Choices(Waiting for Forever BK 1) (30 page)

Kind of hard to hold a conversation with your jaw wired shut.

“That’s an excuse. If you want to talk, you know I’ll listen,” he replied, sitting back in the chair. Kyle and I had become friends over the last seven weeks of my recovery, and I felt comfortable talking to him about almost anything. However, what I really wanted to talk about wasn’t Coach Williams. I’d planned to go ahead and take the chance with the classes. I wanted to talk to him about something else.

What are gay relationships like? As adults?

“What do you mean?” His brow was furrowed behind his glasses.

When I find Jamie and we can be together as adults, will it be easier?

“I wish I could say that it was,” he sighed. “I guess it depends on the community you live in and what kind of support you have. Living on the north side of Chicago, for example, may be easier than living in the backwoods of Alabama. Wait….” He stopped, and suddenly his face was serious, almost grave. “You’re not thinking about going after him?”

Not thinking about. Planning.

“Brian, you’re just a kid,” he said, and when I started to protest via whiteboard, he put up a hand. “I know, you’re going to be eighteen, but it’s a hard life out there, especially for us. I don’t want to see you go off alone to a strange city hoping to find Jamie. Do you even know where to start looking?”

You’re here alone. And yes, I have a plan.

“Yes, I’m here alone because I had no other options. Do you have any money?” He wasn’t going to give up easily.

I’m looking for a job.

“Do you have a car?” He was starting to get a little frustrated now.

San Diego has public transportation. I’ll take a bus to get there.

“Where will you live?” The conversation we’d had about his father, and how Kyle had been forced to live on the streets when he was just a teenager, reminded me that he was just worried about me. He didn’t want me to have to suffer through what he had. Keeping that in mind, I tried to keep my temper in check; I didn’t need to justify anything to him.

I’ve been looking online so I’ll have an idea how much I’ll need. As I get closer to leaving, I’ll start calling around for apartments. I’ll stay at a Motel 6 when I get into town until I find something.

“Brian, have you even heard from Jamie?” His voice was quieter now, teeming with absolutely infuriating sympathy. Of course he knew I hadn’t heard from Jamie; I would’ve told him if I had. It was a low blow, and I refused to answer him. I just looked down at the blanket.

“What if he doesn’t want you to come? He could be working on reconciling with his parents, or….” He stopped abruptly.

Or what? Or he’s found someone else?

I refused to entertain the possibility.

I can finish this up on my own. Thank you for your help,
I wrote on the board, hearing the petulant slam of the marker tip against the smooth surface as I punctuated the sentence rather violently. He didn’t understand. Jamie loved me. I’d been so unsure of that for nearly our whole relationship, but that night, our night spent making love, solidified his intentions, his feelings for me, in my mind and in my heart. Plus, Jamie had told me to never forget that he loved me, and I never would.
Ever.
I threw the board down on the bed, out of my immediate reach, indicating that, at least for me, the conversation was over.

“Brian, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that what you had with Jamie wasn’t real. I just… I’m scared for you.” I met his level gaze without any hint of backing down, and he sighed. “Okay, we’ll talk about this again, but for right now, I need to get home. I have a lesson plan to finish.”

I nodded without any interest in picking up the board and saying anything else to him as he packed his bag in silence.

T
HE
saw scared the hell out of me.

Richard, seeing my obvious fear, explained to me that the blade was just vibrating and could not cut my skin. Overall, the experience of having my cast removed and replacing the wires with rubber bands wasn’t entirely unpleasant. In fact, compared to the previous two months of my life, it was almost a vacation.

I still couldn’t open my mouth very much, but I could start eating soft foods. Talking was a little easier as well, so I wouldn’t have to rely as heavily on the whiteboard. My leg was weak from being broken and casted for weeks on end, but after some help from Richard, I started to get a little steadier on my feet. It felt wonderful to be mobile again.

As we walked out of the hospital together, me in my first pair of jeans in two months, he said I was doing very well and I could start getting a little exercise.

