Lay Me Down (MxM)

15. Visceral Reaction

Hi lovely humans! 

So, tonight's chapter is going to be a bit different, as you're going to be meeting Ellis Song. I hadn't intended to actually pen an entire chapter under his perspective, but well, that's where the dopamine and creativity took me. I'm a little nervous to post it because my brain did a whole bunch of things with the chapter, but I hope you guys will enjoy it anyway. Please let me know what you think in the comments! Feel free to spin some theories about Song and Jae, and how do you feel about Jordan Wilder by the end of this chapter? Thank you so much for reading, I'm going to be one tired guy tomorrow as I am just now going to bed at almost two in the morning! 

Best, Quill. 

Ellis Song

I dropped like lead into my chair, staring into my desk. The emptiness and silence of my classroom was a welcome relief after the afternoon I'd had. It was... interesting to say the least. Apart from my first months as a new teacher at Sherman, my classes since have always gone off without much of a hitch. I'd call it rather atypical, considering many of my colleagues must contend with regular drama and interruption most days.

Not me, though.

Today was an anomaly of a much different sort. An anomaly for myself, certainly, as I'd never shared such personal information with a student before. Most of all, however, today must have been the most horrific of anomalies for Lucas Price. I didn't know Lucas well, he was quiet, cheery, and never disruptive. He turned his assignments in on time and got good grades. I knew relatively nothing else about Lucas, other than the fact he played for our Soccer team, the Sea Dogs.

I grimaced and tapped at my keyboard to wake my computer screen up. Truly, I felt exposed after sharing that bit of information about myself with Lucas. He did his best to appear indifferent, but it was more than obvious to me that he was likely closeted, and deeply hurt by Jordan Wilder's attempt at outing him.

"Wilder..." I muttered, her name leaving somewhat of a bad taste in my mouth.

Jordan wasn't a bad student either by any means, but her behavior in class today had drastically altered my opinion of her. As an educator, it's my job to not pick a "side" when it comes to benign, student-to-student drama. However, the incident I'd witnessed earlier, I felt, was far from benign. I thought it had the potential to feed a deeper issue, and from where I was sitting, it seemed Jordan Wilder had intentionally tried to out Lucas, with humiliation being the goal. I wasn't a grumpy teacher, nor an overtly stern one at that, but outing somebody was a serious offense in my book and it left me in somewhat of a foul mood.

That girl was supposed to be here at any moment now so we could discuss it, but I fully anticipated she would play dumb when it came to her true intentions.

"Don't get emotional, Ellis." I said to myself, checking my watch once again to verify the time. I felt very unsettled, a little anxious even, and I knew it was because what I'd witnessed brought up certain memories for me. Memories I very much would have liked to forget. Lucas's visible distress ate at me on a visceral level—it was like looking at a mirror image of my younger self.

I stood up and grabbed the Clorox wipes I kept in my class, planning to wipe down my student's desks as I waited. Sitting was making me anxious, and Miss Wilder was five minutes late already.

I was beginning to think she might not show, but not several minutes into my end-of-day cleaning did she arrive. There was a noticeable bounce in her step, and I saw that she'd taken her braid out from earlier and was now wearing her hair in a curly, messy bun. She'd also, quite obviously, refreshed her makeup and exchanged lip gloss for a red lip.

Clearly, Miss Wilder had some after-school plans.

"You're late." I said, gesturing with my head to the chair I'd placed in front of my desk.

"Sorry, Mr. Song." She said, giving me an apologetic sort of pout as she sat.

I took some extra time to finish up a few more desks and remained silent. Confrontation wasn't something I enjoyed, but being passive aggressive? Well, I could play that game. She made me wait, so I'd make her wait. Immature of me perhaps, but I didn't appreciate anybody wasting my time, especially not at the end of a workday. I eyed her here and there as I wiped down the desks and found her to be tapping away at her phone quite contentedly.

"So... do you start or me?" She finally said, eyes still glued to her phone.

There it is.

I sighed and looked over at her as I tossed used wipes into the trash. "You can start by telling me what happened Miss Wilder." I responded, doing my best to come across as my usual, centered, and calmed self.

She rolled her eyes and let out a "fine" but proceeded to tap away at her phone. I wanted to roll my eyes too at that point, but that would have been unprofessional of me. Instead, I crossed the floor and sat down at my desk, returning the Clorox wipes to their rightful place.

"Miss Wilder." I raised my brow and eyed her, looking pointedly between her face and that damned phone in her hand.

