Borrowed Boy Page 13

  Here’s what I had on the list so far.

  I am not Zay Beckham. (Cool name.)

  I am Dwayne Copeland. (Geek name.)

  I was kidnapped as a baby.

  I love two people I can’t be with anymore, and I have a best friend I may never see again.

  I live in a city now where my accent and Mohawk haircut are weird, some of the foods I like are even weirder, and I have a big brother who hates my country guts.

  My Chicago parents are really nice and really seem to love me, but I’m not sure if I will ever love them the way I love my Memphis parents.

  I like my new friend Brendan and I think he’s way cool, but I’m afraid to be around him.

  I’m afraid to be around him because I like his muscles, and guys shouldn’t like other guys’ muscles. (Now that I think about it, I’d also liked another guy’s muscles a lot. They belonged to my next-door neighbor in Memphis, Marquis Loeffler.)

  I’m afraid to be around Brendan because I got hard when he bent over and I saw his naked lower back. And if just his lower back had that effect, what would happen if I saw other naked parts of him?

  I’m afraid to be around him because I think about doing stuff with him—kissing and touching—when I lie in bed at night, and I wake up in the morning most definitely erect.

  I think I might be gay.

  Don’t ask me to explain any of those things. Most times they just made me feel awful, and I tried not to think about them. I stood over the toilet, taking careful aim, straining to make the waterworks work. Then I discovered a new item to add to my list. It was more of a rule, actually. A commandment.

  Thou shalt not try to pee through an erection.

  I don’t think a penis is designed to be hard and pass urine at the same time. I stood there for something like five minutes with my bladder aching but couldn’t get anything to flow.

  Like I said earlier, another great morning in Chicago.

  I stripped off my underwear, climbed into the tub, and hit myself with a blast of cold water from the shower. That was like getting stabbed all over with a million frozen needles. I had to shove a fist into my mouth to keep from screaming. But the shower had the effect I wanted. I toweled off, finally took a leak, and walked back into my bedroom with all parts of me under control. I pulled on this pair of jeans Chicago Dad bought for me the day before when we were shopping at some mall. The design of the jeans made it look like they’d been attacked by a bunch of psycho graffiti artists, which I thought was cool. I topped off with a tank top like one I’d seen Brendan wear. Sadly, my arms and chest didn’t look anywhere near as good as his arms and chest did in his tank top.

  Once I’d slipped on a pair of sneakers, I headed for the kitchen, ready for the ritual the Copelands had gone through every morning since I came. Imagine my surprise when I walked through the door and Chicago Mom and Dad burst out with, “Happy birthday, Dwayne!”

  They must have heard me coming. They stood there together in the kitchen. Chicago Dad held a plate of hot pancakes topped with whipped cream and blueberries and three little flickering birthday candles. Chicago Mom held a present wrapped in metallic blue paper and topped with a white bow as big as my head. They looked like little kids themselves as they smiled at me in their eager happiness. BJ was seated at the table behind them, chowing down his own stack of pancakes. He hadn’t slapped me around in a while, but that didn’t exactly earn him the Brother of the Year award. He flashed me the middle finger, his own special birthday greeting.

  The whole scenario made me so uncomfortable I didn’t know what to say. How could they have gotten things so wrong about me? My birthday was still weeks away.

  Wait. Today was July 17. Chicago Dad had told me the August 30 date on my Tennessee birth certificate was as phony as Zay Beckham.

  Today was my actual birthday.

  I was officially fourteen years old more than a whole month before I expected to be.

  I had to say something in response to the big birthday greeting. “Oh. Yeah. Thanks.”

  I ate some of the pancakes, even though I didn’t have an appetite. Chicago Mom and Dad were trying very hard to make the day special for me, and I appreciated that, so the smiles I gave them were real.

  “Go ahead and open your present,” Chicago Mom urged.

  I pushed my half-empty plate aside and tore open the fancily wrapped gift box. What I saw inside stunned me. The present held this crazy expensive iPhone that I just about drooled over every time Chicago Mom took me to the AT&T store, never even dreaming I’d actually get one. “Wow, this is fantastic. Thank you. Really, thank you.”

