Chapter 4: At Least I Thought It Was Hope
There was something about Ellen that just didn't ever make sense to me at all. Usually after you slap someone in the face, you don't hug them and start crying. Ellen did. It could only be one of two things, either she was praying for some sort of Divine intervention, or she was just really disappointed. It wasn't either.
"Do you honestly think that, for one second, I would love you any less just because you're gay, Cas?" she said, through tears. Honestly I didn't know what to do. What was there to do? I was expecting her to throw me out of the place, I was expecting her to call the sheriff and have him throw me out of the town. Yet, here we stood, in some kind of hug thing that made absolutely no logical sense.
My whole life I'd been told it was wrong, I'd been told that even thinking about it would land me in Hell. It took me years to finally accept the fact that I couldn't change it, and even then I loathed myself for it, I was an abomination, a freak. Every time anyone said anything about it, it would leave a cut so deep inside me that I didn't know whether I was going to bleed out or someone was going to chop my head off.
Then Dean came along. He made things feel better, he made me feel like for some reason I was still a normal person. He held my hand while we sat in the tree house and talked about random shit. He'd sneak into my room through the window at night and lie down next to me and hold me, and then before anyone in the house woke up, he'd kiss my forehead and leave through the window again. He would trace phantom patterns on my back and it wouldn't hurt.
Then Ellen. It was around about this point where I started crying like a baby. So there we stood, me and Ellen, crying because actually it was okay. We didn't say much after. I dried my tears, she gave me a smile, and we continued getting ready for the party, like absolutely nothing had happened. I actually liked that, not having to talk about it, just knowing that she doesn't care.
Ellen wasn't just some family friend who would occasionally look after me. Ellen was the mother I never had, the mother who would make me cookies for my birthday. The mother who would hold ice to my back when a new bruise appeared, and not run to her room crying. Ellen was my mom.
Dean wasn't at the party, which I understood because he said he was tired and was afraid that he might out me to the whole entire Blank. The party was fun though, even though I had to carry drinks around and avoid bumping into people who were dancing in the middle of the bar.
It was around 3 am when everyone started going home. Ellen, Gabe, Jo and I cleaned up afterwards, picking up all the discarded bottles, calling cabs for the people who were just too damn drunk to get home on their own.
I walked through the back door into the alleyway where Ash would usually deliver most of our booze, holding two garbage bags filled to bursting point with empty bottles. I crossed the alley to the dumpster and chucked them in.
"Hey, faggot," I heard as I closed the lid. I froze, my entire body went completely cold. "Yeah, cocksucker, you." I turned to see Alistair standing at the entrance to the alley with a baseball bat resting on his shoulder. My eyes darted to the kitchen's door. If I was fast enough, I could make it inside and at least make a noise before Alistair caught up with me. Unfortunately, Alistair anticipated my plan and dashed straight at me.
Before I could even take a step his hand was clamped around my throat. My back slammed into the dumpster and I screamed, partly from the paint, but mostly in hopes of someone hearing me and coming to my rescue.
"I was walking through the alley today when I overheard your little conversation with Ellen, faggot." His hand around my throat tightened. It was becoming hard to breathe. I tried to fight back, but the more I struggled the more he tightened. He laughed.
"Wh-why?" I managed t get out between gasps for air.
"Don't you see? I'm trying to save you. Where's your boyfriend now? Who's going to save you? All you have to do is believe in God, he will save you." Alistair's face was so close to mine I could smell the vodka on his breath.
"I'd rather…burn in hell… with the one…I love…that be reminded… every day…that I'm an abomination." The more I spoke the less air was left in my lungs, but I didn't care. It was true, I'd rather burn in hell with Dean than be told that who and what I am is wrong. It took me forever and a day to realize this, but as I was being pressed into the dumpster with my windpipe being crushed, I wouldn't trade my life for any other. I loved Dean and that was all that mattered, I was never going to stop.
"Burn in hell." Alistair slammed me against the dumpster again, I screamed and dropped to the ground. The last thing I remember was the baseball bat slamming into my back with full force.
I woke up in the hospital, alone in a tiny room. A few minutes later a nurse happened to walk by and notice that I had woken up.
"Oh, you're finally conscious. How are you feeling?" she asked, entering the room.
"I- I'm fine I guess. What happened? All I remember is that I went to throw the trash out after the party last night." I said, rubbing my face and immediately regretting it. The whole left side of my face stung when my hand touched it. The nurse tapped an IV next to me.
"Morphine should help with that. My name's Tessa, and as to what happened, Ellen found you in the alleyway, unconscious, we don't know who did it, but someone beat you until you were an inch from death. You've been out for three days," Tessa said, handing me a glass of water to drink. "You've got three broken ribs and a broken leg." It was exactly then that I realized that I had a cast around my right leg. Great.
Then almost immediately I remembered everything. Alistair standing in the alleyway, him choking me. I stopped myself before I could shout out his name. If the police found him he'd tell them why he did it. I sighed. Then I remembered one thing that almost made me choke on my water. "Where's your boyfriend now?" Where was Dean? Had he come to visit me? Why wasn't he here?
"Did a guy come visit me? His name is Dean, he's about twenty one, brown hair, green eyes." I was frantic, my mind was racing. Where the hell was Dean? Did Alistair get to him too? What if he got hurt? Tessa looked confused.
"Not that I know of. The only people who came to visit you were Ellen, Jo and your mother." She said, scribbling something on a clipboard.
"My phone, where's my phone?" I asked, looking everywhere. Tessa fished it out of the drawer next to my bed after I tried and almost cried from the pain in my ribs. I dialed Dean's number as fast as I could.
"Hello? Cas? Oh god, Cas are you okay?" Dean's voice flowed through the speaker like liquid gold. Thank God.
"Dean, thank god, where are you?" By thing time Tessa had awkwardly left the room after I completely ignored her.
It wasn't long before my nerves settled and I became furious. Why the hell hadn't Dean come to visit me? Why wasn't he there when I woke up? I'd been out for three days.
"What the hell, Dean? I've been out for three days and you don't even think that it'd be nice of you t come and visit me?"
"Cas, I wanted to, so badly, I wanted to spend every second lying on that bed with you just waiting for you to wake up, but think about it. If I had stayed there this whole time the nursed would definitely have known something was going on between us. It kills me that I can't be there with you right now." I sighed. He had a point, and for now I was stuck here, alone, an abomination, like I've always been.