One Moment - 9. Chapter 9

One Moment

Chapter 9

Matt refused to go to bed once they got back to the facility, and even though the police had said they would not show for at least a couple of hours, Dr. Marshall was inclined to let Matt stay up. It didn’t take long however for the exhausted boy to pass out on the sofa in his office.

He looked at Mark and nodded for him to follow him into the hallway, closing the door gently behind them. They stood near the door, not wanting to be too far away from Matt but far enough away so that if he should happen to wake up he would not hear their conversation.

“I think Matt and Danny were more than friends.” Dr. Marshall said quietly.

“Really?” Mark asked surprised, as he had not gotten that inclination. “Why do you say that?”

Dr. Marshall leaned against the wall and looked down the hall to make sure no one was around, even though it was well past 2am.

“Well for one thing there was only one bed in that cabin. But mostly by Matt’s reaction to this, I mean I know friends can be very close but that boy is beyond devastated,” he said, pointing back at the door behind which Matt was sleeping. “It makes me certain that what he and Danny had was far more special than a friendship.”

Mark nodded; glad he had not become a shrink, as he had not really picked up on any of that. He knew Matt was damn upset but didn’t take it for anything more than face value, though now that the doctor had said it, it made perfect sense.

“I think there’s a lot to Matt we don’t know, I was always sure he was hiding a lot but after tonight I think it’s even more than I even imagined.”

Mark nodded getting the same impression.

“I don’t want you to tell any body about my assumption. I told you because you have been, and I want you to continue, working closely with him. I do not want it to get out to any of the boys though; therefore, I would say for now we keep this just between us. You and I both know how cruel these boys can be, this isn’t exactly a tolerant environment. Matt has enough on his mind to deal with without being teased for that.”

Agreeing whole-heartedly Mark nodded letting the doctor know that he would indeed keep this bit of news quiet.

When the police showed up at just after six am, two hours later than even they’d predicted, they were led right into Dr. Marshall’s office. Mark sat next to Matt on the sofa gently waking him up as the two officers sat down in the two chairs in front of Dr. Marshall’s desk.

“We’d like to file a missing person’s report.” Dr. Marshall explained after introductions were made. He explained about Danny, the cabin, that he had been sick, and was last seen about a month earlier. After he was through one of the officers looked at Matt.

“Can you give us a description of the boy son?”

Matt nodded groggily, even though he’d gotten a couple hours of sleep, his body and mind were still exhausted. He had a feel it had little to do with actual tiredness and more to do with just being very upset over Danny.

“He was tall, like at least a couple of inches taller than me. Skinny, he had dark brown hair and dark green eyes. He’d either be wearing a gray sweatshirt and jeans or a blue sweater and jeans.”

“You haven’t seen him in a month,” The officer said confused. “How do you know what he’d be wearing?”

“It was all he had. He has to be wearing one or the other.”

“Okay,” the man said in a disbelieving tone, one that got under Dr. Marshall’s skin though he decided not to mention it. “What was Danny’s last name?”

“I don’t know.” Matt said shrugging.

“You lived with him for eight months and don’t know his last name?” The officer asked displaying even more disbelief.

“We didn’t go by last names. None of the kids on the street did. I think it’s like a rule or something.”

“Well,” the officer said sighing. “We haven’t got a lot to go on here. And it’s been an awful long time, Danny could be anywhere.”

“We just want you to search the woods around the cabin, at least.”

With another heavy sigh, the officer nodded. “Okay we’ll send some people out there this morning. We’ll get back to you this afternoon.” He stood up and nodded to his partner and the two were gone as quickly as they had come.

Dr. Marshall looked over at Matthew who was now staring at the empty doorway the officers had passed through. “If he’s out there Matt they’ll find him,” he said, not really having the faith in the officers he was conveying to Matthew. He had full intentions of riding out there himself when he left to make sure they were really searching.

Matt nodded, too exhausted to argue, or even speak.

Dr. Marshall stood up. “I’m going to go home for a while; I’ll be back this afternoon,” he said, even though it was his day off. “Get Matt to bed Mark then you go home and sleep too, I’d like it if you could come back this afternoon when you wake up though.”

Mark nodded, not really wanting to leave at all, but knowing he did need some sleep. “Come on Matt,” he said, standing up and gently pulling on Matt’s elbow to help him to his feet.

