Disclaimer: Characters belong to Rainbow Rowell.
A/N: There's a lot of homophobia in this, including slurs. Just be warned. Also, this AU is set in the US, and Fiona and Daphne do not exist.
The last two weeks have been the most miserable of my entire life.
It feels disloyal to Mother's memory to say that—seeing the woman who gave you life have her life extinguished by violence in front of you should be the worst thing to happen in anyone's life—but the thing about being five years old is there are some things you just don't comprehend or have the capacity to feel. And the thing about being seventeen is that there are some things you have the capacity to feel all too acutely.
It's test season, and even though I'm only taking two Standard Level exams—not four exams like the seniors—it's still incredibly stressful. Trying to recall a full year's worth of material in enough detail to sit for multiple three-hour exams with mostly long-form answers is probably not anyone's idea of fun, and of course I chose my two worst subjects for Standard Level exams: math and physics. That means that, over the course of the last week and a half, I've sat for three of the four days of exams. I've spent nine hours in the library with my math-hating peers with Ms. Possibelf as our "invigilator"—apparently the Brits who wrote the IB curriculum are too stuck-up for the word "proctor"—and tomorrow come the final three hours.
But two weeks ago Father found out I asked Jonathan to prom, which is the real reason for the misery. I honestly think I could handle the exam stress if it weren't for Father haranguing me every minute he's home, calling me a faggot and telling me I'm going to hell. At least he's not home much. His law practice is his life. If it weren't for Vera, who's functioned as both my nanny and our housekeeper for my entire life, I would probably have starved to death before I even properly started elementary school. Even now, she keeps the household running. But she's not my mother, and she can't afford to contradict Father in front of him or she'll lose her job. She let me cry on her shoulder that first night when he found out, but since then we've both been pretending that never happened.
But tonight I'm near the breaking point. I know I'm not prepared for the second half of the calculus exam tomorrow, despite how hard I've been studying since the beginning of April, and Father summoned me to his office as soon as he got home. He opened with, "I've decided I won't allow you to attend prom," and it went downhill from there. We've been screaming at each other for the last 15 minutes.
"Your mother would never have stood for this either, Basilton!" my father shouts.
My comeback dies on my tongue. He's never mentioned my mother's views on anything. Not politics or religion or sexuality or any of it. It's been just the two of us for almost as long as I can remember, and he's never used her against me in a fight before.
Father can see he's gotten the advantage now. "She was just as staunch a defender of traditional morality and marriage as I am," he says more quietly but with equal fervor. "She never would have allowed you to go to prom with a boy and flaunt your sinful lifestyle. And I won't either."
I'm horrified, both by what he's saying—that I'm a disappointment to my dead parent as well as my living one, to the one who loved me as well as the one who's always held me at arm's length—and by the fact that I can feel tears pricking at the corners of my eyes. And, fuck, my throat is closing up. I have to get out of here.
I spin on my heel and exit the room at a brisk walk, careful not to breathe in until I clear the door, lest my father hear how shaky my breath is. Once I've made it down the hall and turned the corner, I sprint to my room, throw my things into my backpack, grab my emergency duffel and my tux from my closet, and snatch my keys off my desk. I'm crying hard by the time I leave the house and get into my car, but I don't care. I'm not in optimal driving condition, but I'm going to do it anyway.
What Father doesn't know is that I've had an emergency duffel bag packed since I was fourteen and realized I was gay. I already knew he was homophobic—the gay marriage debate has been in the news since I first started reading the newspaper at the age of eleven, if not longer, and Father has always been quick to give his opinions on everything we read in the newspaper—so I figured that being disowned was a very real possibility. I'm on track to become an Eagle Scout; being always prepared is practically in my blood. So packing an emergency duffel was a logical step at fourteen, and now I'm glad that I've regularly switched out the clothes as my styles have changed and I've kept growing, because it's going to be my saving grace.
But, fuck, what terrible timing. I can't believe I'm running away the night before an exam. All my teachers keep reminding my classes how important it is to get a good night's sleep before exams, and I'm going to be sleeping in my car, if I can sleep at all.
