Love is just 4 letters - 15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15
Brandon
In all honesty, I can’t believe it.
Who could have done this to him?
Marcos deserved none of this. When Rayne told me the news, (and sped up the car almost getting us into a accident) my mind blanked.
Who could have done this to him?
That same question kept floating through my mind as I tried to comprehend the situation.
Marcos has been shot! What the hell?
“Rayne?” I said trying to snap him out of his stupor as we pulled up to the hospital. “Rayne? Come on now man, wake up!” I snapped my fingers in front of his face, and he looked at me with tears in his eyes.
He quickly wiped them away, and said as he got out of the car, “Come on, we’ve got to find out where he is.”
I got out of the car and silently followed him as his dreads danced in the wind. He was extremely stressed out by this, and I could understand why. From what I know, Rayne has known Marcos for a while now, and he considers him a brother. I just hope seeing Marcos like this won’t hurt Rayne too badly.
He asked the nurse at the front desk, “Excuse me miss, I’m looking for a Marcos Rovario, I believe that he is a patient here.”
The nurse wasn’t one of those bitchy nurses whose main goal in life was to make everyone as miserable as can be, so she was nice enough to tell us exactly where Marcos was and she gave us directions for the quickest way to get there.
When we got into the elevator, Rayne fell back against the wall, and slid down to the floor. He smiled sadly, “How the hell can this be happening Brandon? He just was reunited with his father, so everything should be good for him then, right? But no, something like this just had to happen, didn’t it?” He paused, “I mean, he and Bruce were supposed to get married, I was supposed plan it.”
He looked directly ahead as the elevator came to a halt, bringing him out of his line of thinking. He said, “You know, though, Bruce never exactly told us where he had been shot, I pray to God that it wasn’t somewhere bad.”
We walked down the hallway to the waiting area where we saw Dison, a white man, and Bruce sitting in the chairs. Bruce was holding his head in his hands, while Dison and the other man were trying to comfort him.
Rayne walked up, laid a hand on Bruce’s shoulder, and said, “How’s he doing?”
Bruce just looked up, giving him a small smile, his eyes red and puffy as he had obviously been crying for a while. He didn’t give an answer, so Dison spoke for him.
“We were just walking along the pier at Shockoe Bottom while Ricky, oh by the way, this is Ricky, my lover. Ricky, this is Rayne, the singer, and his friend Brandon.”
The slightly pudgy man shook our hands, and said, “Nice to meet you both. In the short time that I have spent with the both Marcos and Bruce, they have spoken highly of you.”
“Nice to meet you too.” Rayne said while sizing the man up. Turning back to Dison, “Go on.”
“Well, the whole time, Ricky and I were holding hands. We should have known better, that area is pretty well known for gay bashings, but we didn’t think that anything would happen in broad daylight. We thought wrong.” He paused, “We didn’t notice that a car was slowly coming up behind us. It pulled right up beside us, and the window lowered, and a woman’s face appeared. She yelled out, ‘Die faggots!’ pulled a gun out and tried to shoot us. At the last moment though, Marcos dived in front of us, and took the shot in his arm.” Dison held back a sob as Ricky held onto him.
I raised an eyebrow, amazed that some girl would be crazy enough to do some shit like this, but…then again, maybe not. Some women don’t like gay men as much as some men don’t. I blame the men on the down low…lying bastards.
I asked them, “Did any of you get a good look at her?”
“Not really,” Ricky said, “We did see that she was light-skinned, and she had long, dark hair. That the only good look we got at her before she sped away.”
Rayne asked, “Did you go to the police?”
“Yeah,” Bruce said softly, speaking for the first time since we got there. “They got there when we called the ambulance, and they said that they would be looking for the woman.”
“That’s good.” I said.
