Detention 15 - Conclusion (Part 2)

Eve dropped me back off at school after the last class of the day had ended. The parking lot was filled with students heading to their cars and out of the gates. “I don’t know why the hell you’re comin’ back here,” Eve said. “School is over.”

“I still gotta go to detention,” I told her.

“Says who?”

“Mr. Wilson.”

Eve rolled her eyes. “You’re only in detention `cause you wanna be. If I were you, which I’m thankfully not, I wouldn’t listen to a fuckin’ thing that closet-case asshole said.”

“I can’t afford to get suspended from school again,” I said.

“Bein’ suspended has nothin’ to do with you goin’ to detention. You go to detention `cause you think that’s where you need to be, not `cause you gotta be there.”

I didn’t really know what she meant by that, so I didn’t say anything. 

“You better hurry up. You don’t wanna be late.” As I opened the door, Eve told me, “Don’t worry. Things are gonna work out just the way they’re supposed to. He’ll come back. Wherever he is.”

“What if he doesn’t?” I asked.

“Then that’s his loss. You can only do your part. The rest is up to him.”

“Maybe...” I opened the door and climbed out. “Thanks,” I said. As soon as I closed the door, Eve cranked the volume of the radio up to the highest it would go and peeled out, almost hitting several people on the way out. I smiled and made my way to the boy’s locker room.

* * *
“Up!” Wilson yelled. 

He stood over me, his dirty sneakers inches away from my sweaty face. I lifted myself up, trying to keep my arms as straight as possible. We had already done a hundred and thirty five pushups and had about seventy more to go. My whole body was numb and I felt like I was going to fall apart at any second. I looked at the others: Billy, Jason, Luke, and Scott Howard. Billy was the only one of us who seemed like he had enough energy to do two hundred, but the rest of us were barely making it. 

If Chris were here, maybe I would’ve been able to do it a bit easier. Chris could probably do two hundred pushups without breaking a sweat. If he had been here, like he should’ve been, maybe it would’ve been easier. Wherever he was, he was supposed to be here with me. The reason I had gotten detention to begin with was because of Chris. If he wasn’t here to do this with me, why was I here? I thought about what Eve had told me. I don’t go to detention because I have to, but because I feel like I have to. 

“Down!” Wilson called out.

I dropped to the ground. Pain vibrated throughout my body. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth. I didn’t want to do this anymore. I had endured torture from this man for over three weeks now, and it was time for it all to stop. I didn’t want to do detention anymore. I didn’t have to do detention anymore. I had already paid the price for my actions with Chris. 

I never realized it until Eve told me, but the only reason why I showed up to detention day after day, wasn’t because I was afraid of the consequences that would occur if I didn’t show up - because obviously Chris didn’t care about the consequences - but because deep down I felt like I deserved to be punished: I felt like I deserved to be punished for my attraction to Chris, for our relationship - or however it could be defined - and I felt like I was being punished for just being me. And I didn’t want to do it anymore. There was no reason for me to be here. There was no reason for any of us to be here. I was tired of being victim to Mr.Wilson. I was tired of being victim to Chris and everybody else at this school, but most important, I was tired of being victim to myself. 

I stood up. My legs were shaking, and I was drenched in my own sweat, but I was still standing.

Wilson, with his muscular arms crossed over his chest, stared at me, almost as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “Did I tell you to get up, Newman? You still have twenty five more to go. Get down.”

“No,” I said defiantly. Everyone else stopped when they heard me say that. They looked at me and then they looked at Wilson, fearful of what he was going to do next. I wasn’t afraid, surprisingly, I was waiting to see what he was going to do next.

“I’m gonna tell you this one more time, Newman,” Wilson told me. “Get down, or I’ll put you down myself.”

“You won’t do a fuckin’ thing,” I said. “You can’t make me do shit.” I was surprised how confident and resolute I sounded when I said that. It felt good to say that to Wilson. I’ve always wanted to say that to him. 

“Who the fuck do you’re think you’re talkin’ to little boy?” Wilson asked stepping up into his face. His cold blue eyes stared down at me menacingly. His face was stone hard and I almost expecting him to hit me or something. I was ready if it came down to it. I wasn’t gonna back down from him, not today or any other day. “When I tell you to fuckin’ do somethin’, you better fuckin’ do it.” Wilson didn’t yell, he spoke very quietly and calmly, making sure I heard every word he said. He was so close to me that I expected him to kiss me. His breath was colder than his eyes and chilled my nose.

“This is my last day of detention,” I told him. “I’m through.” I turned to walk away, but Wilson grabbed my wrist and squeezed tight. He yanked me back around.

“Don’t you ever walk away from me like that!” Wilson screamed. “You don’t get to fuckin’ leave until I fuckin’ tell you -”

I spat in his face. I did it without even thinking about doing it. Neither one us expected it to happen. I watched the spit roll down the side of his face. Wilson just stared at me, unable to move or think. He had been crushed. I had just destroyed him. I broke free from his firm grasp, turned and walked away. I was aware of the other boys’ eyes on me as I walked away, but I paid no attention to them. 

I walked faster, energy building up inside of me rapidly. I felt so many things: excited, vindicated, nervous, happy - I yanked off my sweat-drenched shirt and started running down the street. I’d never felt so full of energy in my life. I ran and ran, without stopping, without needing to stop. I had never ran so long and fast in my life, it was unbelievable. Somehow, I don’t know how really, I was able to run all the way home in less than a hour, when it took more than a hour for me to get home by bus. 

