Chapter One

Chris cautiously stepped out of the car, feeling as nervous as if it had been his own first day of school. But it wasn't, and he had to keep reminding himself that he was the adult here and there was no reason for him to be nervous. His son was going to be left in the care of a total stranger for half of the day, that was all. Nothing to be worried about.

He took two steps backwards and opened up the other car door on the driver's side. Sitting there in his car seat, beaming at Chris with bright blue eyes and a lunch pail in his hand, was Ty, his dark curly hair resting against his forehead and nearly hitting his eyes. Chris reached into the car and undid the seat belt, and Ty tried to jump out of the car as quickly as he could.

“Come on, daddy!” he shouted as he hopped up and down beside Chris, reaching up with his arm stretched out as far as it would go. Chris laughed at him, shut the door and made sure the car was locked, then he grabbed Ty's hand and they made their way towards the small school.

“You're far more excited than I am,” Chris told him. He looked down to see Ty skipping as they went along, and he smiled. “I suppose that's not a bad thing, though.”

Ty let go of Chris's hand and ran ahead as they approached the glass doors, but he unsuccessfully attempted to push them open. Chris sneaked his hand to the bars and pushed lightly so that Ty would think he was doing it himself. Of course, Ty knew what was really going on, and deep down Chris realized that. But he still pretended anyway.

“Chris,” a voice said the very instant they had stepped inside, “haven't I already told you that you're too old to go here anymore?” Chris turned to the direction from which the voice was coming, though he knew exactly who was speaking to him. Standing behind a desk at the entrance was a young man with dark brown hair and dark brown eyes.

“Uh, probably, but I never learn,” Chris answered, stopping in front of the man's desk. “And that's why I need to come back to school.”

“Well, I suppose I could try to sneak you in, but I think you might have to walk around on your knees.” The man smiled, and as he did so Chris couldn't help noticing that his eyes seemed to glow a little. Chris smiled back, tempted to reply, but reminding himself that he was in a building filled with small children. Then Chris felt Ty brush against his leg as he was trying to hide himself.

“Wait a minute... there's something down here...” Chris bent down, completely out of sight of the man, and grabbed Ty, who was trying not to burst out into a fit of giggles. Chris quickly stood back up, pulling Ty along with him, as Ty finally let his laughter go as he flew up into the air. “Oh, wow.”

“Hey, you look like you're small enough to go here,” the man said to Ty. He leaned over the desk a bit and lowered his voice. “Are you gonna learn a lot and then go home to teach your dad? Apparently he doesn't know very much.”

“No,” Ty exaggeratedly replied, as if what he was about to say was common knowledge. “My daddy is the smartest man I know. He doesn't need to be teached things.”

“Taught things,” Chris corrected. Ty looked up at him briefly, then back to the other man.

“See? He is a genius!” Ty exclaimed, frantically waving his arms about trying to make his point. Chris laughed at him, and the man smiled again.

“Then I think you're the only one who needs to stay here. Are you scared about starting school?”

Ty shook his head and grinned smugly. “No, I'm not scared of anything.”

“It's true,” Chris said to the man, “you should see the giant bugs that crawl around in his bed at night. Don't even faze him in the least.”

“Giant bugs?” Ty responded with confusion. He seemed to forget about it quickly, though, and then proceeded to ask, “Daddy, what does 'faze' mean?”

“Like bother,” Chris told him.

“Oh!” Satisfied with Chris's answer, Ty shifted his focus to his lunch box. He was busy tracing the cartoon figures on the front with his finger, while the man searched for something in a book on his desk. Eventually he found what he was looking for, and he peeled a rectangular sticker from the page.

“Here you are,” he said, handing the sticker to Chris. Chris took it and stuck it to Ty's shirt, just under his left shoulder. Ty looked down at it, but he didn't have the slightest clue what it said.

“What is that?” he asked.

“It's your name tag,” the man replied. “It's got your name on it, see?”

“No,” Ty said, twisting up his tiny mouth. Chris pointed out for him the spot where it said TYRONE, to which Ty responded with great awe. “Oh, wow, that is so cool!”

“All right, well, you're all set to go,” the man said. “So, you can head down to the room now. Do you know where it is?”

“Um...” Chris looked behind him at the long hallway. He stared for a few moments, then turned back. “That way,” he said, pointing backwards. The man laughed.

“Third door on the left,” he said, and Chris flashed him one last smile before leaving with Ty. As they walked further down the hallway and away from the man, Ty leaned closer to Chris and spoke with a very soft voice.

“Daddy, he kept smiling at you,” Ty nearly whispered, and he raised his eyebrows in hope that Chris would understand what he was saying.

