Jack’s on Fire

Chapter 01

Jack pulled the handkerchief away from his nose and sniffled. The coppery smell still lingered, but the bleeding had finally stopped. He reached up and cautiously touched it. It didn’t feel broken, just sore. Like his jaw. And his hand. That part had surprised Jack the most. He knew it hurt to get hit. But Jack never imagined how much it would hurt to hit someone else, too. Then again, he’d never spent much time thinking about fighting. Until recently. Jack looked at his scraped and reddened knuckles while he flexed his sore hand and sent a silent thank you to his older brother Isaac for teaching him how to make a proper fist. Despite the pain, Jack’s hand seemed to work alright. He didn’t know what he’d do if he couldn’t hold a guitar pick.

Jack glanced at the guitar case propped against the next chair. He had no idea how the damn thing made it through the fight untouched, let alone unbroken. Jack wasn’t ready when those jerks had suddenly surrounded him in the hallway–seriously, they’d come out of nowhere. If he’d known the fight was coming, Jack would’ve stashed his baby somewhere safer before the fists started flying. Jack chuckled. As if he wouldn’t have just taken a different hallway if he’d had any warning. Or left school earlier. Or just found another way to avoid the fight altogether. Not that it would’ve mattered. If Jack had missed out on that particular beating, another would’ve found him eventually. Thanks to David.

Beautiful David, with his wavy blond hair, bright green eyes, and soft pink lips. Sweet David, who’d cooed that Jack’s brown eyes were dark and mysterious. Dumb-ass David, who once confided to Jack that he didn’t act very Mexican. What a jerk. And with such a big mouth, you’d think David would’ve been a better kisser. But the rainbow-daydream honeymoon period of their secret sort of romance soon wore off, and Jack realized that David wasn’t very sweet after all. But Jack still promised to keep everything a secret after calling things off. Not that he hadn’t already considered just getting it over with and officially coming out. But Jack wasn’t about to come out for a selfish, inconsiderate loser like David.

And then David had outed Jack anyway. All for a few stolen kisses in the bathroom, the instrument room, or David’s crappy car–not to mention that really unsatisfying makeout session in an empty movie theater. It hardly seemed worth the trouble he’d caused. David claimed he did it because he was heartbroken. Surprise, the stupid jerk actually had feelings in there somewhere. And David took his heartbreak out on Jack by telling everyone he was gay. Of course, it only came back to bite David in the ass. For some reason, the genius hadn’t realized that people would also know he was gay. But that was David’s battle to fight, not Jack’s.

Jack caught an unwanted glimpse of his reflection in the reception window. But he didn’t look too bad, considering. His thick, slightly wavy black hair was getting too long again. His nose looked a bit swollen, but it was already big enough that nobody but him would notice. The blossoming, purple-green bruise under one eye was another story. That would probably take some artful concealer application to hide. And the lining of his coat poked out from a rip at the shoulder where someone had grabbed him. But when Jack looked past his reflection into the night sky outside, he caught sight of the big, fluffy snowflakes slowly drifting through the inky black on their lazy journeys to the ground. He imagined what that would be like–to be a tiny white puff of ice, unique in all the universe but anonymous and invisible when nestled among all the others in a growing snow mound.

Jack crumpled the bloody hankie Ms. Meeney had given him and stuffed it into his pocket. Then he grabbed his phone to check the time. Paige had finally replied to his text with a sad face emoji and an invitation to talk if Jack needed to. But there was nothing more from his mom other than her instructions to wait there, she was on her way. Jack imagined Deborah was probably sitting in her car at a stoplight, fuming about having to call out from her shift to pick up her delinquent son yet again–why couldn’t Jack be more like his brother Isaac dear lord.

Then the door squealed, and Jack saw his mom trudge into the school office. Her icy expression mirrored the frigid air she’d brought in with her from outside. And it meant exactly what Jack had expected. Disappointment. Jack’s mom acknowledged him with a single, withering glance before Ms. Meeney intercepted her, ushering Deborah into her office to explain what happened to her disappointment of a son. Deborah took the news with her usual stoic detachment before thanking the Assistant Principal for all her trouble. Then she came for Jack, wordlessly standing before him, silently willing him to please move damn it so she could get outside before she lost her cool. Jack pulled out his earbuds to say something, pausing Anna Tracer’s scorching guitar solo from Bang Went The Moon. But his mom shook her head and pointed toward the door. Heaven forbid they should make a scene by displaying their broken family dynamic in public. Jack wordless stuffed his earbuds into his pocket next to his phone and shuffled toward the office door. Once outside, the frosty clouds of their frozen breath followed them like empty cartoon conversation bubbles in the nighttime air. Mother and son made it all the way to the car before she finally spoke.

