Chapter 4

  I grab him by both of his wrists and shake with him a little. He opens eyes in shock and gives me a really scared and confused look. I didn’t realise doing this would be so hard.

  ,,What…how did you find me?” He whispers in terror.

,,I looked everywhere for you at the house but you weren’t here, so I started walking around the town just in case you were somewhere around,” I let go of his wrists and put the palm of my hand on his left shoulder. I can feel him shiver. ,,Did something happen? Why did you leave all of the sudden?”

 ,,He hurt my brother, he- he-” his voice breaks and he starts crying really hard, so hard I take him by both shoulders and hug him. I don’t normally like to hug people, especially not this intensively, but this right here is a great exception.

  I slowly step down on the ground and show him a hand gesture to get down from the ledge. He looks indecisive at first but then he sadly nods and gets down right next to me.

  He takes a deep breath and wipes away the tears under his swollen red eyes. 

,,He’s hurt me before, he just does it sometimes, but I’m used to it by now and also I’m big enough to defend myself you know, I no longer let him do what he wants with me, but Victor’s still a child, he’s eleven. He doesn’t have enough strength or attitude to tell him to fuck off,” he looks away and makes a hurting face. He struggles to even say the words. ,,He hurt him really bad, Theo, like really, really bad. And now I just want to get in the house and beat his drugged ass to death. But why is it so hard to do?! Why is it so difficult to get revenge from the person who used to hurt me and make me cry every night? Why can't I simply do it when I hate him so goddamn much, when all I ever wished for is to give him what he deserves? Am I so weak I can't even do it?! I even walked past the house, I was there Theo, I swear to God if I was even just a little strong I could have gotten inside and…"

  He doesn't finish the sentence. He just stares intensely into the water flowing underneath the bridge and doesn't say a word. His eyes on the other hand start filling with tears once again and his facial expression turns as desperate as ever. And I don’t have even the smallest idea on what to do.

  The next morning I wake up pretty early. I slept for like five hours so it’s gonna be harder for me to function. After the bridge scenery I called dad to ask him if Harry could sleep over at our house for one or two days. He agreed the second I mentioned Harry’s situation and said he can stay for as long as he wants. As for Harry’s brother, we talked about him until late at night and came up with a plan of visiting him today at the children’s hospital to see if he’s okay and if he needs anything.

  I doubt if Harry even got any sleep since every time I looked at him his eyes were wide open, as if he simply couldn’t sleep knowing his father is out there, alive and well and most likely getting wasted. 

  Fortunately for Harry my dad had to leave for work earlier today so at least he’ll feel a bit more comfortable only around me. But I don’t think that’s what botheres him the most.

  Harry suddenly turns around facing me and opens his eyes.

,,What time is it?” He asks sleepily while looking at me.

,,Half past seven,” I answer with a very grumpy tone and sit up on my bed.

  I feel like shit from sleeping for such a short time but then I realise that I at least had the luxury of sleeping on an actual bed. Harry agreed on sleeping on a spare mattress with nothing but a light blanket. I really shouldn’t complain. 

 He groans and rubs his eyes with both hands. I can’t help myself but look at his untidy light hair sticking to every side. He indeed looks as if he just had a ruff night. 

  ,,What?” He notices me peeking and frowns a little with his eyebrows.

,,Nothing, it’s just your hair, it looks kinda funny,” I can hardly keep the laughter inside now.

  He quickly stands up and walks up to the only big mirror I have in my room. All I can focus on though is his shirtless body just walking around my bedroom. It’s not that I’ve never seen another boy’s body, I just didn’t see this coming.

  I immediately look away and get out of the bed. Meanwhile he’s standing in front of the mirror trying to style his hair a little. I don’t know how to act so I simply head to the door.

  ,,Ugh, this happens every time…what- wait! Come here next to me, I wanna try something.”

He looks at me with excitement in his eyes and because this is the first time I’ve seen him like this after a pretty long time I do what he says and stand right next to him.

  He straightens up and looks in the mirror.

,,Haha, I’m taller than you.” His mouth forms into a devilish smirk and he starts smiling from such a success.

 ,,Yeah, you’re an idiot.” 

