The Dance [Mychyl Kime] - 13. Chapter 13

The rest of the day was tense, hectic, waiting for Chris to descend on Jacob like a vision of Hell... or worse. I couldn't concentrate in any of my classes, and I'm sure that Jacob couldn't either, since he was the one in danger, not me... I sat fidgeting through most of my classes, getting out of class whenever possible to run to whichever class Jacob had at the time, looking around to make sure Chris wasn't hiding off to the side somewhere, waiting to pounce on Jacob when he came out of the room... luckily, though, he never showed up, not even when the final bell sounded, releasing everyone back into the world... which was infintessimally more dangerous, since he could be behind any house, any bush, and tree... hell, I started seeing him walking towards us from down the street, only to realize that it wasn't him.

I know, it seems a bit strange, that I was the one all stressed out, but believe me, I had good reason... Chris might've been after Jacob, but I wasn't about to let Chris hurt him, even if it meant I'd fight him... and since I figured from the beginning I'd lose, I was pretty nervous about the bloody mess I'd be when Chris got done with me.

Not that David was gonna help, either, although he didn't even know that Chris was after Jacob... I mean, if he did know, he would've probably done something, but I figured that, no matter what happened to me, it was my responsibility to take care of things. I let it all get out of hand; it was my job to make sure Chris was stopped, even if it meant he beat me up instead of Jacob... just so long as Jacob was safe, I didn't care what happened to me.

"Hey, relax, willya?" David called back to me over his shoulder, seeming to sense how nervous and jittery I was. "What's your problem, anyway? You've been all weirded out since last night, since you took off..."

"I... I dunno," I managed, not ready to tell him exactly what happened, either at the club or afterwards... and certainly not gonna tell him about what Chris had in mind. Like I said, it was my fight, whether I'd win or lose, and I was gonna fight it, not David... not Jacob... me.

Jacob looked at me, his jumbled emotions visible in his eyes. He knew what I was planning; I told him, since otherwise he'd tell David. He didn't like it; he didn't agree with it; but in the end, he agreed that it was my decision, and since I wanted to do things this way, that's how things wouldbe done.

We got to the house, still no sign of Chris, and I let out a sigh of relief. As determined as I was to face Chris down, I still wasn't exactly all about running into him, since I knew what would happen... I wasn't gonna stop from doing this because I was scared (which I definately was), but if Chris wasn't gonna show, hey, I wasn't complaining...

We went inside and went to the living room, each of us getting ready to do homework... David never could concentrate on his homework, though, and both me and Jacob had other things on our minds besides math and English... like, for example, how many pieces of me would the doctors have to try and put back together... I know, not a pretty visual, but it was worse for me at the time, living in constant fear, knowing what was about to happen, but nearly powerless to stop it... without resorting to David's help, which I figured I'd rather manage without...

After a while of sitting there and pretending to study, Jacob announced that he was gonna run to the corner store and pick up some chips and soda... normal afterschool activity, and I figured since he had his car, he'd be fine, so I asked if he wanted company anyways, which he turned down, gave me a kiss, then walked out to the car.

I kept 'working' on my homework, all the while paying attention to the time, waiting for him to come back... 5 minutes passed, but I didn't think anything, then 10, 15, and 20... I started worrying, unsure what might have happened, so I asked David if he'd run me down to the store, since I'd 'just remembered' I needed something...

"Aw, man," he grumbled as I practically lifted him from the couch, "I was just starting to get somewhere with all this." He gestured at his math book, calculator, paper, and pen, all of which showed no signs of his 'getting' anywhere.

"Yeah, well, you can do it later... c'mon, man!"

"OK, OK, but if I wind up flunking math, I'll hold you responsible!" he threatened, half-jokingly. I mean, we both knew he wouldn't flunk math... the teachers all liked him too much to let him flunk any of his classes, even if he never did the homework... but we always joked about it, since if he was anyone else, he would've flunked... but I digress...

"Yeah, yeah, whatever... let's go already!"

