The Secret Life of Billy Chase - 30. Chapter 30

- Just the other day, I was wondering what I knew about AJ and if I could ever hope to make that entire 'concept' of having a cute gay boyfriend a reality. Just the other day...I doubted that there was anything to build on, and wondered if I knew anything about this boy at all other than he was sexy and I wanted him so badly that my TONGUE hurt! But NOW? Now he's all I think about! Every ten seconds, I swear! I think about him, and I smile, and I feel this weird...'orgasm' rush over my whole body. You know? I'm SERIOUS! It's like this overwhelming tingly sensation that washes over me and makes me weak in the knees. All I have to do is let AJ's sweet smile or his cute voice cross my mind, and I'm lost in this eternal moment of true happiness. It feels like...'being accepted', you know? Like...all that time I wasted feeling sick and perverted and wrong for what I felt in my heart was all suddenly justified. As if to say, at long last, 'THEY'RE the ones who had it wrong!!!' God, if only I could put this awesome feeling into words. Maybe it wasn't MEANT to be put into words. Maybe words cheapen the sensation somehow. Who knows? All I know is that I'm loving every minute of this, and AJ has succeeded in making me the most joyful and care-free boy in the world! Wow...he's so amazing. So damn....incredible.

Now...that doesn't mean that I've gotten the courage to actually CALL him yet! But I'm working on it.

I went over to Sam's place today, just to hang out on the Hill like we used to. It's strange, but all of the things that used to give us so much pleasure when we were younger just...don't seem to have the same level of importance anymore. And I can't understand why not. Or what happened to change that. Or what new part of my life had moved in to take its place. The Hill was like our private little spot away from the rest of the world just last year. But high school has changed all that, I s'pose. It's kinda like when we first went to Junior high together. I remember looking at the fence, and the basketball court and the wide open field...but Sam and I noticed one big missing piece of the puzzle. Where was the 'playground'? I distinctly remember talking to Sam about that. There suddely was no place for swings, slides, sandboxes, or monkey bars, anymore. Of course, we would soon be too old for that kind of stuff, I guess. But at the same time, it was like they didn't give us an option. It was just stolen away from us. What the hell were we gonna do with our lunch hour all of the sudden now that the playground was gone? I suppose we figured it out, but as soon as we got back to feeling normal again...we came to high school. And they changed the rules on us again. Go figure.

Anyway, we went to the Hill and just laid back for a while to talk. About nothing in particular, just to chit chat for old times sake. I'm not sure, at what point in the conversation, I began to drift back into my pointless infatuation with Sam and his cute little blond antics...but I did. I should be thankful. It was the first break I had from obsessing over AJ all day. Still...sometimes...I look at Sam and.....I get all 'stupid' again. I get so enraged at him for being straight sometimes! I get angry at God for dangling him in my fucking FACE like this all the time and saying 'Thou shall not touch'! But...at the same time, I love him on a level that nobody else could ever touch. Not even Jamie Cross. It feels good to have him in my life, and it's a big miserable cancer in my heart at the same time. Devouring me whole from the inside everyday. It's sick, but I guess I can't help myself anymore. It was a weird experience.

When I came back home, Joanna had left two messages on the answering machine. The caller ID said she had called at least five times though. You would think, with that level of subdued desperation, that there would be an emergency or something of dire importance to talk to me about. But...nope. She sounded happy enough to me. Just wanted to talk, play around, chit chat. Just like Sam and I were doing earlier. So...why didn't I call back right away? I don't know. I care about her an awful lot, more than I thought I ever would since we started 'dating'. But....tonight I just didn't have the energy. I knew that calling her up would lead to two whole hours of my life spent sitting on my bedroom floor doing NOTHING else but talking to her. And I just didn't want to do it that night. I just felt like I had so much to do today. I didn't have two hours to give her just to 'play' on the phone, you know? I didn't know when I would in the near future either. If I could talk to her for ten minutes, that would be awesome. But it's NEVER that easy to get a girl off the phone. NEVER! Hell, if I thought a simple 'manageable', ten minutes of pointless gabbing would be enough talking for her to accept, I'd call her three times a week! Hehehe! Now I've got to limit it to whatever super long amounts of time I can spare for her conversation. I feel kinda bad about that, but not as bad as I would if more of my life got sucked into that time warp and I fell behind in everything I had to do for school tomorrow.

