Gay Love Story

Chapter 3

Billy Carmedy

He was back.

I remembered the official story that his parents told the school; that he had gone to his uncle's ranch to help out after his uncle had a heart attack.

I had heard the rumors that drifted up and down the hallways: he was in drug rehab; he had run away to California to join a rock band; he had gotten some girl at another school pregnant and had to marry her. They were all so lame.

No one knew for sure why Aaron Sorensen had been gone all these weeks, but when he came back he wasn't the same person. Gone was the happy laughing boy I had watched from under my eyelashes. He dropped off the baseball team, out of scouts and the only extracurricular thing he did seemed to be church, church and more church. It was like he'd been abducted by aliens, mind probed, lobotomized, and sent back. There just wasn't much of Aaron left.

I'd always wanted to know Aaron again, but just never worked up the nerve to do much more than say 'Hey' in the halls. We'd worked on a few committees together, but our friends weren't friends, so we never bummed around together. He and I were nothing alike anyway. He was very religious, all caught up in "The Church". My parents hadn't been raised in a strict church environment and, though they went on Christmas and Easter, they put no pressure on me or my little brother. I believe in God and I respect other people's right to their faith, but I've got better things to do with my time than worry about them. I need to worry about myself.

So, when I just kept seeing that lost look in Aaron's eyes when he thought no one was looking, I found myself worrying about him and wondered why. I wondered what had happened in those weeks to cause those brown eyes to dim and Aaron to close down around himself.

We had that one class together and I sat in the back, so I watched him. He had come back to school that Monday with all his hair chopped off and wearing plain jeans and shirts. He'd always had the latest wicked clothes and long curly brown hair. Before, he had always sat slouched in his desk like the rest of us, doodling and yawning.

Now, he sat up straight and glanced at the clock every few minutes as if willing the time to go by faster. I wondered what he was waiting for. Something was eating at him, and I sure hoped he could handle whatever it was.

I heard that he had dumped Sissy Conklin and she had been royally pissed. It was like nothing could get to him now. He was totally a different person.

"Mr. Carmedy, if I could have your attention..........

The teacher's voice jerked me back into Psych class and I looked up to the front of the room.

"Perhaps you could explain why a person would hold onto a value or a belief when everyone around him says it's false?"

"Ummm," I muttered, trying to buy time, "I think you have to be true to what you know in your heart is right."

"But," the teacher prodded, "What if your belief hurts you, makes you different, an outcast?"

"Are we talking religious or personal here?" I asked, feeling this question came a little too close to home for comfort.

"Personal."

For some reason, in my frantic casting around for an answer that would satisfy Mr. Cantor, I looked at Aaron. He was staring directly into my eyes as if waiting for my answer.

"I think, if you really know something is right, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. You have to be true to yourself. You may be alone in what you believe, but to do anything else is wrong."

Class went on and I slid down in my desk thinking about what I'd said. I didn't really know if I could do that, I mean, stand by my beliefs and be different. I hoped I could. One day soon, I'd have to test my words.