This story is a work of fiction. None of the characters are real and any similarities between this story and/or any characters in it and real life is purely coincidental.
THIS STORY CONTAINS GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF CONSENSUAL SEXUAL ACTS BETWEEN TEENAGE MALES. IT IS INTENDED FOR A MATURE AUDIENCE ONLY! IF YOU FIND THIS TYPE OF MATERIAL OFFENSIVE, OR IF YOU ARE UNDER 18, OR UNDER THE LEGAL AGE TO VIEW SUCH MATERIAL THEN PLEASE READ NO FURTHER.
The author retains the copyright, and any other rights, to this original story. You may not publish it or any part of it without explicit authorization from me.
For the next month, Lane and Josh took their budding relationship slow and easy. Occasionally, they'd sit together at lunch by themselves and once a week they'd go for a walk together. Josh wanted to make this as perfect as possible and, being 14 and very mature, that was exactly what he did. Except that none of that is true and he basically started calling Lane his boyfriend the day after their ice cream 'date'.
Subtle is never a word that one would use to describe Josh. When he wanted something, he was relentless. At first, I'm certain Lane was a little overwhelmed. The night Alan and I first hooked up, I got a text from him about 11 which I didn't see until early the next morning...
Talked to Alan about Josh. Seems OK with it. Are you? Need some advice.
The next morning I texted back
Of course I am. Josh is really a good guy. Let's talk before school.
Mornings in my house were pretty routine. By this point in the year I didn't have to be at practice until 8 so I usually got up about 645, took care of business, got dressed in my gear and packed up my street clothes to change for the rest of the day. I'd have a quick breakfast and then either mother or daddy would drive me to school.
That morning when I got there, Lane was waiting out front, sitting on the concrete benches that lined the platform where the flag poles were located. He smiled as I walked up to him and I asked, "What's up?"
Lane nervously said, "Well, kiddo, I wanted to talk to you about Josh. I don't want to get into any trouble with you and I know you two are tight."
Oh, no... "Do you think we're together or were?"
He stood up, eyes cast downward, shifting from foot to foot, and biting his lower lip. To be honest, I thought it was cute as hell.
He looked back at me and said, "Well, it's hard because I really like him and I don't want it to turn into some weird competition with you. I know he's your friend, but I also think there might be something more there?"
Fuck. Twice in less than 12 hours. I spoke in an even tone, trying to keep the emotion out of my voice, "We can still talk between us, right? No leaking?"
"Yeah, of course... nothing's changed. You've always been able to trust Alan and me," he stated.
I took a deep breath, "What you're reading into this isn't what you think. Alan and Josh are the only two who know this and Alan only heard it inadvertently, but I'll tell you about that later.
I am gay but I'm not into Josh. To be honest, and even Alan doesn't know this, we tried last fall and never got further than a really awkward kiss."
It took him a second to process and what he was thinking was hard to read due to the lack of any kind of facial expression. He finally came out of it and smiled, "Oh, shit. I'm so sorry. I completely misread the relationship between the two of you."
I laughed a bit. "No worries and it's completely understandable. Josh is like an older brother to me, kind of like Alan but a lot closer. I'm not out and I don't want to be right now. Even if I was, Josh wouldn't be an option. Romantically, it's just not there... I didn't get anything from our kiss, but I'm sure you did from the peck he gave you yesterday."
He blushed a deep red and his eyes went wide, "He told you about that?"
"Of course he did. I told you we're as much brothers as best friends. Look, I love the guy but I love him like I love Alan, that is to say I'm not IN love with them. I don't want that to compromise our relationship because I really think of you that way, too. And, to be really honest, it's not you who should be worried about me, it's Josh."
The confused look on his face was cute, "What do you mean?"
I cleared my throat and looked at him dead in the eye, "I mean you're cute as hell, I know what a fantastic person you are, and any guy who ends up with you is going to be one lucky dude."
For a second, from the amount of blood lighting up his cheeks, I kind of thought his head might explode.
He started off slowly, "You mean you like me too?"
Which, of course, put me in a really awkward position. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm awesome at putting my foot in my mouth down to my knee.