By the time I reached my neighborhood, it was very close to being sunset. I stopped running and started walking. It took a few minutes for my heartbeat to slow down - but as I rounded the corner to my house, my heart started beating wildly again. I didn’t understand why, but it was really strange. The closer I got to my house, the more I knew that something was up. My stomach bubbled and I felt this tingling sensation in all over my skin. Something important was about -

I saw it, but it took a few moments for it to register in my head. I saw it, but I didn’t understand the importance of it right away, but when I did understand, my heart nearly stopped beating. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. A part of me thought it was a dream, that somehow I had imagined the whole scenario with Wilson and the run home, that this would be the last thing I saw before I woke up. But I realized it was real, and that I was actually seeing it...Chris’ truck was parked in my driveway.

I saw Chris, after I saw the truck, sitting on my porch, his head hung down in contemplation. He must’ve felt something too, because he looked up just as I began to make my way up toward him. It was weird to see him again. Even though it had only been three days since I’d last seen him, those three days felt like three years. We just stared at each for a while, neither one of us not knowing what to say to each other. I couldn’t believe he was there and from the look on Chris’ face, it looked as though he were surprised to see me too. 

“Hey,” he said finally, breaking the silence between us which seemed to have no end. I was afraid to take a step toward him, even though it was my house and it was my porch he was sitting on. I wanted to do so many things, I wanted to say so many things: I wanted to scream at him for putting me through so much shit, I wanted to kiss him because I was so happy to see him, and I wanted to hold him, to let him know that I understood the pain that he was going through.

“Hey.” I said. 

Once again, we returned to silence. It was too difficult for me to come up with words that effectively expressed what I wanted to say to him. I could tell that he had the same problem. It was weird that I could have so much confidence in front of Wilson, but when it came to Chris, I was timid again. Finally, I decided if Chris wasn’t going to make a move, I was going to. I walked up toward him, right past him as if he wasn’t there, and unlocked the door, pushing it open. “Come in,” I said.

I could tell that Chris was reluctant to come into my house - and I was a bit reluctant to invite him inside. But like Eve said, at some point we were going to have to face each other. We needed some kind of resolution. Chris stood and walked toward me. My heart fluttered in my chest as he moved toward me. The excitement and anger I felt when he came toward me was equally matched. I turned on the lights in the living room. Chris closed the door behind him, locking it. 

“How have you been?” I asked. My back was facing him so that I couldn’t see his face. 

It took Chris a long time to answer the question. “Fine. I guess...” It was so weird to hear his voice again. I wanted to hear it for so long, but I wasn’t expecting for it to be tonight. “Shit’s been fucked up lately,” he finished.

I sat on the couch. Chris sat in the chair on the opposite side of me. He looked the same, still beautiful, but there was a sadness in his eyes that made him look different than he used to. I probably looked the same way. “What about you?” he asked.

“Pretty shitty,” I said. “Things haven’t been goin’ to well for me lately either.” We were talking to each other like we didn’t know who each was anymore. “Where did you go?” I asked suddenly.

Chris looked away from me. “I had to go...” he said.

“Where?”

“I just got in my truck that night after I came over here and just drove to wherever I could go to,” Chris said. “I had to get away from here for a while.”

“Away from me,” I said bitterly.

“Not just you, B. A lot of shit. `Sides, I didn’t really think you would care. That night when I came over here to talk to you, you didn’t even wanna say shit to me. You fuckin’ shut me out.”

“I was mad at you. I felt like I had a right to shut you out, because you did the same to me.”

“You don’t know the shit I was goin’ through at home, with my dad.”

“Chris, you never gave me a chance to know what was going on with you. The more I tried to really know you, the more you pushed me away. It’s not really fair for you to blame me for not being there for you. Because when I was there for you, you pissed right in my face.”

“What could you’ve done to fix shit, B?” Chris asked. “You can’t fix my problems.”

“I never said I could fix all your problems, Chris. That’s not my responsibility. But I made it clear to you that I was always there for you to try and find solutions to your problems.”

Chris looked at me; his eyes were glazed. “I didn’t have anywhere to go. Nobody wanted me. Not my dad, not Billy - that was my supposed to be my best friend and he closed the door in my face. And then you - there was nobody who could help me. I couldn’t stay here anymore.”

“Running away doesn’t fix anything, Chris. Just makes things harder. And not just for you, but for the people who care about you.”

“Nobody gives a fuck about me,” Chris said sullenly.

“If you really believed that, you wouldn’t be here,” I told him. “You know how I feel about you, Chris. I’ve told you and I’ve shown you. And I know that you care about me too, even if you don’t want to. You do. That’s why you’re here. And I’m glad you’re here.”

“I came here wantin’ to make shit better between you and me, B. I wanted things to be different. I wanted...” Chris shook his head and looked away from me again. “I don’t know why I thought I could just pop back here and hope everything was gonna go back to normal. No fuckin’ such thing as normal in my life.” He was doing his best not to cry. I was doing the same.

“I went to your house earlier today,” I told him. That caught Chris’ attention immediately.

“Why?” he asked, alarmed.

“To see if you were there. But you weren’t. You were gone. And then your dad came to the door. He told me you wouldn’t be back and I believed him for a while. I believed that you wasn’t coming back, and that it was because of me. I looked at him, and he looks like you, but at the same time he looks so different: so angry, so hurt, so lifeless. I hoped that wherever you were, you didn’t have that same look of hopelessness in your eyes, that look of failure and pain. I just wanted you to come back. And you did.”