the door behind him so that it reverberated through the walls. Brian buried his face in his hands on the desk, wet eyes pressed against bare forearms.
Jesus Christ, this summer is going to tank.
His father works it out that Mr. Kent will give him a lift to school.
Mr. Kent, his fucking teacher, will give him a ride to summer school, which he’s volunteering in.
Brian knows he’s not popular, or cool, or even mediocre. He hangs out with the janitor and the boy who got his butt cheeks glued by the star wrestler, for Christ’s sake. Still, he’s pretty sure pulling up to Shermer High School with his math teacher on the first Monday of summer is rock bottom, even for him. Maybe even lower than rock bottom, like he got out one of those industrial strength drills and bored a hole and then filled it in, rock and silt and water covering him all up.
They make small talk on the way, nervousness building in Brian’s stomach all the way. When they finally pull into the parking lot, Mr. Kent reaches over and puts a hand on Brian’s shoulder.
“I know this might not be how you wanted to spend your summer, Brian, but I’m really glad you’re here. Teaching summer school can be a really rewarding experience.”
“Yes, sir. I bet it will, sir.” Brian nods his head emphatically and hopes he looks sincere. He might not want to be here, but he doesn’t want Mr. Kent, who’s been nothing but kind to him, to think he’s some ingrate.
Mr. Kent gives him a smile, though Brian’s not sure he totally believes his false cheer. If he looks hard, he thinks he can see a little pity in the man’s eyes. He pats him once more on the shoulder, then pulls open his car door and heads for the school.
Inside, Brian follows Mr. Kent to his room, which clearly hasn’t changed since Friday. Mr. Kent drags a student desk and puts it up front next to his own.
“How this works, Brian is that we do maybe a twenty minute lesson, then hand out packets for the students to work on until lunch. There’ll be a break to eat, them Mrs. Gallo will be in after lunch to do the reading. Sound good?”
Brian nods his head, maybe a bit too excitedly. “Yes sir.”
“What I was thinking you could do is help the students when they run into problems. Say they’re having trouble with a quadratic equation. You go over, talk them through it, show them how it’s done.” Mr. Kent pauses and reaches up to touch his meticulously styled hair. “I think for a lot of them, it’d help to hear it from one of their peers, rather than an old geezer like me.”
After Brian agrees, Mr. Kent tells him to get settled in while he goes to print out the rest of the packets. After his teacher has left the room, Brian puts his bag on the ground and begins to set out his things. He’s in the midst of lining up a pencil, a pen, and a highlighter on his desk, when he hears a scarily familiar voice.
“Hey dorkzilla! Couldn’t get enough of this shithole?”
Bender’s in the doorway, no books, no backpack, no nothing. He’s wearing a stained white t-shirt and jeans, boots securely on his feet even though it’s hot as hell outside. Brian’s eyes are drawn to the beginnings of muscles hiding beneath the cuffs of his shirt, but he quickly looks away toward the floor.
“Uh, well-“ He starts, stumbling a bit because even after the Breakfast Club, John Bender scares him. Maybe especially after the Breakfast Club. “I di-didn’t realize you’d be here.”
“Really?” Bender arches an eyebrow comically high. “Course I’m here, Brian my boy! You didn’t think I’d actually pass a course, did you?”
Brian shrugs his shoulders. He didn’t necessarily, but then again nobody would think he could fail a shop project, so maybe people were full of surprises.
Bender approaches his desk, leaning over Brian a bit. He reaches down and plucks the highlighter off the desk, opening it up and giving it a whiff.
“Are you trying to get high off of a highlighter?” Brian asks without thinking. Is that even possible? Is that a stupid question?
Bender gives him a look that tells him it probably was a stupid question. “Little Bri Bri getting high off a highlighter. Here, try! ”
He shakes his head, then leans towards Brian to press the uncapped highlighter against his forehead, and Brian can feel it, wet against the middle of his forehead. He reaches up to push it away, but Bender’s already removing it, a wicked grin on his face. “There you go. High yet?”
Brian’s about to stammer out a response when Mr. Kent comes back through the door, holding a stack of packets. “Ah, Mr. Bender! Glad to see you’re here on time.”
Bender puts on his biggest, fakest smile. “Oh, you know me, Mr. Kent. Can’t get enough of math! Soon I’ll be like Brian here, jacking off to it.”
Brian’s face burns hot and red. That is so not true, he thinks.
If Mr. Kent wasn’t twenty five and still naive, maybe he would have stopped Bender in his tracks. If this was anywhere else but a summer school designed to help struggling, troubled students, maybe he would send him to the principals office. Instead, their teacher just shakes his head. “Take a seat please, Mr. Bender.”