“Ty, that doesn't mean anything,” Chris said, almost defensively, though he could feel his cheeks getting just a little redder. He almost glanced back at the man, increasingly disappearing into the distance, but before he could he realized that they had come to the door through which they needed to go. Chris set Ty down, and they both walked inside the room filled with quite a lot of other children and their parents, mostly mothers.

“Oh, hello!” a woman greeted them, and Chris assumed she was the teacher. She beamed at them, laughing a little, and said, “Are we taking our little brother to his first day of school?”

Chris was quite taken aback by this. For some reason, he had never expected anyone to think that Ty was his brother and not his son. “Um, actually, I'm his father.”

The woman's smile faded as she realized her mistake, and she tried to hide her mixture of judgment and embarrassment. “Oh. Well, uh–” She cleared her throat and turned her attention to Ty. “Welcome to the class. I'm Ms. Litherspoone, but you can call me Ms. L if it makes it easier. What's your name?”

“I'm Ty,” Ty enthusiastically replied. Then he pointed to Chris. “And he is... um...”

“Chris,” Chris answered.

“Yeah, Chris. He's my daddy,” Ty beamed, nodding his head.

“It's nice to meet you both,” Ms. Litherspoone in a semi-fake sweet voice, and she smiled at the two. It seemed like she might kept the conversation going, but at that moment another mother and her cute little daughter walked into the room, and Ms. Litherspoone rushed to meet them.

Chris watched uneasily as Ms. Litherspoone talked with the other woman, feeling like once again someone disapproved of him, when he felt a tug on his jacket sleeve. He looked down to see Ty staring up at him with wide eyes.

“Daddy, I wanna go talk to the other kids,” he said. Chris bent down so he was roughly eye level with Ty.

“All right, you can go talk to them,” he said, reaching out and gently placing his hands on Ty's small arms. “But I think I'm gonna leave now, is that OK?”

“Yes, I will be fine,” Ty said with a tiny smile. Despite Chris's hold, Ty walked forward and wrapped his arms around Chris as best as he could. After a few seconds he pulled back, and quickly kissed Chris on the nose. The, giggling as he spoke, he said, “Goodbye, daddy, and don't forget to say hi to that nice man by the doors on your way out!”

Ty ran away as quickly as possible, and Chris incredulously shouted, “Ty!!” at him as he went. He shook his head and stood up, sighing as he went. For a few more seconds he watched as his son started chatting with a small group of children, and he was extremely glad that Ty seemed to be so social. And the fact that the other kids appeared to accept him was a relief as well.

Chris turned to find where the door had gone, and as he did so he caught a glimpse of a few women whispering things to each other. He tried not to think it, because it would be a bit arrogant to do so, but he had the sinking feeling that they were talking about him. He quickly looked back at them, and saw that they were at least clearly looking in his direction.

Having found the door, Chris immediately left the room without acknowledging anyone else. He relished the quietness of the hallway, and as he walked closer and closer to the front desk his heart beat just a little faster.

At first no one was there, and all that Chris could see from afar was the nameplate resting on the desk's surface and shouting at everyone, TRISTAN SOLDEL. Then, almost out of nowhere, the dark-haired man appeared and took his place behind the desk. He lifted his head up, and almost immediately smiled at Chris. Chris smiled back and gave a little wave, which he soon realized looked extremely camp and he wished he hadn't done it at all. Despite his embarrassment, he decided to stop for a while and try to strike up a bit of conversation. Luckily, he didn't have to try very hard.

“I'm guessing everything went well then, huh?” Tristan asked as Chris stopped in front of him. “I think you were the first one out of there.”

“Yeah, it went well. Ty wanted almost nothing to do with me as soon as we got in there,” Chris laughed.

“Aw, you mean he didn't want his daddy around anymore?” Tristan replied in a mocking tone. Chris shook his head.

“He wanted to be with all the other kids. Which is good. I just hope he does as well for the rest of the day.” Chris stared down and nervously tapped the tips of his fingers on the desk, and he came to the conclusion that so far he had managed to not make an idiot of himself, and that he should just be happy with that and take the opportunity to leave. He had work to do, anyway. “Um, I think I better be going, then...”

“Right. Have fun enjoying your eerie silence in the absence of your son,” Tristan said, and Chris looked up to see him raising his eyebrows convincingly. “It's gonna be weird.”

“You would think that, but I have a tape of him yapping on and on that I'm just gonna put on repeat for a few hours, so...” Chris snapped his finger as an ending to his sentence, and at that moment he realized that his plan to escape looking like a normal person was already blown. But Tristan didn't seem to think so.

“That's a good idea,” he said as he laughed. Chris felt his cheeks heating up again, and he chuckled nervously in response.

