Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 00:48:00 EDT
From: Rysh1422@aol.com
Subject: Bleeding Hearts - Chapter 5

The usual stuff applies, you know - all that legal jargon and stuff. Don't
read this if you're a homophobe, yada yada yada. This was the hardest
chapter to write so far. I hope you like it. Please don't hurt me. Someone
dies in this chapter, but I promise things will start looking up in the
romance department in a few more chapters. You all have been patient with
me so far...hang in there.

NOTE: In order for the storyline to flow smoother, Killian's father, who
was the chief of police in chapter 1, has now been promoted to State's
Attorney for the county they live in. *Grin* Hope this doesn't cause any
confusion.


Chapter 5

	The week seemed to drag by. I was so distracted. I knew my grades
were probably plummeting. Oh well, it was still only the second week. I
would catch up.

	Finally, Friday arrived, but by the time the day was over I wished
it never had. It was bad day from the beginning when my alarm clock failed
to go off and I had to run around like a crazy person to avoid being
late. Then all the teachers seemed to be in a bad mood, and I got yelled at
several times for not paying attention. Geez, were they just noticing now?
I mean I hadn't been paying attention all week.  Why was today so
important?

	A girl who had been after me since last year cornered me in the
hall and demanded to know why I wouldn't go out with her. I came so close
to telling her it was because she didn't have the right equipment. Instead,
I bit my tongue and managed to slip away when a friend of hers who was
running down the hall calling her name distracted her.

	And then, as if my day hadn't already been crappy enough, I got
into a huge fight with Zack, Asher and Jesse, once again in the parking
lot. This time they were waiting by my car when I came out. I eyed them
suspiciously as I approached. This didn't look like it would be something I
would enjoy. I was starting to dread getting my car from the lot. Maybe I
would start riding the bus.

	"What's with the welcome wagon?" I asked when I got close enough,
"Did our dear old school elect you guys to the parking lot hospitality
committee?"

	"Funny, Killian," Zack said, "We need to talk to you."

	"About what?" I asked.

	"About Seth," Zack answered.

	My eyes immediately went to Asher and he looked away, obviously
uncomfortable.

	"What about Seth?" I asked warily.

	"We think you are spending too much time with him."

	"Too much time? I haven't spent any time with him."

	"Asher told us about the other day." Jesse threw in smugly, as if
that proved my guilt of some gross crime.

	"Oh did he?" I once again looked at Asher and he still wasn't
looking at me. He seemed to have suddenly found his Airwalks quite
fascinating.

	"Yeah, he did," Zack confirmed, "And we're worried that Seth is
messing with your mind, turning you against us. You've not done anything
with us since school started and you met this fag."

	"Seth is turning me against you?" I repeated. I could feel my blood
pressure rising, "You don't need Seth to turn me against you.  You guys are
doing a damn good job for yourselves!"

	"What's that supposed to mean?" Asher spoke up for the first time.

	"It's supposed to mean that I'm always the tag along. Nobody ever
calls me unless nobody else is available. It means that I'm not really a
part of your little group, and I'm being constantly reminded of that
fact. It means that nobody ever cared what I was doing or how I was doing
until it started looking like I might have my own mind. It means that if I
don't do exactly as you say and perform exactly as you expect me to
perform, I get check-ups and lectures. I'm not your friend. I'm your
mascot.  At least Seth treats me like a person."

	"You're a fag too, aren't you?" Zack said in the sudden silence
left after my heated outburst.

	"Go to hell, Zack!" I said between clenched teeth. "And get away
from my car while you're at it or I'll run over you!"

	"You're gonna be sorry, Killian," Zack warned as he, Asher and
Jesse started walking away. "You and your boyfriend."

			* * *

	That threat echoed through my head all the way home. What did that
mean, and how much did they know? I sure hoped Seth would be a good friend,
because I had just alienated the only three friends I'd ever had.

	I went home and did all my homework for the weekend, and it was
still only 4:30. I still had 2 and a half hours to wait before I went to
meet Seth at the park. Calling Asher was out. I never called Zack or Jesse
anyway. And I didn't have any other friends. So, I signed onto the net.

	None of my net friends were on. I usually talked to them later at
night, so I decided to look up some articles on being gay. I went to my
favorite search engine and typed in "gay". I was shocked when it came back
with thousands and thousands of hits. Then I realized that 99% of them were
porno sites. I was very curious, but I decided not to check them out. Well,
maybe just one. I clicked on a link and waited. I almost fell off my chair
when the site finally finished loading. I had never seen anything even
close to this. I was hard in seconds; I didn't even know you could get hard
that fast. My eyes bulged out of my head and this was just the title
page. After I caught my breath again I tried clicking on the enter
button. A form came up asking me to join, so I exited the whole site. No
way were they getting my name, and besides, I didn't have a credit card. I
sat in front of my computer with an aching hard-on trying to decide if I
should try another site. I finally decided against it. I could see how that
could get addicting and I didn't want to tempt fate.

