The Tunnel Of Doubt - 6. Chapter 6

“Trevor!” I was being shaken awake by Ryan, “Morning inspection.” I complied and made myself presentable for our soon to arrive inspector, which when the clock struck 7:00am happened. “So last day, are you ready for Christmas?”. I looked at Ryan with an unapproving emotionless face, “Ahh...I see.”

Christmas season, the school had been preparing for this day for a long time and even cancelled classes this day. I was happy about that, because the last thing I wanted to happen is to see Liam in Math and Science, also the humiliation of people knowing about me was too much to handle. The only thing I could be excited for is seeing Tyler again. He would make my lie a million times better just with a hug. I know it. I could count on it!

“Trevor, take some advice from me. You need to let some of this shit go. There is no point in holding it in. Also, you can deny it all you want to me and everyone else, but you can’t deny it to yourself. This isn’t about Liam is it. It’s about the actions, not the person. Just test it out by substituting in anyone to what Liam did, and if you would react the same way, then it’s about the actions that you're angry at. And if you can admit that, then you can forgive a soul and feel yourself get better.” He stepped closer to me, wanting his message to get across to me, “You deserve happiness, and the only way you can achieve that is with giving happiness.”

Was this supposed to be a plot for him to make me talk to Liam again but this time I’d be forgiving him? How was I supposed to forgive Liam? He lied to me, and accused me of things I didn’t do. How was any of that forgivable?

“Think about your Brother Trev, you love him. I know you do. What if Tyler told someone about you being gay and lied to you about it. Maybe...just maybe he lied because he loves you and doesn’t want you to hate him. Now I know Liam was mean to you but you have to remember, Liam didn’t have the best role models in his life to look up to. I’m not making excuses for him, but his dad would accuse him of stealing money from his mom when in reality his dad was the one who stole the money. His mom would get angry and yell at him even though his dad deserved the punishment. Deep down Liam feels like he’s suffered enough punishments he didn’t deserve he couldn’t handle another one.” What exactly was happening here? “Forgive Liam, let yourself get peace, and things will get better. You can’t feel happy unless you start the healing process.”

It wasn’t even 9:00am yet and already Ryan had said more than he’s said in the entire dilemma. We talked for another hour, well mostly he talked, I just was stubborn so he had to keep telling me the same thing over and over again until eventually I finally agreed to write him a letter. That way I could get all my feelings out without yelling or being interrupted. Ryan even stayed with me while I wrote it that way he could give me feedback.

Dear Liam,

I forgive you.

And I apologize.

We both deserve happiness, however possible. We can’t achieve that happiness carrying around anger or regret and sadness. I want to be happy and I want you to be happy. I mean it to this day, you being happy matters to me. For this entire event I was masked and skewed with emotions that blinded me that made it seem I was only looking out for myself. And in a way I did. I got hurt, you got hurt, and it’s time we put these chapter behind us. At least I’m putting them behind me. I can see now that you're not a bad person, we both aren’t bad people. We just made bad choices, but those can be forgiven.

I forgive you, and I’m sorry.

From,

Trevor

“How’s that?” I asked Ryan.

“Pretty good, you seemed a bit more on the sorry side then on the forgiving side though, but I see the forgiveness parts in there. Now just remember, you may not hear from him, but don’t stress about it. You’re doing this for your mental health, and letting it go doesn’t mean hearing your letter validated by him. It’s already validated by you.”

Ryan took the letter and went back to his room to deliver it himself. He said it was best he do it that way there was no interference from me. I know I wasn’t supposed to wait on a reaction but I couldn’t help it. I really poured my soul out on this one, for once in a fair amount of time I could see things clearly again. I had a new cleaner lens to look through. I could see now that Liam and I both were holding grudges that wasn’t fair, and wouldn’t make anything any better.

“Trevor open up!” I walked to the door and opened it and saw Liam standing there by himself. “Umm...Hey. Can I come in?”

I smiled faintly opening the door for him to enter. and we walked inside and sat on the chairs at the small breakfast table. “I’m assuming you read the letter.”

“I did. I just want to say thank you. After Father George told you how I was the one who told, I felt humiliated. I thought after how crummy I treated you, I never even told myself I deserved forgiveness or even wanted it. But your letter free’d me of all my feelings. I finally felt like...like I wasn’t a bad person anymore. It felt like I just made a horrible choice, but that I could still make better choices to do right by you and me.”

“I want things to be better Liam. We don’t deserve this pain we’ve been carrying around. If I helped you in anyway, I’m really happy about that.”