  “We’ve already had the new phone activated under our family plan,” Chicago Dad explained. He looked happy that the gift was such a big hit with me. “All you have to do is set up your contacts list and favorite apps, and we can recycle your old phone.”

  “Yeah, okay.” I started right in searching for apps to download.

  Chicago Mom sat across from me, sipping coffee while BJ and Chicago Dad tag-teamed the breakfast dishes, rinsing them at the sink and loading them into the dishwasher. She was sort of, like, glowing with pleasure. Since that day at the Navy Pier, she had relaxed or something. Her face was no longer weighed down with that look of nervous hesitation. I’d made sure I answered all of my birth parents’ calls whenever I was away from home, and I’d also been making myself eat something at every family sit-down meal. Maybe she wasn’t worried anymore that I’d run off or starve to death or get kidnapped again. “Well, Dwayne, what else would you like to do for your birthday?”

  “Uhm….”

  “You want to go to a skate park?” Chicago Dad asked over his shoulder from where he worked at the sink. “We can take you shopping for a new skateboard first.”

  “Well….”

  “Would you like to go to a movie?” Chicago Mom tossed in.

  “Or bowling,” added Chicago Dad. “Do you like bowling? What’s your favorite food? We could take you to a restaurant later for your favorite meal, whatever you want.”

  I had to smile at them. “You guys have already done enough. I think that later I just want to go out somewhere, you know, on my own. If that’s okay with you.”

  “It’s perfectly fine with us, Dwayne, if that’s what you want. This is your day.” Neither she nor Chicago Dad saw BJ roll his eyes and shake his head. “Oh, let me get my purse. You should have some money to treat yourself to something if you like.” She started to get up.

  “Don’t bother, honey. I’ll take care of him.” Chicago Dad quickly dried his wet hands on a towel and tugged out his wallet. He reached across the table and handed me a bunch of twenties.

  I counted; it came to a hundred bucks. “Oh, this is too much. I don’t need—”

  “No, that’s another birthday present,” Chicago Dad said, backing up a step. “I’m sure you don’t want to be rude and give back a gift.”

  I put down the money and the phone and got up. The hugs of gratitude I wrapped around my birth parents were genuine enough.

  I just didn’t know how genuine the rest of me was.

  “HEY.”

  I opened my eyes and looked up. Brendan seemed tall as a tree standing over me. I was lying face up on the deck, shoes off, pants rolled up to my knees, feet soaking in the water. It was the middle of the afternoon, and the pool had been all mine when I came up maybe half an hour ago. Which was great, because I really wanted to be alone.

  Heavy white clouds thickened the sky, blunting the glare and heat of the sun. Brendan folded his arms across his chest. “What’s up, guy? We’re not speaking to each other anymore?”

  He had on a pair of shades. Good. I don’t think I could have stood to look into his eyes then. It was good to see his face, though. I was glad to have him there. And I wished he would go.

  Brendan shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “For the past few days, you’ve been running the other way when you see me coming. I don’t force myself on people who don’t want
me around them. If you want me to leave you alone, Dwayne, just say so. You won’t be the first person who didn’t want anything to do with me, and you won’t be the last.”

  “It’s not….” My voice came out sort of garbled. I had to stop and clear my throat. “It’s not that I don’t want to be around you, Brendan.”

  “Then what is it? What happened the other day at my place? Why’d you freak out like that?”

  I couldn’t answer him because I wasn’t sure of what was going on with me. “I’m sorry I’m being so weird.”

  Brendan sat down on the deck beside me, folding his legs up. “It’s okay. I get it. A lot of weird stuff has happened to you lately. Finding out about the kidnapping. Moving to a new city with a family you don’t know. That’s a lot for anyone to handle.”

  “I just don’t feel like myself anymore.”

  “Of course you don’t. Your life has changed. You gotta give yourself time to catch up to the world you’re in now.”

