One Moment - 8. Chapter 8

One Moment

Chapter 8

Mark Elgers had just walked in his front door on Saturday afternoon after getting home from work when the phone in his house started to ring. Quickly kicking the door closed with his foot, he walked over to the phone and picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Mark?”

“Yes?” He said recognizing Dr. Marshall’s voice.

“I hate to ask this, but can you come back here?”

“Well sure, is something wrong?”

There was a sigh on the other end of the phone before the man answered. “Matt tried to run away again, I doubt you were even out of the driveway at the time. He’s in the isolation room again and he’s very upset. Look why don’t you just come in and I’ll fill you in a little more. I’d really like it if you could be the one to be with him when he’s this upset.”

“Okay I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” Mark turned right back around and walked back out of his house, worried about Matt and a little honored at Dr. Marshall’s request. He drove 10 miles over the speed limit the whole way back to the facility.

He found Dr. Marshall just coming down the hall when he walked in, a notebook in his hand.

“Let’s go to my office.”

Mark nodded and followed the doctor into his office, then accepted the notebook the doctor had been carrying.

“That’s Matt’s journal.” Dr. Marshall said pointing to it as Mark opened it up. “It will probably explain why I want you to be the one to be with Matt right now.”

Mark sat down on the edge of one of the chairs while Dr. Marshall sat on the corner of his desk. He finished reading then handed the book back feeling even more honored by all the nice things Matt had said about him in the book. He had had a strong feeling the boy liked him but it was still very nice to read the confirmation.

“I think he’s going to open up to you before he opens up to me or anyone else. In addition, I think the best time to try is when he is as upset as he is now. We need to find out why he keeps trying to run away. He’s not going to get any benefit out of this place if his mind is consumed with trying to run away.”

“You want me to just come out and ask him?”

“Whatever you think is best Mark, you’ve gotten through to him more than anyone else here. Whatever you are doing is working, we just need to try and rush it along a little bit.”

Mark nodded and stood up from the chair rubbing his nervously sweating hands along his pants hoping he could do what the Doctor seemed to think he could. He left the office and walked down the hallways until he got to the isolation room. Several staff members were still in the room, four of them still holding Matt down though it seemed to Mark that he had already stopped struggling against them.

Knowing he had full reign over the situation from Dr. Marshall, he said. “You guys can let him up, he’ll be okay.”

They all looked up at him in surprise, all of them knowing procedure for stopping the restrains.

“It’s okay.” Mark said looking down at Matt who was face down on the mattress, his hair, neck, and shirt all damp with sweat.

Not looking as if they wanted to, all of the men slowly released their hold on Matt and stood up. “You want us to stay?” Roger, another staff member, asked.

“No, it’s okay.” Mark said nodding, knowing all he had to do was give a loud yell and they’d all come running again, should Matt decide to try to run again. However, by the looks of it, Matt seemed too exhausted to do much of any moving at all let alone trying to run away.

As soon as the men left the room, Mark walked over and knelt down in front of Matt’s face. The boy’s face was streaked with tears and his breathing was still heavy. Mark got on his knees, sat back on his feet, reached out, and brushed the matted hair off Matt’s forehead. “You okay buddy?” Had he not been watching so closely he would have completely missed the quick shake of Matt’s head.

“Why do you do this to yourself Matt? Don’t you know you can’t get away?” Mark asked moving his hand from Matt’s head to his shoulder.

“I have to.” Matt choked out, his voice very hoarse.

“Why do you have to? What aren’t you telling us?” Mark was positive Matt had a big secret, had been positive since the conversation at the breakfast table earlier in the week.

Matt closed his eyes, which caused a few more tears to seep out. He pulled one hand up along the mattress and covered his face hating that Mark, or anyone for that matter would see him cry. He hated crying, yet it was all he seemed to be able to do when his frustration and desperation got so high.

Mark rubbed at Matt’s back hating to see Matt cry as much at Matt hated anyone seeing him cry. “We can help Matt; you just have to tell us what’s wrong.”

“I can’t tell.” Matt sobbed out. “I promised.”

“Who? Who did you promise?” There was no answer only more crying and Mark thought frantically for another way to broach the subject. “Matt this promise, I have a feeling you’re not thinking it was such a good idea to make.”

Matt’s hand slowly moved away from his eyes wiping them in the process. Slowly his eyes moved up to Mark questioningly. “Really?”

Mark nodded, a glimmer of hope growing in him that he just may be able to convince Matt it would be better to tell than to let whatever this secret was eat him alive.