“You always were a dork. That’s what I just said.” We both softly laughed at the remark and I think things were finally good between us. World War III had stopped, peace was achieved and happiness was obtained. I’d say that’s pretty damn good for A 16 and 15 year old’s first experiences with love. “In our time apart never have I hated myself more than last night. But you helped me. I can’t thank you enough for that.”

“Maybe….maybe we can agree to never let this happen again?” I stuck my hand out for him to shake it to which he responded with by shaking my hand saying he agreed. I nearly melted from feeling his hand again, just like the first day when he shook my hand. “I’ll understand completely if you say no, but...do you think you can still come up for Christmas?”

“Trevor Johnson...are you asking ME over for Christmas? Are...are you sure.?”

“Hahaha, as crazy as I may be you still are important to me and I wanna share the biggest holiday of the year with you. And besides I promised you you’d get to meet my brother, and I want to honour that.”

We smiled at each other mutually and for that brief moment made an eye contact that made me feel full again. You know that kinda eye contact you share with someone that communicates more than any words can ever hope to? Like there are only so many words in our language but sometimes you just can’t find any and this was one of those moments. But we both knew what it meant and together we leaned in and softly and sweetly kissed. I don’t think either of us were in the mood for huge make up sex, at least I wasn’t, but that didn’t matter. Sometimes a kiss is more than sex can ever hope to be.

“What did I do to deserve someone as amazing as you in my life?” He said while resting his head on his hand.

“Ugh, lets not get into that mushy stuff ya great big romantic hehehe.” I guessed the next thing I had to do was apologize to Zack. I excused myself but told Liam to stay put. I didn’t think it would take long, I was gonna make sure this was as uncomplicated as possible. Just come clean Trevor, Zack will understand, or at least respect me. That’s all I need. I quickly walked to Zack’s room and knocked on the door.

“Um...hey.” He said looking conflicted between being happy and scared.

“Can we talk real quick?”

“Sure, come in. David is out.” I stepped in and he offered me a pop from the fridge but I declined. I had to make sure this didn’t take long.

“Sooo, I owe you an apology. I treated you horribly. I used you inappropriately during a hard time and took you for granted when you continued to help me. That was wrong of me, and I want you to know I still value and appreciate you.”

“It’s okay. I mean I did kinda come onto you first after all” He looked down and nervously giggled to himself, “Thank you though. It means a lot.”

“So no hard feelings?” Zack laughed out loud and when I caught on as to why I joined in with him. I gave him a hug and a quick kiss on his cheek and said, “I’ll see you after Christmas Break buddy.” and let myself out. I got back to my room where Liam was waiting just like I had requested, “You waited!” I said happily.

“Of course I did, why wouldn’t I stay in my own room!” As soon as he said that I ran up to him and gave him one of those super happy hugs where you lift the other person up. I’ll admit since I wasn’t the most strongest I did struggle but I did lift both his feet off of the ground which meant I succeeded in my mind. I brought him back down onto the ground and kissed him while gripping his face on both of his cheeks.

“I take it from your reaction you approve of me moving back in?”

“Of course I do!”

“Good. I’ll go get my things. We have to pack for your house afterall!”

He ran off down to Ryan’s room to collect his stuff while I laid there on bed with a stupid grin on my face. Hehehe I had Liam back, Zack didn’t hate me, life was good! After about 10 minutes of Liam walking in and out dropping off all his stuff, he finally said he had it all. We packed my stuff up and just chilled together as we waited for dismissal time when my dad and Tyler would be here to pick us up. To be honest, I never told my parents about Liam visiting, but they won’t say no, right? “Hey Liam, I think there here.” I said after hearing what I thought was a knock on our dorm room. I opened it up and of course Tyler was right there.

“TREVOR!” He yelled out in excitement and gave me the biggest and happiest hugs he ever gave me. He actually pushed me back a few steps from the force of the impact.

“Hey there buddy” I said laughing, “How are ya?”

“GOOD!”

I managed to pry him off of me and said hi to my dad, however he clearly knew that the typical parent questions could wait. “Um, Tyler, there is someone I want you to meet.” I said walking him into the room where Liam was watching my family reunion with a giant smile. “This is Liam. He’s my best friend in the whole school.”

“Nice to meet you Tyler. Trev has-” Before Liam could even finish Tyler had taken him hostage in his over friendly hug. “I hear you like Spiderman. He’s really cool eh”

“He’s the best! Trevor is Iron Man, and I’m Spider Man! HEY! You can be Batman!”

“Hehehe, I’d like that very much” Liam said looking at me smiling with one of those ‘I don’t know what is happening but I like it very much’ looks on his face. “Oh, um Hi Mr. Johnson. I’d shake your hand but I’m too busy right now as you can see.”

