Chad

I don't know why he talked to me. Chad was SO FUCKING COOL! At first, I truly did not know to whom he was speaking. I looked over both shoulders, worried I had missed someone behind me. There was no one there. There was no one within 20 meters in any direction. He had to be speaking to me.

His beat to fuck black leather jacket was open in the far enough to reveal his Pink Floyd t-shirt. Division Bell, of course. Acid washed black jeans with the left knee blown out revealing bruises and scabs related to the ever present skateboard. Oh, and the were TIGHT, I loved to watch him move. Even sitting still he somehow looked dangerous. A red and white bandana hung from his right hip. He was the only person I had ever known to carry one like that. Even more exotic!

Chad brushed his dirty blond hair out of his eyes, his sparkling, mountain lake, blue eyes.

My mouth went dry. I could feel my face flush.

"Well? Is it?" Clearly he was repeating himself.

Shit! What did he say?

"They say you are pretty smart. That you helped Eric through Biology. "

I distinctly hear my heart stop and fall through the emptiness inside of me story splash in my K-mart shoes.

"Yeah," squeaks out of my throat despite the Sahara of my mouth.

"I gotta get through Mrs. Wilson's English, or my I'm gonna be shipped off to some military school. Not that I would be upset about getting out of here, but military and me just ain't gonna mix."

I did not think my heart could go lower. I was wrong. The vision of this gorgeous, free spirit, with his head shaved and forced into conformity. To be made to march, sit up, run, stop, stay like a trained pet would be the ultimate injustice in this world.

Tears threatened to spill over their carefully constructed dam.

He saw it, shit! He sat next to me, RIGHT next to me without saying a word. He just sat there while steaming tears of lust, and embarrassment, and a thousand other feelings flowed unchecked down my face.

When the tears finally stopped, Chad offered me his bandana to dry my face before taking out a cigarette, lighting up, and taking a long drag. We were still at school, over the lunch period! He casually offered it to me. I get to put my lips on his! Kinda. It is a little more harsh than the Camels I had been smoking. I like it.

Chad was watching me. What was that look on his face? Oh! He thought I would choke! Everyone bought my camouflage. Up until that moment, it had been perfect. A lifetime of changing this or that, stand like so, sit this way, part your hair on the left because if you part it on the right, more people notice you. Wear neutral colors, don't wear hats. Sit near walls. Get great grades, do chores quickly. The list was looooong. Yet when doing these things, I was a ghost. The adults thought I was well behaved because all they cared about was grades. My peers overlooked me, unless they wanted something, because I was a "teacher's pet" or had some other inferred protection that did not actually exist. No one knew what was just under that veneer of met expectations. The pain, isolation, drinking, frustrated sexuality, more drinking, cutting, drinking, desperately seeking escape.

I kept the cigarette and hand him a tiny bottle of gin, or vodka, or… whatever.

His eyes bulge, jaw goes slack. Chad gets about half of the bottle down before he starts to sputter. I trade the smoke for the bottle and shoot it down.

"What's your grade?" It is the first thing I have said.

"Forty something. "

Ouch. Nine weeks left to add thirty percent or more… maybe it could be done. "It is not going to be easy, it can be done, and is mostly going to take your time."

He nods, a grim, determined expression on that angelic face.

Lunch for the next month was spent with the smell of lust flowing off of me, head swimming, trying to focus, and to explain all the crazy rules of the English language. Chad's grade started to rise.

On the fifth week, my muscles turned to water when Chad asked me to his house. Overnight! There was no way I would turn this down, but how the fuck was I going to keep my shit together?

After the last bell rang that Friday, I found myself nervously waiting by the Aspen tree in front of the school, a place I never linger because it is a place I do not belong. Breathe in, breathe out. Fear of the next ten minutes warned with the excitement of going to Chad's house and the hornyterrorexcitement of spending the night. Breath I… Shit, here they come, Mike, Paul, and Aaron in lockstep, flannel shirts, and work boots, dripping testosterone from every filthy pore.

Do not make eye contact.

As expected, they circle me a few times until Aaron plants himself in front of me. He is rabid, almost drooling, with a fire flowing behind his eyes. He wants to kill me. He had wanted to kill me since the fourth grade.

A hand falls on Aaron's shoulder and he spins, ready to fight. It is Chad. I nearly piss myself in relief. No one fucks with Chad. He locks eyes with me and jerks his head to the side. I walk the way he indicated.

Mike, Paul, and Aaron look like they are stuck in quicksand as Chad saunters up next to me.

****

Chad's parents don't give a fuck. Everyone knows that. When we enter his house we go directly to his room without a word to his father who is sitting, watching TV, and we pass within three feet of him. His room is small and tidy, not at all what I had expected. He closes the door and I hear the click of a lock. Our eyes meet. Was that a spark?

Chad opens up the windows and lights another cigarette. I light my own and pull some minis out of my bag. We drink. We smoke. There is no desk or table, and nowhere to sit but the floor or… Chad's left eyebrow is raised almost to that beautifully messy hair.

I put textbooks and notes on the bed. There goes that eyebrow again. Open the text. Breathe in. Find the right page. Breathe out. Sweat rolls down the back of my neck.

"This is where we left off at lunch."

"Is it?" Surely he knows what he is doing to me with that eyebrow he has never done it before.

"Is it hot in here?"

"Yeah. Let's go out."

The picnic table in the backyard is warped and full of splinters. We sit across from each other, open our books, light a smoke, take a drink, then another. We drink and smoke, sometimes discussing the assignments, usually dreaming about ways to get out of this shit hole town until the sun goes down and the temperature goes with it. The world spins and I have a hard time following Chad through the house despite being very focused on that cute ass.

While I was putting the books away, Chad went to get us something to eat. He came back stunned. Chad's mother had made meatloaf (yuck!) and Chad's mother NEVER cooks. Of course, she was also sure Chad would never have friends. If meatloaf is drowned in barbecue sauce, it is not completely terrible. Mashed potatoes and peas, now who could fuck that up? Apparently Chad's mother can quite easily.

After dinner and dishes, we slip back to his room while his mom settles into her cigarette burned, avocado green recliner to watch "The Wheel." His dad is nowhere to be seen.

We sit. We talk. We ignore the lightning crackling in the air all around us.

At some point, I just fall asleep.

I awake to a dark room. With a pillow under my head and a soft blanket covering me.I sit up and look around. This room is chilly, almost cold. My eyes seek out Chad. He is asleep, maybe, on the bed. Curled into a ball, he is shivering beneath a light sheet, having given his blanket to me.

As quietly as possible I slip out of my boots and pants. Thankful for the moonlight, I spread the blanket over the bed and Chad's beautiful, shivering body, then place the pillow next to his and oh so carefully, slide in with my back to him. This feels like a chance, a huge chance. For what? I have no idea. Wide awake, I pretend to be asleep.

Sometime later I feel an arm slide across my abdomen. Chad easily pulls me right up next to him. I don't even think of resisting. His hot breath tickles my neck. Was that, maybe, the smallest of kisses too?

The sun comes up. Still in Chad's arms I feel… I don't know what I feel. I need a drink.