  I sat up slowly. The day was feeling more like early spring than summer. The wind had started blowing harder across the rooftop. That took the temperature down another notch. The clouds were darkening, threatening rain. “That’s just it. Maybe I’ll never catch up. Maybe I just won’t ever fit in here. I want to go home. I want my mom and dad in Memphis. I want to just be Zay again.”

  He took off his shades, smiling at me. His light brown eyes were so warm I thought they were going to melt me down right there. “I’ve sort of been where you are. I know what it’s like to feel that you’re a stranger to yourself. But you can get past this, Dwayne. You can grow into the person you’re meant to be.”

  How can someone be so perfect? The pouty curves of Brendan’s lips, the long, narrow nose, the wisps of black hair on his chin, the thick, shapely eyebrows, the broad shoulders bulging out from the tank top he wore—everything about him was just perfect. I wanted to cuddle up to him. I wanted to lie down with my head in his lap and close my eyes and forget everything that was wrong with my life.

  He raised his eyebrows suddenly, and I realized I was staring. I tried to distract his attention from the blush I felt burning across my face by shrugging and saying, “Today’s my birthday. I’m fourteen.”

  He held out his hands like the Pope giving a blessing. “Hey, happy birthday, guy! I’ll take you out for ice cream or something.” He reached over and gave me a hearty pat on the back. “Come on.”

  He actually meant it. Even after the crappy way I’d been treating him the past few days, he was still being nice to me. He was still my friend.

  I really liked Brendan Galloway.

  He stood up and held out a hand to me. I hauled my feet from the water, took his hand, and he pulled me up next to him. I didn’t want to let go of his hand, and I held on just a little longer than I should have. Brendan sort of laughed and gently took his hand back, and I blushed again.

  “There’s this place about a block over called the Snack Shop,” he said. “Ever been there?”

  “No.”

  “They have the best ice cream. You have to try their ruby cake sundae. I swear you’ll think you had a taste of heaven.”

  I laughed, and it felt good. “I actually need a taste of heaven right about now.”

  A LIGHT rain fell as we walked back from the Snack Shop. It wasn’t enough to drench us, just to leave little beads of water on our skin and hair. I didn’t mind, and I don’t think Brendan did either. The ruby cake sundae had turned out to be every bit as good as promised. Brendan and I had talked video games as we ate, a conversation we continued along the way home.

  “Okay, then, what about Gran Turismo? Ever play that?”

  I bugged my eyes at him. “Only all the time. I’m stuck three versions down, though. My mom and dad in Memphis could only spend so much on games. I’m dying to play the new version.”

  “I just so happened to buy that one yesterday. Think you can take me?”

  “I’d kill you!”

  Brendan snorted.

  “I killed you at Grand Theft Auto. So naturally I’d kill you at Gran Turismo.”

  “Okay, number one, they’re totally different games, guy. Number two, when we played Grand Theft Auto, you got lucky.”

  “Yeah, keep telling yourself that.”

  I was all psyched up and enjoying myself, anxious to spend the rest of the afternoon whupping Brendan’s butt on his own game console. We had just entered the lobby of our building, still jabbering at each other, and so we weren’t really paying attention when the elevator doors opened in front of us.

  “Well, hell. Here’s Freak of the Week.”

  Brendan and I both stopped. The voice belonged to BJ’s crazy tall, skinny friend who I now knew as Tubby. He’d picked up the nickname when he was a lot younger and a lot plumper. He’d grown out of the baby-fat stage but was still stuck with being Tubby. BJ and his skinny black friend, Fitz, were also there. Tubby and Fitz were giving Brendan maximum stink-eye, and Brendan looked back at them like it was no big deal. BJ just looked annoyed, like the whole world had suddenly pissed him off.

  “What’s a matter, thread head?” Fitz snarled, flicking a hand at Brendan’s dreads without actually touching them. “You intimidated by the sight of real men?”

  Cool and calm, Brendan laughed at that, the sound like a hiccup. The laugh was sort of contemptuous, as if Fitz’s comment wasn’t worthy of a response. Brendan casually stepped around BJ and his troops, moving toward the elevator. “Let’s go, Dwayne.”

