The Troll Whisperer (13 page)

Chad looked desperately around the table,
aware that he’d stepped on another land mine but was not quite sure
what it was. Oscar almost felt sorry for the guy. “So your sister
tells me you work in wastewater management?” Chad said, trying
again.

“I work in sewage,” Oscar said. “No need to
pretty it up.”

“Oh.” Those teeth were nowhere in sight now.
Oscar smirked.

“Seems like you and me are in the same line
of business,” Oscar continued. “We both deal with other people’s
shit.”

Chad laughed way too loud at that. “Ha! Yes,
you could say that!”

Alex shot Oscar a warning glare. She knew him
too well to think he was trying to be friendly. And she was
right.

“The only difference is that my job is
honest,” Oscar finished. “Do you and Alex really want to lie for a
living? Seems kind of wrong to me.”

And the teeth disappeared again! Oscar was
getting good at this.

Alex’s hand gripped her fork so tightly that
Oscar thought the sheer force of her rage would bend it. Chad put a
hand on her arm. “Babe, it’s all right,” he murmured.

“Actually, it’s not,” she said.

Oscar pushed his chair out and stood up.
“Yeah, well, I think I’m gonna get going. Peace out, Chad.”

Alex shot to her feet. “We are having a nice
family dinner for my fiancé, so sit your ass back down!”

“Nah.”

“Please, Oscar,” his mother begged. “Why
don’t you sit down? You love my enchiladas!”

“I’ll talk to you later, Mom,” he
mumbled.

His dad got to his feet. “Look how you upset
your mother!” he said, his voice rising. “And your sister, and her
fiancé. I won’t have this disrespect in my house!”

“Yeah, I know,” Oscar fumed back. “Which is
why I’m leaving!”

Oscar headed toward the door. He glanced at
his other sisters. Sophia seemed to have mentally removed herself
from whatever was going on. Nikki and Stephanie both looked
devastated. “Hey, I’ll see you guy’s later, okay?” he reassured
them. “Maybe we can go to a movie.”

They both nodded. With that, Oscar left. On
his way out, his eye happened to catch a picture of him and his
dad, playing soccer. Oscar must have been about nine. He was
smiling so big that it took up his whole face. His dad was smiling
too, his gaze fixed on his
mijo
— his beloved son. His
favorite kid.

Oscar grabbed the picture and took it out of
the door with him, dumping it in the garbage on his way out. Fuck
Chad— fuck him for dredging up shit from the past that Oscar did
not want to think about. Fuck his parents for being so desperate to
impress him, and fuck Alex for being so perfect. Just fuck them
all.

He was halfway in his car when Alex came
storming out of the house. He ducked in and started the engine, but
he’d forgotten to lock the doors. Alex opened the passenger’s side
door and parked herself in the seat.

“Get out of my car, Alex.”

“No,” she said. “Not until you tell me why
you’re being like this.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” He put the
car into reverse. “You better get out unless you want to come with
me!”

“I will, then!” She crossed her arms.

“What, and leave your charming fiancé alone
with our crazy family?”

“What did Chad ever do to you?” Alex shouted.
“He’s a nice guy. He wants to get along with you. He wants to get
along with all of you.” To Oscar’s horror, she sounded near tears.
Alex never cried.

Oscar sighed and put the car into park. He
gave his face a few rigorous rubs. “You know what Dad said when I
came out? Well, he said a lot of things, actually, but he very
specifically
said that if I ever tried to bring a boyfriend
home, he’d kick both our asses. So Mom and Dad are never going to
fall all over themselves to impress anyone for my sake. I wouldn’t
even get a boyfriend in the door.”

Alex didn’t say anything for a moment. “That
was a long time ago. He’s changed since then. I’m sure he doesn’t
believe that anymore.”

Oscar let out a derisive snort. “Yeah, well,
you wouldn’t be saying that if he broke your nose.”

“I’m not excusing that! But you have to
admit, there were some unusual circumstances—”

“I see you still think it was justified,”
Oscar snarled.

