Burro Hills Read online

I laughed and buttoned my shirt, grabbed my keys and followed him out the door. All the way to the bus stop I felt like flying.

  Up in his room, with its high wooden ceilings, multiple skylights, and clean white sheets, I felt less edgy, less like I always did when I was at my house. Connor poured me a shot of Fireball whiskey and we said “Cheers” and drank it back, me enjoying that sweet cinnamon burn down my throat. His room was so cool, so modern, with shiny wood floorboards, a white shag rug and a poster of a young, hot Marlon Brando next to one of Jourdan Dunn. He had a lava lamp on his dresser, a keyboard and a guitar propped up against his floor-to-ceiling windows, and one of the sweetest desktop computers I’d ever seen.

  “Damn, are you loaded?” I asked, slipping out of my shoes and plopping myself down on his bed. It was comfortable as hell.

  He laughed and turned on his computer, playing a mix of country and ambient music. “Nah, but my uncle is. And he’s very generous.”

  He slipped out of his t-shirt and tossed it aside, and I felt myself harden at the sight of his bare chest. He took off his jeans, revealing black briefs that hugged his ass just right, and it was then I realized how hard I’d been staring.

  “It’s okay, Jack,” he said. He sidled up to me and joined me on the bed, rubbing my shoulder. “Just relax.”

  I’d been having dreams about him like this for nights, but seeing him here in person…it was paralyzing. “I’m just…I’m…I’m sorry, fuck, I’m—”

  “You’re nervous,” he said gently. He pressed his lips to my shoulder and looked up at me. “Look, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. No pressure.”

  “Can we drink a little more first…before we…”

  “If you want, but I don’t want you to be hammered for this. If you do want to have sex, I want you to be relaxed, comfortable, and present.”

  Sex. Fuck. The virgin inside me was terrified, and a part of me felt ashamed. Ashamed I was a virgin, ashamed of how scared this was making me…but mostly, secretly and awfully, ashamed that I wanted to have sex with him. I wasn’t exactly sure what that would even entail, or how it would feel, although the thought undeniably turned me on. I’d seen some gay porn before, curiously browsed through it…but in porn it was all so animalistic, so hard, and even painful.

  “Have you ever…had sex with a guy before?” I asked him.

  He nodded.

  “And did you…how do you…”

  He kissed my cheek and started stroking my hair. “I can show you. I’d be gentle, I’d go slow. But only if it’s what you want.”

  I thought for a moment. “It is what I want.”

  I was nervous and scared and felt a little awkward, but Connor made everything easy. He seemed so experienced, and damn, he was so sensual. We peeled off the rest of our clothes and laid down on his bed, and he spent time kissing every inch of my body, my shoulders, my neck, my stomach, down between my thighs, until finally he started blowing me.

  I’d tried letting a girl do this to me before, but this was a whole other universe. With the girl, it had been uncomfortable and unsexy, but with Connor…damn, it was incredible. Then he kissed me deeply, introduced me to the wonders of lubricant and the importance of condoms, and when he went inside me it hurt at first, but soon began to feel like someone was hitting the most amazing sweet spot that I’d never known I had. And the whole time he was asking me things like, “Are you okay?” and “Does this feel good?” and it did; it felt so, so right.

  I lost my virginity to a Johnny Cash song, and afterwards, Connor lay on top of me, our breathing heavy, his warm skin against my bare chest, feeling euphoric and calm and maybe even a little emotional.

  I also felt something growing inside me, an affectionate warmth for Connor that I’d never felt for anyone before. We untangled ourselves and just lay there, shoulder to shoulder, basking in the glow. Just for that moment, all of the fear I’d been holding onto evaporated.

  26.

  Max was shaken that morning, more so than he usually was. He and Toby were lingering in the courtyard, speaking in low voices, looking over their shoulders every few minutes. All around them people were talking about something, their lips and eyes moving so fast I could barely make anything out. Something had happened, something big. A security guard had one sweaty hand on his belt and the other clamped around a walkie-talkie, muttering into it every few minutes.