	I signed off, stood up, and was immediately reminded of my state of
arousal. Well, I thought.  I guess this settles the whole gay thing. I
snickered at the tent in my pants and decided to do something about
it. After checking to make sure my door was locked, I stripped, lay down on
my bed, and jerked off. This wasn't the first time I'd ever done it by a
long shot, but it was the first time I'd ever allowed myself to think of
guys while I did. Not that my mind hadn't tried to go there before, but I'd
always felt guilty and made myself think of girls from school. Talk about
frustrating!  I now found my mind wandering from the guys on the porno
site, to Seth, and to my surprise, Asher. I quickly pushed Asher out of my
thoughts since he hated me now and definitely wasn't gay anyway.

	I finished and got cleaned up just as Mom called me down to
dinner. I was surprised to find that it was just Mom when I got downstairs.

	"Where's Dad?" I asked.

	"He called and said he had a meeting, so it's just us," she said
and smiled. My mom was very pretty in a held back kind of way. She had me
when she young, only 18, so that made her 34 now. I looked at her closely
as if seeing her for the first time. She wore her straight blonde hair
shoulder length and tucked behind her ears. She didn't have any wrinkles
yet. Her soft blue eyes were very seldom enhanced by makeup, but they were
pretty even without any. In fact, she hardly ever wore makeup at
all. Suddenly, I wondered why. Dad was always asking her to. The way she
did everything else he wanted. The fact that she didn't do this small thing
suddenly took me by surprise. Then I thought about the whole church
thing. That was another place she stood up to my father. Maybe I had been
underestimating her all this time.

	"Why don't you wear makeup?" I asked her.

	She looked at me in surprise, "What an odd question!"

	"Not really. Dad is always asking you to."

	She smiled a funny little smile, "Then maybe that's why."

	"What?" I was suddenly very confused. Could the chief priest at the
shrine of my father really not be as devoted as she seemed?

	Her smile broadened. "You've never expressed much interest in my
personal appearance before. What brought this on?"

	I shook my head silently and she laughed. She blessed the food and
we began to eat and make small talk, but my mind was busy trying to find
other instances of my mother's rebellion. They were there. I'd just never
noticed them before. I think they call it passive aggressive behavior. I
suddenly had a new respect for my mother.

	"You don't like him very much do you," I interrupted her in
mid-sentence. I hadn't been paying attention, but I think she was talking
about church.

	"Pastor Mason?" she asked in a shocked voice.

	"No, Dad."

	"Oh," she said simply and sat there for a few seconds, fork still
suspended half way between her plate and her mouth. When she spoke again,
her voice was softer, so that I had to almost strain to hear her. "You're
father is a very difficult man, Killian. So was his father. I've never told
you this, but I think you are old enough to handle it. We weren't married
when I became pregnant with you. I wouldn't even consider an abortion, so
his father, your grandfather, practically forced us to get married."

	She let the fork slowly drop to her plate and folded her hands in
her lap before continuing. "You're right. I don't like him very much. My
mother told me I'd grow to love him," she paused and I could see the pain
in her eyes, "but it hasn't happened yet. I see the way he treats you, and
it makes my heart ache. I've always tried to make sure you've had
everything you needed, everything you wanted; the car, the computer." She
shook her head as if to say it wasn't enough.

	"Then why don't you leave him?" I asked equally quietly.

	"It doesn't work that way, Killian baby," she said, "Your father's
a very powerful man in this area. He'd take you away, and I'd never be able
to get a job. I never finished college because I was pregnant, and your
father never let me go back, so I have no marketable skills. I'm stuck. And
I'm afraid that means you are too, at least for a few more years. Maybe
once you're in college, I'll have the nerve to make a break for it, but I
don't want you to get caught in the crossfire. It would be ugly, trust me."

	"I do," I told her sincerely.

	She nodded and we went back to eating. The rest of the meal was
somewhat solemn. I had a new image of my mother now and my respect for her
had gone up considerably. All these years she had stayed in an unhappy
relationship because she didn't want to lose me. I was almost in
tears. When she stood up to clear the table, I gave her a hug and insisted
she let me do it.

	By the time I got the dishes finished it was almost time to meet
Seth at the park. I figured that by the time I walked there, it would be
just about right. I could have driven, but I didn't want to get there too
early and have to sit around waiting. It was almost dusk, and it was a
little creepy by the pond at night.

	I told Mom that I was going for a walk and left. I had plenty of
time on the 15-minute walk to think about things. And I had a lot to think
about. So much had happened in the last two weeks. I'd realized I was gay
and admitted it to myself. I'd come out to one of the pastors at my church
and a new friend who was also gay. Then I'd alienated all my old friends,
maybe for good. I had been kissed for the first time, and it was by a
guy. (I wondered briefly if it counted if you hit them afterwards, but
decided it did.) Then to top it all off, I'd found out that my mother was a
real person after all. And I liked her.

