Throwing Stones Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  author's note

  About The Author

  A Reading group Guide

  Other Works by robin Reardon

  THROWING STONES

  Published by Robin Reardon at Smashwords

  Copyright © 2015 by Robin Reardon

  Cover and formatting by: Sweet 'N Spicy Designs

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  The events and characters of this book are entirely fictional. Any similarity to events or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Throwing Stones

  Robin Reardon

  Praise for Educating Simon

  "I love Simon Fitzroy-Hunt! He's a perfectly-realized character — extreme, but never exaggerated; flawed, but always relatable. An excellent book."

  —Brent Hartinger, author of Geography Club and The Elephant of Surprise

  Praise for The Evolution of Ethan Poe (2012 ALA Rainbow List; winner of five categories in 2011 Rainbow Awards)

  "Mesmerizing, drawing readers into Ethan from page one, endowing him and all the characters with great depth, and building a slow-burning tension." — Publishers Weekly

  For Havah, who opened my mind to new ways of thinking and for whom, whatever the question, the answer is love

  The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—

  and you are the easiest person to fool.

  – Richard Feynman (1918-1988)

  Nobel Prize, Physics,1965

  The hardest thing of all is to find a black cat in a dark room,

  especially if there is no cat.

  — Confucius

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  author's note

  About The Author

  A Reading group Guide

  Other Works by robin Reardon

  Chapter One

  So we were pulling up to that traffic light where the road from Brad's house comes to a T with the miracle mile. Windows were down to let in the warm, early October air. Brad was driving my truck—a reward for the padded wheel cover he'd bought for it—and the traffic light turned red before we got to it. Brad's fingers were drumming on the steering wheel with a song on the radio. I forget which one.

  And as I looked to my left I saw a familiar red truck, perched high on over-sized tires and about to tear through the intersection in front of us, with Lou Dwyer behind the wheel. His partner-in-crime, Chuck Armstedt, had his arm hanging out of the window, pounding on the outside of the passenger door. He looked over, saw us, and shouted.

  "Faggots!"

  I couldn't be real sure whether there was an "s" on that or not.

  I looked at Brad. His face was hard, and he was watching the truck fly past. Then he looked at the light, then at the sign that said "No Turn On Red," then at the traffic, and before I could say anything he was through the red light and off after the red monster.

  "Brad, hey guy, not wise. Really not wise."

  Brad didn't say anything right away, just pushed forward. Then, "Honestly, Jesse, aren't you fucking sick and tired of those assholes? Wouldn't it be great to make them answer for something once in a while?"

  "Just not sure now is the best while. And this is my truck you just ran the red light with."

  Brad ignored me, and I know him well enough to know there's not much I could do to get him off his high horse. It's one thing for him to challenge these guys; he's big, wide receiver on the school football team. I'm not puny, or timid, but I'm not Brad's size, either. And Lou and Chuck are kind of used to being aggressive bullies. That's how Brad and I got to be friends, way back in grade school; he stood with me against this same friggin' pair of goons. But we're not eleven any more.

  The road is four lanes, two in each direction, and Brad passed and changed lanes and passed again until he was right behind the red monster. Ahead of us, I saw Chuck raise his hand and flip us off. Brad didn't flinch, and after another quarter mile or so, Lou pulled into a large parking lot where a car dealership had closed up shop a few months ago. He made a sharp turn to face the road and waited, engine idling. Brad stopped about fifteen feet away, facing the other truck, and he was out before I could undo my seat belt.

  Lou and Chuck didn't get out of their truck. The windows were up, now. Brad marched over to the driver's door and reached for the handle, but the door was locked. He threw the side of his fist against the door so hard I expected there to be a dent, but there wasn't. Inside the truck, the two jerks were laughing like hyenas.

  Brad took a step back as I came up beside him. "Assholes!" Brad shouted. "Shitheads! Get out, or stay there like the cowards you are!"

  Lou and Chuck just kept laughing, almost like Brad was talking in gibberish. Brad got up onto the running board and started to bang on the window with an elbow. Suddenly the truck lurched forward and swerved around mine. Brad jumped off, picked up a stone, and heaved it. It bounced off the rear bumper as the truck tore out of the parking lot and back onto the road.

  I raced back to my truck and climbed behind the wheel. I didn't want to risk Brad going after them again; it wasn't worth it. Brad's body thudded against the closed door beside me, and he pounded once on it before walking around to the passenger side. He threw the door open and climbed in, still furious. His fist hit the dashboard.

  "Hey, Brad, knock it off. Just because you can't pound on them doesn't mean you can damage my truck."

  His back hit the seat hard. "Fuck!"

  "Ditto."

  So goes much of my life, these days. It's been like this, more or less, ever since I decided to stop hiding, stop lying, and come out. It was Brad I told first.

