Date: Fri, 03 Sep 2004 02:28:22 -0400 From: Jeff Wilson Subject: WAR Part 6 Chapter 7 W.A.R. Part Six - Commencement Chapter Seven -- December the Nineteenth by Jeff Wilson "Hey, can I talk to Dustin, Mrs. Smith?" I asked while my mom and Dave were heading out to church. Mrs. Smith yelled for Dustin, which was loud even though it was over the phone. After a few moments, Dustin's voice came through the line. "Yo, Lefty. What's happening, birthday boy?" "You call Mike?" I asked. "It's all set up. Frankly I think you should have done it months..." "Yeah yeah yeah. I know. Well, they're going to be heading out to church in a few minutes. I'll head over to your place then." "Do they know what you're going to do?" "You think I tell them anything anymore? Just tell Mike to get over there soon. I can't take this crap anymore." "Okay. I'll see you later then. Mom's going out, so I gotta go. See ya." Dustin abruptly hung up on me, which was his usual phone etiquette for the last week or so. I put the phone down and grabbed my coat and hat. "Billy, are you sure you don't want to come with us?" Mom asked as she was passing my room. I laughed aloud. "Yeah. I'm going to go through that again. What do you want tell everyone this time, that I used to wet the bed? Or maybe that I cried at the end of 'Ol' Yeller' when I was seven." Mom sighed. "I don't know how many times and how many ways I can apologize for..." "I've told you what you have to do, mother. But you'll never do it, so don't bother with the 'let's pretend everything's okay' crap." "I've tried to be reasonable with you, William. I don't think you appreciate just how much trouble you've caused for me with that Brett. You know that I still love you, but I can't fathom how you can just openly flaunt your sin like you are. I've heard that you were causing trouble at school." "Yeah. That whole holding hands and kissing thing really agitates people, doesn't it?" I said smugly. "It's disgusting, Billy!" "It sure is! And every time I see some guy with his hands all over some girl I just want to throw up. You know... We're really not that different afterall." Mom threw her hands up in frustration. "You are the most impossible... Even your father wasn't this bad." "Hey, you know what... I'll go to church with you. On the condition that I walk into that place holding Brett's hand. How do you like that idea? Everybody already knows anyway. You made sure of that." "Goodbye, Billy." Mom said, having given up on the conversation. "Later, mother. Thanks for the warm birthday wishes." I said sarcastically. I heard her give a quick gasp as she was walking away which told me that she had forgotten that her only son had finally turned eighteen. I didn't care though. Not in the least. I was just counting the days until graduation so I could get the hell out of that house. When I was sure that the house was nice and empty, I gathered up my hat and coat and headed out the door. In the weeks since mom had let the cat out of the bag about me, things had really changed for me. Actually, I was starting to get the feeling that it was the best thing that could have happened to me. It felt like a great weight that had been crushing me for five years had been knocked off my back. Now, the strain of carrying that weight for so long still hurt, but the weight was gone, nonetheless. Mom was right about school, but not the way she thought. Brett and I were finally able to be real people there. At first, it was a little uncomfortable. But it wasn't a big deal to people there. We weren't big on public displays of affection. We weren't all over each other and kissing and touching all the time. That annoyed me when other people did it, and I didn't want to be that way. But just the fact that we didn't have to hide... The fact that we could be honest about who we were... It just felt... Well... It made me happy. It made me happier than I had been since that day in May when everything turned cold. In a way mom had never intended, she really did help me. But that didn't mean that I was going to ever forgive her for fucking me over. When I arrived at Dustin's backdoor, he was already waiting. He opened the door and let me in out of the cold icy weather which had gripped the area for the last few weeks. "Good lord, it's fucking freezing out there." I said, still shivering. "Well, it is almost Christmas, you know. Mike said he's on his way. I wish he wouldn't have moved to Belle Vernon. I mean, sure mom tried to kill him. But it was an honest mistake..." "Well, would you want to live your life in a tiny little trailer and try to run a business out of it when you could move to a bigger town and make some real money? Do you think he could have hired you to work there if he hadn't moved out and started making money?" Dustin frowned. "I just miss being able to go next door and tell him what's going on." "You have Emily." I replied. "That's not the same, Billy. I can't tell Emily the kinds of things I can tell Mike. And a lot of it is because it's about her." "You can tell me." I