Bender shrugs and hops up on a desk. Brian straightens up his writing utensils.
This summer just got a whole lot more interesting.
That first day, no one needs any legitimate help from Brian.
The only person to raise their hand is Bender and that’s only to show him a crude drawing of Brian jacking off while thinking about question number seven on the sheet, which has been encircled in a large thought bubble.
“Stop it!” Brian whispers harshly. “That’s so not true.”
“Me thinks the lady doth protest too much,” Bender whispers back.
Brian, unable to think up a legitimate response, decides this might be one argument he should just walk away from so he stalks back to his desk in the front of the room.
At lunch, the students file out, leaving Brian alone with Mr. Kent, eating the sad sandwich his mother packed for him in a brown bag. Once upon a time, she used to put a little note, a smiley face, something, but that hasn’t been for a while, not since he became the disappointment of a son who brought flare guns to school and nearly failed shop.
A few minutes in, Mr. Kent brings up Fermat’s Last Theorem and the recent developments on it, a conversation which takes them most of the way through lunch. Brian wants to tell Mr. Kent once and for all that he really, truly isn’t sexually attracted to math problems, but doesn’t know how exactly to bring it up.
Bender comes again on the second day. Brian had half expected him not to show up again, him being John Bender and all.
When it’s time for lunch, Bender literally drags him out of the room, hand grasped around Brian’s (nonexistent) bicep.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Brian asks as Bender manhandles him past the water fountain.
Bender pulls him to a stop in the hallway and loosens his grip on Brian’s arm just a little bit. “You’re not eating with the fucking math teacher again, doofus.”
“I like him! He’s cool.” Brian’s not afraid to say it this time. It all worked out fine when it turned out he knew the janitor and anyway, no one would expect anything else from him other than hanging out with a teacher.
“He’s the opposite of cool. Maybe the janitor turned out to be okay, but him? He teaches math, for one, and two he’s a fucking fag!”
Brian flinches at the last word even though he shouldn’t. It’s not like the boys at school don’t fling it around like candy.
“Shut up! He is not!” He can’t be.
“Sure, Brian, think whatever you want,” He pauses, hand tightening around Brian’s arm. “C’mon, we’re going to good old Mickey D’s!”
Mickey D’s, it turns out, is McDonald’s. Brian futilely attempts to assure Bender that, yes, he did know that, but the other boy sees through his lies.
They pool their money and order a combo, two Big Macs, two Cokes, and a basket of fries for all of five dollars. Brian moves to take a seat at one of the tables, but Bender tugs him out and they eat in the park across the street, sprawling across the grass, which is scratchy and dry from lack of rain.
Brian picks at his hamburger, wishing he’d gotten it without all the toppings. Usually he just orders a cheeseburger plain and simple, cheese and that’s it. He’s pretty sure that makes him looks like he’s legitimately five years old, though, so he decided against it today. Still, he wishes he’d at least asked for no tomatoes.
“So, you really couldn’t get enough of school, huh?” Bender’s slouched against a tree, popping a ketchup covered fry into his mouth. Brian watches him plop it in and chew for a second too long.
He considers his options. He could nod and go along with Bender’s words and maybe the other boy would believe him. Maybe.
Or he could tell the truth.
Something about the way Bender’s sprawled out, devil-may-care look across his face makes Brian want to be honest for once.
“My dad made a deal with the school they’d make my B in shop an A if I helped out.”
Bender whistles, though it’s not really a whistle, more just pushing air in and out. He laughs. “Shit, all this ‘cause you couldn’t make a fucking lamp. Jesus Christ.”
Brian chuckles, just a little bit. When he says it like that it’s kind of funny. “Pathetic, right?”
Then again, when you look at it in a certain light, his whole life’s kind of funny. The little genius boy who can’t make an elephant lamp, the little genius boy who can’t even find a way to kill himself.
That thought sends a shock through Brian and he stares back to the ground, expression going serious. For a second, he hates himself for even thinking that.
“Hey,” Bender says, a different expression on his face. He reaches over and claps Brian on the back, hand lingering just a little bit. “You’re okay, kid.”
Brian wants to tell him that they’re literally the same age, but holds his tongue, focusing instead on the way Bender’s hand feels against his skinny shoulder blades.
The next day, Bender gets him to smoke weed with him after class in the teachers bathroom because, according to him, no one would expect them to do it there.
“It’s cheap shit,” Bender explains as the acrid, sickeningly skunkish smell fills the empty room.
Brian’s memories after that are a fog and he goes home with his head still in the clouds a little bit. In the bathroom at home he showers, scrubbing himself off with his mother’s fancy body wash she buys for fifteen dollars to get any remnants of the smell off. He hopes his eyes aren’t red and is relieved at dinner when nobody notices anything.
