Chapter Nineteen -- You're Lame And You Know It
Jonathan pressed his fingers against his temples and groaned. How had Maddox found out about that incident? As much as he had been upset by Rusty taking such liberties with him, the fact that Maddox had gotten into a fight with his friend seemed an exaggerated reaction. Rusty must have told him; there was no other explanation.
And what did Dex want anyway? If Jonathan thought about it, the football player was annoyingly right. It didn't serve anyone for him to remain cooped up in his room, ignoring Maddox's messages, and he should explain his part of the story.
He would do it later, though. Dex had given him plenty of things to think about. What about him made people believe that it was all right for them to treat him like he was nothing but a spineless shmuck? Back in the day, Drew had obviously thought that, as he had thrown all those accusations at him so heedlessly, as if there had never been anything between them. Sure, Drew would have had plenty to lose if he had admitted his active role, and especially the illegal things, but throwing Jonathan under the bus so he could come out of it all squeaky clean... that had come easy to him, so, so easy.
Which obviously meant that Dex Solomon wasn't so wrong in his evaluation of one Jonathan Hamilton. Something in the way he behaved, how he was, allowed others to ignore him and his feelings. Even Maddox, as great a person as he was, considered it acceptable to tell his friends about everything happening between them. Jonathan hadn't said anything to that extent or level of detail to Ray, and the difference hurt. Where did the private things start and where did they end?
Maybe Maddox had done it without one ounce of ill intent, but it had been enough for Rusty to think Jonathan was nothing but some joke.
Sure, Dex was right. Maddox and Rusty shouldn't fight over that incident, especially since there was nothing serious going on, Jonathan thought as his mood turned sourer and sourer. It was best for him to distance himself from those boys as fast as he could. The last thing he needed was another scandal.
"Are you all right, JJ?"
Ray's question startled him. Jonathan hadn't even realized that he had remained in the hallway, leaning against the wall and ruminating over what to do next.
"I'm..." he wanted to say 'fine', but he couldn't ignore the portion of truth that Dex had just served him in raw form. It made him understand that there was something wrong in how he acted, and he needed to stop right away. "I'm not fine," he breathed out.
Ray came by his side and leaned against the wall, too. "Did Dex give you a hard time? What for? I'm starting to hate him right now if that's what he did."
Jonathan shook his head. "I spent last night with Maddox. Part of it."
"Was it good?" Ray asked, a bit cautiously.
"Yes." He nodded eagerly. "But it was only hooking up," he added quickly. "The thing is, and please, please, Ray, don't tell anyone about this, not even Hanna, I stumbled upon Rusty on my way out, and he did something stupid, and well, I..." he trailed off, not knowing how to explain it because it suddenly seemed like such a storm in a glass of water.
Ray took his hand. "Let me make you some tea, and you can tell me everything."
It was a bit laughable that Ray offered such a thing, but Jonathan didn't mind having someone caring for him. If there was anything he had missed during this time, after his family had believed every word coming out of Drew's mouth like it was freaking gospel, it had to be exactly that -- another soul minding if he didn't feel well or had a problem.
***
"Your love life is so complicated, but also a little funny," Ray concluded after Jonathan confessed about the way he had come together with Maddox, omitting, of course, the racy parts, and about the thing with Rusty that seemed to have blown out of proportion literally overnight.
"Well, I'm glad I'm making you laugh," Jonathan said and smiled, too. The moment he had started talking, it felt like everything had been brought into the light of day and no longer seemed so important.
"Maddox is crushing on you so badly," Ray said and snickered. "Hanna told me he and Rusty have always been very close, they're like the best bromance ever in the history of Sunny Hill. One that will never be anything more than that," he added hurriedly and eyed Jonathan with a bit of anxiety.
Jonathan had to chuckle. He surely didn't worry about Maddox's bromance with Rusty being anything resembling a problem. On the contrary, he wanted that bromance to live long and prosper. "Well, it looks like I'm about to become some kind of bromance wrecker then. Gawd, I hope Xpress doesn't get hold of this. I'll finally be ostracized for life."
Ray laughed. "Come on, JJ, they can't find out. I mean, I suppose that Maddox's friends will keep their mouths shut, just like me. And no one else knows."
"But doesn't it frighten you how many things those people writing Xpress appear to know?" Jonathan asked. "That little online publication, I don't know, there's something deeply wrong with it."
Ray dumped a fistful of dried herbs into the boiling pot. Jonathan bit his tongue not to say anything. When your roomie makes you tea, you drink it if it kills you.
"They're just speculating most of the time. And I don't think anyone gets hurt," Ray commented.
"Until they do," Jonathan murmured, lost in thought for a moment.
Ray came to the table with two steaming mugs and placed one proudly in front of Jonathan. "Does your dislike of silly tabloids have anything to do with that thing from your past you never talk about?"