suggested. "No I can't. You're her friend and you're a blabbermouth. You'd tell Brett anything I told you." "I would not!" I protested. "Who told mom about dad again?" Dustin asked. "Okay, so I tell my boyfriend stuff. But it keeps the relationship nice and open. I don't have to worry about finding someone else to talk with. Or about keeping secrets." "It's not that fucking simple, okay? She doesn't know what he did to me. She doesn't know why... She doesn't need to know that. She knows he hurt me. She knows about that. But she doesn't know about the other stuff. I don't want her to know. I don't want anyone to know! I hate him. I fucking hate him!!" Dustin raged. He grabbed a pan that was sitting by the sink and slammed it five times on the counter and was about to toss it across the room. And then just like that, he stopped, put the pot down, closed his eyes, and put his hands on his head. His breathing slowed down. Then he blinked a few times and looked at me. "I'm sorry I brought it up." I said. "I never used to be like this. You see what he did to me?" "Did you take your meds today?" I asked. "Shut the fuck up!" Dustin shouted. "I don't need a god damn pill to tell me that my life isn't fucked!" Dustin closed his eyes again and tried to control himself. But instead, he started crying. "I'm sorry Billy. I can't help it." "I know." I replied. "I thought I'd be okay for a while... I left the bottle of pills in my room. Can you go get it for me?" "Okay." I replied. I left Dustin sitting with his head down on the kitchen table, just sobbing away. I walked upstairs to his room and found the medicine bottle sitting next to his computer. When I went to grab the bottle, I accidentally bumped the mouse and his computer screen lit up. Onto the screen came an internet site that hadn't been closed down, even though the connection had been turned off. It was filled with some of the most unbelievably violent stuff I'd ever seen. Pictures of some really nasty blood and guts stuff. It made me sick just looking at it, and I wondered why Dustin would have stuff like that on his computer. "What the fuck are you doing?" Dustin's voice came from behind me and I jumped about three feet. "I accidentally bumped..." "Are you spying on me?" "Of course not, it was an accident." "You fucking liar! I asked you for one simple little thing and you couldn't even do it without spying on me?" "Dustin, I told you it was an accident, goddamn it!" Dustin sprang at me and knocked me down. Then he jumped down on top of me and started choking me and banging my head against the floor. "Why didn't you mind your own fucking business Billy? Why do you have to make things difficult? I'll break your goddamn neck!" I was really scared. I had seen Dustin like this before, but that was a few years ago. I couldn't think. Dustin was going to kill me. He was bigger and way stronger than me, and I couldn't breathe. Dustin wasn't even looking at me. There was a faraway look in his eyes, as if he wasn't even seeing me while he was choking the life out of me. The look on his face was one of pure animal hatred. He was so enraged he was actually drooling on me. I could feel myself fading, looking at the scarred wrists of the boy who I had kept from killing himself, who was now squeezing my neck with everything he had in him. Finally, as a last resort, I drove my knee between his legs as hard as I could. Dustin yelped like a dog and toppled to the ground, clutching his nuts and then started bawling. I coughed and coughed while I tried to sit up. Dustin tried to get up and I seriously thought about kicking him to keep him down. But then Dustin sat up and leaned against his desk. For the first time since he had gone to the special school, he rammed the back of his head hard against the desk about five times. I sat up on his bed and lay down, still coughing. "The hell... did you... do that... for?" I managed to get out between practically coughing my lungs out. "I don't know..." Dustin replied. I threw the bottle of pills at him and it landed in his lap where he was still clutching his aching balls. "How could... not... taking... for one day..." "Actually... It's been more than a day..." "What?" I gasped. "Well, I felt better. I wasn't like this anymore. I was normal again. I was happy! And then I read on the internet that these damn things can make you have sexual side effects. I told you about what happened to me with Em. Well, I had the best sex I ever had last week after I stopped taking this shit, and I still felt fine." "So you stopped taking your meds so you could fuck Emily and you almost kill me? Jesus Christ, Dustin! You're fucked up!" "I didn't think I was going to hurt anybody! I just saw you looking at my..." "That's another thing!!! What the hell are you doing looking at shit like that?" "I DON'T KNOW!!!" Dustin yelled. "I don't know..." He said in a whisper. "I'm so scared, Billy. I didn't mean to hurt you." "I think you need to take your meds, Dust." "I'm sorry I..." "I know you are. You didn't have control of yourself. I