Chapter 8
While Davey and I spent most of the afternoon working on our history project, Mom and Dad spent the time cleaning out the guest bedroom. The Davey I had known had a hundred years or more of life experiences behind his argumentation skills, but this Davey was just seventeen and showed the diamond in the rough that would become his debating skills later in life. He had some good theories, and we spent most of the time hashing them out.
When they paused for lunch, my parents seemed to enjoy listening to Davey and I argue about different ideas for our project. While the discussion grew a little heated at times, Davey seemed happier than he’d been in a while as he focused on something besides the troubles in his life. I understood it was a respite for him, and I wanted to make the most of it for him.
“Boys, why don’t you take a break?” My father suggested as we approached dinner time. It was starting to get dark outside and I hadn’t realized so much time had passed. “Brenda and I were thinking of having an adult’s night out, going out to dinner and a movie. Would you like to tag along or do your own thing?”
“Has there been any word on my car?” Davey asked with a touch of nervousness.
“None since earlier this afternoon.” Dad answered. “They said then it might take a few days to get the parts they needed. I hoped you don’t mind, but Janice came out for a smoke before the tow-truck left and she mentioned to me that you aren’t scheduled for work on Monday or Tuesday.”
“That’s right.” Davey said with a frown.
“I don’t mind taking you around town and I won’t miss practice since you don’t have to work.” I spoke up immediately and my dad smiled at me.
“If you want to make things easier and stay here, the guest room is ready for you.” Dad suggested calmly. “I know it’ll make things easier for Brian, and I imagine with how crowded your grandparents’ house sounds, it won’t be a bad thing for them either.”
“I’ll call mom and ask.” Davey said softly. “I’m worried about her; she didn’t look that good this morning.”
“She’s going to be fine, Davey.” Dad said reassuringly, and I was surprised to see how Davey’s shoulders slumped in relief a bit. His reaction to my father was different than his reaction to the adults in his family, and I wondered how much the whole mess with his own father was a part of their angry interactions with each other. “Give her a call though. Right now she needs to worry about her own health first and foremost. Let her know you’re doing fine and it’ll help.”
“If you say so, Mr. B.” Davey said softly and got up to go use the phone. Dad looked over at me with a look of concern on his face. I’d had a few moments earlier in the day to tell him about what I’d seen at Davey’s ‘home’ during our visit this morning. Davey had been in the bathroom, and that had given me just enough time to share the highlights with Dad. My father had been shocked hearing my description of Davey’s ‘bed’ and while we both knew it was better than being on the street, the total lack of privacy Davey had to live with was shocking to us.
“Order a pizza if you guys stay in, okay?” Dad asked and I nodded.
“Thank you for doing all this dad.” I said quietly. “I know it’s not like he’s been a family friend for a while or anything, but I really appreciate how much you’re helping him out.”
“He’s a good guy.” Dad said softly. “I’d only hope that if you ever were in a situation like his that someone else would do what we’re doing for you. It sounds like his family has a lot of issues to work through, and while they are doing that, they can’t really pay him the attention he needs. We can, and we will.”
“Thanks.” I said again and he nodded before heading out to go talk with Mom. Davey came back a moment later with a frown on his face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him and he sighed.
“Just Mom being a mom.” He answered cryptically and I let it go at that. “I’m tired of working on the project. How about we do something else?”
“I could use a run.” I said and he frowned.
“You making another reference to my stomach?” He said defensively and I realized I should have said something else with him already feeling defensive from his conversation with his mother.
“No.” I said with a shrug. “I just know that when I’m feeling uptight I like to work out. It helps me, so I thought it might help you.”
“It’s better than having a cigarette, I guess.” He said with a shrug and I grimaced.
“Yeah, it is.” I agreed with him.
“I didn’t bring any running clothes.” He said and I stood up to lead the way to my bedroom.
“Don’t worry, we’re the same shoe size and I have an old pair of running shoes and some sweats you can wear.” I assured him.
“Jeez, it’s like you’re trying to make me dress all preppy like you.” He said, but there was a hint of humor in his voice.
“Well, we’ve got to have you looking your best if you’re going to be my best friend.” I said as we entered my bedroom and I realized he’d stopped in the doorway, looking at me hard.
