`A Safe Place By James
Disclaimer
This is a story which deals with sexual as well as romantic situations between teenaged males. Should you not be of the legal age to read such material, or if you're offended by this type of story, then please find something else to read. Also remember to donate to Nifty so that these stories can remain free to the public.
Caleb
Everything was going well with the Christmas Tree. We got it put together Saturday morning once Greyson, Aaron, Daniel and Nathan awoke and got breakfast taken care of. Nathan and I put some of the branches together, then Greyson and Daniel helped with the ones on the top part of the tree. Aaron helped with stringing the garland and lights. Our boys helped with the ornaments and other decorative touches, and Nathan put on the star. Once finished, we stood back and admired our work.
"It's a really nice tree!" Greyson said with absolute excitement in his voice.
"I think we did a really good job!" Daniel added.
"So do I!" Nathan chimed in.
"I really like it," Aaron added.
"Thanks for helping," I responded and hugged all of them. Once that was done, we relaxed and talked for a bit, then Aaron, Greyson and Daniel went to hang out in their bedroom.
I sat back down on the couch beside Nathan after I got a cup of tea. I handed Nathan his cup and we drank for a moment, then putting our cups down on the table, we put our arms around one another. Nathan snuggled in to my side and I held him close and just treasured his being there in my life. Thinking back though, I remembered what we had as kids and how good it was back then.
Chapter 17
Caleb
Over the next week, Justin got settled in to a routine of school, homework and getting to know Alicia, Kevin, Nathan, Cody and I better. He was doing well and as that was progressing, our parents were starting the process of getting at least temporary custody of him. That was going well and we would probably know something here soon.
Kevin
That week, I got a call from Christian. It had been several weeks since I had heard from him. I would tell Cody about how I hadn't heard anything from him and that I was worried. At first, he was worried that Christian might go back to his old ways of wanting to hurt me or both of us at some point, but as I explained what I suspected about Christian, mainly that he was being horribly abused by his father, Cody softened towards the thought of him and hoped that we'd hear from him soon.
So on this cold and dark Wednesday afternoon after school, my phone rang and I answered. Christian explained that he didn't mean to keep me in the dark, but he needed to take some time to himself to get things sorted out in his head. I told him that it was fine and that I was supportive. We also talked about getting together at some point and he also explained that he was at Michael and Josh's center and had been there for a while. He enjoyed it there and it seemed to be helping him.
Once we finished the conversation, I heard a knock on my door. I looked up and saw my dad standing in the doorway. I walked up to him and we hugged, then I walked along-side him in to my room and lead him over to the edge of my bed. He sat down and I watched him for a moment while he looked at me.
"So how's everything going Kev?" he asked as he put an arm around me.
"It's going well," I replied. I knew he was worried about what happened to Cody and I when Sarah and Andrew accosted us last Friday. Cody and I told them what happened when we got to Cody's house later that afternoon and I texted them the picture of the marks from when Sarah slapped me. They were currently trying to get our principal to do something, but his alliances seemed to be with making sure the proverbial boat wasn't getting rocked. I was worried about what the outcome would be, but hoped that something could be done to settle things.
"Thanks for coming to your mom and I about what happened on Friday," my dad said pulling me in to a hug. I hugged back and held on for a moment.
"You're welcome," I said as we held one another. "I just hope this doesn't get out of control. I'm worried all the same though. It really doesn't seem like Mr. Evans is really set on doing anything, except for making sure his school doesn't get any bad publicity."
"Don't worry about him," my dad said. "We'll take care of him and if he is turning a blind eye to homophobia going on in his school, we'll find out and stop it."
Mr. Evans had been the principal of Sangger High for a few years and he was nice for the most part, but that was just the problem, he was nice. There didn't seem to be much he would do aside from calmly talking to which ever students were in trouble, as if a few kind words in a soft-spoken voice would fix everything. I figured I'd trust my parents and hope that everything would work out for the best.
After my dad and I talked for a little while longer, he eventually left and I got started on my homework. While doing it though, part of my mind was focused on another person from whom Cody and I had heard nothing since meeting him. It was Bret from the restaurant who had served us a few weeks ago. I had given him both my cell and homephone number with my parents agreement with respect to the homephone number and he hadn't called yet. I figured that there was more to his story as well and I would soon find out that I was right.
0000
Bret walked along the hall of the apartment building in which he lived. He left home just a couple of weeks before his 18TH Birthday and stayed at his uncle's house until the two weeks were up and he was 18, at which point his uncle gave him a name and number to this apartment building. He had been getting his rent money in, but since they had cut many of his hours at the restaurant, he was just barely able to get even $100.00 in to at least keep the apartment manager off his back. He also was barely able to get in utility payments and almost got his electric shut off a couple of times.