	I wondered what Seth would add to my list tonight. Would he kiss me
again? I wondered if I wanted him to. I wasn't sure. Part of me did, but
part of me was scared too. I finally decided that if he did, I wouldn't
stop him this time.

	I was so lost in thought that I almost walked past the trail to the
pond. The pond was a man-made pond that sat back in a copse of trees. The
forest was small but thick with lots of undergrowth and high weeds on
either side of the narrow trail that circled around the pond. The pond
itself was a green, nasty looking thing that was fed by drainage
ditches. They had built cutesy little arched bridges over the ditches, but
it still all looked kind of seedy and creepy, even in the middle of the
day. At night, it was downright scary.

	It was just at the edge of dusk, the time when it's hardest to see
because everything is like a black and white movie with bad contrast. I
couldn't see anybody around the pond, but I couldn't be sure, so I started
to walk around it. Maybe I'd gotten here before Seth.

	Then I thought I saw some movement on the far side of the pond. I
started towards it at a faster pace as I called out in a hushed voice,
"Seth?" If it was Seth, I thought, he would never recognize my voice. I
wasn't sure why I wasn't louder, but I was feeling very terrified all of a
sudden. I had goose bumps all over my arms and the hairs were standing up
on the back of my neck.  I almost turned and ran, but I told myself I was
being stupid and kept walking toward the area where I'd last seen the
movement. "Seth?" I called again in my new raspy voice.

	Still no one had answered me, so I wasn't sure if I'd even seen
anything. When I got closer to the spot where I thought I had seen the
motion, I saw something lying on the ground, so I headed in that
direction. Before I could get close enough to see what it was, something
suddenly flew out of the undergrowth at me with a fierce howl.

	Before I could even scream, they slammed into me, and the impact
sent us both rolling across the ground. It was a person, I was sure of that
much, as I grappled with them trying to get away. I thought maybe it was
Seth playing a sick joke, but I couldn't get turned around to see, since
they had me from behind in a tight grip.

	They let go abruptly with one hand, but before I could take
advantage of that, they raised their arm and quickly brought it down. In
that spilt second of motion, I saw a flash in the moonlight. It was a
knife! Everything seemed to go in slow motion. I felt the impact of the
knife in my stomach, and the air rushed out of me with an audible
'oof'. Almost instantly, searing pain spread through my entire body as I
felt my own warm blood gush out.

	I'd been stabbed.

	The person let go of me with their other arm and yanked the knife
out. I fell back onto the ground as they sat up over me. I tried to see
them, but the pain had blinded me. They didn't seem to have any facial
features. They raised their arm again, but then stopped. I lay there
looking helplessly up at the faceless monster above me, but I couldn't do
anything but whimper.

	"Shit," they hissed, then lurched to their feet and took off
running.

	I didn't move for a few seconds. They pain was all I could think
about and I seemed to be having difficulty breathing. Each breath felt like
a whole new stab. I struggled to sit up, but the pain flashed through my
body again, and I felt myself blacking out. "I don't want to die," I
thought, as the darkness surrounded me. I fought back and managed to get
myself onto my hands and knees. I put pressure on the stab wound with one
hand and tried to stand up, but my head was spinning too much.

	I wanted to scream, but still couldn't seem to get enough air. I
was also afraid that the person with the knife would come back and finish
me if he realized I was still alive. I looked around for help, but I
couldn't see over the weeds. I could see the lights of nearby houses
faintly through the trees, but I knew my chances of getting through the
underbrush in my condition were next to none. I had better chances of
getting found here on the trail. Sometimes, people walked their dogs out
here. Then I saw the figure lying on the ground again. I realized it was a
person. Maybe I had interrupted a mugging and they were just
unconscious. Maybe I could wake them up and they could get help.

	I painfully crawled over to them, every movement bringing a wave of
intense agony. I felt like I was going to get sick. As long as I didn't
pass out, I didn't care. My shirt was soaked with my blood by this time. I
knew I was losing a lot and that was why I was getting so light headed.

	Finally, I was at the person's side. They were lying on their side
facing away from me, so I grabbed their shoulder and rolled them towards
me. As soon as they fell flat on their back, I knew they weren't
alive. Their throat had been slashed open, the gash angry and raw. Its
amazing the little things you notice in a moment like that. I saw the
leaves and small pebbles stuck in the drying blood around the wound, and I
wanted to brush them off. They looked obscene, as if the gaping slit wasn't
obscene enough.

	I felt the blackness swirling around me again and I didn't think
I'd fight it this time. In the last second before I allowed the darkness to
overwhelm me I looked at the face. My last thought before succumbing to the
void was, "Oh God, not Seth."