“Yes,” he said slowly thinking on his next words. “You said yourself you like it here. Yet for some reason you keep trying to leave. I have a feeling you must have promised someone something that requires you to not be here anymore to be able to keep it. Am I right?”

Matt slowly nodded.

“And even though you probably wouldn’t mind staying here you know you’ve got this promise to keep so you can’t just let yourself relax. You won’t let yourself until your promise is kept.” He studied Matt carefully but did not get any response, which led him to believe he had gone astray a bit in his thinking.

He talked for another half an hour getting no response at all from Matt. Sure he had failed, Mark sat back against the wall thinking that Matt was asleep.

He looked at his watch a while later to see it was already nearly 10pm. Matt still had another two hours to go in the room and not wanting to face Dr. Marshall to admit his failure he decided to wait out the two hours with Matt.

“Mark?”

Mark looked back at Matt whose eyes were open again.

“Yes?”

Matt slowly sat up taking a deep breath still not sure of what he was about to do even though he’d spent the last two hours going over it in his head. Arguing with himself back and forth on whether or not to tell. Finally, he’d decided he had to tell, it was obvious he was never going to get out of there on his own. He was no closer to getting away now than he was on his first attempt. Even though he figured it was probably already too late he decided he would rather have Danny pissed at him, and possibly never speak to him again rather than have him dead.

“I’ll tell you now.”

Mark’s eyes widened surprised as hell, as he was certain that Matt had gone to sleep with no intention at all of telling. Now he wondered if Matt had really been sleeping at all but rather laying there thinking.

“I have a friend.” He said friend even though Danny was so much more, because he did not want anyone in this place to know he was gay. Being poor was bad enough, he didn’t need for any of them to have another excuse to hate him. “I lived with him for the last eight months.”

Mark nodded surprised, as he was certain Dr. Marshall had said he was homeless.

“He got sick; I went to get him medicine.” Matt paused not wanting to say the next part. “And well I never made it back, I was brought here instead.”

“Where is your friend? I mean where did you leave him?”

“Where were you staying?”

“Some place in the woods.”

“You mean just you and him? No adults?”

Matt nodded.

Mark stood up and reached out for Matt’s hand helping him up too.

“Where are we going?” Matt asked as they walked through the halls.

“To talk to Dr. Marshall, geesh you should have said so before Matt, we could have gone out there long ago. We could have gotten him help.”

Matt stopped, tears springing to his eyes again.

“I promised.” Matt said crying. “He made me promise not to bring anyone back.”

Mark turned around knowing he had said the wrong thing and put his hands on Matt’s shoulders. “I know Matt, I’m sorry, I understand why you did it, keeping a promise is an important thing and you are very honorable for trying. He should never have had you make such a promise, so you can’t feel bad for breaking it.”

Matt only shook his head unable to stop his tears, as he was lead into Dr. Marshall’s office, who was still there waiting on news from Mark.

Mark told the doctor exactly what Matt had said and when he was through Dr. Marshall stood up and grabbed his jacket and keys. “Can you find this place Matt? Do you know how to get there from here?”

Matt rubbed at his eyes and nodded, starting to feel angry with himself for not telling sooner. He knew Danny did not want him telling anyone and that is why he hadn’t but he had thought over the past week that even if he had told he’d have been blown off, he certainly didn’t think they’d believe him, let alone be so willing to go out and help.

“Run and get him a jacket Mark. We’ll be waiting by the door.” Dr. Marshall said putting his hand on Matt’s shoulder as the three of them left his office.

Mark met them at the front door where Matt put on his jacket before Dr. Marshall ran his badge through the scanner next to the door. Matt was shocked to find that he wasn’t latched onto the minute they walked outside, was also shocked that it was just the three of them going. He figured that if he were out in the great wide open, he would have four or five guards to assure he did not run away.

“You sit in back with him.” Dr. Marshall said to Mark as they stood near his black Lexus. He opened the driver’s side door then clicked the button to unlock the other doors before he sat down behind the wheel.

Matt slid into the back seat first followed directly by Mark. They both put on their seat belts as the car started backing up.

“How do I get there Matt?” Dr. Marshall asked looking at the boy in his rearview mirror as he turned the car around.

“You have to go back into town and take the road by the drug store, the one that goes up into the mountains.”

They rode in silence for a long while before Dr. Marshall spoke up from the front seat. “I’m proud of you Matt.”

Matt looked up at the back of the doctor’s head totally confused as to why the man would be proud of him. He did not have to ask or wait long before he found out.

