IF HE'D SUSPECTED that he would be getting dumped on his first day of senior year, Wyatt Carter would've boycotted the rest of high school by forgoing it entirely and moving to LA, where he would then open a beauty channel on YouTube: because surely there was more to life than crying in the boy's bathroom during your lunch break, stifling choked sobs as you tried to ignore the fact that the smell of ammonia hung so thick in the air it was almost tastable.
It was Heartbreak Twenty, which wasn't anything new. The fact that he happened to be crying in the last stall about a boy too wasn't new either, so what would have made a difference was if he actually happened to be crying for any other reason.
He had long come to terms with the fact that boys and men generally were a global problem.
They were like climate change, and terrorism, and broken iPhone screens, staggering into your life like hurricanes which left you emptied out, discarded on the sidewalk, your chest bloodied as you lay next to a heart that they had stomped all over.
Most people gave up after number three or four or six at most, but Wyatt wasn't most people and a lot of it had to do with the type of guys he found himself attracted to: tall boys with cute laughs, deep voices and messy hair, who happened to be emotionally unavailable; with three a.m. WYD texts featuring in almost all of their vocabularies.
In his seventeen years on earth he had dated chain-smoking bad boys that wore leather jackets and had tattoos on their faces (Heartbreaks Three, Eight, and Twelve), and rich prep school boys complete with their Abercrombie & Fitch cardigans and trust funds, who quoted Hemingway (Heartbreaks Two, Six, and Seven); then every other thing in between, but always the results remained the same: him, crying after they left. It was a tale as old as time.
For no exact reason a Taylor Swift song played on loop in his head and all he could think of was himself walking out of this moment, head held high and getting revenge on Rashad McCain by posting the nudes he had sent to Wyatt on one of the Mayfield Academy public group chats, but then that wouldn't really be revenge seeing as his ex happened to be very... endowed. Plus there were no guarantees that Rashad wouldn't retaliate by posting his pictures, and even if there had been it was an idea that left a bitter feeling in Wyatt's mouth.
Broad-shouldered Rashad who, even though he was a year below him (academically and age-wise), looked much older than sixteen and stood at over six feet; who played soccer and always had a way of impersonating other people in a way that sent Wyatt laughing till he cried while he gasped for breath.
Wyatt sighed.
He had it bad, and the worst part of all of it was the fact that if Rashad hit him up this evening, he would most likely offer himself to him on a silver platter or fine china, whichever he preferred.
Bonnie could have had a good life without Clyde, and historically speaking queens without kings often fared much better. Take England for example, the virgin queen Elizabeth I as opposed to the wives of Henry VI, who did not exit Holy Matrimony with heads connected to their bodies.
The bathroom door opened momentarily Wyatt held his breath, and then it dawned on him that he would have to breathe through his mouth and he resumed breathing via nostrils. He wasn't in a horror movie, though the only thing that could beat his current situation would be him this heart broken and in a horror movie.
Footsteps shuffled on the linoleum floors until they finally stopped in the stall beside his. Wyatt heard a zipper, and the sound of someone urinating, and the irony of his entire situation hit him like a bat over his head. Here he was, crying over a boy who was probably in the cafeteria laughing to something one of his friends was saying, stuck in a tiny cubicle with words like Noya Smith sucked my dick here and Wyatt Carter is a faggotâwhich was untrue: seeing as Noya was as lesbian as they came; and even though Wyatt happened to prefer guys, the bent over stick figure captured mid-intercourse accompanying those words looked nothing like himâscribbled on the door.
He imagined the janitor coming in after school hours to find his corpse sprawled on the wet floor, covered in his own bile. The autopsy report would read that he had died from over-loving and suffocating on the smell of piss. It did not sound like a very romantic way to go.
His morbid thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door of his stall, which startled him and he almost slipped but managed to right himself at the last moment.
"Everything alright in there?"
Wyatt stilled, eyes widening as he placed his feet widely apart to prevent another slip up. He knew that voice. Better still, He was crying because of its owner. Fate was a bitch.
"Yeah," he answered shortly, and though his voice came out smaller than he would have liked it was the best he could manage under the circumstances.
He cleared his throat and tried again, and this time he sounded surer.
"Fuck, Carter. Is that you?" Rashad called from the other side of the door.
Wyatt didn't answer, choosing the most inopportune of moments to sniffle.
"Are you crying?"
"Go away, Rashad. Go away."
His reply was met with a silence so laced with tension he could've cut it with a knife.
"Why the hell are you always so extra?" Rashad said, and even without seeing him Wyatt could tell he was shaking his head.
He could imagine him outside the door, long tapered fingers running through his hair, fingers that had... no, no; he wasn't about to have a hard-on for the asshole that had just kicked him to the curb.
"Just leave me alone," he sniffled against his will.
