You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone (22 page)

Spencer decided to wait a few more minutes—until his father was asleep. Then he'd crawl under his bunk and retrieve the gun. He wanted easy access to it tomorrow—for a quick transfer back inside his father's drawer. He'd stash the Glock in his closet until he found the right opportunity to move it. His father would never know.

“Listen, we won't have to do any yard work,” he assured Garrett. “My dad's not even going to remember this tomorrow morning. He'll be too hungover.”

“I don't know how you put up with it. Earlier, when I heard him talking to you like that downstairs, I really wanted to come in there and slug him.” Spencer heard Garrett stir around under the covers. “I can't believe we're in bed already—and on a Saturday night, too. It's not even midnight . . .”

Spencer felt so humiliated. He hated his father for embarrassing him in front of his only friend. No way would Garrett ever agree to spend the night again. Would he even sit with him at the country club pool after this?

He sighed. “I'm really sorry. This has been a pretty shitty sleepover for you . . .”

“Oh, I've had worse. We had a few laughs. Plus I got to handle a gun.”

“That reminds me,” Spencer murmured, switching on the little reading light on the wall. Then he threw back the covers and climbed out of the bed. He wore a T-shirt with pajama shorts. Getting down on the floor, he crawled under his bunk to retrieve the gun. But he couldn't see it. A panic swept through him. He'd been in the bathroom earlier, getting ready for bed. He'd left Garrett alone in here. Had Garrett taken the Glock? If so, he'd never give it back—not without a huge argument.

“What are you doing?” Garrett asked.

“I'm looking for the gun,” Spencer whispered. “It's not here . . .”

The bunk bed set squeaked a little as Garrett came down the ladder. “I heard it hit something when I tossed it under there,” he said. “Try in the corner, against the wall.”

To his utter relief, Spencer spotted the Glock there in the shadows, amid the dust bunnies. He grabbed it and scrambled out from under the bunk. He found Garrett standing over him with his arms folded. Leaning against the bunk ladder, he was wearing white briefs and nothing else.

Spencer couldn't help envying him. For some reason, he wasn't able to fall asleep without a T-shirt on. It felt more comfortable, and he figured if something happened and he had to run out of the house in the middle of the night, he wouldn't be practically naked. That thought didn't seem to occur to Garrett. Spencer wished he was more like him. He wished he weren't scared and uncomfortable most of the time.

“You found it,” Garrett said.

“Yeah, thanks,” Spencer said, wiping the dust off the gun with the bottom of his T-shirt. He took the Glock to his closet, then on his tiptoes reached up and stashed it under some folded sweaters.

As he closed the closet door, he caught Garrett watching his every move. A part of him wondered if his friend might get up in the middle of the night to fool around with the gun again. “Let's just leave it there tonight, okay?” he said.

Garrett grinned. “Well, if I hear your old man coming, I may just grab it and shoot the son of a bitch. I'd be doing you a favor. We could tell everyone we thought he was a burglar.”

“That's not funny,” Spencer murmured.

“Neither is your old man,” Garrett said. “He's an embarrassment. Good thing you're not a bit like him.” Moving over to the desk, he picked up the alarm clock and glanced at it. “On weekends, I don't usually go to bed until one or two in the morning.”

Spencer sat down on his bed. “So what would you be doing if you'd stayed home tonight—and weren't stuck here?”

“Oh, I'd probably be making out with that Molly chick from the pool.” He laughed and then shrugged. “Or maybe I'd just be in my room alone, jacking off.” With his fist, he made a pumping motion in front of his crotch.

Spencer chuckled nervously.

“I forget, you're, like, eleven, right? Have you even jacked off yet?”

“I don't think so,” Spencer said, feeling a little pang in his stomach.

Garrett snickered. “Well, you'd know it if you did. Take my word for it. Do you even know about sex?”

He nodded. “Yeah, a friend of mine in Silver Spring told me.”

