Chapter 3
Three
I hold tight to that memory of leaving, when everything felt possible. But now I’ll be sent back.
This police station smells damp and chemically. As though it was recently mopped with dirty water that someone added a capful
of lavender-scented bleach to. Only I’ve been handcuffed to a chair in the waiting area for over an hour and the smell hasn’t
changed, so I don’t think it matters when the mopping happened; it just always smells like this. Perpetually un-Fabuloso.
I’m getting antsy and panicked. Like a trapped animal. When he put the cuffs on, Baldy-Cop made them tighter than they needed
to be—my left wrist is starting to chafe.
And my stomach cramps are getting worse.
My ID is still in my bag under the Starbucks dumpster, but all they have to do is give me food and I’ll tell them everything.
Whatever they want in exchange for anything in the vending machine to my right.
I turn to stare at the Honey Bun teasing me from B7. My mouth is somehow dry and sticky at the same time as it struggles to
produce saliva. My stomach grumbles again.
At least in juvie I’ll get food.
When I left home, I underestimated how hard it would be to find food on my own.
Before I got rid of my phone, I looked up a queer youth shelter and decided to get on a train to DC.
I thought I could walk through the front doors and they’d find a place for me.
That I’d have a newfound family of queer kids who had been through the same thing I had.
I didn’t realize how many queer kids have already been through what I have. Or worse.
There was no room for me. The social worker called around to other shelters—even some in Baltimore, Philly, and New York—but
everywhere was understaffed and they didn’t have the room or the budget.
So the social worker told me the only option they had was to call Child Protective Services.
I knew what that meant. They’d call my parents and tell them where I was. Then they’d put me in foster care or a group home
until my parents came to get me. I begged the social worker not to, but she tried to tell me they would be involved and looking
after me, even at home.
They didn’t understand what that meant. Private conversion therapy is still legal in West Virginia, and a parent has the right
to send their child there if they think it’s for the best. CPS wouldn’t be able to stop that. There’s also plenty of ways
these companies get around the words conversion therapy.
So, like I did when Garrett showed up, I ran.
And no one chased me.
There were plenty of people who helped me survive.
Other homeless people who had been at it longer gave me the best pointers they could, the biggest one being Don’t get arrested.
If that happened, I’d be in the system and I’d never be able to get a job, and it would affect my ability to get housing.
I didn’t tell them I was more worried about being sent home to my parents.
And here I am, waiting to be booked.
I’ll need to survive whatever conversion therapy throws at me and then lie for two more years. I can do that.
But the thought makes me sick—and this time it isn’t because I’m hungry.
Arrrrre you surrrre about thaaaaat? the strawberry Pop-Tarts in C4 ask me.
I turn away from them. Stare at the bulletin board on my left. It’s plastered with paper printouts from the National Center
for Missing & Exploited Children. They’re all printed in color with the word MISSING at the top in dark red. Some of them aren’t kids anymore. Their posters say they went missing when they were preteens, but
that was years ago.
One of the posters catches my attention.
Because it’s me.
I almost get up to take a closer look—completely forgetting I’m handcuffed to this chair—but my body won’t let me. Maybe it’s
the starvation taking hold, but I’m stuck in place. My parents reported me missing. Maybe they feel bad or changed their minds.
Maybe they really do want me.
And for a second, I imagine what it might be like to go home. To see my family again. If they are looking for me, maybe it means they do love me. Maybe, in my absence, they got a look at life without me, and that glimpse was enough to make them see past their
bullshit religious hang-ups and realize they actually love their only child.
But whatever teeny bit of hope I may have dissolves instantly when I see the name on the poster.
Nathaniel Beaumont.
It’s not me. It’s some other kid who has been missing for almost ten years.
Below his name it says: Nathaniel’s photo is shown age-progressed to age 16.
The picture of him was generated with a computer, but it looks like me. His brown hair is shorter because whoever the artist
is—or maybe it’s AI at this point—made it look like his hair had been cut and styled instead of grown out like mine. And the
smile is off. It’s the only thing that gives it away as a computer-generated image. Our noses are similar, though the bridge
of mine is more prominent—something I hate about myself—and Nathaniel’s ears stick out a bit like mine, too. Another thing
I hate.
More than anything else, though, it’s his eyes. They’re the same gray-blue shade as mine. My dad’s eyes, really.
Looking at the age-progressed picture gives me chills. It’s like an alternate-reality me. From another world where with different
parents I still had to run away from home and—
No. He didn’t run away. According to the poster, he was six when he disappeared. Ten years missing in July.
Which means he had parents who wanted him. Lucky kid.
Is that sick? It’s definitely sick. But if I were him—meaning if my parents were like his—and they found Nathaniel today, there’s no way they’d care if he happened to be gay.
His poor parents have probably spent every day for the last decade believing he was dead.
Or maybe they spent those days hoping and praying he was alive and safe somewhere.
If they got the call that he’d been found, they would be so happy. They’d have their kid back. And Nate wouldn’t be scared
and alone anymore. He’d be safe with people who loved him.
I wish I could have that. A place where I can feel safe and not worry about where I’m going to find my next meal or where
I’m going to sleep. I’m so tired of running.
Almost ten years is a long time to be missing, though. He wouldn’t even be the same kid who disap—
A chill makes every hair on my body stand on end.
But before the thought seed can even root, I pluck it out. That would be too fucked up, even for me. I couldn’t steal some
missing kid’s identity.
And there must be ways of verifying my story. DNA tests they’d give immediately to make sure I am who I say I am. Even though
it’s been nine years and so many months, I still feel like his parents would know if I was really their son.
“All right, your turn.” I look up at the policewoman walking toward me. She’s a short white woman with shoulder-length, curly
red hair. She bends down with a key and unlocks the cuff that’s tethered me to the chair for the past hour and a half. “Put
out your right hand, please.”
I do as she says, and she puts the cuff back on my right wrist, then motions for me to stand.
“Come this way.” She turns and heads around the reception desk. I take one last look at Nathaniel’s picture before following
her.
Let’s say I’m Nathaniel Beaumont. What does this woman do? Types my name into a system and sees that I’ve been missing for
almost ten years. Then what?
Ahead of me, the woman reaches her desk and motions to the chair next to it. I sit.
“Right.” The woman—her name tag reads “R. Walters”—sighs and turns her attention to me. “Name, hon?”
If I borrowed Nathaniel’s name, just for a bit, maybe Nathaniel’s parents wouldn’t even have to meet me. If the cops took
me to the hospital for the DNA test, or at least uncuffed me and left me out in the waiting area, I could make a run for it.
If I disappeared again, the police would know I wasn’t Nathaniel at all. They’d realize I saw the missing poster, took his
identity, and played them. They’d apologize, and the family—if they ever found out—could sue and they’d get a nice settlement.
Or am I lying to myself? Making myself feel better for what I already know I’m going to do? My choices are simple: Tell the
truth and go home, followed by conversion therapy and torture. Or I tell this officer I’m Nathaniel Beaumont and maybe go
to a hospital, uncuffed, while they verify my story. I need a moment to breathe. I need to not be fighting every damn day.
Think of something else. Anything else!
“Nathaniel,” I say. Officer Walters types it in, then looks back at me for the last name. “Beaumont.” I spell it for her, and she thanks me.
She opens her mouth to ask something else but stops. Her eyes dart around the screen and she clicks something.
She looks at the computer, then at me again.
She’s very interested in me now. The boredom is completely gone from her face.
“Holy shit,” she says under her breath.
Holy shit indeed.