Chapter 5
“Hey.” I greeted Davey as he sat down in history class.He just mumbled a response, and I was torn between my jealous feelings and sympathy. His eyes were bloodshot, and he was wearing the clothes I’d loaned him for dinner last night.Ronna shuffled in a few moments later, also with bloodshot eyes I noticed as she glared at Davey before sitting on the other side of the room. Davey didn’t even notice her glare, as he was hunched over his desk and fiddling with a notebook.
“You doing okay?” I asked Davey quietly after we’d sat there in silence.
“Just hung over.” He mumbled. “We didn’t ruin your birthday, did we?”
“No.” I lied.
“Good.” He replied as the bell rang and Mr. Wansor began the class.He looked disappointed that today there was very little discussion despite his best efforts. I, for one, didn’t feel like adding anything of my own because I was still seething over last night, and Davey going to Todd’s instead of coming home with me. Part of me wanted to be fair, I hadn’t invited Davey to spend the night, but still, him and Todd being together had me riled up.
I ate lunch alone that day, being unable to find Davey.Brandon and Trevor left campus with their girlfriends and Marcie, who was now hanging off the arm of Jim McDonald, another player on the football team. Ronna and Jeannette ignored me in the cafeteria, and Todd was sitting with a bunch of friends.So far, my efforts to find out what had happened to Sean were having no results at all. Only a few of those I spoke to barely remembered him at all.It was almost like he’d disappeared off the face of the earth.
P.E. got off to a bad start before I’d even changed into my workout gear.Today was a weight-training day, and I was looking forward to it a lot. Working out with weights had always been a stress reliever for me, and the state of my weight equipment in the garage at home told me that I’d gotten out of the habit of using it in the last year.
“Yo, Breckenridge.” Reggie’s voice rang out in the locker room.It was a big room, but all of the football team had lockers near each other and Reggie’s was a few feet down from mine.He’d called out just as I was putting my jock strap on.
“What?” I practically snarled and he grinned so that his white teeth shone like beacons in his dark face.
“I hear Marcie wasn’t happy because you couldn’t
satisfy her
with your stump of a dick.” He teased, garnering laughs from those
nearby.
“Man, you should know better than to listen to that bitch’s lies.” I snorted as my mind raced for a comeback. I was just too pissed off by now to be nice. “That cunt was so damn wide open she could fit the entire football team in there at once without feeling a damn thing.”
“No shit.” Reggie said with a salacious grin while several people laughed openly at that comment.
“Hell, I thought you knew that.” I continued, emboldened by the fact that people were now laughing with me and not at me. “I heard she could never learn to keep her damn legs shut.That’s why I had to dump her, you know.There’s no telling what’s been in her cunt, and I don’t want to catch some nasty disease from her skanky ass.”
“Oh man, she’s not going to like that.”
“Who cares?” I responded back angrily as I pulled on some sweat pants.Davey was doing well, not having missed any classes this week, but he milled around as everyone filed into the weight room.Something in me snapped at that point, and I realized that my jealousy was being irrational.My Davey had explained something about himself at this age, in this timeline, and I had to remember that.
It was the reason why I hadn’t tripped him into my bed already.The Davey of this timeline pushed away everyone he just had sex with, and I’d seen that when he just blew by Todd in the hallway this morning.If I wanted to not only get Davey into my bed, but keep him there forever, I had to make sure we were close friends first, and make sure that when he did find his way into my bed, that we’d talked about it beforehand, and that he’d opened his mind to being gay and accepted that a relationship between two men was possible.Right now, he believed being gay was a sickness, something to be hidden, and that it was impossible for two men to have a relationship.
“You ready for some weights, buddy?” I asked as I came up to Davey and slipped my arm around his shoulder. He stiffened at the touch, but nodded hesitantly before allowing me to lead him into the weight room.What followed was probably the best part of the day, with me taking the time to show him how to correctly use the weight machines. I made sure to talk softly, so it wouldn’t be obvious that he didn’t really know what he was doing, and we spent most of the entire hour in a semi-comfortable almost-silence.We didn’t talk about anything other than our working out, but it seemed to heal the rift that had been between us earlier in the day.