“What happened between you and Claire?” Brian asks at lunch during the second week.
It’s cloudy today, which thankfully makes the park cooler. Clouds loom in the distance, though, a possible thunderstorm. It’s taken Brian all of the last week and a half to work up the courage to ask and he’s still only half certain Bender won’t pulverize him for asking.
Bender taps his fingers against his jeans. “It wasn’t gonna last. Everybody and their mother knew that from the first minute.”
Brian shrugs his shoulders. “It could have,” He protests, though he’s not totally sure of that.
Bender laughs, but it’s not a happy one. “You’re a funny one, dork boy. You’re a bit too naive for your own good, ya know?”
Brian feels his face flush. “Anything’s possible,” He argues. “You guys could have been perfect for each other.”
“What are you? A fucking four year old girl watching Cinderella?” Bender says, more snort than words.
Sometimes, Brian hates how naive he always sounds, how young and innocent. “I’m just saying, John.”
Bender reaches over and ruffles his hair, light enough to be playful. “Aw, little Brian. Have you ever even been on a date with a girl, kid?”
Brian doesn’t answer, which is answer enough on it’s own. Of course he hasn’t. He doesn’t have the time or the popularity or the social skills for that and anyway, even though he’s the first person to lie about his virginity, he’s not so sure how much of that he wants. Girls and dates and a wife and stuff. He tries not to think about them too much and it’s easy, which is something else to think about, something that scares him a little because he knows his parents already have plans for him on that front. Sure, they’re okay with him just focusing on school for now, but in a few years time?
Bender watches him thoughtfully for a second, and when he speaks again, his voice is more serious, and more than a little dark. “Jesus, Brian, you couldn’t have actually thought it could work, right? Girls like her don’t actually go out with guys like me. Maybe they’ll do shit in dark cars at night, but you think they’ll ever take us home to daddy’s mansion?”
The answer hangs between them like a shroud. Brian shrugs his shoulders.
“They don’t. Same way Andy won’t help you in the hallway.”
Brian does a double take at that. “You know about that?”
He never thought Bender paid much attention to him. Maybe if he was in the right place at the right time, but otherwise, why would he ever spare a glance at little, dorky Brian?
The thought makes him both flattered and embarrassed because while it’s cool that Bender pays attention to him, he also probably does a lot of stupid smart shit that’s exceedingly embarrassing, like programming his calculator to draw the Star Trek logo and arguing chess theory with old Larry.
Bender shrugs his shoulders. “Kinda hard not to pay attention to you, what with how often you get pushed around, man.”
Brian’s face flushes redder, red enough that it probably accentuates his hair really nicely. “Fuck off.”
He wishes when he spoke he sounded more like Bender, devil-may-care attitude and all, but he knows he doesn’t. He sounds like a ten year old trying to be cool, using words he heard big brother say. It’s not such a good look.
Bender just laughs and chugs back some of his pop. “Sure, Brian. Sure.”
“Hey, I really don’t get pushed around all of the time!” Brian insists.
“Whatever you want to say.” Bender pauses and his face goes serious. “Seriously, though, you don’t deserve half the shit those guys give you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I mean, you’re really only half a nerd, ya know?”
Brian’s not sure if he does know. He’s not sure If this is supposed to be a compliment, if the surge of happiness that’s flooding his body is really appropriate. All he knows is that Bender thinks he’s half not a nerd and it makes him smile.
Brian wakes up to his little sister shaking him awake. It’s a Friday night and he was conked out, tired from all week at the school. It’d been a pretty good night. His mother had made fish and he’d helped her cut up carrots and she’d patted him on the back and told him he was a good boy, which was the closest he was ever going to get to an apology for the summer school thing.
“Bri? Bri!”
He blinks a few times, trying to adjust his eyes. There’s just enough light from the street lamps outside that he can see her, eyes wide and dark, pink nightgown hanging off her like a shaft.
“What’s going on?” He asks, half sleepy mumble, half whisper.
“There’s a boy throwing rocks at my window,” Katie whispers. “I think he’s here for you.”
If he wasn’t awake before, that wakes him up quicker then a pail of water. He shoots up, nearby cracking his head into Katie, who pulls back in the nick of time. “What?”
“Just come see,” Katie whispers, tugging him by the arm toward the door. They tiptoe across the hall, not wanting to wake their parents. Once inside her room, lit by the bedside lamp, she leads him to the window.
Sure enough there is a boy standing on the lawn underneath her window. Even in the darkness, Brian can tell it’s Bender, who makes a motion for him to come down. Brian nods and gives a thumbs up.
