Dark Side of the Moon part 4

The Dark Side of the Moon 4

There was a loud knock on my door that jolted me, sweating, back to reality. Chase and Connor were practically thrown into my room and behind them was the much larger Jimmy.

Chase growled at Jimmy, “Okay, man, we can fucking do this ourselves! Why don’t you just go play with yourself?”

Jimmy glared at him and said, “Don’t fucking push it! I know plenty of shit about you!”

Chase and Connor dress like jerks in baggy, really baggy clothes with baseball caps on backwards and it’s just really stupid. Jimmy, somehow, never went thru that stage and always looked more like a college guy that a high school guy.

They stopped halfway into the room and stared at me. They looked, I dunno, put upon I guess.

Finally Connor walked over and sat on my bed while he looked my body over. “Dude you look like shit.” Behind him Chase turned back towards the door but it was pretty clear that Jimmy wasn’t moving from the doorway so he turned back with a dramatic sigh.

Connor reached out his hand to my face and without thinking about it or even wanting to do it I jerked my head back. Connor’s tempered flared. “That is so fucked up! I didn’t do this to you ya little queer! Quit tryin to make me the fuckin bad guy!” Chase had backed up to the wall and glared at me.

From the doorway Jimmy yelled, “Connor!”

Connor jumped up and turned on him. “Don’t fucking “Connor!” me! I did not do this!” He spat every word out then swung back to me and yelled, “One of my fucking friends got hauled outta school by the fucking cops, Robbie! The fucking COPS!” He wiped spittle from his lips while I cringed and tried to move back against the headboard and maybe thru the wall.

He pointed his finger at me and it was shaking. “Jeff would not fucking have done this! What’d you do you little fairy, try to suck their cocks?” He wiped his eyes hard with the back of his hands. He yelled, “I’ve seen the way you fucking look at guys!”

He swung back and screamed at Jimmy, “He’s a fucking faggot! Don’t you fucking get it? He’s a faggot!” It was one of those moments when death seems like the only way out but nobody is gonna help you with that. “I’m not fucking staying here!” He pushed his way past Jimmy with a sullen Chase following him.

Jimmy started to walk towards me while saying, “He didn’t mean it, Robbie. He’s pissed about Jeff but he hasn’t really thought this thru. He’ll….”

I felt bad about letting Jimmy go on defending me…..at least from the charge that I was gay. I mean eventually he’d find out that it was true and I didn’t want him putting himself out there for me when I knew there was no point and besides this seemed like as good a time as any. I really couldn’t see how I could be worse off than I already was.

Inside my head it felt like my head was spinning and that it’d make one loop and stop and then a couple of seconds later make another loop. I wanted to grab my head and hold it steady but I knew that wouldn’t help.

“He’s right, Jimmy. Not about my tryin to do anything with those guys but about my being gay.”

Jimmy’s head dropped immediately and he stood there with his shoulders hunched forward staring at the floor. I started to talk, I wanted to tell him that there wasn’t anything that I could do about it and that I didn’t want to be gay but I just was. But as soon as I started to speak he held up his hand without looking at me and said, “No! Just………don’t…talk.”

I must have slept but I got this feeling like life was going on around me while I slept. I mean not like it usually stops or anything but more like the feeling that people were walking around my bed and talking and stuff. When I woke up I felt tired like I hadn’t really slept at all. My door was closed and I could hear conversations from other parts of the house. All the way down in the kitchen I could hear my mother say the occasional word to someone and muffled voices from what sounded like a television. Then over that conversation my dad on this floor talking, I think to Connor but it could have been Chase. I didn’t hear Jimmy’s voice at all.

My dad was saying, “Looks better…needs you guys…don’t you think.” It was all a jumble made worse by my spinning head but it sounded like he was pretty much asking my brothers how I was. My heart stopped as I waited for them to tell him that I was gay but it didn’t happen instead Connor told him that I was fine and that I seemed to be getting better. He sounded really upbeat. Maybe I had just imagined him yelling earlier. I remember having that nightmare and reliving shit and then, maybe it was a dream. No. That couldn’t have been a dream. Obviously I’m not that lucky. And thinking that brought a tidal wave of fear. I was really alone. It was pretty clear how my brothers felt and I was pretty certain that Karen would go along with them, well at least with Jimmy. After all, they were twins. When dad did finally find out about me he’d feel the same way that my brothers did and maybe mom’d feel that way too. I mean why not? That left me with basically nobody on my side and the way my head has been spinning I could barely make it to the bathroom without falling much less somehow get away from all the people who hated me…or probably would hate me. Since the thought of going back to school made me literally need to puke I kept pushing it away whenever it tried to get into my head.

