by Mark Roeder
“Yeah, you’re probably right, but just be careful, okay?”
“You’re going to freak me out if you keep talking like that,” I said.
“I’m sorry, but just be careful. Okay?”
“For you, anything,” I said.
We were at the old Verona school by then. Tim gave me a kiss, and then I walked inside. I was probably just imagining things, but I began to wonder—what if…
I felt out of sorts as I climbed the stairs to my room. It was as if everything, including me, was slightly off. I wasn’t happy, but I wasn’t sad. I just felt…blah.
I also felt as if I was being drawn back into my old life, my life before Verona. So much had changed in recent months, including me, and the changes had been for the better. I lived in a new place, had new friends, I got on much better with my parents, I was out, and I even had a boyfriend. Back in Marmont…well, things had been bad. Less than a year ago I’d run away. I’d ended up in Verona, but my time in Verona then wasn’t like it was now. I was on my own then, and I was scared. I wasn’t a very nice person back then, either. I thought only about what I wanted and didn’t much care who got hurt. I was ashamed of what I’d been, but I’d changed. I’d really changed. I had no intention of going back.
As I stepped into my room and closed the door, I realized I was breathing so hard and fast that I was on the verge of hyperventilating.
You’re being stupid, Dane, just stupid, I told myself. You can’t be drawn back into the past. You live in Verona now. Everything is cool with Mom and Dad. You have Tim. You’re safe. You aren’t on your own anymore.
I really was stupid for letting memories of the recent past bother me so. That was my past. This was my present. I’d traveled a dark road, but I’d turned aside or had been pushed aside onto a lighter road. I could have become something horrible, but I’d been saved from that terrible fate. I really had changed. The past couldn’t get me, and there was no way I was going to once again become the Dane I had been. I liked the new me too much. The new and improved Dane was staying!
“Yeah, you’re just so perfect,” I said to myself as I gazed at my reflection in the mirror.
I laughed. I was far from perfect, but I wasn’t a big jerk anymore. That’s what was important. I cared about others now. I’d never intentionally hurt anyone.
I walked to the large windows that made up nearly the entire west wall of my room. The sky was darkening even though it was long before sunset. Ominous clouds moved in from the southwest. It wasn’t nearly warm enough for a truly terrific thunderstorm, but I thought I could see rain under the clouds. I usually loved storms and rain, but the growing darkness gave me a sense of foreboding. I wished Tim was with me just then. I needed a hug.
I knew all too well that my uneasy mood would keep me from enjoying myself for a while, so I sat down to tackle my homework. I didn’t hate homework. Depending on the subject and assignment, I sometimes even liked it. The main thing I didn’t like about homework was that I had to do it. Have you ever noticed that having to do something makes it less enjoyable? Since moving in, I’ve been arranging, rearranging, and organizing my room. I pretty much like doing it, but if Mom told me I had to get my room in order, it would turn into a chore. This may sound a little weird, but I kind of like to mow the lawn. I don’t always like it. It sucks when it’s too hot or dusty. Dad is really pleased when I mow the lawn without being told to do so, but mainly I do it without being told because I don’t want to be told. Mowing after Dad has told me to do it isn’t nearly as fun as mowing when the mood just hits me. Okay, enough of my weirdness. Homework awaits.
By five p.m. the clouds had so blotted out the sun it seemed like it was eight. Rain began to smack against the windowpanes, and I could even hear it on the roof overhead. I shivered just thinking about the coldness of the rain. We were getting well into March, but the temperatures didn’t get much past the forties most of the time. I liked to walk in the rain in the summer and get all soaking wet, but I wouldn’t have stepped outside just now for fifty bucks.
There was a little bit of lightning and thunder, but mostly the rain just fell and fell. It was one of those steady, drizzling rains that could go on for hours. I took a break from my homework and gazed out the window. I could see the lights of cars driving up and down the street below as well as the lights of the houses across the street and beyond. My view from the second floor didn’t allow me to look out over Verona as if I was high up in some skyscraper, but I was able to see the lights in the houses for a few blocks. I usually enjoyed the view, but tonight I felt off.