“Thanks.” Chris took a few steps back, awkwardly, and gave another wave, but this time he made sure that it was more manly than before. “Well, see you.”

Chris left as quickly as he could without seeming rude, and as soon as he sat in his car, he rested his head on the steering wheel for a few minutes, trying to get over himself. Finally, he picked his head up and drove off. Tristan had been absolutely right; the silence was almost deafening. While stopped at a red light, Chris looked into the rear-view mirror to see the empty car seat in the back. It was definitely weird.

When he returned home the quiet followed him, and even though Chris had spent plenty of time without Ty (when he stayed with Kirsten, for example), it was somehow different now. He tried to shake off the feeling as he sat down at his desktop computer. There were more important things to focus on at the moment, like the fact that he needed to write an article in two days.

Deadlines like this were one of the few things Chris resented about being a writer. He had never actually intended to be this kind of writer in the first place- a journalist, basically- but he took the job because it was there, they wanted him, and it paid just enough for him to support himself and his son.

In fact, not only had he taken the job to support them, but he had also not attended university for the exclusive reason that he wanted to take care of Ty. Kirsten absolutely loved the idea, as while she did love her son, she relished the idea of not having to be responsible for him all the time. After all, most of her teenage years had been taken from her; when her friends were all hanging out, shopping, or having sleepover parties, she was at home looking after Ty. But with Chris taking over, she could at least enjoy the last few years.

Every now and then Kirsten would visit them when she was still living with her parents. Once she came of age and moved out of the house with the big, blue door, she took more opportunities to see her son, though it was certainly difficult since, unlike Chris, she did opt to further her education. And so even now, Ty was with Chris more often than not, and he would only stay with Kirsten for a few hours, occasionally spend the night.

Chris looked at the clock and realized that while he had been sitting there, absentmindedly staring at the computer screen and thinking about his life, several hours had managed to slip by without him writing so much as a word for his article, and it was now time for him to pick Ty up from school. He was actually a bit glad to be rid of the view of the empty document before him, and he was certainly glad that he would see his son again.

The drive to the school seemed to take much longer than it had before. It actually felt as if Chris had been stuck at every one of the red lights this time, plus he was already very impatient. As he was waiting for cars to pass in the opposite direction so that he could turn into the school, he was struck with a strange feeling that not everything was right. He left his car so quickly that he almost forgot to shut it off, and when he slammed the door he nearly got his own hand caught in between. He ran to the glass doors, but he quickly tried to calm himself before walking inside.

A few feet into the building, he heard Tristan's voice speak to him once again. “Hey, Chris,” he said, and his tone sounded rather urgent. Chris looked up at him, worried. “Uh, it seems there was some trouble earlier...” Tristan slowly lifted his hand and pointed in the direction of what seemed to be the principal's office. “I think they might still be in there.”

“Trouble?” Chris distractedly repeated, leaving no room for a reply as he scrambled to get to the next room. Despite his rush, he slowly opened the door, peeking inside until he saw the man he assumed to be the principal talking to the chair in front of him. Of course, Ty was sitting in that chair, but he was hardly visible. “Excuse me?” Chris quietly said.

“Come on in,” the principal replied, standing up and walking around the side of his desk. “I assume that you are Tyrone's father.”

“Yeah,” Chris said as he stood inside of the room. “What's going on?”

“Have a seat, please.” The man waved to another chair beside Ty's, and Chris hesitantly sat down. The principal made his way back to his desk and also sat down, clasping his hands together in front of him. Chris looked over to Ty, who was staring with an unidentifiable expression on his face. Chris thought it may have slightly resembled anger.

“What's going on?” Chris asked again, more desperately. Ty turned his head towards his father, and almost immediately he appeared sad.

“There was some trouble with a few of the other kids in class,” the principal began. And there was that word again, the word which said so much and so little all at once. Chris was growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of information he was receiving. “Tyrone, would you like to explain what happened?”

“Ms. L made us sit in groups, and when we were drawing things, the other kids in my group started saying stuff to me,” Ty grumpily said, indicating that whatever it was they had said to him was not taken very kindly. Chris felt his heart sink a little; he had really hoped that Ty would at least be accepted by the children in his class.

“Tyrone hit one of the other boys,” the principal told Chris. Chris whipped his head around, shot an incredibly bewildered look at the man, then turned back to his son.

“Ty,” Chris started, almost at a loss for words, “why would you...?”

“I told you,” Ty said, pouting, “they were saying stuff to me.”

“Well, just because kids say things to you doesn't mean you hit them.” Chris sighed, closed his eyes briefly and rubbed a hand across his forehead. Ty, recognizing the disappointment in Chris's voice, opened his eyes wide and frowned.