“Stay up here,” He whispers to his sister, soft and low.
Quietly, as quietly as he can, he creeps down the stairs, making sure to walk on the soft pads of his feet. He opens the door as softly as possible, twisting the handle first, the pulling it out. Bender’s waiting outside and Brian blinks when he sees him because— oh God.
He’s wearing a familiar white t-shirt, but tonight it’s stained with blood near the bottom. There’s an ugly looking black eye beginning to form on the left side of his face, usually pale skin now darkening. The entire picture makes Brian feel vaguely nauseous and he gulps.
Jesus Christ.
“Can I-“ Bender stops midway through his question. His voice is full of something. Hurt or fear or feeling, Brian isn’t sure because for all his smarts, emotions and social interactions have never been his strong suit.
“Yeah,” Brian whispers and edges the door open, just enough for Bender to squeeze through. Then they’re both standing in his foyer, Bender looking like something the cat dragged in, Brian in his flannel pajamas that make him look like he’s seven, not seventeen. Brian motions for the other boy to follow him upstairs, and up they creep, quiet as church mice.
Katie’s waiting in Brian’s bedroom, sitting cross-legged on his bed. When she sees Bender, her eyes go very, very wide.
“Who’s he?” She whispers.
“I’m Santa Claus, kid. Surprised you didn’t recognize me with all the red.” Bender’s voice is quiet, soft enough that their parents hopefully won’t hear.
“He’s a friend from school,” Brian explains, as if he’d ever really brought friends over before for anything other than studying. “He needs some help, so...” Brian trails off, finishing his sentence with a shrug of his shoulders.
Katie looks like she doesn’t believe it, but she doesn’t protest because she’s smart enough to know that protesting will lead to voices which will lead to their parents coming.
“Stay here,” Brian says, quiet as quiet. “I’ll go get some stuff.”
He’s a bit worried about leaving his sister with Bender, but he does anyway. Tiptoing, he grabs bandages and a first aid kit from the closet and then frozen peas from the fridge downstairs. He nearly knocks over a bin of his mother’s feminine hygiene products stacked haphazardly in the closet, an almost mistake that makes his heart race and his cheeks flush.
If his parents knew what he was doing, they’d murder him. Like literally kill him. His mind flashes back to Bender’s face, black and blue and vulnerable, and he reminds himself that that’s not true. Sure, they’d yell and scream and maybe not let him out of the house until college, but they wouldn’t physically hurt him, not the way Bender’s dad has done, multiple times.
When he gets back to the room, John Bender’s spread across his bed, shoes kicked off by the side. Katie’s wiping a long, red scratch from his arm with a Kleenex. Bender must be saying something to her because she’s laughing quietly. Brian closes the door behind him, twisting the knob so that the metal part doesn’t hit against the wood.
When she sees him, Katie steps back from Bender, allowing Brian to move in. He takes a seat on the bed next to John and hands him the frozen peas, which Bender takes and presses to his eye. Brian scotches closer and begins bandaging the cut Katie was tending on his arm, pressing an extra large BandAid against it.
He feels hyperaware of every movement, every breath on both of their parts, the mere centimeters they are apart, and it scares him. He shouldn’t be thinking about that. He especially shouldn’t be thinking about that now.
When he’s finished, he backs up, looking at Bender sitting there on his bed, like he’s always been there.
“Katie, go back to sleep, okay?” He whispers to his sister. She glances at Bender, as if he’s supposed to be dismissing her.
“Go on, kid. Your brother’s got me from here.”
At that, Katie nods. “Feel better,” She whispers as she closes the door. “Night.”
Once Katie’s gone, the room seems to become tangibly more tense.
“She’s a cool kid, your sister,” Bender says, peas still pressed against one eye.
“Fuck,” Brian says, because now that his kid sister’s gone he can swear. “Fuck, your dad did that.” He takes a seat on the bed leaving a good foot and a half between them.
“I told you he did. What, did you think I was exaggerating for funsies?”
“No, but...” He didn’t, but seeing Bender here, beat up and a little bit broken is very different from just hearing about something. “God, you should report it or something.”
Bender eyes him wearily. “Yeah, right. They won’t do shit. Anyway, I’ve got less then a year left, Bri.” He runs a hand softly through his hair. “You’d better not tell.”
Brian pulls up his pajama-clad legs onto the bed and holds them tight to his chest. “Okay,” He sighs. “Okay, I won’t. But you know you can come here whenever, right? Like whenever he-“
Brian doesn’t finish that sentence, but the meaning is conveyed in his concerned eyes.