think it would be best if you did what your doctors told you to do and stopped looking at stuff like what's on your computer." "Are you going to tell my mom?" Dustin asked, opening up the bottle that I'd thrown at him. "I'm sorry, I have to. I'm not going to sit back and let you hurt yourself like I did before. And I'm sorry, but I don't think that choking people is very healthy." Dustin wiped his eyes again and swallowed one of the little pills. He looked like a little lost puppy. "I'm so sorry, Billy. I can't believe I did that. Are you okay?" "I've been better." I said. "I'm such a fucking idiot." "No, you just thought that you were able to get over what happened to you without help. It didn't work before, and it's not going to happen now. The doctors gave you that medicine for a reason, Dustin. No one should have to go through what you have." Dustin tried to smile, but the tears kept on coming. "I'm never going to be the way I was before, am I?" "I guess not." I said sadly. "That sucks." Dustin sighed. We sat there for a long time. I lay on the bed and Dustin leaned against the desk. My neck and the back of my head hurt a lot. Dustin was strong enough when he wasn't pissed off. But when he was like that... I hoped I would never be on the receiving end of that kind of rage again. We both jumped up when the doorbell rang. I immediately felt my head throb from having it get bounced off the floor like a basketball. When Dustin opened the door, it took Mike all of two seconds to ask, "What happened to you two?" "We had a little wrestling match while we were waiting for you." I replied. Dustin looked at me with appreciation. He must have thought that I'd tell Mike all about what happened. "Oh. You guys should be more careful. You look like you've been through hell." We didn't say much as we drove through the town. Dustin laid down in the back seat of Mike's car and tried to sleep through the pill's effects on him. I really felt sorry for Dustin. He had been such a happy kid when we were growing up. I knew that he wasn't the richest kid and that he had it rough at home. But through it all there was an optimism about him that just made you feel good about life when he was around. But that light about him had grown steadily dim since his dad had molested him, to the point where he had totally changed into that violent monster that attacked me. It made me sick to think that the only way to control that inner fury was with drugs. It was foolish of us to think that Dustin was ever going to just someday get over what happened. He had much worse scars than the ones on his wrists. When got to the place we had planned to go, and Dustin drowsily followed us into the building. We were met by a large man who seemed exceptionally happy. Dustin handed him some money and then laid down on some chairs and was out again. The happy man looked me over and laughed. "When Dustin said he had a friend who needed my help he wasn't kidding!" The man laughed again. "Yeah." I replied. "When was the last time you had a haircut, Billy was it?" "Yeah... I guess around March or April... I just haven't been in the mood." "Well, let's get to work." The man, whose name was Ben, got to work hacking away at the nest my hair had become in the months since I had last had it cut. Ben was the man who was responsible for Dustin's hair, I had found out. When it got to the point where I could no longer stand to look at myself in the mirror with my hair looking like that, I managed to convince Dustin to take me to him. And since it was my birthday, Dustin even paid for it. After a good ten minutes of trying to chop his way through, Ben gave up on the scissors and got out the electric shears. Mike and Ben talked while Dustin slept and I watched the pile of dark blond snippets build up on the floor around me. Finally, after almost a half hour of work, Ben had snipped his last snip, and turned me around to look in the mirror. "What do you think?" Ben asked. "Holy shit, it's me again." I said, to the laughter of Ben and Mike. I had ears again! And a forehead! After months of looking at a mess of hair, I looked like myself again. My hair was nice and short all over, and a little longer on top. My bangs hung down a little in front, as opposed to hanging down into my eyes like they had been. Not surprisingly, my hair was much darker now. But, you could still see that it was dark blond, not brown like Brett's. "Mop-water blond," as Dustin called it. Ben swept up the remnants on the floor and remarked that there was now more hair on the floor than there was on my head. Mike woke up Dustin, who was now almost zombie-like in his waking movements. I could see now why he hated taking those pills, as it seemed as if every ounce of energy had been sucked out of him. He was asleep in the car again before we even pulled out of Ben's parking lot. Mike offered to go to his place for a while and I figured that would be a good time. Mike has the best video games, since he lets us test them out before he sells them. We had pizza for lunch and