Chapter Fifteen

“So as you can see, the billboard is meant to represent a divine figure looking down at the American civilization with judgment, but it also comes to represent the mind and how we all subconsciously ascribe meaning to objects despite knowing that there really isn’t anything that special about them at all.”

Jeff was giving what he thought to be a very good lecture on the use of symbolism in modernist literature to his last class of the day. Unfortunately, as was the case all too often these days, his students seemed far more interested in their phones. It was something about which he always tried to be lenient. He knew that phones were a modern convenience that they were all lucky to have and that they provided a whole wealth of information that simply was not available to previous generations. Still, that didn’t mean that they didn’t piss him the fuck off. Especially when he was trying to teach.

“Linda!” Jeff snapped, picking the most obvious offender. “Would you please repeat what I just said in your own words?”

Linda lifted her head and looked at him with contempt. Jeff was momentarily taken aback. He knew that he was never going to have every student like him, but he definitely wasn’t used to looks like that, especially over a simple question. Even stranger was the fact that he’d never had a problem with Linda before. She was blunt and a little bit quiet, sure, but never downright disrespectful. Maybe it was something that was going on at home? He’d have to check with Linda’s guidance counselor later and make sure she was all right.

“I’d rather not,” she said, slipping her phone into her jeans pocket. There was a challenging note in her voice that he didn’t quite understand.

Jeff frowned.

“Please just pay attention to the lesson. That goes for everyone.”

He went right back to what he was saying, but the distractions just kept coming. Phones were pinging left and right, eliciting widely varied reactions all around. Jeff had been about to start threatening to confiscate the devices, but now he was curious as to what was going on. His own phone was turned off and tucked away in his desk because he liked to give the kids his full attention while he was teaching, but if there was some sort of earth-shattering emergency, he needed to know about it. Jeff started pacing the aisles, trying to figure it out. The very few people who weren’t on their phones wouldn’t meet his eyes. Then a whisper floated up from the corner, just barely reaching his ears.

“Isn’t that Cam Davis’s dad?”

Jeff’s heart stopped beating and his words cut out mid-sentence.

“Reyna,” he said through tight lips. “Let me see your phone.”

The girl, a spunky art kid who had always seemed to look up to Jefferson, handed it over sheepishly. The screen was open to Reyna’s SocialBook page, specifically to a picture. A picture of Jeff and Luke kissing. The picture had originally been posted by April this morning as a part of her “Wedding Photobooth” album but had since been reblogged nearly seven hundred times. The caption on this particular version read: “Yo, my English teacher sucks dick y’all!!” the reblogger had also tacked on the hashtags: Literally, Apollo High School, and Mr. Martin Wants the D.

Jeff lost touch with reality for a few moments. He couldn’t quite process thoughts or sounds. It was like he was in a very fast-moving vehicle while the world stood still all around him. With a deadly sense of calm that did not at all match his racing heartbeat, Jeff sat the phone back down on Reyna’s desk and told her to put it away. He walked back up to the front of the classroom and sat down at his desk.

“Phones away. Now,” he said, in more of a commanding tone than he even knew he had in him. “We’re finishing this lesson.” He resisted the urge to tack on the in case this is the last one I ever get to teach you.

“Mr. Martin,” said a kid named Toby. “What is going on?”

Toby clearly either didn’t have a phone or kept it off during school hours. Jeff didn’t know what to say, or even if he should say anything. But he also couldn’t just ignore the question. Jeff cleared his throat.

“Hopefully it's nothing. Now the next person that I catch talking about something that doesn’t pertain to the lesson is getting written up.”

The words came out loud and harsh, but there was no other way he could have said them. He felt woozy and unmoored and helpless. If the kids were finding the picture and sharing it, then surely the school board would have seen it too, but the question was would they do something about it? Could they do something about it? Jeff wasn’t sure. The Carolinas weren’t exactly known for their anti-discrimination laws or anything.

“Turn to page 253,” he said hollowly. “Now.”