The thought kept coming into my head of Connor pulling my mom and dad into my room and then pointing at me and yelling. “He’s a fucking faggot! Don’t you fucking get it? He’s a faggot!” Suddenly I felt very undressed and vulnerable lying here in my pajamas and I pulled the covers up to my chin. I’ve read about parents kicking their kids outta the house when they find out that they’re gay but I was pretty sure that they wouldn’t do that and maybe Connor would never even tell them. Maybe Jimmy would. Why the fuck did I think of that? That’s what’ll happen! Jimmy’ll get all dad like and figure he needs to spill his guts to mom and dad so that they understand about their son the faggot. He won’t even think about them maybe kicking me out it’ll all be “for my own good” and to get me help and shit. I’m soo fucked! I didn’t think it could get worse but I guess that it always can.

The one good thing about having a concussion is that you sleep a lot and all things considered that was probably the best way for me to be spending my time. People don’t beat on ya when you’re sleeping and it was pretty unlikely that they’d push me out onto the street in my pajamas. It’d look like hell to the neighbors.

As I was waking up for like the zillionth time I was pretty sure that I felt hands on me touching me and even before I woke up my body was telling me that it didn’t like it. By the time that I actually did wake up I was sweating so bad that my pajamas were totally soaked and I felt like the devil himself had grabbed hold of me.
So naturally I woke up shrieking, yeah, not just hollering like a normal person but shrieking and screaming for them not to hurt me and shaking so bad that my mother had stumbled backwards with a shocked look on her face.

That’s probably the last time my mom will be checking to see if I’ve got a fever. Suddenly the room was filled with people, most of who were checking to see that mom was okay. I could even hear people pounding on the front door yelling their offers of help. Sweat was pouring off of my face and even the bed was wet. I must have dropped like a gallon of water with that little display.

And behind door number three is your little boy Robbie, nutcase and faggot. Would you like to try for door number three? Uh huh, uh huh, we didn’t think so.

Somehow dinner appeared on a TV tray next to my bed and I watched as it went thru various stages throughout the evening as I slept and woke, slept and woke. First the gravy congealed and the chicken got these little dried edges that kinda curled up and the broccoli just seemed to collapse into the plate. This’d probably be easier to deal with if the world would stop spinning. How can I actually feel worse than I did when I was in the hospital? It’s like nothing is certain when everything is literally spinning and it’s not like I need more uncertainty.

My parents have taken to opening my door and glancing in with worried looks on their faces which kinda makes me feel like I’m in the zoo. I do know that they mean well and it’s obvious that Connor hasn’t ratted me out yet. And that’s a little troubling. It’s like there’s this other really big shoe to drop yet and I don’t have a clue as to when that’s gonna happen but I’m pretty sure it’ll be at the worst possible moment and it’s occurred to me that maybe I should tell them myself but I just don’t have the guts for that and I’m pretty much relying on sleep to solve the problem.

Well finally I got the chance to go to sleep when it was actually night so then, of course, I couldn’t. I turned on the little TV in my room and put on my earphones and watched old sitcoms like Leave it to Beaver and The Andy Griffith Show and then somewhere around midnight I dozed off with the light on my nightstand still on.

I dreamed about the house that we used to live in when I was a little kid and we had this mean-ass neighbor guy who was always yelling at us kids. One day we were all horsing around and somebody, I found out later that it was Chase, broke one of the windows on his garage. So naturally they all took off running like crazy but I was little and I wasn’t even sure what had happened and then when I realized it was too late because the neighbor guy had blocked my escape. It was the first time that I ever remember being totally terrified. He had me trapped between the fence and the wall of the garage and he just kept walking towards me, the dried leaves crunching under his feet, yelling until there wasn’t anyplace else for me to go to and he stood over me screaming. I almost peed in my pants.

So that was the dream that always hit me when I was scared or worried or some shit and it was the dream that I had that night. I could feel myself tossing and turning and trying to escape the dream because I like knew it was a dream and yet I didn’t. You know? I guess it doesn’t matter cause scared shitless is still scared shitless but just when I was about to wake myself up something else did. At first I didn’t know what it was because I was still asleep but I still knew somewhere in my head that it was different from the dream, like something had interjected itself into the dream, something different than me or the dream.

