Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 16:18:06 -0600 From: Karla Schulz Subject: Carrots and Celery Part Three Chapter 11 Okay, so this chapter is dedicated to my oma, cause it's her 84th birthday today, and because despite the fact that she's freaking 84 years old, she's still totally hip with the gayness of me, her favourite grandaughter, a feat my idiot parents are somehow unable to pull off. May she live forever, as it's been agreed by all who love her that she will. --- Home and studying in the afternoon of the following Monday with Jonas, when Kyle barrels into the kitchen, his face lit up with excitement. "Dude?" Jonas asks, slightly wary. Kyle just grabs him, kissing him hard. Jonas falls back into his chair, looking dazed. I try to hold off a smirk. Kyle sits down, giving off the major pleased with himself vibe. "So are you just like high or something, or do you have an actual reason to be looking so damned pleased with yourself?" I eventually ask. He grins. "I think I have an idea!" Great, Kyle. Great. "You wanna vague that up for us?" I mutter. "What kind of an idea?" Jonas asks, ignoring me. Kyle's grin falters a bit. "Well, a good one I hope." Jonas sighs. "I meant, an idea about WHAT? What are we talking about here - the cure for cancer, ending world hunger... how to get the tape player in the Le Baron to work again?" "An idea about your parents." This statement has Jonas straightening up nervously in his chair and blinking rapidly. "Really?" He sorta croaks out. Kyle nods. "Really. It's, well I don't really know if it'll work, but it's an idea - which is more than we've had up to now, so..." "What's the idea?" Jonas is still doing the nervous thing, but he's got a little bit of the cautiously hopeful thing going on as well. "Well, just bear with me and listen to the WHOLE plan before you react, okay? 'Cause, you might not exactly love all the parts." "Just tell me, Kyle, don't freak me out." Kyle takes Jonas' hand with his own, and stares at him until Jonas relaxes a little. He follows up the relaxation with a small smile. "The idea is we tell them --" Jonas immediately tries to yank his hand away, but Kyle holds firm. "Jo, clam." Jonas takes a few deep breaths, and stops resisting Kyle's hold. "We tell them, but in a sort of round-about way. I was thinking that first, we could like, you know - ask them for their blessing kind of? Like, we sit down with them, have a little conversation, and work our way up to telling them how much we care for each other. And then we say something like, I don't know, 'it would really mean a lot to us to know you guys were behind this and that we had your support. 'Cause then, they're like, more involved, you know? And isn't that basically what they want? They don't want you going off and making some new life that has nothing to do with them, one they have no part in? Couldn't this maybe like, soften the blow some?" Jonas is quiet, taking in everything Kyle said. Finally, a peace settles over his face, and he smiles at Kyle. "It's good, Kyle," he praises. Kyle beams proudly. "I thought it was." They plan to have their whole announcement/blessing request hootenanny this coming Saturday, and emotions over the week are, understandably, a little all over the place. Sometimes their great and mutual nervousness will cause Jonas and or Kyle to snap at each other, or other people (like your humble narrator). On a few occasions they're quiet and withdrawn, not talking to each other or anyone else. Other times they're tender and attentive, sticking very close to each other and offering lots of good quality support. I'm happy to report that this is the more frequent mode. I'll give this whole messed up situation one more point in the good stuff column for the way the twins have rallied around Jonas. I guess I always knew they liked him a lot, but I never realized how deep it went. Like, one thing I never knew is that sometimes back in the day he'd come over and neither me or Kyle were home, so Jonas would end up hanging around with the twins. It's actually something that still goes down apparently. But this isn't just me being my oblivious self, because even Jonas is exhibiting surprise over how much they care, and maybe more than that, just how willing they are to show it. It's really sweet. Since the porch incident, they call him brother all the time and they've been hanging out with him more when I'm not around and Kyle's at University. I think they all get along really cool, and it's great to see. In other, non Jonas and Kyle related news ('cause there happens to be a little bit of that too) Colin's curling season just recently finished up, and I went to a couple of his games with his dad. Who, may I just say, is a totally awesome guy. He's only like 37, and hilariously new age and stuff (almost as much of a granola head as my parents) and very, very supportive of Colin. Which is what I like to see. Parents treating their kids right. Having their backs. That's what it's supposed to be about. --- On the night (and I'm not talking about the one where Chicago died) everything's pretty quiet and low key. By low key, I mean tense and uncomfortable, with the occasional burst of utter agony. And that's just what I felt sitting next to Jonas and Kyle and soaking up their