Bender blinks at him and something in his face (at least the part that isn’t covered by the frozen peas) softens. Something passes between them, but Brian isn’t sure what it is. The dark quiet, which just a minute ago felt comforting, now feels electric, as if the air has been charged with some sort of ions. Brian can feel his every nerve ending on edge and he thinks that maybe just maybe Bender can too because there’s a look in his eyes that Brian doesn’t recognize but stirs something in his gut.
“Yeah, sure, kid.” Bender says finally, pealing the bag off his face and breaking the moment.
When Brian wakes up the next morning, the sun is just starting to rise in the east, light streaking in through the airplane curtains he’s had his entire childhood. His neck is aching and he realizes pretty quick that he doesn’t have a pillow and then—oh. Oh. Bender was here last night and he gave it to him and he’s probably still in his very room, probably sleeping on his very floor.
Brian props himself up on one arm and yes there’s John Bender on his carpet, curled almost into a ball. There’s something cute about it, if Bender could be cute. Brian never thought he would describe the other boy as cute, devastatingly handsome maybe, but not cute, except here he is, lying across Brian’s floor and making his heart race, just a little bit.
Brian wakes him up at six-thirty because as much as he likes watching Bender sleep, his parents can’t know that the other boy slept here. They’d literally blow a gasket and then Brian would be in more trouble then he already is.
Brian leaves a note for his parents saying he went to the library and they spend the morning wondering about town with no real purpose because neither of them have a car and neither of them want to go home. In the end they go to the park and sit by the trees overlooking the playground, watching moms and little kids mill about.
Brian watches a lone dad push his daughter on a swing and eyes Bender’s bruises out of the corner of his eye. “You know you should-“
“Didn’t we talk about this last night?” Bender grunts unhappily.
“You don’t even know what I was going to say!” Brian protests indignantly.
“You were gonna say something about reporting this to CPS and them actually doing shit for once in their existence and making my life all happy happy.”
Brian shrugs his shoulders. He’d figured bringing it once more wouldn’t hurt. “Well...”
Bender lets out a sigh. “Look, Bri, I told ya I’ve got one year left and then I’m outta this joint, okay?”
“Okay,” Brian sighs, running a hand through his hair and shutting up about it even though it unsettled him down to the bones. “Where are you going to go?”
It’s something he’s been wondering. Brian’s spent the summer filling out applications and writing essays, but Bender, well he’s never said anything, not about college or about a career.
“Certainly not going to college like some nerds,” Bender says. Then, “I’m good with my hands. Might do something with that, carpentry or something, get in a union.”
Brian nods. It’s fitting, really. For all he is a clutz with anything hands on, Bender is a genius. They’re like that, two Swiss Army Knives with different types of blades, both sharp, but In different ways.
“You could open up a shop specializing in elephant lamps,” Brian suggests with a grin.
Bender laughs at that, the type of laugh that comes from your gut. “Might need some help from you for that, Brian. We all know you’re the expert.”
They both laugh at that, but then something heavy settles between them, something that doesn’t belong on a bright sunny day like today. Brian knows they’re both thinking it, about that lame brain plan he came up with last spring.
Sometimes he likes that people other then him know what it was, that this group of totally different high schoolers know what he almost did. He guesses that other people could know, if they wanted to think about it, but he figures they don’t. God knows his parents would rather think it was a stupid act of mischief because it’s a lot easier to deal with a troublemaking kid than one who genuinely considered killing himself.
“Brian...” Bender starts and Brian doesn’t look at him, instead picking at a piece of dry, yellowed grass. “ You’re okay, right? With all that stuff?”
“Yeah, mostly,” Brian says, looking up at Bender now. “I wasn’t really thinking then, you know? Like I wasn’t...I mean...”
He sighs and runs the piece of grass against the pale skin of his knee, thinking of what to say next. Bender doesn’t say anything.
“I think, like, subconsciously I didn’t want to do it. Like maybe I was just in a bad place, but some part of my brain knew not to take the actual pistol, right? I mean, it’d be stupid to kill myself over a elephant lamp, right?”
Bender doesn’t say anything for a bit. “It must have been kind of important to you if you were considering it.”
He says it gently and it’s probably the most un-Benderlike thing he’s ever said in the history of ever.
Brian knows he’s right. It was never about the lamp, not exactly. It was about the grade, about the fact that he was going to be officially a man in a year and he couldn’t fucking pass a shop class. A shop class. It was about the look on his parents' faces when he would have to tell them, tell them that sure he could do trig on a piece of paper, but he couldn’t for the life of him make something that actually worked. Just about everything in his life comes down to that, he thinks, his fear of being a failure of a son.