My throat was really dry and I was wet again from sweating and my heart was beating so fast and hard that it felt like it was about twenty times bigger than it is but then I felt my dad’s hand on my arm and heard his voice and I realized that he was the one who stopped the dream.

“You okay, Son?” His voice was soft and deep, his hand was warm on my arm. I relaxed and laid my head back down on the pillow. He was lying next to me on his side on my bed and I turned to look at him. His hair was messed up and he had this really worried look on his face. I could smell him, it was combination of deodorant and some kind of shave lotion and, I guess, him. His chest hair was coming out of the neck of his tee shirt. It was one of those vee neck tee shirts and it was really really white.

When I tried to speak my voice felt all funny but I said it anyway cause my throat had been fucked up since “it” happened. “Did I wake you up?” I sounded like I was three but then he could have that effect on me.

He smiled. “Yes and no. I was just checking on you and I saw you having the dream. Were you dreaming about what happened?” He was still holding onto my arm.

I shook my head. My voice sounded so little. “No. I was dreaming about that time Mr. Drebner yelled at me.”

My dad sighed. “That prick! I told him he had no business screaming at you like that but by then it was too late. I figured it was something you might remember for a while.” He reached over and brushed my hair out of my eyes. “Can’t save your kids from everything.” Then very quietly. “Sometimes you can’t save em from anything.”

I don’t know why I did it. Actually I don’t even think that I thought about it, it was like some part of my brain that I didn’t have any control over did it. It was like a total surprise to me. I just rolled over and buried my face in his chest while tears started pouring out of me and I sobbed, “I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry this happened!”

He pulled me hard against his chest and buried his face in my hair. His voice sounded almost like he was crying but probably not cause he doesn’t do that.
“ It’ll be okay, Robbie! I’ll make it okay!” But I knew that he was wrong. I knew that it wasn’t gonna be okay.

courtesy of mygaystories

Dark Side of the Moon part 3

That evening instead of my mom and dad showing up after dinner Jimmy’s head popped through the door. My stomach lurched and I took off stumbling for the bathroom and just made it to the toilet before I hurled. Okay, so this was probably not the best beginning. I rinsed my mouth out and trying hard to keep that stupid gown closed in the back I sidled back to the hospital bed. Jimmy was standing in the corner of the room looking frozen. If he was trying to look invisible I could have told him that at 6’2” tall and 185 pounds his chances of doing that were slim.

I took another sip of water to try and get that puke taste out of my mouth and then turned my head, shuddered and looked at Jimmy. Then to complete the look I started to cry. I felt like I was crying because I was so deep down scared but I figured that I was also crying for a lot of other reasons that I didn’t want to think about yet.

For a while I thought we were gonna stay like that, Jimmy standing in the corner looking like he wanted to be on the moon instead of here and me in the bed crying and wanting to pull the covers up over my head.

Jimmy was the first to move but then I figured that he should be. He walked slowly to the foot of the bed and stared at me like he had stopped breathing.

“That’s what I do to you?” He brushed his nose with the back of his hand. “You can’t even talk to me without puking?”

I was leaning against the headboard and had pulled my knees up tight to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. I mumbled into my knees. “I didn’t tell the cops about you guys. Really, I only told em about the guys that………did that to me.”

He walked over to the side of the bed and I scurried quickly to the far side. He held out his hands and said, “It’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt ya. Geez, Robbie, will ya calm down, I’m your brother, you’ve known me your whole life.” His hand went to his forehead and he drew a deep breath.

“The thing is, Robbie that I wanted to tell ya that we made a mistake.” He stopped and sighed. “Shit you look like hell! What the fuck did those bastards do to ya?”

I figured that if he didn’t know the answer to that question he was the only one in town, by now, who didn’t.

“Karen said…….said that you’re afraid of us………..of me.” His fingers were twisting the edge of the sheet. “Robbie we didn’t do anything to you. I mean, I agree we made a hell of a mistake with that kid but we never hurt you. And for all of that we never hurt him, not really. It’s not like it doesn’t happen all the time to a lot of kids and it’s all in fun.” He sighed. “Okay, so maybe he didn’t have fun but it’s not like it’s never happened to anyone else.”

I just stared at him but I was getting angry. I said, “You mean because it’s tradition?”

“Well, kinda. It happens every year to a lot of kids. It’s not that big of a deal.”

My insides were shaking. “So if somebody, three strangers, grabbed mom or dad and made them strip off all their clothes or they’d beat em up and then made em put them back on inside out or in the wrong order that’d be okay?”

