Chapter 15 – Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

The following day, I slipped a note through the slits in Steve's locker. "We need to talk about you/me and you/Sally. Meet me in the band room after school."

I waited in the band room for an hour. Steve never showed.

As I was walking home, a car pulled up beside me. I glanced over, saw Sally, her brother (John), Luke, and a couple of other football players. I hurried up.

They drove faster than I could walk.

I started to run.

They drove faster than I could run.

They cut me off and spilled out of the car.

Sally's brother tackled me and pinned me to the ground.

"Why are you writing love notes to my sister's boyfriend?" he demanded.

"You should ask him."

"I did," Sally snorted. "He said you've been doing it for awhile, and he's told you to stop. He said you pretend in the notes that there's something going on between you two, and you won't stop. He said you're delusional."

"He's lying."

"You're lying," Sally hissed, as Luke kicked me in the side. "We're here to make you stop."

Sally watched as I was kicked, spit on, and stomped on. I covered my face, making sure all they could land were body blows. When they were certain I'd had enough, Sally warned me that they'd be back if she even caught me looking at Steve, much less talking to him.

I limped home, stopping only to vomit. Not only because I was hurt, but because Steve had been complicit in the attack, if not the cause of it.

My mother vomited when she saw me. I loved the Black Knight, so I tried to convince my mother they were "mere flesh wounds," but she didn't buy it. She wanted to take me to the emergency room. She was sure I had broken ribs. I was certain they were only bruised.

She also wanted to call the police. She wanted Sally and her thug friends arrested and hauled in.

I avoided both. After a hot bath, I settled into my mother's bed. I put on the Smith's and wallowed, sharing Morrissey's pain. I was almost asleep when my mother knocked on the door and told me Steve wanted to see me. I would have told her to tell him to go away, but my ribs were too sore for me to muster much volume.

Steve went white when he saw me. I had protected my face, but my body was bruised and cut. His eyes were wet with tears when he got to the edge of the bed.

"My God, Eric, what did they do to you?"

I didn't respond. I was angry at him for fueling Sally's fire. When he tried to kiss my forehead, I turned away.

"Eric, I understand why you're mad, but what was I supposed to tell her?"

"How about the truth?"

"That wouldn't have made things any better."

"We don't know that. We just know you chose to protect yourself."

"We do know that. 'We're sleeping together behind your back' would not have spared you. Why'd you slide a note in my locker anyway? You know Sally has my combination and is in there all the time."

He had a point. I had been careless. I didn't deserve this outcome, but I had not been as careful as I should have been. I don't think I was trying to force the issue, but I might have been.

"I don't know. I guess I wasn't thinking."

"Bullshit. You're always thinking, Eric. Always. You think more than anyone I know."

I closed my eyes. I didn't want to think about what I didn't want to think about.

"I can't believe you told her I was stalking you."

"I know. . . . I'm sorry," he said. I could tell he meant it.

I wanted Steve to leave. I also wanted him to stay. I wanted to spurn him. I also wanted his arms around around me.

I kept my eyes closed. I felt him move. I felt his lips on my neck, my shoulder, and my chest. I quickly realized he was kissing each of my bruises and cuts. It hurt when he kissed my ribs. But, it also titillated me. I got hard. I couldn't help myself.

"Raise your hips," he said. Without thinking, I did. He pulled my underwear off and moved between my legs. For the first time, I felt his lips on me. I wanted to push him off. I knew this was an act of penance, not desire. I wanted him to want me. I didn't want him to take me only out of pity.

I did nothing to stop him. I felt tears run from my eyes as he worked me toward an orgasm. I couldn't stop him or myself. He sucked and sucked as I got closer and closer. He kept at me as I came in his mouth. He spit my cum in the shorts he had pulled off of me.

He kissed his way back up me. He didn't exactly trace the trail he had traveled down, but he didn't deviate by much.

"Why are you crying?" he asked.

I felt like I had to tell him the truth. "I feel like you betrayed me to Sally. And, I feel like you know you did, and you just did what you did to try to make up for it, not because you wanted to. I want to be wanted, Steve, not pitied. And, I want to be someone's someone, not someone's other one."

"I know, Eric. I'm doing the best I can. I begged them not to come after you. You have to know that."

I soaked in what he said as he lowered his face to mine and gently kissed my lips. I pulled out of the kiss in disgust.

"You knew they were coming after me?"

"I knew they said they were."

"Why didn't you warn me?"

Steve raised up. "What do you mean?"

"You knew they were threatening me. Why didn't you find a way to warn me? Or drive me home? Something to protect me?"

"I'm not sure what you're suggesting."

"Yes, you are. They told you they were coming after me, you begged them not to, but you didn't warn me, you didn't intervene, and you didn't inform anyone else so they could intervene."

"I just didn't know what to do," Steve pleaded.

"So you did nothing?"

"I don't know. I guess so."

"You need to leave."

"Eric."

"Get out. . . . Mom . . . Mom."

My mother was quickly at the door. "Mom, I'm tired. I need to rest. Make him leave."

"Steve, let him rest."

I could see the pain in Steve's face. But, I could feel the pain in mine. I was sure he had left me out to dry, to protect himself. I wanted to vomit some more.

I closed my eyes. I felt like I was falling down a hole that narrowed with every foot. I gripped the sheets as hard as I could. I called my mother into the room.

"What's wrong?"

"I need you to talk to me."

She did what she always did in these dire moments. She told me the story of "The Giving Tree," which she had read and re-read to me so many times she had it memorized.

Her voice calmed me down. She returned to the kitchen.

Steve hadn't left. As I tried to sleep, I could hear him and my mother through the door. I heard him plead he was only 18, and I heard her insist she would protect me, come hell or high water. The quills were out, and she wasn't buying his bullshit. I fell asleep listening to her hector him and knowing that I needed and wanted to be with someone who put me first, not with someone who sacrificed me to protect himself.