“I have
never
said that,” she said
emphatically.

“And yet here you are, talking about ‘unusual
circumstances.’”

“You can’t blame him for what happened to
you,” Alex shot back. “He loves you. If you could have seen how
devastated he was when he found out what those guys did to
you—”

“Oh yeah, super devastated,” Oscar said,
cutting her off. “After I almost died. It’s real easy to feel bad
about that happening to your kid, but he has never once said he’s
okay with me being gay. Won’t even talk about it.”

“Have you ever asked him about it?”

“It shouldn’t be on me to ask him!” Oscar
shouted. “
He
should come to
me
. Then I’ll know he
means it.”

They fell into a bruised silence. “Is there
someone you want to bring home?” she asked at last. When Oscar
didn’t say anything, she continued. “If there is, I’ll talk to Dad,
and I’m sure he’ll—”

Oscar reached over her and opened the
passenger door. “Go back to dinner,” he said. “Tell everyone I’m
sorry. Tell Chad it was nice to meet him. Tell them whatever you
want. Just let me go, okay?”

Alex gave Oscar a long look. “Okay.” Before
he could stop her, she put her arms around him and gave him a hug—
a real one this time. She got out of the car and shut the door. As
soon as she was out, Oscar threw the car in reverse and screeched
out of the driveway. He sped all the way home.

CHAPTER SIX

Oscar pulled up to his apartment complex and
parked. Well, that had been the shit show he had expected. Worse,
actually— having all that crap with his dad and everything else
dredged up had him dying for a drink. On top of everything, he was
still hungry. He probably should just go over to the Molten Taco
and take care of both problems. He got out of the car with the full
intention of heading in the bar’s direction, but somehow he found
himself on Noah’s doorstep. He raised his hand to knock, but he
faltered. Just as he was about to walk away, Noah opened the
door.

“Oscar?” Noah said, frowning. “Are you
okay?”

Oscar opened his mouth and tried to lie.
“No,” he ended up saying. “I’m not. I had dinner with my family
tonight.”

Noah gave him an appraising look. “I’m
guessing it didn’t go well.”

Oscar let out a despairing laugh. “You could
say that. I met my sister Alex’s fiancé. It was a disaster.”

Noah opened the door wider. “Why don’t you
come in? I was just sitting down to eat.”

Noah put an arm over his shoulder as he
entered the room. Oscar felt himself shaking; it was dangerous to
be this vulnerable in front of Noah. Very dangerous.

“Hey,” Noah said soothingly. “It’s okay. Why
don’t you sit down and tell me what happened?”

They both sat down on the couch. Oscar didn’t
know where to start, so Noah prompted him. “You didn’t like Alex’s
fiancé?”

“No, I didn’t, but he’s fine. I mean, I just
hate him for dumb reasons.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

Oscar felt sick to his stomach. “It just
stirred up a lot of things from my past that I don’t like thinking
about. It’s a long story.”

Noah smiled. “I have time.”

Christ. He was going to have to tell him.
That’s why he ended up here, isn’t it— because on some level he
wanted him to know? He rubbed his face vigorously before he
started. “When I was in high school, I met this guy, Ricky. He
wasn’t in my usual crew. He was one of the drama kids actually,
which is, I guess, why we never ran into each other before. I was
sixteen. I’d known I was gay ever since puberty, but I was still in
denial. I mean, I was a tough guy, right? So how could I be
gay?

“Anyway, Ricky and I, we developed this
thing. Okay, it was more than a thing. We were in love— or that’s
what I thought, anyway. It was very sudden and probably normal
teenage shit, except he wasn’t out either, so we had to keep it a
secret. That probably added to the whole drama of it; we got really
carried away. We decided that we’d come out to our parents
together, and then to everyone else. I was so fucking stupid about
this guy that I didn’t care if I lost all my friends. I didn’t even
care what my parents would think. We were in love, you know?”

Noah nodded and rubbed his back. “Go on.”