“But they said mean things about you,” Ty said in a high-pitched voice, though his anger quickly shone through once more. “And no one says mean things about my daddy.” Chris let his hand fall into his lap as he stared at Ty with a tiny bit of admiration.

“I appreciate you sticking up for me, Ty, but you can't hit other kids, OK?” Chris quietly said. Ty stared at him sadly, then nodded his head. “You're a smart kid, you should use your brain and not your fists.”

“All right,” Ty replied, smiling a little with determination. “I won't hit anyone anymore, even when they make me mad because they say mean things about you.”

“Good,” Chris said, and he sank back in the chair a little. One question burned through his mind, but he wasn't sure that he wanted to know the answer. He breathed deeply, preparing to ask, when the principal did it for him.

“What did these other kids say to you, Tyrone?” the man asked, his voice stern and a bit of a shock to Chris's ears after having almost forgotten that he was even there. Chris kept his eyes on his son as Ty slowly looked up at the principal.

“They said...” Ty twisted up his mouth, trying to remember. “I don't even know!” he exclaimed, exasperatedly, throwing his arms up in the air.

“You don't know what they said to you? Not even part of it?”

Ty shrugged his small shoulders. “Something like... Oh, Tyrone, his dad is such a que...quh... uh... I don't remember,” he said, disheartened, and his shoulders slumped a little. “But I do remember that they were laughing all mean-like when they said it and it made me really mad. And I didn't know what they were saying to me anyway.”

It broke Chris's heart to see Ty so distraught about something he should never have had to deal with in the first place. Chris had learned a long time ago to handle the mindless criticism from other people, but he had never thought that Ty could be subjected to it as well. And all because of him.

“I think we should continue this discussion tomorrow, then, when your classmates are here.” The principal cleared his throat, then turned his attention to Chris. “Will you be able available?”

“Uh, yeah,” Chris said, and he realized then that his article was going to have to be written under massive amounts of pressure in the last hours before his deadline. He was used to that, though.

“Then I shall be seeing you both tomorrow. Have a pleasant afternoon.” The man seemed to stop acknowledging either of them at that point, and he merely stared down at some papers on his desk. It was just as well; Chris felt a little scrutinized for Ty's behavior, though the principal had never directly blamed him, and he really would have liked to leave as soon as possible.

“You too, sir,” Chris said despite the man's lack of attention, and he stood up and held his hand out to Ty. “Come on, kid.”

Ty hopped out of the chair and grabbed Chris's hand, and the two left the room. Tristan smiled at them both on their way out and also wished them a good day, much friendlier than the principal had. As soon as they were both outside, far out of earshot of Tristan, Chris could hear Ty quietly giggling to himself, but he chose to ignore it. Before they reached the car, Ty stopped laughing, and he sighed loudly.

“Daddy, are you mad at me?” he asked in a fretful tone. Chris looked down at him, tilted his head to the side, as they both stopped by the back door of the car.

“No, I'm not mad at you.”

“You should be,” Ty sadly said. He lifted his exuberant blue eyes to his father and frowned.

“Why should I be mad at you?” Chris asked him. He let go of Ty's hand and bent down so they were more level with each other.

“Because I did a bad thing. Lotsa other people are mad at me.” Ty broke his gaze and stared at the ground, as if he was afraid of what he would see in Chris's eyes. But Chris realized this, and he put his hand under Ty's chin and lifted his head, forcing eye contact.

“I'm not mad at you,” Chris slowly and firmly said. “I do think you need to apologize to that boy, because it was wrong of you to hit him. But I'm not mad. Not at you – if anything, I'm more angry with myself for not preparing you for this sort of thing. Except I never thought there would be any reason for you to deal with it.”

A sudden sharpness flashed through Ty's eyes, and he leaned forward slightly and in a near whisper said, “Daddy, what does 'queer' mean?”

Chris sighed tiredly as he felt like his skin was being dragged down his face. “That's what they said to you, isn't it?” With eyebrows drawn tightly together and mouth turned down, Ty nodded. “Well, it could mean a few things, but... you know how some boys don't like girls, they like other boys?”

“Like you,” Ty quietly added.

“Yeah. Well, there are quite a lot of people in this world who don't think that's OK. And 'queer' is one of the things they call those boys. It's not a nice thing at all.” Chris paused for a moment and watched as Ty yet again went from upset to angry, tightening his jaw and narrowing his eyes.

“Why don't people think it's OK?” he asked. “There's nothing wrong with it, right? You told me there's nothing wrong with it!”

“Some people think there is,” Chris calmly told him. “And honestly, Ty, I wish I could tell you why, but I have no idea.”