“No! No………..Robbie…….I know that it was wrong.”

“So did you apologize to the kid?” I had pulled the blanket up to just under my nose.

He snorted. “No, why……..”

“The guys who attacked me are gonna go to jail.”

“Robbie, we didn’t rape the kid!”

I was starting to sob and shake so bad I wasn’t sure if my body could handle it, mainly I think because I figured he was never gonna understand and that I had been right all along and I was never gonna have my brothers back and I could really use em now.

I almost shouted, “He didn’t do it voluntarily did he? Or maybe it was his idea, maybe he wanted you to make him strip off his clothes to humiliate him, maybe it was his plan all along. Maybe he wanted to have to run home and hide afraid to tell his parents what had happened to him.” He was just standing there with his mouth open and I couldn’t seem to shut mine.

I was kneeling now but I still had the blankets pulled up to my chin and I was ready to piss in my pants, well if I had any on. I started to choke on my own saliva. There just seemed to be fluids coming out of me everywhere.

I kept gasping for breath. “I fucking loved you! I thought you were like dad that you were somebody nice but your not your just a fucking criminal!”

The doctor appeared in the doorway of the room and looked at us both and then walked up to my brother and got right in his face “You’re one of the brothers, right? Well I want you fucking outta here! I dunno what you did to this kid but I know you did something and I want you out!”

Jimmy practically screamed. “I didn’t do anything to him!”

The doctor pointed at me. “So he always looks like that? He didn’t look like that before you got here! He’s got a concussion and you upsetting him is not the way to get him well.”

The doctor looked at me and said, “Robert, I want you lying down flat on your back and I want you to rest. The world seems to think that concussions aren’t anything to worry about but they’re wrong.”

He looked a Jimmy. “You’re still here.”

“Look, doctor, I’m sorry that I upset him. That was the last thing that I wanted to do but can I just have a couple of minutes? Please! I won’t upset him anymore.”

The doctor stared into my brother’s eyes for a long time and then finally said, “Five minutes! I hear him yelling and I call security. Got it?”

“Yes, Sir.” The doctor turned abruptly and walked out of the room.

Now that I was lying down Jimmy walked over next to where my head was and hunkered down just like my dad did. Geez he looks so much like my dad. I don’t look like anybody.

“Robbie…………I’m gonna think about what you said.” He took a deep breath. “The thing that I wanted to tell you………….actually the only thing that I really wanted you to know when I came here is that I…….well we, cause it’s true for Chase and Connor too…….we love you. I know that we fucked up. The thing is that I’m gonna try to make it right. You’re not the only one that I disappointed. I disappointed Dad and I gotta make it right for him too.

He crossed his arms on the edge of the mattress and rested his chin on his arms. “I thought about you all last night, what you went through………with those guys. We haven’t even had a chance to talk about that yet. You musta been terrified,” He closed his eyes for a moment, “I mean I can’t even imagine. I thought about that and then I thought about how I seemed to make you feel the same way and I can’t get that outta my head.”

He reached out and gently wiped my tears away with his thumb. “I just want you to give me a chance……….a chance to prove that I’m not that guy, that guy that scares you. Robbie, it would kill me to think that that was the only way that you were gonna think about me.”

Okay, the thing is that I was prepared for him being a jerk, I more or less expected it but I wasn’t prepared for him being my brother, the brother that I had always known. So I said something that surprised even me something that I hadn’t been consciously thinking.

My voice was low because I felt like I was telling a secret. “They hurt me so bad, Jimmy.” I pulled my hand out from under the covers and wiped my eyes but I knew that the tears weren’t gonna stop. “And now I can’t sleep cause when I close my eyes they’re there………..and it’s all happening again.” I wiped some of the snot off of my upper lip with the back of my hand. “It’s over………and the thing is that I thought things would get better………but they’re not………..it………it just seems like they get worse……….and I don’t think that I have the strength…….the strength to keep doin this.”

Jimmy covered his eyes with the his hand for a moment and then he reached out and while he brushed back my hair he stared into my eyes. “I’m gonna talk to the doctor about something to help you sleep, where you won’t sleep and have dreams. Seems to me I read someplace they got stuff like that. He took my hand in his. “I won’t leave ya Robbie till I know that you’re gonna be asleep and be okay.”

The next morning I was alone but I didn’t remember having dreamt. Someone had already been in and set the breakfast menu down on the movable table thing and I called right away and ordered food and then tuned around the channels that the TV got. I tried to remember Jimmy leaving but the last thing that I remember is taking the pill that the nurse brought in and Jimmy wrapping his hand around mine.

