Date: Fri, 25 May 2007 15:15:33 -0700 (PDT) From: Dan R Subject: Me & Justin 19 I felt a slap on the back of my head and turned around and Jeff was standing there. "What's your problem man. I've been watching you while I was in line and you have been staring at your lunch for 10 minutes and not eating." He asked. "I dunno. I'm just thinking about stuff I guess." I replied, looking down at the cheese burger that wasn't even burger, they had this soy burger thing. I tried to hide the bad taste by putting on 4 pieces of cheese, but the cheese wasn't even real cheese. I pushed it away and shrugged. "I'm not hungry man." I said. Austin who was at the table quickly scooped up the basket and ate it for me. Man, he could eat anything. I felt conflicted, and maybe a little guilty about what I did on the Fargo trip. I didn't have any real feelings for Chris and I doubted that I had any real feelings for Rusty, except wanting to have sex with him. I did really like him. I think I went too fast with him and now I was regretting it. I was thinking about all of this watching everybody in idol chit chat at the table about this and that. I got out of my chair and said my good byes and went to Rusty's locker and slipped a note through the vent hole thing. `Rus, see me after school. I need to talk to you.' The note read. I had decided to break up with him. I don't really know why, but I felt like I needed to not have a boyfriend for a while. I decided that I was cheating on Sean by doing this stuff so soon after he had died and I didn't want to do that anymore. Rusty met me by my car in the lot after school and we talked. "Rusty, can we drive down to the lake and talk?" I asked. "Sure, what about?" He replied. "Let's just drive down there and we can talk, ok?" I said. He shrugged and got in the car and we drove off. When we got to the lake, we parked in the beach parking lot. It was fairly warm outside, so we got out of the car and walked towards the lake, which was iced over. "Umm, Rusty, I don't know how to say this, and I know however I say it, it is going to be really bad. But I need to stop seeing you." I said very seriously. He looked up to me, I think hoping what I was saying was a joke. But when he saw my expression, he knew I was serious. "Why? What did I do wrong to you? I mean, everything has been so^Å" Then he lost it and started crying. I wanted to hug him, but I didn't know if that was the right thing to do or not. He sat down on the ground and was just sobbing. I felt like shit. "Rusty, listen man. I rushed into this too fast. I'm sorry, I just need to time and some space. I really do like you. You didn't do anything wrong. Please. LOOK AT ME!" I yelled. But he wouldn't. I tried to grab his arm to get him to stand up, but he wouldn't let me. I asked him to go with me to the car so I could drive him home and he told me to fuck off. I went back to my car and sat there for at least 5 minutes hoping he would change his mind, but he wouldn't even look over at me. So I drove to a gas station a few blocks away and called up Ryan and told him what I did and asked him to do me a favor and drive down to the beach and pick him up and drive him home so he didn't freeze to death. Ryan said ok and did that for me. Luckily Ryan didn't have any trouble convincing him to get into his car and let him drive him home. Ryan drove over to my house after that and went down to my room where I was laying on my bed staring at the ceiling. "What did you do that for?" He asked, little anger in his words too. "I thought you really liked him." "I Do. I just don't want the type of relationship he wants. He wants to be my lover and I don't know what I want anymore. I just don't want a boyfriend." I replied. "Well, I dunno man. He was bawling the whole way home. Couldn't you have done it a better way or something? He yapped at me. "Ryan, thanks for driving him home, but you are really fucking bugging me. I never broke up with anybody before. I didn't know how to do it. If you remember, my last boyfriend died on me, so go fuck yourself." I yapped back. "Ohhhhh, Pooorrr Brian. You're the only one in the world with problems. Ya know, we all thought that you had moved on. But you are still crying for yourself inside. Why don't you grow a set and move on." He yelled at me. Fuck That, I thought. I got off my bed and lunged at him and we wrestled on the ground and he got in a couple of punches to my face, which dizzied me. He probably could have finished the job if he wanted to, but he saw the tears running down my face and he stopped. He got off of me and I sat up. "Brian, I love you man, but you gotta get over your shit, and your self. Give me a call when you are Brian again." He said, and then left the room. I sat on the floor and cried. I wasn't too sure at the moment why I was crying, but I knew I felt like shit about everything. I eventually crawled into bed and I heard my mom calling me for dinner, but I told her I wasn't hungry and just wanted to sleep. When I got up the next morning, I had no interest in school. I didn't want to have to face Rusty in Law class, not to mention Ryan. I stayed in bed and my mom came down and I told her I was sick. She felt my forehead and saw my split lip from Ryan and asked me how I got that. I told her a lie that seemed to work and she said that she had to work today and dad was left for out of town work earlier, so I was on my own until 4. After mom had left the house, I fell back asleep until about 11 in the morning. I got up and took a shower and went upstairs to find some cans of various soups on the counter with a note from Mom telling me to eat one of them for lunch. I picked the ham and bean and cooked it up and ate it. The house was really quiet. I felt weird, like somebody