Jason
I don’t know where to go. There’s no home anymore—no bedroom where I can slam the door and get some privacy. My whole life revolves around him. We share a trailer, a bedroom, and a really fucked up past.
My feet take me into the woods that surround the trailer park.
I don’t know why—I could walk down the main stretch of the Patch, but that’s not where my feet take me.
The sun has nearly set, and the sky is a mix of orange, pink, and deep purple.
I know exactly where I’m going, and I hate it.
My feet move on instinct, my chest tightening with each step I take.
The spot where our fort used to sit comes into view. Nothing remains. I destroyed it all the night it happened. A night that feels like the before-and-after moment of my miserable life.
My chest burns as I run through the forest. Gabe isn’t at his trailer, and I refuse to talk to his mom. I was right. I hate like hell that I was right, but I was. I knew something was going on between Doug and Linda.
My mom’s exploding, and Doug wants us out. I have to find Gabe. We need to be together—to leave here and just get away.
We’d talked about maybe getting a place together, and this is our chance. Maybe his friend, Torren, can let us squat in his shop for a second, just until we get money.
I see him sitting under the fort, poking the ground with a stick. “GABE!”
He looks up at me, and his face is off. He doesn’t look like himself. He’s usually all smiles when he sees me, but right now he looks…
I stop in front of him, my lungs burning from running so fast. “I was right. Doug and your mom—” I can barely catch my breath.
Gabe stares at the ground, poking leaves with a stick.
“Dude, did you hear me?”
Gabe looks at me with a sad expression. “I already know.”
I’m stunned. “You do?”
“She told me.”
“No shit.” I take a seat, still reeling from the bombshell. “When did she tell you?” I ask. “And has she told your dad?”
“I found out like a year ago.”
The sound of rustling leaves vanishes, and what emerges is a high-pitched ringing in my ears.
“What?” I ask.
“Huh?” Gabe replies.
“Y-you knew… a year ago?”
Gabe nods.
“But I asked you about it. You said you didn’t think anything was happening—said that right to my face- and you knew? You knew a fucking year ago?”
“Well, Mom told me not to say anything.”
I don’t think Gabe understands why that broke my heart. They say you can’t choose your family, but they don’t talk about how much it hurts knowing your family wouldn’t choose you.
That if Doug and Mom had a choice, they wouldn’t have picked me.
The little ways that Linda cared meant the world to me. She’d help me with my homework, feed me dinner, and remember my birthday…
Saying she was trying to help when it was a lie broke me. I thought for once an adult was trying to help me instead of beating me down. How could Gabe not understand why that hurt so much?
And Gabe…
He was my everything. The one I thought would choose me.
But he didn’t—he chose our fucked up parents.
He kept Doug’s secret until Doug was ready to tell Mom and me to fuck off and scramble to pick up the pieces.
I wanted to run away with Gabe. It was going to be just the two of us—no more parent bullshit.
But how could I be with him when he lied about something so big?
That’s why I can’t forgive him. I let him in—showed him my scars—while he lied to me for a whole year.
He just doesn’t get it.
He never will.