On my part, there was just something about being in his presence that soothed me.Even if we weren’t sharing the deepest secrets of our hearts, or for that matter even talking about the weather, at least I was in the room with him and we were interacting.Nor did I miss the way he stared at my crotch as I spotted him on the bench press.
He was wearing an old, ragged pair of gray sweats that showed me enough of his reaction that I had to smile for the rest of the class period. No, neither of us was fully hard, but there was some excitement there.Fortunately, no one else was paying much attention to us as we finished our workout and headed into the locker room for showers.As we passed Coach Cole, I noticed the approving nod he gave me, and the very tight smile on his face.
“Thanks.” Davey said twenty minutes later as he got out of my car.We were at my place, and he was heading for his car before I’d even turned off the ignition of the mustang.
“Hey, you want to come inside?” I asked him and he shook his head.
“I’ve got to run by all three restaurants and pick
up my paychecks,
sign them and get them to Nanny before I change and go to work at the
“Yep.” I assured him and he smiled again before getting into his car.I stood there and waved as he drove off, not sure if I should have done something to keep him around longer.Damn it all, this was so damn frustrating!
How had he done this, navigated the course of what to allow to happen, when to interfere, and all that crap?As unprepared as he was that first time Davey went back in time, he was better prepared in many ways than I was now. He knew the timeline he was changing, I did not.
David Jones Sr. was supposed to be on track for
becoming
President of the
He’d told me not to bother looking him up, but he was a friend, or at least he had been a friend in the other timeline.
“Brian, honey, you okay?” Mom’s voice from the doorway reminded me I was standing on the edge of our driveway, staring at the spot where Davey’s car had been.
“Sorry, just thinking.” I said as I walked up the driveway and gave her a hug.That was one good thing about this timeline; I could still hug my parents.
“How was school today?” She asked as she followed me inside the house.
“Frustrating.” I answered honestly and got a weird look from her.
“That’s a new answer.” She said with a slight smile. “What was so frustrating?”
“Just about everything.” I answered honestly, knowing it was a cryptic response and not sure how much could be shared with her without setting off alarm bells.She took that in stride though.
“Would you like something to snack on?” She asked.
“No thanks, I’ve got to get started on homework.” I replied.
“Okay, just let me know.” She said. “I’m working with the foundation on our next fundraiser, so I’ll be in the office.”
“Okay.” I replied, not sure exactly what she was talking about.This was part of my problem. As familiar as things were, I still felt like I was living in someone else’s life at times. This wasn’t the past I remembered, and I missed what I remembered.Everything was just too different!
The homework was too easy, I realized about an hour later.With a sigh, I put the last of it away and changed into a pair of sweats and a white t-shirt. Maybe I could use the weight set in the garage and work off some of the tension I was feeling. Ten minutes later, as I looked at my weight set, I let out a long sigh.From what I was seeing, it hadn’t been used in at least a year.
That gave me a useful task after I opened the garage door for more light and some fresh air.The first job was to get all the dust off the equipment and check to make sure everything was still in useable condition. Twenty minutes later, I was relieved that nothing was irreparably damaged.That was when the sound of a Volkswagen Beetle reached the garage, and a minute later a semi-decrepit 1970’s era lime-green Beetle pulled up in front of the house. A pair of fuzzy dice were even visible hanging from the rear view mirror, and as Todd got out, I found I was smiling.
“Hi.” Todd said as he walked up the driveway. He looked a little uncomfortable, as if he wasn’t sure of the reception he’d get, but he did have a half-smile on his face.
“Heya Todd.” I replied while being sure to smile. The red-haired guy returned the smile and seemed to relax just a bit.“You look pretty good compared to Davey and Ronna.”
