One Voice 02 - Here Without You (24 page)

*Tonight, Sunday, December 4, at the weekly One Voice meeting at Boston City College, One Voice member and my partner, Nate DeMarco, spoke bravely about holding on to hope in your darkest days. He told an extremely private story of how he thought he’d lost everything—only to find that he had more than he’d ever dreamed. And make no mistake—Nate’s problems have not yet been fully resolved, but he has found the motivation he needs to go on.

I’m incredibly proud of Nate for offering this intensely personal testimony to our twenty-seven One Voice members. My hope is that we all internalize it and then share it with those who need to hear it. As we well know, many of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters could use an inspirational story about not giving up at difficult points in their lives.

*To review Nate’s statement in its entirety, please check the attached document, where it has been transcribed into written form. (Thank you, Casey)

*One Voice will be holding our first “Annual Holiday Gathering for Everyone” at DeSalle Hall on Friday, December 16, at 8:00 p.m. We will play get-to-know-each other games, do mad libs, eat fruitcake, and maybe even sing songs. Yes. Good, old-fashioned holiday fun. The entrance fee is a wrapped toy with an index card taped to the outside that tells us what is inside.

*We need to make posters to advertise this event, as our goal is to involve as many students and friends as possible. Anyone willing to create posters please message Casey Minton on Facebook.

*Those interested in setting up for the event, please e-mail [email protected]

*If you want to help with the menu, message Anna on Facebook.

*Games crew, message contact person, Claire on FB, too.

(All of our contact info is listed on the home page of the blog.)

*And if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, you can call me, Zander Zane, at (603) 555-1235, message me on FB, or e-mail me at [email protected] Or just grab me in the hall or snag me on the quad. Just reach out to me, and I’m there.

We have come so far since the end of August, and I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna party it up big time.

*Important note: This is a dry party. Beverages will include root beer and hot apple cider—and not the spiked kind. We will get high on life without the help of controlled substances.

Zander Zane

23

Nate’s Diary

December 6

N
OT
SURE
where I got the balls from, but I spoke up at the One Voice meetin’ the other night. I was scared shitless to stand in front of that group of college kids and say something. But I was scared worse not to.

Here’s why. I wasn’t back on my game yet from what went down over the past few weeks. I hadn’t found a zone where I could relax, seein’ as I was still all uptight over what went down with Cindy, as well as with Zander and Casey. I lost her, and I almost fuckin’ lost them, and that wigged me out to the max.

But somethin’ else wigged me out even more than those things. And that was the fact that last week, right before Casey and Zander found me, I really didn’t give a shit if I saw another mornin’. I admitted that sorry fact to Zander and Casey over Thanksgiving weekend.

So, yeah, standin’ up in front of a crowd to talk about anything was friggin’ terrifyin’ for me, cuz it goes against my nature, but standin’ up to talk about my feelin’s was near impossible. I did it, though, cuz I was so thankful. Thankful those two found me and saved me from freezin’ to death or dehydratin’ or starvin’ in my truck. Then all would have been lost. My life would have been lost. And even though things could’ve got better someday in the future, I would’ve been gone and I never would’ve known that. And there ain’t no comin’ back from dead.

I’m thankful that I got a second chance. And if I could give one person, somewhere out there, a second chance by just tellin’ my true and ugly story, then fuck, I was gonna do it. And I was gonna do it ASAP.

Who knew what a desperate person might go and do tomorrow? So I got up there in front of those twenty-six other members, and I spilled my guts.

I told kinda like a circle of a story, startin’ when I was all in love and cozy visitin’ with my two guys here at school, and then movin’ on, in real general terms. All I said was my little sister got beat up and I blamed it on myself. Then how I found myself alone—no little sister, no job, no home, no food, no water, no boyfriends, no love. And then I told about how them two saved me, even though I didn’t ask to be saved. In fact I’d told them to get the hell outta my life. And how now I’m so damn glad they saved me.

I got lots to live for
, I told them.
I got cookin’ school and Casey’s family, and I got the hearts of these two guys right here. And I could’ve lost it all because I gave up hope.