Mom called me down for supper at about six. My parents and I ate meat loaf, green beans, and mashed potatoes in our “dining room”—the old cafeteria. I didn’t know if I’d ever get used to sitting in such a big room for meals. I was accustomed to a normal-sized kitchen. In the rental house, the kitchen had been downright Lilliputian. Yeah, you guessed it; I’d just been reading Gulliver’s Travels for a school assignment. Tonight, the old cafeteria seemed especially dark and silent. The rain pelted against the windows here, too.
After supper, I returned to my room and continued with my homework. I even worked ahead because I just didn’t feel like doing any of the things I usually did for fun. By ten, I was tired of schoolwork, but I wasn’t tired enough to go to bed. I decided to walk about the old school and explore.
I took my flashlight and walked downstairs. The old building seemed bigger in the darkness. Perhaps it was because the shadows made it seem as if the main hallway went on and on forever, perhaps because each doorway opened into inky blackness. Exploring was a mistake. I made it as far as the gym, but then I began to freak out. I think it was the vast, empty, silent space. Such a short time ago the gym had been filled with the laughter and voices of my friends. Now, it was so quiet I could hear my own heart beat. I wondered if the old school was haunted, and that was more than enough to increase my fear tenfold. I slowly walked back to my room. I had to force myself not to run. I knew terror would overtake me if I ran. Fleeing created the terror.
I felt safer back in my own room with the door shut, but on this night the room was just too big. The rain continued to pelt the windows, and the wind threw itself against the panes. I felt as if the elements themselves were trying to get me.
I undressed, climbed into bed, and pulled the covers up to my chin. I felt safer under the sheet and blankets. I don’t know why. It’s not as though some cloth could protect me. I didn’t even know what I feared. I was just afraid, and I didn’t like the feeling. It reminded me of too many nights when I was on the run.
I couldn’t get to sleep. I lay there staring at the ceiling, straining my ears to pick up every stray sound. I only succeeded in frightening myself more. Finally, I drifted off to sleep…
The cold rain pelted me as I scrambled backwards on hands and feet in the mud. Boothe stalked me. I twisted to turn and run, but he was on top of me before I got off the ground. He forced me onto my back, straddling me. His hands painfully squeezed my wrists.
“You’re hurting me!”
“I’m going to hurt you a lot more before we’re done tonight, faggot.”
Boothe sat on my chest and glared at me for a few moments. Then, to my horror, he unfastened his belt and pulled down his pants while holding me down with one hand pressed against my chest. I tried to scream, but he slugged me and told me to shut up. I did as he said. He’d hit me again if I didn’t.
“Boothe, please dude, lemme go, okay? I won’t tell anyone, I swear. I’m sorry, all right? You’re the boss, like you said. You don’t have to pay me tonight, it’s okay man; just lemme go.”
“You’ve sure changed your tune, haven’t ya? Aren’t you the same boy who was being such a fucker just a few minutes ago? You shouldn’t play with the big boys, fag; you’ll get hurt.”
He pawed at me then. His hands were all over me. I feebly resisted, but I was just too plain scared to fight him. He ripped my shirt in his impatience to get at me. He jerked do
wn my jeans and boxers, tearing them in the process. He groped me while he leaned over me. He shoved his lips against mine and kissed me, forcing his tongue into my mouth. I cried in sheer terror.
“I can make you do anything I want,” Boothe said to me when he pulled his lips from mine. “I can do anything to you I want.”
Boothe grabbed my hand and forced it onto his crotch. “You like this, huh, do you?”
“Please, Boothe, please let me go.”
“You’re not going anywhere until we’re done,” he said. I bawled like a baby. I wanted my mom and dad.
Boothe forced me onto my stomach and used his knee to pry my legs apart.
“No, Boothe! Please, for God’s sake, NO!”
I knew what he was going to do to me. I pleaded, begged, and cried, but he had no mercy. I screamed as I felt blinding pain that only grew worse. Each moment was an eternity of pain and humiliation.
“Boothe! No!”
I screamed louder than ever.