“Nice to meet you Liam. Tyler loves you as much as he loves Trevor from the looks of it.” My dad said laughing to himself. “Shall we get your stuff in the car, son?” Uh oh. After about 5 minutes of convincing and dad saying ‘your mother will flip’ he eventually agreed and said it might even be good for the family. We got into the car and Tyler being the chatterbox he is gave Liam a whole walkthrough of his life story, starting with his friends, his bullies, his favourite things, favourite Spiderman movie, favourite food. Liam just smiled and nodded and I think was even genuinely interested in what he had to say. I don’t think I could have asked for a better boyfriend.

After arriving at the house and getting settled in and my mom being slightly awkward about an unexpected visitor finally let down her wall and welcomed Liam as if he was a member of the family anyway. I wondered when the time to tell them would ever come to fruition but right now I liked how the sleeping arrangements meant Liam could stay in my room. I don’t think they’d be so allowing if they knew of our true feelings for each other. We walked into my room and Liam saw all my music, movie, and sport posters and CD collection and movies on my shelf, you know all the stuff he couldn’t see at the dorm.

“Wow man. Sick room!”

“Thanks! I certainly like it.”

“HEY! What about my room!” Tyler said standing at the doorway.

“Well lets see your room then Tyler. I’m sure it will beat Trevor’s. He’s a dork eh.” Liam said ruffling Tyler’s hair on the way out. We entered Tyler’s room which had Spiderman everything. His bedspread, his pillows, his posters, his spiderman action figures all over the floor but a nice arrangement I had made for him stood proudly on his bookshelf. He opened up his toy box and showed even more superhero toys of other people. Batman, Superman, Hulk, you name it, Tyler had it.

“Here you can have this one.” Tyler said handing Liam a small batman action figure. “I have two of these.”

“Awww, thanks Ty!.”

“Hey Tyler, can you let Liam and me talk in my room alone? I promise you we’ll all hang out tonight okay.”

“Okay” he said and ran downstairs to be with my parents.

I don’t think either of us could hold out any longer and suddenly Liam just grabbed me and kissed me right there in Tyler’s room. “He’s better than I ever could have expected! How are you so lucky!?”

“Yea...how am I so lucky?” I said giving him one of those ‘I’m thinking of you’ looks, to which he blushed nervously and looked at the floor.

Later that evening the three of us hung out in my room and watched Toy Story 1, 2, and 3. Tyler passed out in my bed between Liam and I, but we didn’t think to wake him up. We just all fell asleep together. I heard my mom and call my dad over while standing in the door inspecting us before they went to bed themselves.

“God they are so cute.” My mom said

“You should have seen Tyler’s reaction at the dorm. It was a sight to behold.”

“Oh I can just picture it.” And then I heard the door softly close.

My parents asked Liam and I about school. I told them about the good things and some of the bad things, but not the really bad stuff. Christmas Eve rolled around a week later and of course we all had fun watching Christmas themed marathons of hit movies. My dad made the best Chicken dinner, but I think us kids enjoyed the desert and the junk food watching the movies just a little better.

“Well it looks like a few boys must be off to bed before Santa skips over because you’re not fast asleep.” My dad said. Tyler’s face went into one of those adorable panic faces and dragged Liam and I to bed. I was surprised any of us managed to fall asleep to sleep that night. As Liam and I were laying in bed however, we had to give each other our Christmas appreciations.

“Trevor. This has been the best present anyone has ever given to me. I’ve never had this much fun on Christmas.” I took a hold of his hand for my turn.

“Man, you made this my best Christmas ever as well. I don’t even think Tyler has had this much fun ever!”

“God he’s adorable. I’m just going to say this now, he’s my brother now to. I don’t care what ya say.”

“Hehehe, fine by me. Now come here.” I rolled on top of him to deliver a nice pleasant kiss that spoke everything including ‘I love you’ and ‘you make Christmas special’

“Are you guys KISSING?” I turned over in complete shock and humiliation at Tyler who had snuck his way into my room, and no joke was literally standing beside my bed. Crap, I didn’t want this happening so soon. Liam looked horrified as well, and I think he felt like he had just broken Tyler’s perfect vision of the world.

“Uhhhh. Tyler...look. It’s like this kay.” I wanted to explain something, anything, that would somehow make sense but also not the whole truth. He mouth was still hanging open and then he got a huge grin on his face.

“That’s so cool! How come no one kisses ME like that!” Liam completely started laughing his heart out and looked like he might die from suffocation!

“One day someone will Ty. One day!” Liam managed to say while laughing.

“Tyler!” I said gripping him by his shoulders. “You CAN’T tell Mom and Dad about this okay. Not right now anyway.”

“Why not?”

