Straight Boys - Chapter 46: Chapter 46

". . . and here's an ice pack for the pain. Make sure you keep your head back to stop the bleeding."
"Thanks, Miss. I'll help him, now."
"Alright. Make sure your boyfriend keeps his head back. It's nothing serious, so don't worry about the charge or anything. He's in your hands then, take care kids!"
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched and only halfheartedly listened to the exchange between Taylor and some nurse that had been passing by when I had started to bleed. I barely noticed Taylor gently grasping my chin to tilt my head back further and setting her small hand over my own hand that was holding the large cotton pad up to my nose. I was too occupied by the three people standing over me to pay any mind, mainly the older man.
"You two know each other?" Annie was the first to ask, but Owen didn't answer her. He kept quiet, his eyes wide, brows furrowed, shoulders tensed up like he was staring at some freakish monster in a nightmare.
How ironic.
"Mr. Bright?" Next was Corbett. He still looked like he had been through a war, but his curiosity was overpowering him. He wanted to know why and how his therapist knew his arch-nemesis.
I just wanted to know how Owen Bright even became some type of authoritative figure in the psych-world, and in the exact town my dad moved us to, to be as far away from our past as possible no less.
How had I not run into him all this time?
Or did he just move here?
I carefully kept watch of the man as he cleared his throat and turned to look at his two patients. Is he even old enough to be considered qualified as a therapist or a doctor of some sorts?
Is he going to school to become a therapist?
"Uh- well Uh- sor-sort of? A little? We met in... Michigan." I felt my eyes roll to the back of my head before I could stop them. I could feel my ears burning red - from the anger of seeing him or from the fear of our memories, I didnt know which - as I brushed Taylor off and came to a stand, my eyes never leaving Owen's frame.
"Yeah... Mr. Bright and I go way back," The words were coming out of my mouth before I could do anything to shut myself up.
He swiveled his head around to give me a kind of warning look, a look I had seen a lot way back when. I always used to follow that look, but as I took in the new Owen, I wasn't so sure I wanted to follow his orders anymore. He was the reason I never really followed orders anymore in the first place.
With one of my hands still pressing against my nose, I used my other hand to push my hair out of my eyes so that I could get a better look at the guy that ruined my life. I felt myself glaring at him, and I couldn't stop, and everyone was starting to notice.
"Zach? Are you alright? You seem. . .," I clenched my jaw at Taylor's worried voice.
"How do you know Mr. Bright?" I glanced at Mandy, her innocently wrapped question just making me angrier, before I looked back at Owen. I studied his every move, his every twitch and glance; from the way he sort of straightened his back, looked between Mandy, Corbett, and back to Mandy, then at me, and shoved his hands in his back pockets, to the small whispers he was saying to Annie about something.
And before Owen even looked like he was about to answer Mandy's little question, Annie was grabbing Corbett, Andrew's clipboard still in her hands ready to be filled out, and pulled him back to their chairs. What did he say to her?
"Who is this guy, Zachary?" Taylor's voice popped up again, and I quickly looked at her to try and ease her weariness without giving too much away; but when I turned towards her, the look she was giving me told me everything she was feeling.
She knows. She knows everything!
She didn't really look confused, nor did she even look all that surprised at my own reaction; and as I took in her blank facade, some sort of realization came over me, and I remembered. I remembered telling Taylor everything before we had started our official relationship. I remembered it full force, and it was like a semi truck had just slammed through the hospital and run me over.
It was Junior year of high school, and her and I were seeing each other, but this was before the whole 'L-word' was said. I was relapsing because of my mother's anniversary, and I just wanted to leave; leave town, leave my life behind, forget everything existed, but Taylor had found me. She had found me sitting on the roof of my house drinking a bottle of my dad's Brandy and we talked. You see, Taylor may not be good at getting other people's emotions, understanding them in ways people should, but she was good at talking and being logical.
It's why she became the cheer captain in the first place.
And so she had talked me off the metaphorical ledge of running away. She was the reason I was still even in this God damn town, but sitting where I was, in that hospital, I was remembering another reason why I had wanted to stay.
The morning of, that's when Coach Matthews had canceled football practice and all the guys got to go home early, except Andrew didn'tgo home early. He had stayed, and I had found it the perfect opportunity to tease him for trying to be an upstanding captain and all that jazz. It was supposed to be a going away party for myself. One last goodbye to the life I had in this town because at the time I hadn't known I liked the kid. It was a subconscious thing that I had done.