“I went home and took a nap after school.” He replied with a slightly wider smile.
“So what brings you here?” I asked as I stood up from dusting off a set of fifty-pound weights.
“I, uh, I was just in the area.” Todd said with a shrug and an uncomfortable look that said otherwise. “Did you enjoy your birthday?”
“It was nice.” I said noncommittally. He put his hands in his jean pockets and lowered his head a bit, looking at me through his reddish bangs.
“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable last night.” He said in a breathy voice, with the words tumbling out one after the other. “I swear I don’t know what happened. All that alcohol and those stupid dares…”
“Don’t sweat it.” I said with a shrug. What followed was one of those uncomfortable silences that happen from time to time. From the way Todd kept looking around, and returning to me over and over again, I knew he wanted to say something more about the previous night, but he was scared.
“I, um, uh, about last night, you know, um, you won’t say anything, right?” Todd managed to stammer out and I almost laughed, but quickly suppressed the smile that was starting to form on my face.
“Like I’m going to tell people I kissed you and Davey?” I said with a snort and he seemed to relax slightly.
“Sorry, I was just, um, well you know.” Todd said with a shrug as he blushed.
“Know what?” I asked with real curiosity.
“I mean, I’m not going to end up stuffed in a garbage can or anything, right?” Todd said in a rush.
“When was the last time I’ve done that?” I asked rhetorically, but an old memory surfaced, and I could feel the blood draining from my face.
“Well, do you remember Sean in freshman year?” Todd said with a little bit of fire appearing in his voice.It disappeared quickly as he looked at me with a little bit of fear and I started to feel ashamed. I wasn’t the Brian that had done that.In my own time, someone like Todd would never have been afraid of me, but this wasn’t my timeline was it? Still, the mention of Sean, and the hint of familiarity in his voice gave me a bit of hope.
“I remember him.” I said with a frown, pulling up that memory of a conversation between Sean and Davey that we had witnessed. I hadn’t thought about it for decades, but it was crystal clear in my mind’s eye now. “He…”
“You guys were kind of mean to him.” Todd finished when I paused.He looked at me sideways, as if afraid of my reaction.
“Yeah, we were and he didn’t deserve it at all.” I said softly and could see the surprise on Todd’s face.“I haven’t seen him around in ages.”
“He… his folks moved.” Todd said quickly, covering up at least a bit of Sean’s story, which he obviously knew.
“I almost wish I could see him again to apologize.” I said, casting out a line and hoping he’d bite.
“Why?” Todd asked and I smiled at him, hoping to reassure him.
“He didn’t deserve what we did to him.” I said softly.“I’m sure given half a chance he’d make a good friend.”
“I’ve known him since sixth grade.” Todd said
softly.“We’re actually related distantly. His father’s cousin married one of my mom’s
cousin or something like that.I heard
he was somewhere in
“Really?” I said with surprise. “Does he ever come back to town?”
“Once in a while.” Todd said with a shrug.
“You know, it’d be nice to say ‘sorry’ to him.” I said and Todd gave me an odd look.
“I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you’ve like changed a lot since school let out last winter.” Todd said in a rush again.
“Yeah, I grew up, I guess.” I said with a shrug. It had the virtue of being true, in a way.
“Wow.” Todd said softly. “I guess people can change.Don’t get me wrong, you’ve always seemed like you could be a nice guy, but you never gave yourself a chance, you know.”
“Yeah, that sounds about right.” I agreed and his eyes widened a bit.My smile seemed to reassure him though.
“So, Davey got his car?” He said to change the subject before it got more uncomfortable.
“Yeah, he had to leave in a hurry though.” I said with regret, which he seemed to hear in my voice.
“He’s a lot different than he was when I knew him
before.”
Todd said and I raised an eyebrow as an unspoken question.
“I met him in eighth grade.We had
the same math class, old crazy Mrs.