"Absolutely. And if I knew you weren't already head over heals for Josh, and if I was ready to come out, I'd date you in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, I know it would also jack up our friendship and that's where it would get really hard for me. All I'm trying to say is that you are a hot guy and you need to know that, to feel it, in your bones."
His eyes misted up a bit, "That's the sweetest thing anyone's said to me in a long time. Thank you," and he paused for just a second. "Am I that obvious about my feelings for Josh?"
Ask a straight question, get a straight answer. "Yep. To me and I'm pretty sure to Alan, but not to anyone else as far as we know. Josh already knows you're into him, he has a talent for that kind of thing but I've never seen him use it to hurt someone. Josh is really a good person and I can tell from what he told me last night that he shares your feelings.
Here's the thing about Josh... he's not a dumb jock. He's very perceptive and he's smart as hell. He's also completely genuine and very trustworthy. You can and should be completely honest with him and I promise he won't let you down."
A wave of relief washed over Lane and I could physically see him relax.
He smiled at me and said, "Thanks for this, I really needed it." And then he gave me a real hug, for which I was thankful since brohugs with my fellow homos just seemed kind of, I don't know, fucking stupid now that we were all on the same page.
About that time the warning bell rang and I took off to the gym after saying bye to Lane who was wearing a smile that was probably visible from the ISS.
It didn't take me long to get inside and I almost ran into Coach Adams who just yelled after me "Two minutes, Hallstrom."
I ran into the locker room and stowed my gym bag and backpack in my locker, then ran back out to the field where everyone was already lined up ready to stretch. In the late spring, all we did was cardio, lift weights, and like today, run drills to prepare us for eighth grade next year.
Coach Adams barked at us to start stretching and he began to call roll. It was a completely normal day except for one thing... Charlie Graham wasn't in front of me.
Charlie had been a friend since second grade. We played flag football together and we'd talked about playing baseball because neither of us really liked football any more. Charlie made me look positively studly since he weighed about 110 pounds and was a few inches shorter than my 5'6". What he lacked in size, he made up for in heart (he'd take on anyone and keep going) and I honestly loved the guy. His home life had been like a bad roller coaster until his grandmother finally got custody of him last summer. Up to that point, he'd been living with his addict mother and a series of her loser boyfriends who were fellow passengers on the H train. It was when one of them tried to rape Charlie that his grandmother was finally able to take custody. Once with her, he thrived and his grandmother even kept his ex-con father from taking him when he came out of prison in January. Charlie and I didn't have many secrets from one another and I knew he was relieved when he didn't have to go with his daddy. He hated the man for leaving them when he was in third grade as it was when his mother fell to pieces.
Now, Charlie may have been scrawny and small but he had the immune system of a shark. He literally never got sick and never missed a day of school. He had been relentless in his chiding of my absences when I finally came back from my mono holiday, which I enjoyed courtesy of Stacy Michaels and her talented tongue. He, on the other hand, had a perfect attendance record going back to fourth grade so him not being in front of me was something that stood out. Even more unusual was that Coach didn't even call his name.
When we were done stretching, Coach broke us into a our A and B teams (I was on A which really had little to do with my talent on the field and more to do with the fact that I was tough enough to take a pounding) so we could run plays against each other. It was more like goofing around than actual football so we had a good time.
At one point A was on defense and I was off the field for a couple of plays when I asked Coach Adams about Charlie. He just looked at me with sad eyes and told me, "They're going to talk to y'all during homeroom. I can't say anything," and his voice broke on those last words. That really made me worry since Adams, like most coaches, wasn't well known for emotionalism and he really liked Charlie. Charlie and I often joked about it and the joke usually involved how much Charlie was paying him to be nice.
It wasn't long after when he told us to hit the showers and get changed so we all ran inside the gym to get cleaned up. If there was one thing I was thankful for about my body, which I considered to be average in just about every conceivable way, it was that I was more of a shower than a grower. For those of you never played football, let's just say boys can be pretty merciless about teasing a teammate who is small between his legs. For those of you wondering, I absolutely did not check out any of my teammates. I consider that a violation of the trust my fellow athletes have in the sanctity of the locker room and in their friendship with me.
But that's all bullshit. Of course we all checked one another out. Now, statistically, there should have only been, maybe, six homos on the team so that should have limited the number of lookiloos, but it didn't. If you're dating a guy who played sports and says he never looked, he's a liar.