“I can’t believe I had to come pick you up for fighting again. Honestly, Jonathan. Fighting? How many more times will it be before they just kick you out?”

Jack swallowed his exasperated sigh as he buckled his seat belt. Fighting again. As if Jack was out there picking fights with the other students, not getting attacked in the hall by homophobic bullies. “I don’t know.”

His mom put a little extra emphasis on her exasperated sigh. Was Deborah trying to out-drama her son? “Do you even think about how this makes me look? A mother who can’t control her child? It’s just not acceptable, Jonathan. And I had to call out of work for this. You know how Mr. Swenson feels about me missing my shifts. And for fighting? Again? I didn’t raise my sons to–”

“It wasn’t my fault.” Jack didn’t want to interrupt her. He knew how much Deborah hated that. But she kept calling him Jonathan. His mom only did that when she was about to launch into some long, overly dramatic monologue. And Jack was in no mood to hear how disappointed she was in him. For fighting. For being a musician. For being gay. “Jesse called me a f–”

“Don’t. Don’t you dare say that word in this car, young man.”

“Fine. But he still called me that word. And then he hit me. What was I supposed to do? Just stand there and take it?”

Jack watched his mom grip the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles turned snowy white. “I don’t know. You could’ve run away.” But there were four of them. They had me surrounded. And they would’ve chased me. It was either get beat up or fight back and maybe get beat up a little less. “What did you do to make them call you that in the first place?”

Jack finally lost his cool. “What did I do? What the hell does that even mean? That I deserved that beating? I didn’t do anything but exist, mother. Sometimes that’s enough for bigots like Jesse and his asshole friends.”

“Language, Jonathan. And don’t you dare raise your voice to me like that or I’ll–”

“You’ll what? Kick me out? Fine. Stop the car, and I’ll get out right now.”

But Jack’s mom didn’t stop the car. She took a deep breath–in through the nose, out through the mouth, just like her mindfulness podcast instructed–and kept driving in angry, white-knuckled silence all the way home. Deborah didn’t say another word, not even after parking the car in the driveway that Jack had spent a half-hour shoveling that morning. She just got out of the car and walked into the house. Jack quietly followed her inside, seething from his mother’s outrageous implication. He went right to his room, sat on his bed without taking off his coat, and fumed. Dark clouds of sadness, confusion, and anger orbited around him until he didn’t know whether he wanted to scream or cry.

Then Jack’s phone quietly buzzed with a Chattr notification. He ignored it. There was no way Jack wanted to know what all the kids at school were saying about the fight. But the jerks tagged him in their stupid posts anyway. There were probably even pics or videos. Jack thought he saw at least one person filming the whole thing. But he wasn’t sure. His memories of the fight were mostly a blur. Jack would get around to watching the videos eventually. It’s not like they’d go away. Other kids still shared that one GIF of him getting slammed into a wall of lockers. Assholes.

Then Jack’s phone dinged with a new message notification. He groaned and pulled it from his pocket to see another message from Paige wondering how he was. Jack knew he should reply and let her know he was okay. Except he wasn’t sure if he was. The silent treatment from Deborah had set Jack on edge. His mother only ever did that when his behavior pushed her beyond her usual disappointment into actual anger or–worse–resentment.

The last time Jack had gotten into a fight–when some of the football boys thought they caught him looking their way in the locker room–his mom had made him sit at their kitchen table with her and Father Sullivan to learn all about how the power of prayer could still save him. And how, if their prayers somehow weren’t enough, Father Sullivan knew about a special school for people with his condition. Jack snorted. His condition? As if being gay was a disease that could be cured. As if Jack’s own years of secret, whispered prayers to please fix him by making him straight weren’t enough to convince Jack that he was how he was. No amount of magical thinking would ever change that.

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