Authors: J.P. Barnaby
Aaron (18 page)
A remnant of the dream he’d had the night before came back to him, as did the panic attack which had caused the need for the tranquilizers. Aaron stumbled and tripped as he nearly ran for the bathroom, getting the toilet lid up just as he vomited what little there was in his stomach. The screaming and the blood spattered across his memory caused him to continue to dry heave long after his stomach was empty.
His mother found him a few minutes later on the bathroom floor and stood by helplessly as he stumbled back into his bedroom, finally making it to his desk. Aaron practically fell into the well-padded chair and rested his forehead on the cool polished surface of the desk. His mother went downstairs, returning quickly with a small plate of dry toast and a can of 7Up.
“Thanks, Mom,” Aaron said quietly as she placed the food on the desk. Usually, his mother didn’t like the boys to eat in their rooms. She was afraid she would find fuzzy dishes in a month or two, but she was obviously making an unspoken exception. As he took a bite of the toast, she went into the bathroom, and he heard the water running. He popped the top on the 7Up and took a long drink, trying to wash the acrid taste from his mouth. Aaron’s mother returned a moment later with a cold wet rag which he took gratefully, wiping his face and the back of his neck. The nausea had finally started to subside.
Aaron finished two of the slices of toast and promised his mother to come down in a little while for some fruit. As he took another drink of the soda, he leaned down to pick up his laptop case. Pulling out the laptop, he carried it and the soda back to his bed. Thankfully, the room had stopped spinning, allowing him to feel steadier on his feet. Propping his pillow against the headboard, he sat back and opened the laptop. Carefully setting his soda on the bedside table, he turned on the laptop and waited for it to boot. The process seemed arduous, his body and mind still sluggish from the aftereffects of the large dose of tranquilizer the night before. Turning his attention back to his laptop, he entered his password and let it finish loading.
Just as Aaron clicked to open his e-mail client, an IM window popped up. Since there was only one person on his chat list, there was little doubt who it was from.
SPENCER: Where the hell have you been?!?!
SPENCER: I’ve been texting you all night. You were so freaked out after class. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Are you okay, Aaron?
He sighed. Was he okay? No, he wasn’t okay, not by a long shot, but what should he tell Spencer? If they were going to work together on the project for the rest of the term, Aaron knew he had to tell Spencer something. He would probably have to do a lot of explaining for his behavior before the course was over.
SPENCER: Look, man, we all have issues, some worse than others. I like you. I think we could be good friends. It sounds like maybe you could use one. I know I could. If you want to talk about it, just tell me what you’recomfortable with for now. I’ll do the same. Deal?
There was a long pause during which neither of them typed anything. It seemed they both knew they were on the verge of crossing a line, one Aaron hadn’t been anywhere near since the attack. Though had he sat and analyzed it, without fear and doubt clouding his judgment, he would have seen he already considered Spencer a friend. No matter how hard he tried not to.
And there it was—Spencer was asking Aaron to let him in, to be his friend. Could he? Could he trust that Spencer wouldn’t just take what he shared and use it to gossip about the scarred freak? Instinctively, he knew he could trust Spencer. But really, what had his instincts ever gotten him? If he’d had good instincts, as soon as that van had pulled over by them, he’d have grabbed Juliette and run. The problem was, Aaron was so fucking tired of being alone. He decided to give Spencer the polite public
version of what had happened to him, and hope it didn’t scare off his potential new friend.
Aaron took a deep breath. God he remembered that day so clearly. He and Juliette had been talking about going to their school’s spring dance together. There wasn’t anyone Juliette particularly wanted to go with, and besides, no one had asked her. Aaron didn’t want to come out to the whole school by showing up with a guy. So he’d decided to ask her if she wanted to go with him, as friends. He’d never talked to Juliette about being gay until that night. Deep down, he didn’t think she’d have a problem with it; he was just scared to admit it. On their way home, she’d just come right out and asked him, infusing the question with her usual sense of humor. The fact she knew him so well was just one of the things he loved most about her. She was his best friend, and she never judged him, she just listened.
AARON: It was just after 9. Practice had run late because Juliette and I were trying to get some of the other students involved. The school year had just started, and Juliette was working on getting the team together. She was the captain. As we were walking past an elementary school playground, a dirty white van pulled up to the curb. I thought it was some kind of delivery van and the driver was lost. Juliette and I slowed down when we got to the sidewalk. The side door opened, and two guys jumped out. One grabbed Juliette, and the other grabbed me. They took us to some kind of abandoned mechanic’s garage and tortured us. I have scars on my arms, my legs, my back, and my chest, in addition to the ones you see on my face and neck. When they were done, they killed Juliette. They tried to kill me, but they screwed up the job.
Aaron thought “Oh my God” just about covered it. He’d never told anyone but the police and his mother anything about that night. Even then, he didn’t get into details, and there were parts he refused to talk about. They understood, or at least they appeared to. It didn’t matter. The physical evidence they found at the scene and at the hospital told them
what they wanted to know, what Aaron could not talk about. It didn’t stop the shrinks, though. He just told them all to go to hell.
AARON: No, they were never caught.
SPENCER: How did you get away?
AARON: They didn’t tie us up; they just took turns holding us down. Either they didn’t bring anything, or they just liked to watch us struggle. My cell phone was in my pocket. After they left and before I lost consciousness, I turned it on and dialed. My mom had been going out of her mind because no one could find us, and I hadn’t answered my phone, which was off while we were in practice. She got the cops and the cell phone company to trace our location through the GPS in my phone, and they found us. They said 15 minutes later and I would have lost too much blood….
The chat window stayed quiet for a long time, and Aaron wondered if he’d gone too far, told Spencer too much. The poor guy probably had his e-mail up in another window, e-mailing Dr. Mayer to beg for a new partner, and Aaron couldn’t blame him. He spent most of his life drugged into oblivion so he didn’t have to deal with himself. Why would someone not forced to deal with Aaron do it willingly? It took another two minutes for the next message to come through, and when it did, it wasn’t what Aaron had expected at all.
SPENCER: I once destroyed a high school band room.
AARON: What?? Why?
SPENCER: When I was in high school, my aunt Nelle and my father were having a conversation about the cause of my condition, and they didn’t realize I was reading their lips. Hearing people forget sometimes that I can understand what they’re saying even though I can’t hear them. I had a really hard time for a while after that. I wanted to play guitar, and when the band director said they weren’t “equipped to accommodate my special needs,” I lost it. My dad was understanding, considering the fact I’d caused about $5000 worth of damage he had to pay for….
