And I have
returned to a lot of reviews…*grins*…
Chapter: 7
I was one day down in my dare and
counting. The guys had made a little
sign and stuck it in my locker that would remind me of the days I had left to
finish off the dare. My stomach felt odd
every time I looked at that sign. It flip flopped in the oddest of ways and I didn’t know what it
was until one day when Jon passed me in the hall. It was guilt.
Finally on the fifth day into the dare, the Friday, Derek approached me.
“This isn’t working.” He spat
abruptly at me as I closed my locker.
“What?” I simply asked naively,
leaning leisurely back against the gray metal.
I watched Derek’s facial features contort into an angry frown.
“I said you had to ask him out.”
Derek growled. I kept my cool. He was trying to be intimidating, which
seldom worked for him.
“And I followed through on my half
of the bargain.” I said, then put a finger to his
chest, “Now you have to follow through with yours.”
“Oh I plan on it.” Derek replied,
ripping my finger away from him, “but usually when you go out with somebody, a
lot of people know about it.” I knew
what Derek was insinuating and that made me feel even worse. I was going to embarrass myself and kill my
reputation, but that wasn’t near as bad as what I was going to do to Jon in all
of this. He would be humiliated. And then there would be my own guilt, that would destroy me. So why did I feel I needed to obey Derek’s
stipulations of this dare? I didn’t need
to get laid that badly. The reward wasn’t
that impressive anymore. Even then I
heard my meek response.
“Okay, but let me handle publicizing
it.” I muttered. It felt like someone
had just stabbed me in the stomach.
“You don’t have much time.” He
warned me, “Just a little over a week left.”
“I know.” I grumbled and watched
Derek walk away. How the hell am I going to go about doing this?
***
Sure enough when I came home on
Monday evening, I had gotten yelled at.
But I really didn’t care. By the
end of the week everyone had forgotten about it, and my “therapy” had scheduled
me to work. I wanted out of my house for
a looonnnnnngggg ass time. Maybe I would ask Adam if I could chill at
his place. We hadn’t done anything all
week, and now it was the weekend, perfect opportunity. Of course, school took forever to get through
the long day. I sat at lunch, basically
counting the minutes as they passed when yet again,
Adam came up to me and sat down. I
looked up at him, eyes narrowing questioningly.
“I want people to know.” He
said. I knew exactly what he meant. My stomach fluttered nervously.
“Have you told anyone?” I asked,
dreading the response.
“My friend Derek, that’s all.” Adam
said, “I thought I should talk to you about it first.” I gulped.
“It’s not that I’m ashamed of you,”
I began, my throat feeling like sandpaper, “And I’m going to sound selfish, but
people will make my life miserable. You
can beat the shit out of anyone who bothers you but I…well….look at me. Obviously I can’t.” Adam was silent while he contemplated my response
to his question.
“I want to tell people,” He said
finally, “and if I have to be by your side every minute of every day to make
sure that nobody hurts you, than I will.
But I don’t want to hide with this anymore. It feels wrong. I feel so dishonest.” I sighed.
This is what Adam really wanted?
I was going to have to make sacrifices like in any relationship.
“Well…err..okay, just don’t run and tell everyone. Let them find out.” I found myself
practically beg.
“Sure.” Adam replied before he leaned
in and gave me a soft kiss. The first one without looking around to see if anyone had seen. I straightened my back against the plastic
back of the chair I was in and when Adam pulled back, I was the one to look
around.
“Don’t be so scared, with me as your
boyfriend, nobody will bother you.” Adam said quietly. Somehow I doubted his words.
I watched the blood slither it’s way towards the drain as I embalmed patient number
3678C- Agnes Philbert. She had died of old age, according to the
autopsy and her heart had just decided to give out. I went about preparing the cart I was to put
the “patient” on afterwards, and started cleaning up the tools.
“Jonathan?” Someone said over to
public address system, Elizabeth, our receptionist. I went to the wall and stripped of one of my
latex gloves and pushed on the button to talk to her.
“Yeah?” I
asked. What could she possibly want
right now?