I was pretty fast getting cleaned up because I wanted to get back to the main building to see if anyone knew what was up with Charlie. I closed and locked my locker and began to walk out of the building and ran into coach who just told me not to go in until the bell rang. I got to the door into A hall about two minutes before the bell and so I waited until it blew, then threw open the doors. I first went to the office and was hoping to see Mrs. Landrieau, the school secretary and the keeper of all it's secrets. Unfortunately, she was gone leaving only her sweater on the back of her chair to indicate that she was, at least, in the building. I then trudged down B hall, going to my locker. As I got close to it, I saw Josh standing there with Lane and Alan. None of them looked happy and I wondered if maybe I'd said too much that morning to Lane.
As I walked up Josh was the first to speak, "How ya holding up, bud?" he asked in a kind of sad voice.
I just looked at him with a confused look and said, "I'm fine... what's up?"
Alan spoke up next and I could tell something was really wrong. The sound of his voice and the redness in his eyes told me he'd been crying, something Alan was never comfortable doing in front of people. "Did Coach Adams say anything about Charlie?"
I just kept looking at them blankly and said, "Yeah, but it was sort of strange. I noticed he wasn't there and Charlie never misses school so I asked him about it and he just said they were going to talk to us in homeroom. What did you hear?"
At that point tears started running down Josh's cheeks as he walked to me and hugged me hard. He pulled back after a few seconds and told me something that broke my heart.
Through halting sobs, he told me the story. "We were in first period and Dan Crouch said his daddy got a call to go to Charlie's grandmother's house last night. Charlie's father apparently came to get him and when his grandmother wouldn't let him, he started to beat her. Charlie jumped on his back and Charlie's dad grabbed him by the arm and threw him against the fireplace so hard it fractured his skull and tore his arm out of socket. The paramedics said he died almost instantly."
I just stood there for a moment. No more Charlie. No more sleepovers. No more laughing. No more planning for baseball. No more talking about girls. No opportunity to ever share with him the one thing I'd never told him. He was gone without ever really knowing me.
I could feel his loss, like a pain in my chest, as I let out a howl and fell to my knees sobbing. The three of them tried their best to console me but all I could think about was my poor friend, so small and yet so full of life, taken from the world so easily by a father who was a degenerate ex con. I thought of his wonderful grandmother and the pancakes she'd make for us when I slept at his house. I couldn't bear the thought of the pain she was likely in at that moment.
About that time the intercom called a series of names to the office and mine was one of them. I started to stand and wobbled, and would have fallen back to the floor if not for Alan and Josh. I put my gym bag in my locker and kept my backpack with me. Josh told Alan and Lane he'd meet them later and then told me he'd walk me back to the office. I gave him one last hug before I went inside. There were five other students there, Darnell Lewis, Tameka Jones, Andrew Lyons, Brett Wright, and Cynthia Williams. I knew them all and they were all friends of Charlie's. Darnell, Brett, and I played football with Charlie. Tameka's face looked much like mine, tear streaked, which told me she probably already knew what happened.
They ushered us into a conference room with a counselor and told us a cleaned up version of what I'd heard from Josh. We'd been identified as Charlie's closest friends and they wanted to let us know before we heard it third or fourth hand from someone who didn't have all the facts. The counselor asked us if we wanted to talk to a counselor and I just shook my head, no and said, "Can you just give us some time alone?"
The counselor gave me a tight little smile and walked out the door, Darnell turned to me and said thank you. With that, I started bawling again which took everyone over the edge. They say it's good to cry and grieve with others. THEY are right because for some reason it's good to know someone else feels like you and shares your sadness over the loss. About 15 minutes later Principal Ford came in and started writing us slips to go back to class if we were ready. Tameka asked what we could do if we weren't ready and Ford told her that she could talk to one of the counselors or call a parent and go home for the day with an excused absence. She decided to do that, as did I.
We all hugged one another and then they were gone. Tameka and I didn't wait long, our mothers showed up about the same time.
