Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 17:05:00 -0700 (PDT) From: SJL Subject: Paul and Adam: Chapter 15 Chapter 15 for your reading enjoyment. You can respond to this story, ask questions, or just make general remarks in several ways: Email: geekwriter143@yahoo.com Livejournal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/geekwriter143 Website: http://veggiegrlaz.tripod.com I'm bad at returning emails. I'm sorry. I read everything, though, and appreciate it. I'm much better at responding to comments in my livejournal, so feel free to drop me a line there if you want. Don't read this if you shouldn't read this. And if you do, it's not my fault if you get in trouble. Just be careful and enjoy yourself. From Paul's POV. No cliffhangers this time, I promise. =) ----------------------------------------------------- I run inside and up the stairs and push my door open. Adam's sitting on my bed with one hand over his mouth. His eyes are wild as he looks up at me. I look over at Caroline, who's leaning against my desk, her arms wrapped around her waist. "What the hell's going on?" I ask her. "Why did you tell me Mom wanted me to help unload the car? Mom's not even home." "Yeah, about that," Caroline says softly. "I needed to talk to Adam alone for a second. We have a problem." "What kind of problem?" "People are talking," she says. "They're saying Adam's gay." I exhale slowly. "Who's talking?" "At this point it's mainly just the swim team. Mitch told me since he knows the two of you are friends. They're saying that Adam's sleeping with Jake Watkins." "I'm not," Adam says, reaching out for me. "I swear to you, Paul, I'm not." "I believe you," I say. I take his hand and sit next to him, massage his palm. His hands are shaking. "That fucking Laura," Adam says, closing his eyes. "Laura Brown?" Caroline asks. Adam nods. "Figures she'd start something like this, stupid cunt. Why Jake?" "Because he's gay," Adam tells her. "Because he and Laura were dating this summer and he broke up with her, came out to her. And she and I almost had a thing, but then..." He shrugged. "When she found out I was gay, she thought Jake and I were a couple. I told her it wasn't true, but she must not have believed me." "So she knows you're gay for sure?" Caroline asks. Adam nods. "Yeah. I thought I could trust her." "Did you tell anyone else?" "No." He sighs. "Jesus, she knows about Paul, too. And she wasn't happy. Said he stole me from her the same way you stole Mitch from one of her friends." Caroline nods. I can see the gears turning in her brain. "That's good. I mean, it's not good that she knows but it's good that she feels like you got stolen from her. I can work that to our advantage." "Wait," I say, "if she knows the truth why isn't she telling the truth? Why bother lying about Adam and Jake?" "Hell hath no fury," says Caroline. "Do you know Jake's number?" she asks. Adam shakes his head. "That's OK. I can get it from Mitch. OK, I'm going to work on this, and I'll let you know what the plan is once I get everything figured out. You sit tight, both of you. I don't want you talking to anyone until I can establish the party line." Caroline leaves my room and Adam looks dazed. "I feel like I'm in the middle of a war all of sudden," he says. "You kind of are." He buries his face in my shoulder. "I'm glad she's on my side," he whispers. "I always tell her she should give up her dreams of med school and become the dictator of a small country." Adam doesn't laugh, he just stretches out on my bed and pulls a pillow over his head. I lay next to him and snuggle my head beneath the pillow, too. "Are you OK?" I ask softly. "I don't know. I think I'm still in shock." "I'll understand if you don't want to hang around me much. People already think I'm queer and I don't even have any rumors circulating about me." "Fuck that," Adam says. He slides his arm around my waist and pulls me close to him. His entire body is shaking. "Hey," I whisper. "Hey, baby, don't panic, OK? Laura might be spreading shit but that doesn't mean anyone's going to believe her. You don't need to panic." He lets out a short, sharp laugh. "You heard Caroline. She's formulating a war plan right this second." "Caroline's overdramatic. You know that. We don't even know how many people Laura told. Maybe she just told Mitch because she knew that way it would get back to you." Adam takes a shaky breath. "My hands and feet are going numb. I can't feel my fingers." I flip the pillow off our heads and roll Adam onto his back. "Look at me," I whisper, and he does. "This is not a crisis," I say. "And we're not going to act like it is. We're going to remain calm and deal with whatever happens, but we're not going to freak out about it, OK?" Adam nods. "OK," he whispers. I'm surprised at how logical I sound, because it's definitely not how I feel. I wonder if Adam can tell that my heart is beating twice as fast as normal. I touch Adam's face and he closes his eyes. I run my fingertips over his cheekbones, along the strong line of his jaw. I brush his full, pink lips, rest my finger in the divot above his upper lip. Adam grabs my hand and sits up suddenly. "I'm gonna throw up," he says before he bolts for the door. I follow him and watch him run down the stairs and into the bathroom. He slams the bathroom door behind him. I sit on the stairs and rest my head against the banister. I can hear Caroline talking animatedly in her room. I can hear Adam throwing up. I get up and knock on the door to Caroline's room, then push the door open. She's standing with her back to me, one hand gesticulating in the air as she holds her cordless phone with her other hand. She turns and sees me, smiles quickly and holds up her index finger, telling me to wait just one minute. "Oh, I know!" Caroline says with a laugh that most people can't tell is fake. "And that hair? Hello? That's why they invented conditioner. I totally don't buy that bullshit about it being the chlorine's fault. I don't see Leslie or Annette with fucking haystack hair." She laughs again and sits on the edge of her bed. She pats