Read Online 7 Days at the Hot Corner by Terry Trueman - Free Book Online

you are! I don’t even know what I could do to help. I’m really messed up; I don’t get any of this!” All of a sudden I feel like I might start punching walls and breaking things.
    Dad seems to see this and he backs off. “It’s been a tough thing for both of you, Scott. I know that, but there’s nothing to get.” His voice is softer and real understanding. “Travis is gay, but he’s still your friend.”
    I say, “I know that, but …” I can’t even find the words for what I feel.
    Dad asks, “What else is going on?”
    I tell him about the fight at school, how scared I was that it was Travis getting beaten up; I tell him about what Matt said about “the gay guy”; and I explain a little about the arguments Travis and I are having and how bad that feels. I almost tell him about the batting cage and blood and all that, but I hold back—if the news there is bad, there’ll be time later for us to discuss it.
    I say, “I’m not like you, Dad. I just can’t be calm about this.”
    He smiles and says, “You’re a good person, son, a great person. And this is all part of growing up, as clichéd and simplistic as that sounds—it really is.” Then he adds, his voice gentle, “But a lot of this stuff really has nothing to do with Travis being gay—you know that, right?”
    I say, “I don’t know anything right now, except that I feel really screwed up.”
    Dad and I have always been close, always been honest with each other—and I know that he’d never do what Travis’s parents are doing, never , no matter what I did!
    Dad puts his hand up to his chin and strokes his beard gently. I see the wrinkles around his eyes; I notice how old his hands look and the white hairs in his beard and at his temples. Dad’s always seemed big and strong to me; he still does, even though I’m now taller than him.
    He takes a slow, deep breath, and then says, “Trav doesn’t have anyplace else to go right now.” His tone is soft and reasonable. “He needs us to be his friends, Scott.”
    I say, “Yeah, I know that. I don’t even really want him to leave, but I don’t know how to handle this. It’s like he’s a different person now. I know he isn’t, but that’s how it feels.”
    I look away from Dad and try to focus on something else. On the radio the Mariners are playing, but they’re no help, trailing 11 to 2 in the seventh. It feels like everything sucks right now.
    Dad says, “Maybe you should spend the next couple of days out at your mom’s, give both you and Trav a little breathing room.”
    I can tell that Dad isn’t saying this like a threat, or because he is mad at me. He just wants me to know that if I want to go to my mom’s house to stay tonight, on a day that I usually spend with him, it won’t hurt his feelings. Dad has to have noticed the tension here too, both Travis and me tiptoeing around each other, avoiding eating dinner together, doing everything we can to keep our distance.
    I think about Dad’s suggestion to go to Mom’s place, realizing that I haven’t even spoken to her since all this stuff started. “Yeah,” I say, “that’d be good.”
    Dad says, “I want a hug.”
    It’s ridiculous, you know, a guy still liking a hug from his dad at my age—but ridiculous or not, it feels good.
    I feel better, not all the way better, but better. I finish a Raspberry Twister, then go upstairs and take a quick shower. I come back downstairs, ready to head to Mom’s place.
    The M’s have lost, but somehow I don’t care. After saying good-bye to Dad, I take off.
    There’s a Safeway right around the corner from my house, and I decide to run in and grab a snack for the drive out to Mom’s. It’s not that far, but I kind of need a junk food rush.
    I