Chapter 23
Gavin
T hey fucked up bad. I was floating there, somewhere between reality and death, and they couldn’t hurt me anymore. Fuck them. I didn’t need reality if I couldn’t have Nick in it. I could feel him with me where I was. That was as good as I’d ever get again. Let them fucking burn. It was their fault. All I’d done was fight back. All I’d done was stand up for myself and refuse to let them do what they wanted with me.
I’d already pitted them against each other. They thought I couldn’t hear them arguing in the halls. They thought I couldn’t hear Kolders deny that he’d ever touched me back then. They didn’t believe him. They argued with their eyes every time I was in the room with them. The other two were accusing him, and he was getting more and more upset about it.
He was also upset that I outed him and still refused to let him touch me. And that’s why he’d taken me downstairs on his own to the torture room. I was pretty sure it was the weekend and we’d always gotten a reprieve on the weekends. The pastor and Kolders were busy, preparing for church on Saturdays, and spending the day there on Sundays. We were always still guarded, but they never showed up. And I knew that was his plan that day, to be the only one there.
He'd dragged me down there on his own, pissed as hell, but not telling me what was happening. I didn’t even see a guard, but he threatened me himself. As soon as he shut the door behind us, a needle pierced my arm. It caught me completely off-guard, and I stumbled backwards, gaping at him in shock. “You think I’m going to let you do that to me, let you turn them against me and then continue to deny me? You’ll do as I want you to now, whether you like it or not.”
My eyes widened as my brain caught up and I realized he’d really just sedated me so he could fuck me. “You literal fucking rapist,” I hissed. I turned to try to get out the door, to find a guard, anyone who would just get me away from him, even if I was punished for running. He reached me first and slammed me into the wall. I pounded my fist on it a couple of times before he pulled me off it and dragged me toward the table, hand over my mouth so I couldn’t cry out. Fuck that. He was going to strap me down, which had to be part of the reason he’d brought me down there. I fought with everything I had.
Then they surprised him. “ What is going on ?” I heard the pastor yell. Kolders had been his own downfall in the end, but I got to see it. The pastor and a guard were standing there while they both looked at him suspiciously. The pastor demanded to know why we were down there. Kolders asked him why he was there, so he obviously hadn’t been included in the pastor’s plan, either. Then he made up some shit about how he’d been doing work in his office and a different guard said I was banging on the walls and freaking out in my room, so he’d brought me down to try to subdue me with their tactics.
The pastor was still looking at him suspiciously, but after eyeing him for a moment said, “If that’s the case, then maybe we need to work on him more today to stop it from happening again.” Fuck them . I refused to strip, already feeling a little groggy from whatever he’d given me. I wasn’t sure what it would do, but I wasn’t about to be unclothed when it happened, because I didn’t know what they would do. I wanted to go back to my room and for them to leave me alone. It was the weekend, and they weren’t supposed to do anything to me.
The guard stayed. That had only happened once when I was younger, when I’d fought them tooth and nail because I’d reached my limit for the week and freaked out. The doctor was nowhere to be seen, though, and I guessed they needed the extra hand. When they tried to force me to strip, my adrenaline kicked in and I fought them. They managed to get my shirt off of me, and all of us were out of breath by the time it was, but then I swung at the pastor, feeling woozy but still managing to hit him in the face. The guard tried to hit me, but I threw myself at him, and we both went sprawling to the floor. I had them well and truly pissed, and I barely registered that the pastor was holding a syringe. “I didn’t want to ever have to do this to you, Gavin, but you are out of control today.”
I heard Kolders yell, “No!” right as I felt a pinprick in my neck. I could feel the cold liquid as it released out of the syringe. “ No !” Kolders cried again, “Fuck!”
The pastor straightened and looked at him in shock, for both the outburst and the cursing. It became another argument for a moment. “What is wrong with you?” the pastor roared.
“I already dosed him!” Kolders cried, “You just overdosed him. They were both big doses, Jesus, we’re going to kill him!”
“Why would you have dosed him?” the pastor cried, “What were you doing in here? Why would you even take him out of his room alone? Even if he was having a meltdown, you know that’s against protocol.”
I dropped off the guy I’d tackled, landing on my back as I released a breath. My body felt heavy. I tried to sit up, but I couldn’t.
“Does it matter?” Kolders nearly screamed, “He’s going to die!”
“Go find the doctor . Now .” The pastor ran over and grabbed me, and along with the guard managed to get me on the table. The room was fading in and out. I could feel myself falling, falling away, from the room, from the place. It was ok, though. It was for the kids on the first floor. It was for the kids whose parents were considering sending them there. The ones who would send them in the future.