“I thought you already had a best friend.” He said softly, but there was a glistening look in his eyes that sent chills down my spine.
“They seem to be more interested in kissing Marcie’s ass instead of being friends with me.” I said with a shrug. “You’re not going to do that, are you? I mean even if she slashes your tires again?”
“She can blow up my car and I won’t walk away.” Davey said softly with gleaming eyes locked on mine. “You and your family are the best thing to happen to me in a long time.”
“Good, we feel the same way about you.” I said.
“Why?” Davey asked and I smiled gently.
“You just told me why.” I replied. “You said she could blow up your car, and dude, I know how important a car is to a guy our age, and she wouldn’t be able to keep you from being my friend. Her and I break up, and I find out who my true friends are, and you’re here. That means a lot to me, you know.”
“It means a lot what your folks are doing for me, too.” Davey reiterated and I nodded.
“So, now we know another part of why we’re friends and you don’t have to doubt why you’re welcome here.” I said with a shrug. “Now let’s get ready for a run.”
“Okay.” Davey said with a bit of a grin on his face. We got dressed, and I couldn’t help notice the sly looks he was giving me. I posed when I noticed the looks, and wondered if he realized that I was posing, but didn’t care. Our friendship was developing just fine, and as much as my body was crying for more as I put on my jock, I knew that it would come eventually. He didn’t have his own jock, and for a moment I considered offering one of my spares, but realized that would probably be a little too awkward just now. The only problem with just having the idea though was that I was fully hard at the thought, and suddenly didn’t want him noticing that. I finished getting dressed in a pair of blue Downey sweats and a black t-shirt while he wore a pair of my old blue sweats from freshman year and a yellow t-shirt.
“Let’s stretch.” I said when we were dressed and he had finished putting on a pair of my old running shoes. He let out a little sigh at the comfort of them and I felt guilty again at how threadbare his wardrobe was. Come to think of it, the nicest clothes I’d seen him in lately had been those my mother had bought him as a belated birthday gift.
A half-mile into the run, he was wheezing something bad, and I was astonished at how out of shape he was. The Davey I’d known would have set double the pace and not even broken into a sweat for the first mile at this age. How much had he been smoking?
“Oh god, it’s been so long since I went for a run.” Davey moaned as we slowed to a fast walk and he tried to catch his breath.
“How long has it been?” I asked him.
“Over a year, since we moved from Nevada.” Davey explained.
“That’s bad.” I said with a frown and he nodded.
“Let’s pick up the pace.” He said in a determined tone that was very familiar, and very welcome. He had a half-smile on his face as we started jogging, albeit slower than before.
“I use to run a lot back in Nevada.” Davey said with a slight wheeze after another half-mile. He was sweating profusely now, but he seemed determined to go on for at least a little more. “I use to do a lot of things in Nevada, for that matter.”
“Why’d you stop?” I asked and he shrugged as we finished another half mile and he motioned for us to turn back. Three miles wasn’t exactly a lot, but for his first time out in a year, it was pretty damn good.
“A lot of reasons.” Davey wheezed after we’d gone for a bit in silence. I slowed to a walk, and he followed my change of pace, lifting his arms over his head and stretching out while taking deep, steady breaths. We kept moving though, although the pace was just a rapid walk. “Part of it was just being depressed over the whole sack of shit that my life became.”
“What happened?” I asked cautiously, not sure if he’d want to share. “I mean, I know what the papers said, but what happened really, for you?”
“It sucked.” Davey answered bitterly. “Mom had been sick for a couple weeks with pneumonia and Nanny had come out to Nevada with Papa to care for her. Nanny now thinks Dad had been poisoning Mom, but I don’t really believe that at all. Anyway, Mom got better and the Saturday before Thanksgiving Mom asked me if I wanted to go with them to California for the holiday. I agreed since we weren’t playing any games at school and it was boring stuck out in the middle of nowhere. Dad was the only one who stayed behind. After Thanksgiving, I started asking when we were going back to Nevada, but Mom kept on putting me off saying she wasn’t feeling well.”
