Choices(Waiting for Forever BK 1)

by Jamie Mayfield

  It isn’t possible. He can’t be gone.

  The front door of the Mayfield house banged open, and Jamie came running out, no doubt having heard my scream. He threw his arms around me and just kept saying over and over, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.” Both his hands were fisted in the back of my wet hair, holding my face against his shoulder. I couldn’t bring myself to pull back to look at his face; the heartbreak in his voice was staggering. He was shaking with the sobs he was trying hard to contain. I closed my eyes and just held him, trying to memorize his scent, the feeling of him in my arms, the sound of his low breathing. Soon, too soon, I would have nothing.

  His father came down the steps with an umbrella held over his head, and I watched him walk toward us with a slow and heavy gait. It was evident he didn’t want to leave, but as he passed us on the walk, he said, “You have five minutes, son, and then we need to be on our way. We have a very long drive ahead of us.” The fear and pain ripped through me, and I gripped him tighter.

  “Where?” I asked, nearly choking on the word.

  “San Diego,” he whispered. “My father requested a transfer, and it came through last week. They wouldn’t let me see you to tell you. I tried to get out, but I couldn’t.” The emotion finally broke through, and his voice was soon heavy with sobs. I held him tighter, trying to find some measure of comfort for us, but the effort was wasted.

  “Jamie, it’s time to go,” Mrs. Mayfield called from the car, obviously trying to avoid a scene. Two boys holding each other on the front lawn was attracting attention she apparently didn’t want, even despite the rain. I didn’t know what the difference was if she was moving halfway across the country. She could wait.

  “I’ll find you,” I told him, my breath catching on the last word. He nodded, even though we both knew how difficult it would be to keep my word. My hands clutched at his shirt as my hair became plastered to my forehead. He pushed it away and then, to my surprise, kissed me right there on his front lawn. Desperately our lips met over and over before he pulled away.

  I was terrified now. It was all I could do to keep from screaming. Their house was packed, and they were taking him and leaving. They might as well tear open my chest, which may actually have hurt less than them taking my Jamie. I wanted to run, to take him and hide. My panic swelled as he pulled back a little further.

  “Never forget that I love you,” he said softly, just above the sound of the rain, before he turned and walked to the car. My knees gave out before he reached the sidewalk, and I landed heavily on the grass. Jamie climbed into the back seat, then turned and watched me as his father pulled away from the curb.

  Then a horrible thought came to me, one that burned the hole in my chest caused by his departure. I hadn’t told him I loved him. He told me never to forget, and I didn’t tell him. I screamed his name into the rain, begging the car to stop, for him to come back. But he was gone.

  I sat with my back against the hastily erected For Sale sign, feeling the rain mingle with the tears as he left me, taking every bit of my hope, my joy, and my life with him.

  13

  “HEY! McAllister!”

  The voice rose above the obnoxiously loud teenage noise of the south stairwell. My stomach churned, the acid rising and rolling in it as I sped up slightly. I wished they’d just leave me the hell alone. Unfortunately, they showed every sign of hounding me for the rest of the school year, and damn it, it was going to be hard enough without Jamie. In the back of my mind, I could still see him in the back of his parents’ car as they drove him out of my life.

  “McAllister!” I heard again and finally stopped halfway down the second staircase, looking up to see that everyone else had stopped too. They wanted to watch, most likely to affirm their own superiority because it wasn’t them being tormented. The sun shone brightly from the window behind the speaker, giving him an almost ethereal glow. Dust and other particulates swirled and danced in the air around him, slowly, like the world had suddenly and inexplicably halted.

  Even with the sun in my eyes and the shadow across his face, there was no mistaking Brad Mosely.

  “I heard Jamie Mayfield had to leave town because his mom caught you guys screwing! Even my sister saw you guys kissing the day they moved!” His voice drowned out most of the shocked gasps from the onlookers, but not all. They were background noise as I focused my attention solely on him and tried to ignore the sudden heat in my face and the faint trembling of my hands. I didn’t know that Emma had seen us, but that certainly explained why I was suddenly a social outcast, especially so early in the school year. I’d never been particularly popular, and I expected to be even less so now that I wasn’t going to be in Jamie’s protective shadow. I hadn’t expected to become a pariah.