“It takes a lot of bravery to do what you did tonight, not to mention to do all you did to try and keep this promise you made in the first place. I’m sorry you were asked to make such a promise but I’m glad you realized it was time to break that promise.”

Matt looked down at his hands as he wrung them together still hoping he had done the right thing, and hoping it wasn’t already too late.

“You have to turn onto the dirt road that’s up here just past the truck stop on the right.” He shivered and looked the other way as they passed the truck stop, the place causing a feeling of fear in his head and a feeling of nausea in his stomach.

Once on the dirt road Dr. Marshall was thankful there was a full moon that made the heavy forest they were driving into just a little more visible along with the help of his headlights. The road seemed to get narrower, the trees thicker with each minute that passed, and he hoped his “meant for leisure-driving” car would withstand the ruts he was now running over.

“There’s another road that turns off this on the left, but it’s got an old log down in front of it, that’s the road we need, you have to walk from there though, cause of the log.” Matt said from the back seat.

“Is it a long walk?” Dr. Marshall asked.

“I don’t know, a couple miles probably.”

“Is the road real bad?”

“No worse than this one I don’t think.”

Once they reached the road that was blocked off by a log, Dr. Marshall parked in front of it, his headlights shining on it. “We’re going to have to move that log. I don’t know about you guys but I’m not walking two miles in the woods at almost midnight on a cold fall night! I think the three of us can move that out of the way.” He said eyeing the log that really wasn’t very big, only big enough to stop a car from going over it.

The three got out of the car and just as he’d thought, were able to easily move the log off to the side of the road. Once they were all back in the car Matt spoke up.

“How come you guys aren’t more worried I’m going to run away?”

“Because you already told us why you were trying to run Matt.” Mark answered. “We are taking you to where you needed to get to, why would you run away now?”

“Don’t you think I might be lying?”

Dr. Marshall’s and Mark’s eyes met in the rearview mirror, neither had thought for a minute that the boy was lying and they didn’t now, what surprised them was that Matt seemed so surprised they’d actually believed him.

“We don’t see any reason why you’d lie son. You haven’t been dishonest with any of us since we’ve known you.” Dr. Marshall said, cringing as the car hit a particularly large rut then continued. “And you haven’t tried to run tonight so apparently we were right in how we felt.”

“But what if we get there and there’s like this ambush to distract you guys so I can get away.” He had been very serious so he couldn’t figure out why Mark and Dr. Marshall were suddenly laughing.

“What?” he asked totally baffled when their laughter had died away.

“You just don’t seem that devious Matt.” Mark explained. “You seem like a pretty straight forward, if not a little quiet, guy. I can’t really picture you doing anything like that.”

“But I did try to run away in the first place.” Matt countered.

Dr. Marshall looked at him again from the front seat. “And you had a reason Matt. I’m so glad we know that now.”

Matt sat back against the cool leather seat still not sure that what he was doing was right but still pleased that both Mark and Dr. Marshall seemed so happy about it, he could only hope the same could be said for Danny but he seriously doubted that.

They came out of the deep woods and into a small clearing where the headlights of the car shined on a small run down cabin, the silvery glow of the moonlight giving it an almost ghostly appearance. The words in Matt’s descriptive paragraph could not have painted a better picture of it than Van Gogh himself could have done. Mark and Dr. Marshall both were amazed as it almost felt like they’d seen it before just by what Matt had written.

The three got out of the car, Dr. Marshall grabbing a flashlight out of the glove box, as he highly doubted the old cabin had any electricity. Matt led the way up to the rickety old stairs that looked ready to fall apart along with a railing that pretty much had fallen apart. Many of its posts were laying on the ground below the stairs with just enough of them left to hold up the railing but certainly not enough to hold up any weight if anyone leaned on it as they made their way up the five steps to a small porch with several broken boards on it.

Matt opened the door and the three stepped inside. Dr. Marshall flicked on his flashlight and moved the beam around the small one room cabin, as he shone the light around he saw everything Matt had described. It didn’t look half as nice as Matt had described it but everything was there in the same places Matt had written them to be.

He shone the light on Matt who was standing near the far side of the room near an empty bed.

“He’s not here.” The boy said his voice breaking. “How can he not be here?”

Mark walked across the room and put his arm over the boy’s shoulder. “Maybe he went and got help on his own Matt.”

“What if he died?” Matt said looking up at him with tear filled eyes.

“If he died there’d be a body here Matt. There’s no body, which means he had to have left here.”

“What if he got out of here and into the woods and died?”

Mark looked at Dr. Marshall not sure of what to say.

“We’ll have them look Matt. I’ll call the police as soon as we get back, they can search the area to see if he’s out here somewhere.”