Dent.Freshman year we still talked
because we had the same math class, but he was busy hanging around the
football
team after school so we didn’t get together as much.
Then he just flat disappeared.I
heard from somewhere that he’d moved to
“Yeah.” I said after he’d fallen silent.
“You know about his dad?” Todd asked and I nodded. “Fucking sick.”
“Yeah.” I agreed softly. “So he came back here after that.”
“He doesn’t talk about it much.” Todd said. “Ronna’s gotten some of the story from him, but when the subject comes up, he clams up tight.”
“She’s known him a long time?” I asked and Todd nodded.
“They’ve known each other since the fourth grade.” Todd explained.“I guess you could say she’s known him longer than anyone else except his family. Last night, she wanted to ask him out, but he shot her down.She’s kind of mad at him.”
“I can see that.” I said, hoping he’d share what he knew.
“He told her that when they first moved back, he
didn’t know
what was going on with his dad.” Todd said sadly.“His
mom just told him they were coming back
to
“Not fucking likely.” I snorted and he actually chuckled for a moment before giving me an appraising look.
“You and I probably have a better chance at that.” He said very softly, barely above a whisper and this time I gave him a deep, searching look.Did he want my Davey?
“Well he is a good kisser.” I said softly and Todd frowned.
“Better than me?” Todd asked as if he was offended and we both burst out in laughter.
“Do you really want an answer to that?” I asked him when we’d calmed down.
“No, not really.” Todd said quietly, looking nervous again.“Does that freak you out?”
“What, kissing guys?” I asked and he nodded. “Not really.”
“Oh.” Todd said with a look of surprise. “Does that mean…are you?”
“Am I what?” I asked him and he shuffled his feet nervously while hanging his head and looking at me through his red bangs.
“Um…you know.” He said softly after I remained silent.
“I guess you could describe me as being bi.” I said softly, knowing that twenty years from now such an admission might not have been as big a deal as it was in the here and now. Todd’s head jerked up and he looked at me with surprise as his mouth formed a small “O”.
“Is that why you broke up with Marcie?” He asked.
“Let’s just say I realized she wasn’t what I was looking for in life.” I answered his question with a shrug.
“Rad.” He said softly. “I never thought someone like you would ever admit to liking guys like…”
“Like?” I asked him and he hung his head again.
“I don’t like girls.” He said very softly with blushing cheeks.
“Nothing wrong with that.” I said casually and his head jerked again. This was almost fun.
“I’ve never talked with anyone…” Todd said softly before swallowing nervously.
“Most guys our age wouldn’t want to talk about it at all.” I said and he nodded.
“Davey freaks if I even hint about stuff like this.” Todd said and I felt a surge of jealousy.He had done it with Davey!
“Really?” I managed in a voice that barely shook at all.At the moment, I was very proud of that fact.Knowing Davey didn’t have the same…values that I did in this timeline was one thing, but being confronted with it was an entirely different animal.
“Not that we’ve ever done anything.” Todd said quickly, noting something in the glare I was giving him without thinking about what I was doing.“Whenever he sleeps over, I’ve got an extra twin bed in my room. It use to be my brother’s before he went off to college. Still, I’ve seen the way he looks at me sometimes at night, and well, I’ve seen the way he’s looked at you this last week at school.”
“The way he looks at me?” I asked with surprise, and a sudden warm feeling filled my heart.He was looking at me!
“I don’t mean to upset you.” Todd said softly, mistaking the flushing of my cheeks.
“I’m not upset.” I said quickly.
“You like him, don’t you?” Todd asked.
“Yes.” I answered simply and he smiled.
“That’s like, so cool.” Todd said. “I can’t believe we’re standing here discussing it like this.I never thought…”
“Life’s full of surprises.” I said with a dismissive shrug.