  We were rockhounding—hunting for crystals and minerals—in the Ouachita National Forest, the southeast corner of Oklahoma, in late August. Just over a month ago now. This was the first time I'd gone with Brad, the first time I'd done it at all. It's something Brad used to do with his father before Mr. Everett was in that accident in the mines. Mining's big around here, and it seems like somebody gets hurt badly every year. Last year it was Brad's father. He can still drive, still gets around okay, but his left leg doesn't work very well. He's on disability, and he uses a cane to walk.

  Anyway, the day I came out to him, we were walking along through the woods, Brad in the lead and headed for this spot he knows about, when he said, "You seem real quiet today."

  "I guess." I'd spent the better part of the ride from town, beside him as he drove his mom's car, thinking that today might be the day I'd tell him. It had been weighing on me more and more, especially since he'd started going out with Staci Thompson, and he kept trying to get me to double with them. Truth be told, every time I thought about it, I felt guilty. As
hamed. And I needed to know how much of that shame was coming from lying to my best friend and how much was coming from inside me because of what I was lying about.

  "You're not pissed at me or anything, are you?" I could tell he tried to make it sound like that was almost funny, but I heard the doubt underneath.

  I stopped walking, and he turned to face me. Trying hard to keep my knees from shaking, and mostly failing, I said, "Can we talk for a minute?"

  He let his pack fall from his shoulder onto the ground. "S'up?"

  I let the backpack he'd given me, the one his dad used to use, slide to my feet. "If there were something about you that was really important, and I didn't know what it was, and it was on your mind a lot and you didn't tell me, I'd probably be pissed when I found out you’d been keeping quiet about it." I watched his face for any kind of clue, but I didn't get one.

  "Dude, spit it out. What's on your mind?"

  "I'm gay."

  Nothing happened for maybe twenty seconds. Then Brad lowered himself slowly until he was sitting on a rock just off the trail. Head bent forward, he ran a hand through his hair. There were so many things I wanted to say. Like, We're still friends, right? Or, You don't hate me, do you? Or, I've wanted to tell you for so long. But mostly, What now? All I could do was wait.

  Finally he looked at me. "How long have you known?"

  "A while. Couple of years, anyway."

  "Jesus, Jesse! Since we were fourteen? How could you not tell me?"

  "It's not something that just spills out, you know? It's not like, 'I'm thinking of becoming a doctor,' or 'I really do like math after all.'"

  "Yeah, but—Jesus! I'm your best friend, man!"

  My breath caught. Would this really be the worst of it? That he was pissed I didn't tell him sooner? "Yes. You are." That was the best thing. He'd said it in the present tense.

  But he was still staring at me. "See, now, I'm feeling like I need to get to know you all over again."

  I shook my head. "I'm still the same. Maybe—maybe it's like now you need to see me in a pickup truck, where before you might have pictured me in an SUV."

  He leaned his elbows on his legs and looked off to the side at nothing. "Jeez." Then he looked at me again. "So this explains why you haven't asked a girl out in, like, six months."

  "Actually, I've never asked a girl out."

  "Then—"

  "They asked me out."

  After the stunned look left his face, he started laughing. "Oh, man! Wish I had known that. What a pisser." His grin faded slowly, and then he said, "So d'you still like the same things? Or have you hidden a whole bunch of stuff from me?"

  "No, man! I still like the same things. I still wanna do this today. And," this is one thing I needed to be really sure he understood, "I still feel the same way about you I always have. I've never wanted—you know—that kind of relationship with you. I already have the relationship with you that I want. Nothing's changed between us as far as I’m concerned."

  He sat there a bit longer, looking at me, and then he stood, came over to me, and hugged me. I hugged him back, so hard, and then it was over.

  He picked up his pack. "You wanna do this? Then let's do it." He marched off, and I followed, a grin on my face I couldn't have rubbed off if I'd tried. I would have followed him all day if that's what he'd wanted.

  Probably I should go into how I came out to my folks. And what made me think it was time. It was after I told Brad, the weekend after my birthday, which had been September ten. And it had a lot to do with what happened on my birthday.

  My present from my family had been the best one ever, thanks mostly to by brother Stu. My dad and I always had an odd relationship. It hadn't been a bad one, I don't mean that, but it's kind of like we didn't ever talk about anything important. His relationship with Stu was totally different.

  Stu's three years older than me, but he was still living at home to save money while he took a few courses in something called automotive service technology at a vocational school in McAlester. He was also working at Dad's garage, Bryce Motors, for some number of hours each week. Someday he’ll partner with Dad in the business, probably inherit it eventually, and Dad didn't want him "knowin’ just what you read in books."

