Determination (46 page)

“Hello, my name is Jamie, and I’m an addict.”

Determination

301

“I KNOW. I can’t believe I just stood up in front of everyone like that,”

I told Brian when I called him after the meeting. “It felt awesome, liberating. I never thought I’d be able to do it.” Dad told me again how proud he was of me, and for once, I believed him.

“We’re going out to celebrate tonight. I’m so proud of you,”

Brian said. “You’ll be here in about half an hour? I’m going to go jump in the shower and make sure Alex puts on pants. We’ll go to dinner and then out dancing. I love you.”

“I love you too, and I’d love to go out to dinner and stuff with you guys.” I felt lighter than I had in weeks. We hung up the phone, and I slid it back into my pocket.

“I think that’s a great idea. You guys should go out. You haven’t done that in a while,” my dad said, commenting on the funk we’d been in over our recent problems. “With the hearing coming up, you… oh damn, I forgot to tell you. Darren called while you were in the shower.

We were running late, and I didn’t tell you. The hearing has been set for April 12th.”

“That’s in, like, three weeks? How long has he known? Don’t they usually schedule stuff like that months in advance?” I asked and felt the panic rise a little in my chest before I grasped the pendant in my hand and reminded myself I wasn’t afraid.

“I don’t know how long he’s known, to be honest. It doesn’t really matter, though. We got your suit. You’ve talked to your teachers about it. You’re ready to get it over with, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I really am.”

He pulled off the highway and onto the side street leading to the boardinghouse, and I started to feel more at ease. Even though Brian had stayed over just a few nights before, I missed him. He and I had been talking more and more about moving in together. Mostly, we were waiting for the court stuff to be over, but I also wasn’t looking forward to telling my dad I wanted to move out. He had done so much for me over the last six months since I’d moved in with him, it seemed really selfish to just leave.

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Jamie Mayfield

The sun was setting behind the old building I’d started to fall in love with over the last few months. The light reflected off the block windows, and the door had been thrown open to catch the afternoon breeze. It felt more like home than anyplace I’d known.

“I’ll call if I need you to pick me up, but I’m sure Brian will bring me home,” I told Dad as I grabbed my bag out from behind the seat and leaned in to give him a hug. He smiled at the gesture.

“You brought your meds, right?” he asked with the sternest look I’m sure he could muster. I did manage not to roll my eyes.

“Yes, Dad, I brought my meds. I may even take them,” I said, and he tried to smack my arm as I laughed and moved back from the car.

“Have a good time,” he said when I closed the door. As he pulled away from the curb, I turned and headed toward the front door. Brian had told me weeks ago that I could use the fire escape to come up to the second floor without going through the baths, but if I could watch them shoot porn, I could walk down that hallway. The sounds usually didn’t even register with me, except this time I heard a familiar voice.

“
Así
,
Papi
,
cogeme
! Harder…
mas fuerte
!” Em’s voice rang out from a room to my right, and I slowed for just a moment to listen. My heart broke to hear him with yet another guy who was going to treat him like shit.

“Am I your
papi
, baby?” a voice asked. It sounded like it should have been familiar, but I couldn’t place it. An older guy, definitely gay, but I couldn’t tell.

“Please, right there… yeah,” Em cried, and then in a broken whisper that I almost missed he added, “Uff,
que rico.
” My cock responded to his breathless cries, and I found it interesting that he kept moving back and forth between Spanish and English. I’d never heard him do that before.

“Yeah, just like this?” The voice sounded winded, like they’d been going at it for a while. I didn’t dare look in the room. Em was already upset enough with me. I’d turned and was about to head out and go up the fire escape when Em’s voice stopped me cold.

“
Así
, Leo! God, baby, just like that.
Te quiero
, Papi, please….”

Leo?

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303

I strode past the door, which I saw was only open a few inches, and ran up the stairs. Brian, who sat on the couch in front of the television, looked up as I came in through the second floor doorway.

“Hey, babe,” he said, and then after a good look at me, added,

“What? Did you get your court date?” Getting up quickly, he came over to stand in front of me.

“Oh, yeah, but it’s not that,” I said, looking around to make sure we were alone. “Where’s Alex?”

“He’s upstairs taking a shower so we can get ready to leave.

What?”

“I just… I walked past a door downstairs, and you aren’t going to believe who was inside. I couldn’t see because I didn’t want to push the door open, but I heard Em’s voice. He was getting banged by Leo,” I finished in a whisper. “Did you know they were together?”

“Are they together?” Brian’s eyes were wide and disbelieving as he stared, openmouthed, at me. “They could just be sex buddies.”

“I don’t know. I’m pretty sure I heard Em tell Leo he loved him. I mean, we took Spanish our sophomore year. Doesn’t ‘te quiero’ mean I love you? Or was that just ‘te amo’? It’s been a long time.”

“Regardless, Em tells everyone that,” Brian said, but his face looked troubled. “I don’t think Leo would take advantage of him.”

Shaking his head adamantly, more trying to convince himself than me, Brian said, “He wouldn’t do that.”

“Should we talk to them about it? I don’t want either of them getting hurt. Em’s been through enough already.” I was about to ask him if we should talk to Alex about it when the door from the first floor opened and Em came through, followed closely by Leo. They were disheveled, sweaty, and out of breath. Em stopped abruptly when he saw Brian and me staring at him. Leo stood just behind Em and closed the door.

“What?” Em asked and crossed his arms tightly over his chest. He stared defiantly at us until Leo put an arm around his waist. Then he sighed and looked back over his shoulder.

