Chapter Seven

Jonathan knew something was wrong. It was Chris's general demeanor that tipped him off; at the moment, he was adamantly frowning at his lunch. In general, Chris would look sad every now and then, but usually for no more than a few moments. It was always just a very quick expression that danced across his face and was gone as soon as it came, almost impossible to catch.

Chris hadn't said a word to Jonathan since they sat down. He hadn't eaten anything, either. He just sat and stared. Jonathan wanted to ask what was wrong, but he knew he wasn't going to get a straight answer, so he didn't even bother. But it really upset him to see Chris looking so down.

On the bus, Chris sat by the window with his head resting on the pane. Jonathan watched him the whole time. When they got off the bus, Chris walked a little slower and just barely kept up with Jonathan, his feet audibly dragging along the gravel of the driveway.

“I'm gonna be in my room,” he quietly said, standing in Jonathan's doorway as Jonathan set his backpack on his bed. “Writing... In case you need me.”

“OK.” Jonathan stepped over to his doorway to watch as Chris trudged to his room.

He waited downstairs for a few hours until Penny arrived home. He assumed that Chris had been in his room the entire time, though he wasn't entirely convinced that Chris was writing.

The door creaked open slowly and Penny entered her home. Exhausted already, she carelessly hung up her coat and began to make her way to the living room.

“Mum?” Penny turned to where the sound of her son's voice was coming from, which also happened to be the kitchen. “Can I talk to you about something?”

“What is it?” she brightly asked. She was tired, but she could forget about it to focus on her son, and so she walked over to where he stood.

“It's about Chris.” Penny raised an eyebrow, silently guessing at what to expect, and Jonathan continued, “Well, he seems really... upset today. And I'm worried about him, because... he doesn't get treated so well in school.”

“I'd imagine it's tough for him.”

“Yeah, like the other day we were on the bus, and some kid tripped him. And when I was with him at his locker, he was picking up his books, and I'm pretty sure that he didn't just drop them himself.” Jonathan sighed in frustration. “Mum, he just stands there and takes it, and then he acts like the freaking stuff was his fault and pretends it never happened!”

Penny nodded a little. “Jonathan, some people deal with things in different ways.”

“I know, but you should have seen him today. I've never seen him look so... sad.” Jonathan looked down at his feet and shrugged. “I'm just afraid that maybe it's finally getting to him. But I know he won't say anything on his own.”

“Maybe we should have a talk with him, then,” Penny said, then she reached out and tilted Jonathan's head back up. “Would that make you feel better?”

“I guess.”

“Would what make you feel better?” a small voice asked. Chris was suddenly in their company, still frowning with every syllable he spoke. “Jay, are you having more problems?”

Jonathan was slightly touched by Chris's concern, but also a little angry that Chris was obviously trying to avoid his own problems. “No, but I think you are,” he said.

“What do you mean?” Chris's eyes were something of a mixture between fear and despair, and Jonathan noticed they looked a little glossy.

Jonathan glanced at Penny, and she gave him a nod to tell him to go on. “It's just that you don't really seem like yourself today. You haven't talked so much, and you look kinda depressed.”

“I've had kinda an off day,” Chris shrugged. “Everyone gets those.”

“You don't want to talk about it? Because, you know...” Jonathan paused, then quickly decided to forget about being gentle and kind. “Ah, hell, Chris, will you let something bother you once in a while? Or, tell people that it bothers you? You can't just let them treat you like garbage and not react at all!”

Chris stared for a while. At first his eyes were blank, but slowly the expression rushed to them and it was obvious he'd been holding back a lot.

Jonathan silently and patiently waited for Chris to finally speak, which only came after he nearly burst into tears. “Everyone hates me,” he croaked, stepping forward and leaning into Jonathan. Jonathan wrapped his arms around Chris, having not nearly expected such an emotional reaction from him.

“No, no,” Jonathan soothed, rubbing his hand across Chris's back. “I don't hate you.”

“Everyone else hates me,” Chris sobbed, though muffled a bit by Jonathan's shoulder. “They all hate me, I know they do.”

“They're ridiculous. But you shouldn't just let them say or do those things to you. You should stand up for yourself once in a while.”

Chris started shaking his head, then he looked up. Jonathan almost felt like crying himself at the sight of teardrops clinging to Chris's eyelashes and sliding down his cheeks. Penny stood off to the side, merely observing the interaction between the two boys.

“The names I can handle. They're just names, they don't mean anything to me. The physical... abuse... is.... discouraging... but I can deal with that, too, even if it's not as easy,” he said. He inhaled sharply and his breath shook a little at the end. “This m-morning, I was at my locker, and Devon came up to me-”

“Oh God,” Jonathan muttered under his breath.