was watching me seeing that I was skipping school. I seemed to do everything very carefully, which was silly. I decided to get dressed and go for a drive. It was unseasonably warm for that time of year, plus there wasn't even any snow on the ground. I drove around the lake and my car pretty much steered itself to the cemetery where Sean and his dad were buried. I got out of the car on the dirt road closest to their graves. I looked around the cemetery and didn't see anybody. It was really quiet here, just like the house. I walked up to Sean's grave and sat down next to it. I talked to the headstone for at least 30 minutes. Seems kindoff silly to do that, but I felt like I was talking to him. I went to my trunk and found a fifth of vodka in my trunk and brought that back with me to his headstone. I took a big swig and looked at his name on the grave and felt his engraved name with my hand and I just started bawling. I must have cried for an hour, finishing off the booze as I cried. I laid down next to his headstone and hugged it and fell asleep. When I woke up, it was dark, I was getting poked with something by a cop. I recognized him as Jeff's dad. He was talking on his radio thing. I could hear my mom's concerned voice. He helped me up and I sat in the back of his car. He got in the back and sat besides me. "Brian, you could have died out here tonight. It is supposed to get down to 5 degrees for crying out loud. You had your mom and your friends very worried." He said very stern. "I know. I just^Å I dunno." and I started crying again. He hugged me and held me for a while. "Cmon Brian. Let's get you home. I will drive you home and tell Jeff and Ryan to drive out here and pick up your car." I nodded and gave him my keys. ---- "Mom, I don't want to talk about it. I'm just sorting some things out today. I'm sorry I lied about being sick, I just needed the day not at school. I am really sorry." I said. She nodded, but I could tell she was angry and very concerned. "You will be going to school tomorrow Brian." She said to me. I knew. I couldn't avoid my life forever. When I got to school the next day, I wished I was invisible. I was happy that all of the people around my locker were still people that I didn't know and they didn't know the drama in my life. I was dreading sitting next to Rusty in law. When I arrived to Law class, I took my usual seat and saw Rusty walk in the door. Our eyes met, but he didn't come to sit next to me. He took a seat in the back of the class. Some girl sat down next to me and introduced herself to me as Melissa. I asked her why she was sitting here, and she told me that Rusty asked the teacher to move to a different partner and she was looking to move too so that was the deal. Then she proceeded to talk endlessly for five minutes until the teacher came in. She gave me a glare and started the class. We watched a movie in class, which I ignored and put my head down on the table and slept through. After the movie was done, the teacher came over to our desk and slammed a book down on it. That sure woke me up. "Mr. Urness! We are hear to learn." She said very sternly and walked back up front. The bell rang and I got out of there as soon as I could. I got to lunch and grabbed my usual terrible soy burger and was doing my usual pondering at it. I looked over and everybody was sitting at a different table. I didn't care. I liked being alone. I didn't want anybody to notice me or even talk to me. I just wanted to hide. But that lasted for about 30 seconds and Melissa came and sat at my table. "Brian, I am getting an A in law. I agreed to switch law partners with Rusty because you are really good with law, but after what I saw today, I guess Rusty is doing all the work. You better not fuck up my grades." Then she left. I wasn't even able to give a response. I ate a couple bites of my crappy lunch and wandered through the rest of my day until practice after school. I sat in front of my locker, studying my skates like it was the first time I ever saw them before. Everybody was milling around and joking and stuff and I was just getting pissed off at everything. We were having a scrimmage against JV today except the varsity goalie (Chris) was playing for JV and the JV goalie was playing on varsity. I was happy to get back on the ice. I could be in my own world out there. Even though it was just a scrimmage, I treated it like the Stanley Cup Finals. At one point in the third period, I was skating towards the goal and I decided not to stop and I crashed into Chris giving him a nice elbow in the process. He got up and took off his mask and got in my face. A bunch of the JV guys were standing behind him pointing their sticks at me. I looked behind me, and my team was leaning against the bench. These fuckers. I am there captain and they are making me go 1 on 6. Nice. I took off my helmet and dropped my gloves and yelled at Chris. "Let's go fucker." He dropped his goalie waffle and glove and we went at it. He was a lot bigger than me, and before I knew it, I got a fist in the head and he pulled my jersey over my head and was just pummeling me. Finally the coaches came and pulled him off of me. I laid on the ice a bloody mess. I thought about how less than a week before, me and him had sex, now he was kicking my ass. I laughed to myself and said to myself. `I deserved that'. I skated off the ice to the locker room with blood dripping out of my nose, leaving a trail on the ice. I took a quick shower and got myself cleaned up and sat on the bench near my locker and just started laughing. I just got beat up by a goalie. Not only a goalie, but a gay goalie. I put my stuff in my bag and I walked out of the locker room and drove home chuckling the whole way home. To be continued.