  “Aw, Freak of the Week’s gone and recruited the little country boy,” Tubby hooted. “Maybe country boy’s got some southern sugar to spread around.” He reached out like he was going to pinch my cheek or something. I flinched back from him.

  He never made contact. BJ came sweeping in, swatting Tubby’s arm down. “Leave him alone, Tubby,” he snapped. Then to me, he said angrily, “Come here,” and he grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me across the lobby.

  “Hey!” Brendan yelled, and he started charging after us.

  “It’s okay, Brendan,” I called back, waving him off. “Go on up. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  BJ hauled me around the receptionist desk and opened the door to the storage closet there. The startled receptionist just watched with round eyes, as if BJ had every right to do what he was doing. He shoved me into the closet, and then stepped in and closed the door after us.

  I was backed up against a row of shelves where package deliveries were kept until residents picked them up. BJ switched on the light and paced all over the narrow space for a moment, steaming like a boiling pot. He got in my face with, “What the fuck are you doing hanging around with Brendan Galloway?”

  “He’s my friend, okay?”

  “Find another friend, any other friend.”

  “What’s wrong with being friends with Brendan?”

  “Brendan’s a freak. Everybody knows it. And you’ll be a freak by association.”

  “Why are you such an asshole?” I asked the question in a way that sounded like I was begging for an answer.

  BJ’s eyes burned right through me. “Sometimes I hate you.”

  “But why? I don’t get it.” I wasn’t shouting or angry. Even the emotional hurt was gone. I just really wanted to understand him. “What did I ever do to you? I get that the kidnapping thing freaked out our parents. I get that it messed up their lives and yours. But I didn’t ask to be kidnapped. I didn’t even ask to come here. I don’t want to make things bad for you or Mom or Dad. I don’t want to hurt anybody… I wish I could take away all the hurt. But I can’t. All I can do… all I’ve been trying to do is to just fit in where everybody tells me I have to be.”

  BJ kept glaring at me. He was in such rage his eyes glittered, and his head shook from it. “You fucked up the whole family,” he said quietly, his voice now just above a tense whisper. “You fucked up everything.” He held the fury in, his lips pressed into a tight line, for what seemed a very long time. And I don’t think I even brea
thed.

  Then his fists unclenched little by little, and his shoulders relaxed. The hot anger in his face slowly faded until his eyes were totally vacant. He exhaled heavily through his nose, a tired, disgusted sound. “I’m so sick of all this bullshit… so tired of being pissed at you.”

  Then stop. Let it go. The words were in my head, and I would have said them. But before I could, BJ turned, shoved the door open, and walked away.

  Chapter Twenty

  BRENDAN WAS waiting in front of the receptionist desk when I walked out of the storage closet. It felt good that he’d been concerned enough to hang around. BJ, still angry, was at the other side of the lobby, shoving Tubby in the back, pushing at Fitz’s shoulder as he just about bulldozed them into the street.

  “Are you okay?” Brendan asked, a worried expression on his face. “Did your brother hurt you?”

  “No. He’s just mad at me.”

  “That was kind of intense. I thought he was gonna kick the crap out of you.” Brendan opened his mouth to say something else and then hesitated.

  “What?”

  “That was about me, wasn’t it?”

  There were two other residents in the lobby now. They both seemed to focus on Brendan and me. I leaned toward Brendan and said quietly, “Can we go up to your place?”

  Brendan turned and led the way to the elevator. On the third floor, we walked down to his unit and let ourselves into his living room. Brendan got right back to the point. He sat down heavily on the sofa like he was carrying all of Chicago on his shoulders and said, “Your brother doesn’t want you hanging out with me, does he?”

  “He said something like that, yeah.” I sat down beside him. “Why did BJ’s friend call you Freak of the Week?”

  “Because he’s stupid. And bigoted. And narrow-minded.” Brendan shrugged. “I could go on, but I think you get the picture.”

  “Not really.”

  “I sort of grew up with your brother and his friends, so I know them. I know what they’re like. They don’t want to associate with anyone on the LGBTQ spectrum, especially me. They’d probably run me out of town if they thought they could get away with it. I don’t take any bullshit off of them, and they really can’t stand that.”