Brandon Smiling: From the Billy Chase Chronicles (1) - 22. Entry 22

April 29

Oh no!

I saw Jimmy today! Oh my God! His frigging eye was SWOLLEN shut! Ohhhh, I feel so BAD about this! What did I DO!

That's it! I'm NEVER helping anyone else ever again. Ever! Every time I try to make things better I just make them worse. It must be like what Hell is like.

There was this old joke my Grandpa told me once. I'm sure my mom would have had a coronary if she . . . oh. Let me, um, rephrase that, K?

I'm sure my mom would have been plenty upset if she'd heard what my Grandpa had been telling me but I thought it was funny at the time and still do. Well I did, anyway. That was until it started to be, like, for real. Now, it's not too funny anymore 'cause it's too close to the bone, ya know?

Anyways, the joke:

"There are too men in Hell in a pool of hot sewage. Both are chin deep in the stinking, steaming, and revolting bath.

The first guy is pretty concerned about the second guy since the second guy doesn't know what the first guy knows. So the first guy offers the second guy some sound advice in a careful whisper:

'Dude! Whatever you do . . . Don't make waves!'"

Yuck, I know, but funny up to a point. The moral of the story of course, being, when in a bad situation don't make it worse by doing anything that might upset shit (quite literally in the case of the two men in the story.)

That's right, I'm comparing this High School to a tub of hot sewage in Hell and I was the dummy that just made waves. Poor Jimmy was the one that had to eat it.

So, no more making waves for me! Just let the Jocks get away with murder 'cause no one in control of this place cares. I'll just stay out of their way and try to keep myself from eating too much shit too.

It goes against everything I've ever been taught about being a good person, though. I've always been told that if someone needs help you should help them because they are your brother and you are your brother's keeper. Very nice, but I don't remember too many people coming to MY aid when I needed help. It took my Dad and his Marine pal to help me out. None of my 'brethren' we're going to do anything but watch, point, and laugh when I got beat up.

That's what I feel is the deal in Jimmy's case here. His life isn't going to be worth a pile of horse crap around here now. He's a target now and things are just gonna get worse for him. Poor Jimmy . . .

I'd seen him at lunch today trying to avoid people staring at him and actually trying to TOUCH his black eye! What the actual fuck, dude!? I so much wanted to go over there and keep him company, but the 'Don't Make Waves' rule hit me and I stayed away. I'm such a coward. I actually went outside to the grassy area to eat just so I wouldn't have to look at him anymore.

I feel so helpless!

The books about lawyering I've been reading talk about being someone's advocate: a defender. I wish I knew some way to defend Jimmy and not have it come back to bite him and/or me in the ass so easily! I guess this is one of those 'life lessons' my Dad is always talking about. Miserable things that tell you how miserable the world is and how miserable you're gonna be in it. Life lessons, ha!

Damn, now I've gone and depressed myself again.

I'm going to go play World of Warcraft for a while. That might cheer me up . . . if I don't meet an Elite Mob while 'Farming' magical regents for my Mage character, that is. It would figure that I'd meet something like that and die like 20 times just to get around him. I'll feel like Jimmy must right now. Him in a room full of giant unbeatable monsters bearing down on him and no escape!

This is Brandon, Farming for magical regents and trying not to think about Jimmy.

April 30

Um . . .

Yeah.

So, kind of like today might be the worst day of my life since Mama died. I am still trying to process it. It's so not clear but then it might be clear as water in a glass too if I really look at things straight on. I don't know.

It could just be one of those things. It might just be a person's way of looking at things that is telling a story that maybe isn't there, but the evidence says it is. A lead, I guess, or reasonable suspicion of the truth of something.

Damn my law reading the other day! I don't know if I can keep reading that stuff if it's going to make me even more paranoid than I already am!

So, today I'm coming out of the Library and as I am I see that blonde dude that Billy hangs out with, this Sam guy. I didn't like him much before, having seen him egg on others of his kind with the bullying of other kids and stuff. I might like him even less now!