Anyway the crying had stopped and I was really happy about that. It was beginning to get on my nerves and I pretty sure that nobody else was thrilled with it either. I was thinking about Jimmy and wondering if there was any reason that I shouldn’t take what he said last night at face value. I mean, after all that is basically the Jimmy that I’ve always known and I began to wonder if what was done to me didn’t fuck up my judgment.

I’m pretty sure that I’m goin home today although they always seem to holding out the possibility that it won’t happen and it’s not like I’m all that sure that I want to anyway. I figure that I know my mom and dad are okay with me and after last night I gotta figure that Jimmy is too but that still leaves Chase, Connor and the wild card Karen.

For one thing I haven’t seen any sign of Chase and Connor and that surprises me a little and there was something about the way Karen was acting but then maybe I’m just seeing stuff that isn’t there.

A social worker comes in and talks to me for about a half an hour and it’s almost like she’s speaking some language that I never even heard before cause after she left I couldn’t come up with one solid thing that she said.

The hospital shrink stopped in next and basically just gave me this card that had his office number at the hospital and another number where they’d give you referrals to other shrinks. I must not have looked like I was getting it cause he stopped after a while and asked if I thought he should wait and talk to my parents. I told him no.

I was killing time waiting for somebody to pick me up and I tried to call my friend Carl but then realized that he’d be in school. I started to wonder if he’d even want to talk to me. In high school becoming famous for being raped doesn’t guarantee popularity, usually just the opposite. I was also beginning to get a home alone feeling.

My dad showed up around eleven o’clock. He had gone to work and then left to pick me up and take me home and then he was headed back to work which meant that I’d be hangin at home by myself for most of the day.

The nurse told me that he was coming and she gave me my regular clothes but I guess that nobody thought about the condition that they were in what with the blood stains and tears. Well, it didn’t matter. I could live with it for as long as it took to get home. I checked the pants out it the bathroom mirror and they were worse than I thought. The whole backside of the pants were blood soaked but it was dry so it wasn’t like it would stain the seats in my dad’s car or anything but it did kinda advertise what had happened.

I guess that my dad hadn’t thought about my clothes either because he got this really shocked look on his face and then I realized that he probably hadn’t even seen these clothes. He didn’t look like he was handling it well.

He put his hand on my shoulder and gently turned me around. He shook his head slowly. “Geez that looks like a lotta blood!” Of course blood and shit are two things that go an awful long way when you start spreading them around.

I know that I was blushing, the fact is that I felt responsible for everything that had happened including my bloody pants. I felt like I should offer to pay for them.

“I’m sorry but I never thought to tell you guys about the pants. I had em on and I guess when I got here they took em off me.”

He smoothed out my hair and said, “No, don’t worry about it. It’s not like it’s your fault or anything.” He held my face lightly in his hands and examined the bruises.

“Your swelling has mostly disappeared but that bruising is gonna take a few days.”

For some reason, even though I know that he knows it, I say, “Jimmy was here last night.”

“I talked to him this morning. He said that he felt better, that he thought you guys were getting along.”

I nodded yes, pretty sure that it was true but knowing just as surely as I knew anything that not everything was right with everyone and that there was a lot more to come.

On the way to the car and once we got home dizziness had begun to reassert itself and my dad insisted that I lie down in the family room but as soon as he went back to work I went upstairs, one stair at a time, to see what my room looked like.

The lamp and the radio had been replaced but if you looked for it you could see a couple of dents where the radio and lamp had hit the wall. I looked in the mirror above my dresser. Geez I looked like shit! Big yellow and black bruises and the swelling wasn’t all gone. I looked like a freak.

I stripped off my clothes and changed into clean ones and then lay down on my bed. I was exhausted. Ever since it happened I’ve been exhausted. I keep thinking that I’m gonna wake up and it will have been a dream. I know that’s stupid and I know it’s not gonna happen but it’s all I’ve got.

I must have fallen asleep if you can call what I do sleep. When I woke up I laid there on top of the covers listening to the sounds of the house and the traffic outside and thinking about the changes in my life that happened because I decided to take a piss in one men’s room instead of another.

Even assuming, and it was a big assumption, that I could straighten out the problem with my family there was still the matter of going back to school. It was gonna be bad but I just wasn’t sure how bad. It seemed to me a given that the few friends that I had would stay clear of me. After all, who wants to hang out with the wounded gazelle when the lions are waking up?