  He came down a few more stairs so he towered over me, two stairs up. “So, is it true? Are you a stupid little faggot?”

  Literally blocking out the sun, he loomed above me. Mosely was already half a foot taller; the extra height from the stairs forced me to look almost straight up in order to watch my future pain build in his dark brown eyes. Everything about Mosely was thick, from his shaggy brown hair to the features of his face, his head, and his hands. There was no place to run, but I was going to try.

  I should have known better than to turn my back.

  I felt his forearm dig into both of my shoulder blades as he used his weight to push me. Instinctively, I grabbed onto the railing, allowing my book bag to fly down the rest of the stairs and spill open across the bottom. I tripped and stumbled, my momentum swinging me toward the wall as I tried desperately to regain my footing and minimize the damage. Finally, my foot found a solid hold just as my face slammed into the railing. The force of the blow busted my lower lip, and a protruding piece of metal ripped open my forehead.

  I landed hard on the stairs, still holding onto the railing, dazed by the exploding pain.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Another voice was coming from directly above my head, but I couldn’t see who was speaking because of the blood flowing into my eyes. The teacher was male, but all I could make out were the brown loafers. “Brenda, go into the bathroom and get some wet paper towels. The rest of you get to class. Now!”

  It took a moment, in the haze of pain, for me to recognize the voice. It was Mr. Barnes, our art teacher. Of course, it had to be the queer teacher coming to my rescue. No doubt the rumors would fly if people thought I was banging the art teacher. I hoped he would just give me something to clean up the blood and leave, but as always, luck was not on my side.

  “Brian, can you sit up?” he asked, his voice surprisingly gentle in contrast to the harsh tone he had used with everyone else.

  “It figures you’d take up for him,” Brad Mosely said in an undertone just loud enough for me to hear, startling me because I thought he’d left with the others. I shrank into the wall on pure instinct. My face and back throbbed with the sudden movement.

  “I said go to class. That goes for you too, Mr. Mosely. I have a feeling you’ll end up in the principal’s office anyway, but if you don’t want to end up there immediately, you’ll do as I say!” Mr. Barnes was furious. It also sounded like he knew it had been Mosely who’d pushed me down the stairs, but I was in no position to either confirm or deny it. The top of my shirt was spotted and stained with blood. I felt it, warm and sticky, almost halfway down the side of my face. Just as I’d pulled myself up to a semi-sitting position, Mosely aimed a kick at me as he walked by, catching me on the outside of my right thigh. I cried out in pain, unshed tears blurring my vision.

  “That’s it!” Mr. Barnes roared as I curled up as small as I could next to the wall, trying to protect myself from any further attacks. “Mosely, go to the principal’s office and wait for me. Go!”

  Just then, I felt something cold and wet being applied to my face, and I flinched. My limbs shook uncontrollably as I pulled away.

  “It’s okay, Brian. It’s just to get the blood off your face until we can get you to the n
urse,” Mr. Barnes said in a low, comforting voice. I took the paper towel from him and saw Brenda, the girl I had pretended to go on a date with to hide what Jamie and I were. She looked shocked and upset. Mr. Barnes shooed her back to class, and after a long look at me, she went. Once the blood was out of my eyes, I held the paper towel to the cut and tentatively stretched out my legs, very slowly, starting to stand. The dirt and the grime from the stairs stung a scrape on my palm as I pushed myself up. As Mr. Barnes tried to help me, I waved him off, even though my leg felt cramped and shaky. The last thing I wanted was to be touched. Much to my relief, the stairs and even the hallway beyond were deserted. There would be fewer witnesses to my weakness and shame. My lower back was killing me from where I’d landed on the stairs, and my head pounded. I closed my eyes, feeling a little dizzy.

