by Lucas, Helen
He held me as I cried. As my body rocked in his arms, my sobs wracking my flesh. He kissed away my tears, but more flowed down my cheeks to replace them.
“I’m so mad…” I whimpered as he held me, as we rocked. He kissed my forehead, kissed my hair, ran his fingers through it.
“I know… I know…” he whispered softly to me, his voice low and husky. “I know…”
He never asked me what had happened, and for that, I was grateful—I didn’t know myself and I didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to think about how he might have done it—how he might have wiped himself off of the face of the earth.
It was hard, but eventually, my breathing returned to normal. Eventually, I found myself shaking less, able to focus.
I told Damien about the email, about what was in it. He listened without saying a single word, his eyes giving me all the quiet caring and understanding I needed. His hands held mine, kept them from shaking, kept pressure on them, let me know that he was here, that he would be here, that he wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. Not like Mitch.
At least, that’s what I interpreted from his hands. I supposed I had no real way of knowing what was in his heart…
I was out of school for the rest of the week. I spent most of it asleep. I barely left my room. Maria made me breakfast and dinner, and I just didn’t eat lunch.
Damien came to visit every afternoon, even though I had nothing to say, nothing to talk about. He would sit next to me and hold my hand. We would just sit like that, and then he started bringing his guitar in, and I would listen to him play, letting my mind wander.
I knew I would have mountains of homework to make up after I came back to school but I didn’t care. I knew I would have tests to make up and classes to catch up on but I couldn’t make myself care. My best friend was dead. There was nothing that could change that, and no matter how many tests I took, no matter how many problem sets I turned in late, no matter how many book reviews or five-paragraph essays I wrote, it would never change.
I knew I could get into trouble here. I knew my grades might slip. I knew I might never get out of Laramie. But I didn’t care.
I didn’t care about anything at all.
Well, no, that wasn’t quite true.
I did care about one thing—the boy sitting next to me, strumming a tuneless song slowly on his guitar, his eyes looking out the window, worldlessly, our minds turned inward and our thoughts dancing over the horizon, never settling for more than an instant on any ray of light, but continuing the descent into that black spiral of pity and contempt for life.
DAMIEN
Sarah wasn’t well enough to go to Mitch’s funeral. I went, though. I barely knew the kid, but I felt like I owed it to Sarah, owed it to Mitch, owed it to… Well, I felt like I owed it. I just did.
It came out a few days after his death that he had done it by hanging. He had wrapped a belt around his neck, tied it to a ceiling fan in his bedroom, and jumped off a chair. It sounded like a terrible way to go, but there you have it.
I didn’t tell Sarah about that. I was sure she would find out somehow, some day. But I didn’t want to be the one to tell her. You couldn’t pay me to do that. Not at all.
The funeral was held at a Presbyterian church near the school where Mitch’s parents were parishioners. During the service, no mention of his being gay was made. No one said anything—there were bleary eyed students, older people—friends of his parents, I supposed, and other family members—and then teachers and administrators from the school.
And then I saw Ted. The bastard had the gall to be here. But he wasn’t with his friends. It was just him, dressed in a pair of khakis and a blazer too big for him—the same uniform that all teenage boys seem to have for formal events. I know I had one.
He didn’t have anyone around him. His face was surprisingly stony, even emotionless. It was a look of emptiness I found in his eyes, and I wanted to bash his face in for that.
After the service, as he was trying to leave, I cornered him in one of the side passages leading out of the church. His eyes widened when he saw me. He was a big guy, a football player, of course—but he seemed to shrink before me.
There was no one around us, no one watching. I grabbed him by the lapels of his blazer. He tried to struggle away, and so I threw my right elbow hard into his face. He stumbled back and I threw an uppercut into his stomach. He doubled over.
“You have some steels ones if you think it’s okay for you to show up here, you son of a bitch,” I growled as I grabbed him hard by the hair. I forced his head up, held him steady for a second, and drove my fist into his jaw, the force knocking him back into the wall.
“It’s not like that…” he gasped, wiping blood and tears from his face as he struggled to stand up. I kicked him in the gut. Hard.
“Stay down. Did I say you could stand up? Stay the fuck down.”
“I’m not saying I don’t deserve this…” he sputtered and I kicked him again.
“Did I say you could speak?”
He shook his head. I nodded.
“That’s right. You don’t fucking speak unless I say so.”
“Fine,” he gasped, struggling on the ground still. I glowered at him, but I didn’t say anything for a moment still—I gave him a few seconds to appreciate the helplessness of his situation, and for myself to calm my rage.
“Good. Now, speak. Cunt.”
He nodded, his voice coming out stronger now.