“Dane! Dane, wake up!”
I screamed again and nearly clawed my way off the bed, but Dad held me in place.
“Dane!”
“Dad?”
“I’m here. You were having a nightmare.”
“Dad,” I said.
I grabbed him and hugged him. I sobbed into his shoulder. My breath came hard and fast. I couldn’t stop crying.
“It was just a dream, Dane. It was just a dream,” said Dad.
“You’re going to be okay,” Mom said. She was standing nearby.
I couldn’t stop shaking. I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t stop breathing so hard.
“Dane, you’re okay. No one is going to hurt you,” Dad said.
It didn’t help. I couldn’t stop. I knew it was just a dream, but I couldn’t stop. It hadn’t even happened like that. It wasn’t raining the night Boothe raped me. The rain outside had entered my dreams. It didn’t matter. It felt so real.
“Here, Dane, breathe into this,” my mom said.
She handed me a paper bag that had been lying on the library table. I put it against my face and breathed into it. I breathed so hard and fast the bag nearly exploded. My breath began to slow, but I couldn’t stop shaking or crying.
“Do you think we should take him to the emergency room?” I heard Mom ask Dad.
“He’ll be okay soon. It’s okay, Dane. We’re here with you. We won’t leave you.”
Dad hugged me harder. Slowly, very slowly, I began to calm. I’d had nightmares before, nightmares that should have been more frightening, but my God…
“Do you want to go downstairs for some hot chocolate or hot tea or something?” Mom asked.
I shook my head violently. I did not want to leave my bed. I felt as if monsters would grab me and jerk me under the bed if my feet touched the floor.
“How about I bring you something up? Hot cocoa?”
I nodded my head. Mom departed. Dad just kept holding me and telling me I was going to be okay.
I took the mug of hot cocoa from Mom when she returned and held it tightly. The warmth of the mug and the scent of the cocoa was comforting. I still trembled, but I no longer shook so violently. My tears had ebbed, too. I took a sip and felt warmed from the inside.
“Nightmare?” Dad asked.
I nodded.
“The worst ever.”
“What was it about?”
“Boothe.”
Mom and Dad exchanged a significant look.
“Was it about the night he…”
Dad trailed off. He knew I didn’t want him to say it out loud. It was bad enough my parents knew what he’d done to me. Having them say it was just too much.
“Yes. It was so scary—so real. I’ve had nightmares before, even nightmares about Boothe, but this…it was like being there again. I…I know it was just a dream, but even now it feels like it just happened.”
I’m glad Dad didn’t ask why I thought I’d had the nightmare. I didn’t want to tell him I’d thought I’d seen Boothe. It probably hadn’t even been him. I was eighty percent sure it wasn’t him I’d glimpsed, but I just didn’t want to get into it. I was too tired and too upset. Boothe was miles and miles away. My own mind had done this to me.
Mom and Dad stayed with me until I fell asleep again. I don’t think I could have fallen asleep without them. Damn. Here I was, sixteen-years old, and I needed my parents to hold my hand so I could go to sleep. At the moment I didn’t care. The nightmare I’d experienced would have terrified a full-grown man.
Thankfully, the nightmare didn’t return. When I next opened my eyes, it was morning. I shut off the alarm that had awakened me. The rain had gone, and so had the clouds. It was almost as if they’d been part of my nightmare.
I felt uneasy as I headed for the showers in the boys’ locker room, but the darkness had fled with the morning sun. The old school was still big, but it didn’t possess the scary vastness it had the night before.
An edge of fear haunted me as I stripped and stepped under one of the shower heads. The hot water relaxed and warmed me. My thoughts kept going back to the nightmare. It hadn’t felt like a dream. It felt as if I’d traveled back in time and experienced those events all over again. Everything was the same, except for the rain.
Enough thinking about my nightmare. Dwelling on it would just give it more power. It was a dream, nothing more. I soaped up my body and then rinsed off. I dried with a towel, wrapped it around my waist, and then walked back upstairs to my room.
