“And you still want to protect this kid?” Joanne asked.
Micah thought about it for a moment. “Nobody else is really doing it at the moment.”
Joanne sniffed but held back her tears. “I don’t know whether to shake you or hug you.”
“A common feeling lately,” Rick said, although he was smiling.
“True dat,” Micah said.
“But what happens now?” Alex asked.
“Good question, younger sibling.” Micah slapped his thigh to emphasise the point. “But I don’t know. I guess I just go back to school and pretend nothing’s happened, Will pretends nothing’s happened, and then probably in five years’ time I’ll run into him at some gay bar.”
“Micah!” Joanne cried, but she began laughing.
“And then you’ll pash him,” Alex said, joining in on the joke.
Rick wasn’t as eager to get in on the joke, so Micah had to push him a little, because it was time his dad started to. “I swore to myself after my last boyfriend that I’d have better taste in men.”
“Well, thank God for that,” Rick said.
And then he laughed a little too.
A KNOCK
on his bedroom door made Micah hurriedly hide his iPad beneath his doona cover. He had been checking out Facebook to see if Will had made any post about him or sent him a message under the false name he had been tormenting him with. “Come in.”
To his surprise, his dad opened the door and peered in at him.
“Can I talk to you for a sec?”
“Only one?”
Rick rolled his eyes, and Micah could imagine him as a teenager. For just a moment. He sat on the end of Micah’s bed.
“You don’t have to go back to that school if you don’t want to.”
Micah sighed. “Dad, if I left to go somewhere else, it would be my third school in six months.” He didn’t admit he had been thinking the same thing, but dismissed it.
“Maybe third time’s the charm?”
“Or maybe in another month, I’ll be begging to try a fourth.”
Rick shrugged. “We can cross that bridge if we come to it, Micah. You’re not happy, and you always seem to be getting into some kind of trouble. Your mum and I only want what’s best for you. And it doesn’t seem like this is doing you any good.”
Micah was touched. “I don’t know, Dad. It’s not that long until the end of the school year, and I’ll be out of there anyway, whether it’s the draft or uni.”
“You’re actually thinking about uni?”
His father’s response only helped Micah see just how rough things had been lately. For Micah to even be considering doing something as constructive as uni must seem like a miracle to his father. Whether his marks would be good enough for him to get into uni, however, was another issue entirely.
“I’m trying to keep all my options open.”
“Wow.” Rick still seemed speechless.
“But in regards to this whole school thing… maybe I should just stay still instead of running. I mean, we all know what running away from a problem has done for me in the past.”
Rick looked like he was about to say something but stopped himself. Instead he patted Micah on the knee. “You know, you’re really not a bad kid.”
“You weren’t saying that a couple of months ago.”
“In my defence, a couple of months ago you
weren’t
.”
Micah smiled. “Got me there.”
“Still loved you, though.”
Wow.
That was huge. Fathers and sons, well, they usually didn’t use the
L
word on each other that much, unless one of them was dying.
“I… love you too,” Micah said.
This time his dad looked a little sheepish. “Hard thing to say, huh?”
“The worst,” Micah said, when he really meant the opposite.
“Hell yeah,” Rick agreed, but Micah knew he didn’t mean it either.
Men could be so stupid, himself included. If he ever got a real boyfriend, how would either of them survive it? Micah knew he struggled to share his feelings, and if the other guy was just as bad, what would end up happening? Would they just grunt, eternally, like cavemen across the dinner table?
Then he thought of Declan and Simon. That wasn’t how they seemed to work. Dec could seem taciturn, but Micah had seen the way his face lit up when Simon did something so… Simon-like. And Simon, well, no one could ever shut him up. They obviously could do it. It gave him hope.
“What are you thinking about?” Rick asked.
Still, it was early days yet. He couldn’t bring himself to tell his dad about his daydreams of life with a boyfriend.
“I was just thinking I had to stay at school anyway. It’s not like you and Mum really want to homeschool me, huh?”
The look on Rick’s face was akin to someone who had just seen the girl from
The Ring
crawl out of the well.
“Thought not,” Micah said.
WHEN HE
woke the next morning, Micah winced immediately. He knew his eye was in worse shape than it had been when he went to bed. He wasn’t brave enough to face the mirror just yet, so he made his way to the kitchen, where the hope of coffee and Weet-Bix would somehow combine to make a cure.
His mother’s barely concealed scream when he walked into the kitchen all but confirmed his new deformity.
“Calm down!” he cried. “You’re making it worse!”
“I don’t see how I could.”
Unsure of how to broach the subject of wagging school—even with parental permission—Micah cleared his throat. “Mum, I don’t want to seem like I’m avoiding—”
“You’re not going to school looking like that.”
Relieved, Micah slumped thankfully onto a chair. “Good.”
“In fact, you might never go back to it again.”
“But I talked to Dad—”
“Yeah, well, seeing as I wasn’t invited into that little chat, I can renege on it.”
“You wouldn’t!”
“Just try me.”
His mother was obviously a force to be reckoned with that morning, and Micah knew better than to test her. The homeschool jibe might not work on her like it did with his dad. His mother would most likely think that was a great idea, and Micah would be in an even worse position than he was now.
But his eye must have looked horrendous to get such a reaction out of her, and he knew his dad would fold rather than put up a fight. Best to just lie low for a while and enjoy the enforced vacation from school.
After his parents left for work, taking a grumbling Alex—“Micah always gets in trouble and gets rewarded for it!” Micah couldn’t argue with that perspective, because it certainly seemed that way sometimes—Micah took a deep breath and revelled in the peace of an empty house.
Carl texted him at recess.
You won’t BELIEVE the rumours going around school about you.
Oh, I believe I could
, Micah texted back.
You took on half of the footy team!
