Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 15:22:35 -0700 (PDT) From: John Meyers Subject: The Tragedy of Daniel and Jake Chapter 5 The Tragedy of Daniel and Jake Chapter 5 By John Meyers Disclaimer: Okay, this story involves an ever evolving gay teenager romance, if this offends you, I think you need to take a look at the site your on and start deleting your history and sign yourself up for therapy... Anyway, I don't own anything copyrighted or trademarked that I may have mentioned, including songs and artists. This story also involves mild mentioning of non violent child abuse. If this offends you... that's actually a good thing, because child abuse should offend you, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't read the story. Also, if reading this kind of material breaks any laws in your area, you should probably not read it. I'm just saying, you never know who's spying on your computer. Really, you don't. Oh, and uh, if you're not of legal age to read this material where you are, you're breaking the law, so don't do that. There, now I can't get in trouble when you get in trouble for reading this because we both know you're not going to stop reading this just because some text on a screen tells you not to. Just saying, anyway, I believe this is where I tell you to read the story or something... So... Read the story............,. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To Recap: It's Sunday, Jan 24, the day after Danny's birhday party. Mark and Jake are both in the hospital. Jake was in a terrible car crash, Mark was beaten up by Danny's friends Devin and Isaac. Daniel blames himself for Jake's car crash because Jake was txting Danny while driving. Mark was beaten up because he punched Eli, who now has a broken nose and stayed the night at Danny's house. Although, his injuries don't seem all that important when you take into account that we found out that Eli's parents are horrible, making him essentially a slave for 3 years. Right now Danny and his mom just found out about just how bad Eli's parents are, which is where we're picking up... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Danny's POV "What did you say?" My voice cracked. Eli just stood there, holding the frying pan, while an egg slithered around on it, still partly in it's shell. Tears were streaming down his face and I could feel heatwaves come off my mom from anger. He opened his mouth several times like he wanted to speak but no sounds came out. My mom took the pan from his hands and turned off the stove. "Eli," She didn't seem to have the words, hell I didn't have the words, but the amount of concern in her voice was overwhelming, even to me and I wasn't even what it was directed at. I didn't have words, but hugged him instead. He felt stiff, at first he didn't seem to know what was happening, but then he hugged me back, burying his face in my shoulder. I felt the tension evaporate out of his back and the tears soaking through my shirt. He was in danger of breaking me in half from hugging me so hard. "Eli?" Tyler's voice rang out behind us, reminding us of his presence, without another word my mom walked over and told him to go up to his room. "But mom, I don't want to!" I slowly unlatched myself from Eli and went over to him. "Come on, time to go upstairs." I hoisted him up and took him up the stairs, wondering what mom must've been saying to him while the stairs creaked beneath me. "Why's Eli crying?" Tyler asked me, he's way too young to be exposed to this kind of stuff. I felt a tear roll down my cheek while I went over what I should say. "Because his parents aren't like mom is with us." Yeah, understatement of the year. "Stay up here for now, ok? I think mom and I are going to talk to Eli." This wouldn't be easy and I tried to get him to understand but even then, you can't expect everything to work out perfectly. "But I don't want to stay in my room!" He whined, clearly wanting to know what was going on. "How 'bout if you stay up here I'll talk to mom about letting you have a friend over tonight?" I knew that'd get him. "Okay." He went and turned on his tv so I shut the door and went back down the stairs, creak, creak, creak. When I got down they were both over on the couch. Eli had his face buried in his hands and my mom was talking, whisper quiet, to him. "I'm sorry." Eli wiped the tears out of his eyes. "I shouldn't have dumped this on you, I just had a moment. I'll head back now." He went to get up but I put my hand on his shoulder. "Like hell you are, you're not going back there if I have any say so in it." He just looked at me oddly, like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "This isn't your problem." The emotion was clearly threatening to overwhelm him again. He turned to plead to my mom but she obviously thought