Brian breathes in a sigh. “Maybe, but...” He thinks for a second about this summer, about his parents' disappointed words and harsh glances. He’s enduring that now. He’s enduring that and he’s fine. “I don’t want to do it anymore.”
He means it. He really means it.
“That’s good,” Bender says and his voice sounds relieved. “I mean, you’re the only one of us who’ll ever go anywhere so you kind of need to be alive, man.”
It’s probably not the perfect thing to say, but Brian laughs anyway and attempts to dispute him to no avail.
“Is Mr. Kent really...?” Brian pauses because he doesn’t want to finish the sentence, just lets it hang there in the air. He’s not sure why he’s asking, though he’s got a pretty good hunch.
It’s another day after summer school and they’re hanging in the woods, Bender with a pack of cigarettes Brian flatly refuses to touch, because for God’s sake they can’t even get you high, only lung cancer.
“Really what?” Bender asks and Brian’s not sure if the other boy knows what he’s implying or not.
Brian stumbles for the next word because maybe he should shut back up, say nothing, never finish his sentence. Something though, something tells him that he should ask.
“Gay, I guess,” He says softly. He knows what it means, but he doesn’t hear that word much in Shermer. Sure you hear about queers and fags and maybe the ever clinical homosexual, but not gay, not so much.
Bender looks up from the pack of Marlboros he’s been fingering. He smirks. “Sure, if my sources are right. I mean can’t you see it?”
Brian pulls his knees up to his shoulders and shrugs. Maybe he can see it, sure, but he doesn’t want to be able to. Doesn’t want those things to be so obvious you can see them just by looking at someone because if that’s true then maybe people could read things off his face, plain as day.
“Why you wanna know? You wanna get with him? Use algebra as fucking foreplay?”
“Gross!” Brian says and chucks a stick at his friend.
“Nah, I think you’d like it,” Bender pauses and runs a hand down the log he’s sitting on. “You gay, Brian?”
The last part’s a joke, said in the same comical leer, but Brian thinks there’s something behind it, some honest to goodness question that they don’t have any way to ask, except in a joke.
“What if I am?”
That’s not what Brian’s supposed to say and he knows it. He’s supposed to say he isn’t, vehemently deny it and assert his (nonexistent) masculinity in a dramatic fashion. He’s tired, though, just a little bit too tired to put on a front.
The silence between them is deafening and Brian wishes his words were physical, that he could catch them and put them back in place in his mind, slam that door and lock it.
If he were, he wouldn’t be the perfect son. Not that he is now, of course, but if he were like that, he wouldn’t be anywhere close to perfect. If he were, he thinks his mother would cry. Big fat tears that she’d cover up with anger during the day, but he’d hear at night through the thin walls of their house. If he were like that, he’s not sure what his dad would do. Would he kick him out? Would he raise up his fists like Bender’s dad and leave black and blue marks all over Brian’s pale skin? He honestly doesn’t know.
If he were, what would everybody think? Right now he’s Shermer’s one hope of making it far, making it to M.I.T. or Stanford or Harvard or some other far off school. There’s so many people who believe in him, people like Carl and Mr. Kent and his baby sister and if he were like that, he’d probably disappoint them all, end up buried with only the priest and the gravedigger present and maybe not even the priest.
Brian spreads out his fingers against the earth, looks at how pale and bony they look compared to the dirt and leaves littering the ground. He counts to three in his head, voice slow as slow, then makes himself look up at Bender because he has to see, has to know, what he’s thinking.
Bender’s looking at him with wide open eyes, surprise written across his face like words in a book. It’s eerily reminiscent of the look he gave him when he said he’d brought a flair gun to school to kill himself, a look of pure astonishment as if Brian has just laid himself bare for all to see.
In a way, Brian guesses he has.
“Shit, Brian. Shit,” Bender says, then slides off his log so he’s sitting on the ground across from Brian, back pressed against the moss covered bark.
Brian eyes go to the ground again and he watches a beetle scurry near his left sneaker. “Sorry,” He murmurs, because maybe he ruined something.
He probably did.
Damn.
“I’m not sure if you’re stupid or brave,” Bender says with a shake of his head.
“They’re not mutually exclusive,” Brian fills in, because honestly he’s probably both at different times. Or maybe at the same time, like right now.
“You can’t say things like that,” Bender supplies. “Not here, at least.”
He gestures widely with an arm so Brian knows he doesn’t mean here exactly, but here as in Shermer, their white-bread little town.
“I didn’t say anything,” Brian says. “I proposed a hypothetical.”
It’s true, but they both know it’s not accurate. Bender raises an eyebrow at Brian and he feels his cheeks heat up. It’s a look that seems to ask him if he really thinks Bender’s that stupid.