“Uh, someone is here to see you.”
She said, sounding really confused. I
pushed the call button again.
“What another decapitation victim?”
I asked sarcastically.
“No…” I heard some muffled speech,
“He says his name is Adam.” I dropped
the scalpel in my hand and it clattered noisily to the floor. It took me a moment before I could regain
composure.
“Jon, you alright?”
“No…uh…it’s okay..tell him…tell him I’ll be out in a few minutes.” I
said.
“Okay, well your shift is over in
five so don’t worry about it.”
“Thanks.” I said before going to
clean up my tools for the evening.
When I walked out into the lobby
after cleaning up several minutes later, I saw that Adam was slumped in one of
our uncomfortable bright aqua covered chairs.
I signed out with
“What are you doing here?” I asked,
“It’s two o’ clock in the fucking morning.”
***
My stomach hurt. I felt so guilty doing this even if it wasn’t
much. My friends were going to be
watching Jon and I on this little date. I would know, but Jon wouldn’t. It made me sick doing this to him. We were on our way to the park, my friends
would be hiding and ready to watch and spread rumors.
“So remind me again why we are going
to the park at
“Because nothing else is open and two in
the morning.” I
reasoned. I was feeling worse and worse
with every step I took.
“Actually,” I trailed, my nerves finally shot with guilt, “I know
of one place.” I leaned over and
whispered, “My place”, into his ear. Jon
looked at me, puzzled at my change of mind, but went along with it anyway. As we walked away from the part I saw Derek
and Lewis out of the corner of my eye, giving me an evil look. This dare had taken on way too much stake,
and I wasn’t about to be their little doormat any longer. I led Jon away from the park and back towards
my car, half afraid that my friends would follow and expose me. Then again, what did I have to worry about. It was just a dare.
“Adam you’re acting strange, is there anything wrong? Did I do something wrong?” Jon asked.
I looked over at him as we headed back to the car, almost tripping. The look on his face was sad and scared at
the same time. It made me feel worse
about hurting him. It made me dread
Sunday when our two weeks was up. Or maybe you could just you know, date him
on the side.
“No, nothings wrong.” I replied, “I just want to go somewhere a
little warmer,” I whispered into his ear, “And a little more private.” I quickly kissed him to prove my point and
heard the snap of a twig, followed by a click.
Jon turned around and jumped away from me like I was on fire.
“Someone’s here.” He said obviously. I grabbed him by the hand and started to
almost jog across the park to my car when I heard Derek’s voice.
“What’s the matter Bowen, don’t want us to see you with the fag?”
He sneered. I could have killed
him. The deal had been for him to stay
well hidden. Then again, I hadn’t
exactly held up my end of the bargain.
Jon was glaring at me. I panicked
at the thought that he was figuring this all out. Just when I was contemplating keeping him…
I could have come clean right then. Ended it all in the park, saved us all a lot
of suffering. But what can I say, I don’t often take the easy road, which would explain
my next course of action. I grabbed Jon hard
around his waist just as he was about to run from me, and kissed him, hard, a
bruised and bit lip kind of kiss. The kind that left you breathless. The kind that was always
passionate and above all, honest.
When I pulled back, I had left not only Jonathan stunned, but Derek as
well, the camera he had held in his hand a shattered and scraped mess on the
pavement, the film lying exposed. We all
just stood for a moment, staring at each other.
Derek didn’t say anything until I grabbed Jon’s hand and tugged him
along with me the rest of the way to my car like a six year old needing to be
reprimanded.
“See you at school…faggots!”
He yelled. I ignored him, blood rushing
up to my face as I unlocked the car door and practically shoved Jon’s hesitant
form into the passenger side before I went to my side of the car and jumped in,
speeding off at a speed way beyond reasonable, even without people around. I was driving so fast that Jonathan had one
hand on the door handle, and the other dug into his seat.
“Sl- slow
down.” He finally said quietly. I did,
so drastically that it threw Jon forward and he smashed his head hard against
the dashboard.