I chased him out to the car, and we raced down the road, pushing 70 as we went around the corners, David driving like a madman posessed, me rushing him to go faster. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, we got to the store, only to see an ambulance pulling away...

I jumped out of the car practically before it stopped, running over to the officer taking notes from the clerk, both of whom were standing right next to Jacob's car.

"What happened?" I demanded of the officer, who looked at me over the top of his glasses.

"'Nother damn gaybashing," he grunted, although whether he was more irritated about the bashing itself or the fact he'd been pulled away from the donut shop for just some gay kid, I wasn't sure.

"Who was involved?" I pressed him, looking around in hopes I might see Jacob standing around, watching what was going on, or maybe inside the store, still trying to decide what chips to get... but it was all in vain, I realized, when the cop said the thing I feared worst...

"A local boy... Jacob Azure, his name is. We're trying to find who did it..."

I hardly heard the rest... I screamed in agony, knowing in my heart exactly who did it, and why... Chris did it, in revenge, because I loved Jacob and not him... Chris did it, and there was nothing I could do now to
stop him, now that it was all over...

Suddenly, I felt a pair of arms around me, and I turned to face David, who was blinking back tears.

"Hey, you OK?" he asked in an injured tone.

"No..." I replied between sobs, gasping for air when I wasn't speaking, "I knew... knew Chris... was gonna do something... stupid... I tried to... be there for... Jacob... but I thought... he'd be OK..." I couldn't control it anymore and just broke down, David holding me tightly, trying to soothe me while I wept freely, the hot tears of pain and remorse coursing down my cheeks, landing on David's shirt... not that he noticed at the moment.

"Is he gonna be OK, do you think?" David asked the cop, who was about ready to go back to the office, do some paperwork, and act like it never happened... that's the way the cops usually handled these things... but then, I could've been wrong, since this guy was a rookie, and new to Ukiah, so he might actually have been different...

"I can't say," he answered, looking at his notepad rather than either of us. "They took him to Adventist Hospital, to the emergency room... he was in real bad shape, but you never know, he might make it through still somehow."

With that, the cop climbed into his car and sped off, hopefully looking for Chris... not that he'd necessarily find him if he was, but he'd try, at least... The clerk went back inside to tend his shop, leaving me and David still sitting there on the ground, people walking around us, giving us weird looks as they entered and left the shop.

After a couple of minutes, I managed to choke down the last of the tears, and we climbed into the car and headed for the ER, driving faster than I ever remember David driving, while I just sat there, completely numb to the world, wondering what might have happened if I had been there with Jacob...
would the cop have caught Chris in the act? Would Chris have even gone after me, or just Jacob? Would he have just taken off, and none of this would've happened? I didn't and couldn't know, but I wished that somehow it'd been me instead of Jacob... that it was me in the hospital, bleeding all over the place, instead of the only one I loved...

We got to the hospital and went inside as quickly as possible, grabbing the first nurse we ran into.

"What do you need?" she asked us, eyeing us both suspiciously.

"My brother, Jacob Azure, just got brought in by ambulance a little while ago... what room is he in?"

She looked at the roster for rooms, then glanced at us both. "Well, says here he's in Intensive Care right now... no visitors there... the waiting room is right over there, go have a seat, I'll let the doctor know you're here," she finished officiously, then heads off through a pair of metal doors, and is gone.

We walk over to the waiting room, which luckily was currently empty. We sat next to each other, holding each other, both of us sobbing lightly now... we'd both seen enough TV shows to know that if Jacob was in Intensive Care, he didn't have too much of a chance, especially with the local hospital... I mean, for Adventist to even do Intensive Care patients was rare, since most of the time they'd send the patient down to Santa Rosa in a helicopter, unless the injury is immediately lifethreatening, to where even the time it'd take to move the patient could kill them...