I could see mother already knew what had happened from her face. It seemed that everyone around me was having a pretty shitty day. Mother signed me out while I went to my locker to grab my gym bag and I met her in the atrium in front of the office. We walked to the car in silence... I was pretty well cried out for the moment and small talk would have been wildly inappropriate (Hey sweetheart, how was your day?). When I got buckled into the seat I looked over at her and asked, "Can we go see Mrs. Jenkins (which was Charlie's grandmother's last name)?"
"Sweety, she's in the hospital in pretty bad shape. I don't think it's a good idea." In a small town, world travels fast when the victim of domestic violence is a sweet and well respected old lady.
"Please, mom? I just want to make sure she's OK and let her know how sorry I am. I promise, I won't bother her."
Mothe just looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "OK, I'll take you by there."
The drive to the hospital was pure silence. Neither of us turned on the radio, we were just lost in our own sadness.
Before we got out of the car my mother said, "Rob, I need you to be strong because there's going to be a lot of Charlie's family there and they're going to be really emotional. Just remember to be respectful."
"Ok, I understand."
We got out of the car and mother pulled me into the gift shop to buy some flowers. As we rode the elevator she handed them to me to give to Mrs. Jenkins.
Mother stopped at the nurses station to ask which room Mrs. Jenkins was in. As we walked down the hall I noticed three people standing, two men and a woman. The woman I recognized as one of Charlie's aunts and the man next to her was her husband. They nodded toward my mother and me and the other man turned around and I recognized him as Charlie's Uncle Roger.
Roger had played for UT, went on to law school and was now working for a firm in San Antonio. Charlie and I idolized him when we were little. He walked toward us and I could see the tears pooling in his eyes. I hadn't thought about it, but I guess seeing me made him think of Charlie. He nodded at my mother, and lifted me up in a hug.
I buried my face in his shoulder as he said, "I'm so sorry I wasn't there to protect him, little man. I know how much he meant to you."
I sobbed just a little and he put me back down as I told him, "I know Roger, but it's not your fault... he loved you very much. I'm really gonna miss him."
We just stared at one another for a moment and my mother finally broke the silence.
"How's your mother, Roger?"
Roger let out a long sigh, "She's doing pretty well considering. They had to set some bones and they've got her on morphine for the pain. She's going to make it, but it was scary last night."
I spoke quickly, "Roger, I wanted to let her know how sorry I am and to give her these flowers."
"Well little man, she's sleeping right now so I don't think it's a good idea. But if you'll give me the flowers, I'll make sure she sees them when she wakes up and let her know you came by."
I handed him the flowers and just said, "Thank you."
My mother said, "She has my number in her book. Will you please let me know when the services are for Charlie?"
Roger, a tear running down his cheek, said, "Of course. Thank you for coming by."
I gave Roger another hug and we left, heading to my house. All I wanted to do at that moment was take a nap. Mother basically forced a glass of water down me when we got home, saying, "You've lost a lot of water today, you need to rehydrate." No one realizes it but crying takes a lot out of you, emotionally and physically. I don't think I'd cried that much since my grandfather died four years before and I knew the dryness I felt in my eyes was a lack of water.
I went up to my room and crawled onto the bed. I slept deeply for about and hour and a half, exhausted from the morning. Mother woke me up to eat lunch about 1230 and I took one look at her and started crying again. At the time I hated myself for being so damn weak... I figured everyone was thinking I was being a pussy. It never occurred to me that people who knew me would understand that it was just the way I was wired.
After lunch, I worked on some stuff for school, including a project I'd been working on with Charlie. I actually laughed a little because Charlie hated the project we'd been assigned, to poll the school about their feelings regarding an issue in society. We chose to poll people on their support for the ARA and President Obama. Our results mirrored the overall voting pattern in our deep red county and it left Charlie feeling, justifiably, like people would just never like the man because he was black.
We'd started receiving questionnaires back last week and as we worked through them, especially when reading the optional comments some had left, Charlie would occasionally mutter 'Well, fuck you too... racist motherfucker'.
I put some music on as I worked. Over Christmas my cousin Richard and I spent time together when his family came to visit my grandmother. He was a senior and heavy into Balearic trance. He'd turned me on to Roger Shah and I'd downloaded just about every song of his I could find. My favorite, Treasure Island, always calmed me down and helped lift my spirits, something I desperately needed today.
