Choices(Waiting for Forever BK 1) (25 page)

I sat with my back against the rear driver’s side door, my injured leg sprawled across the seat. Leaning a little to my right, I laid my head on the back of the seat and rested, listening to Richard close the trunk and get into the car while Carolyn asked if I was okay. I nodded, and we headed home. Richard drove carefully, avoiding potholes and quick stops, so it took considerably longer than it would have otherwise. As we pulled into the drive, I looked over at the house and couldn’t believe what I saw. There was a wheelchair ramp on the front steps extending down most of the sidewalk. I couldn’t believe they’d done that for me, so I could come home. I didn’t know what to say.

Richard parked, and they got out and popped the trunk. After reversing the process they’d used to get me into the car, I was back in the same wheelchair from the hospital. Apparently Richard had borrowed it for me to use while I was in the cast. Richard pushed me up the ramp and into the house. In the living room, the furniture had been pushed against the far wall and replaced by most of my bedroom. My bed, my bedside table, even my models from the top of my dresser were laid out and waiting for me. The only addition was the armchair that always sat in the living room and a footstool, which were both next to my bed.

I turned around and looked at my foster parents, my parents for all intents and purposes, with wonder. Carolyn smiled, and I gestured for her to come closer. I threw my arms around her, heedless of the pain in my protesting ribs. Enunciating slowly, I said, “Sank you so mut.” Carolyn wrapped her arms around me gently.

“You’re welcome, honey. We want you to be comfortable, and this will help us too. Now we don’t have to lug you up and down the stairs!” I laughed a little along with them, my ribs burning. “Now, do you want to be in the bed or in the chair?” Coming home had drained me, so I opted to lie down. They helped me get into bed, and I was asleep, in my own bed, within minutes.

“O
KAY
,
Brian, you’re going to have a test on derivatives tomorrow. Are you sure you’re ready? I’ll have Mr. Butler give me your copy before school,” Mr. Barnes said as he sat in the old armchair in our living room. He’d been coming over for two hours a couple of days a week after school for the last month, bringing me my work and helping me to get through it. Richard and his attorney had gone down to the school the day after I’d been released from the hospital. They’d raged at the principal for nearly an hour about the school’s failure to act when I’d been pushed down the stairs and how that led directly to me ending up in the hospital after an attack on school grounds. Finally, they got the school board president involved. It was the same school board president who would have been sued in order to allow Mr. Barnes to teach if he hadn’t finally given in. I’m sure he wasn’t in a hurry for another potential lawsuit. When the subject of my education continuing while I recuperated came up, he agreed that as long as a teacher was willing to administer tests, and I could get through the work, I could keep up with my classes from home and graduate on time.

What he didn’t know was that Richard was planning to sue them anyway.

“Stop that,” Richard said as he came through the room, smacking the arm I was not currently using to poke a pencil down my cast.

Itches!
I whined, and even on the board it sounded fairly pathetic.

“One more week, and I’ll take the cast off. You’ll also get elastic bands for your jaw instead of the wires. You can make it just one more week,” Richard said, and I could tell he was trying not to smile.

Yeah, you stay in a cast for six weeks and tell me how you like it,

I wrote and then went back to finishing up the last derivative on my math homework so Kyle could turn it in for me. At some point over the last five weeks, since he’d become my liaison with the school, he had gone from being Mr. Barnes to Kyle. We knew it wouldn’t last once I returned to class, but he said he respected me and wanted me to consider him a friend as well as a teacher, even if no one at school could know.

“I was in a full cast like that in the summer after I graduated, just before I came down here to go to college,” Richard said dismissively.

Why?
I asked with real interest. Richard didn’t seem the rough-and-tumble type.

“I fell off of a horse trying to impress a girl,” he said in a whisper and winked. I laughed, until Carolyn came into the room, and then we were all conspicuously quiet.

“Kyle, darlin’, would you like to stay for dinner?” Carolyn asked, handing me my bowl of mashed potatoes. Everything I ate until my jaw was completely healed had to be something I could consume without chewing. As I dug in, he stood up, starting to pack away his stuff.

“I’d better not. We don’t want people to think I’m blurring the lines here. After Brian comes back to school, I’ll take you up on that offer. Until then, unless you want to get stuck with Mrs. Barachek,” he replied, faking a huge shudder at me, nearly making me spit out my mashed potato dinner, “we’ll have to be good.”

“You want to take a break for a little while?” Carolyn asked as I ate slowly and Kyle headed for the door. I nodded to her, and she helped to put my massive pile of schoolbooks and homework on a nearby table. Trying to keep up with the rest of my class, I’d been diligent, but the two weeks I’d been incapacitated after the attack had put me pretty far behind. I’d been working long days, sometimes into the night, just to catch up. Richard and Carolyn had been a huge help. I think they were worried, like I was, that if I didn’t make enough progress, the school administrators would pull the plug on my homeschooling. Richard was great with math and science, while Carolyn was a whiz at English and had minored in history. She liked to help me with the more liberal-arts-oriented subjects.

Poor Carolyn. I was pretty sure she’d never considered the possibility that she was going to have to bathe her nearly-adult foster son one day. I don’t know who was more embarrassed the first time I needed a sponge bath when I came home. It had been disturbing, but we’d made it through, just like we’d made it through everything else.

Because of where the jacks were, Richard couldn’t bring the computer down to me, so he continued to search for Jamie for me, with no success. It was the end of the first term, ten weeks since Jamie had been whisked away by his parents, and I hadn’t heard a word from him. Idly, I wondered if he knew about my bashing. I hated that term, but there was really no other word for it. They’d beaten me because I was gay.

I had been bashed.

