CHAPTER 18

Kyle became my good friend after he agreed to give me an interview for the yearbook on behalf of the school's tennis team.

He often caught up with me to see whether I needed more information about the team, team members or team activities. On many occasions he helped me with my maths homework, and pretty soon we became study buddies and spent a lot of time together poring over those mathematical equations alien to me.

He was such a nice kid, so when Ben suggested that I needed to find another place to sleep to escape my nocturnal visitors, I naturally thought of Kyle. As head of his room, Kyle did not have to share his cubicle with anyone, giving enough space for a 4-by-6 carpet on which he carefully placed a couple of cushions and a low Japanese-style coffee table. I asked him whether he would terribly mind if I were to spend nights sleeping on the carpet. Not at all, he said, although more often than not, it was he who would end up sleeping on the carpet, as he would always insist that I took the bed instead. He was truly sweet.

Until that afternoon.

After tea, we were in his room getting ready for games, as he had promised to give me a few pointers on tennis. The room was already deserted. I was bending over to lace up my tennis shoes when he came from behind me, his hand reaching between my legs.

I spun around. "What do you think you are doing?" I demanded.

"Nothing," he grinned.

"Yup. That's what I thought. Well, hurry up. I don't want to lose our turn at the tennis court," I handed him his T-shirt.

"I don't feel like playing tennis today," he replied, sitting down on the edge of his bed.

"What do you mean? You promised to teach me..."

"Let's play something else, something that you could teach me instead."

"But Kyle, what could I possibly teach you? I'm lousy at sports, and you don't like badminton or volleyball."

"True. But I like playing with these balls," he pointed to the bulge in his shorts," and I know that you do, too," he advanced.

I took a step back and asked him to stop whatever it was that he thought he was doing.

"Why? You do it with other guys. All the time. They talk about you in the locker rooms."

I felt sick.

"Yes. I do it with other guys. I will not do it with you. Let's go play tennis and I'll forget that this ever happened."

"But why? Am I not good enough for you? Come on, Gabe, try me."

He came towards where I was standing, his arms outstretched to embrace me. I was seething with anger, and as his hands touched my shoulders, I sailed into his stomach with my right fist, and my left landed on his jaw. He reeled backwards, knocked against the coffee table and stumbled onto the carpet.

I felt a stinging pain on my knuckles. But the hurt I felt in my heart was indescribable.