the same as I did. He sat back down, and closed his eyes and ran his hand through his hair. He looked about ten years older when he did that, the stress clearly revealing itself. What do they do to him? "Eli, I know you don't want to, but you need to tell someone what's going on." My mom pleaded with him. "If not us then someone, anyone else, but you can't go back there. Your parents are-" "Don't call them that!" His eyes sprang open and for the briefest of moments the pain disappeared and his eyes were instead filled with pure, undeniable hate. Good, I thought. At least he's not under delusions. "Those people may be related to me, but they are not my 'parents'." He spat out the word like a nasty swear and his face twisted into a sneer. My mom looked like she was about to cry, but she had to keep it together, for Eli. "Would you be willing to talk to someone?" I could hear the desperation in her voice, begging him to tell someone something. "Mam, this is just a huge mess." He addressed my mom. He never said 'mam'. Well, bar the "Yes mam, no mam." "I've thought about it so much that I don't think talking would do anyone any good. I just think I need to get back before things are worse." He looked me in the eyes, silently asking me to step aside. I think I managed to communicate clearly that I wasn't budging. "Look, this isn't your problem! I appreciate what you're trying to do, really I do. But I really don't think talking to anyone would do any good. Noone else knows, and I'd like it to stay that way." "But sweetheart, knows what? The only thing you've told us is that they never asked if you wanted any of the food you made. Eli, that's bad enough but from what I can gather it's a lot worse than that. Neither of us is letting you go back there any time soon." She put her hand on his shoulder. However emotional he was before, he looked completely calm now, and that worried me. "Miss Eliza, I really need to get home." He made to get up again but I put my hand on his shoulder and lightly sat him back down. I took the seat next to him, putting my arm around his shoulders. "You're not going back there." She looked at me. "But, we've got to go to the hospital and visit Jake and Mark, so you're coming with us." My mom stood up, dropping the issue, making it impossible for him to keep arguing. "We'll leave for the hospital in about an hour, you can shower and everything upstairs." She gave him a comforting smile before going back to the kitchen, putting dishes in the sink. "I can do that!" Eli quickly got up. I briefly wondered if this behavior had been so far engrained in his mind that it became compulsory. "The only thing you're going to do is take a shower and relax. I've got it honey." She started washing the frying pan. "Towels are in the linen cupboard." I stood up as well. Eli looked sheepishly at me. "I kinda don't have any clothes. I wasn't expecting to stay the night and everythi-" "No problem, I'm sure I've got plenty that'll fit you in my closet." I took the stairs two at a time to find him something, not even realizing that he wasn't following me until I got to the top of the stairs. I went back down, creak, creak, creak. "You coming?" Eli was still standing there, looking at me with the oddest look on his face. It was somewhere between uncertainty and incredulity. "You okay?" He snapped out of it. "Yeah! Uh, yeah, I'm fine." He smiled and it didn't even look forced. I saw the first bits of light creep back into his hazel eyes. He followed me back up the stairs and I started pulling shirts off of the rack, hangars and all. I took three pairs of jeans and set them on my bed too. I looked over all of them and picked up an orange American Eagle shirt and held it up to him with some Abercrombie jeans. No no, go darker with the jeans. I pulled a darker wash and held it up to him. Much better, but get a different shirt. I thought about it for a second, absorbed in my own little world, then it hit me and I picked up the only pink shirt in my wardrobe. Holding them both up to him I couldn't help but smile. "Awesome." My thoughts bled over into speech. "If you need underwear, my mom keeps several packs for unexpected guests. Don't ask me where she got the idea, but they're completely unused. They're in a drawer above the washing machine." I got him a towel and put it on the bathroom counter. He was looking through two different unopened packs of underwear, one were boxers, the other were boxer briefs. "Those'd look great on you." I came up behind him, scaring him. His face turned red and he laughed. "Now you see, THAT'S flirting." He laughed, picking a pair of black boxer briefs. "Alright, just leave me some hot water and tell me when you're done." I walked back down the stairs as he shut the bathroom door. When I got down I found my mom watching the