Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Jules: Age Seventeen
Connecticut
“I was... walking and... talking...?” Jules still couldn’t quite comprehend it.
He shook his head, but then stopped because Jesus.
The headache made the nausea roil, and there was nothing left in his stomach to throw up.
“I was talking to the girl. The flute player, and then...” Don’t leave me don’t leave me don’t leave me.
.. He looked at Hobbit who hadn’t left his side from the moment he’d woken up, here in Belle’s bed, in Belle’s bedroom.
At first he hadn’t known where he was, and with Hobbit wrapped around him on one side and Belle tucked in tightly on his other, he’d been confused. And nauseated. But everyone’s clothes were on—theirs and his—which was good because he had no clue how he’d gotten here, which was beyond strange.
The party.
Yes.
He’d gone to a party with...
Wait.
Shit!
His memory came flying back—Belle as bait, he and Hobbit sitting at the picnic table, Mindy-Mandy the flute girl, and the sudden strange sensation that his head was no longer attached to his shoulders.
Don’t leave me don’t leave me don’t leave me...
Hobbit clearly hadn’t, and Belle hadn’t either.
But oh dear God, a tsunami wave of nausea had appeared with the rush of remembering, and Jules had sat up because, fuhhhck.
But Shelly was there—she and Sadie’d been sleeping on the floor, and shit, Tom was in the room, too, curled up over in the corner on a bean bag chair.
But Shelly was his savior, because she’d thrust a bucket—red and clean and large, thank you Jesus—at Jules because yes he was absolutely going to throw up and he would not have made it out of the room to wherever the bathroom was.
“Oh God I’m so sorry,” he said because as awful as he felt, he knew for damn sure that this was not going to be fun for any of them, but Shelly spoke over him.
“It’s okay, let it out, try to get it all out, you’ll feel so much better.”
Jules could feel Hobbit’s hands on his back—soothing and steady, I swear to God, I will not leave your side—as Belle chimed in, too. “This should be the last of it. There really can’t be much more in your stomach.”
Jules’s eyes were streaming and his nose was running from the awfulness as he retched and gagged, because yes, Belle was right. Nothing much was coming up. Shelly was right there with a box of tissues, too, and he took more than one to wipe his face. “Oh, my God, have I been doing this...?”
“Since around three.” Tom should’ve sounded tired, but he just sounded like Tom.
The clock-radio on Belle’s bedside table had said 6:23, and yes, light was peeking in from behind her window shades.
He’d finally stopped throwing up, and Hobbit had gone with him to the bathroom, waiting respectfully outside of the closed door as Jules had gotten himself cleaned up.
When they’d gone back into Belle’s room, the start of the debrief had been sobering.
“Belle and Hobbit got you out of the party without blowing our cover,” Shelly told him. “You were able to walk once they got you up on your feet. Tom and Sadie and I met you at Tom’s car, at the end of the street.”
“You climbed the stairs with just a little bit of help,” Sadie told him, because yes, Belle’s bedroom was on the second floor of her house.
“You were in and out of the car pretty easily, too,” Belle chimed in. “I mean, yeah, there was a bit of a disconnect, but once you got moving, you seemed okay-ish.”
“I don’t remember any of that,” Jules said. “And I was... talking...?”
“You told Tom he was hot,” Sadie reported.
Oh, God, he did? Jules winced.
“Come on, Sade, he really didn’t need to know that,” Tom scolded.
“If it was me, I’d want to know,” Sadie shot back.
Did he want to know? He kind of did, but he also didn’t. “Sorry,” Jules said. “Can I just... make a blanket apology to everyone?”
“Dude,” Tom said. “You were flying pretty high and... frankly, I’m flattered.”
“Yeah, we all know you’re getting a T-shirt that says Jules thinks I’m hot,” Belle teased.
“No, that would be you,” Tom countered with a laugh, “with the T-shirt saying Jules thinks my boyfriend’s hot.”
Some guys wouldn’t find any of that funny.
“For the record,” Hobbit chimed in, “I think Tom’s hot, too.”
“You also tried to kiss Hobbit,” Sadie reported.
“Oh, good.” Jules was horrified as he looked over at his friend. “Sorry?”
Hobbit was actually blushing. “I didn’t mind. But then you called me David, which kinda ruined it for me.”
“Yeah,” Sadie said. “You had a lot to say about David, who apparently gives really good head.”
Oh, fuck. “I actually said...?” Jules’s voice cracked and he closed his eyes and considered dying. Just melting into a puddle of shame and vanishing for good. Because, God, he’d hate it if David talked about him like that.