I heard a loud car turn into our driveway with a squeal of tires and knew that my brother’s were home. This time there was the usual arguing but it didn’t have a good-natured bantering quality to it and there was no laughing.

I thought about listening but then decided that I just didn’t want to deal with it and wrapped my pillow around my head which blocked out all but the loudest words, like faggot and cocksucker.

As soon as the pillow was over my head the movie began and I was back at the school in that john taking a piss and the door opens and three big guys come in. The guy with short black hair walks over to the urinal next to mine and just stands there as his buddies lean up against the sinks.

He reaches down and curls his fingers around his bulge and then shakes it and says, “Aaaahh!”

I can feel the heat from his body and I’m very aware of the other two guys over by the sinks who seem to be watching us without looking.

He spreads his legs wider than he needs to and his right foot is almost touching my left.

Finally he unzips and pulls his dick out and gives it a good shake.
He says, “Big huh?”

I know that he’s trouble and I somehow know that it’s not the ordinary shit that you run into in high school and I know that even if I get past him I won’t get past his buddies. It’s funny because even in that moment before it happened some tiny part of my mind was already looking at the aftermath and wondering how I’d be able to deal with it.

His voice isn’t particularly deep but it’s got an edge to it. “I said………..ain’t it fucking big?”

I’ve stopped peeing now and am putting my own cock away but mumble, “Yeah, I guess.”

He practically yells, “You guess?” Then more quietly, “Maybe you need a better look at it.” He turns towards me. “Go ahead, touch it. Go ahead.”

from:mygaystories

Dark Side of the Moon part 2

The Dark Side of the Moon 2

When I woke up I could feel something up my ass and I started to cry but when I opened my eyes I could see that there was a doctor doing it, not that that made it all that much better.

He looked at me and gave me a warm smile. “Sorry about this but the police need a swab.” I covered my face with my hands and just kept crying. It had been a bad day. A day when it seemed like I’d lost almost everything that mattered to me and now I was in some hospital and they were doing stuff to me and I was alone.

I heard the doctor drop something into something that sounded metallic and then his hands were on my wrist. He said matter of factly to me, “You’ve got a concussion.” He moved his stethoscope over my chest. “You’re gonna be okay though.” I knew that that wasn’t true.

The doctor ran his hand over my hair. “Your family is outside. They’re anxious to see you. I’ll send em in.”

That got my attention and I sat quickly up in bed. “No!” That sounded a little nuts even to me. Then more quietly, “No, I don’t wanna see anyone! Make em go away!”

He gently pushed me back down onto the bed and looked down at me. “Robert, you’re fourteen and they’re your parents. I can’t stop them from seeing you.” Then he got a very serious look. “Did they have anything to do with this?” I realized that I’d given him the wrong impression.

“No! No, that’s not why I don’t wanna see em.” But there was one thing that I was gonna be firm about. “But I don’t wanna see my brothers! Please you gotta promise me!”

He looked hard into my eyes and then finally said, “Okay, they’re not your parents. I’ll keep em out but you need to talk to someone about this. Did they hurt you?”

I sighed and could feel the tears running down my face. “No. They didn’t do this to me either.”

He leaned over the bed and looked right into my eyes. “The cops are gonna want to talk to you too. They’ve been here once and they’ll be back.” He sighed looked at the wall and then back at me. “You be sure you tell em everything.” Oh God! I couldn’t believe that I still had to face that.

I could hear yelling in the hallway. It sounded like my brothers and my father but then it stopped suddenly. I looked around the room to see if there was a way out but there wasn’t and I found myself sinking down further into the bed dreading what I knew was going to happen.

My dad came into the room all aggressive with my mom seeming to try to hold him back with her eyes. I knew that I was crying again and when he came towards the bed I could feel myself backing away from him without even knowing why. That seemed to stop him a few feet from the bed and he looked at me with a look of confusion and maybe even anger on his face. I was sure that he thought that this was all my fault.

He took another step towards me and I found my body pushing itself even further away from him trying to disappear completely. His face dropped and he said softly, “Robbie.”

I was having a problem separating what had actually happened and what I was afraid people’s reactions would be with what I knew from past experience. Like I said it wasn’t a good day.

I was pushing myself up in the bed and away from my dad but my head hurt like crazy I was tired and weak and was running out of space to push myself to. My voice was hoarse and pleading. “Don’t hit me! I didn’t do anything wrong!” My dad had never hit me and had never given me any reason to think that he would. Crazy.