“Listen, I know I deserve this. I know I do. But the fact is… I was in love with Mitch.”
I was ready to drive my shoe into his face, no matter what he said—but this, I was not expecting.
“What?”
“I was in love with him. We were in love. I mean, we were dating. In secret.”
“So why did you bully him?” I asked, all but yelling. I looked around, making sure no one had overheard us: fortunately, we were separated from the emptying church by a wall and besides, no one bothered to come out the side door—everyone seemed to want to go to offer their condolences to the grieving parents too. I suppose that’s what I would have done, had I not decided to go after Teddy instead.
I had been to plenty of funerals for buddies killed in action. Both in the states and in Iraq—the services they held for soldiers, and then more general ceremonies, full funerals sometimes, for the local guys killed overseas while I was in training. And I always made a point of it to go up to the grieving family, offer my condolences, hugs, whatever would help them to make sense of what was really a senseless loss and move on.
But this was a situation that I hadn’t been expecting—not one bit.
“Because… Because…” he sputtered. I made like I was about to kick him again and he tightened up, holding his hands over his face. Good that he didn’t waste energy on trying to fight me anymore.
“Because what, you son of a bitch?” I growled. “Spit it out. You’re not going to say anything that’ll make me any angrier, I promise you that. We’re pretty much past that.”
“Because I was scared, okay? I have a reputation. I want to go to college and play football and shit. Gay kids don’t do that. Faggots don’t do that.”
“But you are gay.”
“I know, and I fucking hate it. My dad would kick me out of the house if he knew.”
“Sounds like your dad needs to get his teeth kicked in,” I murmured.
“Sure, just try it. Listen, you can beat me up—I admit it, I deserve. But my dad—he’s the fucking chief of police. He runs this town like a dictatorship. Him and… And your dad, actually.”
I cocked my head to the side. It took me a minute to realize he was talking about Harry.
“He’s not my real father.”
“Whatever. Your step-father. The two of them, they control everything that’s going on in this town… And…”
“And what?”
“And they’re not above killing people to get their way. Anyone who tries to stop them…”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know what I mean.”
I grabbed Teddy again by the lapels of his blazer and forced him to his feet.
“Listen, unless you want every single fucking jock in the school to know about your bedroom habits…” I hissed.
“I don’t know anything, Damien, honest. I’ve just overheard my dad on the phone talking. Talking about the city, about money, about what they can get out of it… And about people in their way… But I don’t know what else. I don’t know, really, if they ever…”
“Killed anybody?”
“Right.”
I let Teddy drop to the ground. He landed in a heap, and buried his head in his forearms. I heard him start to sob.
“Damien, I loved him. I honestly did. I didn’t want to but I did. I don’t think I was a good boyfriend…”
“You weren’t any sort of a boyfriend. If you can’t be honest about it…”
“I know. I know. I hate myself. I hated myself then and I hate myself even more now.”
I sighed. This kid was beating himself up worse than I could ever hope to.
“Do you have a ride home? You’re a mess. You shouldn’t be out walking like this—someone will get the wrong idea. And that’s the best case scenario.”
He shook his head and I helped him to his feet. We left through the side door, without saying anything to Mitch’s family.
Like I said, I would have liked to, but I had to get this sorry son of a bitch home.
We drove in silence. I didn’t have anything else to say to Teddy and I doubt he had much to say to me. And besides—I didn’t want to hear anything that he had to say.
I kept turning over in my head what he had said about Harry and his father, the chief of police—Oliver Richards was his name, I remembered seeing in the newspaper somewhere.
Had they really been running some sort of conspiracy all these years? What the hell kind of conspiracy could you even manage in a two-bit town like Laramie? They wasn’t shit here—certainly nothing worth stealing.
On the other hand, they were two-bit kind of guys, so maybe it did make sense after all.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t any of my business. I was determined to get out of town as soon as I could. This was a toxic place. It was bad for me, as far as I was concerned—bad for my health. Hell, I had put on weight ever since getting here, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t just from my mother’s cooking.
On the other hand, her puttanesca sauce is nothing to sneeze at, so who even knows?
Of course, this town was even worse for Sarah. And it had been the worst of all for poor Mitch. Jesus Christ…
SARAH
I don’t know how much time had passed since Mitch’s death—I think about two weeks. Damien had dutifully brought my homework to me every day—he went around to all of my teachers and collected it—and it was piling up in a corner, ignored, unread, undigested, unloved.
Not that I had ever loved it, but once upon a time, it had represented a respite. A place and time and activity that my father couldn’t torment me over, couldn’t hit me with. A thing that made me smart. Made me special.