“Dude, you know he’s pretty messed up right now, don’t you?” Todd asked.“He works a lot, and his home life ain’t too good either.Like I said, he don’t talk about it much, but we’ve figured out some of it between us.Sometimes he fights with his grandfather and shows up at my place late at night when my parents aren’t home – they go a lot during the week on business, and so he sneaks in and spends the night after he fights with his grandfather. The old man locks him out if he isn’t home by eleven, and sometimes Davey works until late at night.”
“That sucks.” I said simply, not sure why Pete would do such a thing.In my timeline, him and Davey had been tight as thieves.Thanks to Sean’s medical equipment, the old man hadn’t suffered the ravages of Alzheimer’s like he had in other timelines, according to Davey. Every year they took an annual fishing trip to a lake somewhere nearby, all the way up until the old man had died in 2017, just a month after his hundredth birthday. Davey had taken him, just the two of them, fishing on Pete’s birthday, which was a week before Davey’s own birthday.
This timeline sucks; I reminded myself, amazed yet again how Davey had persevered through all this and became the man I loved.
“It does suck.” Todd agreed softly with my last verbal statement.“You know, Davey’s a good guy.A really good guy. He’d give the shirt off his back if you needed it, but he doesn’t like to take help, and he never asks for it either.I had to beg him to come over if he gets locked out.Jeannette caught him sleeping in his car one night and got him to admit he couldn’t go home because he was locked out.He got pissed as hell that she told Ronna, and he was pissed that Ronna told me. Their parents don’t like him much, mostly ‘cause of his father.”
“It was good of you to make sure he knew he could stay with you.” I said softly and Todd smiled in appreciation of the compliment.
“Yeah, well, nights when my parents get home, he can’t stay and I know he sleeps in his car then.” Todd said with a frown. “I wish I could help him more, but he wouldn’t take it if I offered.My parents, well if they knew, they wouldn’t let him stay over during the week.”
“He can always stay here, you know.” I said firmly.
“What about your parents?” Todd asked.
“They seem to like him, and they won’t turn him away.” I said.“Although they might have some sharp words with his grandfather.”
“Then he’d never risk them finding out again.” Todd shook his head.
“Just… if he can’t stay at your place and is locked out, tell him to come here.” I told Todd. “I’ll make sure my parents don’t do anything to scare him off.”
“You sure?” Todd asked as his watch alarm started beeping.“Shit.I have to be at work in twenty minutes.”
“I’m sure, don’t worry.” I said and stood up to hold out my hand.He looked at it and smiled before shaking it.
“See ya tomorrow.” He said brightly before turning and rushing to his beetle before taking off.
“Who was that?” Mom asked as I stood there thinking about Davey and his problems.
“A new friend.” I answered her after a pause.
“Really?” Mom sounded surprised. “I don’t think you’ve made a new friend in years.”
“He was here last night.” I reminded her. “His name’s Todd.”
“Oh that’s right, the boy with red hair.” She said. “Are you hungry?”
“I could use a snack.” I agreed, reminded yet again that my teenage body needed more food than I was use to consuming as an old man.
“Is everything going alright, Brian?” Mom asked as she put down a plate of sliced cheese and fruit on the kitchen table. She also had two glasses of water, and sat down across from me as I picked up a piece of cheese. The boys had shared my love of cheese, to Davey’s horror.Even after three lifetimes, he still couldn’t stand to eat any yellow cheese like this.
“Things are okay, why?” I asked with a slight frown after swallowing the sharp cheddar cheese.
“Well, it’s just…you’ve been a little different lately.” Mom said softly.“Don’t get me wrong, your father and I are really happy with some of the changes, especially after that night, but we’re also a little worried.”
“What are you worried about?” I asked while furrowing my eyebrows.How had Davey managed to make it through situations like this?It was so different after being an adult to have to answer to my parents again. Sure, even after Davey and I had gone off to Stanford, they’d still been my parents, but as time went by we became adult friends as well as parents and child. Now I was back to being their child again, although bordering on adulthood.To make it even more interesting I could remember what it had been like to be a parent of two seventeen-year old boys and all the heartache they put Davey and I through with their schooling, their girlfriends, and their interesting group of friends. Certainly the media had a field day with them a time or two, but at least Davey’s father had already left the Oval Office by that point so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.