“Well, he was telling me that I have to watch Ty this weekend because Kirsten's going away, and I said OK.” Chris stopped, frowning again with trembling lips and trying to fight back more tears. “Then, like, out of nowhere he told me that I'm d-disgusting and I should j-just go di.... I know they hate me! I hear everything they think they're saying behind my back, but no one's ever wanted me dead.”

Chris's voice cracked on the last word, and he back away and buried his face in his hands; Penny was already on the phone with Lorraine.

“Hey, Lorraine.... Well, actually, not so well. It seems that there was a rather nasty exchange of words between your son and Chris earlier, and, well, it doesn't seem like Chris was the one saying them... Yeah, that's fine... Yeah, see you soon, then.”

Jonathan took a step and tried to get Chris to look at him. “Chris, you know Devon. You know he's not exactly right in the head. Don't-”

“Yeah, I do know,” Chris abruptly snapped, his voice still clogged with sadness, “but it doesn't change the fact that he still said it. He just said what everyone else is thinking.”

Penny, having just hung up the phone, decided to interject; she felt that she could probably do a better job with the situation than Jonathan, though she meant no offense to him.

“Chris, someone saying that to you is definitely not something you should take lightly, and you probably should have mentioned it to someone a lot sooner,” she said, resting her hand on his arm. “But please don't think that because he and other people don't accept who you are, you should change... and especially not taking any... drastic measures to do so.”

“Of course not,” he said. “I don't want to change, I just want people to like me the way I am.”

“I think most people want that. Unfortunately, given your situation it seems rather unlikely.”

Chris nodded sadly, then Penny suggested they all wait in the living room, as Lorraine would soon be arriving with Devon and Ty. Chris sat up against the armrest of the couch, looking as if he were trying to sink into the cushions. Jonathan sat beside him, angry that he could have ever been friends with anyone as awful as Devon- even though Devon had not always been that way- and filled with a strong desire to hug Chris again and make him understand just how much he meant to him.

Penny greeted the company at the door, and Chris followed a little reluctantly. He took Ty- fast asleep in his car seat- and all of Ty's things up to his room, and returned downstairs a few minutes later with a baby monitor in his hands. He took his seat beside Jonathan and waited for someone else to speak.

It seemed as though the rest of the room was doing the very same, though; Lorraine was merely staring at Devon, who looked thoroughly bored, and Penny and Jonathan each glanced back and forth between Chris and Devon, both seated on either side of Jonathan.

“'S anyone gonna say anything?” Devon droned, checking the cleanliness of his fingernails.

“It seems like someone already said something,” Lorraine told him. She kept her voice quiet, but her tone was very aggressive.

Devon looked up at her with a blank expression. “Oh, right, 'cause it's all my fault.”

“Well, then, whose fault is it?”

“Oh, I don't know,” he sarcastically remarked, shrugging and looking around the room, “where are we? Who are we here because of?”

Lorraine folded her arms, frustrated enough with Devon that she looked like she might blow smoke any second. “Chris did something to... antagonize you? He forced you to say whatever it is you said to him?”

“Told me to die,” Chris quietly interrupted, head tilted down so he was speaking to the armrest.

In complete disbelief, Lorraine blinked at her son, then took a deep breath and held up her hands. She tried several times to speak, but couldn't find the right words. Finally, she settled on a forced, “Why?”

“'Cause... you know.” Devon seemed to find it a suitable answer, but Lorraine was not so pleased. Devon sighed and rolled his eyes. “We were talking about Ty... You know what Chris is like.”

Lorraine shook her head. “Devon, you better start making sense if you're trying to worm your way out of this.”

“Come on, mum,” Devon practically muttered, “Chris... maybe not the greatest role model...”

“Why, because I'm gay?” Chris suddenly shouted at Devon, his voice cracking. “You can say it, you know. You don't think your nephew should be raised by a fag.”

Devon looked over at Chris with narrowed eyes, then spitefully replied, “Yeah.”

Chris frowned and returned to addressing the armrest; Lorraine's temper flared, and some in the room felt they understood a little more where Devon had inherited his anger issues from, though she certainly had reason to yell.

“Devon! First of all, Chris is a fantastic father,” she leaned forward in her seat and towards Devon in an attempt to be threatening, “and second of all, it doesn't matter what you think. If Kirsten is OK with Chris raising Ty, then he'll raise Ty.”

“You don't like it either,” Devon retorted. “Oh, but that doesn't matter, everyone always has to single out Devon, he's the crazy one!”

Devon laughed and waved his hands around, which really didn't help his case. Lorraine tried her absolute hardest to remain civilized.