She held a hand up in mock-surrender, saying "yeah, yeah... sorry Mr. Song", dropping her phone loudly on my desk.

Ugh.

For the most part I enjoyed teaching high school, but the attitude that came with teenagers was always a special kind of pain to deal with. Jordan Wilder was full of attitude today, it seemed.

"As I said, tell me what happened." I didn't like repeating myself, but it appeared Jordan was more than happy to make me.

She pursed her lips and shrugged, glancing down at her acrylic nails—a mocha brown for fall, with little pearls on her index fingers. Almond shaped. I'd thought of getting mine done again recently, but I'd not had acrylics for years. I preferred a dip.

"It was just a misunderstanding." She sighed, rolling her eyes around in her head. Jordan was doing everything she could to not look at me directly, and it showed.

"How so?" I asked, sipping off my tea as I waited for her to elaborate.

"Well, Lucas and I were just talking and stuff, and that's when I learned he was going out with a guy. He just got like, super defensive though, which I personally found a bit uncalled for. It's not like I was rude or anything, I was just asking..." She crossed her arms and shrugged, finally drawing her gaze in my general direction.

I bit my tongue, doing my best to remain professional. How stupid did Jordan Wilder thing I was?

"So... what you're saying is, Lucas came out to you personally, told you he was dating a guy, but then later proceeded to stand up and yell that he wasn't gay afterwards?" I did my best to keep my voice neutral but firm. Jordan scoffed, but I held her gaze, continuing to sip off my tea.

Her face twisted into a scowl. "Look, whatever Lucas told you is only his side of the story! He's just being dramatic! I literally did not out him, if anything, he outed himself. I was just trying to help him feel comfortable! It's not like being gay is something to be ashamed of or whatever. Therapy would be good for him. Where's the lie in that?"

Miss Wilder was incredibly disrespectful, perhaps not to me in this moment, but certainly to Lucas Price. She was full of herself, yet her confidence appeared to be inconsistent at best. I swallowed my frustration, planning to work it out on the ice later that evening. The incident between the pair had the potential of turning into a full-blown shit-show if I didn't handle it appropriately, but I was struggling to separate myself from it. Jordan hadn't outed me personally, but I knew what it was to be exposed in such a way. I knew how it felt.

"Miss Wilder, we aren't here this afternoon because you behaved as a supportive friend in class; had that been the case, we wouldn't be here at all. If what you are saying is true, there wouldn't have been louder than usual talk out of you about his sexual orientation in class. Had there been no loud talk about his orientation, then I highly doubt the conversation would have resulted in Lucas Price's outburst... don't you think?" I crossed my arms and leant back in my chair, tapping my fingertips against my mug.

Jordan narrowed her eyes at me and said nothing. I raised a perfectly done brow in response, never breaking eye contact with her. We stared at one another for a solid few seconds before she began shifting in her seat; it seemed she was trying to figure out how to respond.

Miss Wilder was acting like a bully, and I was all-too ready to handle it, for I had no problem calling out such behavior.

In fact, I could be a bully of sorts when it suited me, just not in this environment.

"It's seriously not that big of a deal!" she whined, dropping her gaze to the floor. "I didn't do anything to Lucas. I just tried to encourage him to be himself, and apparently, he didn't appreciate that. Not. My. Fault."

I shook my head and cursed inwardly. She was defensive, sure. I anticipated that at least, but the display of seemingly total unawareness on her part was mind-boggling. In today's day and age at least, I found most teenagers had a greater sense of awareness when it came to queerness, and what a huge thing it meant to come out. Sure, we lived in a smaller town, and sure, the number of students that identified as members of the LGBTQ+ community was a bit smaller than maybe other areas of our state, but this was the year 2019, and Sherman High was far more accepting than I remembered it when I attended as a student myself.

In fact, Sherman felt safe now, safe enough for me to want to teach there. Yes, I was very private about my orientation and sexuality—perhaps a knee-jerk overreaction to the hurt I'd experienced growing up, but still, compared to how things used to be, we'd made progress.

Jordan's behavior surprised me. She didn't have to understand everything, but I certainly expected her to be respectful of other students' orientations, to be kind, and of course not attempt to out a student who clearly wasn't ready to come out themselves. That was just old-school, homophobic bullying, and I wouldn't have pegged Jordan Wilder to be one of those individuals. If she disagreed with people like me, then I expected her to remain respectful and civil despite it. That was the bare minimum, really.