  Connor and I had ridden to school together, something I’d feared would cause unwanted attention, but no one seemed to notice when we parked and locked our bikes side by side. No one said a word or seemed to see when Connor’s hand brushed mine, or when he turned to give me a smile that set off a thousand fireworks in my stomach.

  I was being paranoid. I was sure I was. Connor and I were speaking in Morse code, an undetected language. To the casual onlooker, we were nothing more than good friends.

  But then we approached the guys, and Max dropped a bomb.

  Riley Adams had been found by a janitor early in the morning next to the auditorium, lying unconscious in a pool of his own blood. His glasses were broken, shattered around his face. Someone had snapped a photo before security found him, before the ambulance was called. And the photo was circulating fast.

  Max showed it to me. I could have puked right there. Riley had been stripped naked, his body covered in Sharpie drawings of penises. I shook my head and pushed it out of my sight.

  “Who’s Riley?” Connor asked. “Why would anyone do that to him?”

  Toby grunted. Max looked down at his feet.

  “He’s a theater kid,” I said softly. “Really…uh, really outgoing.”

  We had an assembly about it before first period, an assembly that lasted nearly an hour. Principal Oliver stood on stage, looking grave and ashen, promising us that whoever did this would not only be caught, but held responsible. Connor and I sat next to each other. We’d managed to lose Toby and Max in the shuffle of nervous bodies, and in the darkness of the auditorium, under the seat, he squeezed my fingers.

  The guys behind us kept laughing, muffled snickers and comments made under their breath. Ten minutes in, Connor turned around and said, “Could you please shut the fuck up?”

  They stared at him like he was off his rocker, as did I. These were the Rudoy brothers, Jerry and Mike. They were friends of Toby, so by extension—even though I hated those football meatheads—they were friends with me.

  “You got a problem, man?” Jerry asked. He leaned in closer to Connor, a lion ready to pounce. A lion with a very low IQ and the best tackle on the football team.

  “It’s cool,” I said, pinching Connor’s arm to get him to turn back around. But he was staring them down with this look of disgust I didn’t know he was capable of. It was starting to freak me out. “Don’t worry about it.”

  But Connor—this idiot—he didn’t budge. “Some kid got the shit kicked out of him, and you assholes think this is funny? Have some fucking respect.”

  “Respect?” Mike said. He was just as big as his brother, and almost as ugly. “Let me tell you about respect. Maybe he deserved it. Maybe he didn’t show respect, and he needed a lesson in keeping his little hands to himself.”

  Connor’s nostrils flared. Onstage, a guidance counselor was talking about tolerance and safe spaces in our school, blah blah blah. Was she as dumb as the Rudoy brothers? I pinched Connor harder, but he pushed my hand away.

  “Are you saying you did that to Riley?” Connor asked. “Are you actually dumb enough to be incriminating yourselves right now?”

  I could tell neither of them knew what incriminating meant, but Jerry spoke up for his brother.

  “No, no, we’re just saying,” he said, slapping his brother on the back. A teacher walked past us and shushed us with such ferocity I thought it might stop them, but it didn’t. “We’re just saying that we’ve heard things.”

  “Gentlemen!” the teacher snapped.

  “Yeah,” Jerry said, looking directly at Connor. “So, you should probab
ly shut your mouth and not start rumors, motherfucker.”

  “That’s it,” the teacher said, snapping her fingers at Jerry and Mike. “Get up, both of you. We’re going down to the principal’s office since you two clearly can’t keep your mouths shut for five seconds.”

  They freaked. Jerry pointed at us and said we were talking too. Mike looked like he was ready to spit on us. I was sort of surprised he didn’t.

  “Come on! Hurry up!” the teacher said. I’d seen her around before, some new teacher, fresh out of grad school. She wore pantsuits and heels every day, like she had something to prove. She didn’t understand this place.

  And she clearly wasn’t ready when Mike lost his mind and yelled, “The principal’s onstage right now, you dumb bitch!”