“Yes, we’re together,” Leo said quietly. “I’ve loved Em for a long time. It killed me to watch each guy in this house use him and throw 304

Jamie Mayfield

him away when the next great thing came along. I know that you guys have strong relationships now, and because you’re my friends, I’m glad about that, but I hate that it came at his expense.” He squeezed Em a little closer to him, and Em turned quickly and kissed him on the cheek.

“Now, I’m taking my boy to bed. We can talk more tomorrow.”

He started walking toward the stairs to the third floor, and reached back like it was the most natural thing in the world to take Em’s hand. Em followed him through the door without a backward glance.

I couldn’t have been happier for them.

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Twenty-Six

“JAMIE, you have to calm down,” Dad said as I paced the living room for the hundredth time since I got dressed. Brian looked up from his place on the couch and tried grabbing my hand as I went by, but I jerked away before he could grab hold. “The stress isn’t going to help.”

“Dad, I know that. I took my meds this morning. I’m trying to center myself, but it’s not working. I just want to get out of here and go to the courthouse.” I sat down next to Brian and put my head between my knees, trying not to vomit all over the really expensive suit I’d probably never wear again.

“Okay, we can go, let me just grab—” He was interrupted by a knock on the door. The last two times someone had knocked on the door unexpectedly, it had been the police. Screw it, they weren’t going to scare me anymore. Just a few more hours and that shit would be over. “I’ll get it,” I said, my voice permitting no argument as I strode through the house to the front door. Dad and Brian were behind me, but I reached the door first and threw it open. My heart stopped as I clenched the doorknob and stared into my mother’s face.

“Well, that explains why your father hasn’t been returning my calls,” she said in the way of a greeting. I couldn’t respond. Of all the days for her to show up on our doorstep.

“Patsy, this isn’t a good time,” Dad said as he put a hand on my shoulder. “We were just leaving.” Brian’s hand slid into mine, and my mother blanched.

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Jamie Mayfield

“You’re certainly not going to church, even if you are in your Sunday finest,” she remarked with something very close to a sneer as she looked at each of us in open, hostile curiosity. Brian squeezed my hand, though I remained motionless in the doorway.

“Why don’t we have lunch tomorrow and we can talk about whatever it is that you came here to talk about.” My father’s voice sounded very mild, but the underlying tension was clear.

“No, what is going on? What is
that boy
doing here? I have a right to know. This is my family, not his.” Her arms folded tightly across her chest in a gesture so familiar, so similar to my own, that I broke. My mother, the woman who had baked cookies with me and put Band-Aids on my cuts as a child had gone, leaving this horrible, hateful woman in her place. And why? Because I hadn’t followed the program? Because I wasn’t one of God’s good little soldiers? Well, screw her.

“This is
not
your goddamn family. You walked away from your family to have some kind of incestuous relationship with God. I
love
Brian. He is more family to me than you will
ever
be. I love my father.

After you threw me out on the street, he saved my life!” My voice rose, and I knew the neighbors could probably hear me at that point, but I just didn’t care. “He didn’t care that I’d turned into a junkie and a whore. He loved me anyway!” I screamed at her, building up the rage and the fury that had been compounding inside me since she had dragged me kicking and fighting from everything that was important to me. “Yeah,
Mommy
,” I sneered at her. “Your little boy got hooked on coke and oxy after he was forced to screw for a living because his bigot of a mother threw him out on the street with
nothing
! Even if you thought about it for years, you couldn’t possibly understand how much I hate you. You were supposed to love me no matter what, and at the first sign of something you didn’t like, you threw me away. I was your
son
.” The tears streamed down my face, and I let them fall. I let her see each and every one because she caused them. “I couldn’t even hate the guy who forced me into porn more than I hate you, and I killed him.”

“He OD’d, Jamie. You didn’t kill him,” Brian said quickly.

Rather than simply pulling on my hand to get me to follow him, he wrapped both arms around me and pulled me bodily from the room. I Determination

307

caught a glimpse of my father’s face as I turned. It was white as death.

The sobs caught up with me as we reached the kitchen, and I hit my knees before we’d gotten two steps into the room. Brian went down with me, holding me as I cried in his arms and broke down completely.

That’s how my father found us I don’t know how much later, propped against the cabinet just below the sink. Brian’s arms were wrapped tightly around my shoulders, holding me together as I cried.

His lips were against my hair, but he never spoke. Nothing, not even words of consolation could make things better. I forced myself to take a few deep breaths and calm down in the face of my father’s upcoming rejection. I had Brian. I’d survived before; I could survive now.

My father stood above us for a long time, and I felt cold in his shadow.

“Tell me what happened,” he said quietly and, with no regard for his expensive suit, sat down on the floor opposite us with his back against the large island. The suit pants didn’t have any give, so he had to stretch his legs out next to Brian. He crossed one over the other at the ankle and waited.

“O’Dell was a—” Brian started, but my father cut him off, and finally, I looked up.

“I want to hear what my son has to say, Brian, starting with why he would tell his mother that he killed someone.” His eyes were grave and his face still pale. My first instinct, to come up with a lie, nearly forced an excuse from me, but I owed him the truth. He had been straight with me and cared for me since he found me in the hospital.

“You know about the drugs, the beatings, and the porn. I’ll spare you the detail on the rapes and the degradation. When Brian and his friends, our friends, finally got me away from him, he found us. He found us because I screwed up, because I was weak, and he shot Brian in the chest.” The memory of the blood blossoming onto Brian’s shirt, the shock in his eyes, and my own helpless screaming made it hard to breathe. I looked away from my father’s devastation and continued.

“He dragged me back to my prison, and I thought Brian was dead. I saw him fall in a pool of blood on our living room floor. I thought he was dead and it was my fault. I couldn’t stand it, not Steven’s hands on me, not my guilt, not any of it. So I decided to kill myself. Only, I 308