aterovis_bm_reapthewhirlwind.p65 (15 page)

As soon as they were gone, Aidan gave me a pain 131

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pill then helped me down the hall and into bed. When he started out of the room, I called him back.

“Aidan,” I began awkwardly, “I’m really sorry…about…about everything. I’m sorry I came to you like that before I was ready. I’m sorry I broke my promise to you. I’m sorry I was so selfish. But most of all I’m sorry I hurt you.”

He stood for a moment then quietly said, “You’re forgiven, Will,” then turned to leave.

“Forgiven but not forgotten?” I asked.

He paused but didn’t turn around. “No, not forgotten.” And he was gone.

As I fell asleep with the aid of the pain pill I wondered if the damage I had done to our friendship was going to prove more permanent than the damage I had done to my body.

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I hatched a plan over the next several days that I was sure would either exorcize Joey from my life forever or let me know conclusively whether there was any hope for us. My plan would go into effect that Friday night.

Aidan had said that Joey had become a party animal and there was never any shortage of parties on a Friday night in a college town. All I had to do was find the one he was at and get him alone. Easy, huh? I would have to wing it from there since I had no clue how he would react, but I felt confident that I knew Joey well enough to handle it.

The only hitch was that I had to get out of the apartment without arousing Aidan’s suspicion. He was back in school now and not keeping the eagle eye on me that he had been before everything happened, so I decided to slip out before he got home. I’d leave a note or something so he wouldn’t worry.

Friday afternoon finally rolled around. I had spent all morning fretting over what to wear. I wanted to look my best. Finally, I had settled on a flashy club shirt that Joey had given me for my last birthday and a nice pair of jeans. I had only worn the shirt a few times, flashy wasn’t my usual style, but I thought it was a nice touch.

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I took one last look in the mirror and decided it would have to do. The cast didn’t exactly scream suave and sophisticated, but there wasn’t much I could do about that.

I had called Laura earlier in the day and managed to find out where the major parties were that night without her getting too suspicious. There were three that I really wanted to hit, but as near as I could figure, I had at least three hours to kill before I could start my rounds.

I decided to take some pictures while the light was still good. My camera was in the car and all I had to do was stop at Wal-Mart and pick up some film. Then it was just a matter of driving around waiting for inspiration.

It wasn’t too hard to find. While I often made fun of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where I had grown up, and the insulated life we lived, it is without a doubt an incredibly beautiful place to live. Bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Chesapeake Bay on the other, the isthmus is made up of the southern half of Delaware, ten counties of Maryland and two counties of Virginia. The state names were combined to get the name Delmarva Peninsula, by which it is often called. The region is rich in history and natural trea-sures. Much of the area is still rural and even the more urban areas, like the small city I live in, are surrounded by the flat farmland that is so typical of the Shore. Drive a few minutes outside the city limits in any direction and you’re just as likely to see a white-tailed deer as a human being.

I wanted to drive to Assateague Island, but I knew I didn’t have enough time to drive there tonight, so I contented myself with the wooded countryside that weaves itself around the picturesque Wicomico River. I stopped 134

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often to snap some photos of an abandoned house here, a forgotten graveyard there. I caught the sun in a spectacular display of color that would make a great back-drop for the paintings. By the time the sun dropped below the tree line, I had taken up three rolls of film. I was confident that at least some of the photos I had taken would produce a great composition for a painting.

I glanced at my car clock as I drove down the darkening roads. It was show time. The first party I hit was just getting started and no one even knew Joey, so I quickly moved on. At the next party, several people knew Joey, although no one looked impressed, but none of them had any reason to think he was coming there.

One guy thought he would probably be at the last party on my list since that was where all the booze would be.

I left my cell phone number with the guy just in case and moved on to crash my next party.