Matt stood up and followed Mark down the hall to the bedroom, glad he was going to be able to go to bed. He could not imagine having to stay awake, he needed to sleep, if only to escape for a little bit.

As it was Sunday, most of the beds were still occupied as they got to sleep in until 8am on Sundays. Matt only saw two empty ones, his foggy mind surprised when he saw Andy’s was one of them. He didn’t figure Andy was the type to be an early riser, of course being made to go to bed at eight every night, like Andy was, he figured a person only needed so many hours of sleep.

He started to get into bed, clothes and all, before Mark stopped him.

“Put your pajamas on Matt, you won’t be very comfortable still in your clothes.”

Though he felt too tired to put them on, he also was too tired to argue so he pulled his pajamas out from under his pillow and walked behind the screen. Seconds later he walked back out into the room, dumped his clothes in the hamper then walked over and crawled in deep under the covers, pulling them up tightly around his neck as he rolled onto his side and curled up into a ball, then fell fast asleep.

He awoke several hours later to someone saying his name. He slowly opened his eyes to see Andy sitting on next bed over.

Matt wiped at his eyes certainly confused as to why Andy was there waking him up. He was even more surprised when he looked around the room and saw there was no adult guard in there. Propping himself up on his elbows he looked back at Andy, a little perturbed he had been awoken. Especially if Andy were only there to tease him.

“What?”

“What did you do?”

Shaking his head in confusion Matt only stared back at him.

“Why were the police here this morning?”

Matt sighed figuring it was just his luck Andy would be the one to see the cops there. “I didn’t do anything; they just had to ask some questions.”

“About what?”

“A friend of mine.” He answered figuring Andy wouldn’t stop bugging him until he got answers.

“Did your friend do something bad?”

“No, he’s just missing.” Matt said, the hard lump falling into the pit of his stomach again, the same one that had landed in his stomach the night before when they’d walked into the cabin to find it empty.

“How come you got to sleep all day?”

Matt rolled his eyes and shook his head. “God you’re nosey.” Not really caring if that got him yelled at or not, he was very surprised to find Andy only chuckling beside him and not calling him an asshole or something.

“Are you sick?”

Matt shook his head as he lay back down and stared up at the ceiling.

“I guess you’re not on three foot rule anymore.” Andy continued chattering away. “There’s no guard in here.”

Matt nodded though he did not understand why, he wasn’t even sure he was happy about it. At least with Mark around him all the time the other kids hadn’t been able to tease him much. “Maybe it was just ‘cause I’m sleeping.”

“No they watch you when you sleep too. Does it mean you’re not going to try and run away anymore?”

Matt nodded again, cringing at the amount of questions he imagined his answer would bring.

“Why not? Did you decide you like this place?” Andy asked sounding very surprised.

“It’s not so bad.” Matt answered simply, picking at the blanket on his bed.

“Well it’s time for supper.” Andy said standing up, much to Matt’s relief. “You coming?”

Matt shook his head and rolled back over. He didn’t feel like eating, didn’t feel like doing anything that would require him to get out of bed. He wasn’t even back to sleep yet when Mark appeared over his bed with a plate in his hand.

“Andy said you didn’t want to come to dinner Matt, but you have to eat something.” He said sitting down in the chair that he’d pulled up to the bed.

“I’m really not hungry.” Matt’s stomach had been roiling since the night before and he really was not even sure that if he did eat he would be able to keep anything down.

“You haven’t eaten in 24 hours now Matt, you have to have something.” Mark held out the plate and Matt slowly sat up and took it in his hand. Just looking at the turkey sandwich in the plate made his stomach turn even more, but he knew it would be useless to argue, and if he did puke it up, maybe they’d listen when he said he didn’t want to eat the next time.

Mark watched closely as the boy went through the motions of eating. Matt seemed to have changed over night. Even though he was never an exactly happy boy now he just seemed listless, uncaring, and defeated. Three things Mark hated to see in anyone, but for some reason with Matt especially.

He wanted to say something, anything to make Matt feel better, but he knew deep down that no words could really make Matt feel better at this point. No words other than they found Danny and he is alive and well. Which he couldn’t say, because he hadn’t heard any such thing, in fact as of ten minutes ago they hadn’t heard any word at all.