Rashad forcefully banged his fist on the door and Wyatt jumped. Subconsciously he knew that he was in no danger of being hurt. Rashad had always been gentle when they were together, but it was not a moment for rationality.
"You really need to stop acting like the victim, you know," Rashad continued, "I bet you've found a way to convince yourself that you're innocent."
"Where the fuck did I go wrong, you asshole?" The sudden indignation that rose in Wyatt at that moment was enough to have him forget that he was supposed to feel emptied out. "I gave you my best. I fucking compromised myself for you."
"And I didn't ask you for any of that," Rashad countered angrily. "I didn't ask you to get into fights with Tobi over me, or introduce me to your dad, or anything."
The door slammed open so forcefully and Rashad leaped back to avoid impact. Usually, Wyatt would have stopped to admire the way his broad shoulders filled out in his Mayfield letterman jacket, and his brown eyes that always seemed to see right into him, but right then he couldn't care less.
"I have had enough of your bullshit," he announced, his finger poking into Rashad's chest. "I have eaten so much of it and now I am full."
Rashad blinked, and then his brows creased.
"You know what my problem with you is?"
Wyatt didn't answer. In fact, he was already planning his movie-worthy exit.
He moved past Rashad, deliberately shouldering him although his thin five eleven frame caused no damage. The mirror in front of the sink showed how red and puffy his eyes had become, which added nothing to his general appearance but took nothing from it either. He still looked good, but then he always did.
"To you love isn't just love, it is a religion," Rashad continued after a moment. "You should ask yourself why you have twelve ex-boyfriends."
"Thirteen," Wyatt corrected, washing his face with water that guzzled out of the tap.
"Thirteen," Rashad said, "You have had thirteen boyfriends and most of them broke things off. Can't you see there's something wrong?"
Wyatt could feel the way his heart had begun to disintegrate inside his chest. Images of himself curled up next to Rashad, pouring his heart out to him and one of his many fears was that yes, something was wrong with him; that and the fact that he had only his face going for him.
"I've been with thirteen boysâ"
"And they called things off," Rashad cut in, his face turning into a mask of undisguised pity.
"Well," Wyatt said finally, undeterred. "I think it's because men don't deserve me. Take you for example."
"Excuse me?"
"Let me say it louder for the people at the back: Rashad McCain, you are tasteless."
Rashad blinked slowly, stunned at his words, and then he said: "Typical Wyatt, just typical. Blaming everyone else for your mistakes has always been something you're very good at."
Wyatt was stung but he ignored him, eyes on his reflection as he continued to wash his face even though it was already as scrubbed and devoid of tears as it could have been. He straightened and began to right his curls.
"You think that because of all you have going on for you, you can't be the one at fault," Rashad said.
They locked gazes in the mirror and Wyatt ensured he could see him to rolling his eyes as he turned off the tap. The silence that followed was deafening.
"This," he said finally, pointing from himself to Rashad and then the entire bathroom, "Is old. We've had this conversation so many times and at this point it's repetitive."
As he began to make his way to exit the bathroom Rashad's palm wrapped around his bicep, and even though all he wanted to do was cry to songs by an obscure indie artist while eating an unhealthy amount of ice cream, thirteen times was enough practice to have him get his act together.
But Rashad was different. He knew almost everything there was to know about him, and now he'd see another part of him that Wyatt had never expected he would ever show him.
"No one's ever going to want to be with you if you keep acting the way you do."
"What way?" Wyatt asked, arching a perfectly trimmed brow. He turned his face towards the mirror again and silently mourned how well they looked together and that they would never have that again.
Wyatt fought the urge to shut his eyes when Rashad's hands moved to rest on both sides of his head. They were so big his fingers almost met at the back of Wyatt's head, and he had always loved them that way.
"What are you doing?" He murmured, pulling away so that the hands fell away from his face and Rashad opened his mouth then shut it when no evident reply came to his mind.
"I'm sorry," he said finally.
Wyatt scrutinized him, thinking of how Elizabeth I probably never found herself locked in her expensive monarch bathroom, crying over a broken heart. Or maybe she had, who knew?
The bell signaling the end of their lunch period rang shrilly and Wyatt knew that very soon the bathroom would be flooded by boys. He didn't want to be here for that.
The hallways were filling up and he could hear the sound of feet as students shuffled to their various post-lunch classes. A steady pressure had built behind his eyes and the throbbing pain in his head was becoming unbearable, so without saying anything he turned and walked out, joining the crush of bodies in the hallway.
The only thing to indicate his exit was the soft clicking of the door as it closed shut behind him.
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n o t e
hi! it's been exactly a year since i completed still point and while i took the bottom club down it feels right to resume posting today. feedback of any kind would be appreciated, and if you haven't read the misc chapters that came before this then please do. they're important.