Changing Jamie

by Dakota Chase

  I hoped not. Losing Billy was bad enough, losing my first boyfriend at the same time would have made me feel a whole lot worse.

  Somehow I managed to drag myself through the day, and track practice afterward. I walked home (I’d put the remains of my bike out with the trash and was still without wheels of any kind), feeling lost without either Billy or Dylan.

  I was distracted, thinking about Billy and Dylan, when I walked in through the kitchen door, or I would have run right back out. I was preoccupied; I didn’t notice Doug sitting at the kitchen table, staring at me with a particularly venomous look in his eyes, or that he’d forgone his usual beer and had a shot glass and an open, half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels at his elbow until it was almost too late.

  “Faggot.”

  The word was uttered with such hate and malice that it shocked me no less than if Doug had thrown an icy-cold glass of water in my face. A chill rippled through me, raising gooseflesh along my arms. His voice dripped with a nastiness that went far beyond his usual drunken mean streak. I spun around to face him, my body acting on instinct. Never turn your back on an enemy—I’d learned that much playing video games.

  He hated me, pure and simple. The fact hung in the air between us, real and solid, tangible. I felt as if I could reach out and touch it, and if I did, it would feel as cold and reptilian as a snake. There was no denying it, no excuse for it. It wasn’t because he was drunk. He hated me because of who I was: another man’s gay son. Mom must have told him. For a minute I felt angry and betrayed, until I took another good look at Doug and realized I had much bigger problems.

  Then, for the first time in my life, I was really afraid.

  I’d often thought about what I would do if Doug took a swing at me or my mom. I’d fight back, of course! I’d hit him with all I had, pound on him, and beat the living crap out of him. In my daydreams I’d always come out on top. The trouble was that in all my years living with Doug, I’d never thought he’d actually try to hit me. He yelled, he insulted, used me as a verbal punching bag, but I’d never really been afraid of him. Had he annoyed me? Yes. Pissed me off? Of course he had. All the time. Disgusted me? Sure, but I hadn’t been afraid until that very moment when I looked into his bloodshot, muddy brown eyes and saw violence flickering in them.

  I’m not a coward, but I’m not a fool either.

  Doug outweighed me by at least forty pounds. If he decided to go after me, the only thing I had in my favor was speed. If I could outrun him, I’d be okay. If not, I was toast.

  My entire body tensed for flight.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I’D WALKED right past Doug when I came inside, and now he sat between me and the kitchen door. The only other way out was through the front door. That morning I’d left before my mother had, and I knew she would have locked the door behind her. That meant I’d have to sprint through the hall, the dining room, and the living room to the front foyer and unlock the door and the deadbolt to get outside before Doug could catch up to me.

  He wasn’t in shape, and I was fueled by desperation. I can make it, I thought. Piece of cake.

  “Your mother told me all about you. Goddamn little pervert! I always knew there was something wrong with you, boy. Said it, told Darlene she was too soft on you. Told her to let me beat some sense into your head! I should have belted you good. My dad blistered my butt and I turned out just fine, but Darlene wouldn’t listen.” He tossed back another shot, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His face was red, getting redder by the minute as he scraped back his chair, lurched to his feet, and fumbled with his belt buckle.

  Oh, hell no.

  I made it as far as the front door, and would have made it through if I’d thought of ditching my backpack first.

  Doug managed to grab it, pulling me backward, throwing me off balance. I went airborne, hitting the ground butt first. I felt a sharp pain in my tailbone but didn’t have time to worry about whether or not I’d snapped something. I was too busy scrambling to get away as his belt buckle came swinging down in an arc. It hit the floor next to my hand, missing me by a hair.

  “Get away from me!” I yelled, struggling to my feet. I slipped my backpack off my shoulders and whipped it at him. He caught it with a grunt, giving me enough time to slip past him and back toward the kitchen.

  He chased me out the door and halfway to the front yard, screaming incoherently at me with every step. I’m not sure what he was saying, but I caught the words “fag” and “bastard” more than once.