“Because...because….because Iron man can’t be seen kissing anyone! Otherwise people will think I’m not doing my job!”

“Ohhhh. Okay then” He said it like he actually believed me. You got to love five year olds, you just have to!

He went back to his room and Liam and I finally fell asleep after our little event. Christmas morning arrived with Tyler running all over the place to my room and my parents room waking us all up because Santa had come. Liam and I walked downstairs in our pyjamas, which only made his butt look soooo much more cute hehehe. We sat down on the floor while my parents sat on the couch and said. “Liam, since you're our guest this year. Why don’t you be Santa Clause.”

“Okay!” Liam got up and started looking through presents to give out to people, the first one he picked out was Tyler’s present from me. I was so excited for his reaction. Tyler tore off the wrapping paper and saw it was a copy of Spiderman 2 on PS2. His smile got super wide and gave me a huge hug and must of said thank you a million times.

Next was a present to me from my parents. I opened it up and saw it was a copy of The Marshal Mathers LP by Eminem on Vinyl! I got a huge smile and said thank you and hugged them.

“Just keep it down son. That’s your music, not ours.” My dad said and I smiled back knowing I wouldn’t be listening to that request, which of course my dad knew anyway.

I reached under the tree and grabbed Liam’s present. I said it would be kinda weird for Liam to give a present to himself so that’s why I stepped in. He opened up the present revealing a boxset of The Walking Dead comic series.

“OMG Trevor! You shouldn’t have!” He said and gave me a nice smile and a look that I knew meant he’d wanna do more, but you know, the po-po were still here.

“Hey Tyler, get your present for Liam now!” Tyler reached under the tree and got his present, that I bought on Tyler’s request of course, and handed it to Liam. Liam started to open it and saw the content was a batman shirt and mask.

“Awwww! This is the BEST present EVER Tyler!” Liam said and brought him in for a hug. Tyler then all of a sudden gave him a kiss on the cheek and giggled a bit.

“There! Now you have two presents!”. He said I know the kiss no doubt came from Tyler’s curiosity matched with his overwhelming admiration for Liam. But who could blame him? Liam was just that amazing.

The rest of Christmas break went by and soon it was time for school again. We did so many things together though! We went skating, skiing, build snow forts, and had a giant snowball war with the kids in my neighbourhood. We went to the maple forest and played a lot of video games and bought a fuck load of CD’s!

On the day before the last day Liam and I decided to come clean to my parents about our relationship. It had taken a lot of courage on both our parts but together we knew we could do it. It was quite the experience let me tell you that!

“Mom, Dad. Liam and I have something to say.” I said getting them into the living room. “Well...you know how I said Liam and I were best friends? Well that’s not exactly true.” Liam kinda stood there letting me do the talking and after a few stumbles around not knowing what to say eventually it just kinda came out. “Liam and I are together” I said

The looks we received were emotionless as they processed and then my dad piped up “Son, we knew you might have been into boys since you were little. You never were into girls growing up. It’s not something we don’t notice.”

My mom continued, “We love you and your happiness is all that matters. Whether that is with a boy or a girl doesn’t make a difference.” Liam and I both smiled at what appeared to be receiving my parents ‘blessing’? Either way it overjoyed us both. “Now I don't’ want to make you two uncomfortable but I must say Trevor, you picked out quite a cute one!” Liam started giggling to himself and became red as a tomato and I just wanted to kiss him right there. I figured I’d save that however for another time and for now just hugged him.

“You told!” Tyler said running up to us and joining in on the hug. “I love you Liam!” He said jumping up and down.

“Hehehe I love you to little man.”

I wish I could say I knew for sure Liam and I were destined to be happy ever after, but the truth is I didn’t. I didn’t know what challenges life was going to throw our way. Would we thrive and become stronger through them? Or would we crumble? The very thought of losing Liam to these sure to be faced challenges rippled me to my bone. One thing I do know however is that we had the support of the most important people to us, which made school based problems that much easier to deal with. The kids and the faculty could throw all the bible verses at me they wanted, it didn’t matter anymore. The students could snicker all they wanted every time LIam and I went out on a date and we left or came back dressed up and holding hands. My mom even managed to save us from being expelled because she managed to trick the school into thinking she worked on the CBC and said she would tarnish their reputation for good if they punished anyone for their sexual orientation.

Tyler got a huge smile and was excited everytime he knew Liam was coming to visit. Liam really did become a member of the family. In fact it wasn’t a strange sight to see Liam driving up in his car to pick me up just to get away from Tyler for a little alone time all to ourselves hehehe. Was life perfect again? No, life wasn’t perfect. But it sure as hell was the most beautiful thing I knew besides Liam.