One Voice 02 - Here Without You (9 page)

Thing is, they didn’t know how bad it’d been. What they saw, three days after the fact, freaked ’em out. And guess I didn’t end up avoidin’ that little talk I been dreadin’ about doin’ something about our situation with Uncle Rich. But it didn’t go as bad as I thought.

“Our situation with Uncle Rich” makes it sound like we’re caught in some kind of an improper business dealin’, where maybe he forgot to pay us for a job well done or some shit like that. But really, the situation is more like a fight for me and Cindy’s lives. Don’t know why, but I just can’t make a sudden leap to change things. Guess I figure the devil I know already might be a whole fuckin’ lot better than the devil I don’t know. And maybe I known a lot of devils in my time.

At least with Cindy and me under the same roof, I got some control over what goes on with her. What if Cindy got stuck in a worse place and had nobody there to look out for her? I ain’t gonna get no placement
with
her, seeing as I’m grown. She’d be on her own in foster care, and I just can’t leave nothin’ to chance when it comes to her. Cindy’s pretty much the only real family I got to my name. Not too sure why she shoves me under the bus so much these days with Uncle Rich—alls I can guess is that this whole livin’ with the devil thing ain’t easy on her neither.

So anyhow, I put in my hours at the gas station today. Couldn’t miss that the chill of fall was in the air neither. Seein’ as I’ll be workin’ outside, pumpin’ gas, I have a feelin’ winter’s gonna feel long and damn cold this year. But a job’s a job, and cash is cash, so I’ll do what’s gotta be done. Gonna be outside walkin’ the dogs at night too. As a matter of fact, I’ll be headin’ there right after I finish writin’ this.

Us three are already gettin’ our plans settled for this comin’ weekend. Got the word from Aunt Terri that Cindy’ll be welcome to come and stay, so I can bring her down after school and work are done on Friday and have a weekend with my guys.

So that three can become one, ya see.

Sounds kinda poetic, huh?

C
ASEY
’
S
REAL
LIFE

I
ACED
my bio exam just like Nate predicted. I just wished I was as good at real life interactions as I was with the study of organisms.

Tonight Zander and I were “double-dating” with two girls Zander knew from his ethics class who were also members of One Voice. I experienced severe anxiety at expanding my social circle from just Nate and Zander to include outsiders, and in particular, female outsiders. The events from high school—the humiliation of freshman year, the emotional abuse and bullying, the physical assault in junior year—had left me with scars. Thick, deep, ugly purple scars on my heart. The wounds had healed over but the scars had never disappeared.

I just wished it were Friday and I was holding hands with Zander in the student center parking lot, waiting for Nate to arrive, dreaming of making love and of waking up in the safety of my lovers’ arms. But no. Instead I was sitting stiffly beside Zander in the student-run fancy restaurant, the Hawk’s Key, both of us dressed up in khakis and button-down shirts, awaiting the arrival of two teenage girls.

I’m not gonna lie. I felt the beginnings of a panic attack coming on.

“You don’t look too good, Casey. Everything cool?” Zander asked, his brow wrinkled with worry.

I nodded and reached for my glass of ice water.

“You’re gonna love these two girls. Just give them a chance, for me.” Zander wanted me to open up my heart to new people.

Give them a chance, Casey.
The words swirled around in my brain. The problem was, I remembered giving some girls a second chance in high school, and I ended up in the hospital.

“Here they are.” Zander slid out of the booth to greet two young women who were heading across the restaurant in our direction. I concentrated on not fainting.

The smiling girls each hugged Zander. One of them was tall and very sporty looking—immediately and alarmingly bringing to mind Marcy Lewis from high school, a girl who had been one of my major tormentors. I couldn’t stifle a shudder when I remembered Marcy swatting my butt with her high tops on the soccer field freshman year. The other girl was small, pixie-like, black, and just about as cute as a button. Like Liz Trainer, the ringleader of the high school bullies. The cute ones always spelled the most danger. My chest constricted uncomfortably.

“You guys know my boyfriend, Casey, from One Voice. Casey, this is Anna”—he indicated the Marcy look-alike—“and Claire.” The too-adorable-to-be-kind one.

They slid into the booth across from where I sat, and Zander rejoined me, immediately placing his hand on my knee.