Turned out that the third time was a charm. I wasn’t there very long at all before some girl said she’d heard Joey say that he was coming to this particular party tonight. I crossed my fingers and settled in to wait for Joey to make his appearance. While I waited, I looked around. This was apparently the party to be at this weekend. The house was filling up quickly. There was a large fenced-in back yard with an in-ground pool, but so far, no one was making any move in that direction. The damp, chilly weather probably had something to do with that. Loud music pumped from somewhere and beer was in abundance. I had never been a party animal by any stretch, but even to my untrained eye, it appeared that at least half the partyers present were stoned already. I noticed several girls eying me hun-grily; I felt like fresh meat in the lion cage at the zoo. A 135

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flirtatious redhead pressed a cold bottle into my hand and I passed it on to the first empty-handed person I encountered. I figured I’d need all my wits about me for my mission that night.

“So how’d you get that cast? You don’t look like the rough and tumble type.” I turned to find a petite, attractive girl with shoulder length honey blonde hair and light blue eyes looking me over.

“I, uh—fell three stories off a fire escape,” I stuttered as I blushed furiously.

She cocked an eyebrow. “Must have been some party!” She took a drag off a cigarette and blew smoke in my direction.

“Something like that,” I muttered, already trying to figure out how to gracefully disentangle myself.

“My name is Caitlin,” she said.

“I’m Will.”

“Nice to meet you, Will.” She flashed me a quick smile that revealed an even row of white teeth. She was really quite pretty. Too bad I wasn’t straight. “Do you go to school here? I don’t think I recognize you.”

“No, I’m meeting a friend here, actually.”

“Oh really? Too bad. What’s her name? Maybe I know her.”

“Him, my friend’s a guy. His name is Joey Taylor.”

Her expression changed in the blink of an eye. “You’re friends with Joey Taylor? You should really choose your friends more carefully.”

“We’ve been friends our entire lives. He’s my best friend, but I—lost touch with him a few months ago and I was hoping to run into him here.”

“Well I hope you don’t. You seem like too nice a guy for slime like him.”

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“Why do you say that? What’s he done?”

“For starters he’s screwed two of my friends then dumped them the next day. He promises he’s in love with you and is ready to change his ways because you’re

‘the one,’ gets you in bed and then it’s wham-bam without so much as a thank-you-ma’am.”

“Joey?” I asked incredulously. Even after Aidan had told me almost the same thing it was hard to picture my best friend doing these things.

“Yes, Joey. Plus he’s almost never sober anymore. I’ve heard that he’s shown up for one of his classes completely trashed a few times. The professor threw him out.” She lowered her voice and leaned toward me, “I’ve even heard he got some poor girl pregnant then told her he’d pay for the abortion; that he didn’t want anything to do with a kid.”

I shook my head in disbelief. How could this person she was describing be the same person I had grown up with?

Caitlin laid her hand gently on my good arm. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you your old friend is such a loser, but really, you’re better off without him.”

“If you’re trying to get in his pants, Caty-baby, I gotta tell ya it’s a lost cause—ya don’t havva dick,” a familiar voice slurred from behind me. I spun around but not before seeing a look of disgust mar Caitlin’s pretty face.

“Joey!” I said.

“Hey fag, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at some gay bar in Rehomo?” he said, referring to a nearby gay-friendly town by its unfriendly nickname.

The smell of alcohol almost knocked me over.

I blinked rapidly as I felt my face heat up. “Joey, I came to see you. Can we talk?”

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“What’s to talk about? You’re a fucking fag and I’m not. End of discussion.”

“Joey, please, just a few minutes?” I was embarrassed to be begging in front of Caitlin, but it was as if I couldn’t help myself.

A foreign smile spread slowly across Joey’s face, cruel and ugly. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll do you a favor if you do one for me. Follow me.” He turned and started weaving through the crowd and up the stairs to the second floor as if he knew where he was going. I followed wordlessly. Apparently, he did know where he was going; he walked confidently to a closed door, opened it, and entered. He shut the door as soon as I followed him in.

He immediately started unbuttoning his pants, letting them drop to the floor.

“What are you doing?” I asked although I had an awful feeling that I knew.