“Shit!” I cursed, slamming on the brakes and pitching Jon forward
once again. This time my arm shot out to
hold him back from hitting the dashboard again.
Before I could ask, Jon spoke.
“I’m alright.” He said quickly.
His forehead was red, but that was about all. He looked up at me, making direct eye
contact.
“Why was Derek in the park?” He asked sullenly. I had to make something up quickly. Very, very quickly. I sighed and began another lie.
“Derek, well, I, Derek didn’t think we were really going out…” I
began, “He wanted me to prove it. He
wanted to meet me at the park, and take pictures, of you and I,
without you knowing. I backed out of
it. I felt bad. I didn’t want to do this. I mean, I could have dealt with people
teasing me, basically nobody would have dared.
But I wouldn’t have been able to take them teasing you, beating my boyfriend up.” Jon looked at me a moment,
and I bit my lip, hoping against hope that he would believe my lie. He nodded.
“Can we just go somewhere else?” He said more to the floor of the
car than to me. I nodded and slowly
pressed down on the gas again, heading home.
***
My stomach felt so empty. Adam had lied to me. He had taken me to the park to show me
off. It scared me. We needed to talk about this but I couldn’t
make the conversation happen as I lay beside Adam in the darkness of his
room. We were both silent and staring
off into space. Finally I broke the
silence.
“Why did you have to take me to that
park?” I said when I found my voice.
Adam shifted beside me and wrapped his arms around my waist, probably to
keep me from leaving when he said what he had to say.
“I didn’t have to.” He finally said
from the darkness, “I wanted to.” I fury
began to build up inside me. My stomach
knotted in fear and anger.
“W-what?” I questioned, thinking that maybe I had
heard him wrong.
“I wanted to, I wanted to prove to Derek
I wasn’t a coward. He knows we’re going
out, and has kept on me about not making it ‘public’ enough.” Derek sighed, his chest pressing against my
back, “I’m sorry. You know I’m
sorry. I tried to turn back before he
saw us, because I felt bad, but…” He trailed.
“You were too late.” I finished.
Adam detected the icy tone to my voice.
“I’m sorry.” He said quietly.
I took a deep shuddering breath in as I contemplated what to do with
this situation. I realized how hard this
was going to be for Adam and I to date. Why didn’t I just give up then? Because I had sunk my claws
in deep at the inkling that someone cared about me, and was not about to let
go.
“It’s alright.” I heard myself say as I buried the mistrust deep
inside. Adam’s apology seemed to not be
enough for his own satisfaction and he quickly turned me to face him.
I felt numb as his hands raced across my body, stripping my
clothing off, kissing me with even more passion than he had in the park. His hands groped at my naked skin until I found
my voice and my will.
“Stop it.” I mumbled, my voice muffled as
his lips came down on mine again.
“Jon don’t do this.” Adam protested,
using his weight to keep me down as I struggled to sit up, “I’m sorry, please
stay here.” I wriggled underneath him,
pressing my palms hard into his chest to try and push him off. Panic settled into me when I realized how
helpless I was and a flashback ensued.
~~~
”Just stay still…I love you”
“…but
your hurting me…” My voice was childish
and miserable as he held me underneath him and forced himself inside of
me. I screamed as the pain tore through
me mercilessly. I was a child. I was four and a half years old. That made things worse. That made me scream loud enough for him to
cover my mouth with one monstrous hand.
~~~
“Jon! Jonathan!” Adam cried. I was hyperventilating.
“Shit!” I heard Adam curse and he
scrounged around his room and finally found a paper bag for me to breathe
into. He shoved it up to my face and sat
down on the bed beside me, a hand cautiously around my naked lower back.
Neither of us said anything until I
had let the bag flutter noiselessly to the floor from my fingers and to the
floor. It was me, who spoke first.
“I need to go home.” I said in a near
breathless mumble. Reluctantly, Adam
nodded. He didn’t need to say he was
sorry again. I knew he was. And a million apologies from him would never
make up for what had been done to me in my past.
Yayyyyyyy…I finally finished this…and yaaaaayyyyy distorted echos
updated!