news. She quickly turned it off when I got down. "What are we going to do?" I suppose there wasn't any other question that needed to be asked really. Just the one. She sighed deeply, thinking, obviously. "I don't know. We need to tell someone. Child Services perhaps? Except that even then I don't know what would happen. He might be moved away." She looked at me. I think I knew what she was going to say before she ever even said it. "We could see about him moving in with us." I thought about it, and I knew I couldn't be fair. Part of me wanted Eli to stay here, but at the same time, I didn't know how that would work. With both of us being gay, my mom being a single parent, recently divorced too, and her supporting two children already... "I suppose I could talk to Clark." Ah Clark. Clark is my mom's current boyfriend. He's great. He's pretty cool, has an eleven year old son of his own. He doesn't live in Arkansas though. He lives out in Virginia doing work for the Navy. Apparently he's retired, about 5 years older than my mom. They both went to the same school together when they were younger, though of course, he was in a different grade. He'd already offered to send us money every month, what with my mom being divorced and supporting us and everything. My mom of course, declined. He went through a pretty bad divorce a few years ago, apparently he's still paying for it, and yeah, I mean that in the financial way. His ex, was a huge gold digging bitch. "What should we tell Eli?" I needed to know what I was free to say around him. "Don't say anything to him yet. I need to know what's going to happen before we tell him anything. Did you see the way he kept looking at us? It's like he hasn't had anyone care for him. At all." My mom had this look in her eyes like she wanted to kill someone. I could bet I knew who that was. "When he jumped up like that, I started wondering if his behavior has become compulsive. Like, I wondered if we're going to wake up in the middle of the night to find him taking out the trash or something." The image flashed through my mind, of him, and that look that screamed, "THAT'S MY JOB". "He needs to talk to someone, and I don't know who he'll talk to. You're his friend, he may try to talk to you, or feel more comfortable talking to you." I knew what she was trying to say. "Do you think I need to try to get him to open up?" I personally thought he needed to as well, but I wasn't sure it wouldn't just make him mad or uncomfortable with me trying to get him to talk. "Carefully, yes. Maybe talk about it tonight. I'll go by his house and get his school things and some of his clothes later today." I thought about it, coming up with an idea. "Okay, I think I can do that. I'm going to see if he's out yet." I walked back up the stairs, creak, creak, creak. I listened through the door. The showers still going. I walked into my room and into my own little heat bubble. I began wondering if Eli thought it was too hot while I picked up the duvet off the floor and threw it back on my bed. He probably didn't care. I got the aforementioned orange shirt that I'd tried out on Eli and got my other pair of dark washed jeans. I went over and started up Pandora on my iPod. Without even thinking about it while going through my underwear drawer I started lightly stomping my feet and singing along. "Few times I been around that track so it's not just gonna hap-pen like that, cuz I ain't no hollaback girl-l." I knew it had no place whatsoever, but in all honesty, this was one of my favorite songs of all time. Most of my favorite songs came from the mid to late 90's and the early 00's, having been so young around that time, a lot of them remind me of when I was really little. A lot of the songs from that time period I really enjoy. I was dancing a little in front of my underwear drawer, going through several pairs before finally deciding on a pair of boxer briefs that were blue and said, "Half man-Half Horse" On the front of them. "I heard that you were talking shit, and you didn't think that I would hear it. People hear you talking like that gettin' everybody fired up." I didn't even hear the floor creak. "So I'm ready to attack, gonna lead the pack, gonna get a touchdown, gonna take you ou- Ooout!" I turned around to find Eli standing there in just a towel, smiling while laughing at me. The music was still playing and my face was probably more red than a tomatoe. "Those'd look great on you." He mocked me from earlier, his smile revealing those pearly white teeth. Water droplets were clinging to his skin and his hair was plastered against his forehead, framing his eyes. He was surprisingly muscular for someone so small. He wasn't bulky, but he was really toned, he even had the faintest outline of a 6 pack. Even I only had a flat stomach, which I maintain