He pushed his boxers down and his erection sprung up. “It’s what you wanted isn’t it, Willie? A quick suck off your old pal, Joey? Well, here it is; come on, I don’t have all night.”

“Joey, pull your pants up. I just want to talk to you.”

“Suck first, talk later. Come on, get on your knees.”

“No! Joey—” He grabbed his dick and started jerk-ing off, hard and fast. “Will you stop that?” I yelled.

“You know you want it, Will,” he taunted. “Better hurry, I’m almost there already.”

“No, I do not want it. What’s happened to you? I thought I knew you, but I don’t know who this person is. What happened to the old Joey?”

“He’s gone, Wee Willie Winkle,” he sneered, using my despised childhood nickname. “This is the new improved Joe Cool. I’m a chick-magnet; they can’t get 138

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enough of my dick. I can have any girl I want whenever I want. Do you really wanna pass up your one chance at a piece of this?”

“You’ve become a sleaze who everybody either hates or pities.”

“What’s wrong, Will? Can’t have me so now you’re jealous?” His hand hadn’t slowed down the whole time and now his body suddenly tensed and he began to shoot onto the floor. “Look at all that going to waste. It could have been yours, Will.”

I’d had enough. I spun around in disgust and yanked the door open. But Joey was always quicker than I was.

He was on me before I even got the door halfway open, slamming me against it, and pressing his body against mine. Pain shot up my arm and I gasped in agony. I felt Joey’s still hard erection press into my buttocks and smelled his foul breath in my face.

“Where ya goin’, Willie?” he rasped. “We were just getting’ started.”

“Get off me, Joey,” I gasped.

Ignoring my plea, he reached down, grabbed my broken arm, and spun me around, slamming my back against the door. While I was still off balance, he pressed his mouth against mine so hard I felt my teeth cut into my lips as his hand grabbed my crotch painfully. I reacted without thought, bringing my knee up sharply into his groin and slamming him in the face with my cast at the same time. He bent double and stumbled back. I was through the door before he even knew what had hit him.

Ignoring the pain in my arm, I took the stairs two at a time and plunged into the crowd at the bottom. I grabbed a bottle out of someone’s hand and gulped it 139

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down frantically trying to get rid of the sour taste of Joey’s mouth. My arm was throbbing. I wanted to curl up in a ball and just cry but there was hardly room to move. I found myself being moved around the throng like a leaf caught in the current of a fast moving river.

A sudden wave of nausea swept over me and I began to push and shove my way in the direction of the hallway. I managed to find a bathroom, which was mercifully empty, and slammed the door shut just in time to get violently sick. I splashed some cold water on my face and looked up at myself in the mirror as what had just happened began to sink in. A pair of haunted eyes stared back at me. Everyone had tried to tell me, but I wouldn’t listen. Joey was no longer the same person I grew up with. I knew now that Joey was gone. I began to shake and I slowly slid to the floor where I began to sob. I stayed in there awhile, crying, mourning the loss of my best friend. I was grateful for the lock on the door but eventually the banging on the door got to me and I reluctantly gave up my sanctuary.

I was ready to leave this party. I started weaving my way for the front door. By the time I got there, I was fighting another bout of nausea. Between the traumatic events upstairs and whatever it was I’d drank out of that bottle, my stomach was in full revolt. I barely cleared the front steps before upchucking the last of my stomach’s contents into the shrubbery.

“Being with Joey always affects me that way, too,” a feminine voice said from the shadows. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand as I peered into the darkness. The glow of a cigarette butt drew my eyes to the dark form of someone sitting under the low hanging branches of an enormous magnolia tree that took 140

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up most of the front yard.

“Caitlin?” I hazarded a guess.

“Yup. Come on in. It’s quiet and Joey isn’t likely to find us unless he passes out and rolls under here.”

I crawled into the cave-like space and leaned back against the tree trunk next to Caitlin. “What are you doing out here in the cold?”

“I had to get out of there. Besides, the fresh air is good for your lungs. Smoke?” she asked as she offered her cigarette.