  I’m sure the rest of the neighborhood did too. Doug didn’t exactly have a quiet voice, and when he was drunk and angry, it got a lot louder.

  I didn’t care. All I cared about was putting as much distance between me and him as I could. My spine hurt, but I ran until I was out of breath and didn’t look back once.

  All kinds of creative ways to exact revenge went through my head. I’d get a knife and fillet him like a fish. I’d get the chainsaw out of the shed and cut him into manageable pieces before dumping his drunken butt into the lake or down into a manhole. I’d knock him out with his bowling ball, drag him into the yard, and have myself a nice big Doug-bonfire.

  I knew it was impossible for me to do any of those things, but thinking about doing Doug some serious harm took the edge off both my fear and my anger. In the end, after I calmed down and caught my breath, I went to the diner looking for my mom.

  She was waiting on a table when I got there, so I slid into an empty booth and waited until she’d put the order in and noticed me.

  “Jamie?” she said with a smile, hurrying over to the booth where I sat. Noticing the look on my face and lack of enthusiastic greeting, her smile slipped a notch, and she slid into the seat opposite me. “What’s wrong? What happened? Is it Billy?”

  “No,” I said tersely, looking out of the window. “It’s Doug.”

  “Doug? What did he do? Is he okay?”

  I snapped back to face her, even more irritated the first questions she’d asked had been about Doug’s welfare and not mine. “Oh, yeah, he’s just peachy,” I said sarcastically. “He’s probably on the phone right now with his bowling buddies, telling them all about how he nearly beat the crap out of me with his belt for being gay.”

  “What?” Mom’s face blanched, turning a sickly green-white shade. “Are you okay?” She grabbed my arm, turning it this way and that. She was looking for bruises. I couldn’t decide whether she was trying to determine if I’d been hurt or to prove I was lying.

  I pulled my arm away. “He missed.” I stared out of the window for a minute, trying to get a grip on myself. I didn’t want to start yelling in the diner and cause a scene. “You told him! How could you tell him, Mom? That was between you and me!”

  “What was between you and me?”

  I turned on her, hissing like a snake. “You know what! That I’m gay! You know how he is, Mom. You’ve heard what he calls me. Do you want to know what happened? I came home from school and Doug was waiting for me, drunk as usual. He took off his belt and chased me through the house with it!”

  “Did you mouth off to him, Jamie? What did you say to make him angry? He wouldn’t hurt you. You must have—”

  I lost it. She was my mother! How dare she pick that low-life bum over me? It hurt worse than any damage Doug’s belt buckle might’ve done. “I didn’t say anything!” I screamed, scooting out from behind the table and standing up, too upset now to care about making a scene. “He’s a lousy drunk who lives off you, Mom! He’s never liked me. Now he has an excuse to hate me, and he tried to hit me!”

  “Jamie—”

  “I’m out of here,” I growled, turning my back on her. “I should have known better than to think you’d side with me.”

  I heard her calling after me, but I didn’t stop. I ran outside to the street, where full dark had settled like a thick shroud, and just ran.

  Up one street and down the next, my feet were pounding the pavement, arms pumping. I raced past the stores and t
he school, past the lake, and into a residential area. I didn’t know where I was going until I found myself on the sidewalk in front of Dylan’s house, bent over double, gasping for breath.

  Dylan’s Mustang was in the driveway, parked next to his father’s Escalade. The sight of the familiar car somehow made me feel better. Until then, the entire evening had felt surreal, like it was happening to someone else. The car made me feel grounded, reminded me there was more going on in my life besides a drunken, bigoted stepfather and a mother who refused to take sides.

  No, I corrected myself. She had taken a side. It just hadn’t been mine.

  I looked over at Dylan’s house. It was much bigger than mine, but not nearly as large as Billy’s house. I wondered which room was Dylan’s, and if he was in it. My cell phone was in my backpack, probably getting stomped into a jumble of circuitry under Doug’s feet. I had no doubt he had taken out his aggression on my stuff.

  I’d be lucky if I had anything left by the time I got back home—if I went back home.