  “Come on, I’ll take you to the nurse,” he offered, trying to put his hand on my arm.

  I pulled away. “No, I have to get to class.”

  His eyes were almost overflowing with concern and compassion as he watched me, unsteady on my feet. I kept my hand on the wall for balance as I stood, half stooped, trying to take the pressure off my back. As I forced myself to use slow, measured breaths, my heart finally stopped trying to beat its way out of my chest from fear. Everything became clearer as I started to calm down. I couldn’t let them win; I refused to let them think they’d won. Showing up in my next class, no matter how battered and bloody, would show them I wasn’t going to just roll over for them. If I let them terrorize me, it would never stop, and it would be a really long year.

  “You’re not going to class, not like this. We need to get you checked out. You could have serious injuries.”

  By the way my body felt, I couldn’t really disagree with him. It hurt. It hurt like hell. I just couldn’t let them get the better of me, because that would hurt worse, but it appeared I didn’t have a choice. He had taken out his cell phone and dialed the office.

  “Betty, it’s Kyle Barnes. I need an emergency number for Brian McAllister’s father.” There was a short pause while he listened, and then, “Yes, Brian McAllister. Thank you.” He listened again and then pulled the phone away, hit the end button, and dialed another number.

  “Dr. Schreiber, this is Kyle Barnes from Crayford High School,” he said in an authoritative manner. “Yes, it’s about Brian; he has been injured. He has a cut on his forehead and on the right side of his lip, and probably some serious bruising. It seems he fell down the stairs.” He looked at me, and I wondered if he’d tell Richard how I had come to fall down the stairs, as Richard knew I wasn’t particularly accident-prone. “No, I have a free period now. I can bring him down with your permission…. Okay, we’ll see you in about ten minutes.” He closed the phone and dropped it back into his pocket.

  “Can you walk?” he asked with real concern. It felt like he wasn’t worried just because I’d been hurt on school property, or in front of him, but because he was genuinely concerned about me. Briefly, I wondered about his own past, what he’d had to endure growing up gay. I didn’t think I’d ever really considered Mr. Barnes as a person until right then. The compassion and understanding he was showing told me that he’d been bullied a few times himself. But that conversation would have to wait, because as I started to walk, my head still spinning, it was all I could do to remain upright.

  “It’s all right, we’ll take it slowly. My car’s just outside the art room.” I was relieved to see we weren’t more than a couple of dozen steps from the art room. Then I realized that must have been how Mr. Barnes knew I was in trouble; he must have heard the scream one of the girls let out as I was falling. The scream alone should have drawn every other teacher from their classroom, but it was funny only Mr. Barnes had come to my defense. He confirmed my theory just minutes later.

  “I heard yelling on the stairs, but I couldn’t make out what was being said above the between-class chaos. Then I heard someone scream. By the time I got to the stairwell, you were already falling.” He sighed. “I was afraid of this when I started hearing the rumors earlier in the week.”

  I couldn’t do anything other than nod, and he stopped us. “I’m sorry, Brian. I’m sorry this is happening to you. I know what you’re going through, and it’s not right. Most of all,” he said, and then took a deep breath. I looked up to meet his eyes. “Most of all, I’m sorry they took Jamie away. He was a great kid, and you must miss him very much.”

  That did it. It wasn’t the pain in my back or in my head, but in my heart. The tears flowed uselessly down my face as I nodded. Mr. Barnes didn’t try to embrace me; he simply put a hand on my shoulder and started to once again lead me towards where he was parked.

  Just outside the art room, he disengaged the alarm and unlocked the doors on a midnight-blue Honda. I climbed into the passenger side, forgoing the seat belt and reclining back, feeling more tired than I think I had ever felt. Even with my eyes closed, I wasn’t surprised to hear him get in and start the car without admonishing me for the lack of a seat belt. I just wanted to curl up into a ball on the soft leather and never move again. Knowing I was hurting, Mr. Barnes drove carefully, minimizing the bumps on the way to the hospital where, no doubt, Richard would have an ER bay waiting for us. That was one of the benefits of being the foster son of an ER doctor. It was good, really, because I was sure I’d be seeing much more of the hospital before the end of the school year.