I'm gonna get into my homework now and try to cram for this Math test tomorrow. Don't worry, I'll talk to Joanna tomorrow in school. I see her practically EVERYDAY, and Saturdays too. It's not like a whole lot has happened since I left the mall yesterday. We can talk about 'nothing' later. For now...I'm Billy...the super focused, hard working, free time boy. Hehehe! See ya later!

-Billy

- There was a brief period of paranoia this morning as I got ready for school. Mostly because I had just realized that I had openly kissed another boy on the lips! I mean...sure, it was Jimmy LaPlane, and we were just being 'friendly' about it all. But...how much of myself did I give away by saying yes? I wondered what I was gonna say to him when I saw him in the halls or in the gym. I wondered if, in his crazy little state of mind, he mentioned it to somebody. Or if he'd ask me for another one right in front of everybody! He HAS been quite the weird one lately! I never knew what to expect from him these days. Luckily for me, he didn't show up to school today. Whew! Maybe he's on suspension or something for his behavior. Which would be AWESOME! Because then I wouldn't have to run into him for a few days, and I could let my mind rest. Plus...he'll be leaving soon, and nobody will ever know. I think that would be best. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that me and Jimmy won't cross paths for a while. Although...I have to admit, while it was only an 'average' kiss while it was happening...it seemed to get hotter and hotter in the back of my mind as I looked back at it! Hehehe! Is that not the weirdest thing I've ever written in this book? Ok...total honesty time.

Last night, while I was laying in bed, I kinda thought about Jimmy asking me to....well, you know. I wondered what it would be like. Having sex with Jimmy. He's not all that bad looking, and he's gay, and he definitely had been looking forward to it for quite some time now. The thought of it kinda excited me. I wonder if he'd really let me fuck him right then and there. That is SO sexy! Hehehe, sorry, but it IS! Wow...I wonder what would have happened if I had taken him up on his offer. I wonder if I'll get another chance sometime soon. Geez...Joanna thinks I'm hot, AJ thinks I'm cute (Correction...REALLY cute!), and Jimmy has wanted to kiss me since he had braces on his teeth! I'm feeling kinda 'pumped up' here. I must be cuter than I thought! Hehehe!

OOH! One more good thing happened today! Guess what I got??? Brandon's phone number! And he's got mine! Isn't that awesome? We were in the library earlier, and some guy was washing the window outside. But we were on the third floor of the high school. So I didn't believe me when he said there was a guy outside the window, until I turned around and it was like, "Omigod!" Hehehe! It was funny, but I guess you had to be there. Anyway, we started talking about the Twilight Zone, and how that one guy was on the plane and that monster was outside on the wing, but nobody believed him. Well, it turns out that Brandon LOVES the Twilight Zone, and he has like EVERY episode that he could find on DVD! And even more on VHS. He was mentioning all these cool ones that I had never seen before. So he wanted to show it to me, and we talked about maybe getting together to have a marathon or something on Sunday. Man...while he was asking me for my number, I got SO nervous! I don't know why, but it was like shaking myself to pieces just trying to keep from giggling like some kind of maniac. So...we like...traded numbers, and he said he's gonna call me! He's gonna call ME! I bet he sounds cute on the phone! Plus, I can picture him naked while he talks to me! Hehehe! So I can't lose!

That's it for now! Gotta run, but I'll write some more later. Life is a GOOD thing right now! Can you imagine? Every now and then, you really feel like God is doing more than just watching you fail miserably at everything you want in life. And it feels good. It really feels good.

-Billy

- ...............I don't know what to say......

I'm....I'm crying as I write this right now. I'm CRYING!!! I think I've been crying for an hour straight now without stopping. I can barely see this page as anything more than some stupid fucking white blur! But I feel like....like...if I don't write down SOMETHING...if I don't at least...TRY...I'm going to explode. Or maybe...just wither away to nothing at all.

It started out as a few hushed comments between some kids in the hall that I happened to overhear going to my second period class. And I didn't pay it any attention really. It was ridiculous. If anything, I thought it was COMPLETELY heartless for anyone to even mention such an awful thing as a joke. But as I heard it a few more times during the day...as the whispers got a bit louder...and some of the details began to leak out more and more with every passing second...I began to wonder if it was true. It CAN'T be true! Right? I mean...that doesn't make any kind of fucking SENSE! That kind of thing doesn't happen here! Not HERE! Not to US! Not to ME!