I kept going back to it through the afternoon and ended up just putting it on repeat. I was listening to it when my mother came over the intercom to tell me Alan and Lane had come by. I told her I was still in my room and to send them on up.
Alan quietly opened my door and I turned down the music so we could talk.
I stayed in the chair at my desk and he sat on my bed while Lane sat on the chair next to my closet. They both looked pensive and I knew they were very worried about me.
"Guys, I'm OK... really. I know you're worried about me, but I'm not going to do something crazy. I just need some time to process," I said.
Alan looked at me directly, "I know it's hard, man. We all really liked Charlie."
I sighed, "Yeah...".
Lane spoke up, "What about his grandmother? How is she doing?"
"I got Mother to take me to the hospital after she picked me up from school. She's in bad shape but she's going to make it. I talked to Roger, Charlie's uncle..."
"The one who played for UT," Alan asked.
"Yeah... he was pretty torn up. Roger really loved Charlie and Charlie really thought of him as a father more than an uncle since his own father was such a miserable piece of shit."
Miserable piece of shit. That was the phrase Charlie had used to describe homos in general and Josh in particular. I remembered the conversation from last fall and kind of laughed a bit. Alan and Lane exchanged nervous looks and I told them, "Sorry, I just thought of something stupid Charlie did last fall. It's actually about Josh as much as it is about him."
Alan looked at him with a curious expression. "Well, what's the story," he asked.
"Shit... I guess it doesn't matter much now. Charlie made me promise not to tell anyone what happened to him last summer and why he was living with this grandmother. In late June, his mom had a party at that shack they were living in. I guess you could call it more of a gang bang than a party, four guys and her. They were drinking and shooting up some really bad heroin. At some point, Charlie was in the living room watching that crappy TV they had waiting for his grandmother to pick him up. He was laying there on his stomach and one of the junkies thought he was a girl because he was so small, and ..."
Alan was the first to understand, "Oh my God!"
I just looked back at him and said, "Yeah. Needless to say, he didn't want anyone to know... too hard to explain the situation and that he'd fought him off before he was able to penetrate. He cried so hard, and with so much anger when he told me about it, I nearly threw up.
A week after the attack, his grandmother was given sole temporary custody."
Lane, his confusion obvious from his face, said, "Wait, what happened?"
Alan just looked at him with a pained face, not wanting to actually say the words. I saw it and responded to Lane, "One of the guys tried to rape Charlie. He was so out of it he thought Charlie was a girl."
Lane just sat there, expressionless, clearly shocked.
I started back on my story, "Anyway, he made a pretty decent recovery from it, except for when he found out Josh was gay. His feelings turned from thinking he was cool, to calling him a dirty faggot every time I was around. The weekend after I first slept over at Josh's, Charlie slept over here. We were talking that night and I finally asked him why all the hostility toward Josh.
"He got this nasty look on his face and said, 'Did you suddenly forget what happened to me over the summer?' to which I responded, 'No, I didn't, but I don't know what that has to do with Josh. That guy wasn't gay, he was doped out of his mind and mistook you for a woman'. He sat there for a second and then he started to cry. I sat next to him on my bed and hugged him to me. He finally stopped, looked at me, and said, 'I know he's your friend and I promise I'll do my best. I know he's not that way but when I see him now that I know he's gay, I can't help it'.
"I told him I understood, but that he had to try. Being gay was like being black, it wasn't something Josh could help anymore than being black was something Charlie could help. He told me he understood and that he'd work on it. Late that night he mentioned something about the Christian twins giving him shit. So, after he went home the next day I told Josh to keep an eye out for him because those stupid twins were harassing him. Josh didn't really like it... from his perspective, why would he help someone who was always a jerk to him? I couldn't tell him the real reason Charlie was so unpleasant to him, so I just told him he needed to do it because he hated when strong kids picked on weak kids. That got him on board.
"So, the following Tuesday Josh was walking down C hall and the twins were pushing Charlie between them. Charlie told me later in the day that he didn't even see Josh walk up, he just suddenly saw one of the twins go flying into a locker and heard Josh saying to the other one "You ever touch him again I'll beat you to a pulp". They scrambled off and Josh asked Charlie if he was OK. Charlie told him he was and that was the end of it. Charlie told me Josh had to be a pretty good guy to have stood up for him despite him being so nasty to him. I just shrugged and said that maybe he now he could understand why I was friends with Josh."