Actually, what if I don't take the exam tomorrow? What if I never do anything ever again? I'm under no illusions about my future. The straightforward rich kid path ahead of me—fully funded college, a trust fund afterward—is down the tubes now that Father knows I'm gay. And functioning without that, not to mention probably losing my home and being disowned, sounds incredibly difficult to cope with. I've always been tightly wound. There's probably an anxiety disorder in there somewhere, though nothing's ever been diagnosed. How am I going to cope with a life that's actually stressful, if I could barely handle being a rich kid?
Maybe I just . . . shouldn't.
I notice that I'm driving toward the river. It seems my body knew the plan before the rest of me did. It's about a 20 minute trip, and I focus on keeping the crying to a minimum so I can see as I drive. I may be planning my death, but I don't want it to be a car accident. That has the risk of other casualties, and I can't have that. This is between Father and me. No one else.
When I reach the river, I park in the parking lot near the bridge. I'm careful to park inside the lines and not lock the keys in the car. Irrelevant things, given what I'm about to do, but I'm a scrupulous person and old habits die hard. I walk to the bridge, each footfall thudding up my legs as I process that this may be the last time I walk anywhere. The sun hangs low in the sky at my back and my shadow precedes me as I walk out onto the bridge. I follow my shadow to the middle of the bridge, slowly, feeling the warm May air on my bare forearms. After an April that was nothing but rain, May has begun gorgeously. The forecast for prom is perfect. Too bad I won't go.
I stop in the middle of the bridge and stare down at the water below me. It's a long way down; the bridge is easily five times as high as the highest platform I've ever jumped off of into a pool. Probably more than five times as high. I hope it's enough of a drop to kill me. I'd hate to wind up in a psych ward. That's my absolute worst-case scenario. I'm lucky to live in a state where conversion therapy is illegal for minors, but I wouldn't put it past Father to find some sort of loophole, especially if he managed to blame my suicide attempt on my orientation rather than his rejection of me. He's a highly successful lawyer, after all.
The thing about high dives at pools is that I usually have Dev or Niall counting down for me to get me to jump. I didn't realize how much I depended on that counting until now, but I'm frozen on the side of the bridge, unable to work up the courage to vault over the fence on the side and jump.
No. I'm not going to chicken out. I'm going to do it. I can count down for myself.
Three.
Two.
One.
Nope.
I'm breathing hard, even though I've been standing still for several minutes. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.
Three.
Two.
One.
Fuck, no I can't. I'm breathing even harder; I can hear it. It takes me a minute to realize what I hear are sobs. I'm crying so hard I can barely get any breath in at all.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and scroll through my contacts. I should call someone. I should ask someone to come get me. Who can I ask, though? Dev is my cousin; there's no way I could tell him something like this without it getting back to Father. Niall doesn't have a car, and I'm not waiting for someone to get here by public transit. It would take ages.
Through my tears, I see Evan Minos listed as a contact. It takes me a moment to remember why Mr. Minos is in my phone, but then it comes to me: he put his phone number on our syllabi for Higher Level Economics and told us that we could text him if we needed clarification on assignments and call him in case of an emergency.
I think this qualifies as an emergency.
I click on his name and then hit Call. His phone rings three times and I think he's not going to pick up, and I don't have a plan B. I'm just starting to really panic when I hear his familiar voice on the other end of the line. "Hello?"
"Mr.—Mr. Minos?" I gasp. I hope I'm not crying too hard for him to understand what I'm saying.
"Who's this? Are you okay?" he asks, his voice tender. This is why he's my favorite teacher.
"It's Baz Pitch, and no, I—I don't think I'm okay," I reply.
"Baz? Where are you? What happened?"
"I'm on Sellwood Bridge. I—I had a fight with my—my father and I decided to—to kill myself but I can't do it and—and—and—"
"Sellwood Bridge?" he reiterates.
"Yeah."
"I'll be there in 15. Can you promise to stay safe until then?"
"I—I don't know."
"Okay. Can you stay on the line? I'm going to put you on speaker so I can talk to you while I drive."
I briefly wonder why he doesn't have Bluetooth like I do, but I just say, "Okay."
"All right, I'm driving," he says, and his voice sounds different now, further away. "Can you tell me the definition of GDP?"