I did my part by tellin’ what I been through. I feel good about it too.

I’d say each member of One Voice hugged me twice—and tight too. They really valued my story. A couple of them came up to me and said they’d been that low themselves a time or two, and some others told me they had the perfect person to tell my story to, who really needed to hear it. I spread a message about keepin’ hope alive.

Shit. I feel damn good about what I done.

Zander and Casey think I’m gonna be ready soon, as Casey says, “emotionally speaking,” to talk to Aunt Terri about seein’ Cindy. But us three, we’re gonna talk to Aunt Terri together. Zander says we’ll be one voice or no voice at all, so I ain’t got nothin’ to fear.

[email protected]

Hey, bro.

I know you were probably expecting a new One Voice blog entry, since I posted one last Sunday, but I feel like I have One Voice on a good solid path, and I need to do everything I can to get Nate on a solid path too.

Nate really, like in a majorly bad way, wants to get back in contact with his little sister. Casey and I are bound and determined to at least try to make all of Nate’s smallest wishes become reality. But that girl is not budging from her Nate-is-no-longer-my-brother stance. She actually doesn’t even refer to him as “Nate.” Nate’s Aunt Terri told us she refers to him as “the
N
word.” Yup, it’s that bad between those two.

Personally, if I were Nate, I’d give Cindy a little bit of time. She clearly had a ton of anger in her even before this whole thing happened, probably because her mother got hauled off to jail and left her in a crappy excuse for a home, and she felt abandoned. Whatever the case may be, Cindy caused trouble with their uncle and stood by to watch Nate take the fall. I think Nate can see that now, but he can’t bring himself to get pissed at her.

But Nate giving Cindy time—well, that’s not gonna happen. The dude’s losing his marbles over his little sister. He’s chomping at the bit to see her, to talk to her, and to be forgiven by her. And he has so damn much faith in me and Casey, that we can wave our magic wands and fix this situation for him. So last night we piled onto the pushed-together beds, put Aunt Terri and Cindy on speakerphone, and tried to talk to Cindy. The girl’s kinda immature, it seems to me. But then I don’t have much experience with fourteen-year-old girls yet. I’ll get more experience as I do my practicums for my degree, but right now I’m at a loss. Maybe she
is
acting perfectly normal for fourteen and female.

Cindy won’t talk directly to Nate. She will talk only to her aunt and a little bit to Casey and me, but never to the so-called “
N
word.”

Nate kind of shrivels up and dies a bit with every conversation. Last night’s discussion went something like this:

“So… uh… Cindy… uh, just wanted to see how your new school’s treatin’ ya.” I could tell it took every bit of courage Nate could summon to ask her that.

Long tension-filled silence, seeming extralong over the phone.

“Um… Cindy? Ya still there?”

“Aunt Terri, would you do me a small favor?” Cindy’s voice was still quite raspy, a lingering result of the brush with death by strangulation she’d experienced, courtesy of Uncle Rich, but she still managed to sound haughty. “Tell the person who just asked me a question that school is school and at least I’m alive to get educated. No thanks to him.”

Aunt Terri didn’t relay the message. She knew we all heard it.

“Cindy,” I interjected. “Nate did the best job he could to keep you safe, for years and—”

“Well, Zander, it looks like it was an epic fail for ‘the
N
word,’ seeing as I turned blue in my own kitchen and then peed myself before I fell down, unconscious.”

On the bed beside me, Casey reached for Nate’s hand, which was trembling. I wouldn’t have put it past Nate to turn blue and pee
himself
, right there and then. He was devastated by Cindy’s response.

I tried again. “Hey, Cindy, listen up. Nate did everything he could to put himself between you and Rich and—”

“Everything but the one
right
thing that could have saved me from what happened, which was calling the police on our asshole uncle, on one of the last ten times he beat bleep out of ‘the
N
word’s’ ass and threatened mine.”

What she said was true, and we’d tried to tell him that a thousand times, but he thought he was doing what was right for Cindy.