Oscar took a deep breath. “So I kept my end
of the bargain. I came out to my parents. They weren’t happy about
it. My dad just flat out refused to believe it at first. Then I
said I was bringing Ricky home to meet them, and he exploded,
telling me I could never drag that gay shit into the house. But
like I said, I didn’t care what they thought.”

He paused. Here came the hard part. “The
trouble is that it turned out Ricky actually cared about what his
parents thought a lot more than he let on. So much so, that halfway
through ‘coming out,’ he turned it into an accusation that I’d made
unwanted advances toward him, which snowballed into straight-up
rape.” Oscar felt tears in his eyes. He blinked them away angrily.
“That never happened,” he said, suddenly ferocious. “I know I can
be an asshole, but I would never do that to anyone!”

“I know.” Noah’s voice was soft as he
continued to rub circles over Oscar’s back. “It’s okay.”

He was shaking again. He needed to get
through this. “Right. So. I was accused of rape. The school
suspended me. The police got involved. And you know, all of that
sucked, but you know what the worst part was? When I told my dad I
didn’t do it, he hit me.”
Maricón
, his dad had snarled as he
hit him square in the face, sending him stumbling to the ground in
their backyard. Oscar didn’t speak much Spanish, but he knew that
word—
faggot
. His father had said it with such rage and
disgust that Oscar was too stunned to do anything but sit there in
the dirt. He had leaned forward to prevent the blood from running
down his throat, just like his dad had taught him in case he ever
got hit. He never thought that his dad would be the one to do it.
He’d watched the blood turn into mud in the dirt as his mother
screamed, and his father screamed back and ordered his sisters
inside as they cried…

He was brought back to the present when Noah
put his arm around him. “I’m sorry that happened.”

Oscar let out a miserable laugh. “Well, what
would you do if you thought your kid was not only a fag, but a
rapist as well?” He sniffed, wiping at his nose. “My mom kicked him
out after that. She always believed me.” It was true. His mom was
always there for him, and he couldn’t even be bothered not to ruin
the nice dinner that was clearly so important to her. Yet another
reason to hate himself.

“What happened then?”

“Then I was jumped by my former friends. It
was really embarrassing to be friends with a dude who was a gay
rapist. I guess they wanted to prove to everyone that they didn’t
approve.” Oscar stopped talking for a moment. This part was hard,
too. “They put me in the hospital. I almost died.”

Noah’s eyes widened with shock. “That’s
terrible,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

“The case was put on hold since I was in a
coma and all. Anyway, I didn’t die, obviously. After a few weeks,
Mom brought me home. The very first night, I heard this tapping on
my window. Guess who it was?”

“Ricky?”

“Yeah. I guess he started to feel guilty
about that whole framing me thing since it nearly killed me. He
wanted to talk. I told him to wait in the yard until my mom went to
bed. And then I dialed 911 to report a burglary in progress.” He
smiled grimly at that. It had been a particularly inspired move.
“Fortunately, the police showed up quick. Ricky didn’t really have
any good explanation as to why he was skulking around the house of
his supposed rapist, so he confessed the whole thing. The charges
were dropped. Ricky’s parents pulled him out of school, and I never
saw him again.”

Noah took a moment to process that. “What
about the guys who beat you?” he asked. “Were they charged?”

“Charged and convicted,” Oscar said. “I
didn’t rat them out, though.”

“Why on earth not?”

“Because I didn’t want to be gay, a rapist,
and a snitch. I just told everyone I didn’t remember.”

“Then how did they get caught?”

“Jeremy.”

“The same Jeremy you’re always hanging out
with?”

“Yeah. He wasn’t there when it all went down—
my old friends knew he wouldn’t ever hurt me. I told him not to say
anything, but he didn’t listen. He lied and said he’d seen the
whole thing. There was a whole bunch of other evidence, too, of
course— I mean, we were just kids. We had no idea the kind of power
we had— that we could destroy lives so easily. I guess we all got
what we deserved in the end.” Oscar wiped his nose with the back of
his hand. There. It was done, and he hadn’t even broken down.