“It’s okay,” Shelly said, from her perch at the end of the bed. She put her hand on his foot. “It really is. It stays in this room, right, you guys?”
They all nodded solemnly. Belle, and Hobbit, and Sadie, and Tom. It was all Jules could do not to cry.
Shelly squeezed his toes. “It’s all just like... a giant, weird blank, isn’t it? Last night?”
Jules nodded, too, then, still unable to speak.
“But it’s okay. You’re okay, because we stayed with you,” she told him. “Hobbit was like your guard dog. And yeah, you got a little bit goofy last night, but so what? No one minded. We all know maybe a little too much about David now, but... It’s really okay.”
That Shelly, who’d experienced something very similar without her friends around to protect her, would be offering him comfort was... It was almost too much.
“Are you really all right now?” Hobbit asked, concern in his eyes. “Because when you first started throwing up, I thought maybe you were back because you kept saying you were sorry, but...”
Jules had to clear his throat. “I don’t remember anything until.
.. what I guess was that final red bucket,” he admitted.
He closed his eyes and he got a flash of blurred memories from right before the nothingness.
He was... crawling? Toward Hobbit at the picnic table.
..? Then Hobbit was beside him, solid and fierce. I’m right here....
“Thank you for not leaving me,” Jules told him as the tears in his eyes threatened to overflow.
“There’s so much about this that doesn’t make sense, but.
.. please can we debrief later? Because.
.. I really want to go home. I really...
” There was nothing he could do or say to embarrass himself more than he already had last night, so. .. “You guys, I really want my mom.”
The ER was busy. Apparently Friday nights made for busy Saturday mornings at the local hospital.
It had taken a while, with Hobbit by his side the entire time, but Jules had finally been given a little curtained cubby with a narrow bed.
Nurses had come in and taken some of his blood, he’d peed into a cup, plus he’d been hooked up to a saline IV because he was extremely dehydrated.
He’d also been given a breathalyzer test, which was a little insulting since he’d been very clear about the fact that he hadn’t been drinking.
At all.
His mother was less impatient about it. “They’re just doing their due diligence,” she pointed out.
“Probably a lot of liars come through their doors,” Hobbit observed from his chair beside Jules’s bed.
Jules had given his mother the nutshell version of the story. That girls in their school were being targeted at parties by someone who slipped some kind of debilitating drug into their drinks. He and his friends were actively trying to find out who was doing this.
She was, understandably, not thrilled.
“So you think that’s why this person targeted you,” she’d asked. “Not because...?”
“I’m gay?” he finished for her. “No. I mean, yes, I think that’s why they targeted me. It wasn’t because I’m gay.”
She drew in a deep breath. “It’s... really been okay? The school? It’s not too... Conservative? Backwards? Narrow-minded?”
“Oh, it’s all of that,” Hobbit answered for Jules.
“It’s very okay,” Jules reassured her, speaking over him. “I’ve made a really great group of friends, which is the most important thing.”
“Well, I certainly like this one,” she said, gesturing to Hobbit, right in front of him, as was her way. “He’s a keeper.”
Back at Jules’s house, Hobbit had been incredibly polite but positively adamant about continuing to stay with Jules, even coming here with them, to the hospital. He was quite the unstoppable force.
“Maybe it’s time to go to the police,” Jules’s mother now suggested. “Let them take it from here...?”
Jules glanced at Hobbit, whose face was pure nope, but again he was respectful. “I honestly don’t think they’ll take us seriously, Mrs. Cassidy,” he said.
“You don’t know that,” she countered.
“I kinda do, ma’am,” he said. “The police chief’s my father and he’s... Well, his main philosophy is boys will be boys. Even if we tell him otherwise, he’ll believe that Jules was targeted for being gay. He’ll also think it was a harmless prank. He’s... not very open-minded.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “That must be hard for you, living with him.”
Hobbit nodded. “Just a few more years.”
“Well, you’re always welcome at our house.”
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
She glanced at Jules. “How about Hank Harrison? Maybe he could... I don’t know. Help? Somehow? You really need someone who’s more than seventeen to deal with this.”
“We’re being careful,” Hobbit promised her.
“You did just say that to the woman who brought her son to the ER for being drugged at a party.”
“We took good care of him, ma’am.”
“Hmm,” she said.
“We’re really getting close,” Jules pointed out. “I mean, whoever they are, they found out I’m onto them. I mean why else would they target me like that?”
Because you’re gay...? His mother didn’t say it, but the words were there in her eyes.