Then...Mrs. Rich came into our fourth period class with red and swollen eyes, and she told us the truth. A truth that I wasn't ready for. A truth that left me numb until I got home from school today, and crying my eyes out ever since. I couldn't even do THAT much until I sat down on my bed and stared at the floor for ten minutes. It's true.......it's really true.

This weekend, right after I saw him...right after we laughed, right after we played, right after he gave me my very first kiss ever......Jimmy LaPlane tried to kill himself.

Suicide.....actual....suicide. I don't know if I can...handle something like this.

Thankfully, his mother was able to find him in time and he was rushed to the hospital. Razor blades...she found him....next to.....ok....let's not write that whole scenario out in this book. It's painful enough to think about as it is. The details get kinda fuzzy after that one shocking announcement. I don't think it really sank in at first. Maybe not even until hours later. I just kept asking myself the stupidest questions while waiting for the realization bomb to finally drop on me. Was it on Friday night? Did he do it on Saturday while I was gushing over AJ? Did he do it on Sunday while I was avoiding phone calls and laying out on the Hill with Sam? Did he do it yesterday when all I cared about was him telling somebody else that we kissed, hoping that he wouldn't come back to school? (God..I can't believe I wrote that yesterday...) I don't know. All I know is that....right now I think I'm hurting more than I have ever experienced before. I hurt so much that I actually feel kinda nauseous inside. But what confuses me is...I'm SCARED too! I don't know why, but I am. I'm terrified! Literally, PHYSICALLY, trembling! It's almost as if he had been targeted by some serial killer that lived here in this neighborhood. Or that he was infected with some highly contagious disease that could consume me at any moment. Whatever it was...it had come for Jimmy, and it could come for me too. I know it sounds ridiculous, but that's how it feels. I wanted it gone. It's eating me alive, and I can't stop shaking. I can hardly write this. I didn't want this in my life. This was too much. This was too real. I'm not supposed to be a witness to something like...like...this. This isn't supposed to happen. This is an act seen in tv shows and movies. It doesn't happen to good kids at age 14. It doesn't happen to happy, generous, sweet, loving, people like Jimmy LaPlane! It just DOESN'T!

I KNOW they teased him, and I KNOW he got humiliated sometimes! I KNOW they beat him up, mistreated him, ignored him and refused to talk to him, and that he...didn't have any love in his life.........

I was going to put a 'but...' there somewhere i that last sentence. Like...'but that's no reason to kill yourself.' Or...'but things were going to get better eventually.' Or maybe even...'but he'll find someone to make him happy. Someone who will finally treat him right and give him the love and attention he needs.' But...what guarantee did he have of any of that. How was I going to sit him down with a straight face and tell him that the assholes would leave him alone? Or that people will love him for more than just his looks? Or that if he just hangs in there a little bit longer, people will learn to accept him? I couldn't. The world is SHIT, and the people who inhabit it are even WORSE! So who the hell am I to tell Jimmy that he had something to live for? If anything, the facts and examples for his argument were more in his favor than mine. As far as I knew, his life had been one painful cycle after the next, where he always came up with absolutely nothing to make him want to keep going. I didn't see ANY of those little hopeful good times and loving affections that we all burn as fuel to make it to the next day. I guess, for him, his fuel just...ran out. He got stranded, and he just didn't care anymore. And you know what? The people he loved the most, couldn't care less either. Not a single one of them. Not even me. Not even when he went out of his way to tell me how he felt about me. I was so busy chasing AJ and drooling over Brandon and thinking about my parents and Joanna...I didn't stop to think that this boy was a part of my life. And he was in so much pain that he couldn't control it anymore. Why couldn't I SEE it??? It was right there in front of my FACE...and I couldn't fucking SEE it!!! He was HURTING! My GOD...Jimmy was hurting so MUCH, and I never stopped to think that maybe all it would have taken was a smile, or a hug, or some GODDAMN ATTENTION from someone he considered his FRIEND to save him!!!!

Ok.................ok........this is too much. I can't write anymore.

Jimmy....I'm sorry! I'm SO SORRY! Please forgive me! I didn't know! I swear to GOD, I didn't know! Please be ok! PLEASE oh PLEASE be ok!!!!!!