Chapter 2

It was the first, but not the last time he ever stood up to anyone. He stood up to Steve for this new boy, this sweet new boy who’d just made him learn something about himself that he hadn’t really wanted to know, and he’d felt powerful and angry and stupid at the same time. He’d blustered right up to Steve and grabbed him by the throat, gripping him just long enough to realize he was probably going to die, because, if he didn’t outright kill Steve, Steve and his buddies would mop the floor with him.

He’d gotten a concussion and a black eye out of it and been suspended for a week for ‘starting a fight.’ Yeah, right. He hadn’t exactly thrown the first punch, had he?

Nothing had come of it between him and Trey then, but when another boy who had watched it all, Ryan, a skinny little black-haired boy he’d never noticed before, had smiled at him the day he came back, he almost forgot all about Trey. Not about the part he’d learned about himself though, that was here to stay. G.A.Y. Can we say ohmygosh, look at Ryan’s cute little butt? Ryan looked like a young Sal Mineo, batting his eyelashes, dimples in his cheeks, looking up at him like he was something good to eat.

Later he’d analyzed why he hadn’t followed through with Trey, gotten to know him, tried to find out more about him. Trey never left his mind and consciously or not, he always noticed him, knew where he was, and whether or not he was all right. It was just that Trey was way too much reality for Chris to deal with yet. There was knowing, and then there was knowing

Trey had not been distracted by Ryan’s butt. He’d noticed the boy named Andrew watching though. He’d developed a crush on him and Andrew’s dark, searing eyes, his beautiful, pouty red lips

This had been freshman year, when they’d just moved here. Trey was fourteen. His father and Steve’s father were partners in the law firm Steve’s grandfather had started. He was expected to socialize with this jerk.

“I’m disappointed in you, son,” his father said often at dinner. “You’re letting the family down. I expected better.”

Every night that this happened, Trey’s stomach closed up and he couldn’t eat without feeling sick later. That first day in gym, when that boy—Chris—had stood up to Steve for him, he’d felt only shame that someone else had had to do what he’d been too afraid to do. Not just because he was afraid of Steve and his henchmen, but afraid of what his father would say later. Over the weekend, there’d been a big argument between him and his father, and he decided to run away into a cane field and kill himself. Nobody would miss him. He made his plans over the lecture he got at dinner, his mind already far, far away, off in the fields and darkness.

That night, as he lay fully dressed in his dark bedroom, he had his first pity party for himself. He was so misunderstood; he had such shameful secrets, and nobody liked him. He’d never have a boyfriend, he’d shame his family, and to this almost comforting litany, he’d nearly dozed off.

Finally, after what seemed like eternity, the house was quiet, and Trey got up, slid open his window, looked at the steep drop outside, and decided to slip out the front door instead. Yes, it would serve them right to find him dead of a broken neck on the decorative rocks below his window, he thought, but it was too easy. They might miss the message and think he’d only fallen. Fuck that

Bad Ass Rebel all the way, he thought, curling his lip with derision, covering up his heartache. He slipped out the front door and luckily, forgot to lock it behind him. The cane fields didn’t look very far away. In fact, quite often when they burned them, the smoke and bits of black plastic, ‘Maui Snow,’ came right into the house, pissing his mother off completely.

An hour later, his dark and happy mood dissolving rapidly into fatigue and regret, he found a dirt road leading off into the tall cane, and lifting his lip back up in a sneer, started down it without a backward glance.

It was a dark and stormy night. Well, not really, but it was certainly moonless and dark. It seemed misty, or maybe it was only the vog from the volcano on the next island. There weren’t any mosquitos, and the ubiquitous mynahs, doves, peacocks, and roosters, were silent and asleep.

You know what, Trey thought, as the dirt track turned a corner into darker and taller fields. This is dumb, but it’s too late now. I didn’t bring anything to kill myself with. God! I’m so stupid! I should have grabbed a gun. Oh wait, we don’t have any guns; a knife then, yeah, we have plenty of those in the kitchen. Well nope, too late now. I’ll just lie down in the dirt…right here. Wait…it’s so quiet. I can’t hear anything. Um, uh oh, what is that? It’s just the cane rustling, right? Gosh it’s cold out here. How can it be cold? It’s Maui!

Oh it’s clouding over. It looks like it’s going to rain. It can’t rain, can it? It’s Maui. Wait a minute, I do hear something. What, why it’s music. It sounds like flutes and drums and bagpipes. No. I’m just being a sissy. It’s like the monsters I used to think lived in the closet. But maybe it’s zombies! Ha ha. There’s no such thing as zombies or dead people who can walk.