Anna extended her hand across the table, and I feebly reached out to take it in mine. “Oh, Casey, it is so great to have a chance to get to know you on a more personal basis than we can at One Voice.”

Her green eyes sparkled with what appeared to be genuine warmth. But for me, it was hard to trust.

I took a controlled breath and blew it out. “Thank you. Glad to get to know you too.” I wondered if it was obvious that I was lying.

Claire had to sit on her feet in order to reach my hand. “I’m super thrilled to meet you, Casey. I just wish your other partner, Nate, could be here too. It feels like somebody’s missing.”

What she said demonstrated her open-mindedness to our throuple. The muscles binding my chest loosened up slightly.

“Casey, Anna and Claire were high school sweethearts, just like me and you and Nate.” Zander squeezed my knee. He knew how hard this was for me, but he also knew I needed to be able to interact socially with people besides Nate and him, especially if I wanted a future in medicine.

“High school bit the big one,” Anna pronounced bluntly. “We had to hide our relationship for three years.”

Claire looked at her girlfriend with unmistakable warmth. “We promised each other that there would be no more hiding in college, so now we don’t hide at all. That’s why we were so happy to see the signs for One Voice in the student center. It’s extremely necessary.”

For a moment, it was almost as if Zander and I weren’t there with them. Anna reached her arms around Claire. “I wish we had had a gay-straight alliance like One Voice in high school. Everything would have been different.”

“Things would have been better.” The two young women were momentarily lost in each other’s eyes. Seeing that, my dry mouth moistened a little bit.

We went on to discuss our majors—Anna and Claire were both enrolled in the School of Social Work at BCC—and our personal goals as members of One Voice. By the end of the dinner, I had confessed to these two girls that I’d had a very difficult time in high school. I didn’t go into great detail about the bullying I suffered. I avoided opening that can of worms, but I think they got the general picture. And Claire had shared how both of them had hidden deep in the closet, occasionally even dating boys to keep up the charade, terrified right up until their graduation day that their peers would discover their love. They had attended a Christian high school, where they knew their relationship would have been frowned upon, to put it mildly.

“So your partner, Nate, is coming down for the weekend?” Anna smiled. “Maybe we could all have dinner together at the student caf’ before the meeting?”

Zander returned the smile. “That sounds great.” He winked at me. “If I decide to let the two of them out of bed.”

Knowing our intimate plans for this weekend, I felt a furious blush climb up my neck and make itself at home on my cheeks. I giggled.

“Well, I can’t say that I blame you one bit.” Claire also winked at me. “You three haven’t been together in a couple of weeks, right? You’ll need plenty of time to get reacquainted.”

I think I blushed even brighter.

I felt as if I had accomplished something by surviving and even enjoying the evening with two teenage girls.
With friends
.

10

N
ATE
’
S
D
IARY

September 19

I
DON
’
T
know just when this journal became so friggin’ necessary to me. But it’s like, after any major shit goes down, I can’t get to this notebook fast enough to write about it, just so I can read it back to myself and make some sense of my life. Yeah, fucked up. But fucked up in the good way, I’d say.

Today I’m gonna write about the most amazin’ weekend of my life. And no, I ain’t shittin’ nobody here. The weekend was awesome. Wish it never had to end.

S
O
ON
Friday, I dropped Cindy off at dinnertime, and she seemed pretty pumped to be with Aunt Terri and Jana. That was a good feelin’. I didn’t have to worry my ass off about Cindy bein’ pissed at me cuz I dumped her somewhere.

When I got to Boston City College, my guys were waitin’ for me in the parkin’ lot, same as last time. It was kinda fucked up, though, cuz we all knew what was gonna happen ’tween us three this weekend, and maybe even that night. It was sort of awkward, but not in a bad way. Casey was a little shy when he greeted me. There wasn’t no jumpin’ into my arms and wrappin’ his legs around me or nothin’. And when me and Zander’s eyes met, it was like we both had a secret we was keepin’. Truthfully we were almost a little more like strangers than boyfriends for goin’ on two years.