"What?" she spit out, eyeing me nervously. I guess I'd been staring at her while I thought, and maybe I'd let my expression slip into something sterner than she was used to seeing.

"Miss Wilder..." I said, taking a deep breath. "The decision to come out, especially when and where, is a deeply serious and personal thing. If you expect me to believe that Lucas chose to come out to you—someone he is not explicitly close too—in the middle of my class, and in tears no doubt, whilst yelling that he was in fact, not gay, then you are sorely mistaken."

She balked. "I'm not crazy! If he didn't want me to know he wasn't gay, then why was he texting that Jae guy and blushing, huh? We dated for a year Mr. Song. We may not be close now, but I know shit about Lucas. He blushes easily, but I've never seen him blush when talking to a dude. I was just trying to help. If he didn't take it that way, then I'm sorry, but I didn't mean to ruin his day."

I felt my entire body shift forward, and I leant against the desk heavily. Jae?

"Who are you referring to?" I asked, voice tenser than I'd meant it to be.

Jordan gave me a questioning look. "Lucas...?"

I shook my head. "No, I'm asking if you are inferring Lucas told you the name of the guy he is supposedly dating—is that what you're trying to tell me?"

I doubted strongly that Lucas had told her the name of his partner, but I wanted to make sure I heard what she said right. Perhaps I'd misheard her.

"Well, not exactly..." she began, rolling her eyes around in her skull. "Like, I just saw he wasn't texting me. I was trying to talk to Lucas about something super duper important, but like, he kept ignoring my messages for somebody else's. Some 'Jae' person." She made air quotes with her fingers and sighed.

I bit my tongue. There could certainly be other Jae's around... right? There was no way Lucas was talking to the "Jae" I knew.

"It sounds to me like you were invading Lucas's privacy, Jordan." I said flatly.

She grimaced. "Okay fine, maybe! But like, still, he was being rude!"

I dropped my head into my hand and winced. This conversation was giving me a headache, and Jordan was acting far too self-centered to absorb anything other than her own opinion from it.

"Miss Wilder, whether Lucas was being 'rude' in your eyes was no excuse for goading him on, nor an excuse to go on accusing him of being gay. Mr. Price is entitled to his privacy, and that conversation between you two should never have escalated in the way it did. You knew better, Miss Wilder. In fact, I'm quite sure you do. Outing someone is no small thing, and putting on a show in front of other students to humiliate a fellow student is no small thing—that is bullying. Considering the specifics of the situation, some might see that as homophobic behavior on your part. As you know, we do not discriminate in this school based on age, sex, or orientation."

She reeled back and shook her head. "Okay, okay, I am not a homophobe! I like the gays or whatever, that shit is fine with me."

"Language, Miss Wilder." I interjected.

"Sorry. That stuff is fine with me, Mr. Song! Look... I wasn't trying to discriminate against anyone. Like, okay, I was mad at Lucas. He wouldn't come to the party tonight with me and then he was like, ignoring me, but I was not trying to out him. You're only listening to his side of the story, anyways. I was just trying to show him I was supportive of him being gay, and he didn't take it that way. That's all." She threw her hand up and groaned, tipping the chair back repeatedly in her anxiety.

My gut knew Jordan was full of it, and I believed Lucas, but she wasn't fessing up.

The reality was, I couldn't make Jordan Wilder tell me anything she didn't want to. I couldn't force her to be truthful, but I also knew what I saw when Lucas stood up and yelled at her. Technically speaking though, I wasn't in the middle of their conversation—I only knew what both had told me up until the point it got loud between them. It was a "he said, she said" situation, which pissed me off to the nth degree.

I took a big swig of my tea and swallowed, pressing my fingertips against my temple to alleviate the headache I'd developed, as well as calm myself.

"Miss Wilder, let me be perfectly clear with you on this—regardless of what took place between you two in private conversation, what occurred was completely unacceptable. Your behavior? Unacceptable. You will not go about this school and continue to tell 'your side' of the story to other classmates, do you understand? You will not go about this school trying to 'explain' Lucas's outburst nor his behavior, nor the details of what you two discussed in class. If I find out that you continue to spread rumors or misinformation about Lucas's sexual orientation around this school, the issue will escalate. I will get the principle involved, as well as your parents. Is that clear?"

Jordan's mouth open and shut several times before it finally clamped shut. Her lips formed a tight line, and she nodded once, eyes dropped to the ground.