That was only a few months before. George Camper had told him how babies were made. For a week afterward, Spencer couldn't look his parents in the eyes. He couldn't imagine them doing that in order to have children. Being an only child, he figured they'd done it only once, which made them a lot less perverted than George's parents, because he had six brothers and sisters. They'd have to have done it seven times.

“So now you're an expert, huh?” Garrett said, leaning back on the desk.

Spencer frowned. “Well, there's some stuff I don't know, I guess.”

“Like what?”

“Like, what's sixty-nine?”

Garrett drew the number in the air. “That's the head, that's the body,” he explained. “So the girl is blowing the guy while he eats her out.”

Spencer nodded. But he still wasn't sure he understood. It sounded like a guy was getting a blow job while he and the girl were at a restaurant. He wondered where in the restaurant they did sixty-nine.

Garrett scratched his bare stomach. “At the beginning of summer, I got a blow job from this chick from Pittsburgh I met at the pool. She was really hot.” He grinned at Spencer. “You don't know what I'm talking about, do you? I mean, you probably don't even have pubic hair yet, do you?”

“I have a little,” Spencer lied.

“Oh, yeah?” Garrett took a step toward him. “Let's see . . .”

“No! God, are you kidding me?” Spencer squirmed back in the bunk. He tried to laugh and act like it was funny, but he felt really uncomfortable.

“Chicken,” Garrett teased.

The house's air-conditioning system kicked in again with a roar. Then it got quiet again.

“I'll show you mine,” Garrett said, his thumb on the elastic waistband of his briefs.

“Ah, no thanks,” Spencer said—with another skittish laugh. At the same time, he was kind of curious. But he never would have admitted it. He could see Garrett's tan line.

“I can show you how to jerk off,” Garrett whispered, pulling down his underpants. He stood in front of him naked.

Spencer caught a glimpse of Garrett's cock, which was, of course, bigger than his—and crowned with a patch of dark pubic hair. In comparison, Spencer felt like such a
baby
, so inferior. He immediately looked away—toward his bedroom door.

It was opening.

“What the hell is going on in here?” his father bellowed.

“Shit,” Garrett muttered, struggling to pull his underpants back up.

“We're not doing anything!” Spencer said.

His father charged into the room with his robe billowing open. He wore a pair of blue boxers under the robe. His face was flushed, and he looked furious. Spencer watched in horror as his father slapped Garrett across the face.

“God, Dad, no!”

Garrett reeled back, knocking over the desk chair and falling to the floor with a loud thud. “Fuck!” he yelled, his hand over his jaw. He still hadn't pulled his briefs up all the way. Now he tugged at the waistband and glowered up at Spencer's father.

“Get dressed,” he growled, standing over Garrett with his fists clenched. “You aren't staying here. I don't want you anywhere near my son—”

“Dad, nothing happened!”

His father swiveled around and pointed a finger at him. “You shut up. I'll deal with you later.”

He turned toward Garrett again. “You heard me. Get up and put your clothes on. I'm driving you home.”

“You can't drive me home,” Garrett said defiantly. “You're too drunk to drive.”

His father took a step toward Garrett. It looked like he was about to lunge at him again.

Half sitting up on the floor by the desk, Garrett reached for the fallen chair.

“Dad, please!” Spencer cried, jumping up from the bed. He grabbed his father's arm. “Garrett didn't mean it. Please, I'm sorry . . .”

His father kept staring at Garrett, who glared right back at him. “You're going to call your father. Tell him to come pick you up. And when he gets here, your father's going to hear a thing or two about his smart-ass, deviant son. I'm giving you three minutes to get dressed and pack your bag. Tell your father to hurry up. I don't want to have you in my house any longer than necessary.”

Spencer's father marched out of the bedroom.

Spencer gently closed the door after him. His heart was pounding. He thought he was going to be sick. He turned toward Garrett, who was getting to his feet. “God, I'm so sorry,” he whispered. “Are you okay? My dad—he's never hit me or my mother. I can't believe he did that . . .”

