by Chase Connor
Two boys found someone who could make their lives a little easier, a little less lonely, while they were forced to attend a camp that they never wanted to go to in the first place. They came from different backgrounds, different schools, different socio-economic classes—they were just too different to be real friends. They didn’t even have the same interests but pretended they did during summer. Because when you really need a friend in times of loneliness or uncertainty, you’ll pretend a lot of things. You tell a lot of lies. A lot of friendships are built on a foundation of lies.
If you’re lucky, you eventually admit those half-truths or outright lies and you remove your shields and shells and, layer by layer, expose yourself to the other person. But when you build a friendship on lies and half-truths, and then you experience a trauma so profound that you have to lie even more, you never really will know the other person because the only thing you have in common is that trauma.
One night, two boys were falling, exhausted and happy into their beds in their shared cabin, and John entered the cabin. He only crawled into Tom’s bed, but he still managed to ruin two boys’ lives. Tom endured the predations of a man who had no right being anywhere near young boys while Dally was too scared to do anything about it. Too scared to run, too scared to scream, too terrified of what would happen if he tried to stop John.
Tom was ashamed and humiliated.
Dally was ashamed and disgusted with himself.
So, Dally asked Tom to lie. Dally couldn’t face the truth that he felt weak and guilty and like a horrible friend. He couldn’t look the camp personnel or the police, and definitely not his parents, in the eyes and admit that he laid there and cried while Tom endured. And when it happened more and more over the summer, more violent and horrific each time, Tom endured and Dally felt more and more guilty and disgusted and ashamed.
And Tom agreed to continue lying. Because why should they both feel disgusted and ashamed and guilty?
Dally hated his friend. And, disturbingly—even to himself—he was jealous of his friend. Because Tom had nothing to be ashamed of. He was a victim. Dally was a coward. Who knows why Dally started to use and abuse Tom like he was there for his own mental, emotional, and sexual pleasure. Who knows why Tom allowed it to happen for so long. Two boys shared a trauma and two boys did the only things they knew to do to cope day after day. They were children. How were they supposed to know they were headed towards disaster?
But when all of it became too much, Tom told the truth. A half-truth. He told Dally’s parents that John had sexually assaulted their son and he had been too scared to help Dally. And that’s the same thing he told the police. A lie Dally was more than happy to reiterate when he was questioned.
And Dally became even more overwhelmed by everything. He didn’t feel the guilt of not having helped Tom while he was being assaulted. He felt the guilt of not having helped Tom and letting Tom take on the shame of being the friend who did nothing to help. Tom forced himself to feel nothing so that he wouldn’t feel everything.
John didn’t feel a bit of remorse for any of it. It never crossed his mind to care that he had ruined two lives in one summer. He didn’t care that six years later he and one boy would be dead while another spent every day wishing he could be dead, too. But in an effort to not think about that, he made himself feel nothing until everything crashed down upon him. And he was too anchored down to get out of the way.
One lie had led to a string of lies and two people were dead. One to escape prison and one to escape the fear that after all of that, the truth would finally come out. And then a new shame would be thrown on the pile. The weight of everything would have been too much. One kid killed himself to escape everything and one kid couldn’t break away from the gravity of nothing.
Day after day, as the years passed, Tom did everything he could to forget the feeling of having John’s body pressed down upon him. To feel the multiple invasions to his body. The look in Dally’s eyes as he was frozen in terror at what someone like John was capable of. After a while, Tom began to really want to believe the lies that he and Dally had told because it was easier to feel the shame of being a coward than the shame at having been a boy who was sexually assaulted. Maybe a different boy experiencing the same trauma would have been fine with being a victim instead of a coward. And he would have refused to lie about any of it. But…Tom was the boy who was assaulted, and the truth was—he was fine being labelled a coward so that he wouldn’t feel like a victim. And Dally preferred being a victim instead of a coward. We all pick our own shame when we can.
And sometimes we choose wrong.
Dr. Renfro sat there, a neutral expression on his face as he stared at me and I finally sat back in my seat, my hands in my lap, my eyes down. The silence was almost tangible it was so thick.
“Is that the truth, Tom?”
I nodded.
“John snuck into our cabin and…” I swallowed hard, forcing myself to not cry, “and he…well…don’t make me say that today. But he did that to me. Not Dally. Dally was too scared to help. And I want you to know that I never blamed him for that. I was too scared to scream even when John did what he did. How could I expect it to be different for Dally, ya’ know? He probably thought he was going to be next. Or maybe he thought that doing anything would make John get violent.”
Dr. Renfro stared.
“But I’m tired of lying about it.”
“You’ve been holding onto that for a very long time, Tom.”
I didn’t respond.
“Why didn’t you tell the truth to Dally’s parents?” Dr. Renfro asked softly. “You were so close to telling the actual truth, Tom.”
I shrugged. “Because Dally was damaged way more than I ever was by what happened. Which is fucked up because…well, because I was the one who was assaulted. I didn’t think he could endure what he thought was a greater shame—being a coward.”
“You know he wasn’t a coward.” Dr. Renfro asked gently. “Right?”
I nodded shakily.