Once Bret neared the door to his apartment, he saw the bright-orange paper taped to his door. His heart sank and he felt like crying. It was the middle of November and the $100.00 he sent to the apartment manager a couple of days ago clearly wasn't enough. He had even put in a note with the money order that he would get more from his next check. He knew that the manager was an asshole for the most part, but he didn't think the guy would go right in to hardball mode, but clearly he had. With sadness and loneliness that began crushing his soul, Bret took the tape off the door and once the papers were in his hands, he took them in the apartment and once locked in, he read them.
After reading the papers, Bret felt himself sliding down the wall against which he was leaning and he fell to the floor. He was able to land on his bottom and he put his head in his hands and sobbed. Everything seemed to be falling apart before he even had a chance to make things right.
Once he finished crying, he reread the papers and reading them this second time didn't change the reality. It was an eviction notice for sure and the date on which he needed to be in court was within two weeks. Getting up off the floor, Bret took a couple of deep breaths, then called his parents, hoping they'd lend him the money for the back rent so he could take care of that, then get back on track with making money at the restaurant.
Once off the phone with them, Bret sat on his couch feeling hopeless and at that moment, he lost all rationality. He went to his room where he found his small knife and he for the first time in months, began to cut. At this point, he didn't care if he lived or died.
Bret's apartment manager walked in to the second building in which Bret's unit was housed. He walked up to the door and knocked. He heard nothing, but he saw that bits of tape still clung to the door and figured that the kid had read the eviction papers. He knocked a second time only harder and there was still no answer.
"Damn it," the man said under his breath. It was beginning to snow outside that Wednesday and all he wanted was to go back to his house and watch some sports and have a couple of beers, rather than fuck with this little prick. The man knew from the moment he saw the boy when he had signed the papers for the apartment that he was gay. The man couldn't stand gays and he tried to keep his distance from Bret. His only thought was collect the money from month-to-month and stay the hell away from the fag.
Finally, the man knocked again, but this time he used his fist. He lost his patients, and got out his master keys and unlocked the door. Walking in to the apartment, he felt his foot slide.
"Shit!" he yelled, then looked down. He was standing with his right foot in a spot of blood. "Oh God, what happened? What did he do?"
Walking further in to the room, he looked to his left and saw the doorway to the bedroom. The door was opened and Bret was lying on the bed in a pool of his own blood. The man ran over to the bed and saw that Bret's right arm was slashed deep and he saw that Bret's face was eggshell-white.
0000
Caleb
We all sat down to dinner and I was teaching Justin how to cut up his meet in the way in which I was taught. He was taking in what I was saying, then the emergency alarm on my dad's phone sounded. It happened just after we got the last chunk of meat cut and Justin and I began eating. My dad told us he had to go after seeing the emergency text from the hospital, and we ate and talked while waiting to hear from him.
0000
Bill pulled in to the parking space at the doors of the emergency room entrance and got out of his car. He ran in and a nurse grabbed his arm.
"Bill!" she said loudly. She was excited, but in a scared way. "It doesn't look good. When you see him, you'll understand!"
Running in to the first trauma room, Bill saw several people trying to revive someone. He ordered them to step back so he could look and he saw a boy lying on the gurney with his clothes cut away. A sheet covered him from the waist down, but his upper body was exposed and he could see where they shocked him several times to get his heart going again. Bill took over and he was able to get the boy's heart restarted and he looked and saw the blood-soaked dressings which covered the boy's right arm.
"What happened here?" he asked.
"Doug, one of the doctors stepped forward and looked down at the boy lying there.
"He was brought in by ambulance after his apartment manager found him," Doug explained. "The manager went to his apartment to talk to him about something and he found the boy's body. The boy's name is Bret Jacobson and he's 18. He had been living at the apartment for a few months and that's about all we know."
"Okay," Bill said. "Let's get to work and hope we can save him. Also, what about any family?"
"That's the thing," Doug said and went silent.
"Doug?" Bill asked stepping up closer to him. "What? We really don't have time for anyone getting emotional here."
"His family won't help," Doug said as his face began to get red. "When the apartment manager contacted them and let us know what they said, they'''."
"Doug!" Bill said loudly to redirect the man's attention. "What! What did they say! I don't care if it's something unprofessional! I need to know if I'm to help this boy!"
"The manager told us that they said that the faggot wouldn't have had any of this happen to him if he had only been straight and not went the way of all homosexuals," Doug said.
"What happened when you guys tried to call his parents?" Bill asked Doug.