  “Let’s get him behind curtain two,” Richard instructed Mr. Barnes when he met us at the door. Richard’s professional demeanor was perfectly intact, right up until he pulled the curtain. Carefully, he helped me onto the table and then pulled back to look into my face.

  “Brian, what happened?” he asked, as he hugged me before he started looking over my injuries. His hands were gentle but firm as they examined my face and helped me to take off my shirt. I felt his fingers lightly probing the area of my back where I’d landed. Then he turned away while I took off my jeans and put on a hospital gown. When I was done, he started to examine my injuries.

  “They know,” I said flatly. Mr. Barnes had been sitting in the corner, motionless and silent, but then he stood and came over to stand next to the examining table.

  “Brian, what do they know?” he asked as Richard cleaned the cuts on my face so that he could stitch them.

  “That I’m gay, and that Jamie and I were….” The sound of his name was like physical pain in my stomach. My heart ached at his absence, and I couldn’t finish the sentence. It had only been a few days since he’d been viciously and brutally ripped from my life. He was gone, and I’d never even told him how much I loved him; I’d just let him walk away while I sat cowering in the rain. I’d made the moment all about me when it should’ve been about him—he was the one being moved halfway across the country because of me, because of our relationship.

  “Someone pushed you down the stairs at school because you’re gay?” Richard asked.

  “Yes. I was only about halfway up, so it could’ve been a lot worse. I’ll just have to be more careful,” I replied, shrugging, trying and failing to sound casual.

  “No, Brian. I’ll go to the school after my shift ends in about,” he looked at his watch, “five minutes. Do you know who it was that pushed you?”

  I nodded. “Brad Mosely pushed me.”

  “Dr. Schreiber, I don’t think going to the school is going to be much help,” Mr. Barnes said in a resigned tone. “The administration isn’t exactly gay-friendly, and worse yet, the Moselys will use their influence to make it go away. I had to fight every inch of the way for my position. It took the threat of a discriminatory lawsuit for them to relent.” His shoulders sagged under the weight of his remembered struggle, and he bowed his head almost as if he were ashamed.

  I knew I was seeing a part of my art teacher that students never saw, that I wasn’t meant to see: his humanity and his vulnerability. He looked like a man who’d been forced, all his life, to be ashamed of who he was. I promised myself I wouldn’t let it hap
pen to me.

  “So, what am I supposed to do?” Richard asked, exasperated. “I’m just supposed to let him get beat up for something that isn’t his fault?” My heart warmed to hear Richard defend me. We’d never exactly been close, and that one conversation about being gay had really been our only meaningful contact. It meant a lot that he was going to stand by me. An odd, pained expression passed across Mr. Barnes’s face as he watched us, but I didn’t feel comfortable enough to ask him about it.

  “I’ll watch over him while he’s at school,” Mr. Barnes said, and I saw my life flash before my eyes. A gay teacher standing up for me at every turn; I was sure that would make my life a lot easier.

  “No,” I said quickly. “I don’t need anyone to watch over me. I’ll just need to be more careful, that’s all. It’s only about nine months, and then I won’t have to go back again. I can survive for nine months.” I’d be counting the days, but I could survive. I had to.

  “Brian,” Mr. Barnes said with a sigh, “I’ve been through this. My orientation has always been fairly obvious to anyone that knows me, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. My parents weren’t as understanding as your foster parents, so I got it at home and at school. Believe me when I tell you that it’s only going to get worse.”

  I had already worked that out for myself. The God-fearing, good ol’ boys at school would torment me until I either quit or graduated. I didn’t want to consider the other, more life-threatening possibilities, so I waited for him to continue.

  “I’ll deal with Mr. Mosely when I get back to the school. He will be punished for what he’s done, but that won’t stop him.” Mr. Barnes looked sad.