"What?" I laugh wetly at the absurdity of the question, given everything that's going on. "Why?"
"I'm not going to ask you what happened until I arrive. I think it's safer to distract you. Let me know if this makes you feel worse, okay? But first tell me the definition of GDP."
"GDP is the full market value of all final goods and services produced in a given country during a given period of time," I recite. Mr. Minos absolutely drilled that into our heads in October when we started our first macro unit.
"Exactly. Perfect as usual, Baz," says Mr. Minos. "Now, can you give me the four components of GDP?"
"Consumption, investment, government spending, and net exports," I say.
"Right again. Now for some micro. What goes on the X axis of a supply and demand graph?"
"Quantity," I answer.
"Exactly. So what goes on the Y axis?"
"Price."
"Yep. Back to macro. What are the two goals of monetary policy?"
"High and stable growth; low and stable inflation," I recite. My breath seems to be under control for the first time in maybe an hour.
"Great. And what's it called when there's high unemployment and high inflation?"
"Stagflation."
"Exactly."
It goes on like this for another twelve minutes, Mr. Minos quizzing me on basic econ definitions and concepts and me answering. It's somewhere between mind-numbing and soothing. I'm definitely calming down, and I don't feel as much of anything anymore. By the time his voice starts sounding close-up again, which I take to mean he stopped driving and took me off of speaker mode, I'm not crying anymore, and I've dried my tears.
I look to my left when a shadow crosses my feet, and, sure enough, Mr. Minos is walking toward me. I keep defining the different types of unemployment as he comes up beside me, and then I end the call. We both lower our phones, and then Mr. Minos touches my shoulder. "Baz, can we get you off this bridge?"
I nod.
Mr. Minos walks on the outside of the sidewalk, toward the water, and keeps me on the inside, toward the cars. He asks me more economics questions as we walk across the bridge and cross Riverside Drive. There's a park on the other side of the street, near where I parked, and we walk into it and find a bench to sit on. There are a lot of trees, and it's dark in the shade; the sun is about to set, and the bridge is painted orange in front of us. Once we're sitting, Mr. Minos stops grilling me about economics and asks, "Okay, so what happened?"
The fight. My father. Right. "A couple weeks ago, my father found out that I asked Jonathan Baker to prom. My father didn't know about me being gay before that, and it turned into a huge conflict, which I kind of expected. Tonight he told me he wouldn't let me go to prom at all and that my mother would agree with him, and that was kind of the breaking point for me. I want to impress my father, but I'm used to the idea that he'd be disappointed if he knew the real me; I'd kind of hoped it wouldn't be like that with my mother, and I liked to think that she'd love me properly if she were still alive. But finding out that she would have disapproved hurt a lot. And I have the final day of my calc exam tomorrow, and I've been stressed out of my mind for the past month and a half because of exams, and I think I could probably get along okay with my father if I pretended to be straight and did everything he wanted, but that's not going to happen, and I think I might be about to be disowned, and also I just really don't want to go home, but I don't know where else I could realistically go. I'm pretty sure my friends' parents would send me home no matter what." I've been staring at the bridge, but now I whip my head around to look at Mr. Minos. "Wait, could I stay with you?"
Mr. Minos sighs and steeples his hands in front of his face. "Baz . . . I'm sorry, but no. I think your father would find some way to sue me or charge me with kidnapping if I did that."
"But he doesn't even want me at home!" I protest.
Mr. Minos nods. "I believe you. But he threatened to sue the school district two years ago when your bus was late, and last year when you read Oscar Wilde in your English class. He's kind of infamous in the teachers' lounge."
"Really? I didn't know any of that."
"Yep," says Mr. Minos. "I mean, I could also lose my job and my teaching license for letting a student stay at my house, but I'm more afraid of your father."
"So I have to go home?" I ask.
"Hell no!" says Mr. Minos. "That doesn't sound like a good place for you to be. I'm glad you left, and I'm glad you called me. You're sure you can't stay with your friends?"
"The only ones who would even maybe be okay with me staying for an extended period of time are Dev and Niall, and Dev's my cousin; his parents, my aunt and uncle, would definitely make me go home. And I think Niall's mom is scared of my dad, and it's not like Niall's family has a lot of extra money, anyway . . ."