"When we looked up his parents' phone number in the phonebook," Doug began. "We called them and the first couple of times they didn't answer. We kept trying, and a few minutes before you arrived, the father actually picked up and called one of the nurses a "Cunt", then he said that he'd have us all arrested if we called back again. We should probably try saving him and not worry about the parents. I'm angry for how they're acting, but the kid is 18 so they really don't have any authority over him so we can just start helping him."
"Let's help the nurses and others get him stabilized," Bill said. He was happy that they had gotten his heart restarted by the time he ran in to the trauma room.
Once Bret was given blood, his arm sutured up and stabilized, he was wheeled to a room and nurses started checking in on him. Bill checked on him, then once he was satisfied that the boy would be fine for the night, he left to go back home.
0000
Caleb
It was almost 7:30 P.M. that night when my dad got home and when he did, I was sitting with Kevin on his bed talking. Justin was getting his shower and Alicia was finishing up her book report due in a few days. I heard the door slam and footsteps nearing Kevin's room. I looked up and heard loud knocking at the door.
"Come in," Kevin called. The door opened and our father walked in.
"How'd it go?" I asked. "If you want to cool off, Kevin and I were just discussing how long it might take Nightwish to have to find a new female vocalist if they can't keep the new one."
When my dad said nothing, I went up to him.
"Dad?" what happened. "Is it bad?"
"Sit back down," he said softly, but with a shaking voice. " I need to talk to both of you."
"What is it dad?" Kevin asked as we sat back down beside one another.
"I want to ask you a question Kevin," my dad began.
"Okay," my brother said. "But dad, you're scaring me. What's going on?"
"I need to know what that guy you said that you and Cody met at the restaurant a few weeks ago looked like. Also, you said his name is Bret right?"
"Dad," Kevin said beginning to get even more scared. "What is this!"
"I need to know Kevin," he said taking Kevin's hand in his own.
Kevin
Deep down, I knew why he was asking and I wanted to fight it. It couldn't be true. Bret couldn't have been the emergency that called my dad away from us that night. I gave him Bret's physical description and waited.
"I'm not supposed to tell you this," my dad said. "You need to keep this to yourself, or just between you, Caleb and Cody."
"Okay, I promise," I said.
"Kevin," my dad said and put his arms around me. "If Bret is who I revived tonight, then it's the guy you and Cody met at the restaurant all those weeks ago. He was found in his apartment tonight by his apartment manager with his right arm slashed wide opened. We found other scars which suggested that Bret's a cutter."
"No!" I yelled and began sobbing as my dad and Caleb held me.
"We think that he went too far tonight," my dad continued. "He opened up an artery and had we not gotten his heart restarted when we did, he'd be dead right now."
"How was he when you left?" I asked as I dried my eyes.
"We got him stable enough to move him to a room, and nurses are checking in on him every few minutes," my dad explained. "He's sedated right now and we'll have to wait and see what happens over the coming days, but I'm hoping that everything will be alright and that he can recover."
"We hadn't heard anything from him since we exchanged numbers with him," I said. "I wished we could have helped him before this."
"I know," my dad responded. "You did the best you could and you couldn't have known what was going on with him and how bad it was."
Caleb
After our father left, I sat and held my brother for a few minutes. We just sat there like that, then he lifted his head from my shoulder.
"Thanks for staying with me," he said.
"It's no problem at all," I replied. "I'm happy to be here for you."
After talking for a few minutes longer, I left after making sure Kevin would be alright on his own and I headed back to my room. Once back in my room, I called Nathan and talked with him for a bit, letting him know what was going on. Kevin said I could talk to him about it provided we kept it between us as well as him.
0000
Christian
Later that Wednesday night, I sat on my bed reading. After I talked to Kevin, I had dinner and went back here to my room where I had been reading for the past few hours. I was reading Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky and with a bit of help from Michael about some of the concepts, I got most of what the author was saying.
I could see my own arrogance in the antihero as well as him wrestling with himself about his eventual crime. I completely understood him and at that point I knew that I never wanted to be like that again. I wanted to be a better person and in addition to my reading materials, Michael was helping me a lot. He was helping me with different ways of coping with anger and he was also helping me come to terms with what my father did to me.
In the beginning of being at the center, I would break down in several sessions and Michael would hold my hand in the first couple. Then in the fourth session in which I began crying when talking about being raped, I reached out and Michael took me in his arms. Finally though, I got to the point of being able to talk about what my dad did to me without completely falling apart. Then in the last couple of weeks, I was able to use the breathing exercises Michael and Josh helped me learn to calm myself and have been able to discuss my father's sexual abuse against me with more calm than before. I still have flashbacks and bad dreams, but they're not completely as bad as they had been even a month ago.