I thought about all that was good in my life while I dressed. I loved my new home, school, friends, and hometown. I loved my boyfriend! I had a kick-ass room. My grades were good. Basically, everything was good. A few guys, mainly Devon, were on my ass because I was gay, but I could handle it. It’s not as if I was getting a daily beat-down. Devon and his buddies would no doubt kick my ass if they could, but Devon was so afraid of Brandon I seriously doubted he’d have the balls to try. My life wasn’t perfect, but I had no reason to complain.
I was in a good mood by the time I headed downstairs for breakfast. Mom and Dad looked relieved. We talked about what happened the night before. All three of us hoped it was just an isolated dream. I told Mom and Dad I just wanted to put it out of my mind, and they thought that was best.
After breakfast, I brushed my teeth in the boys’ restroom that was located near my bedroom. I’d already grown accustomed to using a bathroom that had once been public. Fifty years and more ago, dozens of boys had been in there every day. Now, it was just me. I wondered if someone would be living in the current Verona High School someday. I doubted it. It was far too large for a private residence. This old school was really too big, and it wasn’t nearly as large as the current VHS.
The sun was shining as I stepped down the worn front steps of the old school with my backpack slung over my shoulder. March was getting on, and the warm breeze carried with it a scent that hinted of spring.
The bright sunlight banished the remnants of my nightmare to the edges of my mind. I intended to lose myself in a good book just before bed tonight. I’d fill my mind with images from the story so it would have something to think about besides Boothe as I slept.
I thought about Tim as I walked along, specifically about slipping away with him at lunch for some action in the dark. I guess all darkness wasn’t a bad thing after all. I grinned.
My smile faded when I spotted the truck I’d seen on the way home from school the day before. At least I was pretty sure it was the same truck. I was both frightened and curious. I didn’t want to go anywhere near that truck, yet I wanted a good look at the driver. If I could prove to myself I hadn’t seen Boothe, I might sleep better in the coming nights.
The pickup drew up to the intersection and stopped. I couldn’t quite see inside because the sun was glaring off the windshield, and the truck was on the other side of the intersection. I thought about waiting and letting the truck cut across my path, but I got scared at the last second and hurried across the street. T
he truck made a left behind me. I closed my eyes for a moment and took in a deep breath. It would be even with me in seconds. I looked to my left just as it drew up to me. I gasped. Boothe was driving! It was him! Oh my God! It was him!
Boothe made eye contact with me. He wasn’t surprised to see me. That was for sure. He had a knowing expression on his face. My heart pounded in my chest. He’d been stalking me! I walked more quickly. Boothe sped up. He drove up the street and then turned right into someone’s drive, blocking my path.
I bolted. I cut across a lawn and ran through the backyard. I didn’t pay any attention to where I was going. All I knew was that I had to put as much distance between that truck and myself as I could. I had to lose Boothe and do it fast!
Tires squealed as Boothe ripped around a corner. I changed course and darted through more yards, hurtling over shrubs and even fences. If I’d been smart, I would have pounded on a door and asked someone to call the cops, but I was in such a panic I thought of nothing but getting away. Bad memories assailed me. I wasn’t going to let Boothe get his hands on me again.
I ran until I thought my heart would explode. My breath came in gasps. My side ached, but I didn’t stop. I just kept on running. The engine of a truck gunned, then tires squealed as Boothe’s truck screeched to a halt in front of me. I darted to the side, but Boothe was out of the truck and pursuing me in seconds. He tackled my legs, and I went down. I turned on my back and came up kicking and screaming, only to have Boothe slam me down and clamp his hand over my mouth.
“It’s been a long time, boy. We need to talk.”
I looked around as best as I could. Surely someone had called the cops! I didn’t recognize the part of town I was in, but it was mostly old abandoned buildings. Boothe jerked me to my feet and twisted my arm behind my back.
“Cry out and I’ll break it,” he said. “Now get in the truck.”
Boothe took me around to the driver’s side and shoved me in. Before I could even think of escaping out the passenger side he sped off. Where were the cops when you needed them? Couldn’t someone stop him for speeding? All too soon, we were on a country road, and Boothe was driving even faster.