Chapter Eleven

Ryan

"Chase," I said trying to wake him up from his deep slumber. He was so peaceful, I almost didn't want to wake him up. But I knew I had to. He'd be pretty upset if I didn't. I fidgeted in the bed and shimmied over as far as I could so that I could rouse him a little because he just wasn't hearing me. "Chase," I called, a little louder this time; nothing. Finally I couldn't take it anymore.

"Chase," I screamed. He jumped in his seat.

"Wh-wh-wh-what?!"

"Wake up silly," I suggested.

"Oh my fucking God, you're awake," he exclaimed.

"Yes, I am. How long was I out for?"

"Too long."

"Seriously, Chase."

"About a week."

"Damn," I said, realizing just then that I had a really bad headache, "my head is killing me."

"Aw," he said, "my poor baby. Oh, I almost forgot, guess who stopped by."

I was scared to think who it might be. Different people were going through my head, I knew my parents came to see me, I remember hearing their voices in the emergency room. I knew Chase was there, and I knew his mother and his brother came, I heard them, too. Who else could there be? "I don't know, who?"

"Brian," he said.

"Oh, really," I replied with a smile on my face.

"Babe," Chase began in a very concerned but loving tone, "he's the reason you are in this hospital." My heart dropped. I couldn't understand it.

"What do you mean 'He's the reason I'm here,'" I said in utter shock.

"As in, he's the one who bashed you over the head with a Louisville Slugger." I tried so hard to remember what happened a week ago, but I couldn't. Everything in the past week had become a complete blur to me. Not even a blur, it just wasn't there at all. I couldn't even say I sort of remember it… it was all black.

"I don't even remember what happened to me," I said, "what the hell happened? And why the fuck is my head hurting so much?" I started to get dizzy, so I had to lie back down. Chase began explaining the events that transpired over a week ago, from beginning to end. With each new detail that he delivered, I grew more and more angry, and surprisingly more and more tired. Finally somewhere around Marc coming up to me with the Slugger, "Stop," I said, "I can't take anymore of this. I'm too tired already, and I can't afford to be any angrier about this."

"Well," he said, "why don't you just take a nap, than." He didn't have to tell me twice. Before I knew it I was out like a light.

I woke up the next morning, alone; there was no one else in the room with me. Did Chase finally go home, I thought. I wanted him to go home, if, for no other reason, just to get some real rest. Not to mention he was missing school for me; which I was about to slap him for anyway. A knock on the door, "Who is it?" The heavy wooden hospital door opened slowly to reveal a tall, muscular, six foot, two inch guy, the one, the only, Brian Michelson. I couldn't believe my God given eyes. He had a lot of balls showing up a first time, much less a second time. "What the hell do you want," I said to him, cold as I could.

"I, uh," he began, stumbling for the right word to say to the life he nearly ended, "I wanted to come and see how you were doing."

"As if you really care," I said to the bastard.

"Actually," he said, "I do." I scoffed. He continued, "I didn't realize what I did until I saw you in the stretcher, you're head was full of…"

I cut him off, "Spare me the detail, Brian, I get the picture."

"Well, anyway, it wasn't until I saw you lying there that I realized what I did. Can you just allow me a few minutes to explain myself, please," he was pleading with me, his eyes watering up. I tried to determine whether the tears were genuine or fake.

"Please," I said to him, "I'd love to hear this."

He began, "I'm a very religious person, catholic, and I don't know if you know anything about the catholic religion, but we don't exactly deal with gays lightly. All I've ever known is that homosexuality is bad, it's against the bible. I grew up hating fags, because that's what my mother and my father taught me. 'Fags are against God, and they'll do anything to win your soul,' they'd say to me.

"When I got wind of you and Chase, I freaked because you and I have Phys. Ed. Together and all I could think about was you looking at me and getting all hard and shit thinking about what we would do together alone in a bed."

"Don't flatter yourself," I said to him.

"That may be as that may be," he said, "but I still thought it. I flipped and everything that I had ever learned came into play. By the end of the day I was so enraged thinking about it, I wasn't even thinking anymore. All I had in my head was that you went against the good Lord, and you needed to pay for that. So I hit you."

I rubbed my head with the bandages still on it, "Yeah, I know."

Finally he really started to cry, "And like I said, I didn't realized what I had done until after I did it. When I saw you on the stretcher, I thought to myself, who am I to take the life of another human being. It's against the commandments to kill, not to be a fa-… homosexual. After the cops took a statement from me, and I apologized up and down, I immediately went to my parish, into confession and confessed for what I did. The next day I skipped school and came here to see you. Chase wasn't exactly happy to see me, so I said that I would be brief. I explained myself to him, too, and he said he was glad that I realized what I did, but it doesn't excuse what I had done. I said that I wasn't looking to be excused for what I had done, I was just looking to explain myself."

"I looked at him a good long moment, pondered what just happened, and finally said the unthinkable…