  There was a huge picture window on the left side of the house, the living room most likely. I could see lights that might have come from a television set flickering behind the sheer curtains spanning the window. The other rooms looked dark, except for one on the far right. I could see a pencil-thin beam of light outlining the drawn shade.

  Summoning my courage, I followed the brick sidewalk to the front stoop and climbed the three stairs to the door. Pressing the doorbell, I waited.

  I didn’t know what I was going to say to Dylan. “Hi, my stepdad is a psycho. Can I spend the night?” No, that was way too pathetic, even if it was true.

  The door opened and I found myself standing face-to-chest with an older version of Dylan. Taller, broader through the shoulders, the beginnings of gray at his temples, Deacon Anderson looked every bit like the semi-pro football player he’d been in his youth.

  “Hi, um, I’m Jamie Waters, a friend of Dylan’s. Is he home?” I squeaked, looking up at an unsmiling face that might have been carved from granite. It took a moment, but he must have remembered my name from the team roster, because he nodded, giving me a half grin that was identical to his son’s.

  “Oh, yeah. Waters. I remember you. You ran a good race at the Asbury meet. Come on in. Dylan’s in his room.”

  “Thanks,” I said, gratefully stepping past Dylan’s dad into the small foyer. Beyond the doorway I could see the living room and a pretty woman nestled in an overstuffed chair, a brightly colored spill of yarn covering her lap. She smiled and waved at me before returning to her knitting. I guessed she was Dylan’s mom. It looked like he’d inherited her eyes—they were the same bright turquoise.

  “Last door on the left,” Deacon Anderson said, pointing with his chin as he walked back into the living room. “Friend of Dylan’s from the team,” I heard him explain to Mrs. Anderson.

  I followed the hallway, noticing the framed photos on the walls. There was a wedding picture of Deacon and his wife; another of them and an older couple, either Deacon’s or his wife’s parents. Some were of Dylan and two younger boys, his brothers, at various ages, and all playing sports of some kind. There was Dylan in Little League, and again in Pee Wee Football. The last photo, the one at the end of the hall, was of Dylan toeing the line, ready to run at a track meet.

  The photos painted a picture of a normal family doing normal things. For some reason, they made me feel even worse about my own life, reminding me of what Dylan had that I didn’t, and I wanted to cry.

  I had to mentally slap myself a couple of times. It could be worse, I told myself. You could be Billy. Doug might be a waste of oxygen, and Mom might choose him over me, but at least my head’s screwed on right. Billy didn’t know which end was ass up.

  My knuckles rapped sharply on the door. I could hear the riffs from Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle” blaring loud enough to make the door vibrate under my hand. I knocked harder, unsure whether Dylan had heard me the first time. A second later, the volume inside the room lowered.

  “Yeah? It’s open!” Dylan called.

  I opened the door and popped my head inside the room. “Hey. Want some company?”

  “Jamie? What are you doing here?” Dylan gasped, suddenly looking pale. He pulled me inside the room and quickly shut the door. “You should have called me. I could have met you.” He was whispering, and he wasn’t looking at me; his eyes were focused on the door behind me, as if he were worried someone might be listening on the other side.

  “You weren’t in school today. I was worried…. I-I’ll go,” I stammered. What else could I say? I’d never thought he wouldn’t want me to come over. We were friends… more than friends, or so I’d thought.

  Maybe that was the problem, I realized. “Dylan, if you don’t want me here, I’ll go.”

  Dylan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “No, no, Jamie. It’s okay. I’m sorry. I just sort of freaked. I didn’t expect you to come and….”

  “And you thought… what? That’d I show up at the door wearing a Pride shirt and asking your father what he thought of gay marriage? Come on, Dylan. Give me some credit!” This was the last thing I needed today. My life was shredding at the seams. Dylan had been the only person on my very short list of people I trusted who hadn’t spat in my face within the past week. If he defected to the other side, it would be the end of my sanity. I just knew it.

  “I’m sorry. You’re right. I was being stupid.”