the spot next to her and I walk over and sit next to her. "Totally," says Caroline. She ruffles my hair, then rubs the back of my neck. "Oh, please, that cunt was just a pity fuck. I mean, honestly, like Jake was going to give her the time of day in public? He can do way better, and everyone knows it. It's not his fault he felt sorry for her. Who knew she'd go fucking psychotic?" Caroline stifles a yawn and crosses her legs, tapping one foot to the beat in her head. "Oh, you did not," she says. She has a smug, amused look on her face that I'm sure she doesn't feel. But she always says you have to look it if you want to sound it, even over the phone. "Well you should have warned him if you knew," she says. She tips her head to the side and rolls her eyes at me, holds up one hand with her fingers and thumb touching, 'blah, blah, blah,' she mouths as she makes a talking motion with her hand. Caroline laughs again. "I know. Totally. Totally. Look, sweetie, I have to go. My mom's got mondo groceries to bring in from the car and she's having a hissy. Talk to you later?" She taps her foot a few more times. "Oh, definitely. Definitely. Bye, now." Caroline clicks the phone off and tosses it onto her bed. "That girl never fucking shuts up," she says to me. "Who was it?" "Natalie Pierce." "You know Natalie?" Caroline laughs, a real laugh this time. "Honey, I know everyone. And Natalie's an important player. Not only is she one of the most popular girls in your grade, she has a kick-ass and very widely read 'blog. And she's too inexperienced to realize that when I call asking for her opinion, what I'm really doing is feeding her mine." "Natalie Pierce has a 'blog?" She rolls her eyes. "Do you look at anything except porn online?" "Not really." "Did Adam go home? Because I wanted to brief him before he did." "He's busy throwing up." Caroline curls her lip. "Oh." "Could you just calm down around him?" "What do you mean?" she asks. "I mean that even if this is a panic situation, don't act like it is. He's throwing up for God's sake." I bump her shoulder with mine. "I know you like playing war, but don't talk to him about briefings or battle strategies, OK? It's freaking him out." Caroline nods. "All right. Go see if he's OK. I have more calls to make." She opens her shiny purple address book and flips through the pages, then picks up the phone and dials. "Leslie? Hi, it's Caroline. Look, I heard something a little, oh, unbelievable today, and I thought that if anybody would know what's going on, you would..." I get up and leave Caroline's room, closing the door behind me. I tap softly on the bathroom door. "Adam?" I ask. "Are you OK?" "You can come in," Adam says. I push the bathroom door open. Adam's standing at the sink splashing water on his face. He scoops water from the sink and swishes it around in his mouth, then spits it out. "Feel better?" I ask. "No." "I thought we weren't going to panic." He turns off the water. "Easy for you to say. Nobody thinks you're a faggot." "Adam, everybody thinks I'm a faggot." "No, they don't," he says. "Not really. They think you're weird. They think you're artistic. They don't really think you're gay, though. You wouldn't last a day if they honestly believed it. You know that." I want to argue with him, but I can't. "I haven't seen Caroline this excited since Traci Petron had crabs." It's supposed to be funny, but Adam doesn't laugh. Instead he sinks to the floor and pulls his knees to his chest. "I should have just gone," he whispers. I sit on the floor across from him and stroke his hair. "Gone where?" "Chicago," he says. "I was going to. That was the day I told Laura the truth. I wanted her to drive me to the Greyhound station in Waterloo but she wouldn't do it. I came back here, but I should have just hitched." "What were you going to do in Chicago?" I ask. "Disappear," he whispers. He tips his head down so I can't see his face. "You were just going to leave?" I ask. "Without telling me?" He sighs and when he looks up at me his eyes are wet with tears. "My life is fucked. I don't have anything." I squeeze his hand. "You have me." "I know." "Come on," I whisper. I stand up and pull him to his feet. "Let's go back upstairs." I can hear Caroline on the phone as we pass her room. "Ultra Swim?" she asks. "Really? Because your hair looks amazing. And do you use that every time you shampoo or just after you swim?" Adam sits on the floor next to my bed and curls his legs up, curls his shoulders down as he wraps his arms around his knees. "I love you," I say. Adam takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "I know." I sit next to him and slide my arm around his shoulders, pull him against me. I kiss the top of his head. "You're gonna be OK. Nobody would ever believe that you or Jake were gay, and they're definitely not going to believe that both of you are." He laughs hollowly. "But we are, Paul." "I know. But you know how people are. They think you have to be weird and artistic to be gay. Nobody thinks that you can be athletic and masculine and be gay. It's shitty, but it's going to work to your advantage." Adam nods. "I guess so." "And Caroline's just...well, you can imagine how bored she's been all summer. She's just happy to have someone to talk shit about again. You should have heard her when you were in the bathroom. She and Natalie Pierce were having a great time talking about how ugly Laura's hair is." Adam smiles in spite of himself. "So don't take her level of enthusiasm to mean that this is something to freak out about, OK?" "OK," he says. He lays his head on his shoulder and shifts so that he can wrap his arms around my waist. "What would I do without you?" he asks. "Let's hope we never have to find out," I say. I pinch his arm. "Not that you're any help, Mr. I'm-Going-To-Run-Away-To-Chicago." Adam sighs and looks up at me. "I'm sorry. I panicked. I wasn't thinking. It was...what do they call that? A fight or flight reaction?" "Well next time, flee here." "I will," he says softly. "I promise." I nuzzle my face into his hair and sigh. Downstairs, I can hear Caroline laughing.