“I haven’t seen Trevor or Brandon over here in a while except for your birthday.” Mom said with a slight frown on her face. “The three of you have been all but inseparable since junior high.What’s going on?”
“We’re having a difference of opinion.” I said sourly.
“About what?” Mom asked as she nibbled on a piece of melon.
“It’s over my breaking up with Marcie.” I told her and she chewed for a moment before replying.
“High school can be a difficult time, Brian.” Mom said in a nice tone.“We often think we’re in love with someone and we find out we’re not. At least you broke up with her before things got too serious, right?”
“Yeah.” I answered the unspoken question as well as the one that she voiced, and prayed I was right. The last thing on earth that I needed was for the ‘me’ of this timeline to have gotten that fucking bitch pregnant.
“So what’s the problem with Trevor and Brandon?” Mom asked.
“They don’t really understand why I don’t want to get back together with Marcie, and their girlfriends were giving them a bad time about pushing me to get back together with her.” I said in a rush and Mom shook her head.
“So they’re being torn between their friendship with you and their girlfriends?” Mom asked, but in a tone that made the question rhetorical.
“Kids these days.” I said with a chuckle, and worried I might have slipped a little, but she laughed and smiled at the statement.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about them, Brian.” Mom assured me.“Give it some time to calm down and they’ll remember the years of friendship they’ve had with you.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.” I agreed.
“You know, sometimes I forget that you really are almost grown now.” She said with a fond smile that I remembered all too dearly. I’d missed her since she died, a great-grandmother as well as a grandmother and a mother. The last Christmas she’d been alive, we’d had six little kids running around the house, as well as our own two sons and their wives.
“Yeah, life goes by too fast sometimes.” I agreed with her, lost in the memory of a timeline gone forever now. “Well, I’ve got homework to do, thanks for the snack.”
“You’re welcome.” Mom said as I stood up and went to my room.The homework didn’t take all that long, and when I was finished, I began rummaging through the top drawers of my desk in what was becoming a regular routine. This life was similar to my original teenage years, but there was just enough difference to it that I was trying to piece together the clues of what those differences were.
Stuck in the back of one of the drawers was my bank book.Dad had started it for me in my original childhood just after I’d turned thirteen, when I started getting a regular allowance of more than a few dollars.
Apparently in this timeline, it had been started after Uncle Rich had died, and it looked like my parents had given me a fairly substantial allowance as well as regular payments that looked like they’d come from rent income based on the leasing out of Uncle Rich’s apartment. That hurt a bit, as I remembered my uncle who had died two years after mom, a very old man. For him to be cut down in the prime of his life by an AIDS epidemic that was much worse than anything I remembered and made me sad.
It also gave me an appreciation for how much better Davey had made my world before we’d even met.
Another thing I learned was that at least my father insisted that most of the money be invested into stocks. That was good because it had kept the other me from raiding the bank account for what I thought of as the “Marcie” depredations. At least he’d kept good records of all the money he’d spent on her.A diamond necklace?Diamond earrings and five hundred dollar watch?Nearly a hundred dollars every week for lunch?That might not have been a lot in 2050, but in 1986 that was a fortune!
No, it was a good thing the bitch was gone from my life.The bank account was a lot leaner than it should be, but it was more than enough for my regular needs, and what was put back in stocks and other savings would be more than enough to see me through college.At least the money-pit hadn’t robbed me of a comfortable future.
“Brian, it’s almost time for dinner!” Mom called out from the kitchen and I sighed before putting the bank documents back in my drawer.Things weren’t perfect, but they were a lot better than they could have been, I decided as I went to help set the table.
Now, all I had to do was to secure a lasting friendship with my beloved.
This story brought to you by a lot of hard editing from Emoe, and
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