"I should not need to explain to you the seriousness of this whole thing, Miss Wilder. Not every parent is accepting of their child's identity or orientation—coming out can be dangerous, even. Imagine what could happen if misinformation was spread about a student, and a parent finds out. That could go horribly, Jordan, whether the information be a lie or truthful, it could end terribly. I need you to understand that. This isn't just about you being mad at Lucas, this is about his safety, and every other student at this school whose identity or orientation differs from yours." I caught my breath, realizing I'd not taken a breath the entire time I'd given her my spiel.

I knew nothing of Lucas's home life, or what his parents were like, but I knew what mine had been like, and I was hell-bent on this school remaining a safe space for students that were like me. Jordan Wilder was not about to change that.

She dropped her face and fidgeted with her bag. I waited and watched intently, needing to hear, if nothing else, a firm "yes, Mr. Song." out of Jordan Wilder.

Finally, I heard a sniffle, and she raised her face—cheeks had become a bit red, and she wiped her eyes delicately, doing her best it seemed not to disturb her makeup. "His dad..." she murmured. "I'm so fucking stupid."

"What was that?" I said, heart racing as I waited for her to clarify.

Jordan's shoulders slumped and she sighed shakily. "Look, I was really mad... I was jealous! I always thought maybe, that like, if things didn't work out with Steven that maybe Lucas and I could try again. It was like I always thought he'd be there... so like, when I saw he was into someone else maybe, I don't know what came over me. I got so mad that I didn't even think about that; I-I didn't think about his dad..."

"What about Lucas's dad, Jordan?" I pressed, feeling that I already knew the answer.

"His dad hates gays, Mr. Song. Like hates them..." her voice trailed off and she shook her head. "I knew that about his dad the whole time, like... what the fuck was I thinking?"

I gripped my coffee mug like a vice, and fully expected it might explode from my frustration. Now I understood why Lucas was so upset—not just because he'd likely been outed, but because it wasn't safe to be himself at home. That was what I feared most for him.

I let Jordan continue her rambling however, and it seemed she was finally ready to be honest with herself about the situation.

"Oh my god... look, I just... I don't know, it's like I was so mad I just pushed him! I don't know what I thought. I just, I wasn't thinking. Shit, Mr. Song, I promise I won't say anything else. I'll do something to fix this. I p-promise!" She sputtered, swaying side to side in her seat. I think for the first time that day, Miss Wilder felt shame.

I hadn't bought a word she'd said throughout our conversation until now, but I was glad we were finally getting to the truth of this mess all the same.

Jordan raised her face and watched me, continuing to sway in her seat. "I don't know what I was thinking..." she said again.

"Have you told anyone else about this?" I asked anxiously, praying to whatever power that she'd not already gone to her friends about it.

She let out a sigh and nodded. "... yeah, I told my best friend Carly, and um, my friend Erin..."

I nodded curtly. "I see."

"I-I'll tell them not to tell anyone! I'll... I'll try to do some damage control." She said weakly, opening her phone immediately. I was sure Jordan Wilder knew how fast word spread, and I watched her tap rapidly on her phone. I think she knew it was already too late.

"Miss Wilder?"

"Yes...?" She sniffled, eyeing me on and off as she finished typing.

"It's already out there, you know. Neither you nor I can undo what has happened, but what you can do is be honest with the people around you. If anyone asks, you must be truthful about what happened; that you pushed Lucas, insinuated things about his orientation, and that it was wrong. You do not try to explain anything else, and you certainly don't reveal to anyone who he was texting, or what they were texting about." I looked at her in earnest, praying she'd heed my advice, praying she'd not already spread the name of the guy Lucas was texting around.
She turned red and sighed heavily. "But what if people hate me for it? They'll think I'm awful, Mr. Song..."

"Your classmates will likely be very disappointed in you, but they should respect your honesty at the very least. Most importantly though, in being honest, you can help prevent more rumors being spread about Lucas."

She chewed on her lower lip and nodded. "Okay..."

"Okay, then." I breathed out, leaning back into my seat. I felt deeply disturbed about the situation, but hopeful Miss Wilder would be true to her word this time.

"I'll tell Erin and Carly first..." she murmured.

"Seems prudent." I said, feeling like I could finally breathe. I was very much concerned about such rumors getting back to Lucas's father somehow. Whether his mother was in the picture, I wasn't sure, but student safety is a serious thing. I wanted to make sure Lucas's well-being wouldn't end up threatened over a rumor like this.