Just as Matt had suspected, with only a few bites left of the tasteless sandwich, his stomach started to rebel. He held his mouth tightly closed putting his hand up over it, quickly set the plate down and threw back the blankets on the bed. Getting up he took off at a dead run straight for the bathroom where he deposited what he’d eaten and some foul tasting bile into the toilet in the first stall of the bathroom.

When he was through heaving, he quickly flushed the nasty smelling mess away then wiped at his watery eyes and rubbed at his aching stomach. He settled in on his knees and rested his head on the cool porcelain of the toilet, his heart aching worse than his stomach.

He didn’t know how he could have been so stupid, why had he made such a stupid promise in the first place? How could he have actually followed through on such a promise? How was he dumb enough to believe that Danny would actually be okay out there alone for nearly a month? Now he had nothing, and it was entirely his fault.

A very frustrated Dr. Marshall picked up the phone in his office when it finally rang at six fifteen.

“Dr. Marshall here.”

“Dr. Marshall this is Officer Black, we were out there earlier.”

“Yes,” he said, glad it was the call he’d been waiting all afternoon for.

“We didn’t find anything out there. The boy must just have moved on.”

“Can’t you check with the local hospitals and schools to see if he’s there?” Jack asked, hating for Matt not to have a solid answer for what happened to Danny.

“Not without a last name sir.”

“So this is all you’re going to do?” He wasn’t at all surprised but needed clarification.

“All we can do, these street kids don’t usually stay in one place too long. We don’t have the resources or the time to go tracking them down.”

Dr. Marshall merely grunted as he hung up the phone. The officer had made a good point but he knew that wouldn’t help Matthew. It just wasn’t fair that they could not do more. He again thought of how lucky Matt was to have gotten there. Just by the cops attitude he knew they wouldn’t have thought twice about just sending him on to the youth camp. Thankfully, Matt had had a social worker that cared. Something Dr. Marshall was very thankful for since he knew Matt was a good kid. Better than most probably, though it had been slow to reveal itself. But the more he got to know the boy, the more secrets that came out, the more he realized that Matt was something special, that boys like him didn’t come along every day. He knew it would have been a terrible shame for Matt to waste away in a youth camp being treated like some common criminal that the Doctor was becoming more and more convinced every day that he was not.

He thought back to the conversation a few days ago when Matt had stressed that, ‘sometimes you had to do things you didn’t want to do to be happy.’ Just knowing what he knew now about Danny and seeing the small run down shack they lived in, he took the statement much more to heart. There they were, two boys just trying to make it in life when no one else cared. Trying to do on their own what most people don’t have to do for a few more years. Trying to do it when no one would give them the time of day let alone give them a job. He did not in any way condone that they had sold themselves for sex, but did understand a little bit more why they had done it, or felt the need to.

Mark, who was sitting beside an again sleeping Matt’s bed, stood up and walked up to Dr. Marshall as he walked into the room.

“Did they find anything?”

Jack shook his head.

“Well that’s good news right? I mean that pretty much means he can’t be dead.”

“It may be, the problem is I don’t know how thoroughly they actually searched, and I don’t think Matt’s going to find it good news. I think he’s going to need actual proof Danny’s not dead before he’ll ever believe he’s not.”

Mark nodded as he looked back at Matt’s sleeping form. “He threw up his dinner. I’m really worried about him. He’s just completely devastated.”

Dr. Marshall looked over at Matt, not really too surprised. “Let’s give him a few days, see how he is. I can put him on medication if he doesn’t get better, but I hate to do that, I really don’t like to drug these kids. Sometimes though it’s unavoidable and I understand that.” He sighed then looked back at Mark. “I’m going to go home, you should probably do the same, and I imagine he’ll sleep through the night now. I am going to let him stay in bed again tomorrow if he wants, I’ll leave a note for Mary. If he does choose to stay in bed though I want you with him, play some games or something, just try to keep him busy. I don’t want him stagnating in here; I just don’t think he’ll be up for class or dealing with the other kids.”

Mark nodded thinking that sounded like a good idea to him too.

When Matt woke up the next morning, Mark was again by his bedside, this time a plate of toast in his hand. Matt’s stomach turned again just seeing and smelling it as he realized, throwing up or not, they were still going to make him eat.