“People make mistakes, Cindy. Nate is only just a human being. And you didn’t exactly make it easy on him, back when you lived with your uncle.” Casey’s voice, as always, sounded ultrasweet, even as he defended Nate. “Remember, Cindy, Nate isn’t the one who abandoned you. Your mother is the one who was put in prison.”

Cindy had no snarky response to that.

Casey continued, “Terri, we thought maybe we could all get together and swap Christmas gifts on one of the coming weekends. All we need is a time and a date, and Nate would like a list of what you all want for gifts.”

Aunt Terri stammered her answer. “Well, y-you can be sure I-I’ll discuss that idea with Cindy. It sounds fine to me.”

“Aunt Terri,” Cindy said so sweetly that it was hard to believe the voice came from out of the same girl’s mouth. “Can you tell Casey to tell ‘the
N
word’ that it’ll be a cold day in hell when that happens?”

Seeing that this conversation was essentially going in circles—and torturous circles for Nate—I decided it was time to call it a night. “Terri, we’ll call back on Wednesday night… to ah… set a date, time, and place.”

I couldn’t miss the way Nate flopped onto the bed, defeated. He curled in on himself, and seeing that, Casey allowed a freaked-out gasp.

But before I could even blink, Casey was hovering over Nate. “Sweetheart, we’ll figure this out. Don’t worry.”

The fetal ball on the bed didn’t reply.

So I took a shot. “Nate, her issues and your issues are separate. Completely separate.” I massaged the back of his neck with my thumb and my forefinger, and I did it really hard. I felt his muscles fighting back against me. “You’re a convenient scapegoat right now. It’s easy to blame you for all of her past pain. She knows you did your best to do what was right for her. Nate, she knows.”

I expected Nate to remain tightly wrapped up inside himself and his troubles and refuse to let us in. But Nate shocked me. He unfolded from his tight ball and looked at me.

“Okay.” He exhaled deeply before fully relaxing his body. “Okay, I believe what you guys are saying. Gonna have belief that this will work out good, in time.”

I almost couldn’t believe my ears.

“Could you guys lie down beside me, though? Cuz I could sure use some holdin’.”

Instead of making us chase him, Nate had just turned to us. His instinct had told him to curl into a tight ball and hide, but his better judgment told him to enlist our help. We’d clearly made progress in helping Nate to understand that he could lean on us, and for that I was happy.

So Dan, got any suggestions on how to reach Cindy? Nate is doing okay, but I think his Christmas would be happier if Cindy were a part of it.

Your bro

Z

C
ASEY
’
S
REAL
LIFE

T
ODAY
WE
went to the mall. I was pretty excited. I love shopping in general, but there’s something extra special about visiting a shopping center during the holiday season when it is so richly decorated. I relished that bit of frenzy in the air, but Nate and Zander weren’t so enthralled with mall madness at Christmastime. That didn’t stop me from cracking the figurative “shopping whip” behind those two.

“Even though shopping ranks among my least favorite things to do, Casey, I’ve got to admit you had an awesome idea.”

A shopping compliment from Zander? I’ll take it.

“Hope like hell it works,” Nate said with far less emotion than I knew he felt.

“It will. If there is one thing I know, it’s teenage girls.” I shuddered as I said that, and the significance of my words was not lost on Nate and Zander. They’d been right there when a certain teenage girl had taken me down in a particularly violent manner. I had largely moved beyond that, but I didn’t believe one could ever leave bullying and assault
completely
in one’s past. “Now, where are we meeting Anna and Claire? Because they actually
are
teenage girls, if not older ones, and they know more than even I do in terms of what gifts would mean the most from Cindy’s older brother.”

“We’re meeting them in front of that pretzel place in the food court.” Zander nudged Nate in the ribs. “I’m still working on getting our big guy back to size.”

Nate had filled out some since we’d gotten back together at Thanksgiving, but he still had a way to go before we could call him burly again. “Zander, get him a large order of those cinnamon-covered ones. He can’t resist them.”

Nate allowed a crooked smile and a blush. No matter how much he protested, Zander and I knew he loved being pampered. We found the pretzel place in no time, and Zander headed up to the counter.