My mind was racing faster and faster, but nothing coherent was coming out... just a series of pleas and curses and wishes... the thing I wished most of all, though, was that I could've been there with Jacob... if nothing else, maybe I could've stopped Chris, or at least kept him from hurting Jacob... to my mind, either way would've been better than sitting out here in the waiting room, not knowing if Jacob was gonna live or die, hoping that he would live, while the entire time I knew there was something I could do... hell, if
nothing else, I could've told David, let him know what was going on... let him take care of Jacob... I knew I couldn't, knew I wouldn't be able to be there for him the entire time, but I had to be stubborn and try... and that was worse than anything else, knowing that my stubborn pride, that my 'sense of duty', was what ultimately caused Jacob's pain... that, and the fact that I broke my own rule... I cheated on Jacob with Chris, let Chris think that my heart was all about him, when in reality, I still knew, deep down, that I would still love Jacob, no matter what... it all seemed so unfair... not that it was unfair to me, but that it was unfair to Jacob, that I dragged him into this... if only I didn't say his name... if only I hadn't cheated on him with Chris... if only I hadn't taken off with him in the first place, or if I hadn't caught Jacob
cheating on me... hell, for that matter, if only we hadn't gone to the club in the first place!

Of course, there was nothing I could do about that now... nothing I could do about anything, except sit there and hope that Jacob would be all right... but even then, I knew that everything would be different... nothing could possibly be the same, not after what happened...

***

It's some time later... days, weeks... hell, where does the time go? I check my watch, unable to believe how long it's really been... that day was almost four years ago...

Everything really did change on that day, and now, looking back, sometimes I wonder why things had to happen that way... I didn't want Jacob to get hurt, especially not for my mistakes... but then, I made another mistake, let him go on his own... and he did get hurt, and for my mistakes... that was years ago,
but the last time I saw him, he was still in a wheelchair, unable to walk... the best doctors money could buy were looking at him, trying to get him back to where he was, but they didn't seem to have much hope for him...

Chris was caught, luckily, not far from there, where he was 'celebrating' with some of his friends... but before he got arrested, he gave them my name, told them I was Jacob's boyfriend, and that it was my fault he was being arrested... and in a weird, roundabout way, I suppose it was, at that... I never truly did forgive him for what he did to Jacob, and I'm pretty sure that Jacob didn't, either, although we never talked about it... but if someone happened to bring Chris's name up around Jacob, his eyes would go flat and he'd get this weird look on his face, like he wished he could kill someone... I guess I can understand that, but I don't think that even David ever fully will...

David wound up meeting someone online and moving down to San Francisco to be with him... last I heard, they've been together for over a year, which is, in my book, pretty impressive... and David's boyfriend... well, actually, perhaps I should say fiancee?... absolutely adores Jacob, who still spends most of his time being cute... that's one thing that even the incident couldn't change...

Oh yeah... and Jacob managed to find someone new, it seemed, soon after I left... he had an 'old friend', as he told me, who found out he'd moved to SF and decided to ask him out. They were still together, last time I heard, and deliriously happy... so at least Jacob could still find happiness, which gave me more relief than you could ever possibly imagine...

My mother wound up having a heart attack and died... and although I know she disowned me, and hated me for what I am, I couldn't help but be there and mourn her loss, because I still love her for who she was... She had a large gathering for her funeral, which was in traditional Catholic style... not that I can vouch for that personally, but that's what I was told, at least... I don't know enough about the Catholic religion to know the difference, honestly...

Rachel wound up marrying the first guy to come along and show interest in her... then had a divorce when he realized he was gay. All in all, she didn't have very good luck with relationships, but at least she managed to develop a sense of humor about it, and until we lost contact, we managed to become pretty
good friends, all in all...

As for me, well, I tried to get into UC Berkley, but I couldn't make enough scholarships to pay my way... so, I decided to explore the world, meet new people... who knew? Maybe I could find someone who needed me... or maybe I could find something to make my life whole. Either way, I figured it'd be
new and exciting... and since the old life in Ukiah was getting rather boring, what with having to dodge gaybashers everywhere I looked, I decided that it was, pretty much, now or never... so I moved.

But that, as they always say in the books, is another story, and for now, not one I'll tell just yet... but oh well, there's always tomorrow... and the day after that, and so on down the line, right?

*FIN*