“But…when does the truth matter in a situation like that, Dr. Renfro?” I could no longer hold back the tears. “Since when does mental illness accept the truth? Our brains tell us what they tell us after trauma. We can’t control that. It didn’t matter if Dally wasn’t a coward—that he was just a kid who had experienced his own type of trauma. His brain told him he was a coward and he should feel shame. And that was the truth to him. And, maybe in his own fucked up mind, it was all my fault. Because if we hadn’t become friends, he wouldn’t have had a cabin with me, and some other kid would have been caught up in all of that. Maybe that kid would have screamed or run for help or hit John over the head with something or at least told the truth to someone the next day. I think he hated me until the day he died because if I had turned down his offer to be his friend, he wouldn’t have been in that cabin that night and he wouldn’t have spent the next four years feeling like he was the worst human being, the worst friend…he wouldn’t have felt like he was a coward.”
The silence stretched on again. Well, not silence. Quiet, disrupted sporadically by my sniffles and the sound of my hands wiping tears from my cheeks.
“What do you feel in this moment, Tom?”
“Nothing.” I shrugged.
He frowned.
“I feel nothing, Dr. Renfro.” I said. “I mean, maybe I’m glad that I no longer have to live with that lie. But the truth feels hollow now. Because Dally’s dead. It can’t save him now. I’m just a guy with a trauma and a truth and two dead people and a story that’s now been told. It doesn’t really feel like it matters at all anymore.”
“It doesn’t matter to you?”
“I don’t know the true answer to that, so I’ll say ‘I don’t know’. For now. If that’s still okay?”
He nodded.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever know if it matters.” I shrugged. “I just know I didn’t want to live with it anymore. But I also am pretty sure that I don’t want Dally’s parents�
��or my mom to know. For now.”
He nodded again.
“Do we have to tell them?”
Dr. Renfro thought about this as I finished wiping away my tears, clearing my throat and sniffling until my nose felt completely stopped up.
“Well,” Dr. Renfro answered slowly, “I think we should. Eventually. But it can wait for now. Maybe you’ll feel like it eventually. But I don’t see how any of this will help Dally’s parents feel better about Dally’s suicide and the police can’t do anything about it now, so…”
“Will keeping it between us for now get you into any kind of trouble?” I chewed at my lip. “Because I don’t want anyone else in trouble because of…well, because of John.”
He looked at me.
“It was all John’s fault, wasn’t it, Tom? All of this?”
A sob erupted from my throat and my head dropped.
“You and Dally were just two kids.” Dr. Renfro ignored my sob. “And John did something so horrific that most people could barely even conceive of it, Tom. And you’ve lived with this for a very, very long time. I think it can stay between us at least for a little longer if that’s what you need.”
I nodded as I sobbed and tears slid down my cheeks.
“Tell me whose fault all this was, Tom.”
“What?”
“Tell me whose fault it is that you’re here.” He said again. “Please.”
“John’s.”
“How does that feel?”
“I don’t know.” I continued sobbing. “It feels like I should have known that sooner.”
“Do you still feel guilty?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you feel anxious or depressed?”
“I feel sad.” I started choking back my sobs and tears, trying to pull myself together. “I feel sad because I don’t care that John did what he did to me, made me do the things he made me do. And that’s so fucked up. I just wish Dally hadn’t been involved. If I could change anything, it would be that.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to wish that John hadn’t assaulted you, Tom?” Dr. Renfro suggested gently. “Because then neither you nor Dally would have been traumatized.”
I nodded. “Yes. And I wouldn’t be a gay guy who’s afraid of having other guys be around him when he’s nude. I’m scared that I’ll never be able to trust another guy to touch me in a way that only Dally could. Even though I didn’t want him to most of the time.”
“Do you think—”
“I’m so ashamed.”
And I started sobbing again.
When I left Dr. Renfro’s office that day, I felt actual shame as I walked out to get into my mom’s car so that I could go home. Not shame for lying or shame for lying for Dally or shame for what happened to Dally. I felt the shame that I hadn’t allowed myself to feel for a very long time. The shame at having been assaulted. There’s no shame in being assaulted, in being a victim. But a person has to feel shame so that they can find the strength to realize that they don’t have to feel shame. Because they did nothing wrong. I wanted to start feeling that shame so I could start finding my strength.
I hadn’t been lying to Dr. Renfro when I said that I had felt nothing in the moment when he had asked. Truly, I had felt nothing. Because the truth was hollow now. It had meaning, but it was hollow. It couldn’t ring upon the ears that needed to hear it the most. I told mine and Dally’s truth, but only one of us would ever hear it. It could only save one of us. So, I felt nothing. But, for once in six years, nothing didn’t feel like an anchor. Nothing felt very light.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline:
1-800-273-8255
https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
About the Author
Chase Connor currently lives in Des Moines, Iowa with his dog, Rimbaud, and spends his free time writing M/M Romance, LGBTQ YA novellas/novels, LGBTQ Paranormal Romance, as well as general LGBTQ fiction, when he’s not busy being enthusiastic about laziness and waffles.
Chase can be reached at
[email protected]
Or on Twitter @ChaseConnor7
He can also be found on Chase Connor Books
https://chaseconnor.com
(New blog posts every Tuesday)
He does his very best to respond to all DMs, emails, and Twitter comments from his reader friends and loves the interaction with them. Chase has several novellas/novels for sale on Amazon in ebook and paperback format.
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