“That’s not right.” I said, and while I’d heard parts of the story before, I’d never heard it like this or with the anger and venom in his voice. It also explained some facets of Davey’s psyche that I had never really understood before.
“No, it wasn’t.” Davey agreed bitterly and picked the pace back up to a slow jog. “It was December before I learned we weren’t going back to Nevada. At first I threw a fit and demanded that if Mom wanted to divorce Dad, that was fine, but I wanted to live in Nevada.”
“She didn’t tell you why?” I asked and he shook his head.
“Not until they’d already enrolled me at Ceres High just in time for finals that I had no chance to prepare for.” Davey explained. “I got lucky and did alright and with the grades I’d already gotten in Eureka I eked out B’s in most of my classes, but I’d been getting a 3.8 GPA in Nevada, so all B’s kind of fucked me up there. I got real mad one night and told Mom she could either buy me a bus ticket back to Nevada or she could tell me what was really going on, and so she broke down and told me the truth about what Dad had done to Jenny.”
“That must have been rough.” I said softly.
“I didn’t believe her at first.” Davey said so softly I almost didn’t hear him, and he stopped jogging to turn and face me. There were tears in his eyes again. “How awful was that, my sister gets fucking raped by my own father and I didn’t fucking believe it when Mom told me! I was so fucking angry and so god-damn self-centered that all I cared about was getting back to Nevada and my fucking friends there. When Mom told me, I lost it, accusing her of lying just to keep me from siding with Dad against her. We were sitting in Nanny and Papa’s bedroom, with the door shut although I could hear Nanny hovering outside. Mom picked up the phone and called Dad right then and there, and put me on the phone without saying a word.”
“Oh god.” I said fiercely, not believing the details I was hearing. Davey had never shared them with me before, and I wondered if that had been on purpose because of how painful they had been, or unintentional because they no longer hurt so much. Here, in this timeline, Davey’s eyes were leaking tears and his cheeks were flushed from more than our run.
“I asked him right out, expecting to hear him deny it so that I could go back home to Nevada where I belonged.” Davey’s shoulders shook with sobs, but his body language was so angry and defensive I knew he didn’t want a hug or comfort. He wanted somebody to listen. Hearing this was so amazing for me, because it hadn’t been something I’d ever discussed with my Davey in detail, and it was like a door was opening to understanding the man I’d loved for decades. “My whole fucking world came crashing down on that phone call. When I told him what mother claimed, I waited for him to tell me it was all a lie. I was so ready to believe that, but he didn’t. All he did was start crying. My fucking father, who I could never remember crying like that, fucking broke down in sobs on the phone and told me how sorry he was.
“FUCK YOU DAD!” Davey yelled into the darkening twilight and I shook with my own unshed tears for him. “How the fuck could he do that to her? But you know what’s the worst thing about it all? It’s not just what my fucking father did to my sister, it’s what my mother did to me! Her and my grandparents, and my sister, and everyone around me. Even Shantill, that fucking nitwit, knew what had happened, but could anyone even fucking tell me? No, they fucking lied to me and put me off like I couldn’t handle the truth! You wonder why I’m so mad at them? I saw the look on your face at Nanny’s, you know. That’s why I’m so fucking mad at them. They couldn’t even fucking tell me the goddamn truth about what my father had done to my sister! I had to force them to tell me!”
“They were all wrong.” I said softly and he looked at me with fury and passion burning in his eyes. We were jogging along a canal path, empty at this time of year, and the only lights were from the stars, the rising moon, and cars in the distance. While our eyes remained locked on each other, I stepped towards him, and put my hands on his shoulders as my teary eyes bored into his. “They didn’t respect you, but what are you doing now? You’re working, giving them a lot of your hard-earned money to help, why?”
“Because they’re my family and I care.” Davey said with an exhaled breath. “How could I turn my back on my sister after what she’s been through? My mother too. I know she didn’t do right by me, but I know why she did it. It hurt, and she was afraid I’d still go back to him even knowing the truth. It hurts she didn’t trust me, but she’s still my mother and I know she loves me.”
“You’re a good guy, Davey Jones.” I said softly and he blushed slightly. “No, don’t be embarrassed. I don’t know many guys would go through what you’ve been through and still care a bit about his family.”