  Everyone in the auditorium turned to stare, even the principal and the guidance counselor, who seemed particularly scandalized. She was new here too. The teacher’s face went so red I thought she might combust on the spot.

  I thought Connor might be gloating, or nervous or something. But he was just sitting face-forward in his seat, his face contorted with anger, digging his fingernails into his palms so hard a droplet of blood formed on his skin. I reached out and gently pulled his hand away.

  Security swooped in and forced the Rudoy brothers up and out of the auditorium, which was now abuzz with excitement—kids with their phones out, taking videos, chatting excitedly. Onstage, Principal Oliver took off his glasses and rubbed his face.

  In my mind, I could see the fear in Riley’s eyes when they pushed him up against the wall and punched him, knocking him out. I could hear the crunch of his glasses breaking, taste the blood, smell the floor cleaner, and the Sharpies, and the sweat.

  I wished I had been there. To protect him, somehow. To stop them.

  But if I had been there, if I had seen it happen, what would I have really done?

  27.

  Things have a strange way of blowing over, especially at Burro Hills High. By the next week there was another scandal, a major fight between two members of two rival gangs, and most everything about Riley Adams was swept under the rug. Riley either transferred schools or dropped out to be homeschooled. No one was sure. Whoever had attacked him had been meticulous, as there were no fingerprints found, at least according to Max’s extensive research on the crime scene. He became obsessed with the story like some deranged private investigator, tracking every local and national news outlet for a scrap of information. Toby thought the whole thing was stupid. Connor refused to talk about it, which was fine by me. I wanted to bury it into the farthest recesses of my brain.

  The Rudoy brothers were suspended, so we didn’t have to worry about them for a while. I had a feeling Toby would talk to them, make things cool down. After all, they bought their pot and the best ’roids money could buy from his family.

  I spotted Jess a few times with Skye Russo’s crew. They all wore heavy eyeliner, blow-dried their hair into Hollywood perfect waves, and painted their nails matching pastel colors. I missed her like hell, but she seemed so happy and giggly with them. I figured she’d been happier with them than she could ever be with some asshole like me.

  Besides, outside of school, I had found my nirvana.

  I cuddled into Connor’s shoulder, wrapping the strewn sheets and comforter around us. All I could hear was the hum of the air conditioner and his heartbeat. We stared up at the high-beamed wooden ceilings of his room, light oak panels flanked by skylights. Fading sunlight poured down on us, casting beams that stretched out across the sheets and our bodies.

  “You smell so good,” he murmured into my ear. “Don’t stop using that aftershave.”

  I laughed. “It’s from the dollar store.”

  “Save those pennies, then,” he said, and I smacked his arm.

  I traced the scars along his wrist with my finger, across the dip and groove of a faded cigarette burn, down the path of one lone vertical line that moved dangerously along the surface of a vein. I wanted to kiss down that wrist, every cut and bruise and burn. After we’d had sex for the second time, he’d told me the truth about them. How he’d self-harmed whenever he was angry, or scared, or sad, or lost in a sea of depression. When he thought too much about his parents or they didn’t return the letters that he wrote to them in prison.

  How he’d stopped now. He said he was done. I really hoped he was done.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Ask me anything.”

  “How did you do all this?” I asked. “Didn’t it hurt?”

  He was quiet for a moment. “I didn’t really feel it at the time. It was…it was a way of relieving all the emotional pain, you know? All that pent-up shit inside of me.”

  “But were you trying to…?”

  “Kill myself?”

  I swallowed the lump building in my throat and nodded.

  “Not those times,” he said quietly.

  Feeling like I’d entered an uncomfortable zone, I switched gears. “Have you…ever been with a girl?”

  “A couple times, yeah.”

  “What was it like?”

  “I mean, I enjoyed myself, if that’s what you’re asking.” He grinned. “I like girls too, remember?”

  I watched the steady rotation of the fan, the way the light and shadows were chopped and split by its blades.

  “Jack?”

  I turned to Connor, who was staring at me funny.