"Right," says Mr. Minos. "Have you heard of Watford?"
I shake my head.
"The full name is the Watford Shelter for Homeless Youth. I've had students who've stayed there before and I've heard good things. I mean, it's nobody's ideal place to live, but it sounds tolerable and well-organized. The woman who runs it is named Ebeneza Petty and she's a good soul. You could stay there for a while as you figure out next steps. I have a friend at Legal Aid who does youth law and helps with emancipation issues, also, if you need that kind of help at some point in the future. Her name is Mitali Bunce; we did Teach for America together before she decided to become a lawyer."
I'm a little overwhelmed. Mr. Minos is talking about this like he's just describing another econ assignment, but my life is about to change in some really drastic ways. "You think I should stay at Watford?"
Mr. Minos nods. "Yeah, I do,"
Something occurs to me. "Father will accuse me of stealing the car, won't he?"
"Probably," says Mr. Minos. "And he might report you as a missing person tonight, too."
"Fuck," I say, and then I cover my mouth. "Sorry."
Mr. Minos rolls his eyes. "This situation calls for a whole lot of swearing, in my book. Feel free to use whatever language you want."
"Right," I say. "Fuck my father. This whole thing is shit." Then I pull myself together a little. "So, if we drive to my house, I can leave the car in the driveway and the keys in the mailbox, and I can put a note on the dashboard saying that I'm going to Watford and that I'm going to start emancipation work."
"Sounds good," says Mr. Minos. "I'll drive behind you, and then I can drive you to Watford afterward."
"Thanks," I say. "Sorry for taking over your evening."
"Believe me, this is more important than grading."
Something else occurs to me. "Can I get to school from Watford?"
"There's only three weeks left of school, so it's probably not worth the paperwork to get you a bus stop this year. If you're still there next year, Ebb—Ebeneza—or I can help you with that paperwork. For now, do you think a friend could pick you up?"
I shrug. "Maybe."
"Why don't you call someone now," Mr. Minos suggests. "If you can't arrange anything for tomorrow, I can pick you up, but it would be super early. I'd rather not be your transportation for too long, though."
I nod. "Got it."
I unlock my phone and call Dev. He picks up on the second ring. "Baz, hey!" he says. "Where are you, man? Your dad called my parents like 20 minutes ago asking if you were here. They didn't believe me when I said I didn't know where you were, either. They searched my whole room. It was intense."
"I'm, um, running away," I say. "Not very far away, but I can't live with my father anymore because he found out I asked Jonathan to prom. I called Mr. Minos and he suggested a homeless youth shelter that might be able to take me, so I'm going to check that out. Would you be able to pick me up for the rest of the school year? I don't think it would be good for me to take my car with me, since Father technically owns it. Plus, I bet Father's going to shut down my bank account since he co-signed for it, so I won't have gas money, either."
"Wait, back up. You're serious?" Dev asks.
"Yeah."
"Okay, cool. I mean, not cool, but like, good for you for not putting up with his bullshit. Where will you be?"
"Hopefully at the Watford Shelter for Homeless Youth," I say. "Mr. Minos says it's okay."
"I can't picture you at a shelter."
"I'm a Boy Scout!" I protest. "I go camping all the time!" But then I sigh and say, "You're right, though. I can't either."
"Hey. You'll get through it. You're Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch, the boy who's good at everything."
"Thanks," I say. "But you still haven't answered my question. Can you drive me to school?"
"Yeah, yeah, totally. I don't know where the shelter is, but I can look up directions."
"Okay. I kind of have to go—there's a lot still to do tonight—but thanks, Dev."
"No problem. Let me know what you need, okay?"
"Thanks," I say. "Bye."
Mr. Minos has been watching me this whole time. He says, "That sounded okay."
I let out a breath. "It was, yeah."
"So, to your house?"
I grimace. "Don't know if it's mine anymore, but yes."
A/N: Sometime in the DISTANT future, there may be a sequel to this, but I'm way too busy to write more anytime soon. Until then, know that Simon is Baz's roommate at the shelter and that does not begin well.