“I’m not all that good.” Davey said softly as he looked at the cars in the distance. It was getting chilly out, and the fact that we’d been sweating didn’t help, but neither of us wanted to move at this moment. “You want to know another reason why Papa doesn’t let me in after eleven-thirty? It’s because last year at Ceres I got mixed up with stoners. I’d stay out late with them getting drunk and stoned. It felt good to let go, to forget my problems and drift along all numb to the pain. That’s why they really helped me get into Downey, to get me away from those guys, but it didn’t really work. Most of the money I have left over I spend getting pot for them and me and alcohol for Ronna or Jeannette when I can’t hang around the stoners. So you see, I’m not really a good guy.”
“Bullshit.” I snapped angrily, not just at the fact that he was doing drugs and drinking like mad at times. His eyes snapped back to me at the word, and I locked gazes with him. “Good people can make bad decisions without becoming bad themselves.”
“Tell it to Mrs. Dent.” He said and I almost lost the reference until I remembered the junior high math teacher who taught positive/negative multiplication with a silly reference to bad things happening to good people being a bad thing, and bad things happening to bad people being a good thing.
“Real life is more complicated than that.” I reminded him and he looked at me as if he was longing to hear the next words out of my mouth. “I know it hurts, Davey.”
“How could you?” Davey asked angrily as he pulled away from me and crossed his arms to stare at me in his anger. “You’ve got the perfect fucking family, Brian. Your parents, most people would kill to have parents like them. God knows I would sell my soul for parents like them, so what the fuck could you know about hurting?”
“I had a favorite uncle.” I said slowly, trying to mix the truth with the reality of this timeline without outright lying to Davey. Building a relationship on a foundation of lies was a bad thing, or should I just tell him the full truth right now? Was he ready for that? “Uncle Rich and I use to do a lot of things together and he was like this god-figure when I was younger. He could do no wrong, and I loved talking to him on the phone, and visiting him.”
“Let me guess, he died in an accident or something?” Davey sneered and for a moment I felt really angry at him.
“He died of AIDS back in 1981, just after Christmas.” I said softly, and truthfully. Davey’s face contorted in a mix of emotions before he frowned at me.
“I’m sorry.” Davey said softly. “Did he get it through a blood transfusion?”
“No, he caught it because his partner liked to sleep around.” I said bitterly and he frowned before his eyes widened. “Don’t you dare say something about ‘fags’ or ‘queers’ either, Davey Jones. He was my uncle and I loved him. He should fucking be alive right now!”
“I’m sorry.” Davey said softly.
“That’s not all.” I said fiercely, wanting to make sure he did realize that I could understand hurt and loss. “Every Thanksgiving we usually go see my grandparents back east. This last time, the fucking bitch Marcie decided to have me spend time with her family and like an idiot, I agreed. My grandparents decided to come out here and they fucking died in a car accident on the I-5 in heavy fog, all because I listened to my bitch of a girlfriend.”
“Shit.” Davey said and this time he stepped closer to me, and I could feel his hands on my arms as more tears came to my eyes. Yes, it hadn’t been me exactly who had done that, made those decisions, or had watched Uncle Rich die, but in many ways it really had been me and if the choices I had made had not created this timeline, they’d have never happened. Someday I’d tell him that part of all this.
“Yeah, shit.” I said bitterly. “So, you know, Davey Jones, my little life isn’t perfect after all. Yes I’ve got damn fucking good parents, but that doesn’t guarantee me a perfect little life.”
“I’m sorry.” He said softly. “I got so wrapped up in me that…”
“Yeah, well, let’s head home.” I said, turning to wrap my arm around his shoulder and he sagged against me as we began walking back to the house. We walked in silence, but it was a good silence. When we were getting closer to the house, I dropped my arm and we walked next to each other.
“Your uncle, your parents knew he was…gay and still let you around him?” Davey asked as we got near the house, and part of me cheered that he’d brought up the first conversation between us about gay people. That was something I knew we’d have to work on if there was to be more between us than friendship or just sex.
“Yeah, they know gay people aren’t like some pervert or something.” I said with a shrug. “My uncle was just a man who happened to like other men. That didn’t mean he was going to go all pervo on me.”
