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MRS BROWN LOOKED Steve over as he stood in the doorframe, his bags in hand. She sighed heavily, her arms crossed over her chest. „I had high hopes for you, Steve," she almost sounded honest. „You were doing so good prior to last night."
Steve shrugged. His face hurt from forcing himself to not cry and he wasn't in the mood to defend himself any longer. There was only one more thing he needed to know. „Who told you?" He looked over to Mary who scrunched up her narrow face.
„Eddie tipped me off and then immediately went to pack his bags," she then said, staring past Steve as if there had been anything of interest, avoiding his eyes.
Steve grabbed onto the doorframe for support. Eddie. He knew that the metalhead had a crush on him and he knew he had been jealous of how close Billy and Steve had become, but he'd never thought he'd do something as vile as ratting him out to the hot pink witch. Went to show how naïve Steve was — Billy had been right.
Mary bit her lip, unsure of what to say. For a moment, Steve thought she'd say something affectionate, or at least encouraging, but then her expression hardened again: „Do you have everything?"
Steve nodded. „Yeah." He didn't say goodbye. Not to Mary, not to anyone. He might've said it to Robin or Nancy if he happened to run into them, but he absolutely wouldn't risk running into Billy for that, so he left it.
But where was he supposed to go? In the middle of nowhere, no money, no map, no place to turn to? It had been incredibly hot that day, the sun burned on top of his head, his thick, dark hair not particularly helping. He was all on his own. For the first time in his life, he couldn't just do what his parents wanted him to do or what the kids at school thought was the cool thing to do. There was no one here with him now.
Steve felt tears sliding down his cheeks, and for the first time ever, he allowed them to. He was sick of pretending to be strong because the opposite was true. He felt defeated thinking about how Billy's ocean eyes turned cold on him. How could he be so stupid? There was no place for happy homosexuals, not in this world, not in rural Indiana, not in the 1980s. And there would probably never be.
He walked and walked and walked for what felt like ages and then, like some stupid homo version of the witch's gingerbread house, Larry's house appeared on the horizon. Steve's feet were hurting and his throat was dry (if he hadn't been eighteen already he bet he could've gotten Mary Brown for child abuse, what with letting him leave without so much as water!), so he stepped onto the porch, his fingers itching to just ring the bell.
He bit his lower lip. He knew Larry saw him protesting the other day. He looked him right in the eyes. He probably would be less than delighted to find Steve standing at his door, bags in hand, but on the other hand, Larry had been one of Mary's little campers once, too — surely, he would understand? But before he could make that decision, the door swung open, revealing a stocky, cross-eyed man presumably looking at Steve.