I couldn’t imagine that if he’d known, he wouldn’t do anything he could to see if I was okay. It stood to reason that he didn’t know, which meant that wherever he was, he didn’t have access to the news. Mosely and I had been on the front page of quite a few of the local papers, so it might have been at least a minor story elsewhere. The articles had all been fairly neutral, and I’d insisted on reading every one. They reported the facts; none of them had even hinted that I’d brought it on myself. In that article, his family had been quoted as saying that they were “devastated by this tragedy.” Whether that was my tragedy or the fact that their teenage son was now a convicted felon, I wasn’t entirely sure.

Briefly, I wondered if, had I not been beaten so severely, had I not been in a coma, the coverage might have been different. Maybe Emma would have been on the six o’clock news telling the world how the big bad fags had lied to her and her brother was just settling the score. As it was, none of that had come out. People were appalled by the violence that had taken place in our small town, regardless of its origin.

“Brian,” Richard said as he and Carolyn came back into the room. Carolyn kept glancing toward Richard, but he looked relaxed, like what they wanted to talk to me about was important but maybe not bad. “Carolyn and I want to talk about you going back to school next month.”

I nodded. It was inevitable; there was no way the school board would let me continue keeping up from home once I was deemed fit to go to class. I pushed myself up higher in the bed, leaning against the mountain of pillows Carolyn had put there to keep me upright while I got through all my schoolwork. Richard took the chair Kyle had just vacated, while Carolyn sat next to me on top of the faded blue quilt that had once been her mother’s. The conversation was taking on an almost polished, practiced air. They obviously had a plan.

“Honey, even though Mosely is locked up, we think you might still be in danger at school,” Carolyn said as if she were trying to convince a small child. I just agreed with a nod. Ever since my jaw had been wired shut, I’d found I did that a lot, as it was easier than trying to have a discussion via whiteboard, but in that case, I did agree. His friends and family would hate me because he’d been imprisoned, and they might try to get some payback.

“We think that you should learn how to defend yourself.” That was probably the last thing I’d expected her to say. I don’t know what I’d thought I was going to hear—“Be more careful,” maybe, or “We’re going to take you to and pick you up from school”—but really, self-defense made more sense. All too soon, I was going to be out in the world on my own, with much more frightening people than Brad Mosely. It only made sense that I would need to learn basic survival skills. The question was, how?

I looked at Richard, and he must have guessed my question.

“I’ve been talking to Coach Williams from your school,” Richard said, and immediately I started to shake my head. Carolyn, looking troubled, reached over to the bedside table and grabbed my whiteboard, handing it to me with the marker.

That guy doesn’t like anyone. He’s an ex-marine or something. I’m sure he’s the “don’t ask don’t tell” type!

“Actually, he doesn’t care that you’re gay. He pretty much has no opinion on the subject, a true ‘don’t ask don’t tell’. What he does have a problem with is three guys dragging you off and beating the hell out of you. He thinks that’s dishonorable and deplorable. He is, however, very impressed with you,” Richard said with a smile. My brow furrowed, and I erased the whiteboard and replied.

He’s impressed that I got my ass kicked?

Richard gave me a stern look, and Carolyn swatted me lightly on my good leg with a laugh. “No, of course not; he’s impressed with you because of your strength. Most people I know, even most adults, would have at the very least given up on school. The fact that you pretty much told them all to go to hell and are still working to graduate is impressive, son.” I was slightly embarrassed by his praise. That wasn’t really what I was doing at all. I was just trying to survive long enough to go find my gay lover. I wondered if Coach would still be as impressed if he knew.

So, what is he going to teach me? Secret CIA Black Ops anti-terror techniques?

At that, Richard and Carolyn both busted up laughing. I grinned, and Carolyn took my hand while Richard just shook his head.

“You watch entirely too much television,” he chuckled. “Do you know the Meiyo Dojo over on Third Street?”

I nodded.

“Coach Williams runs it, and I’ve signed you up for classes. You’ll also have some private lessons with him.”

I couldn’t say the prospect was unattractive, since I would love to have the knowledge and ability to keep guys from putting me back in the hospital. I just wasn’t all that sure Coach Williams was as selfless as he’d made himself sound to the Schreibers.

Can I think about it? I want to talk to Kyle.

Richard looked puzzled but didn’t argue. Lying back against the pillows, I closed my eyes, and suddenly I was exhausted. It was going to be an early night for me, and I promised myself I would get some of the homework done over the weekend. Writing on the whiteboard again, I caught Richard’s attention.

Can I have a pain pill?

“Are you hurting?” Richard asked, concerned. I hadn’t asked for a pain pill in a few days, but I really wanted to sleep and not wake up every fifteen minutes because I couldn’t get comfortable. Nodding, I lay back, and he went into the kitchen to get some juice for me to take it with. Carolyn stood up and pulled some of the pillows from behind me so I could lie down. When I was comfortable, well, relatively comfortable, she brushed my hair out of my eyes.

“You need a haircut.” Her voice was affectionate as she ran her fingers through my hair. Again, I nodded, because that was far easier than any other generic response that would require me to move.

Mercifully, Richard was back, and I took the pain medication. Being the son of a doctor had its benefits, and before I could open my eyes again to thank them, I was asleep.

16

A
LOUD
,
jarring rap on the front door startled me out of the dream I’d been having. Jamie and I had been having a relaxing picnic in the woods near the school, just him and me, laughing and talking and eating sandwiches under a tree. In the dream, I’d been spending time with Jamie without the pressure of having to worry about how every movement, every word would be perceived by others. There was no possible way we would chance anything sexual in that kind of setting, so that expectation was also gone. It was just a happy, light, carefree day. One I wished to God we’d had more of.