“No, that’s something people like my father do.” Davey said bitterly and I felt guilty for a moment. “No, don’t say you’re sorry, Brian, it’s just… I’ve never thought about it like that before. My father would have a shit-fit if he thought about me being around someone like that. Hell for that matter so would the rest of my family.”
“What do you think about it?” I asked him and he gave me a long look.
“You obviously aren’t freaked out about people like that.” Davey said softly.
“No, I’m not.” I said with a shrug. “It’s a fact of life, either you are that way or you’re not. It’s just, with Uncle Rich, it was a part of who he was, but it wasn’t all of who he was. You know what I mean?”
“I think so.” Davey said with a frown as we walked up the driveway and into the house. Mom and Dad were already gone and Davey looked at me as we stood in the entryway of the house. He wanted to say something, but he hesitated. “Don’t get this the wrong way, but what if like, oh yeah, maybe like what if you had a brother and he turned out to be… gay? How would your parents react?”
“Dude, my parents told me when I was twelve that if I liked boys instead of girls they were fine with that as long as I loved them and treated them right.” I said with a laugh.
“Oh.” Davey said with wide eyes and shake of his head. “I’m going to take a shower, okay?”
“Okay.” I said. “I’ll order the pizza?”
“Uh, sure.” Davey said.
“How’s pepperoni and sausage?” I asked.
“Sounds good.” He said and headed off into the bathroom.
I found I was humming to myself as I looked up the pizza company in the yellow pages. It was an old song for me, but a song that hadn’t come out until well after 2010. While trying to find the pizza company I liked, I realized how much I missed things like the internet and instant access to information. There were other things I missed too, like On the Border restaurants and big bookstores, but so far, there was one thing I didn’t miss.
He was in my bathroom taking a shower right now.
That evening we ate pizza, played chess, and talked. We weren’t interested in going out for anything, so we stayed in and we talked. Davey talked about Nevada, and the things he’d done there, and I could hear in his voice how much he missed playing football. It was obvious that he hadn’t gone out for the football team at Downey last September because he was afraid of failing to make the team as much as because he needed to work. It wasn’t all him talking though, and I found myself walking a fine line between my memories of my original timeline and the experiences of this timeline’s Brian. It wasn’t easy, but by the time midnight rolled around, we were both ready for bed, and I felt like we’d made a lot of progress in getting to know each other.
“Thanks for everything.” Davey said quietly before rushing in to give me a hug when we were heading towards the bedroom. I returned the hug, and he blushed before heading into the guest bedroom. Part of me wanted to invite him to spend the night in my room again, but there was a look in his eyes that told me he liked the idea of staying in a room by himself.
Mom and Dad returned sometime after midnight, and I woke up just enough to realize it was them coming home before rolling over and going back to sleep. I was up a little after seven in the morning, and I was slightly surprised to see Davey up as well. He’d told me how he liked to sleep in on weekends, and in that he wasn’t that different than the Davey I had known.
“You going running this morning?” Davey asked me softly since my parents were still asleep. I’d put on a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt since it was slightly chilly, and he probably mistook that for meaning I was going running. There was a look in his eyes like he wanted the answer to be yes, so I changed my plan of fixing a bowl of cereal into a plan for going running.
“Sure, you want to join me?” I asked him and he smiled.
“I’m not sure if I want to, but I know I should.” He said with a low chuckle. “Last night proved that I need to exercise more.”
“Cool, let me get you a sweatshirt.” I said as I turned to go back in my room. He was wearing the sweatpants from last night, so he was fine there, and I saw he had my old pair of running shoes on as well.
“Dude, I’m borrowing so many of your clothes it’s like a good thing we’re so close in size.” He said and I chuckled.
“Anytime you want to borrow something of mine, you just take it.” I told him and he blushed slightly as I threw him a green sweatshirt and he pulled it on over his head.
“I don’t think I’ve ever known someone close enough to my sizes to share clothes like this.” Davey said. “It’s kind of weird.”
“It’s kind of cool.” I responded. “I’ve never really known someone my size either. Brandon’s close to my height, but he’s skinny as a reed.”