“I really don’t want that,” He said clutching his stomach figuring it wouldn’t hurt to at least argue a little.

“I’m sorry Matt you have to try. You can get really sick if you don’t eat.” Mark set the toast on the nightstand and helped Matt sit up, fluffing up the pillows behind him so he could lean back against them.

“But I got really sick when I did eat yesterday.” Matt countered as he allowed himself to be propped up even though he would have been perfectly capable of doing it on his own.

Mark nodded as he set the plate of toast in Matt’s lap. “Yeah so that makes nearly 36 hours that your stomach hasn’t had any nourishment. That’s not good at all.”

“I’ve gone that long before.”

Mark looked at Matt, his heart aching, as he figured Matt had gone that long during his time as a runaway, something he wouldn’t wish on anyone. “There’s no point arguing here Matt.” He said with a small smile. “You have to eat this.”

Matt pushed the toast around on his plate for a minute or so before he finally picked up a piece and took a few bites. It tasted like rubber but his stomach, even though it still felt very sick, didn’t protest as it had the day before.

When he was through, he handed the plate back to Mark and took a deep breath as a wave of nausea hit him.

“You okay?” Mark asked seeing the deep breath.

Matt nodded, relieved the feeling had passed, somewhat. He started to settle back into the bed but Mark’s hand stopped him.

“Not yet bud, you need to take a shower too.”

Looking at him Matt sighed. “I don’t feel like it, I’m too tired.”

“You need to have one; it might perk you up a bit.”

Matt grunted as he pushed the blankets down the bed, he didn’t want to be perked up, he wanted to be sad, and he deserved to be sad in light of his own severe stupidity. Danny was dead; he didn’t have any right to be happy. Mark had told him the night before that they hadn’t found any body, but that hadn’t made him feel any better. He knew Danny was dead, no matter what anyone told him and no matter if they never found any body.

He grabbed a clean pair of pajamas out of his top drawer and walked off to the bathroom. Mark, walking behind him, had to stifle a laugh as the boy grumbled under his breath that he didn’t stink and didn’t need a stupid shower the entire way.

Matt stood under the hot spray, having to admit the shower did feel good, though it didn’t sway his argument that he didn’t want to take one. He didn’t want to feel good, that wouldn’t be fair, not to Danny. He took the fastest shower possible while still cleaning every spot and shampooing his hair.

After he got out of the shower, dried himself and got his pajamas on he looked at the toilet realizing he really did have to pee. He stood over the toilet and relieved himself surprised at the longevity of it, but figuring it was probably only because he had not peed in so long. He had mastered the art of holding his pee growing up. With his father around it was always safe to stay quietly in the bedroom all night long. Many times if you were out of his sight and did not make any noise, he left you alone. Sometimes it didn’t help, but many times, it did. He’d gotten so good at holding it he hardly even felt the discomfort anymore, which had come in very useful when he was still at home, and seemed to be proving useful here, as he’d rather stay in bed than have to get up and pee every few hours.

Once they got back to the bedroom Matt got back in bed. “Can I sleep yet?” He asked, he was very dismayed to see Mark shaking his head.

“Nope, we are gonna play games.”

“I don’t want to play games.” Matt said angrily.

Surprised at his anger Mark studied him, not sure why he’d be so against it. “Why not?”

Matt took a deep breath, annoyed he actually had to explain it. “My friend’s dead Mark, all cause of me, I’m not going to sit here and enjoy myself while he’s dead.”

Mark’s shoulders drooped as he slowly nodded his head, not really sure of what to say. After a moment of thinking, he said. “So how long do you have to suffer?”

“Huh?”

“How long do you feel you need to be miserable?”

“Dead is forever.” Matt sneered pulling the blankets up around his neck as though to shield himself.

“Oh Matt,” Mark said shaking his head. “Do you really think Danny would want you to be miserable the rest of your life?”

Matt nodded without hesitation. “It’s my fault he’s dead. I need to suffer.” He rolled onto his side, curled his knees up to his chest, and pulled the blankets up over his head, hoping to leave no room for argument.

Mark watched the form under the blanket, motionless at first before it started to shake very slowly and the sounds of muffled sniffling came out from under the blanket.