I eventually finished up reading for the night and got in to bed after saying goodnight to Michael and everyone else. As I lay in the darkness, I also began thinking about how well Michael and everyone else were helping me with coming to terms with being gay. I had been resisting the impulses to go back to how I would treat gays, mainly Kevin and had been rid of those urges since I got to know Kevin better, but I still had much work left to do and to a certain extent still do. At this point while lying in bed, I thought back over the last few days and weeks. I thought about how it was becoming easier and even liberating to own my homosexuality.
As I worked with Michael and Josh and as the days went by, it became easier to say the words "I'm Gay" without feeling like I'd have a complete stroke. As I began to drift off to sleep though, I was thinking that things were beginning to fall in to place.
0000
Kevin
On Monday of that next week, Cody and I picked out what we'd ware to the dance that up-coming weekend. They would have the dance on Friday and I figured that I'd surprise Cody with dinner out somewhere afterwards. I was excited and I had more surprises for him later on that night that I was thinking about.
Once we selected our outfits, we sat on the bed while I helped him with his homework, then once it was completed, I held him close.
"I had fun with you this weekend," he said and kissed my cheek. "I still missed you last night and today when we were apart."
"I felt the same way," I replied and gave him a kiss on his cheek, then added one on his lips.
"I'm glad that Andrew and his girlfriend are leaving us alone," he said and rested his head on my shoulder.
My dad had called the school the Monday of the week before and told them what was going on. Once he threatened to bring the Anti-Defamation League to their doorstep, Mr. Evans relented and gave Andrew a stern warning. It seemed to work, for now at least.
"Me too," I replied. "I hope he and Sarah both leave us alone."
We talked about other things, then I gave him a long and loving kiss on his lips, then held him in my arms with his head on my chest.
"I was thinking that if we don't have much or any homework maybe on Wednesday of this week, that we could go out to dinner, like one of our dates," I suggested.
He lifted his head off my chest and smiled.
"Really!" he said excitedly and smiled. "I'd love that so much!"
"Me too!" I said and we exchanged another kiss. Soon though, Cody's phone rang and it was his mom telling him that it was almost time for her to come and get him. We talked a little more, then she arrived and after we shared a hug and kiss before she walked up to my room where we were, we told one another that we loved each other, then there was knocking at the door. We said hi to her and the three of us walked to the door of the house and I said goodbye to her and Cody, and watched them walk down the steps, get in the car and drive off in to the night.
0000
Caleb
Nathan and I finished up our homework and were sitting on my bed holding one another close once we put away our school materials. He had his head on my chest as I held him and breathed in the lovely smell of his hair. As we sat there, I thought about just how deeply I was in love with him and I knew that I could never picture my life without him.
"What are you thinking?" he asked after a few minutes.
"About you," I replied and kissed the top of his head. "I'm also thinking about us."
He lifted his head off my chest and looked at me.
"You're thinking about us?" he asked. "I hope it's good stuff."
"Oh, it is," I answered. "It definitely is."
"What were you thinking about concerning us?" he asked.
"I was thinking about the usual, like how happy you make me," I replied. "I was thinking about how I'm happy we met. Most of all though, I was thinking about how I'm to the point that I can't picture my life without you in it. Every time I think about what my life would be like without you, I feel sadness and like I'd have a void in my heart."
"I've been thinking about that too," he answered. "I always felt like I'd never meet anyone who I could have as a boyfriend, but I think now, that if I met someone and it wasn't you, then that it would be someone who wasn't as wonderful as you are. I'll never forget the day you and I first met."
"Neither will I," I responded. "Like I mentioned once before, I worried in the past about if I'd find someone at all and even if I did, would he be understanding about my blindness. I also worried that if I found a boyfriend, whether or not he'd stay with me or just leave after getting tired of being with someone who couldn't see."
"I know," Nathan said. "I worried that even if I found a guy, that maybe he'd get sick of me waking him up in the middle of the night with pain from my muscle spasms or if not that, that he'd just get sick of the whole situation and just leave."
"I'd say you and I had the same fears," I responded and kissed him. "You won't ever have to worry about me leaving you Nathan. Not ever."
"I'm glad to hear that," he said and rested his head on my shoulder. "The same goes for me too, you won't ever have to worry about me leaving you for any reason. I love you Caleb. I love you with all of my heart!"
"I love you too Nathan," I replied and kissed him deeply. "I love you, with all of my heart!"
Author's Notes
In the next chapter, I'll have Kevin and Cody's dinner date for Wednesday night as well as the dance for all of them. So everyone have a good evening and I'll see you guys in Chapter 18.