Jonathan wrapped his hands around the mug. "In a way. Not that I appeared in some tabloid or anything. Thank God, nothing of the kind." He hesitated. He had unloaded so much already, maybe he could do with a little more.
"What kind did happen, though?" Ray asked. "I mean, forget it, I know you don't want to talk about it."
Jonathan exhaled. "You're right, I don't. But you're my bestie and just made tea for me." He raised the mug in a salute. "Thing is, Ray, I left home and right now I'm no longer on speaking terms with my family."
"Get out of here!" Ray smacked the back of his hand against Jonathan's shoulder. "You ran away from home? And did you live on the road? Like a gypsy?"
"I'm afraid nothing as adventurous as that," Jonathan replied. "The thing is... I mean, my family, they gave up on me when I needed them the most, and... I'm not entirely sure I'll ever be able to forgive them." He sighed at the end of that sentence, the strength drained out of him.
"Because you're gay?" Ray asked slowly, and his big kind eyes filled with compassion.
Jonathan chuckled in the most self-deprecating manner. "Trust me, that was the smallest part of it. Compared to the rest, it must have felt to them like a slight disappointment." He took a moment to muster the courage to continue. "I'll give you an abridged version since I don't think I'm yet capable of revisiting everything in detail."
Ray place a hand on his arm in a compassionate gesture. "Sure. Say only what you're comfortable with saying."
Jonathan took one deep breath. "There was this guy Drew I was fooling around with. Well, he was fooling around. I was very much serious about him. And he was, in retrospect, the kind of person you're not supposed to get involved with if you have half a brain."
"A bad boy," Ray concluded.
Jonathan nodded. "Yes, a bad boy. Sure, that had its appeal. We snuck around, fooled around, played a little too close to the fire. Especially him. The first time I saw him high as a kite, I had no idea what to say. And he told me not to preach, so I didn't."
He stopped again.
"Did he press you into doing the same thing?" Ray asked.
"A few times. But he wasn't the kind to share, and at least I didn't do drugs because of him. The thing is, we were bound to get caught, and we did." Jonathan closed his eyes, revisiting that memory only briefly. "In the most embarrassing manner possible, especially for me. And he pushed it all on me, blaming me for everything."
"For the drugs?"
Jonathan could feel the same tunnel vision narrowing his field of view as it had then. "Not only." He didn't continue. "The school didn't want such a scandal on their hands, but they had one, and measures had to be taken. So, parents were called, students were scolded... and, in the end, everything went hush-hush without getting the police involved. The school surely didn't want that kind of thing."
"And your parents?" Ray asked quietly.
"Oh," Jonathan said, "they stood there, looking at me like they didn't know me. Like I wasn't their son. They believed every single word they were told by those strangers and didn't listen to me at all. For weeks, I lived like a ghost in my own house. Or should I say, their house? I was invisible, no matter how hard I tried to mend things with them. You see, Ray? I committed the unthinkable and created a situation for them that would ruin their image in the world. Not something they wanted to live with, obviously."
A small sniffle took him by surprise. Jonathan's eyes softened as he took in Ray who was rubbing his nose and blinking hard. He offered a comforting hand and Ray took it. "I can't imagine my mom and dad not talking to me," his roommate said. "I'd probably become dead with grief in a day or so."
Jonathan laughed and pulled Ray into a hug, as much as the table and tea mugs between them allowed. "See? There's one reason I don't talk about these things. They make people cry," he joked.
Ray sniffled again but then snickered. However, his face was serious when they broke their hug. "It wasn't your fault, JJ. Sometimes bad things happen to good people."
Jonathan forced a small smile. "I have my own self to blame for my part in everything. I was blind to who Drew really was, preferring not to see that he was a bad person because I was stupidly in love with him."
"Hence the thing with not dating bad boys?" Ray asked.
"I suppose so, yes."
"Well, Maddox is not a bad boy, so you have nothing to worry about," his roommate said promptly.
"You think? But we only hooked up," Jonathan insisted, not ready to give up yet on the flimsy armor he had built for himself. He knew Maddox wasn't a bad boy, but that wasn't the issue, not by a long shot.
"I mean, I know that Xpress reports a lot of crap to make him into a sexy villain because Sunny Hill apparently doesn't have one, but it all sounds like make-believe to me."
"Well, it looks like I don't have to worry anymore about your believing that tabloid and the incredible things written in there. Let's drink to that," Jonathan said and raised his mug.
He took a small sip and his entire face froze in an effort not to turn into a gargoyle grimace, but Ray didn't hesitate to take a mouthful.
The next moment, he jumped to his feet and rushed to the sink. "Bleargh! What the hell? JJ, don't drink it," Ray warned after heaving for a few moments. "I'm sure you'll die if you do."
