Looking for Heaven

Chapter Seven

First, the darkness. Then, the mist. Ethereal mist before his shuttered eyes. It swirled and danced in time to a rhythmic, primal haze. Through the mist, light. Dim, but stronger every second. Brighter. Then gone. He could hear sounds, voices, blanketed by the mist. They came in muffled, broken, like static over a vintage radio that has continued searching for stations long since switched off. It frightened him.

He pushed and pushed with his mind until he felt some form of movement. Tingles that spread down his arms and legs, making his fingers twitched. The effort was too much – he fell back. The next thing was a sharp pain on his shoulder blade. It made him scream, but no sound came out of his mouth. He slipped again.

The light was getting stronger now and definite shapes were beginning to form in the haze. There was a rectangle – a window. There a circle – a lamp. There two shapeless blobs, they were hard to make out. The heavy eyelids fluttered and the shapes came into focus. It was his parents. They had their backs to him, standing just beyond the threshold of the door.

He forced his arm to move and he sought out the spot on his shoulder blade that had pained. A bandage could be felt beneath his fingers. They saw it. Where George had cut the word "Fag" right into Justin's skin.

The combined effort and dismay made him involuntarily release a low moan. Hazel and Monty went deathly silent and stared at him for several moments. They hardly seemed to breathe. A lifetime it seemed to Justin before one of them even moved. The universe was a scratched disc, stuck on a single image.

Hazel finally crossed the floor and sat on the edge of the bed. Monty went over to the window beside the locker and leaned against the panes. Both their faces were ashen. Hazel's hand crept up the bed sheets and took a hold of Justin's.

"Why didn't you tell us?" she asked in barely more than a whisper.

"I don't know," he replied.

"Were you going to tell us?"

"I don't think so," he said, keeping his head down.

"Why not?"

"I thought it would make things worse," he said. As an afterthought he added: "I didn't want to bother you."

"Bother us?" she breathed incredulously. "All we care about is you."

"I guess I didn't think it was that important," he responded, which wasn't far from truth. "When compared to-"

"That important?" Hazel said as her eyes widened as far as they could go.

"There's much worse things going on in the world. Help with some of those." That was a bit mean he thought as he said it.

"We don't care about those."

"People are starving, being persecuted, killed-"

She held up her hand to shush him. "And that is all very terrible, but we are here, not there," she said as she ran her fingers through his fringe. "This is our problem."

Monty, who hadn't said anything up to this point, stood straight up and looked Justin right in the face. "Why that word?"

Justin pretended to not have heard him. "What?"

"Why that word?" he asked again. Justin thought he could see a strange look in his eyes.

"What word is it?" he asked feigning ignorance. He knew quite well. George had shown him a picture of his handiwork.

"Fa-" started Monty, before he was interrupted by Hazel.

"A very insulting phrase," she said. She obviously hated that word. "Meaning gay people."

Justin sat in silence for a few moments. He looked in both their faces. They both seemed to be waiting for something. The look of expectation was palpable. Could I tell them? Maybe... NO! Not like this! Never like this!

"It must be one of the few words in his vocabulary," he lied as convincingly as he could. They seemed to buy it.

"Did you shout or anything?" asked Monty.

"Not at first," said Justin. He saw it all so clearly. And the pain. "I didn't think he'd do it." He lapsed into silence and stared at a smudge on the wall beside him.

"And..." prompted Hazel.

He gulped. "When I started screaming, one of them put a load of tissue in my mouth. I couldn't make a sound."

Hazel's body stiffened. "What?"

"Them?" Monty too had become more alert. "There's more than one?"

Before he could stop himself, Justin responded with his sarcastic retort style. "That's generally what 'them' means."

Monty's lip curled. "Now's not the time for sarcasm."

"Who are they?" asked Hazel as she tightened her hold on his hand.

"I..." he stammered. "I don't know."

"Really?" said Monty with one raised eyebrow, as though to say that after being bullied by these Justin ought to know who they were.

"I don't know their names," he clarified.

"What's his name then?"

"I don't want to say."

"Why not?"

He shook his head. "I don't know."

"I we know we can help. Let us help," pleaded Hazel.

Justin took a breath and spit out the truth. "I'm scared."

"Scared?" they both said at once.

Tears were beginning to form. "He might start following me home. He might never leave me alone."

"Did he tell you this?" posed Hazel.

"No," he said shaking his head. "I don't think he ever thought I'd tell. But he would do that." His voice was beginning to crack. "He's that type."

He could tell that his mother was struggling to hold her composure as she listened to the fear in his voice. "Are you sure you won't tell us his name?"

"I can't," he whispered, a small tear slipping down his cheek.

"If you tell us," Monty said, sitting down on a chair beside the bed. "We will tell the school, go to the police and this could end."

He caught the phrasing on the sentence. "Could?"

Monty sighed. "We can't say if he will follow you like you say, but if he does, he'll regret it."

"I don't know..."

Could he actually tell them? Could this hell he was living through really end? Dare he believe? God knows he wanted nothing more than to escape this unending torment. His mind was a-flurry with a thousand different thoughts, memories: George's leering face – his parent's concerned faces – the fist that pounded every area of his body – the knife – the hope that there could be an end to this. Could he?

Through his wild and drifting thoughts he could hear Hazel's voice. "Please... tell us... we love you..."

Something seemed to snap into place within Justin's brain, like all the fragments he had sifted through came together into a jigsaw and showed him the way. "George King."

Monty adjusted the way he was sitting. "What did you say?"

He repeated. "His name is George King." His face was hard and emotionless, save for a glimmer of anger.

Hazel seemed to take a moment to process this information. "George King. The guy on the school football team?" Justin nodded firmly.

"I don't believe it," breathed Monty. "He always seemed like a nice boy."

Justin's head snapped around and stared Monty in the face. "He's not. He's my bully."

Outside, a pair of birds were singing and flitting in the branches of a tall tree.