Destiny (Waiting for Forever) (24 page)

M
Y
NAME
is James Daryl Mayfield, and I am in hell.

F
REQUENTLY
while I was growing up, my mother told me that God was the sole author of vengeance and judgment. Sinners would face their moment of truth when they stood before the throne. I always thought that would come after death, but as I stood looking into Brian’s horrified eyes, I wondered if maybe my judgment had arrived. The blood drained from his face, leaving him shaken and pale, and the pain I saw there nearly brought me to my knees. As he turned and fled, I caught myself just as my feet tried to follow. A whimper escaped my lips, still parted in shock, and in an unconscious attempt to be close to him, my body swayed toward the empty spot where he had been. For a moment, I tried to tell myself it was the E, an ecstasy-induced hallucination. Sometimes I got those when Steven let me snort it instead of taking the pills. Then one of the other guys went after Brian, and I knew it was all real.

“You okay, Dylan?” Steven O’Dell asked me from somewhere vaguely off to my left, and I felt his hand on my arm. Turning a little, I glanced at him, catching the cold look in his dark eyes. He pushed a strand of long hair, black as onyx, behind his ear from where it had fallen from a loose rubber band. I knew the concern he faked for everyone else only partially masked the anger and jealousy I could see all too clearly. I’d heard that a regular coke habit tended to make people paranoid. In Steven’s case, it also made him a mean, violent SOB. With him as my manager—I refused to think of him as my boyfriend—I got to bang a line of strange men for money that he took for my “expenses,” like rent, food, and drugs.

“I’m fine,” I assured him, trying for the first time in months to throw off the effect of the drugs clouding my brain. I had to think clearly because I knew that look in Steven’s eyes. “I just turned too fast is all, and got a little twinge in my back. I’ll be fine in a minute.” It was a plausible excuse because he’d just bruised my back and given me a black eye before we’d gotten to the studio because he thought I’d embarrassed him at the gym. I hated that all the bruises would be noticeable once I took off my shirt. I didn’t want to be the object of anyone’s pity—least of all Brian’s.

Steven nodded and took a step forward. Instinctively, I cringed back, but he just put his arms around me, rubbing my back lightly.

“I’m sorry,” he told me quietly. He was always sorry.

An awkward silence permeated the room as its inhabitants looked anywhere but at Steven and me. We waited for several minutes while Brian hid his shock and disgust in the bathroom next door. More than anything, I wished I could go to him, hold him, explain, but I couldn’t. There was nothing to explain. He had seen the brutal truth clearly written in the drugs and the black eye. With Steven right beside me, I didn’t dare risk speaking to Brian or even looking at him. Steven’s jealousy raged whether he had a reason to be upset or not. I refused to give him a reason to hurt anyone.

After a few agonizing minutes, a toilet flushed, and the door to the bathroom opened. Whispers in the hall played at the edges of my hearing, but when the voices stopped, Brian emerged, followed closely by the brown-haired guy who’d followed him out of the room. Anyone else would have mistaken Brian’s appearance for nerves, believed the revulsion in his face was self-directed for what he was about to do, but I knew it was all for me. As I stood in Steven’s arms, my eyes met Brian’s, and I saw no love in them. They held only contempt for me, seeing what I had become, watching me stand in someone else’s arms.

I felt the same contempt for myself.

“Scott, are you in or not, man?” Nick asked Brian, his voice betraying his frustration. “Jesus Christ, I don’t need this.” The last part, the quiet muttering, didn’t seem to reach Brian or the other guy, Corey. The hit Steven had given me for the shoot started to kick in more, and despite my misery, I felt happy again. He never gave me enough to get a good, strong high because I still had to do my job. I got the good dose only after he got paid. Well, unless I pissed him off for some reason; then he wouldn’t give me anything. For those nights, I had a very small stash I’d been accumulating by taking small bits from his stash. I had a little coke, a little E, some weed, whatever I could find.