I'm fine with, but damn! I felt Mini Me coming to life in my pants and I quickly balled up the underwear in my hand, obscuring the provagative message on them. "I just forgot my clothes in here." He went to grab them but I stopped him. "Don't worry about it, I'm bout to hop in the shower." (and take care of a certain problem while I'm in there.) "You can change in here." I quickly grabbed my pants and shirt and walked past him into the bathroom, quickly shutting the door. I turned the nozzles and took off my clothes, my (now close to rock hard) cock practically jumped out of my underwear. Damn you Eli! I felt the water and hopped in. I quickly adjusted the nozzle on the shower head so it was on the massaging feature, and then I carefully aimed it so it was hitting me hard right above my ass. It had taken a few weeks, but I'd finally found out the exact right place to aim it. I poured some of my body wash in my hand and slowly worked it into my cock, my hand moving up and down the hard organ. I took a step forward, and instantly felt my legs get weak as the water started hitting me right on target. Images of Eli flashed through my mind. First it was Eli with the towel in my bedroom, I ran over every detail, using it to imagine what he must look like under that towel. I saw toned legs, with a dusting of blonde hair, the images flew through my mind, noting how he didn't have any hair on his chest or stomach, which likely meant he didn't have any hair "down there" so to speak, either. I thought about what his cock must look like, though I didn't get much further than that because no sooner had I thought about it did I feel that familiar tingling in the back of my balls, and then... BAM! Boiling hot cum flew out of my cock like they were trying to hit the moon, plastering the shower wall. I rested against the side wall, catching my breath. Damn you Eli. I washed off my now overly sensitive cock, and moved the shower head so it sprayed off the wall. And then I finished up washing my hair and body and got out. It was at this point that I realized that in my rush to get in the shower and away from Eli that I... yeah, you guessed it. Forgot my towel. I eased open the door slowly, looking around outside. I crept the three feet to the linen cupboard and opened up the door. I'd just gotten a towel down when my door, which is basically right in front of the linen cupboard, (and when I say that I mean that it's only a few inches away from it) flew open and Eli, who didn't even register that I was there, walked. right. into. me. We collided, sending both of us sprawling onto the floor. Thank god the towel fell where it did, though it did just barely, basically covering from about an inch to the right of my, "family jewels", so to speak, and nearly my entire left leg, leaving my entire right leg and pretty much my entire waist, along with my whole upper body completely visible. I swear I was a thousand times more red than I was before. I quickly pulled the towel around me. "Sorry. Oh crap I'm so fricking sorry, I didn't hear you come out, I- I thought you were in the bathroom." Eli quickly got up, covering his eyes. I got back on my feet, barely keeping the towel around my waist. "It's fine Eli, I just forgot my towel, and now I have it, so I'll just," I made sure my towel was fastened. "Get back and change." I turned and ran smack into a wall. "Danny!" "Nah, nah I'm fine." I smiled awkwardly, one hand pressed to my forehead. "I hit my head all the time, I'm fine." I shot him a smile again, backing into the bathroom, and shutting the door. FUCK! Fuck! Just Frickin' A! God dammit! I'm so damn stupid. Here we are trying to open up our home to him, and I go and make him so frickin' uncomfortable- Dammit all! I sank to the floor. Damn this is going to be difficult. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Eli's POV I went down the stairs, spaced out the whole time. I came this close! This fricking close! Ugh, I can't do that anymore. I've got to be more careful. What if I'd come out of his room and he was naked!? Like things aren't awkward enough already. Hell, I almost think it'd be easier if I just went back to John and Stacy. Is it better to feel constantly awkward, or constantly resentful? Those were my choices. I knew what they'd do. They're too nice not to. The question was, 'Do I even 'want' to stay?' Do I want to go and be driven like a slave by those two, certainly not. But, I still don't think it would be right to have them deal with that. I've got so much frickin' emotional baggage from John and Stacy, that I'm pretty sure I could fill more than my share of Uhauls with all of it. They didn't deserve to have to deal with me. As I was walking down the stairs Ms. Eliza-, sorry, 'Elizabeth' was walking up the stairs. "Oh don't mind me, I'm just going