Day 20

The following week, Danny noticed people at school acting differently; he couldn't quite put his finger on it, but there was an odd feeling in the air. He heard a lot of whispers in the hallways and the lunchroom, even in class. He wondered if it was a display of grief for their dead teacher, but he thought that unlikely... if so many people were affected by Mr. Janacek's death, there would have been a greater showing at the funeral.

It was late on Wednesday when he realized people were whispering about him. Before, when he'd walk down a hallway, people would call out greetings to him; now, though some still called out greetings, many more would turn to their neighbor and whisper something. And when he spoke to people directly, some of them seemed slightly distant -- not his particular friends, but the wider circles of his acquaintances seemed to be pulling away from him.

It was on Thursday in gym that he had to admit there was something wrong: nobody met his eye in the locker room, nor during gym class; and when he entered the showers, there was a mass exodus and he was suddenly alone in the room. He tried to talk to Henry, Tommy, or Derrick about what was happening, but they actively avoided him and he wasn't able to get a word alone.

Danny was completely baffled by this behavior, unable to even guess why people were suddenly avoiding him. He got dressed in a thoughtful silence in the empty locker-room, trying and failing to puzzle it out. He got in line at the cafeteria and noticed that the people in front of him put distance between themselves and him; he went to sit down, choosing the jocks' table in hopes of getting some information from his athlete friends about what was going on.

As soon as he sat down, the other boys left the table. Stupefied, Danny watched them go, one at a time but one right after the other; instinctively, he reached out and grabbed the hindmost by the arm, pulling him back to the table and standing up to tower over the boy. He'd caught Keith Potter, a fringe athlete who wasn't terribly good at anything but had managed to get onto the varsity baseball team as an outfielder.

"What's going on?" Danny demanded, staring down into the boy's pimply frightened face.

"I, uh, oh," the boy stammered, terrified, his eyes darting around the room looking for rescue.

"Tell me why everyone is moving away from me," Danny demanded, a flush of anger building up in his chest and behind his eyes.

"Let me go," the boy pleaded, trying to pull his thin arm out of Danny's grip.

"TELL ME!" Danny screamed at the boy, shaking him like a rat. In his peripheral vision, he could see that the entire lunchroom had gone quiet and was watching him.

"You're a fag," Kieth whispered, bracing for the blow he knew would follow.

"A what?" Danny spluttered, surprised into letting the boy go, watching him scuttle away to the safety of a cluster of his baseball teammates. He looked around the room at all the faces looking at him, guarded frightened faces, some even accusatory, some merely intrigued by the unfolding drama.

Danny stood stock still for a moment, trying to process this: the whispers he'd heard were rumors flying; and for the first time in his life, the rumors were about him. People were talking about him behind his back. He wasn't so much concerned about having his sexuality discussed, but that people would gossip about him absolutely stunned him.

Without thinking about what he was doing, Danny strode across the room on a path created by retreating students, walked up behind the podium that stood at the far end of the room for school announcements, and turned the microphone and speakers on.

"Have you people lost your mother-fucking minds?" he bellowed into the microphone, causing a scream of feedback that silenced all conversations in the room, "Have you forgotten who I am?"

Three hundred and some-odd students rolled their eyes, settling in for the famous I'm a Vandervere, you can't treat me like this speech that was heard in some variation by every student who ever went to school with a Vandervere.

"I thought you guys were my friends," Danny surprised them by taking an entirely different tack, an emotional sob in his voice, "I thought you liked me for me, not for my name. I've never traded on my name, never forced people to be nice to me because of it. I've gone out of my way to be likeable and friendly to all of you. And this is how you repay me."

Danny wiped a tear off his face and watched as a furtive sense of guilt infected his audience, and people started turning to each other as if to assure themselves that they hadn't been wrong to try and ostracize him.

"If you wanted to know if I am gay, you could have just asked me," Danny made eye contact with various of his particular friends, who all had the grace to lower their eyes, "That you would gossip about me behind my back... well, it hurts. But since you're so interested, yes: I am gay. I am not ashamed of it. The only reason I never said anything about it is because I didn't think it mattered. I guess I was wrong. And I am not alone in this, there are at least a dozen other boys in this school who I know for a fact are either gay or bisexual. I won't tell you who they are because I have a sense of honor, it's for them to tell you. But if you think you can ostracize me for being gay, you have another think coming."

Danny watched as the suspicious glances started, everyone wondering who else was gay, and the boys with whom Danny had already had sex were studiously avoiding being seen.

"So, I'm gay," Danny went on, "And if you are my friend, that won't matter to you. But if you are not my friend, if you can't be friends with a fag, or if you have some kind of problem with gay people in general, I have to ask you this: do you really think you can afford to have Danny Vandervere for an enemy?"

With one last look at the assembled students, Danny turned off the microphone and stalked out of the lunchroom, intending to get in his car and leave for the day. But he was only a dozen yards down the corridor when he heard someone calling his name; turning around, he saw Jeremy running toward him.

"You're my hero," Jeremy gasped, throwing his arms around Danny's neck and kissing him passionately.

Danny leaned into the kiss, wrapping his arms around Jeremy's waist and hoisting him up onto his toes, playing for an audience that was buzzing with surprise and conjecture, but not anger or fear. They were still visible to the lunchroom, and all eyes were focused on their little romantic drama.
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