vibes. To actually BE them I imagine would have been much worse. They're over there as we speak, and it hasn't been so long I'm starting to panic, but it's been long enough that I'm beginning to feel a bit queasy, just from being nervous for this extended period of time. If I escape this year with my mental faculties intact (or, you know, what passes for intact in my particular case) and ulcer free, it'll be a miracle. The twins are upstairs being nervous together (remember, they're the co-founders of the Jonas Fan Club) and keeping fingers and all other crossable parts crossed. Just when I'm starting to think, yeah, nervous upstairs with the twins sounds real good right about now, Kyle shows up. I take a good look at him, and my insides do the turning to ice thing. He looks like death, and we're not talking about the warmed over kind. "Kyle." He doesn't respond, instead he mechanically hangs up his jacket and removes his shoes. "It didn't work?" He turns to me then, and the pain in his face takes my breath away. "I don't think `no' is a strong enough word." I can't bring myself to smile even a little bit at the Buffy quote. Though the total lack of humor on his face makes me wonder if Kyle even realized what he said. "What happened?" "We told them. They got mad. Jonas started to cry. They kicked me out. I asked him if he wanted to leave with me, he bolted up to his room, I left." It takes me a good five minutes to even start putting together thoughts again. "What the fuck?" He sighs. "They think I'm taking advantage. 'Cause I'm older." "Two years!" Kyle shrugs. "Yeah but I'm 19 and he's 17 and I guess that matters. Anyway, they weren't happy – they think I corrupted him. 'Cause he was always with girls before me and all. Apparently, their pro-gay stance doesn't extend to their own son." Kyle's tone is too tired to be bitter, too empty to be ironic, and I don't know how to comprehend my brother being so broken he can't even take refuge in sarcasm. "Kyle, I don't..." "It's okay, Care, don't worry about it. I'm heading to bed, see you tomorrow?" I just sort of nod uselessly, and watch him go up the stairs. I stand there for awhile, my shock causing time to feel sort of suspended. That sense of suspension breaks when the other part of my brain returns to functioning order and directs my feet to follow after Kyle. When I get to his place Kyle's door is open so I walk right in (although okay, anything but a locked door wouldn't have stopped me). I do a quick Kyle search and find him lying on his bed. He's on his side and his face is blank. This is what Kyle does. It's his position when he's disappearing into himself. I haven't seen him do it since Jonas ran out of Dairy Queen on that whole bizarre Julie Christmas event thing. The thing that's making me stop and silencing my planned on the way up the stairs speech is that Kyle's not alone. The twins are standing on either side of the bed, their arms crossed. Nobody's talking. As they finally notice my presence, the twins stand up a little taller and yet again their ever increasing height freaks me out. I swear they've grown another inch every time I see them. Even with all the extra hanging out with them I've been doing lately, I still feel like I'm totally missing them growing up. I suspect they sneak off and do it on the sly when I'm not looking. "Did he tell you what happened?" Dave asks me. I nod. "So you're here to help?" Jon this time. "Uh, help?" They pull off the unison for a snort. "Right – help. Help us get Kyle off his ass." Dave's tone is hard. "Is that, what?" And I thought the height thing was disconcerting. "Dude," Jon gives Kyle a poke, "Get up, man!" Kyle blinks at them and then just stares. "Guys, what are you trying to do? I don't know how to handle this but I don't think bullying Kyle's the answer," They hold onto their glares for a few more seconds, and then deflate, first Jon and then Dave half a second later. "But," Jon starts. "He just left Jonas there," Dave finishes. That finally snaps Kyle out of it. Well, sort of. He sits up and sighs at them. "He wanted me to, little bros. I, I asked him if he wanted to come with me – he didn't. They're his parents," he sighs resignedly, "it's his home." Dave raises up to his full height again, his outrage back in full force. "But he's OURS! He should be with us. If his stupid parents can't even treat him right there's no way they get to have him while we miss him and worry and shit." "Dave, that's not—" "What? How it works? Why the hell not?! You are by far not the only one who loves him, Kyle. You can't ask us to tolerate him in the kind of pain that—" "He chose to stay!" Kyle shouts, and then his own burst of anger dies and he just looks sad and sorry all over again. Dave is temporarily silent, stunned by being yelled at. Kyle, and all of us really, never do that with them. We're just not the yelling sort of family. Jon however, takes over with his twin left off. "Kyle, you know about their freaky control thing over him, you gotta know how like trapped he must be feeling. He LOVES you, you can't let him stay there." Kyle gets up, and puts him hands on Jon's shoulders. "Jon, I love Jonas. I know you know that. Loving him means I have to respect his choices. I have to try to get that his relationship with his parents