Alan let out this long sigh and leaned back on my bed. We all just sat there for a bit, the music playing in the background.
Lane finally opened his mouth and asked, "What are you listening to, trance?"
"Yeah, it's something my cousin got me into."
Lane smiled, "It's nice. "
Alan looked over at me and smiled. I just smiled back at him, not really knowing what he was thinking but hoping it wasn't about the night before. It was absolutely the last thing I wanted to think about right now.
Lane glanced at his phone. "It's already 445. We better be going."
I got up to walk them downstairs to the door. Before they left, Lane gave me a hug and whispered in my ear, "Thanks for this morning." He said it loud enough for Alan to hear and he gave us a questioning look.
Lane let out a quick laugh seeing the look on his face and said, "I fill you in on the way to your house."
After they left I went into my mother's office where she was working and sat down in a chair nn the other side of her desk.
"How are you feeling," she asked.
I sighed and said, "I'm all cried out for now at least," and gave her a small smile.
"It was nice of Alan and Lane to come check on you. It reminds me of when you all were little... you were always so sweet to one another. When I saw the look on Alan's face earlier it reminded me of the time you broke your leg and they carried you home. I think he was more worried about you than you were."
That got a laugh out of me. I remember being in a lot pain, probably made worse by them 'carrying' me.
For the rest of the afternoon, I kept getting calls and texts from people checking in on me. Word had spread that Tameka and I had bailed earlier in the day and some of our closer friends were worried about us. I finally called Tameka about 6 to check on her. She wasn't doing as well and we chatted for a bit. Then she dropped the bomb.
"You know I liked him right?"
I thought it was a strange thing to ask. "Of course I know you liked him."
She laughed, "No, dummy, I didn't just like him as a friend. We had started talking about going together a few weeks ago. You really didn't notice?"
In all honesty, no I didn't. I know he had a thing for her, he'd talked about it with what was, in hindsight, a really obvious regularity. But he never said anything about the two of them talking.
"No, I didn't. I knew he liked you but he never told me the two of you had been talking about going together. Why didn't he say anything to me?"
She was silent for a bit, then blurted out, "He didn't want to hurt you. He thought you liked me, too."
We'd talked about girls a lot. For him, I knew it was honest. For me, it was cover. I'd told him I liked Tameka because, honestly, she was hot but mostly because I thought I needed to keep up the pretense of being straight. He got over the anti-gay bullshit, but I honestly didn't know how he'd handle me coming out. It was stupid of me to have not trusted him, but that was a lesson I wouldn't learn for another year and half.
The realization that he'd been so thoughtful of my feelings that he was keeping his own on the DL hit me like a bag of rocks. I teared up all over again, "I can't believe he did that. I told him I thought you were hot, and you are, but that I wasn't really interested in asking you out."
She laughed, "I kept telling him that. I know the way boys look at me, but you never look at me that way. I thought he was being crazy, but he was pretty locked into making sure you weren't going to hate him."
"I'm so sorry, Tameka."
She sighed, "Thank you. I don't want to make a big deal out of it, but I did want you to know. He really cared a lot about you."
I wiped a tear from my cheek and took a deep breath. "Thanks for telling me this, I know it wasn't easy."
We said our goodbyes and got off the phone. I went downstairs for dinner. Normally we were pretty talkative, but tonight it was mostly my mother and Cat having a conversation about what Cat wanted to do to her room. I really wasn't paying attention and they both left me alone.
After helping my mother clean up, I went up to what had been our playroom and was now almost another den. My parents refused to let either Cat or myself have a TV in our rooms so more often than not, this is where I came to watch TV.
I was texting with people and sort of watching something on Discovery. It drove my mother crazy because she thought I was basically using the TV for background noise. Normally, she was wrong but tonight she would have been spot on. If you happened past me and asked what the program was about, I'd have told you I didn't have the faintest idea.
About 8 pm, Josh texted
Talk?
I just responded
Sure, let me get to the phone.