I could feel their eyes studyin’ all of the healin’-up yellowish brown bruises and scabs on my face. And I could practically hear their thoughts about how pissed off they were at my uncle for smackin’ me around, but they didn’t say nothin’ about it right then. Guess they knew me well enough to let it pass by for the moment. Complainin’ about my asshole of an uncle wasn’t exactly friendly to the electric, romantic mood we had goin’ on.

Casey made us wait a few minutes in the parkin’ lot while he ran back to the dorm ahead of us. He said he had to get shit ready. Well, he didn’t actually say “get shit ready.” He more said something like “I must make some vital preparations.” You know, “get shit ready” in Casey language.

So me and Zander shot the shit in the parkin’ lot for, like, ten minutes before we slowly walked back. Wanted so fuckin’ bad to wrap my arm around his waist as we walked, but without Casey, our “glue,” I felt too friggin’ awkward. What made me fuckin’ psyched was that, about halfway up to the dorm, Zander grabbed my bag offa my shoulder, took my hand in his, and squeezed—so I’d know we was together and on the same page and shit.

Casey texted Zander and asked him to knock on the door to their room when we got there, instead of using his key. So Zander knocked kinda soft. When Casey opened the door, his face was that certain shade of pink that made me worry he might have one of them panic-attack thingies.

So we went in the room, and what I saw pretty much melted me. Casey had gone to trouble, big time, to make this night special. The beds had already got pushed together, and they were covered in shiny red sheets. On Zander’s desk, there was this plate with like a dozen humongous strawberries that’d got dipped in chocolate. Over on Casey’s desk were these fancy-ass glasses filled with a bubbly drink. I saw a half-empty bottle of cranberry ginger ale on Casey’s bureau, so I was pretty sure the glasses weren’t filled with booze. He had some music playin’ nice and soft too. It was U2’s “One Love.” Friggin’ love that song.

Our sweet Casey had set the scene just perfect for our first night of love, when us three would become one.

W
ITHIN
A
few minutes, the three of us was stretched out on them slippery red sheets and naked as the day we were born. And I was nervous as all hell, seein’ as I was supposed to be the sex expert. I was the only one who’d ever done the deed before. But let me get somethin’ straight. Sure, I’d fucked a girl or two in the past. But it was
way
friggin’ far in the past, I couldn’t hardly remember any details cuz I’d been drunk or stoned when I done it, plus it hadn’t meant nothin’ to me, cuz them girls hadn’t meant nothin’ to me.

This here sex was gonna be so different. As in, the fuckin’ opposite of all that.

This here was lovemakin’. With two dudes I friggin’ couldn’t live without.

Yeah, this was different as night was from day.

L
UCKY
FOR
me, Casey wasn’t bein’ shy no more, the way he’d been earlier in the parkin’ lot. He climbed right on top of me, his little body squigglin’ around up there, like he was tryin’ to feel up my whole naked body with his. And two seconds later, he was crawlin’ onto Zander, doin’ the same adorable shit. Me and Zander just looked at each other, like, “holy crap,” cuz it felt so good.

Took us two a couple minutes to settle him down, cuz the little dude was all pumped up. So after he went back and forth, humpin’ on us each a couple times, we sorta stuck him ’tween us so he was lyin’ down flat on his back, and both of us leaned over him. I took that moment to kiss Zander supergood. From the way his tongue poked out real far into my mouth, I could tell he was ready to go. We didn’t rush the kiss neither. I took my time explorin’ the shit outta his mouth. He tasted so good, like the strawberries we’d just sucked down.

We kept kissin’ ’til we heard this soft moan from underneath us, which was Casey, wantin’ in on the action. In a split second, us two were on him. I went straight for that soft spot behind his ear, and Zander moved his mouth around on Casey’s lips.

It was weird bein’ this fuckin’ turned on at the same time as bein’ so much in love. Like wantin’ to get what my body needed so fiercely, but just as much needin’ to make it good for them two. I had to slow myself down more than once.

I let my lips slide down onto Casey’s neck, where his pulse pounded like a friggin’ bass drum, and then onto his tiny nipples. Once I started suckin’ and Zander joined me on his other side, Casey got kinda outta control. My plan was to go down on each of my guys’ dicks, you know, before we got to the main attraction. But I could see that the main attraction was gonna have to be the
only
attraction, at least this time around.