Nobody said nuthin to me the next morning, so I thought maybe they forgot me or changed their minds.

I had a hard time concentrating on my algebra, though, cause I wondered if it was true about what the kids said they did to you there.

Then when I was was eating my chicken salad sandwich for lunch, I took a bite, looked up, and Brother John was staring down at me, the white flakes on his suit collar as thick as ever.

“Hurry up,” he told me. “We don’t want to keep them waiting for us at the clinic.”

The clinic. I couldn’t eat any more of my sandwich. Not even the chocolate Twinkie. My stomach felt funny, and not the good funny like when Travis used to wave at me.

I was scared.

All the kids at the school hated the clinic. It’s where you went to get cured if the sessions didn’t work. My roommate Matt said I better do the sessions right. He went to the clinic all the time. Maybe three times a week.

Sometimes at night, him sleeping in the top bunk, I’d hear him having bad dreams. Or maybe he wasn’t dreaming. Maybe he was crying for real.

Matt walked and talked like a girl mostly. He got yelled at all the time for it. I asked him why he didn’t do what they wanted. Just pretend, even.

He said he didn’t know how. For real.

I guess he didn’t. He’d make his voice all low and growly once in a while but he sounded so funny when he did that. Like fake funny. Like a little kid playing make believe.

He was so funny once when he tried that I laughed. Not at him, I swear. I liked Matt. He was a cool kid. He looked so sad when I laughed and so scared that I never laughed again.

I guess that’s why he went to the clinic all the time. Cause he couldn’t pretend good enough.

I didn’t know why I was going, except I was snapping my rubber band a lot. Really a lot. Brother John, he saw the scabs and he knew I was trying hard not to think about Travis.

I guess he knew it wasn’t working.

When Travis kissed me, I felt warm and good all over. I liked it, see. I didn’t know it was bad. Or what Brother John says? Unclean. Impure. I thought what we did was good because I really really liked Travis and he was so nice to me, and he was my best friend, and …

I didn’t know he was like a demon tempting me. Brother John had to explain it to me.

I’m not sure I believe all that but I know for sure now that what me and Travis did was gay. I guess I knew before, but not really. You know?

I wasn’t sure I was gay, but then Brother John took me to the clinic.

He walked me all the way down that long corridor with the glinty tiles. His hand was too tight on my shoulder again.

We walked for a long time, and I was swallowing hard.

We walked right up to this metal door. Brother John pressed a buzzer button, looked down at me and told me to do everything the guys in there said.

“Son, I know you want to grow up morally straight and strong. Don’t you?”

He always said that. I just shook my head yes cause my throat was all tight. This time he didn’t make me talk.

“Good. I know you do. You’re a good kid, Caleb. I’m proud of you. You’re doing so well here. You’re trying so hard.”

I smiled cause he was right. I was glad he understood. I wanted him to be proud of me.

“OK, son,” he said. Then the door opened and I saw this guy in like white doctor clothes. “Just do everything they ask you. I promise you everything is going to be OK. Just keep making me proud.

“Will you do that for me, Caleb?”

I said yes.

I really meant it. I didn’t know how hard it was gonna be. I didn’t know the bad stuff they were gonna do to me.

You won’t believe it. Well, I guess maybe you will since you talk to kids like me sometimes. I didn’t believe it, though.

I mean, he took me to this little room, the guy in the white clothes did. He told me take off all my clothes and put on this little green hospital gown.

Yeah, kinda like the one I’m wearing now. But shorter, you know? At least he turned around and didn’t watch me get naked. I woulda been so embarrassed if he watched.

It was cold after I had the gown on. I was shivering.

So the man tells me to follow him and he takes me to this room that’s kinda warmer and it has this big chair like a dentist chair and this big TV on the wall and some machine with wires and stuff coming out of it. It was right by the chair, which he says I should sit in.

Then I see this lady. She’s right beside the chair. She’d not old or young. She looks like a teacher or something like that.

She tells me she knows all about me from Bother John and that I should trust her just like I do him. She says her name is Doctor O’Neil. But I can call her Doc if I want to.

I don’t want to.

I hardly have any clothes on. I’m cold. I’m in the clinic. And I just wanna go home.

I can’t, though. Mom and Dad don’t want me because something is wrong with me. I have a sickness. I have to be cured. She tells me to be brave. Everything is going to be OK. She puts her hand on my hair and straightens it like my mom would.

“Trust me,” she says.

Then she tells the man to hook me up.

I never ever in my life expected what came next. I never heard of nuthin like that. I yelled loud when he touched me.

She shushed me.

He untied my gown in front. Just pulled on the sting and then reached right in and grabbed me … down there. You know?

He had these rubber gloves on like you guys wear here. He held my thing in one hand and reached for wires and stuff from the machine with his other hand.

“Quit it! Get off me!”

The lady, she shushed me. She told me everything was OK. Nobody was gonna hurt me.

I shut my eyes and pretended I wasn’t there.

When I opened them, he was done. My… my…, you know, my penis. It had these tubes and wires all over it and my gown was still open and the lady doctor could see me and I was so embarrassed and scared that I wished I was dead.

She turned her back and walked to this desk that was behind my chair. “We just need to run some tests, Caleb. Set some baselines.”

I think she said baselines. Does that make sense? All I know is that the TV came on and … man. I didn’t ever see anything like that before. I ain’t gonna say I never seen porn before. I mean, I got my own phone at home.

That lady showed me stuff I never knew about! I don’t even wanna tell you about it. All kinds a stuff. Guys. Girls. Guys with guys. Guys with girls. Girls with girls. They did every kind of sex thing you could think of. It was gross. I didn’t wanna watch, especially with her there, but she said I had to.

She read off a bunch of numbers from the machine and two times she asked the man to fix the wires on my dick. Oops, sorry to say that.

It hated it that he touched me there. That was the worst part. That he touched me. Nobody ever touched me there before. Nobody was supposed to. It’s private.

They could see me naked and everything!

All because I’m gay. If I wasn’t, none of this would’ve had to happen.

Oh, yeah. I forgot. She told Brother John I was gay for sure. He told me so. The machine told her, I guess. While I was watching all that porn.

The machine wasn’t the worst part of the bad stuff, though.

I left the clinic that day and Brother John, he took me back to my room. Matt was already back from school, doing homework. He gave me this really sad smile. Like he knew.

You know what he whispered to me after we went to bed that night? “At least they haven’t started to hurt you yet.”

That’s what he told me. I prayed after Matt went to sleep. “God, why did I have to be gay? Why? Please, please make it go away!”