“Yeah, he is.” Davey agreed with a hint of sourness. We stretched without too much chatter, and this morning I let him set the pace. It started off slow, but he picked it up as we finished the three-mile run, and while he was breathing heavily, he was also smiling broadly. The adult part of me knew it was because he’d set a goal and completed it successfully. Davey liked achieving goals in his life, but he usually set them so high there was no way he could achieve them, and that failure would make him feel depressed.
During the morning, my father drafted the two of us to help him clean up a lot of the clutter they’d cleared out of the guest bedroom, and to help him rearrange the stuff in the garage. After a bunch of talk, my weight equipment was moved to the back patio to make room for more of mom’s stuff in the garage. Being included in the task of helping move things relaxed Davey as he felt like he was helping to ‘work off’ what he felt he owed my father.
After lunch I dropped him off at work before returning home. It was time for the third degree of questioning from both Dad and Mom as they wanted to know everything they could get out of me about Davey. They both liked him a lot, and the more I shared, the more they grew to look worried about him, and at the same time a bit hopeful.
“I wish we could adopt him.” Mom said softly before looking at me. “You wouldn’t mind that, would you Brian?”
“He’s got his own family, even if they’re all messed up right now.” Dad reminded her. “It’s more like he just needs a safe place to be himself. We can do that, certainly. Plus, I’ll drop by the apartment in S.F. when his mom’s having surgery. I’ll be able to chat with his grandmother then and get more perspective on everything. From what you said, Brian, she at least understands some of how this might be hard on David and want to help in any way she can. Plus, I’ll probably see Pete in the bank and we can talk about that fishing trip. I wasn’t sure what to think about him, but you seem certain he’s got David’s best interests at heart.”
“He’s reacting the only way he really knows how, trying to keep Davey out of trouble.” I hadn’t flat out told them about Davey’s admission of drug use, but they’d taken the hints. Drugs was something guaranteed to get them upset, but at the same time, they were also smart enough to know that if Davey was willing to tell me about it, he was willing to at least listen to someone talking to him about stopping it.
“What’s the real story with his car?” I asked dad, who frowned at me.
“What do you mean?” He asked.
“C’mon, dad, I know it won’t take a few days for the starter to come in.” I said and he smiled with a shake of his head.
“I should have known you’d have figured that out.” He replied. “I’m having that front fender fixed from where it was all bent up. Do you know how that happened?”
“Yeah, he was following someone too closely and reacted too late when they stopped in front of him.” I answered. “It was late and he’d been working a couple of shifts at a couple of restaurants.”
“He works too hard for minimum wage.” Dad said.
“I know he actually makes about a dollar above minimum wage.” I said with a shrug.
“That’s still too little for working so much.” Mom frowned as she spoke her mind. “Can’t he get a better job?”
“It was the first job he got offered.” I said with a shrug, having put together a couple of pieces of that story from our conversation last night. “I think he’s really scared of rejection, and he took the first thing that came along so he wouldn’t have to face rejection from somewhere else, and that’s why he’s not really interested in looking for other work.”
“Does he have any other skills?” Mom asked with concern. “Do you know if he can type or anything like that?”
“Yeah, he can type.” I answered. “He told me he took typing classes in Nevada and at Ceres High and passed the proficiency test with a typing speed of forty-five words per minute. They also taught filing and stuff like that.”
“Then why doesn’t he try to get a job in an office?” Mom asked.
“Probably because most of those types of jobs are during the day, not evenings and weekends like fast food.” Dad answered. “He might make more per hour doing that work, but he won’t have as many hours and that means he’ll make less overall.”
“I hadn’t thought about that.” Mom stated.
“I just want to thank you both for being so nice to him.” I said quietly and Dad shook his head while Mom smiled.
“We’ve been lucky with you, overall, Brian.” Dad said. “Actually, we’ve been lucky all our lives, and I don’t think I could live with myself if we didn’t help someone like David when the situation presented itself to us.”
“I guess we’re just old-fashioned liberals at heart.” Mom said with a fond smile for Dad, and I tried not to imagine where the smile might lead.