Most of his students were staring at him with wide, terrified eyes. They’d never seen him like this, cold and unfeeling and mean. Jeff did his best to ignore them and read aloud from the text until the bell finally rang. Nobody moved at first, they just stared at him over their books with cautious eyes. Eventually though, one person closed and put away their book and that seemed to break the spell. The students slowly started packing their things and filing out one by one with fresh gossip on their lips.

Alas, there were still some sweet stragglers who seemed concerned about his well-being. It figured that the one time Jeff actually wanted his entire class to race out of there like he had the plague, the kids acted like they were glued to their seats.

“Mr. M, are you going to be okay?” asked Matilda.

Jeff gave her a watery smile and shrugged.

“I don’t know yet,” he answered.

“It’s just a picture right?” asked Carrie-Ann, “They can’t fire you for something like that. It’s nobody’s business what you do in your spare time. You weren’t even the one who posted the picture.

Jeff stood and gestured at the door with shaking fingers. “If you’ll excuse me please.”

The girls looked like they wanted to argue, but they bit their tongues and let Jeff shoo them out the door. He locked it right behind them and then returned to his desk, placing his head in his hands. This was a disaster.

He’d never actively hidden his sexuality from his students or coworkers. All of his closest friends on staff, the ones he hung out with outside of school, of course they knew, and he was sure most of the others suspected. It was on his social media profiles if anyone cared to look, and he sometimes took one boyfriend or another to school related functions, but all of that was safe and innocuous, unthreatening to homophobic parents. This picture? It was not. It was about as explicitly gay as it got.

School had only been out of session for about five minutes and already people were knocking on his door. Ten years of his open-door policy was now biting him in the ass. Jeff pushed his hands into his eye sockets and then dug his own phone out of his desk. He waited a few moments for it to power on and then opened up his own SocialBook app. He had 1031 notifications, most of them were just reblogs of the photo he was tagged in, but there were also hundreds of messages either asking about the photo or calling him a “Sick Fag.”

Jeff scrolled up the top of the notifications until he found the one for April’s original post. He clicked on it and went to the picture, instantly remembering how happy he’d felt in that moment. They both had their eyes closed. Luke’s tie was askew and Jeff was smiling into the kiss. It was the moment right before he and Luke had said I love you to each other for the very first time.

Jeff chewed on the inside of his cheek and scrolled through the rest of the album. The next three photos were them pulling away in increments and looking at each other with matching giant lovesick smiles. Then it switched to other people in the booth. Jeff went back to the first picture and started looking through all the reblogs. A lot of them were funny or supportive, but a lot of them were cruel as well, calling him all kinds of slurs and saying that he’s a disgrace to the public education system. He would never understand how such a pure expression of love could be misconstrued as something sinful and monstrous to some people.

Then there was Cam. God, Cam. He didn’t deserve to find out about their relationship this way. The thought of him getting randomly texted or shown this picture with no warning made Jeff feel sick to his stomach. And what about Luke? He probably didn’t even know this was happening yet. He wasn’t tagged in the picture since April didn’t really know him.

Jeff closed the app and opened up his contacts instead. He pushed down on Luke’s number, still unsure of what he was going to say. The phone went straight to voicemail.

“Hey baby,” Jeff said, trying his best not to cry. “Um...there’s a...there’s a situation at school right now and I...uh. Well I don’t really know what to do about it. It involves you, and Cam too I guess. I don’t know if you’ve seen it yet, but if you have, I’m...I’m so sorry. Please call me when you get the chance. Yeah...just call me.”

Jeff hung up and slid the phone across his desk. He groaned into his hands. He didn’t know what to do. He was supposed to be leading rehearsals right now, but would Cam even show up? Jeff didn’t know what he would do if their situations were reversed. It’s not like there was a set protocol for something like this.

Jeff sank down in his chair and stared at the ceiling for several minutes. He blamed himself honestly. He was the one who wanted to go to the wedding. He was the one with the disastrous track record with dating. He was the one who had been stupid enough to think that he could have something nice in his life for a change.

Amid these self-pitying thoughts, Jeff’s phone started ringing. In his agitated state, he didn’t even look at the display. He just picked it up, assuming that it was Luke.

“Hello?”

“Hi Jefferson. It’s Principal Mallory. Can you please come see me in my office right away?”