Disingenuous

4. The Retreat

2002

Things had happened so quickly between Christmas and New Years that Jackson had whiplash. Unfortunately he was getting the impression that it wasn't going to slow down any time soon.

Things with Amanda had happened in a rise and fall so fast that Jackson thought he now knew what it felt like to skydive without a parachute. The impact had certainly been as intense as falling from 14,000 feet. That much was obvious.

It was all he could reflect on while he sat in a church pew surrounded by a mix of teenage boys all strategically placed apart. They weren't to talk to eachother. No talking was really important now. If you couldn't talk then there was no chance of conspiring or flirting or whatever the fuck it was these people worried about.

Jackson was fine with the not talking rule because he didn't want to talk. He didn't want to think. He didn't want to do anything that would cement the events happening around him into memory.

Something had happened after the Amanda thing. Jackson had decided to label it in his memory as the meltdown; that was the closest thing he could think of to describe his behavior. The guitar string wound up in him had been pulled too hard and he'd snapped again, and he realized when it happened that it had snapped much harder this time. He couldn't think or run. Instead he'd melted into something empty and scared and feral. A tidal wave of unfamiliar feelings had hit him. He'd crumbled.

More specifically, when he'd done what he'd done with Amanda, Jackson had come to a certain clarity. He was drunk when it happened, for the first time actually. Even through that he also knew with certainty that his thoughts were clear. He'd looked down on the naked girl infront of him in the back room off the chapel on Christmas Eve, and he'd seen her genuine smile, and he'd wanted to sob.

So he told her he was gay.

And she told the pastor.

And the pastor told his mom.

And his mom told the counselor.

And when the counselor confronted Jackson, everything spilled out and he had the meltdown.

He didn't feel particularly responsible for it either. That was something adulthood had allowed him to evaluate and what he saw was that he'd been so alone. He'd been ostracized and rejected. He wasn't allowed to acknowledge his siblings. His father hadn't so much as looked at Jackson, and at family dinners Jackson only ever caught his wandering eyes in his imagination. His friends had faded. He was drowning, trying to make up for the school he'd missed. He was stared at mercilessly in the church, and he spent several hours a week listening to a counselor tell him he was damned and lying to himself about who he was. When the meltdown happened, he'd been sitting across from him at the desk in the dark office, and he'd felt especially trapped.

Objects under pressure explode.

He knew going into it that he didn't feel for Amanda in the way he was supposed to, but she wanted him. Nobody else in Idaho wanted him, and when she asked him to take his clothes off for her, he did it because he was so scared of what it would feel like when she'd stop wanting him.

And then he'd felt so guilty he'd told her the truth anyways.

Knowing she'd condemned him felt like justice. He wasn't even angry at her. He was just angry at himself for allowing himself to hurt her like that in the first place.