Together Forever

Brian

It’s been a month and there’s been no change. Justin’s still in a coma. They don’t think he’ll wake up. Jennifer’s been discussing with the doctors whether or not they should pull the plug. Justin’s father hasn’t shown his face once since Justin was first admitted to the hospital, the bastard. Doesn’t he care about his own son?

As I sit here overhearing the conversation that will determine the fate of the eighteen year old in that room I can’t help but feel this is my fault. If I hadn’t shown up to the prom none of this would have happened. Justin would be perfectly fine. Yes, he’d be disappointed and probably hate me, but he’d be alive and well. He’d have the ability to look at me with anger and disappointment for letting him down.

I love him. I figured that out a long time ago, I was just too scared to admit it. He’s the first person that I’ve ever really loved enough to do something so……stupid for. I mean, me in a room full of kids? I was making a total fool of myself, but I didn’t care because I was doing it for him. And then this happened. The good news is that if Justin dies the fucker that did this to him will get charged with murder. Although I think the fact that it was a crime against a fag will get him off with the absolute minimum charge, so yet again justice will fuck us over. If that happens I know Debbie will say something about it, but it’ll do no good.

What scares me the most is the fact that I can’t imagine my life without Justin in it. I mean…..it hasn’t even been a whole year and I’m already used to seeing him on a regular basis. I’ve become accustomed to seeing that beautiful sunshine smile. I’ve memorized the smell of his skin, his hair. I know every inch of his pale, beautiful skin. He is as much a part of me as any of my own organs and I just can’t stand the fact that he might be gone forever. He’s eighteen years old, for Christ’s sake. He has so much more to live for. So much life left. I don’t know what I’d do if he actually died.

Jennifer

The doctors are telling me that my son isn’t going to wake up. There’s no point in keeping him on life support because it will be indefinite. They’re trying to talk me into pulling the plug. Part of me doesn’t want Justin to suffer any more. I don’t want him to be a vegetable for the rest of his life. Another part of me wants to keep him around as long as possible. The selfish part of me is refusing to let him go.

This would be so much easier if Craig were here. I think I could handle losing Justin a lot better. I keep looking over at Brian sitting in one of the chairs across from Justin’s room and I want to scream. I want to go over and strangle him for what he caused to happen to my son. He just had to show up there, didn’t he? Had to provoke the boy that did this? Why couldn’t he have just left Justin alone?

After a couple of hours of giving me facts and figures and saying a lot of things I don’t really understand I finally decide that it’s time to let Justin go. He’s only suffering as it is and it’s wrong of me to keep him on the machines any longer. They’re telling me I’m doing the right thing but part of me is screaming that I’m not. How can killing my son be the right thing? I can only hope that the person that did this to him will get prosecuted properly. If it were up to me Brian would be punished right along with him.

I tell them not to allow Brian into the room. He doesn’t deserve to be there with Justin. He never did. He should have left Justin alone. I often wish that Justin had never met Brian. I think he would have been much better off. Maybe if it weren’t for Brian then I at least wouldn’t have found out as soon as I did that Justin was gay. He wouldn’t have been “outed” at school. And he certainly wouldn’t be lying in a hospital room dying. This is all Brian’s fault.

Michael

About an hour ago mom got the call that Justin was dead. She’s been a total wreck since then. She can’t seem to stop crying. Everything on Liberty Avenue seemed to have come to a standstill. It’s almost like the whole street was mourning the loss of one twink. A twink that wormed his way into the hearts of almost everyone on the street. I mean, there has never been, in the history of Babylon, a King of Babylon under the age of 21 until Justin came along. The boy was Brian’s match and everyone knew it. They all knew that he would one day take Brian’s place as the stud of Liberty Avenue if it weren’t for the fact that he was interested only in Brian.

I guess I could say that I’m jealous of Justin. I mean, he was everything that I’m not. He’s blond and gorgeous and everybody wants him. But he also got the one thing I could never get. Brian’s heart. No matter how hard I tried Brian would never look at me the way he looked at Justin. He’d never do for me the things that he did for Justin. Brian was lost from the minute he saw Justin. I knew it. And now Justin is gone.

I feel so bad about the way I treated him. I just wanted him gone. He was the trick that wouldn’t go away. Well, be careful what you wish for. Although I never wished for this. I never wanted him dead; I just wanted him to leave us alone. Maybe this was God’s fucked up way of answering my prayer. You want him gone, okay he’s gone. If that’s the case then I just became an atheist. As much as I acted like I didn’t like Justin, it was all an act. I was glad that he seemed to make Brian happy. I’ve never known anyone that Brian was willing to take to bed more than once. Or that he was even willing to acknowledge after fucking. I think it might be a good idea to go check on Brian. He’s bound to have heard by now.

Debbie

I can’t believe he did it. Brian actually did the one thing he always threatened. We found out that Brian was the first person that Jennifer called when Justin’s time of death was officially called. She also apparently made sure that he understood that it was his fault that Sunshine was dead. The thing is, it wasn’t Brian’s fault. It was that little fucker that swung the baseball bat.

I was a little more than surprised when she agreed to a double funeral. I was even more surprised to learn that Justin and Brian would be buried together. This has Romeo and Juliet written all over it and even though it’s a sad occasion I actually can’t help but smile.

Michael found Brian about two hours after I got the call that Justin was dead. He went over to the loft to see if Brian was okay. Turns out that Brian was anything but. Rather than taking a bunch of pills or slitting his wrists, Brian actually hanged himself from the rafters of his loft. I guess it makes sense in a way. If he took a bunch of pills, his stomach could be pumped and he’d be fine. Slit wrists could be stitched up and the blood replaced. And Brian was actually smart about the hanging. He got a ten-foot ladder and picked one of the higher rafters. The doctor said that his neck was broken from the force of the fall. No way he could have survived.  He died instantly.  

So here I sit in a church staring at the two caskets that hold the bodies of two of my boys. I’ve loved Brian like a son since he was fourteen years old. I’ve taken care of him and made sure he had a safe haven from his parents. Speaking of his parents, his mother and sister aren’t even here. When I called Joan to tell her Brian was dead she didn’t even care. She just muttered something about him getting what he deserved and that was it. I was so angry after I called her that I threw the phone across the room. The fact that the phone was attached to the wall made it a little more than difficult but I still managed. Vic actually had to sit on me to keep me from destroying the house. How anyone could care so little about their own child is beyond me.

Craig Taylor isn’t here either. Another example of a complete and utter asshole. I guess it has to do with the fact that this is Brian’s funeral too and he doesn’t want anything to do with anything that makes Brian look good. Of course he could have come anyway for his son. And to help support his wife and daughter. Jennifer is barely holding it together. Jennifer feels responsible for Brian’s death. She thinks if she hadn’t been so hard on him then he wouldn’t have killed himself. What she doesn’t realize is that Brian didn’t kill himself because of guilt. He killed himself because the one person that was able to get in under the wire is gone. The one man that was able to knock down all of his emotional walls and get to the real Brian is dead. Hopefully they can be happy together wherever they end up in the afterlife.

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