  For the whole morning we do nothing but sit on the couch and watch TV, sometimes we talk about certain things, we change topics and slowly but surely start getting to know each other.

,,So yesterday during group therapy you mentioned something about getting bullied at school, is- is that true?” Harry asks carefully while his eyes are still pinned to the television.

  ,,Oh, yeah, that’s true. It used to happen more often when I was younger though.”

,,And what did they use to bully you about?” His eyes are now worriedly staring at me.

,,You know, the usual stuff,” after this he finally realises that I don’t want to talk about it. But instead of leaving it be he just goes deeper.

,,I know it’s hard, trust me, my childhood wasn’t the best either. But the only way to deal with it and let it go is to talk about it. You know, healing happens through feeling. You gotta let it all out. Don’t worry, I won’t judge.” I don’t know why he does it, but I feel safe around him when he says things like this. It’s like he actually wants to help. It’s strange, but I’m not so afraid of opening up to him anymore.

  ,,Okay, it was mostly about my amputated leg and things like that. Well, no, it wasn’t mostly about that. Body shaming was in elementary school. But when I transferred to Westside Grammar there was something else that caused a pretty big dose of bullying. It was my sexuality. But I suppose that’s normal. Most of the people in our current society can’t handle someone being somewhat different, in any way.” I bow my head and wish that he wasn’t here, listening to me talk about those things. It’s usually this that discourages people from being around me. At least that’s what happened with most of my class.

  But Harry seems interested in this. Not disgusted or annoyed. He seems okay with it. As if he was expecting something like this. I’m just not sure if I like the sound of that.

  ,,Sexuality? What is your sexuality?” He slowly leans in my direction and patiently awaits my response. But that’s the problem. I don’t know what it is.

,,Oh, it’s almost nine o’clock, we should get going to visit your brother in the hospital.” I suddenly change the topic of the conversation and stand up from the couch. 

  He doesn’t seem surprised by my action, maybe just a little disappointed.

,,Sure, let’s go.”

  I’m sitting in the waiting room while Harry is in one of the hospital rooms with his brother. He’s been in there for at least half an hour and hasn’t gone outside once.

In the meantime I’ve been working on some of my school work and a new personal project; I’ve been trying to figure out my sexual orientation. I’ve thought about it many times in the past but since I've never been in any romantic relationship I didn't have the opportunity to find out yet. But when Harry asked me about it today, I felt embarrassed for not being able to give him an answer. I wanted to respond, I wanted him to know, but I simply couldn't. And now I think it's time for me to really find out. Not only because of him, but because of myself. And even though I don't want other people to label me by my sexuality, it is the only way of achieving eternal peace.

  After forty minutes Harry finally comes out of the hospital room and straight to me. He looks quite unusual, I can’t tell what’s going on inside his head.

,,How did it go?” I stand up and ask him straightforwardly.

,,He’s uh, unconscious. He was hit in the head by something heavy. Plus he has internal bleeding because he was stabbed.” His legs are shaking and his eyes are twitching. ,,I wish I was there when it happened. That son of a bitch would have no power over him knowing I am there. God damn it!” His voice raises and I can see he’s angrier than ever. This is going to be hard.

  ,,Being mad at him won’t help you or your brother. You can deal with your father later, now you have much more important things to do. For example, we could stop by your house and pick up Victor’s things and drive some of them back here. We can do the same thing with your stuff and drop it off at my place. Unless you want to go back.” He stares at me with a very surprised look in his eyes and then smiles at me slowly.

  ,,Are you serious? You’d do all that? Wow, this is crazy, I wasn’t ready for something like this at all. But yeah, let’s do it.” He gives me a really big grateful smile and then reaches out with his right hand. I do the same thing and then we shake hands as if we just closed a really important deal in business. It’s ridiculous and heartwarming at the same time.

  Then he adjusts his shirt with one hand and heads to the exit of the building.

,,Wait, when are we supposed to visit again?” I have to speed up to catch up with him.

,,Tomorrow probably. Like I said, he’s unconscious so there’s nothing we can do right now but to wait.”

,,And now we’re going where?”

,,My house.”