  “You good?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine.” But I wasn’t so sure it was true.

  “Have you ever been with a girl?”

  I tried to think back to all the girls I’d kissed—at parties, at dances, on the bus, on “dates.” Girls with soft lips that crushed into mine, their long lashes and gentle hands. Dry-humping in basements and bedrooms while the girl moaned and moved in my arms while I groped around blindly trying to feel something.

  I remembered taking freshman Jade Torrence to Homecoming my sophomore year, hugging her waist and keeping a smile frozen on my face while we stood in our tuxes and dresses as the parents took picture after picture of our group. She was chill and funny as hell, and we had a great night, leaving the stupid dance in the gym—where everyone was grinding to heavily censored music—to go smoke pot in the woods and drink. After a lot of vodka, she tried to kiss me, shoving her tongue between my teeth and reaching for my crotch, but I stopped her and took her home, held her bubblegum pink hair while she threw up on the sidewalk. When her friends found out about my “heroic deed,” they started flirting with me in the hallway at school, and I humored them because they were young and silly and freshmen.

  And then, there was Kellie Velez…but no, I would never go there.

  “No,” I answered. “Not really.”

  I remembered seeing porn for the first time at ten years old, in a friend’s basement with a group of boys. We watched a video of a busty blonde going at it with a vibrator, her mouth open and pouty like the lips of a doll. All the boys watched boggle-eyed and laughed and cracked jokes and said things like “Nice!” and “Yeah, that’s it, baby!” and I said those things too because I thought that’s what you were supposed to do. But the whole time I kept staring at her eyes that looked so empty, like something sad was buried inside her.

  “Jack, it doesn’t matter.”

  Connor’s lips interrupted my memories, and they slipped away as his kisses grew deeper and our bodies pressed into each other and moved as steadily and rhythmically as the beating of the fan above us.

  28.

  I had no desire to see the guys that day, so I didn’t go to the lockers in the morning. I took a quieter route out of the building and was almost in the clear, but right in the parking lot they caught up with me.

  “Hey, man!” Max called out. Toby was trailing behind him, hands deep in the pockets of his dark-washed jeans. They stood in front of me, expectant, waiting for me to be my usual self, but I wasn’t feeling like that lately.

  “Hey,” I said, nodding and forcing a smi
le. The only thing on my mind was getting to Connor’s place, being with him in that private, secret space where I could finally take off the mask and let myself just be.

  “You coming tonight?” Toby asked.

  “To what?”

  “Uh, the BMX race, man. Remember?” Max asked. “It’s tonight on Pine Street.”

  “There’s gonna be an assload of hot girls there,” Toby said. He smirked.

  “Oh, right,” I said, feigning disappointment. “Shit. I can’t. I’ve got plans with Connor.”

  Toby and Max both frowned. “You guys are always doing stuff together,” Toby said, but it sounded more like a question than a statement.

  “What are you guys, like, secretly fucking?” Max joked.

  I forced a laugh. “You’re sick. We’re going to this thing his uncle’s throwing.”

  “What thing?” Max asked. I wanted to hit him.

  “Um, just this art show thing,” I said. I started walking away and they followed me, still waiting for something.

  “Art show?” Toby asked, the tone in his voice shifting.

  “Yeah, it’s like an exhibition or whatever. There’s probably going to be free drinks there, so…” I shrugged.

  “Yeah, listen man,” Toby said. “We’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”

  My heart hit a road bump, and I stopped walking. “About what?”

  “Well, I mean, Connor’s cool and all, don’t get me wrong. But…there’s something about him. Something off. And well, he’s kind of…” He let the sentence trail off purposefully, waiting for me to fill in the blank.

  “Kind of what?” I asked. I thought I knew what he was getting at, but I didn’t want to find out. “He’s chill. He’s down for anything. Isn’t that like us?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Toby said. He squeezed my arm a little too hard before releasing it, then stared me down like he was studying me, trying to see through some gap in my façade. Or was he? “Connor’s definitely chill, sure, but he’s a little…?”