He touched his friend's shoulder, and Garrett angrily recoiled. “He isn't telling my father a goddamn thing,” he hissed. He rubbed his left jaw. “I'll kill him first—or you will. We have his gun. We should kill the motherfucker . . .”

“Y'know, if we get dressed, and we—we wait for my dad to calm down, we can explain how nothing happened. And if you apologize to him—”

“Me apologize to him? Are you crazy? He's the one who hit me.” Garrett bent down and swiped his cargo shorts off the floor. He started to put them on. “And you want to ‘explain how nothing happened'? He's already made up his mind about what we were doing. He's not going to believe us—and neither will my father. And my old man hates gays. If he hears about this, he'll kill me. He'll kill me or he'll kick me out of the house and send me to one of those conversion places where they give you electric shock. And I'm not even a homo. I wouldn't be surprised if your dad does the same thing to you. He's a real bastard . . .” Garrett put on his T-shirt.

Spencer started to get dressed, too. He'd seen a TV news show about places like that. They seemed almost worse than prison. How could he convince his father it was all a big misunderstanding? He hated to think that Garrett was probably right. This wasn't something that would blow over once his father sobered up.

“Why does your mother let him treat you like that?” Garrett asked. “What's wrong with her? She must have heard what was going on in here. Doesn't she give a crap about you? Where is she?”

“She took a sleeping pill,” Spencer answered meekly.

“When we kill your old man, we'll be doing her a favor, too.”

“C'mon, Garrett, quit talking like that.”

“I'm not just talking,” he said. “I'm serious. We've got the gun. I'm not getting kicked out of the house and disinherited and Christ only knows what else because of your douche bag old man. Plus that asshole hit me. We're killing him. I can tell the police that it was self-defense.” He turned toward the closet.

“No, I'll do it!” Spencer heard himself say. “He's my father. I'm the one who should do it.” Spencer reached the closet before Garrett and grabbed the Glock from under the sweaters on the shelf. He clutched the gun close to his chest.

“You mean it?” Garrett asked. “Because if you don't shoot him, you might as well shoot yourself. Are you really gonna kill him?”

“Yeah,” Spencer nodded.

He felt horrible, lying to his friend. But he was terrified that Garrett meant every word he'd just said. If Garrett had the Glock, someone would certainly get killed with it. The only solution Spencer could think of was giving the gun to his dad and confessing that they'd taken it out of his drawer. He'd stress that it was the only thing they'd done wrong. Nothing had happened between him and Garrett. He'd throw himself on his father's mercy—and endure his wrath. Even though his dad was drunk, it would be better for everyone if he had the gun—and not Garrett. His friend was too much of a loose cannon.

“Take the safety off,” Garrett whispered, reaching over and adjusting something on the trigger. He put his arm around Spencer's shoulder. “I'm proud of you, man. You're standing up for yourself—and me. No one's going to blame you. He's drunk. He hit me for absolutely no reason . . .”

Garrett started guiding him toward his bedroom door—and then down the hallway. Spencer clutched the gun. It felt heavy in his small hand. Garrett stroked him on the back. “You can do this,” he murmured, again and again. His warm breath swirled in Spencer's ear. “Kill the bastard. He's making your life miserable. You do this for me—
you do this for us—
and I'll owe you, man. I'll get you anything you want . . .”

Approaching the master bedroom, Spencer could see a light was on. Shadows moved on the wall as his father got dressed.

He was mesmerized by Garrett's words and the intense connection he felt to him. A part of him almost wanted to go through with his plan—anything for his friend. If he didn't go through with it, Garrett would never forgive him.

And his friend was right. His dad was a real bastard sometimes.

But then, did Garrett really think his mom would go along with this? What was supposed to happen to her?

As he crossed the threshold to his parents' room, Spencer was shaking. He was careful to keep the gun pointed at the floor. He dreaded what he was about to do. It didn't matter that it was the right thing. His father would still be furious at him. His friend would be furious at him. He thought of what Garrett had said: “. . . If you don't shoot him, you might as well shoot yourself.”