Dustin was asleep on the couch immediately afterward. Mike and I decided to play a network game for a while until Dustin felt better. "So, I guess his little sex experiment didn't work, huh?" Mike said. "Huh? How'd you know about... Oh right." I said, realizing that Dustin would have probably told Mike what he was doing. "I warned him not to do it. I told Carol to keep her eye on him, but I didn't say why. I guess I should have... Well at least he got one good fuck out of the deal. Are you okay? It looks like he tried to tear your head off." "I'm okay... Mike... Do you... Does it... You know..." "What?" Mike asked, confused by my stuttering. "Do you still miss your dad?" I blurted out. Mike hit the pause button on the game. "So you're finally ready to talk about it, huh?" "Well I..." "You don't know how long I've been hoping for you to snap out of it. I took a lot longer than you did." "Really?" I asked. "Oh fuck yeah." Mike replied. "You know the first person I ever really talked with about it was Dustin? And that was like years afterward." "Wow..." I whispered. "It'll always hurt, Billy. I'm sorry. I wish I could say that you wake up some day and you don't miss him anymore. It doesn't happen. Every once in a while you will remember something, and it'll bring it all back. But you know what? There's far more times when you'll remember something and you'll smile and it'll make you feel good about him." "But it's been over ten years for you. You don't feel any better?" "It's like this... I don't burst into tears everyday or mope around like I used to. I got on with my life. Both of my parents are gone. It's not like I sit around and cry. But there are times when I get down about it. At least you didn't have to watch your dad suffer in a hospital for a year like I did. He just went off into the woods and died happy. My dad was kept alive by machines for six months, and I was a lot younger than you." "Sometimes I do feel better. Like, I know he's not hurting anymore. He's not having to be in pain just to try to tie his shoes. He can feel his hands again, and his feet. But I still miss him. It's still not fair that he left me all alone." "But you're not alone." Mike replied. "You have Brett. You have Dustin. You have your mom." I snorted when he said that. "Yeah. Why couldn't she have been the one who..." "Don't you ever fucking say that, you stupid asshole." Mike said angrily. "You've got all those people, and I've got nobody! I'm all alone while little assholes like you mope and cry because you've lost somebody. Well how do you think I feel? I don't have anybody!" "But I thought..." "Oh shut up." Mike interrupted. He sat there slumped over, propping his head up on one arm and looking at the computer screen. After a minute or so, he spoke again. "Well, I guess you see now what I was talking about. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have taken it out on you." "It's okay, Mike. It's not like I haven't dumped on people when I've had the chance." "You're a good kid, Billy." Mike replied. When Dustin woke up, he looked like crap. He had dark circles around his eyes and he was more pale than usual. He asked to go home and we obliged. We drove back to Dustin's house and helped Dustin inside. I told Mrs. Smith about what happened and she thanked me. She didn't go off on a rage though, she merely told Dustin that she would have to keep a closer eye on him. Dustin merely replied, "Okay." Then he headed off to bed. Mike offered to drive me home, but instead, I asked him to take me to the big white house on Summit Road. Mike agreed and dropped me off at Brett's place. I thanked Mike for everything he had done for the day and watched as he drove away. Then I walked to the front door and knocked. Brett opened the door and smiled at me. He reminded me that I didn't have to knock and invited me inside. "I love the haircut." He said. "You look like yourself again." "It was time." I replied. "I couldn't take it anymore." "Well, I didn't want to say anything, but I thought you looked weird with long hair." "Oh really?" "Yeah. You just look a lot cuter with it like this. Hey, mom wanted to be here, but she had a call about a patient a little while ago who had stopped taking his medicine so she had to go check on him. But she did buy this for you." Brett walked me into the kitchen and revealed a small birthday cake with my name on it. "Wow." I replied. "That's more than my mom did today." "Well, mom says you're family. So she thought it was the least she could do." "Did she really say that?" I asked. "What?" Brett asked. "That she says that I'm part of your family." I replied. Brett laughed. "You're more her son than Paula's. She didn't say that, but I do. You're always going to be welcome here." Brett said with a hint of bitterness in his voice. Brett and I cut the cake and enjoyed eating most of it. Brett said he was glad to see that I was eating again, and it occurred to me that I was actually hungry again. We finished eating and then sat in the kitchen for a while, talking about nothing