As if on cue, Bender voices Brian’s thoughts. “You know, I might be in summer school, but I ain’t an idiot.”
Brian feels his face go redder and he kind of just shrugs his shoulders. He’s not exactly sure what to do at this point. It’s too late to go backwards, but he’s not sure how to go forwards either, not without falling off a cliff at least.
“Do you hate me?” He finally asks, scared of the answer. If Bender hates him, he figures he’s got nothing and no one, not with Larry still away at Physics camp. Well, he supposes he has Katie, but he’s not quite sure his little sister counts.
Plus, there’s the fact that the thing he has with John Bender is definitely different then the things he has with Larry and his little sister. Very different.
Bender leans his head back and stares up at the sky, barely visible through the trees, full with green leaves. He runs a hand through his hair, leaving it messy, but somehow better looking than it was before. Brian’s not sure exactly how that works, but he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he’d like to run his hand through and find out.
“You know,” Bender starts and Brian listens with all his might. “I wasn’t planning on doing this summer school shit. I was just gonna come the first day and then drop it, to hell with passing eleventh grade.”
He pauses and Brian blinks long and slow, trying to trace exactly where this conversation is going.
“I only still come because of you, Brian.”
That last line knocks the breath out of Brian, because that’s definitely not where he thought this conversation was going to go. Definitely, definitely not. Bender tilts his head down so he’s finally looking at Brian and his eyes are earnest and vulnerable in a way that reminds Brian of how he came to his house a few weeks ago, bruises littering his body. It’s not a look you get much out of Bender’s type, the type with ripped jeans and boots, the type who came to school with a vague smell of weed and sweat.
But maybe you shouldn’t define people by types. Maybe that was last March’s lesson.
Brian stares at Bender and Bender stares back and the next thing Brian knows they’re kissing, lips on lips in the middle of Shermer’s only patch of woods.
Brian’s never done anything like this before, never kissed anyone, never even held anyone’s hand that wasn’t at church. He’s always told himself that it’d happen when it happened, that everything would always work out and someday he’d marry the girl of his dreams, settle down and live a life together in the suburbs, a carbon copy of his parents.
This is nothing like that. It’s nothing planned, it’s not neat little lines and normal progressions and societal expectations. It’s wild, it’s crazy and Brian’s heart’s beating faster than it ever did when he let himself think about girls alone in his bedroom, the door shut.
Fuck, he thinks when Bender pulls him closer by his shoulder so they’re pressed against the ground, moist dirt and moss pressing against Brian’s shirt, making it damper than just sweat.
If Brian’s had no experience, Bender definitely seems to have had all the experience, kissing with more passion than he’s ever had for anything except causing trouble. At some point they start using their tongues and things devolve from that into an afternoon that results in sweat and dirt stained t-shirts.
They don’t talk about it after that.
In a way, Brian wishes that they did. Sure, it would be awkward as hell, but at least then he’d know what the fuck was going on. He likes knowing things, likes neat defined lines, this is what we’re doing, this is what it means. All he has now, though, is a big ball of confusion that keeps growing. It reminds him of the stars he learned about when studying for Science Bowl, the ones that grow and expand into a red giant, bright and burning.
(That metaphor scares him, a little bit, because he knows what eventually happens to those red giants.
They either collapse upon themselves or explode.)
Even if they don’t talk, they do do stuff, more stuff than Brian can ever claim to have done before.
Their after school smoke hang outs are now punctuated with make outs and fumbling, awkward and exhilarating in a way Brian’s not sure what to think about. It’s like nothing he’s ever experienced before. He’ll go home tingly, feeling red and hot and embarrassed. He’s not sure how his parents and sister don’t see it on him, written across his face like a banner: Guess what Brian’s spent the afternoon doing? But they don’t. They just go on asking him about his day and about what he did and he answers, struggling to remember anything but Bender and him messing around in the woods.
Some nights Brian walks his dog past the duplex where Mr. Kent lives and tries to peak in, wondering what’s behind the placid curtains. Does Mr. Kent live with another man? He has a visceral kind of wanting to see it, to see someone else doing what he’s doing somewhere other than the gruesome AIDS articles in the newspaper.
They don’t talk about it, but at some point Brian realizes that maybe they don’t need to.
It’s a Thursday and there’s two weeks left in the summer and he invited Bender over to his house because his dad’s at work and will be for the foreseeable future and his mom went to visit her sister two towns over and it’s hot, that kind of August heat that builds up on your skin until you feel like you might erupt in lava. They don’t smoke because Brian doesn’t want his room to smell like that, because that’s gross and also his parents will find out probably immediately and probably murder him.