With my mother working out of the house, we had an actual landline system. I preferred talking on it rather than my cell, mostly because trying to hold a slab of aluminum and glass between my shoulder and my ear wasn't easy and usually ended up hurting my neck.
Josh called a minute or two after I got to my room.
"Hey man."
I could feel concern, exactly what I didn't want, in his voice. "Hey... how are you feeling?"
I love Josh but sometimes he asks the dumbest questions. I wanted to say 'Oh, just super! Found out earlier today that one of my closest friend's head was bashed in by his father so obviously I'm feeling like a champ!'
Instead, "I'm better. I got mother to take me to see his grandmother and I got to talk to his uncle a bit. He's beating himself up for not protecting Charlie."
"What does he think he could have done?"
I sighed, "Who knows... people go crazy when something like this happens and they don't know how to deal with the grief. So, they start thinking they could have done something rather than just acknowledging that the world can be an ugly and randomly violent place and that, in the end, we have far less control than we imagine."
Josh would throw this line back in my face almost three years later when I was acting like Roger. People are better at analyzing the actions of others than admitting that their own are just as deeply flawed.
"Yep." Josh Hastings, ladies and gentlemen! "Did you talk to anyone else?"
"Yeah, actually a bunch of people called and texted. Alan and Lane stopped by after school. I talked to Tameka and she seems like it's hitting her hard."
Josh grunted, "I would imagine given how close they were. I've only known Lane a little over 24 hours and I'd be a wreck if something happened to him."
I was kind of exasperated, "YOU knew they were together and never said anything?"
He seemed irritated by my response. "What the hell, Rob? I just assumed you knew given how close you were to Charlie. He never said anything?"
At that point I told him about my conversation with Tameka. When I was done he took a second to respond. "Wow. He was a much better person than I ever gave him credit for."
"Yeah, I just wish I'd been honest. Tameka was his first real girlfriend and he was hiding it because he thought it might upset me. Just sucks. Moreover, I now wonder why his perception of me was of someone so delicate emotionally that he was afraid of upsetting me."
Josh jumped in, "Stop. He wasn't doing it because he thought you'd be a jerk to him or because he thought you were delicate, he was doing it because he thought you had feelings for the same girl and he wanted to let you know about it in a way that would protect your friendship and minimize any pain it might cause you.
People really care for you. Honestly, I've never seen anything like it. All day today, Alan and I were bombarded with questions about how you were doing. I think Willy and Brent got the same thing..."
"Yeah, I talked to them this afternoon and I asked them to pass some messages on," I told him.
"That's my point. People were sad about Charlie but they were concerned about you. What Charlie decided to do was care about you and protect you from something he thought would hurt. A lot of people feel protective of you, it's not just Alan and I. It took today before I finally saw it."
"Is it because I'm some emotional sore or something?"
"No, it's because they love you. You may be aloof at times and your compliments may be perceived as criticism, but you come by it honestly and you're genuine. It endears you to people in a way that nothing else can."
I sat and thought for a second before I answered. None of this had ever occurred to me and I was having problems making sense of it.
"What should I do," I asked which made Josh snort.
"Nothing but appreciate that so many people really care about you and want to protect you. It's a rare thing, so don't question it and don't abuse it. Just keep being yourself."
We continued to chat for another hour before I finally decided to shower and go to bed early. I dreamed of Charlie that night, a healthy, strong, unhurt Charlie who was so happy it made me cry. There was a pond at his grandmother's place where we used to fish and swim. It was a real mudhole but we absolutely loved it. In the dream, Charlie was standing near it as I walked to him. The sun was bright and warm and the water, looked clear and cool, something it had never been.
As I got close to him he reached at for me and pulled me into a hug that felt amazing. The tension and pain of the day ran out of me and I just felt buoyed by him.
After what seemed like an hour, he spoke. "I can't talk long but I needed to see you. You were such a good friend to me, in so many ways, and I just wanted you to know how much I loved you."
"What do you mean we can't talk long? It's a dream, we can talk as long as we want."
He smiled, looking at me, "It is, and it isn't. I can't explain more than that, but I can tell you it's not just you have to see."
I got serious really quick. "Ok, but promise me you'll see Tameka and Roger. They're both so torn up that they need you more than I do."