“Do you even realize the consequence that could have had? Devon, you said that to him, he could have come home today and killed himself. That's what you want?” Devon stared at her, silently, but challengingly. Lorraine took the last of her deep breaths, and quietly continued, “I think at the very least, you own him an apology. The rest we'll talk about at home.”

Devon, extremely reluctant, turned his head towards Chris. He leaned forward to see past Jonathan, then monotonously said, “Sorry, Chris.”

Chris looked back at him and started to shake his head. “No, you're not,” he said, matter-of-factly. The he sat back and brought his feet up on the couch, knees to his chest.

“No one ever believes me,” Devon mumbled crossly to himself.

Lorraine temporarily ignored the stupidity of her son to acknowledge the rest of the room. “I'm very sorry for ruining your evening, especially to you, Chris. Please know that Devon doesn't always think things through all the way, even after quite some time has passed. I'm so terribly sorry.”

“You don't have anything to be sorry about,” Chris told her. “It's not your fault.”

“I think in a tiny way it is.” She halfheartedly smiled, then returned to Devon. “As for you... I'm beginning to think your father was right about you being released too early...” her voice lowered to a grave tone, “or maybe there's just no hope for you.”

Everyone around felt the coldness, but Devon didn't appear to be affected by it. Lorraine wished them all a good rest-of-the-evening, and she and Devon left. Penny, Jonathan, and Chris all remained in their seats for a while, completely silent.

“What time is it?” Chris asked no one in particular.

“Almost nine,” Penny replied as she looked at the clock on the wall. Chris stretched his arms a little and sat up.

“I think I'm gonna go to bed now. 'Night, guys.” Chris walked around the couch and towards the doorway as Penny and Jonathan bid him goodnight, but he stopped before he made it all the way. “Thank you both... for... everything.”

He tried to smile, then went back to leaving. The stairs seemed long and mountainous as his tired legs climbed them; he would have much rather just fallen asleep right then and there. But he found as he finally did make it up to his room that it was going to be nearly impossible for him to get any rest.

Since his eyes refused to close, he just laid down and watched as Ty slept beside him. He tried to think things over, but his mind was racing so fast that every little thought was a complete blur. It seemed like the only thing he could focus on was Ty.

“Ty, you're lucky you're just a baby,” Chris quietly said. “A cute, tiny, little baby. 'Cause you don't have to deal with all this horrible stuff that people like to do.”

Ty breathed, his tiny chest rising and falling ever so slightly. His curls were nearly covering his ears, and they rustled a little as Chris sighed.

“It's not like it's my fault,” Chris continued. “I think I'm a rather likable person. Much more than I was a year ago, that's for sure. But no one likes me, Ty, they all hate me.”

Chris never noticed the dark figure of a teenage boy standing nearby and peeking in through the crack the slightly open door made. Jonathan hadn't intended on spying on Chris, he was just passing by on his way to the bathroom when he heard Chris's voice. By this point, though, the bathroom had been forgotten, and Chris's privacy secretly invaded.

“What Lorraine said... I would never kill myself. That's just awful. I couldn't do that to you, or... well, I'm sure Penny and Jay would care, right?” he asked, teeming with uncertainty.

“Yes,” Jonathan whispered to himself.

Chris went on without faltering; it wasn't as if he had suddenly realized Jonathan was standing there. “I don't want to die, anyway. I like being alive.”

Ty moved a little in his sleep, and Chris smiled. He reached out and gently smoothed down some of Ty's wild curls. Though now he wished he hadn't done it for the reason he had, Chris was quite glad he'd cut off his own curls. Spring would be arriving soon, and then in the blink of an eye, summer would be upon them; masses of hair combined with sweltering heat did not make for a happy, comfortable person.

“People are going to love you, I can tell. Your mum and I already do... that's more than I have.” Chris took his hand back and rested both of his hands under his head. “And they're going to love you even when you're not a cute, tiny, little baby. People love babies. I think they have to. It's just a thing, like it's almost impossible not to. But even when you're not a baby anymore, when you're a kid, or a teenager like me, people will love you.”

Jonathan still watched on, deeply trying to suppress the urge to jump in and tell Chris that he was loved, too. It seemed like Chris would never see that not exactly the whole world was against him; his best friend was certainly far from that.

“Oh, God, Ty,” Chris began, suddenly sounding very worried, “please don't ever hate me. If you hate me... I don't know what I'd do.”

Jonathan decided that it was time for him to leave now; he'd kindly been reminded that he had yet to go to the bathroom, and figured that he should get to it right away. It was a shame, though, that he didn't get to hear the next part of Chris's speech.

“You or Jonathan. If Jonathan... He means so much to me, Ty. I don't think he loves me, at least not in that way... but I love him.” Chris felt like he was now telling this to himself rather than Ty. After all this time, he was finally admitting it to himself. “I still love him.”