Bender sees the sealed letter on his desk addressed to Harvard in Brian’s neat handwriting. “So? You got all your applications in, Big Bri? Ready to conquer academia?”
He’s teasing and also critiquing and he says academia the way someone might say the garbage dump, like it’s a big joke that for some inexplicable reason Brian cares about. Brian rolls his eyes in response, but decides to give him a serious answer.
“Yep. They aren’t due for a while yet, but I want to finish them early,” He explains, fiddling with a pencil from his desk.
“Aw, bet you’ll be accepted to every single one!” Bender’s voice is high, all hunky dory happy that Brian knows is all an act. “Which wouldn’t want a nerd like you?”
Brian blinks and frowns, confused as to why Bender’s being so outwardly antagonistic. He’s never like this, not anymore at least. Brian stares at Bender, who’s now picked up one of the application letters and is fiddling with the stamp in the coroner, though their eyes are still locked. Then Brian sees it, hidden underneath a sneer: a bit of hurt.
Oh, Brian thinks. Oh.
And see, maybe it’s just a hunch, but Brian’s always been good with hunches, always been good with choosing between B and C when they’re the only choices left. He’s got a good intuition, he knows, and that can take you far in some places.
So, because he’s got a hunch, Brian fingers the letter gently, running his nail directly under the address, the part where he printed out Cambridge, Massachusetts. “You know,“ He says hesitantly. “There are carpenters in Massachusetts. Probably pretty good unions too.”
Bender eyes him, his face for once unreadable. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Brian agrees, pretty sure he’s saying yes to more than just whether or not carpentry exists in the beautiful state of Massachusetts.
And that’s that and Brian thinks that maybe they don’t have to talk about what’s going on between them, not directly at least. Sure, a relationship advisor might tell them that verbal communication is key, but they might also tell them that their relationship is fundamentally wrong from the get go.
So maybe it’s okay if they leave things a little undefined. They’re on the same page, the same idiot teenage boys in something that may or may not be love. Anyway, it’s not like teenage boys have ever been the epitome of effective communication.
If Massachusetts works out, they’ll have a lot of time to talk about it.
Brian’s parents give him their station wagon to drive to school that fall.
“You’ve been responsible all summer,” His father tells him, eyes serious. “Keep it up, and you can keep using the car.”
Brian wonders if they would think he was responsible if they knew half of what he did this summer. Definitely not. If they knew even a tenth of it, they’d probably lock him in his room with his textbooks and then keep the key in a safe until he goes to college next fall.
Because they know nothing, he doesn’t have to worry about any of that.
“Yes, sir,” He says. “Thank you, sir.”
“Hey, Katie,” He says that night as they play Garbage with dog-eared cards on his bed. “You want a ride to school this year?”
Katie’s glasses are slightly askew when she nods big. “Are you gonna take your boyfriend too?”
Her voice is soft so their parents won’t hear, but teasing and also questioning, asking. Maybe she’s seen things or maybe she’s just perceptive, more perceptive than any little kid her age has a right to be. Brian whacks her over the head with the jack of spades, but doesn’t deny it, which he thinks is maybe a start.
Kate tickles him under the arms in retaliation, messing up their game setup, but putting smiles on both their faces.
The next day, when they’re eating lunch, Brian asks Bender if he wants a ride to school, voice a little shaky with nervousness.
It shouldn’t be a big deal, but it is. Driving to school together means him picking Bender up at his wrong side of the tracks house, means them appearing in the parking lot side-by-side. In a place like Shermer, where there’s not much to talk about, something like the school’s biggest nerd and the school’s biggest criminal coming together will be front page news for weeks. Sure, they won’t know the extent of their relationship (Brian likes to think they have one, even if he’s too chicken to actually ask), but they’ll know something’s up.
A slow grin forms on Bender’s face. “You’re such a dork,” He says, but his expression is embarrassingly fond.
Brian wants to ask if that’s why he likes him so much, but is a little too embarrassed for that. “Is that a yes?” He asks instead, tapping his fingers against his knee.
“Of course it’s a yes, dumbass,” Bender says and Brian grins, probably looking more like a doofus than usual.
It might not seem like much, he thinks, but this school year might just be okay. With Bender by his side and possibly Alison too, maybe he won’t get picked on quite so much. He’ll fill out his college applications, apply to places miles and miles from here, Massachusetts and California where his parents can’t control him and maybe (hopefully) get Bender to come, far away from his dad’s fists. Maybe he’ll even bring up enough courage to ask Mr. Kent about everything. Maybe.
Then, Bender reaches for him, pulling him in closer and pressing their lips together, and Brian doesn’t do much more thinking.