Lucky for me that didn’t make him turn around and run. He stepped over to the bed and gently but firmly pulled my head against his chest. I was really crying now. He bent his head down so that my head was under his chin.

He whispered, “I’d never hurt you.” I knew that, I really did. It’s just that, well, not everything was working, you know, in my brain.

On the other side of the bed I could feel my mom pick up my hand and squeeze it. She said softly, “Honey, do you want to talk about it?” I shook my head no against my dad’s chest. That was the last thing that I wanted to do.

Before they left my mom said, “Your brothers…………………” but dad interrupted her.

He said softly, “They told us what they did………..and that you heard them talking about it.” He sighed. “They’ve got a lot to think about…………..but we can talk about that when you get outta here and come home. The doctor said that you didn’t wanna talk to em.” I was sliding down into the bed and really wanted to pull the covers up over my head. Come home, did I really have to do that?

My head felt like it was gonna explode but I shook it slowly.

He just nodded that he understood and then said, “Karen was here earlier but” He glanced at his watch, “we sent her home. She gonna stop in tomorrow morning before school. Is that okay?”

My voice came out sounding like a monkey or some fucking animal that had just been taught to speak. “Yeah, that’s good.” I could still feel that cock being jammed down my throat.

Then I got to thinking about it. Was it good or was she on their side. Jimmy was her twin and even though she usually treated me like she was mom that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t side with them. Even though this was a lousy time to be making decisions I decided to just see what she had to say. Maybe she didn’t even know about them.

He said kind of sadly, “Well, it’s really late, we’re gonna go and let you get some sleep.” They were both dressed for work. My mom came over and kissed my forehead and they started to move towards the door.

Suddenly my dad stopped and came back to the bed and hunkered down next to it so that his face was level with mine he reached out and lightly touched my hair with his fingertips. His voice had that sad quality to it. “Your mom and I would never knowingly let anything bad happen to you.”

When they left I pushed the button on a wire that the doctor had given me to hold.

Another problem that I seem to be having is sleep or the lack of it. I get really tired and I drop off like a switch was flipped but I don’t stay asleep very long so at four o’clock in the morning I was watching old movies on TV and the instant that I could order breakfast I did. I wasn’t really hungry but there was just something about the idea of someone bringing me food that was oddly comforting and the hot coffee seemed to help my throat. As soon as I took a sip of it I got this intense flashback of that guy shooting in my mouth and I almost spit the coffee up and everything else in my stomach but then I got it under control. At about six I went slowly into the bathroom and washed my face. There was a new toothbrush and toothpaste there and I used them and then climbed back into bed.

Karen showed up at about seven forty-five looking nervous. She tapped lightly on the door and then peeked her head in like she really didn’t know the person that she was here to visit. She said softly, “Is it okay that I’m here?” I wasn’t sure whether she meant okay with me or okay with the hospital but I nodded yes.

I nodded and said, “Yeah, come on in.” I tried to stay all normal sounding but well let’s face it, I just wasn’t a good judge.

She walked over to the side of the bed and picked up my hand and smiled. “I won’t lie to ya Robbie, you look like hell.”

My throat was still really sore and I’m pretty sure that my voice was weird. I smiled back at her and said, “I guess then that the outside matches the inside.”

She seemed to suck in her upper lip like she was afraid of loosing control. “You want to talk about it?” What is it with women and talking about stuff?

I shook my head and said, “No.”

“You know you scared the crap outta everyone. Mom and Dad were………..well nuts………..and your brothers………..”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” That was maybe a little too loud.

She said, “I didn’t mean what happened just that they were upset, everyone was worried, worried about you.”

“I know, I talked to Mom and Dad last night. I didn’t mean to upset them.” Why was I apologizing? “It’s not like I planned it.”

“I know, Robbie.” She rubbed my hand between the two of hers like she wanted to warm it up. “Jimmy would like to come la…………….”

“No!!” Now that was a shout. I could feel tears forming in my eyes. “I don’t wanna see them! I told the doctor not to let em in! I told him!”

“Okay, Baby, calm down. I’ll tell em not to come. Don’t worry. But, Robbie, they’re not the ones who did this to you.”

I gave her both barrels. “They might as well have been! They did it to other kids and who knows what else they’ve done that I don’t know about? They lied about that so how do I even know who they are? You didn’t hear em! They were laughing! They were fucking laughing!” I was screaming now and two nurses hit the door at about the same time and shoved a confused sister unceremoniously out into the hall with the admonition that I wasn’t supposed to be upset.