In a fight or an orgy?
Micah couldn’t help grinning at the thought of Carl’s reaction.
I think you just turned me gay.
Well
, Micah’s hands flew over the screen,
I was suspicious about you quoting Kylie. Welcome to the dark side. We have parades.
Emma will be so proud
, Carl responded.
Emma was
not
proud.
You are a fucking idiot
, she sent to his mobile at lunchtime.
When he didn’t respond, she sent another.
Don’t try and ignore me. You’re a fucking idiot.
He finally got the balls to text her back.
That’s the general consensus.
I mean it, MJ.
MJ? Where did that come from? Mary Jane? Was Emma meant to be Peter Parker? Sometimes banter was so fucking exhausting.
I’m not too happy myself
, he replied.
One day! One day was all you could last at not being a fuckup!
It wasn’t
even
twenty-four hours, but who was counting?
There was no emoji sad enough to sum up how Micah was feeling.
Let’s face it, we’re surprised I lasted that long.
Oh, here we go, the self-pitying bit. You wouldn’t have to feel so sorry for yourself if you didn’t deliberately fuck up all the time.
He couldn’t be bothered fighting with her anymore. He would have switched off his mobile, except he knew his mum would panic if she tried calling him—and it was inevitable that she would do so in order to check in on him—and it went straight to voice mail. So he just ignored Emma’s texts, and there were still a few coming through, although they mainly told him to stop ignoring her and stop being such an arsehole.
Words to live by.
He concentrated on reruns of
Family Feud
instead.
MICAH FINALLY
responded to her at eleven that night. He knew she was a night owl, so he wouldn’t be waking her up.
Sorry. Could say I wasn’t checking my phone but you would know it was a lie.
It’s all right. Know I was coming on heavy.
You didn’t say anything I hadn’t already heard.
Her response was quick.
Yeah, but I didn’t have to add to it. Should have been more of a friend.
You’re all right, as friends go. I mean, I have so many.
You have me and Carl.
Yay!
And your brother.
Now you’re depressing me.
Suck it up, princess.
He grinned in the dark.
I’ll only let you get away with saying that.
What you gonna do? Hit me? You’re the one who gets knocked out all the time, dude.
Once!
I’m sure it won’t be the last time.
Ouch!
he wrote back.
But true.
Maybe.
So so so so so so so true.
You didn’t have to have so many “so”s there, Em.
There were more, but my fingers were tired. Night, MJ.
Night, Emma.
Micah locked his phone and rolled over, staring out the window. There wasn’t much of a moon tonight, so the neighbourhood was shrouded in darkness. Micah wished for one light, just one, to be on so he knew he wasn’t alone. That there was one more person out there plagued by worry and doubt.
Maybe they were just lying in the dark too.
MICAH ENDED
up staying away from school for three days, and as Carl had told him, the rumours only continued to grow and become even more outlandish. Micah wanted to vomit when he heard that he was apparently fucking Coach Howard.
And if he knew Coach Howard wouldn’t be too happy about that little rumour reaching his ears, Micah was positive the coach’s wife wouldn’t be too happy about it either.
And, ugh, he would never go out with a coach. Okay, so it wasn’t a hard-and-fast rule, but generally they were too authoritarian and exhibited too much love of power.
Then he remembered Dec was starting to look at an assistant coaching position among the AFL teams, and he should make sure he never said that kind of thing around him or Simon.
His eye was almost its normal size again, and the purple had faded to a jaundiced yellow. However, judging by most of his fellow students’ reactions, the story was more important than the reality. Carl jumped in front of him, phone at the ready. “Smile!”
Micah flinched as the flash went off. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Emma wants a photo.”
“She should have tried to get it a few days ago when it really looked like something.”
“Ouch,” Carl said, inspecting the photo as if it were worthy of exhibition by the Magnum photographers. “It looked
worse
?”
“Yep.”
“I’ll run the pic through some filters to make it look more gross. That should make her happy.”
“As long as
Emma’s
happy.”
“Don’t be irate, mate.”
Micah grinned. “I won’t be glum, chum.”
“Set a trend, friend.”
“See you after class, you arse.”
“Oh, that’s nice, real nice, Micah Johnson.”
“Didn’t you hear?” Micah said before he dashed into his classroom, “I’m
very
nice. I’m fucking half the school football team and the coach!”
“You should probably say that a little softer next time,” Carl called after him, but it was wasted on the air left in Micah’s wake.
Micah had never been so glad for lunchtime to roll around. If he had thought he was the school pariah before, it was nothing compared to how people were talking about him now. You’d think he was a mass murderer instead of the only gay in the village.
Except for Will, of course.
When the bell went, Micah hurriedly stuffed his books in his bag and was the first out the classroom door. He headed for one of the closest exits that led out to the courtyard when he turned the corner and ran straight into Will. Will went sprawling on the ground, his bag skidding away from him.
“Fuck,” Micah hissed. “This day just keeps getting better and better.”
Will got to his feet quickly and glared at him. “It’s not like mine’s been that great either. You haven’t been here for the past three days.”
“Do you expect me to feel sorry for you?”
Unbelievable!
Hearing the oncoming wave of students eager for lunch, Will nodded towards an empty classroom.
Micah really didn’t want to be alone with the guy, but he had to admit he was burning up with curiosity.
As it turned out, so was Will.
When the door closed behind them, and the outside world was muted, Will turned on him.
“Why didn’t you tell my dad and Mrs. Hin what happened?”
“What, you wanted to be outed?” Micah asked.
Will looked horrified. “No!”
“Then there’s your answer.”
“But I don’t understand. I’ve seen the way everyone treats you here. You’re the star footy player. You should be treated like a jock god. But no one will go near you.”
“Carl will. But I’m starting to think he’s a masochist.”