He just replied, cryptically, "I am. Don't worry about that and don't worry about not telling me you're gay. It wouldn't have made a difference with us, anyway. I want you to promise me you'll make the leap, but only when you know the time is right. Until then, don't feel pressured or motivated by anything or anyone outside yourself."
I just smiled back at him. "Ok, I promise."
He hugged me again and said, "I'll be here when you need me. We'll always be friends."
And with that, the dream ended or, rather, morphed into something else. Me, but not me now, at a house I didn't recognize with people I didn't know. It was a party and it felt like I was having a good time. I felt someone tap my shoulder and that was the end as I woke up when my alarm went off.
The rest of the week went slow but it was good. Charlie's death had brought about one change, namely that people were being really nice to one another. At the assembly during homeroom the day before, someone had made the very valid point that we should all be nice to one another, not just civil, because we never knew when someone might pass.
Mother got a call Thursday afternoon from Roger who said the funeral was going to be Saturday at 11 at Charlie's church. I'd gone with him a few times so I was already familiar with it. I loved the choir, not so much their minister.
I talked to Richard Friday night before he went out. Of all my cousins, younger and older, Richard was the one I with whom I could really talk about anything. He was straight but he'd messed around with his gay best friend a few times, something that had almost destroyed their friendship. It was one of the things we'd talked about when he was in town over Christmas. He liked calling me little dude... it reminded me of Charlie's uncle's name for me, little man. Coming from them it never bothered me or sounded condescending.
I told him about the dream and his response wasn't what I'd anticipated. He told me it wasn't unusual for things like that to happen, that it was probably just my subconscious pushing through to help me feel better. I asked if he thought it was actually Charlie and he just said, "Do you think it was Charlie?"
I didn't need even a second to think. "Absolutely."
He laughed and said, "Then that's all that matters."
I was nervous the day of the funeral. Roger had asked my mom if I'd like to say a few words about Charlie and I readily agreed.
Cat came with my mother and me and I was really thankful they had. A bunch of kids from school were there including Josh, Alan, and Lane who all decided to sit close to my mother. Roger pulled Darnell and I up to the front to sit with the family since we'd both be speaking. Darnell went first and talked about how Charlie was playing football. He talked about his tenaciousness, despite being smaller, and how he'd fight until there was just nothing left in him. It was how he was as a person, always working hard and never taking a back seat to anyone. He finished by saying how brave Charlie was and how much he'd miss him. It was a really sweet eulogy.
As Darnell stepped down, I just sat there thinking about what he'd said. Roger had to nudge me to get bring me back to reality and I made my way to the pulpit.
Walking past the casket I got a good look at Charlie one last time. I knew at that point there was no way I would get through this without crying but I wasn't apprehensive about it at all.
"Charlie and I met because of alphabetical order. In second grade, that was how we were seated by Ms. Edwards who I'm sure regretted it for the rest of the year. Charlie and I sometimes laughed that we shared a brain, but to those who knew us, it wasn't far fetched. From that first day in second grade, we were fast friends. We relied on each other, stood up to bullies together, learned how to make milk come out of our noses together, figured out how to beat video games together.
It hurts worse than a broken bone to know I won't see him any more. There have been times this week when I've thought of nothing more than how sad I am that I won't get to see the amazing life he would have had. And then I remember that Charlie would never have tolerated that kind of thinking. He never would have given in to sadness, he would have fought without yield for life. He was always the stronger of the two of us and he never felt sorry for himself. He loved his life, even when things weren't great. He loved his family, his girlfriend and his friends. But most of all, he loved himself enough to never let sadness or pain drag him down.
And he'd want all of us to do the same."
I walked back and sat next to Roger who hugged me to him.
When the service was over, I followed the casket out with the family and waited outside for my mother. Josh and Lane came over to tell me I'd done a good job and that Charlie would have been proud of me. And then I felt a breeze move through me and Josh asked, "Are you OK?"
It took me a second to find my balance. "Yeah, I'm OK."
Josh just looked at me, "Are you sure? It's like you just skipped a beat."
I replied, with a genuine smile on my face. "Yeah, I'm sure," I said as I looked over at Roger who had the same smile on his face. He just winked at me and turned to talk to someone else.
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