isn't something Jonas is ready to risk. I won't ask that of him." Jon has lost all of his fire and I think that bit of oomph was all that was holding him and Dave together because now that acceptance of this situation is setting in, they're looking pretty thoroughly destroyed. Me on the other hand, your humble narrator slash fearless leader, I've had just about enough. "To hell with that!" All three of my brothers turn their head to me and look at me with identical expressions of like dumb blankness. "Jonas IS ours. And I don't think any of us need to respect his decision to be an idiot. You don't let someone do harm to themselves out of `respect'. That's just crap. Jonas needs to be here, I don't want to watch another person I love try to survive in a home where he isn't accepted or valued. Right now, he needs to see how much he still matters. His parents aren't showing him that so we have to. Kyle, he needs to know how far you'll go to keep him with you – how much you're willing to risk. Don't let fear of rejection get in the way of that. If Jonas can't do it himself then we better damn well go in there and get him out. We're the bloody cavalry! It's what we do." The end of my rant is met with intensified blankly blank looks. "Sorry," I say after awhile. "I think I might haven been channeling Spike there near the end. But before that," I shake my head, "Kyle, you know I was channeling you. Tell me that isn't almost exactly what you would have said to me if the situation was reversed." More blinking and blankness happens, and then Kyle gets a baffled `oh damn you're right' look on his face. "So I should... go then, huh?" I don't waste time with a `god you're pathetic' look, just nod. "Yeah. A big yeah." He looks resolved for a minute but it gets lost as a rather large wave of panic hits Kyle's face. He covers it and takes another step towards the door, but this is one the twins and I follow. Dave speaks for us, "We're coming with you to make sure you don't wimp out," for a second Kyle looks like he's going to form a protesting guy face, but eventually just nods. "Yeah. Okay. That'll probably be shamefully necessary." And so, the four of us move out and in a close pack (for solidarity!) start the walk to Jonas's house. When we get there, Kyle doesn't even bother knocking on the door, he just storms in, and the twins and I are close at his heels. A short pretty looking women who is obviously Jonas' mother emerges from a study type room, startled by the noises of our arrival. The prettiness of her face is spoiled by the look that comes over it when she sees Kyle. "We told you to leave him alone," she speaks coldly. "Yeah, you did." Kyle nods. "So why are you here?" "Because I love him." With that, he brushes her aside and starts up the stairs two at a time. I follow wordlessly, but the twins take the time to glare at her ferociously and mutter a few choice phrases under their breath. I'm too busy being worried and distracted by all the unpleasant things that are going on in my stomach to really take notice, but it does register that this is the first time I've ever been in Jonas' home. Which is quite weird, when you think about it in terms of how long we've been friends, but not, when you think about it in terms of his relationship with his parents. Not that I ever pushed. I think I kind of wish I had, looking back at it now as we march towards Jonas' door. I mean, this is where he lives, sleeps, eats. It is his home, no matter how messed up it happens to be right now. So I guess I sort of wish Jonas could have shared that with me, shared the good in this house before now, so maybe I'd understand a little better why he's clinging to it so tightly. Confronted with another door, Kyle takes the more hesitant route, knocking gently. No answer comes, so he turns the knob and opens the door a crack. "Jonas?" he calls softly. Nothing. Kyle opens the door all the way, and takes a step into the room. More of a half step really. I hang back, and give the twins a look indicating they're to do the same. Going by what is visible from where I'm standing and what Kyle isn't blocking, I'd say Jonas wasn't in his room. Kyle takes a few more steps inside, and I hear him murmur something. The words I don't make out, but the pain I do, and I can't stop myself from walking after him. Kyle is standing in the middle of the room looking conflicted and slightly agonized, and standing in the farthest corner of the room, by his open closet, shirt in hand, is Jonas. My eyes flit over to his bed, and the open half packed duffle bag fills in the rest of the gaps. Jonas was leaving. And I don't think there's any question where he was leaving to. So knowing this, and knowing Kyle must know it, I don't understand why so much pain is still in this room, threatening to choke the lot of us. It takes Jon's abrupt, "Let's get the freak out of here already," to set us all in motion, but we do. It's rapid and totally without ceremony, but we make it out of Jonas' house and onto the street. It's there that Jonas finally moves towards Kyle, and it's there that Kyle finally opens his arms up to him. The extent to which this is not over is great, but right now, watching them together like this, just holding each other, I have to believe things are going to be alright.