to put my hair up and put a little make-up on. Is Danny out of the shower?" I'm pretty sure she knew that he was out. She's probably trying to make me more comfortable. "Yeah, he came out not too long ago, but he just forgot his towel so he's still changing." "Okay, I shouldn't be too long, then we can head over to the hospital." I continued down the stairs and looked around again. I saw something on the bookshelf. I don't know how I didn't see it before, but it was a picture. It was us at his eighth grade party. We were at the rollerskating place. We'd both already put on our rollerskates and I was clearly none too balanced. Him though, he was amazing. He was more at home on rollerskates than he was on feet I think. We were both standing there and we had our arms around eachothers' shoulders. He was supporting me partially and I kinda needed to be supported, but we were smiling like idiots... Like we didn't have a care in the world. I was to learn later that I did indeed have many cares in the world, that smiling like that mere hours before was very unwise because it was repaid a hundredfold with grimaces and sweat and labor. I no longer saw the picture of Danny and I, I saw the picture of John and Stacy. My lips curled in a sneer and I was doing my best to glare a hole in them from here. I found myself clenching my fists when I snapped out of it. Fuck it. I knew it was selfish. I knew I had no right to, but when they finally did ask me later... I'm going to say yes. And not because I couldn't handle living with those two, but because after three years of that horseshit... I think I deserve some downtime. After three year of- "Do you remember that?" Holy shit! I practically jumped out of my skin and turned to see Danny standing there. "Do you think you might try 'not' to scare me to death?" He was laughing. "Sorry, I just figured I owed you after the whole party thing." He wore that shit eating grin so well. "My mom told me she'd be down in about five minutes and Tyler's getting dressed too." Okay. "I figured we could watch something or another." "Sure, I think the news is on." He smiled at me oddly and turned on the news. It was something about the recession. "How do you feel Obama's handling the economic crisis?" Danny sounded a little sarcastic when he asked, but I knew he was a die-hard liberal democrat. He's only sarcastic because he meant it to be funny. "I think he's doing the best that he can with what he has to work with. I mean, let's be fair, it's not like we were in the best of situations when Bush left office, so it's not like he really had a whole lot to work with." I saw Danny nod, smiling. "Exactly. It's good to have someone else who sees that. It's all too often that I hear people blaming Obama for everything, but a lot of people seem to be oddly absent about realizing this situation started before Obama." "Yeah. Although, come on Danny. Go ahead." "What're you talking about?" "We both know you're not going to leave off on this discussion one sided. Just go ahead and say something for Bush so we can move on." He huffed and crossed his arms, but I could see the gears in his head turning. He'd obviously thought of something, but he was keeping it to himself. "Oh come on, don't leave us hanging." "Come on boys." Mo-, I mean, Danny's mom came down the stairs. I have got to stop doing that. Tyler ran down the stairs behind her. Danny hopped up and I followed him, but as he was passing by Tyler he swooped down and grabbed Tyler around the waist and put him over his shoulder, not even breaking his gait. Tyler was laughing and screaming and Elizabeth just rolled her eyes. Is this what their day to day life is like? It all felt strangely alienating as we all walked out to the car and we rode to the hospital. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Danny's POV Good lord! I turned the radio station. No way am I listening to, "Ca-Li-fornia Girls, we're undeniable!" I hated that song. I turned it on my iPod. "Ooo Yeah, yeah!... I got a pocket, got a pocket full of sunshine!" I loved this song though. It's super annoying but, "Eli, did Danny ever tell you that he can do this song in sign language?" My mom glanced at me and we both smiled devilishly. She smiled because 'she' brought it up. I smiled because I was very proud of that particular skill. It took for freaking ever, but I learned how to sign that song as a joke. I walked into journalism one day and that song came on, and I swear to God I'm not one for attention, but when it came on I started doing the signs, and of course someone asked me. When I told them that I was, in fact, being serious, I went through the whole song. Albeit, more slowly than she sings it, but then again it's much harder to sign quickly than it is to sing quickly. That was my thing last year. Every person