in particular. "So how's it feel to be eighteen now?" "Same as I felt yesterday. Except I can buy lottery tickets and cigarettes." I replied. "You can buy porno, too." Brett replied. "Is sex all you think about?" I laughed. "Yes." Brett said totally seriously. "Yes it is. It must be because you're so good at it. It makes me want to have it all the time." "Oh shut up." I laughed. "Besides, you realize that now I'm an adult and you're a minor so we can't do it until March 23rd anyway." Brett's eyes grew large and his mouth dropped in surprise. "No way. You're kidding me, right?" "No, I'm serious. What? Do you want me to end up in jail for fucking an underage little kid?" "No fucking way." Brett said in shock. "That's right. No fucking, way..." Brett looked like I'd just taken away his favorite toy. It was a look of shock, first. But it was slowly turning into anger. "That's not fair!" He finally sputtered out. "You're right." I replied. "That's why it's not really a law." "WHAT?!?!" Brett said, still angry. "I was just kidding. Age of consent is seventeen in Pennsylvania. Besides, we're only three months apart, so it wouldn't apply to us anyway." Brett went through a wide mix of emotions in the few seconds where he went from being mad at the world, to being mad at me for tricking him, to laughing at me for tricking him. "You really had me going there for a minute." He laughed. I grabbed Brett by the hand and led him willingly to the stairs. As we walked up the stairs, Brett was smiling from ear to ear. Once we got up to the second floor, I led him to the bathroom. "Oh, a little bathroom action, huh? A little unusual, but okay!" Brett laughed. I turned on the light and then kissed him for a few seconds. While I did that, I untucked his shirt. I pulled off the shirt and tossed it aside, so that his gold necklace was the only thing he was wearing from the waist up. Come to think of it, since I'd bought it for him on his seventeenth birthday, I'd never seen him without it. I went back to kissing him, feeling his bare chest and having a little fun with one of his nips. Brett was totally into what I was doing to him. So much so, that he didn't seem to notice that I was working on a little project at the sink. "Okay, hold still." I said. "What?" Brett asked, right before I got him right in the mouth with a warm, wet wash rag. And then I worked my way up one cheek and down the other side. So that his beard was completely soaked. Brett quickly figured out what I was up to and started laughing. "You're evil, Billy. Getting me all worked up and then doing this." He said as I started applying the shaving cream. Brett may have thought I was being evil, but he didn't put up any resistance to what I was doing. He just watched me in the mirror while I got him all lathered up, and then went for the razor. "Don't use that one. It's dull. Use the new one." Brett instructed. I complied and found the new razor in the medicine cabinet. I took my own shirt off to make sure that I wouldn't get it all messed up and was about to start on his left cheek when Brett turned to look at me. "What happened to your neck?" He asked, all the previous silliness was totally gone. "What do you mean?" I asked. Brett turned my head to look in the mirror, then pointed to the bruises on each side of my neck. "What the fuck is that?" Brett said angrily. "It looks like somebody tried to strangle you." "Oh that!" I said, trying desperately to figure out what to say. "I... uh... I was just playing around and I..." "Did your mom do this to you?" Brett asked angrily. "My mom?" I laughed. "Oh no... Don't be silly. Mom's all about the mental torture. She knows better than to lay a hand on me anymore. No... Dustin did this." "Dustin?!?!" Brett said furiously. "What the fuck did he do to you?" "We were just playing around while we were waiting for Mike to pick us up and it got a little rough. I'm fine." "Shit... Tell him to be more careful next time. It looks like he tried to choke you to death." Brett said. He didn't know the half of it. "Well, if it makes you feel any better I kicked him in the nuts." I said, hoping to get back into the mood. I went back to his left cheek with the razor and slowly scraped from right beside his ear down to his jaw, revealing the smooth pink skin beneath. Having revealed that soft skin, I couldn't help but give it a kiss. Brett smiled, then closed his eyes. I switched sides and did the same to his right cheek. Brett opened his eyes and turned to look at the damages so far. "There's that stupid scar again." Brett said. Sure enough, there was that little checkmark from the last time he ever rode a bicycle. In the battle of Brett's face versus the tree, the tree won. I stood behind him and reached around to get the front of his face, watching what I was doing in the mirror. Brett was way more relaxed than I would be if someone was doing this to me. He tilted his head any way I needed him to in order to get at him properly. Any time I would look up from my work with the razor to his eyes, I would find