He was throwing a football into the net, his face concentrated, but body the most relaxed I had ever seen.
"What a try-hard Captain," I had mocked him, but he kept on ignoring me, so I teased him again, something along the lines of being all the little cheerleader's eye candy, and that had riled him up.
"At least I actually try, Rogers. More than you could even fathom." I had just scoffed and picked up a second ball next to his feet to copy his movements.
"Oh yeah? You try? Try what? Every girl on the cheer team?" He stopped doing what he was doing to give me his hardest glare.
"You know, one of these days you're going to be doing something close to this, but with someone else probably, and I bet they wouldn't hesitate in punching the shit out of you," and he had snatched up his duffle bag and walked to his car, probably not even understanding the significance and the weight of his words; because I had experienced what he said exactly to the T. I had already gone through that, but with someone so dissimilar to Andrew Parsley, that it had struck a chord within me, and a couple hours later I was on the roof drinking, thinking, and staring at a picture of the only woman who ever truly understood me with my girlfriend telling me to stay.
Taylor telling me to stay was the thing that made me breakdown and tell her everything. It had been something I always wanted my mom to do - to stay - but she had left, and I didn't want to leave as big of a hole in the people in my life as she did to me.
But really, it was Andrew. I hadn't really known it at the time, but the way he acted intrigued me in ways I tried so hard to ignore. He was someone different, someone so unlike the man that was in front of me, and someone who wasn't the girl that knew everything about me.
He didn't know me.
I didn't know him.
Yet, as I replayed the forgotten day in my mind while nodding just the slightest bit at Taylor in affirmation, I found myself wanting to tell him about the man I once knew; but I couldn't because he was in some room in the hospital suffering from the tragedy of life.
And part of me didn't want to let this pure boy know anything about Owen Bright because I myself wasn't even over him.
After nodding back at me, Taylor rounded up the emotional Gretchen and the little witch named Mandy and started for the vending machines down the hall. She stopped right before her trek, however, to whisper one thing in my ear. "Remember our promise, Zachary," then she really was off, Gretchen unaware that she was being moved and Mandy glancing back at us and asking Taylor something I couldn't hear. I just clenched my teeth harder than before, before crumpling up the bloody cotton pad and throwing it into a nearby bin.
Then, after swiping any remaining blood from my face with my sleeve, I put down the ice pack and started for the exit to the emergency room. I didn't need to look back to know that Owen was following me, I already knew it. It was a familiar feeling that I never truly forgot.
When I was finally outside, the cool breeze swiped at my perspiring face, sending shivers toppling over my spine. The cold front was finally here, but it wasn't as nearly as cold as the way my heart was feeling with my first love standing right in front of me, barely five feet away from me. I tried not to look at him, but he wouldn't escape even the corner of my eye as I stared out onto the vast parking lot, at all the passing people and flickering street lamps.
Seconds ticked by of pure silence, and another breeze blew past before either one of us spoke up. It was me. "Do you remember. . .?" I trailed off, shakily putting my hands deep into the confines of my pockets to warm my chilled fingers.
Owen swallowed at the sound of my voice, but I didn't watch him directly as he took a step closer to me, but then changed his mind and took a step away again. I could swear his eyes were smoldering me in plaster ready to harden and seal me away, but then he was looking away again to ask me, "Remember what?"
God you sound the same, yet different!
He did. It definitely was Owen Bright, but his voice was matured, deeper and more gentle, and it was making the back of my eyes sting from all of the memories that were resurfacing just from the sound of his voice.
"Do you remember the second day at camp? When we were throwing the football after lunch, when everyone else was swimming in the lake, and you had been teasing me about the girl - God I don't even remember her name anymore - but you were teasing me about the girl that liked me? You remember that?"
"I -"
"I do. I remember it. I remember it because it was the first time you hugged me after coincidentally punching me square in the eye for the first time. You had told me that you did it so that your friends wouldn't assume anything was going on between us." My eyes were stinging from unshed tears, but I still didn't have the guts to look at the man next to me.