Frankly, since that day in the Mall, I've always wondered what Billy saw in this Sam that would make them such good friends. A jealous part of me figured secretly that Billy and Sam might be, like, an item or something. That they might be boyfriends rather than just friends. But, honestly, it didn't make much sense, really. Not at least from Sam's end from the looks of things. The brief times I've seen them together he just acts like a goofy buddy to Billy without any, well, intimacy, if ya know what I mean. No walking too close to one another or making googley eyes or whatever. None of that 'vibe'.

Anyway, I'm talking in circles again.

Now, however, I figure that neither one of these guys would have anything to do with each other because they're both very . . . straight, I guess. BOTH!

It seems that a girl likes Billy and that Billy has been wondering who it is. Today, one of the cheerleader squad was just chatting away with Sam and I overheard the whole thing. I pretended not to be listening, but I found myself leaning against the wall 'looking for something in my bag' so as not to be obvious.

So, a girl has been sending out signals into the High School social ether that she has a thing for Billy. This girl is one of the more popular ones but I'm only guessing this because of the source of this information coming from, basically, the female version Jamie Cross. Her name is Sarah Lightman and she shares English class with me. Part of me was surprised she'd even talk to Sam. Sam is good looking enough, but he's no Jamie. He's not even a Jesse from that YouTube thingie I see every now and then!

Sarah said that this girl was very interested in Billy. Sam looked like he took note of that. Despite myself I had to admire Sam's loyalty to Billy. He wasn't blinded by the cheerleader's tits or anything. He was really investigating this for his little friend. With a big toothy and charming smile he confirmed that:

"I think Billy will think this is SO cool! He's been wondering and wondering who it might be! He'll be so jacked that it's Joanna!" Sam says.

Billy will be 'jacked' if one of the prettiest girls in school likes him? I imagine this Sam knows Billy far better than I do. They seem to be the kind of inseparable that best friends are. I kind of got that feeling the first time I saw Billy at all and he was just caught up in talking to Sam.

So, basically, this says to me that if Billy would be thrilled that it's this Joanna girl that likes him then that pretty much confirms that Billy is . . . straight as an arrow. ~sigh~

I guess I can thank my lucky stars that I never got that much closer to Billy. It was always a risk having feelings like this for another boy you hardly know. But, I honestly thought I had Billy nailed as one of my 'kind'.

The way he looks at Jamie with drool on his lips. The way he almost flirts with that Simon guy all the time. The way he talked to me in the Library. The way he LOOKED at me in the Library.

It was all just my own imagination. My own twisted hopes and dreams for a gay lover that has all been made out to be one big joke on me. It was all in my head. Another 'life' lesson, I guess. Another clue that my feelings are totally wrong and off from what they should be.

Maybe Dad's right and I should go back in to counseling because obviously I'm still a broken mess from when my mom died. The counselor said I'd be having relapses probably for years and years to come and to expect them. She also said that I was 'at risk' so I should ask for help if I started to go off the rails again. Well . . . I hear the train breaks a'squealing, I guess.

Then there's the whole JOEseph thing. He probably would have been my confirmed boyfriend and I should have taken him up on it when he was still here. But, Joe isn't here anymore. He's gone. That would have made things simpler for me. I'd know what I know and I'd know that what I know about me is what is right for me . . . instead of wrong. It would have ended in tears anyway because if I'd have fallen in love with him he'd have had to go away and I really do think the heartbreak would have been 'It' for me this time.

Even my hopes for what could never have been seem to turn on me.

God must be 'testing' me. This must be some test of my 'faith'. Well, it seems not to be working if He want's my faith to get any stronger, because instead I'm losing it rapidly. I'm starting not to care about anything again. Yeah, some test. He better get that boiling sewage brewing down there so that when I fail entirely at this test I can be properly punished for my weakness!

I don't think I want to go to Church anymore. What's the point. Nothing matters.

I better stop for a few before a lightning bolt hits me . . .

~

So, Billy's been straight all along, huh?

Ah well . . .

It was always too much to hope that I'd ever have anything like love in this world. I'm going to be lonely and invisible always.

Always, always.

I'm writing this on paper tonight. I might throw it away and delete my blog later. I don't think I can do this anymore.

~ink spot smudged with moisture~