his ocean blue eyes locked with my green ones. I had to look back at the razor in the mirror to keep from just staring at him for an hour. I carefully shaved his upper lip and then his chin. The heat coming from him was intense, and the steam from the water running was making it very warn and steamy in that little room. When I had finished, I took the wash rag and gave him a quick once over. Brett leaned back against me. "I look like I'm twelve." Brett laughed, checking himself over. "You look like Brett Reilly again..." I replied, before kissing the nape of his neck, right above his necklace. Brett nestled his head on my shoulder as I kissed and touched him. His back rubbed against my chest, and the room started to feel even hotter than before. I slipped my hand down to his waist and gave his pants button a tug. His pants fell to the floor, leaving Brett in nothing but his boxers. Boxers with a noticeable tent in the front... Brett slipped his hands behind him to my belt buckle and had his hands in my underwear before I even realized it. I moaned softly while Brett hands gently rubbed my balls. I gave his boxers a tug and they fell to the floor. Brett slipped off my underwear and guided my dick to his butt crack. He slowly rubbed his butt up and down on my dick while I softly kissed his neck and shoulders. Brett turned around we ended up on the floor. I was on my back on the floor for the second time that day, but this time it was Brett on top of me, kissing me passionately while we hugged each other tightly against each other. Brett kicked at the pants around our ankles to get them off so that all that was left was socks, and even that was too much for him. I felt his toes work their way to get my socks off. It was awesome to know that he was just as crazy about being totally naked as I was. Our legs intertwined and our tongues playfully wrestled. Our arms squeezed each other tightly and our dicks jostled as we pressed our hips together more and more rapidly. The steamy heat of the room was amplified by our lovemaking on the floor. We were at the point were we didn't have to do anal to have some of the most erotic moments of our relationship. It wasn't just fucking when we got together. And that was never more obvious to me than as we made each other cum all over each other on that bathroom floor on my eighteenth birthday just by pressing our sweaty bodies together. Brett continued to kiss and hold me long after our cum had melted together into a sticky, slimy mess gluing our bodies together. "I love you so much..." He would say as he kissed my neck. "You're my life, Billy." He whispered before he gently licked my ear. "I never want to let you go." He said softly as he squeezed me against him. I felt so complete while I lay there naked with him. Brett made me feel whole when I was with him, and I felt empty without him. Before long, we were hard again. And that's when Brett lathered down my dick with that sticky, yet still slippery cum and guided my dick into him. Brett let me go for a minute in order to get my dick into him, but then he was right back to hugging me while I gently bucked my hips into him. Sweat dripped from his brow onto my face, and I couldn't help but pull him toward me and lick him. There was no part of him that I didn't want, even if it was just his sweat. There was no way on earth that I could ever be more in love with anyone. It didn't take long to fill him up, and for him to deposit another load onto my belly button. I slid out of Brett and we just lay there for a while, totally exhausted. It was unbelievably hot and steaming in that room, only now the steam was coming more from our bodies than from the warm water. "Happy birthday, Billy." Brett whispered softly, his breath finally coming back. Brett slowly climbed to his feet and pulled me up to mine. Brett kissed me again, and then turned on the water in the shower. We washed up and washed each other. As the water flowed over us, we ended up doing more kissing and touching than cleaning. If my dick hadn't finally had enough after two orgasms, we probably would have ended up doing it again in the shower. If this is what mom wanted to happen when she said that Brett couldn't come to our house, well, I don't know how I could ever thank her enough! We got quite a surprise when we got out of the bathroom and found Dr. Reilly sitting in the living room watching television. I felt a little embarrassed that I had just spent the last hour with my dick in her boy, but she didn't seem to care. She was happy that Brett was happy. I couldn't understand why my mom couldn't be happy that I was happy. As I was getting ready to go home, Brett asked me to come with him to his room for a minute. When we got there I told Brett that I was too worn out to do anything else, Brett laughed. "Oh, don't worry about that. I don't think I could do anything else either. I told you that you're good." He smiled shyly. "But I wanted to give you your present." He said. "I thought you already did..." I said. "Oh, well... That was