And now, it just reminded me of how Mitch and I used to trade answers. Reminded me of his terrible, loopy, little boy handwriting and the stupid way he made his eights on his math homework, going back to grade school. I couldn’t believe he was gone.
“I’ve got a show tomorrow night,” Damien murmured to me softly one day, a late evening as he sat with his feet up on my desk, playing his guitar. We had barely touched one another at all since Mitch died—it was almost two weeks now, I think. No sex. No kissing. He hugged me sometimes, but mostly I slept. I had lost weight, which most guys would have celebrated.
Hell, Mitch would have even teased me about that. You’re welcome, he would have said. God, I missed him.
“A show?” I asked dreamily. Damien nodded.
“That’s right. A music show. With my band.”
God, how out of it was I? I had totally forgotten that Damien was in a band, that his strumming and practicing in my room each evening was linked to something else, something outside of my room, outside of my sorrow.
“What kind of music do you play?” I found myself asking, growing interested in spite of my grief. The clouds were starting to part.
“Like, indie and folk. It’s mostly acoustic. We’ve got a guy who plays an electric harmonica, but that’s as weird as it gets. And thank god, he mostly just plays a regular fucking harmonica instead of his weird little piece…”
I knew that was supposed to make me laugh, but it didn’t have any effect. Forgive me, Damien—it’s been a rough few weeks.
“But if you feel up to it,” he continued, still not looking at me, his fingers still dancing over the strings of the guitar. “It’d be cool if you came.”
“Is anyone else coming?”
“What do you mean? I hope so. I mean, I hope we have an audience.”
“I mean, anyone I know? Your mom?”
He grinned at me. My heart fluttered, if only a teeny, tiny bit.
“Sarah, I’m not six years old any more. My mom doesn’t come to my recitals and shit.”
“I know, but…”
“I still don’t know anyone here. Except for the guys in the band, their girlfriends—that’s it, you know. Harry’s not going to come. Dakota won’t come. My mom won’t come—she’s working, anyway, and even then, it’d be weird, because we swear and sing about sex and smoke and stuff. I don’t want her to see that. I’d get an earful later on.”
I smiled. He was right. He would. She would chew him out for anything she thought was inappropriate.
“So…”
“So, I think you should come,” he said, patting my leg firmly, but with a note of kindness, a note of tenderness in his touch. “If you feel up to it, I mean. No pressure. But it’s at a neat bar, and I bet I’ll be able to get the bartender to let you drink without checking your ID. So, there’s that.”
“I…” I started to say. Damien pressed a finger to my lips.
“Hey, don’t worry about deciding right now. You do you.”
I found myself giggling, in spite of everything that had happened. You do you. That wasn’t exactly what I would expect to hear out of Damien’s mouth, but it, somehow, made me feel better. If only slightly.
He wore a tight wife-beater, one that showed his muscled arms, covered in tattoos, with the occasional scar showing. I found myself watching his arms as he played, watching the muscles and tendons in his forearm make the instrument sing.
Just as he had made me sing. He could do it so easily, so deftly. It had been as if he knew my body inside and out, in ways that I didn’t even know it…
Part of me wanted it. Part of me wanted to throw off the covers, pull him into my bed, pull him into me, feel his length throbbing in my womanhood, feel his seed spill into my tightness, just as it had a few weeks ago… I had gone and gotten something from the pharmacy, to make sure we wouldn’t have any surprises afterwards, but I could just do that again—so I could feel him reach his peak inside of me, feel him fill me up… Feel full like I had never felt before…
I felt my body growing warm. A warmth I hadn’t felt for days. Weeks, even. It was a warmth that only Damien could give me, a warmth I had felt only for him. It felt like him. Made me think of him, in spite of myself. In spite of Mitch’s death. In spite of everything that had happened and this terrible, backwards town we were stuck in.
But I hadn’t showered in a few days. There was no way I could be sexy right now. My hair was a mess. I was still wearing a baggy t-shirt and pajama pants. I hadn’t shaved in two weeks. I was gross.
I reached out and took Damien’s hand again, away from his guitar. I held it tight, pressed it to my lips. He smiled.
“How ya’ doing, kiddo?” he whispered, wrapping me up in his strong arms, his warm arms.
“Not great. I must smell terrible. I haven’t showered in like three
days. Also, my best friend just killed himself.”
“Yeah, I think your personal hygiene is the least of your concerns right now,” Damien’s voice purred. He pressed his lips to mine and I recoiled for a second, but only because of how gross I felt.
“Give me a second,” I whispered, leaping out of bed. I padded as quickly as I could in my stocking feet down to the bathroom at the end of the hall. I brushed my teeth, gargled a cup of mouthwash, and then came racing back. Damien gave me a wry grin.