Matt put his hands up over his eyes and turned his body into Mark’s, pressing his hands covered face into the man’s chest as his body shook with sobs. “I waited too long; I should have said something sooner!”

Shocked Matt was seeking such a direct form of comfort from him, Mark wrapped his arms around the boy as he dissolved into his arms. “Matt we don’t even know what happened yet. Danny could be just fine just as easy as not. You did what you felt was right in any event.” He looked over at Dr. Marshall, who had removed the beam of the flashlight from them and was surveying the rest of the room, the bed in particular, hoping the man would give him at least a little guidance in how to handle the situation. Not getting any help from the man, he just held Matt in his arms until the boy’s cries ceased.

Matt stepped back and looked up at Mark wiping furiously at his eyes. “I don’t think we ought to call the cops. I don’t want Danny to get in trouble.”

“Why would he be in trouble?”

“They may send him home.” Matt said quickly not wanting to tell them that Danny frequently committed the crime that had landed Matt in the facility.

“How old is Danny?” Dr. Marshall asked returning the beam of light in Matt’s direction.

“I don’t know for sure.” Matt said shrugging, “Maybe seventeen. He’s around my age maybe a little older.”

“So he ran away from home too?”

“No,” Matt shook his head as he wiped at his eyes again. “His parents left him here.”

“What do you mean?”

Matt walked over to the bed and sat down, the strain of his fear over Danny making him feel suddenly too exhausted to stand. “They came here on vacation. Danny went off sightseeing on his own one day, and he never found his parents again. They were supposed to meet up some place and his parents never showed, and when he went back to the campground they and all their stuff was gone.”

Dr. Marshall sighed, as he looked at Mark, his heart aching for the poor kid. “How old was he when they did that?”

“I don’t know, it was about three years ago.”

Matt ran his hand along the bed remembering fondly the many nights they’d shared the bed huddled up in each other’s arms under the one blanket to keep warm. Remembering how they’d talked long into the night. Talked about their dreams, their future together, how happy they would be once they were old enough to get jobs without having to worry about getting parental permission to work.

He smiled, as another tear trickled down his cheek, remembering all the times Danny had made him laugh. He’d never laughed much growing up, but with Danny, it was as if he was always laughing, always laughing and always happy. He didn’t think he’d ever be that happy again, he didn’t believe Danny would have gone out and found help on his own. He was too scared of having to go home. His parents had not wanted him in the first place, but as Danny said, police didn’t take notice of that stuff. He hated his parents as much as they’d apparently hated him.

Why would Danny have made him promise not to get any help? That fact alone told him Danny hadn’t gone for help, he wouldn’t have made him promise not to, then gone and done it himself, and it just didn’t make any sense. That meant Danny or rather his body had to be around there somewhere.

He quickly stood up off the bed and headed for the door but was quickly detained by Mark who wrapped his arms around his waist. “No Matt, you can’t leave now.”

“But I have to find him,” Matt said desperately pushing at Mark’s hands but not hitting and kicking at him like he usually did. “I’m not gonna run I just have to find him!”

Dr. Marshall walked up to Matt, the moonlight coming in from the window illuminating his face enough so he could read the boys sheer desperation and pain without the help of his flashlight. “We’ll call the police as soon as we get back Matt, the three of us out looking in these woods with one flashlight will be pointless, if he’s out there, they’ll find him.”

Matt looked up at the man, his eyes watery. “You can’t call the police!”

“They won’t send him home Matt, not if his parents left him here in the first place. I can promise you that.”

Matt opened his mouth to argue some more but realized he couldn’t, not without revealing that Danny had been a prostitute, he didn’t want these men knowing that. He did not want Danny labeled as anything and he already knew what these people thought of prostitution. Hell they thought he was one, that’s why he was locked up in the first place. He didn’t want Danny to be stuck with the same stigma if by any chance in hell he was even still alive.

He stopped struggling again as his knees seemed to give out on him and more sobs wracked his body. It didn’t matter at all, Danny was dead he was sure of it. Who in hell cared if the police went looking for him, they couldn’t arrest a dead body for Christ sakes.

Dr. Marshall nodded to Mark. “Let’s get back.”

Mark half led, half carried a still sobbing Matt back out to the car, he made no more effort to get away and the minute they sat down in the backseat of the car Matt pressed his face into Mark’s chest gripping onto him as though he were a life line. His heart seemed to fall to pieces at what he was sure was the loss of the greatest person that had ever come into his life. Someone he was positive no one else would ever come close to comparing too.