“I’m fine. I’m in,” Brian assured him, but his voice sounded hoarse and weak, as if he’d swallowed broken glass. Corey whispered something in his ear and Brian nodded. Then he kissed Brian’s temple. The sweet gesture spoke of an intimacy between them that tore at my heart. It was obvious they were more than just simple friends, and the realization cut so deep I had to keep from wrapping my arms around myself to hold in the torrent of pain.

He was
my
Brian!

I wanted to rip that guy’s stupid head off because he was able to touch Brian and I wasn’t. Goddamn it, I would have given anything just to hold him, but I was Steven’s boy. If he had any idea how much I loved Brian, he would do anything to keep me. He might even kill Brian. Instead of going to Brian as I wanted to, I just closed my eyes and rested my head on Steven’s shoulder, feeling suddenly vulnerable. Steven had his moments of tenderness because somewhere, deeply buried under the hate and abuse, he did care about me. When his hand came up to stroke my face, I knew it was one of those times. I felt so desperately alone that I would take his affection. It was better than his fists.

“Hey,” Nick said, and at first, I thought he was speaking to me.

“Yeah?” As usual, Steven answered for us. There were days both on set and off that I could go nearly the entire twenty-four-hour period without speaking. I wondered a few times if my voice would simply stop working from lack of use. My mouth was meant for sex, not for talking.

“That black eye you gave him seems to be blooming nicely. Can I guess that there are more bruises on his back?”

I stared at the ground. They often spoke about me as if I weren’t there or as if I were stupid. They couldn’t know that over the past two years of incarceration, both with Steven and at the center, I’d spent most of my time reading. I’d always loved to read, to lose myself in someone else’s life. Never before had I needed that as much as I did lately. They had a reasonably well-stocked little library at the center, just like at a real prison. With Steven, we lived just a few stops from the library. Since Steven didn’t allow me out of the apartment at night, I had a lot of free time. Lately, I’d found I truly enjoyed the classics.

“Our life is none of your damn business!” Steven yelled and pulled me to him so tightly that I cried out in pain. Nick refused to be outdone, so he got right up in Steven’s face.

“The site is about guys who screw, not guys who go ten rounds with Tyson. If you want to keep him working, this crap stops now!” Nick rubbed his temples for a long moment and then spoke to the room at large.

“Okay, if you’re not working a camera or getting naked, get the hell out. And someone send Taylor up to fix Dylan’s face.”

I stood there with my head bowed, feeling completely humiliated. I didn’t care what they said about me. I’d lost my shame months ago. What bugged me was that they said it in front of Brian. I couldn’t stand to consider what he must think of me. The yelling back and forth started to kill my buzz, and I wished Steven had given me a bigger hit. I didn’t want to deal with this.

“I’m going to wait in the other room for Taylor,” I mumbled to nobody in particular and turned to leave with the others who were filing out. From behind me, I heard Corey stop Brian from following. To be honest, it surprised me that he wanted to talk to me at all, but I just couldn’t face him right then.

So, instead, I went into the green room and crawled gingerly onto the bed’s plaid blanket, trying not to think. My legs bounced restlessly, and it felt as if my heart would explode as I waited for Alex, or Taylor as they called him on set. I wanted to pace, to bounce off the walls, but my back was killing me. Of course, the thoughts came anyway, further killing what little buzz I’d managed to get from the E.

M
Y
EYES
did not leave him as he lay crumpled in our yard. I considered begging my parents to turn around, but I knew it would be no use. The preacher had been to our home more than a dozen times, trying to change my mind about Brian. He’d practically begged me to repent my sins. Had I known then what my mother was planning, I would have done whatever he wanted—paid whatever lip service they wanted—in order to stay with Brian. He was my whole world, and I would never forgive myself for my prideful rebellion. It had started a veritable avalanche of consequences—consequences that led to me being an addict and my sweet Brian to sell his body in porn.

The tears that started with his tortured scream continued until we left the state of Alabama. For those first few hours, I allowed myself the luxury of succumbing to the grief, and then I needed a plan. As my mother continued to babble about how great our lives would be in California, I noticed that my father continued to glance back at me in the rearview mirror. Our eyes met a few times, and the sadness in his somehow surprised me. I had thought he was on board with the idea of ruining my life, but maybe not.