in all my classes wanted me to do it and teach them. "I heard about it, but he never actually showed me." I hit the rewind button and did the song for him in sign language, though I had to stop to hit pause when the song was over before I could finish. We arrived at the hospital and my mom got directions to Mark's room. We got up there and Eli stopped as he got out of the elevator. "He probably doesn't want me in his room." I looked at his nose, which was still swollen, though admittedly I wasn't expecting it to change overnight. "He'll just have to get over it." I put my arm on his back and guided him down the long white hallway to Mark's room. When we got in his parents were in there. His dad shot me a furious look as I came in. "Out! Get out of my son's room! He rose from his chair, advancing on me. "Arthur!" His wife yelled at him. "It wasn't this boys fault that Mark is like this so CONTROL YOURSELF!" Arthur turned to his wife and his anger seemed to be drawn out of his face. Now he just looked old. Old and tired. "Sorry." He grumbled from the side of his mouth while he took his seat again. Mark stirred, his eyes opening as he groggily took in everyone there. He smiled at me. "Three times I've woken up since last night." He motioned to his parents. "All three times it's been them yelling." Lisa and Mark looked mildly incredulous and very guilty. His eyes caught Eli and they got big and I think he started sweating. "H-Hey Eli." The nervousness in his voice was tangible. "How's your nose?" Eli laughed slightly. "Mending, though you gave it your all didn't you?" He laughed nervously. Mark's dad looked at Eli in a new light. "So you're the kid Mark punched?" He stood up. "Yes sir, but really it's nothing." Eli seemed nervous around Mark's dad. Arthur extended his hand. "For what it's worth." They shook hands quickly. "I'm very sorry about everything that's happened." Eli looked shocked, to say the least. "No- no problem, sir." Arthur went and sat back down. Lisa looked just as shocked as Eli did. "So we never found out why it happened?" He was clearly wanting answers. "Well-" I began but Mark cut me off. "Maybe I should discuss that with my parents in private." Mark wasn't looking at them. He was looking straight at me. Straight at me with the oddest look on his face. I couldn't quite decipher it, but I definitely detected hints of guilt. "Y'all can go visit Jake while I do." I got that hint. He wanted somewhere where they wouldn't be overheard. "Sounds good. Guys?" I walked out of the room, hearing them follow me slowly. "What was that about?" Eli caught up to me. I thought for a second, but nothing came to mind. "No idea." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark's POV As they walked out my parents looked at me. I could barely meet their eyes. Good God this is going to be hard. "Mom, Dad, there's something I never told you about Daniel... Something that sort of explains why I punched Eli. You see, a few months ago, Danny told us.-" I broke off. I sighed deeply, trying to calm myself. "Danny told-" Why the fuck is this so hard?! "Dannytoldeveryonehewasgay!" It all came out so fast it may as well have been one word. My mom looked at me with widening eyes and the most shocked of looks on her face, my dad just looked confused. "What did you say? Stop mumbling." DAMMIT! Now I've got to do it again. I steeled myself, preparing to speak slowly. "Danny's gay." My dad did a double take and his lip curled. "When you say 'gay'?" "I mean, homosexual, dad." Frickin A. "And, uh, so is Eli." Now he looked even more pissed. He looked at his hand, the one he'd shook Eli's with, and immediately jumped over to the sanitizer sprayer and squirted about 15 squirts into his hands, rubbing it in furiously. "So you mean they're both faggots?" His eyes were firey and he seemed to be fighting against the urge to sneer. "No, I mean they're both gay, and no. They're not gay, 'together'." My dad was pacing around the room, still rubbing the excess sanitizer into his hands. "How long have you known?" "Well, Danny came out in October, but I've known since before then, and as for Eli.. I've kind of always known. He never made a great effort to hide it." "So you mean that you've known for months! And you're still around them!" I could see the muscles in my dad's arms and chest tensing with rage. "Is that why you punched that kid, because he's a fag? Forget about your punishment! I don't think I've ever been more proud." My dad had a maniacal smile on his face. He looked like a KKK member who'd just been told that Black History Month had been cancelled. I looked at my dad with disgust. "No, I did not hit Eli because he was gay! I hit him because I was angry!" "Because he tried something with you? I'll have him thrown in jail for sexual harrassment." "No, dad, just listen! I punched him because I saw Eli with his arm around Danny." "And it disgusted you?" "NO! It made me angry, but not disgusted. I was angry because, I guess after all this time of knowing, and Danny being like a little brother to me, I got protective and I punched him." "You can't be hanging around these people any more! They're corrupting you! I can tell! The fags are getting to you!" "Dad will you stop acting like a redneck for two seconds!" "You see! There it is! They're changing you!" ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Danny's POV When we got into Jake's room his parents were still there. His dad was fast asleep in the chair next to his bed. His mom, however had just gotten back from the cafeteria to get coffee. "He was awake the whole night, I only just a few minutes ago convinced him to get some sleep." She'd taken the seat on the other side of Jake's bed. She told us that the doctor had come in about a half hour ago and checked Jake's pain medication. Apparently he'd woken up several times during the night and had fallen asleep again just before Debra had gone to get coffee. I looked at Jake's sleeping form, although I couldn't keep my eyes off of the casts and bandages. "They say he'll make a full recovery. Though they're not sure about his memory. They think he'll eventually remember most of everything, but there may still be blindspots, so to speak." She grabbed his hand, squeezing it concernedly. It struck me that I wanted to do the same thing. "Do you know how long it'll be before he wakes up?" I studied the IV in his left arm. "The doctors said it'll be a few hours. You could come back then, I think he'll be awake." My mom said we would and we left. Part of me wanted to stay but I just went along anyway. When we came back to Mark's room, I felt the change in the atmosphere from how it had been when we left. Mark's dad was glaring at Eli and I, and his mom couldn't look at either of us. Mark himself looked more guilty than I ever thought him capable. "What? What's wrong?" Arthurs' lip curled and he stood up. "You know very well what's wrong you disgusting abomination!" I was physically taken aback. What? I looked at Mark and he was torn between looking at Eli and I. O.M.F.G. Did he really? I locked eyes with him, attempting to silently communicate with him. But I guess it failed so I had to say it. "Did you 'just' tell them?" Really!? How the frick could he do that!? "Yes, but-" "Mark! Why! How could you wait all this time and not even tell ME that you hadn't told them!" I felt betrayed, why didn't he tell them? Is he ashamed of being my friend? "It never came up! Look, I just, it never really did! And you know how I am, I can't just randomly blurt out, 'Hey mom and dad, Danny's gay.'" "How about when they asked you how the mall went that day? Did it not even cross your mind to tell them THEN!?" It never came up was such a lame fucking excuse. "I don't know! I just, I knew that they wouldn't take it well and so I thought-" "No! No, you obviously didn't 'think'!" I felt the fire in my words and IT WAS WELL DESERVED!! I was literally shaking with rage. "If you had, maybe you'd have realized that when I came out, it obviously meant that I didn't care about other people knowing!" Mark's dad butted in. "I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU HANGING AROUND MY SON AGAIN!!" I just looked at him with the same look of disgust he was giving me. Then I turned to Mark. I shouldn't. I don't need to, that's taking it too far. I was seeing red. "You know what Arthur?" Don't you dare! If you say it I'll never forgive you! "I don't think," YOU HAD BETTER NOT! "You'll have to worry" FUCK YOU! "about me, 'ever' coming around your son again!" I turned and pushed the door so hard it swung around and hit the wall before storming out. The entire way to the elevator I heard Mark calling, "Danny! Danny, I'm sorry!" I hit the button before any of the others could even get back, watching the doors close I felt myself crying. Then I slid down the elevator wall and just sat there, tears sliding down my face while I kept thinking of how much I'd just hurt Mark... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- So there's the end to this chapter. How do y'all think it went? Was the ending a little predictable? I was writing, so I couldn't be a fair judge on that point. Anyway, review to johnmeyerz36@yahoo.com Oh, and I think I'll have one more chapter up in August. I'm getting busier and busier with school coming up, what with all my medical books finally showing up in the mail yesterday. Oh, by the way, did anyone catch the comma in all the periods up in the disclaimer? If so, I'd love to know, just as a curiosity. Thanks. So, have fun, don't text and drive, use protection, and every other safety warning to all of you!