  “No, you’re not stupid. It’s me. I’ve had a really bad day.” I sank onto his bed, letting my head hang low. It had been a crappy day—crappy, long, and not over yet. Before I knew it, I’d spilled my guts, telling him everything up to and including my narrow escape from Doug and my mom’s betrayal.

  “That bastard! Did you go to the police, Jamie? He attacked you! That’s abuse, dude!”

  I shook my head at him. “No, no cops. No child services. It’s his word against mine. I don’t even have any bruises,” I lied. My spine still hurt and I was willing to bet that an X-ray would show I’d broken my tailbone—even sitting on Dylan’s soft mattress hurt. I don’t know why I didn’t want to turn Doug in, except that I feared what might happen between my mom and me if I did. I didn’t want to know who she’d choose if push actually came to shove.

  “I still think you should go. Write out a report, just in case he does something again.”

  “Let’s just drop it, okay?” I asked wearily. I didn’t want to fight about it, and I didn’t want to be lectured about it, either.

  “Have you heard from Billy?” Dylan asked next. I guess he was trying to find something else to talk to me about, to distract me.

  “No.” I didn’t want to talk about Billy. I didn’t want to talk about anything. What I wanted was for him to hold me, but I knew I had about as much chance of that as I did of winning the lottery. He was uncomfortable with me just being in his house, in his room, never mind actually risking physical contact with me. “I think I should go. Coming here was a mistake, Dylan.”

  “No, it wasn’t.” He didn’t sound very convincing.

  “It’s okay,” I said, standing up. “I have to go home sooner or later, I guess.” The thought of going home and seeing Doug again curdled my stomach. Not to mention that I really didn’t want to talk to my mother either. I could just imagine the lies Doug would tell her. Or maybe he wouldn’t lie. Maybe he’d boast about what he did and try it again.

  Would she stop him? Had all her talk about just wanting me to be happy been a lie? Did she believe Doug could “beat it out of me”? Would she let him try?

  Dylan’s phone rang. “Hold on a second, Jamie. Don’t go yet. Please?” He picked up the phone, glancing at the number. “Wait—it’s your number. Someone’s calling from your phone, Jamie.”

  He looked as puzzled as I felt, until I remembered I’d left my cell phone in my backpack. It could only be one of two people, and I doubted Doug would know who on my call list to phone if he wanted to find me.
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  Mom would, though. I didn’t really want to talk to her—she probably wanted to continue the conversation I’d walked out on at the diner. I reluctantly took the phone from Dylan and answered it. “Hello?”

  “Jamie? Oh, thank God. Why did you run off like that? You had me half-crazy worrying!”

  I wanted to scream at her, but remembered Dylan’s folks were just down the hall. It was a struggle, but I managed to keep it at an almost normal level. “You took his side again, Mom. You always do! He tried to—”

  “He’s gone, Jamie.”

  “What you do mean ‘gone’? He’s probably at the bar.” If she thought I was going to go out and look for him, she was crazy.

  “No. He’s gone, for good. I threw him out, Jamie. I should have done it a long time ago. Come home, hon. Please? I need to see you.” She was crying now, sniffles that threatened to turn into sobs. “I’m so sorry, Jamie! I just didn’t want to believe it. Please, just come home, okay?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  I PUSHED the End button and stared at the phone in my hand. The day had been spiraling out of control until I was sure I’d crash headfirst and explode, like a jet gone haywire, showering the entire town with flaming pieces of me. I’d almost gotten used to the idea. Mom’s call felt like a parachute opening at the last possible second, jerking me away from impact. I might still land hard, might still suffer some serious damage, but I felt like I’d narrowly avoided a catastrophe.

  Could it be true, or was she yanking my chain? More importantly, if it was true, would it last? Had she really seen the light and kicked his worthless butt to the curb? The only way to find out was to do as she’d begged me and go home.

  “Jamie? You okay?” Dylan’s voice was full of concern and, I’m sure, a trace of guilt. He hadn’t exactly welcomed me into his home with open arms, although I could sort of understand why he felt the way he did. He was afraid his parents would put two and two together and come up with a gay pair.