Owen stayed quiet for a long time, while I tried controlling the sad sounds that wanted to be let out; but a heartbeat later, he finally spoke up, "I was a kid, Zach. I didn't know what I was doing at the time. I just did what I knew my parents didn't like. I'm really and truly sor-"
I vigorously wiped away my tears and finally looked over at Owen, all of the pent up rage I had for our situation making itself known to the both of us as I pointed right at his chest and gritted out, "Sorry doesn't cut it, Owen. I was thirteen. Thirteen! And you were bigger, stronger, older! You were seventeen! You knew I was vulnerable, and I became your outlet, your experiment."
Owen weakly shook his head as he murmured, "I know, I know. What I did was fucked up. I shouldn't have used you like that. I know. I just- I just... wanted to get back at my parents, and you were there. You were convenient."
It was my turn to shake my head at him, but I was more violent as I turned away from him to give him my back. "I fell in love with you, you know? I fell in love with the nice you, the you that knew what he truly wanted and not the scared kid that was ready to use whatever means necessary to hide who he truly was. That's why I gave everything to you," as I whispered out, my throat felt choked up, and my limbs shook as I turned back around to look at the stubbly chin of my childhood love, "I gave you all of my firsts, and you shoved them back in my face like none of it ever mattered."
Owen's face screwed up in pain and his eyes glazed over with ready and willing tears as if he was recalling some memories. Then, "I-I know. I know! What I did was wrong, but I was a messed up kid, Zach. I was so messed up, and I regret it every day of my life, what I did to you. I regret it so much, it hurts."
"My dad put me through therapy. Did you know that?"
"No, I didn't, I never, I-I -"
"- I had to go to counseling because of what you told the other kids, kids I went to school with every day, Owen. Did you know? I was seeing some shrink for months until my mom got sick. Then I was being evaluated every damn week by some Psychologist until my dad had packed up all our belongings and shipped us here. Away from Michigan, away from my school and away from you. Turns out you've been here all along... and I didn't even know it!"
Owen fell silent again, and somehow, through my rant, he had gotten closer to me, and I could feel the heat from his extended hand that was about to rest itself on my shoulder. I looked at it for a second, looked at his long fingers and the veins trailing under his sweater's sleeve and at the slightest twitch of his index finger before he dropped his hand, then I looked back up at his face again. He was crying now, and some small part of me felt the slightest bit of pain at seeing someone who had been so domineering and charming, so sad now; but most of me felt nothing.
I felt nothing for him.
Yeah, the memories hurt. The memories of him making me explore the possibility that I could like guys; the memories of him holding my hand, walking with me, kissing me, then hurting me, forgetting about me, and leaving me; the memories of my old friends reminding me every day of how much of a freak I was. A boy who likes other boys? How much more disgusting could you be?
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
"I went to therapy, too," Owen's voice was shakey, audibly unstable as he suddenly started confessing. "After my parents found me... hooking up with other boys in a real messed up way, they took me to see a therapist. I hated them - my parents - I really thought I did, at least, so I did what I did to get back at them for controlling everything about me. I'm so sorry, Zachary. Please, please allow me to apologize."
I didn't say anything in return.
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OH MY GOSH ANOTHER UPDATE?! (still unedited I'm so sorry)
I hope you liked this absolute MESS! I hope you all understand Zach's past now, if not then I'll explain here, but itll also be in a future chapter better explained (maybe) but anyway...
Owen and Zach went to the same camp together in Michigan. Zach was 13 (end of eighth grade) and Owen was 17 (end of senior year), so a four year difference. Zach and Owen started getting romantically involved at this two week camp, but Owen was really hardcore about keeping it secret, so much so that he was willing to physically hurt Zach so nobody would get suspicious. Owen was Zach's first kiss, first *ahem* hand job, I guess? Its not particularly a legally good relationship hut they were both minors (kids) so they didnt really know the consequences of seeing each other.
But yeah, that's all I'm getting into. It'll be further explained in extra detail in a later chapter!
But LIKE and COMMENT and please tell me what you liked in this chapter.
Questions:
What do you think about Zachary realizing he actually sort of liked Andrew before he started trying to be his friend? Do you guys think that that is the reason why it was so easy for Zach to suddenly start to be nice to Andrew?
What do you think the promise was that Zachary made to Taylor?
Speaking of which, thoughts on Taylor knowing Zachary has been with a guy?
Thoughts on Owen?
What do you think will happen next chapter?
That's all! Please stick with me till the end! We're getting close! Ish...