“I’ve talked to Coach Williams and let him know what your restrictions are. If you’re ready to start doing a little light work, learning positions and such, you can start on Monday. Carolyn or I will drive you and pick you up.”

Very slowly, against the stiff tension of the rubber bands holding my mouth closed, I said, “Still working on that.”

“Okay, just let me know by the weekend and I’ll set up a session with him on Monday.” I nodded, and we got in the car to go home. It was tempting to just stay in my bubble with Carolyn, Richard, and Kyle and not think about facing the outside world again. Honestly, the thought of going back to school in a couple of weeks frightened me. I still had nightmares about the attack, waking up in the middle of the night and screaming through clenched teeth. Richard and Carolyn were helping me to get through, but soon, I’d be on my own again.

Kyle was waiting for us when we got back to the house, which was odd since he usually didn’t arrive for at least an hour after school got out. I hoped he wasn’t early to try and continue the discussion about me going to California. He could talk all he wanted, but I was still going.

When I walked into the room and he looked up from where he sat in the chair next to my bed, he paled. Something about his demeanor scared me. He looked… sad—no… frightened. Forgoing the slow, slurred speech that came from talking through metal and rubber bands, I grabbed the whiteboard from the side table.

What happened?

Richard and Carolyn, sensing the atmosphere in the room, came to sit on the couch that had been pushed back against the wall to make room for my bed. Kyle looked first at them and then at me.

“A boy in Dalton has been killed,” he said in a faintly trembling voice. “He was stabbed and left in a ditch a few miles outside of town.” Carolyn gasped, a hand flying up to cover her mouth. Her other hand landed on Richard’s knee in an almost unconscious gesture.

Did you know him?

“No, I didn’t know him.” Kyle’s eyes met mine, and I saw there was something else, something he wasn’t telling me. It was tragic and sad that a boy had died in a neighboring town, but why was he so upset about it, and why was he here early to tell me? Then I understood.

He was gay, wasn’t he?

“He had the word ‘fag’ scrawled across his forehead in permanent marker, so yes, I think he was.” I fell back onto the bed, clutching the board, trying to breathe. That could have been me. That could so easily have been me. It could still be me.

What was his name?

I didn’t know anyone from Dalton, but it seemed like an insult to be talking about this boy like he was an old discarded piece of lawn furniture. He needed to be honored, remembered.

“His name was Ray Andrews. Apparently, he’d left school at the end of the school year because he was having problems. The details are sketchy as to how he met up with the men who killed him. I don’t really know much more than that. My information came from the music teacher over at Dalton High. She and I went to college together and keep in touch,” Kyle finished. One thought kept repeating in my mind as I tried to focus on what he was saying.

It could have been me.

As the initial panic began to subside, I realized the name sounded familiar, like I’d heard it before—on television, or maybe in a book. I stretched out my thoughts, trying to come up with it, like fragmented notes of a song I couldn’t get out of my head. I was sure, like the lyrics of the song, it would come to me later. I continued to sit on my bed, thinking about how my own attack could have been so much worse. It seemed more important than ever for me to learn to protect myself. I knew that if someone wanted to kill me, they would. A black belt in karate wouldn’t stand much of a chance against a guy holding a gun, but I needed to at least stack the deck in my favor.

Would you set up a session with the coach for Monday?

I showed the board to Richard, and he nodded. Still on edge about the news he’d just told us, Kyle started to unpack his bag so we could get to work. It took a minute for me to come to terms with the notion that the world hadn’t actually stopped. The piece of news, while horrifying and frightening, didn’t change the fact that I had homework to do and papers to write. Though I thought maybe it should. How could I concentrate on answering questions about the Franco-Prussian War when I could be the next boy with “fag” written on his head, thrown away like garbage?

Grabbing my history book, I settled back against the pillows on my bed. It was easier now that I had command of all my limbs. Richard and Carolyn quietly left the room, no doubt so Richard could reassure her in hollow platitudes that they’d keep me safe, that I would be fine. The pen shook in my hand as I read the same question for the third time.

“It’s okay to be scared, Brian,” Kyle said, setting his bag on the floor next to him. “It could have been any of us, and that scares me too.”

