Covet Thy Neighbor

anything.”
    “Hear, hear.” He swallowed. “So one night, this kid calls. Chad. He wasn’t quite seventeen, and he was one of the four.”
    “One of the gay kids?”
    “Yeah. And he was a mess. Drunk out of his mind, crying, saying he wanted to kill himself.”
    “Oh my God . . .”
    Darren moistened his lips, and his eyes lost focus. “I picked him up at this diner where all the kids like to hang out. He refused to get into the car until I promised not to take him back to his parents’ place, so I took him back to mine so he could sober up.”
    I winced. “Why can I already see where this is going?”
    “Because this story always ends the same way,” he said bitterly. “When I’d finally convinced him to let me take him home, his parents flipped out, and . . .” He made a you do the math gesture.
    “Jesus.”
    “And this poor kid. He was so raw, and in such a bad place, and . . .” Darren whistled and shook his head. “Man, he still refused to let anyone bully him into making an accusation. I was scared to death for him through the whole thing.” He paused, clearing his throat. “Every time my phone rang, I was sure someone was going to tell me he’d hurt himself. He just . . . he didn’t need that, you know?”
    My skin prickled with sick déjà vu. I knew damn well what that kid felt like, and I hadn’t had someone like Darren to fall back on. I couldn’t begin to imagine what it would be like to have that support, and then have it yanked out from under me.
    “So what happened?” I asked.
    “The police investigated it. The kid and I both passed polygraphs, and eventually all the charges were dropped.” Darren rubbed his forehead, grimacing like this whole train of thought gave him a headache. Maybe it did. “But the congregation still wasn’t happy. And the elders, the deaconess, the pastor . . .” He shook his head and sat back, focusing on something across the room. “They had a meeting about it. About me, really.”
    “That doesn’t sound good.”
    “Not really, no.” Darren’s lips thinned into a bleached line, and he was quiet for a moment. “When all was said and done, they came to an agreement that it would be better for everyone involved if I left the congregation.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “I wish. I mean, I’ll go to my grave and still not understand it. What was I supposed to have done, you know?” He ran a hand through his hair. “Just leave him at that diner? Drunk? Tell him he needed to talk to someone else because people might get the wrong idea? As fragile as he—” Darren’s voice cracked, and he quickly cleared his throat. “The whole thing was so fucked up.”
    My heart skipped. I couldn’t say what startled me more: the fact that he’d cursed, or how badly his voice had shaken when he did.
    Or, as he turned toward me, the extra shine in his eyes.
    “I never did a damned thing to any of those kids,” he whispered. “But I was kicked out because people got it into their heads that I might . Because I’m gay, and so . . .” He waved a hand, and then swiped at his eyes. “Damn it, I’m sorry.”
    All the air rushed out of my lungs. “And I did the same thing, didn’t I?”
    Darren said nothing. He didn’t move. Didn’t look at me.
    Heart pounding, I got up and moved to the couch beside him. When I touched his arm, he didn’t recoil, so I put my other arm around his shoulders.
    “I’m so sorry, Darren,” I whispered.
    Releasing his breath, he leaned against me, and I wrapped my arms around him.
    After a long, silent moment, I asked, “Why was Chad upset that night?”
    “What?” Darren’s eyes were clearer, but his brow furrowed with confusion.
    “The kid you were helping that night.” I swallowed. “What . . . what had happened?”
    Darren shifted his gaze back down to his hands. “To tell you the truth, I never did get out of him exactly what set him off that night. There was so much weighing on him. He’d been really stressed for a while. I was worried about him, and we’d had a few conversations about it. I know he’d just broken up with someone. He felt like an outcast. His parents were putting pressure on him academically and spiritually. To this day, I don’t know what the last straw was.” Darren sighed. “I think it just boiled down to being a gay teenager with ultraconservative parents in the Midwest.”
    “Poor kid,” I said.
    “Yeah, no kidding. And all of that, what I just told you, that’s why my