  Sometimes I've wondered if Dad and Stu talk when they're working together, repairing cars and trucks. I picture them there, each working on a different vehicle, making the occasional comment, followed by silence, followed by another comment, and so on. Some of the comments would be about the work, some of them would be about life in general, and they wouldn't be having even that much conversation if they weren't both working in the same place on the same kind of thing. Me, I'm not interested in the inner workings of vehicles. So it's like there's no platform for my dad and me even to begin to talk. We don't care about the same things. We don't have anything much in common.

  Stu and I have always been different enough from each other that we've managed never to step on each other's toes. Growing up, I'd never leeched onto him and made a pest of myself, and he'd never felt the need to keep me in check by lording anything over me. We'd always had separate rooms. The shared bathroom had brought up a few conflicts, but nothing serious. I hadn't been in his shadow at school, and I'd kept such a low profile there generally that nothing I did had caused him any serious embarrassment. No one had ever referred to us as the Bryce brothers, or anything like that. And by the time my seventeenth birthday rolled around, we'd established a kind of friendly respect. Or that's how I’d thought of it before my truck had appeared on the scene.

  My folks had promised me I could have my own car once I'd passed the license requirements, and that had happened at the end of July. I never expected to be given a set of wheels, just like that, but that's what happened.

  We celebrated my birthday the Sunday before the tenth. Instead of waiting until after dinner to give it to me, as soon as our after-church lunch was over, Stu handed me a wrapped box while we were all still sitting at the kitchen table.

  Stu was grinning. "This is all you'll get this year, bro. From everyone. Including Patty."

  Everyone... including Patty Arnold, the girl Stu will probably marry. I almost replied that it had better be a great present, in that case, but I just unwrapped it. Inside the box was a remote key entry to something made by Dodge.

  OMG. The best present ever. Positively the best. No doubt. I was on my feet without knowing I had even stood up. "But—what is it?"

  Grinning from ear to ear, Stu pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to me. There was some printing, but my eyes focused only on the image of a silver pickup truck. Gradually I began to take in what Stu was telling me.

  "It's a two thousand eight Dodge Ram 1500. Six-cylinder, three-point seven liter engine. Standard transmission with four-wheel drive. Silver, with gray interior. Eighty-two thousand miles."

  I was still staring at the paper when I heard Dad say, "Stu worked on it himself, Jesse. It's been his project for the past six weeks. He even changed the timing belt himself."

  I glanced from Dad's face to Stu's. It had been Stu who’d taught me to drive a stick shift; Mom can’t, and Dad seemed too nervous with me at the wheel, so Stu had stepped into the breach. And now… "You did that for me?"

  He looked torn between Aw, shucks and I did good, huh?

  Grinning, Mom said, "Stu worked so hard on that truck that Patty started to complain that she had to go to the garage to remind herself what your brother looked like!"

  I dropped the box—key securely in one hand—and wrapped my arms around Stu, then Dad, then Mom. Left to my own devices, I wouldn't have gone for a pickup, especially this one with no back seat. But both Dad and Stu drive pickups, so I knew that this was the vehicle they wanted me to want, and—hell, it was mine! My eyes watered, and I didn't really want them to see that. "Where is it?"

  Dad said, "At the garage, waiting for you. We can all go over, and you and Stu can drive it home. He'll show you all the bells and whistl
es."

  Instead of driving Stu home, I drove us out to Wister Lake, right out onto Quarry Isle. I parked as far out toward the point as I could, getting a huge rush out of the sound it made as I hit the remote lock, which of course I didn't need to do here, but what the hell? Stu and I sat on the rocks overlooking the lake and stared out over the water.

  I broke the silence. "Thanks, man. Really. This is something special."

  "Sure thing."

  The time Stu had spent on it, and however much money he'd been able to put toward it—this spoke to something deep. Sitting there, silent, just enjoying the moment together, this picture of who we were brought up a conflict I'd been feeling more and more over the past few months. I'd always seen this secret I carry—being gay—as something Stu would never have to deal with, or at least not as long as I lived at home. I felt sure it would be something he'd never want to know, never want to hear. And yet now I felt a strong pull to tell him about me. To let him know this really, really important thing about me. Suddenly I wanted him to know who I was beyond what he can see in day-to-day encounters. It's one thing to share a bathroom with a guy. It's another thing to know that you're different on this oh, so basic level.

  Sitting there, I tried imagine what words to use. And then it hit me how much it would hurt him to know it.

  After my birthday, after getting the truck and feeling so great about that, it had begun to weigh really heavily on me that I was lying all the time. I was hiding from everyone but Brad. It felt so wrong, more wrong than it had ever felt before. And it began to seem as though the way I was hurting the people I loved was the opposite of what I'd worried about at the lake. I was trying to protect people by lying to them. Now it was the lying that was hurting everyone. Including me.

  I'm not sure why I had decided to tell Brad first. Maybe it was that he seemed like a good test case. It would have hurt like hell to lose his friendship, but losing my whole family? That would have been worse.