awesome, but it's not your present. This is your present." Brett handed me a small box wrapped with paper. I opened it up and found a gold necklace just like the one I'd given him and that he was wearing. "Wow..." I said. "I wanted you to have one too. I thought a ring would be kind of stupid. Straight couples do stuff like that. But this was perfect when you bought it for me." Brett felt the necklace with his fingers. "I've never taken it off since you gave it to me. Not even once. Every time I feel it on me, I feel like you're with me... I know that sounds kind of stupid." "It's beautiful." I replied, a tear finding its way down my cheek. "I... I don't know what to say. I just love you more than life itself. I love you." I hugged him tightly. Brett hugged me too, and he took the necklace from the box and put it around my neck. It tickled the back of my neck a little, but it felt perfect. I walked home slowly that night. Brett offered to drive me home, but I wanted to walk. I had a lot to think about. I stopped every once in a while to feel my new necklace. It was funny because the one that I gave Brett had really become so much a part of him that I sometimes forgot that I was the one who gave it to him. What a nice reminder of what we meant to each other... I was never the kind of guy who would wear jewelry or anything, but I never wanted to take it off. When I got to the house, it was quiet and still. It was almost ten o'clock. I sort of expected that there would be no party or anything. But the fact that they didn't even wait up for me was kind of frustrating. I checked the calendar, and sure enough mom wasn't scheduled for work today, though it did have my birthday marked on it.. I walked through the kitchen and down the hall to the bathroom. I took my contacts out and washed my face before heading to my room. I didn't even bother turning on the light as I pulled off my clothes and slipped into bed... And cracked my head off of something hard. I got out of bed and turned on a light. There in the bed were four wooden boxes. I recognized them right away. There was a note taped to one of the boxes. I pulled it off and had to put on my glasses to read it. * * * * * * * * * * * * * Billy, I know things are tough between us right now. I know that a lot of it is my fault. I don't want it to stay this way. I know you think that I'm being unfair. In a lot of ways, you're right. If it was just up to me, I'd say live your life and be happy. But it's not just up to me. The things that you are doing aren't right. I'd be failing you as a parent if I just let you do that to yourself. As I'm writing this, I know that you are off doing God knows what and it tears me apart. Any time I've tried to talk with you about it you shut me out. So I'm hoping that this will help. I love you, Billy. I've always been proud of you, and so was your father. I know you don't want to believe it right now, but it's true. You will always be my little boy, and no matter what you do I'll always love you... And do what I can to help you. Your father wanted you to have this coin collection. I figured it was time that you have it. It's been sitting in the safe untouched for all this time. It always brought your father such joy to look through it with you. I hope that it will bring some joy to you now. Happy birthday! And know that I will ALWAYS love you! Mom * * * * * * * * * * * * * I set the letter on my desk and then lifted the coin boxes that my dad had made by himself and placed them on the desk as well. I opened one of them up and looked through some of the coins inside. Funny... It was this coin collection that had led to my very first sexual experience with Brett; led to my first black eye; led to my first real fight with dad... And now it was mine. Who knew what kinds of experiences it would lead to in the future? % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % % Well... I had a good trip. But it's good to be back. I wrote most of this chapter the old fashioned way: with a pen and paper. I think it was worth it. It seems like so many of these chapters are my favorites when I write them, but this one is special for me. We've seen a different side of Mike, a scary side of Dustin, and a softer side of Brett. And many of you have asked me about the coin collection, well now we know where it is. But will Billy ever find out what secrets are waiting within? Anyway, There are some interesting dynamics in this chapter, and I'd be glad to talk about them with you. Feel free to drop a line, or talk about it on the yahoo group page! Just one little thing for example... Did you notice that both Dustin and Brett had Billy on his back in this chapter? But what a difference in those scenes! Also, there is a lot of significance in Billy getting his hair cut. In a lot of ways, Billy's getting his life back in order. Considering he's got a guy who's madly in love with him, he's got a lot of good things going for him. Next Chapter: Brett finally finds a way to get back into Billy's house, and ends up in a world of trouble.