I’m not convinced.
Apparently, I’ve fallen asleep, because I’m jolted awake when Kerry simultaneously knocks and bursts through the door. “Hello, my darlings! What’s shakin’?”
It takes a minute for me to respond. “Hey, Kerry.” I rub my eyes and yawn. “You look happy.”
She gives a twirl. “I am. I’m all in love and swoony and feeling full of life and all that corny stuff.” She throws a sidelong peek at Esben, who has not looked up from his screen, and then raises her eyebrows at me. “I was hoping for some girl talk.”
“Sure,” I say with a stretch. “Give me a minute.”
“What’s up with grumpy there?” she asks.
It takes a few nudges to draw his attention away. “Yeah? What? Oh, hi, Kerry. Sorry.”
“Hiya, Baby Blue.” Kerry puts a hand on her hip. “Why so pissy?”
“It’s just . . . I didn’t understand how much crap you filtered out online.”
“What do you mean?” She sits in my desk chair and frowns.
His neck cracks as he rolls his head. “You haven’t been deleting comments and banning and blocking people the way you used to.”
“Oh.” Her face drops. “I didn’t realize. God, Esben, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I knew that you’ve been pulling back, and that’s fine. You’re . . . preoccupied or whatever with Jason. And I get it. It’s cool. I’m just getting up to speed on a lot of posts from the past few months, and . . . I’m seeing so much more now,” he says with little expression. “I didn’t realize the scale . . . the level of vitriol.” He shakes his head with an awful sense of understanding. “The absolute expanse of it. It’s too much. It’s really just too much.”
Kerry’s flush of exuberance is fading. “They’re just idiots, Esben.”
“You have to ignore them,” I say with less conviction than I’d like.
“How am I supposed to ignore this guy? I just went way back to Cassie’s party and the pictures. Some moron wrote . . .” He shakes his head and breathes before he reads this aloud. “He wrote, ‘Dude, that kid is weird looking. No wonder no one wanted to go, lol.’ And under the picture of that little schnauzer? How’s this for crummy? ‘That dog is fricking disgusting. Shoulda been shot years ago.’” He hits the wall behind him. “Tons of crap about our professor and his former friend. Way too much about Allison and me. Horrible, disgusting, offensive stuff that I will not read out loud. That I’ve already deleted. But why?” He gives us both a hopeless face. “Why? I don’t get it. I’ll never get it. And I don’t want to. I don’t want to understand these people.”
“Oh, hell.” Kerry runs her hands through her hair. “This is my fault. Look, it’s always been like this, but I’m usually on top of removing the crap. I’m really sorry. You shouldn’t have to see this kind of stuff.”
Esben raises his voice sharply. “No. I should. I should see every word. You’ve been protecting me from too much. I’ve been stupidly naive. I’ve seen plenty of BS online before this, but it’s getting to be too much. It’s way too much. I’ve hit my limit.” He scoffs and rubs his eyes. “God, I’m so dumb. All I want to see is the good, decent people who support and rally and shout out the awesome stuff. I’ve had blinders on. Not to mention, why can no one spell properly? Does nobody go to school, like, ever?”
Kerry is gentle in her response. “You just can’t give much credence to these jerks. They don’t get it. Their comments say a whole lot about them and not much else. You’ve got to look away. In order to do what you do, you have to be willing to accept that part of the population isn’t going to understand or respond the way you want. The way they should.”
“I don’t know.” He lets his laptop slide off his legs. “Maybe I don’t accept it. What’s the point, really? I can’t get anyone to change, can I? That’s probably what I thought. That I’d create change. How stupid does that sound? Look at Cassie. Jesus, who would pick on a kid with a comment like that? I can’t . . . I can’t begin to understand. And that’s the tip of the iceberg of this garbage. Who knows what else I’ve missed?”
“Esben.” Kerry looks uncomfortable. “It doesn’t matter. The voices of the supporters are louder.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not sure I believe that anymore.”
“Did you not see how many of those dogs got adopted? Have you forgotten about the message you got from Faith and how freakin’ thrilled she is? How the shelter got flooded with so many applications, not to mention donations from all over the country, that they could barely keep up?”
“That’s true,” he admits.
“And Cassie’s mom messaged you just last week to thank you for the thousandth time,” Kerry points out.
I push his laptop in front of him. “Have you checked in with Christian, the boy you danced with? You should. I bet he’s doing really well, and it’ll make you feel better.”
He hesitates, but then cracks a smile when I lift his hands and plunk them onto the keyboard. “Okay, okay. Maybe you’re right.”
“While you do that,” Kerry starts, “maybe Allison will feed me some of Simon’s gourmet food? It’s past lunchtime, and I’m starving.”
She raises her eyebrows and rubs her hands together with such pretend greed that I have to laugh.
“Of course.” I rub Esben’s shoulder and then scoot off the bed. “This week,” I announce formally, “we have marinated artichoke hearts, three kinds of olives, rosemary crackers, mousse pâté, roasted red pepper dip, and Sweety Drop peppers. Simon has gone all appetizer crazy, it seems.”
Kerry clasps her hands to her chest. “Oh, I so love him!”
I feel ridiculous setting out this fancy slew of food while in a dingy dorm room, but Kerry is delighted and eating up everything.
We are halfway through the pâté when Esben explodes in the next room.
“Goddamn it! Goddamn it!”
Both of us freeze.
“That’s it! Screw it! I’m done!” he shouts with more anger than I’ve ever heard from him.
“Baby Blue? What is it?” Kerry tries to stay calm.
He appears in the doorway, his open laptop in one hand. “You wanted me to check on Christian? I’m so glad I did, because now I know that it will always be one step forward and an infinite number back.”
“What? What happened?” I ask.
Esben looks near tears. “The post we put up? All the people cheering for him and throwing out support? That meant nothing. Because there were two people who didn’t support him. At all. His parents, who claimed they had no idea at all that he is gay. And they find it so disgusting and intolerable that they kicked him out of the house. Totally cut him off in every sense.” The laptop shakes in his hand. “He’s staying with friends most nights now, but he’s also slept in a park a bunch of times, and he’s trying to figure out what to do next year without a college fund and if it’s too late to try for financial aid.”