I was shivering when the nurses got back into the room and they got heated blankets and piled em on. I didn’t realize that I was crying until the nurse got a tissue and wiped my eyes.

That was how my mom and dad found me when they came at nine. If anything they looked more worried now than they did last night.

My dad said, “There’s a Detective Daniels waiting in the hall.” He ran his hand over my hair. “You ready for this?”

My mom said, “We’ll be right here, Robbie. If you get too upset we’ll make him come back another time.

The fact was that I wasn’t all that upset. It seemed like I should be, at least to my parents and well, even to me but it just didn’t bother me, not like I thought it would.
And a side benefit was the Detective Daniels or Mark as he asked to be called was young and drop dead gorgeous. Did I mention that I’m gay? Shhhhhh. It’s a secret.

Mark was tall with broad shoulders and dark brown hair that had a way of dropping over his forehead but that just drew attention to his bright blue eyes.

He pulled a chair over to the side of my bed and sat with a notebook in his hand.

He smiled at me and asked, “You feeling okay now?” He shook his head and said, “Scratch that, of course you’re not. Let’s make that, do you feel up to this and do you mind if I record it?”

I nodded and said, “I feel okay and sure you can record it.” Out of the corner of my eye I could see my dad begin to open his mouth but he didn’t actually say anything.

“I know that you’ve got a concussion and I know that sometimes that can mess up your thinking. Do you feel like you’re thinking clearly right now?” He added a smile.

“Yes, Sir, I do.”

“Well the first thing that I’d like to know is when you got home from school yesterday why did you barricade yourself in your room?” He smiled. “By the way, you did a great job. The fire department had to come and climb up a ladder and go through your window.”

I glanced over at my dad who had his head down. I took a deep breath and said, “I got confused. Things were pretty much running together in my head at the time and when I saw my three brothers………..well in my mind it was just like they were the other three guys who had actually done it.” I added quickly. “My brothers didn’t do it three other guys did.”

Mark glanced over at my father with a small smile on his face. My dad’s head was still down. The next word he drew out in an exaggerated way. “Okaaaayyyy. Well, that answers that, I guess.”

We spent the next half hour going over the details of what the guys did to me. Mark went over it again and again approaching it from different time frames and asking questions in reverse order but my answers stayed pretty much the same. In the middle of it my dad got up and left the room. Finally Mark pulled out of his briefcase what I immediately recognized as a high school yearbook.

“This is last years because they haven’t done this years yet. You think that you can pick the guys out?”

“I dunno, I think so. Lemme see the book.” It was way easier than I thought. They were older boys but somehow they didn’t look old enough to be seniors and in the end they all turned out to be juniors.

Mark looked at me and said, “You’re sure?”

I said, “Yeah, what’ll happen to em?”

He sighed. “They’re probably all under eighteen so I dunno but it won’t be anything good, on the other hand it probably won’t be major prison time either. Mark said, “Robbie, I’d like to stop by in a day or two when you’re feeling better. Would that be okay?” I nodded yes.

My dad was back in the room by then and looked up at the detective his face unreadable. Then they all did the adult handshake, nice to have met you thing and then Mark was gone. I thought for a moment about how three boys who had done a really stupid cruel thing were gonna be arrested today and their lives changed forever. I may have just changed potential stockbrokers and real estate agents into street sweepers and burger flippers.

My dad walked over to the bed and sat on the edge of it. He said quietly, “I got a call from your sister.”

I didn’t say anything just stared at him.

“You’re gonna have to deal with your brothers eventually.” I could feel my body stiffen up and my heart rate increase and I think he could feel it too.

“Robbie, we’re all part of one family. What they did was stupid, incredibly stupid but they want to make it right and you can’t spend the next few years not talking to them.”

I was still staring at him although it may have turned more into a glare.

“Look, we’re all gonna be eating at the same table and occupying the same living space. At least listen to them.”

I buried my face in my hands and mumbled, “I don’t trust them!”

My dad rubbed my back. “Give em a chance, Robbie, maybe they can earn your trust.” He squeezed the back of my neck. “They’ve gotta earn mine too you know.”

I looked up at him. “You know they terrify me?”

“I know, Robbie but they would never ever hurt you. I know, I know they did hurt someone else, well, not really hurt them…………………..just try it son. Whether you want to believe it or not they love you.”

“Okay, tell em………….okay.” This was a battle I knew from the beginning that I could never win. It was literally three to one and maybe even four to one and fuck I was probably crazy anyway.