After grief finally gave way to exhaustion, I closed my eyes and thought about my Brian. I had loved him in one way or another since we were just kids. Back then, he’d been the brother I’d always wanted. We shared everything, and I remembered thanking God in my prayers for giving me someone to talk to. My father had always been at work making a name for himself, and my mother had her causes. It was a lonely way to grow up—until I met Brian McAllister. The first time I saw Brian was his very first day at Crayford Elementary. We were in sixth grade and nearing the end of the school year. I was already twelve, but Brian wouldn’t turn twelve until August. When Mrs. Schultz, our grade-school principal, walked him into class, he reminded me of the angels in Mama’s Bible. Mostly, it was his curly hair, but over the years, I found many things about Brian that made me wonder if he really was an angel.

He had always been my angel.

That night, that last beautiful night I held him in my arms, was the last time I had been happy. Even nearly two years later, I could still remember every touch, every whisper in the dark, every promise. That night, that experience changed my life. It made me want to be a better man, to take care of Brian the way he should have been cared for his whole life. I wanted to go to college and get a great job so I could be everything he needed. I never knew I had that kind of capacity to love anyone else. Since we’d found our love for each other, there was so much I’d learned about myself.

For the first day we were on the road, I could still feel Brian’s quiet, desperate kisses as we stood in the rain. His body had trembled as I held him, and for a brief moment, I hated my mother. I knew it was a sin, but I couldn’t help it because she had hurt someone I loved. She was my mother—why could she not understand that I needed him? Brian was the other half of my soul, just like I guess Dad was her other half. If their love was okay, how could they condemn my love for Brian?

For the next four days, I held my grief and my love in my heart, not sharing it, not even speaking to my parents, though they tried countless times to engage me. I just wanted to get where we were going so I could e-mail Brian and start figuring out a way for us to continue our plans for college. I had no intention of listening to my mother or her cultish tyranny once I graduated high school.

Only I never got the chance to graduate high school.

The night she told me about the center, with my father staring studiously at the blank tabletop, I finally understood that she cared more about God than she did about me. The realization was sobering. When I told her there was nothing about my love for Brian that I needed or wanted to cure, she just smiled. It seemed she had already passed the point of slapping the sin from me.

Instead, she used the only weapon she could—she used Brian.

“We should call someone, because Richard must be molesting that boy to make him a homosexual,” she reasoned. I noticed that at some point, Brian had ceased to have a name. “That boy tried to corrupt you too, but I’m not going to let it happen.”

At first, I still refused, but she saw my weakness, my halfhearted refusal, and realigned her battle strategy. Instead, she reminded me about how Brian used to wake up screaming at night because he never felt safe. One night in the tree house, Brian confided in me that the only place he’d ever felt safe was at the Schreibers’. I couldn’t let my mother call the state and take that from him because of me.

In the end, I put my pride on a shelf and hid my picture of Brian behind the driver’s license in my wallet. I wanted the picture with me so I could take it out and think of him in the dead of night, where the glimmer of a promise remained.

“J
AMIE
?”
a quiet voice asked, and I opened my eyes to see Alex standing by the open bedroom door. He flipped his long blond hair back out of his eyes and bit his lip gingerly, waiting for me to answer. Alex had become a good friend since we started working together a few months earlier. He was a sweet guy, but the straight guys, like Brandon, didn’t really understand Alex’s flaming personality. They thought he was an emo twink looking for attention. But that’s just the way he worked.

“I’m here,” I told him, sitting up slowly and wiping my face. When he turned the light on and saw my face, he sighed.

“Jamie, you need—” he started as he walked toward the bed, but I cut him off quickly. I didn’t need another lecture about how I had to get away from Steven. Alex never told me anything I didn’t already know.

“Brian’s here,” I said abruptly. He gasped theatrically and slapped a hand over his mouth. Anyone else would have thought he was acting, trying to be a stereotypical drama queen, but for Alex, it was natural. Dropping down onto the side of the bed, he took my hand and held it in his.