A middle aged Asian doctor came through the doors in front of us. He looked at us, and said “You must be here for Marcos Rovario?” All of us nodded, “I’m Dr. Inu, and, well, you don’t have to worry, it’s not fatal nor does it us to have to amputate his arm since you got him here so fast. Consider yourselves, and him, lucky. The bullet didn’t pierce anything vital in his arm, but, unfortunately, it is still in there. We need the consent of the wife or a parent to be able to do this.”
“Why can’t you just get his fiancé,” I pointed at Bruce, “To sign the papers?”
He sighed, “Unfortunately, Virginia does not acknowledge homosexual couples on most legal documents, including things like this. If it were up to me, I would let you do it, but I’m sincerely sorry that I cannot.” He gestured to Dison, “You are his father, correct?” Dison nodded. “Then could you sign this for me please?”
Dison did, and Dr. Inu told us, “We shall begin operating right away. It should only take a few hours, so you all make yourselves busy.”
In that time, Rayne pulled me to the side.
He whispered, “Brandon, I think that I may have a clue who did this.”
That got him a surprised look. “What?”
“I believe that someone is out to get me and everyone around me. And I think that I know who it is.”
“Who?”
“Lina!”
“Wha…why the hell would she do this?”
“Because she hates my fucking guts.”
“Why?”
“Because she wanted me for herself but I told her I was gay, terminating our friendship and causing her to go all crazy psycho bitch on me.”
“Did this happen when you went to go see her a while ago?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t worry about it then, I thought it didn’t matter.”
“Rayne, baby, I don’t know if your right, but from what you’ve told me, this might be true. Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”
“Because I only have a feeling that it was her. A lot of women in Richmond match the description that they gave us. Could be any woman who hates gay men and would be crazy enough to shoot someone in broad daylight. And trust me, there are a lot of them in Richmond.”
I gave him a skeptical look, but the resignation in his eyes told me that he was not going to accept some bullshit thing like what ever I was about to say, so I shut my mouth. He did have some good reasons as to why she would do this though.
“But hold n,” I started, “How would she know who the even were? How in the world would she know to target them, and why didn’t she come straight after you?”
“Something tells me that she has been watching us, and that would explain why I got that strange phone call last week. That would also explain why she was able to target them, but to answer your last question, I get the feeling that she has something really big planned for me.”
I pulled him into a hug, and he laid his head on my shoulder as his dreads fell onto my arm.
I told him, “Don’t worry alright,” I kissed him on his forehead, “What ever this thing that she may have planned,” (If it really is her who did it) “We’ll get through this together, okay?”
He nodded. I raised his chin up, and kissed him softly. “It’ll be alright.”
For the next hour we sat and talked to the other while we consoled Bruce, who still hadn’t really come out of the shock of seeing his partner shot.
For about three hours, we sat there waiting for the operation to be over. Around 6 o’clock, Dr. Inu came back through the double doors.
We looked at him, hoping for the best. He pulled the mask he was wearing down from his face, and said, “It was a success. The bullets has been removes, and the wound has been patched up. You can see him just as soon as we move him into another room.”
No one was more relived than Bruce, who had the biggest smile on his face.
And 15 minutes later, we walked into the room that Marcos was transferred to. Bruce immediately went to his side, and Marcos slowly opened his eyes, clearly an aftereffect from the knockout gas.
Bruce said, “Hey babe.”
“Hey yourself.”
“How ya feelin’?”
“As good as anybody can after they get shot, I guess. This is a first time thing for me.”
“Yeah,” Bruce said with tears in his eyes, “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Don’t worry, mi amor, I’ll always be here for you, no matter what.” Bruce bent down and kissed him.
They were really into it until Dison coughed from the doorway. “Although this is extremely touching, the rest of us want to talk to him too.”
Bruce blushed and Marcos just laughed. The rest of us walked in and we all told him to get well soon, and we had a considerably good time. Until, that is Rayne’s text message sounder went off. He excused himself, and went out into the hallway. When he came back, he looked pale. He told me to come out into the hallway, and he showed me what the text said:
Don’t worry. Even though he’s not dead, your career will be, you just wait. The world will know your secret soon.