I looked up at him and tried not to imagine the reason Jamie hadn’t e-mailed or called me in over two months. What if he had ended up like that boy? What if his parents, or someone else, had hurt him? The fear ate at me. I wanted to leave right then and find him. I wanted to hold him. Goddamn it, I just wanted to hear his voice.

B
Y
THE
time Monday rolled around, I was stiff and sore from just walking. I hadn’t been mobile in nearly two months, and the strain on my muscles kept me watching the clock to see when I could get my next ibuprofen. I was only taking the stronger pain medication Richard had brought home for me occasionally, usually when I wanted to sleep without the nightmares, which were always the same, huge lurking figures with bats or pipes. I couldn’t move, it was like being in quicksand, and I couldn’t scream because my mouth wouldn’t open. The blood ran like a river through the dream, and always at the end there was Jamie. He watched them beat me and then simply turned and walked away.

That was the worst part of the dream.

During the day on Monday, I finished up an essay for history and then started reading the novel I’d been assigned for English class,
The Catcher in the Rye
. It was ironic because I felt like I was trapped in my own head. I felt like if I lost my tenuous hold, I might slip into chaos. I was reading when Carolyn came in to tell me it was time to go see Coach Williams. My bedroom was still in the living room because it was very tiring for me to navigate the stairs. I hoped the self-defense class would, at the very least, help me build up my strength again.

During the ride to the dojo—that word still sounded so funny in my head—I tried to get excited about getting out of the house. Except to go with Richard to the hospital, or my nightmare trip to Hudson House, I hadn’t been out of our home since the attack. The sun seemed too bright and the traffic too loud. Flinching at every noise, I felt overwhelmed. Carolyn put her hand on my knee, trying to soothe me, and I appreciated her understanding. Some foster parents, in fact most foster parents, wouldn’t be willing to put up with what I’d put Richard and Carolyn through in the last two months. They would have dumped me back onto the state and not thought about me again.

It didn’t take long to get to the studio, and I started to get nervous as we pulled into an open space. The building was small, but the entire front wall was comprised of floor-to-ceiling windows. A perfect view of a large white room with a shiny wooden floor was obstructed only by the name of the dojo printed in unassuming letters near the ceiling. The phone numbers and hours of operation were posted on the door.

“Brian, you know you don’t have to go in if you don’t want to,” Carolyn told me with a little too much compassion in her voice. I took a deep breath and opened the door. She came around to the passenger side, and I slowly got to my feet, a little wary about going inside. We walked in silence to the big glass door. Pulling it open, I waited for Carolyn to go in and then followed her to the desk.

“Hi, can I help you?” an energetic receptionist asked as we approached. Her long, curly, black hair was swept back from her pretty ebony face, and her smile was genuine and welcoming.

“I’m Carolyn Schreiber, and this is my son, Brian. He has an appointment with Mr. Williams.” Carolyn smiled at the receptionist and then at me. I merely tried to look like I wanted to be here.

“Welcome, Brian, I’m Tonya.” She held out a small, perfectly manicured hand, and I shook it lightly. “I’ll go let Derrick know you’re here.”

“Thank you,” I said in my most polite tone. She went off into a back room, and we stood idly at the desk, waiting in awkward silence. I put my hands in my pockets to keep them from swinging nervously at my sides. We didn’t have long to wait. Coach Williams came out almost at once, followed by Tonya. I noticed her squeeze Coach’s hand before she let it go, and I assumed she must be his wife.

“Hello, Brian, Mrs. Schreiber.” Coach was dressed in a white outfit like the ninjas wore in that lame movie Jamie and I had seen. Our little date seemed like it had happened a lifetime ago, but even though he was gone, wherever I went, I often saw or heard or felt something that reminded me of him.

It seemed like everywhere I looked, I saw Jamie.

“Hello, Coach Williams,” I said and shook his proffered hand. Carolyn greeted him in a similar manner, smiling up at him as he towered over her. At six foot three, with closely cropped black hair and a lean, muscled frame, he was an imposing figure.