My dad might not care if he killed me, or even if I killed myself, but he was a person who needed to be in control of everything. If something major happened to someone he thought he had under his control, and he had nothing to do with it, he’d flip out. Every cop in a hundred-mile radius would be all over the place, while he pretended not to know what really went on there. I wouldn’t be able to tell them differently about him, but at least the place would be finished.
I was pretty sure my eyes were open, but I couldn’t really see the room anymore. Breathing was getting harder, but it wasn’t because of panic that time. It was the opposite; I’d never been more relaxed in my life. I tried to remember how Nick always told me to breathe, but even that was kind of fuzzy.
I was vaguely aware of the pastor smacking my face, trying to wake me, but I couldn’t react. It was ok. I was ok. I was floating, not falling anymore, and I was somewhere better already. I wasn’t sure where I was, but I could see Nick. I could almost feel him hugging me. Everything was ok again, because Nick was holding me and that’s all I’d ever needed. I would stay there forever. That was where I wanted to be. I smiled. I wasn’t sure if I really did or not, but they did seem to react to it.
Nick was warm. He was comfort. He was everything. If I couldn’t have him in my life, I could have him there, right before my life was gone. I couldn’t move, but I registered voices fading in and out. The pastor, talking to the other guy. I guessed it wasn’t what he’d planned for the day. The voices were urgent, panicked.
With a great struggle, I forced my eyes to focus again. They were moving around. The pastor had my wrist and seemed to be checking my pulse. He yelled something at the door. Hurry , maybe, but it kind of faded out. I was pretty sure the door had been left open, the first time in all the time I’d spent in the room, and I couldn’t do anything about it.
I heard other voices coming closer, down the hallway. “…need to call an ambulance.”
“No! Wait!” the pastor.
There were more people in the room. I saw Kolders there. “We can’t just let him die!” There was something on his face for a split second as I focused on it. Something beyond the panic for himself, for the freedom he knew he was getting ready to lose. Something I didn’t expect to see there. Remorse? No, that wasn’t it, exactly. Sorrow, maybe, even though he’d been mad at me for telling them about us. He noticed me looking at him. “Just you,” he whispered. “It was only you.” It felt like some kind of declaration of the most fucked up feelings anyone had ever had for me, but it didn’t really process in my brain and my eyes lost focus again.
When I became slightly aware again, they were checking to see if I was breathing. Well, it hadn’t ended like I’d really expected, but I’d known it would come to it one way or another. I wasn’t afraid. Nick was right there, smiling at me. We were in his apartment again. I reached for him, and he hugged me. “It’s ok, Gavin, just breathe. You’re safe now.” His embrace was warm in my mind, even though it wasn’t as warm as it would be if I was really in his arms.
I could see the bed we’d shared for so many happy weeks. The happiest of my life. I wished we could have had so many more. I wished I could have said more to him. He knew I was upset the day I’d been taken away from him, and he was upset because I was. I hated that it was our last memory together. I should have tried to hide it better, so at least his memories of our last morning would have been happy ones.
I wouldn’t take any of our time back, even after everything, even knowing where I ended up. It was worth it for those weeks with him. It was worth it to realize that someone thought I was worth loving. It was worth it to actually smile.
They’d all pay now. You shouldn’t have tried to take me down this time, because I had ahold of your ankles when you did.
I suddenly saw Caden. I saw his backyard and we were sixteen again. I saw how shy he got when he realized I was getting ready to kiss him, but he didn’t stop me. I saw him laughing as I chased him around his house one day when his parents weren’t home. I saw him walking through the school hallways, looking at me and trying to get my attention while I pretended not to see him.
Fuck. We were going through the whole thing again, then, huh? Both the happiness and the regrets. I guessed the whole life flashing before your eyes thing was real.
I saw summer. Misery. Here. Pain, torture, and fear. Getting out and wanting to never come back. Kolders. The nights in the bars. The apartments I’d gone to. The guys I’d slept with.
I saw Collin. Tattoos. The back room when we were alone. I saw a bus. A bridge. Nick. He was the goal the whole time. The person I loved more than anything in the world. He was the true end of my story, and it was a happy one. I would hold onto that, not the shitty one I was actually getting. I’d had him, I’d had a life that was so close it had been right there in my reach. The life I’d have given anything for, the life I would have loved, but the life I’d never have.
I couldn’t hear them anymore. I couldn’t even feel them rushing around me. I wasn’t sure I was even in the same room. I wasn’t sure of anything. “Take care of yourself always, Nick,” I said, but I knew I didn’t say it aloud. I knew I was at the end. And I let go.