Jumbo by Todd Young Page B

Mitch. Tell people you’re gay. Then I can’t be part of that. I can’t be your friend. You understand that?”
    Mitchell stopped what he was doing and stood in silence. He took a couple of deep breaths and tried to control himself. He felt like turning on Luke, like turning on him and pushing him to the floor, like spitting on him. What a fuckhead. Hell, they had been friends all their lives, and then this, telling him that their friendship was over if he ....
    He pushed the books he needed into his pack and closed the door, unable even to turn and face Luke.
    “See you at lunch?” Luke said.
    “I’d say so,” Mitchell muttered. And then he turned to watch Luke walking away. He saw Luke raise his hand in a confident greeting to Ben, and then walk on as though he didn’t have a care in the world, bouncing on his toes and wearing his tight jeans today. Mitchell watched until he had turned the corner and was gone.
    The following few days passed as smoothly as Mitchell could have hoped. There was a definite cooling off in his relations with Luke. The two of them barely spoke, but apart from that it was school as usual, training as usual. The only thing that really seemed to have changed was Tadd. He was back to his normal self, not being overly nice, not talking much to Mitchell, and whoever had been posting the letters into Mitchell’s locker had stopped.
    Mitchell figured it couldn’t have been Tadd. Tadd had had a string of girlfriends for years, and now, when they were in the showers, Tadd wasn’t looking at Mitchell at all; he barely even spoke to him.
    No. It couldn’t have been Tadd. Most likely it was Robby Michaels, or Mason, trying to make trouble for him and getting the result they wanted. Mitchell resolved to ignore the notes if he got any more, and he thought he should shred the ones he had in his pack, though he didn’t actually do this.

25
    It wasn’t until ten on Saturday that Mitchell remembered Tadd would be coming to study in the afternoon. And as he remembered this, he realized that Jake Walker would be moving in today. Mitchell had spoken to his father about Jake, had said it was okay for him to move in, though he hadn’t said anything to his father about not wanting to see the two of them touching each other. He didn’t know how to say this. The main thing that surprised him was that Pete was okay with it. Mitchell had often thought that Pete must be gay, though since this thing with their parents he had started to have his doubts. Pete had voiced some pretty strong opinions to his father, though still .... Hell, Mitchell should speak to Pete. That would be better than speaking with his dad, and if he told Pete he was gay, then it wasn’t like Pete would out him to anyone. Pete wouldn’t do that.
    Mitchell spent the rest of the morning helping Jake Walker move his stuff in. Jake had given up his apartment and had quite a bit of furniture that had to be stored in the garage. Now that his mom’s car had gone, there was plenty of room, though Pete was grumbling about wanting to get a car of his own.
    Mitchell’s father told Pete that he ought to be in college, that this gap year he was taking was a waste of time. And Mitchell knew Pete wasn’t doing anything, simply hanging around with his friends, and probably (though Mitchell still wasn’t sure) doing drugs. His father had said to Pete more than once that he was a drain on the household income, though he hadn’t said anything like that since the divorce had first been mentioned.
    By one-thirty, Jake Walker was in Mitchell’s parents’ bedroom, hanging up his clothes in his mother’s half of the robe. Mitchell felt a sick, sinking feeling. He didn’t really know this guy, and now, here he was, taking the place of Mitchell’s mother. If it got to two-fifteen and Jake Walker was still in his parents’ bedroom, Mitchell was going to have to go in there and ask him to go downstairs, tell him he had a buddy coming over and he didn’t