After Davey got off work, he and I went out to dinner at a Lyon’s restaurant before I took him back to his grandmother’s. He was happier than I’d seen him in a while, and spent most of dinner telling me about some crazy customers that had come through his restaurant that day. It was an enjoyable evening, and I was sorry he was going back home, but I could also see the worried look in his eyes when he mentioned his mother.
Monta insisted that I come in when she saw us pull up. She was outside with her great-granddaughter, Whitney, who was now just over a year old. Shantill was apparently out on a date, but Jenny was there, as was Davey’s mother. Jenny was far different than the girl I’d known in the last timeline. She was a little plumper, and lacked the drive and determination that had led her to being a fighter pilot and eventually the commanding general of an entire Air Force base. She’d retired after being the first female general to sit on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and very nearly being the first female Chair of that important military agency.
That didn’t mean she wasn’t lively and interesting, just that it was in a far different way. She was more interested in gossip and what I’d call ‘girlie’ things than in flying or military life, and she definitely expressed an interest in me that made me uncomfortable on several levels. Davey just rolled his eyes at her a couple of times while we all chatted for about an hour. When I got home, I was surprised to see Trevor’s truck outside, and him waiting inside for me.
“Trevor stopped by about an hour ago to see you.” Mom said by way of introduction as I came in and I looked at my friend with a little trepidation. Why was he here?
“How about we go out back?” Trevor asked and I nodded in agreement before leading the way out into the back yard. He stood there, hands in his pockets and looked around for a bit before speaking. “You moved your weights out here.”
“Yes, now what do you want?” I said sharply, more sharply than I intended and he winced slightly.
“Dude, can’t I just come by and say hi to my friend?” Trevor asked defensively. “We’ve been friends forever, dude, and you gotta know I miss you.”
“Yeah, well I figured you decided your girlfriend’s more important.” I said with a shrug.
“Dude, don’t go there.” He said angrily. “What about your little boyfriend?”
“He’s just my friend.” I said quickly.
“According to Marcie she saw you guys together Friday night.” Trevor said with a leer and I felt my temper rise.
“Yeah that was just before she started giving Mark Spencer a blow job in his car.” I sneered and he looked at me with wide eyes.
“So that’s why he did it.” Trevor whispered.
“Did what?” I asked, knowing what he probably meant.
“He’s the one who slashed Jones’s tires for her.” Trevor said. “That’s why I came by here, to tell you that.”
“Why?” I asked.
“She was pissed when she saw you hanging out around him.” Trevor said softly. “Marcie thinks that if she can keep anyone from hanging out around you that you’ll beg her to take you back and so she’s sending a message to anyone who’d be your friend.”
“Thanks, but that’s not what I meant.” I replied. “I already figured that part out, what I meant was why are you here telling me all this?”
“We’ve been friends for years, Brian.” Trevor said softly, not meeting my eyes but looking out over the back yard. “I’m starting to think no girl’s worth destroying our friendship over.”
“It’d have been nice for you to figure that out earlier.” I said angrily and instantly regretted those words. “I’m sorry, Trevor, that wasn’t fair. I’ve been as bad a friend over the past year from what it sounds like. You know, we use to have a better idea about what was important in life.”
“Yeah, we did until we started really dating.” Trevor said with a sigh. “Is that what the future holds? We meet some girl, marry her and lose all of our old friends?”
“It doesn’t have to be that way.” I said from the experience of actually having lived a life where I kept in touch with my old friends. We’d all been there, together, that day that the plane had slammed into the Pentagon despite Davey’s efforts, and we’d all been in the same room together when the last American troops left Iraq in 2007, and when war had broken out in 2009 following the assassination of the Iraqi Prime Minister, we’d all watched as Congress voted to send our troops back over there, and we’d all joined Trevor in celebrating his Super Bowl victory in 2011.
“I don’t want it that way.” Trevor said after a long moment of quiet thinking. He turned back to look me in the eyes before holding out his hand. “Friends again?”
“Always.” I said, taking his hand and shaking it firmly.
“So how’s David doing with his car?” Trevor asked in a much easier tone and I relaxed as I told him how my father was fixing the car up. He shook his head, and we talked in earnest for several hours out there on the porch.
It was a good beginning.
This story brought to you by a lot of hard editing from Emoe, and
beta-reading by Trebs.
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