Summer was now over and school was in full session. I had reconnected with Sarah and now she was the only thing on my mind. She was so beautiful with her black hair, bright green eyes, and the glasses she would occasionally wear, slipping the contacts on when she felt self-conscious. She wore converse no matter the time or season and I loved it.
We were so alike in so many ways. We liked many of the same shows and read many of the same books. Our trauma was different, but we had a mutual understanding of what we had each gone through and we knew how to soothe one another up to a point. I hadn’t shared everything with her, holding back some of my darkest secrets that were still haunting me, and the feelings that I buried deep down inside.
We spent the remainder of the summer spending every moment we could together. We would meet up at the standpipe hill and sit at the bench splitting out time between making out and talking. I shared how my summer had gone, omitting many key details. I explained about the time Dan and I had been spending together.
I met up with Sarah Sunday morning. We were at the standpipe on the bench, and I had brought my guitar propping it up against the back of the bench. Sarah approached and I gave her a hug, kissing her on the cheek. We sat down.
“So, I’ve actually been working on something and I was too shy to tell you about it until I was ready to show you.”
“Oh?”
I reached behind the bench and grabbed the guitar case, flicking the latches open and opening it with a creak. I picked up the acoustic guitar, fitting the strap around my neck and adjusting it so that it was comfortable.
“Oh my god, you actually learned how to play finally!”
“And the piano too,” I mumbled under my breath as I started to strum the introduction to Sunday Morning.
She looked at me with a look she didn’t often give. Admiration. She normally looked at me with this sad look that I would catch from others every so often that cut me to my core. Pity. She didn’t pity me now though, now I had accomplished something I had set my mind to.
She bobbed her head along to the song. It was perfect, playing Sunday Morning on a Sunday morning.
“That’s amazing! How did you keep that from me, I thought you shared everything?”
Everything. No, I didn’t. I was withholding. A liar. A cheater.
“I can hold my tongue when I need to. Okay, so this next one I’ve been practicing for weeks, okay? It’s our song.”
She smiled at me; we had listened to this song a million times. We knew all the lyrics forwards and backward.
I picked at the strings, the opening to Hey there Delilah resonating from the guitar.
She started crying a little and smiling. They were happy tears. This had been “our” song just like every other seventeen-year-old in America at the time.
I finished out the song and she almost broke the guitar pushing it out of the way so she could press her lips into me and kiss me as hard as she could.
“I love you!”
Once school was back in session we would go to our classes, and every free chance we would get we would meet up. Once school was over, I would never be too far behind her. We spent the weekends between downtown Derry, eating at the bagel shop, or getting coffee at the café on the corner, back when it still had the portrait of the shooting of the Al Brady gang morbidly hanging over the counter. If we weren’t there the rest of our time was spent around the mall. It wasn’t dying at that point, so we still had shops to visit. We would go to the Border’s and read books and talk. Sometimes we would go to the city forest and walk through the elevated bog walk.
Through all this, I did everything to push Dan out of my mind. I still wasn’t sure what to say about Dan to her. I had no intention of telling her, but she and Dan were friends and there was no way this was going to go well. I started thinking about Dan almost every night, fight it though I may. It was no longer tenable. I had to talk to Dan. I had stopped texting and emailing him and had been screening every phone call ever since that last night with him and I snuck out early in the morning before he woke up.
I had to confront this. I stared at my phone as if it was going to make the call and have the conversation for me. I pressed the button and the phone rang…
“Hello?”
“…”
“Who’s this?”
“Hey Dan… it’s me.”
“Oh…”
“I’m sorry I snuck out that night. I just couldn’t bear to see you. I just… I was hoping I could meet you somewhere and we could talk?”
“… Meet me where you first kissed me in an hour. If you haven’t made yourself forget everything about us yet.”
Click.
He had hung up. That hurt, but I more than deserved it. Why would I ever forget anything about Dan? I made my way to the park early and sat there. I sat there for an hour and a half before you showed up. I think you just wanted to torture me and make me wait.
“Hey, you,” I said awkwardly.
“Hey,” Dan said tersely.
I expected you wouldn’t really want to talk. You came anyways and that must have meant something.
“I… I know things are… oh Jesus Dan I don’t know how to have this conversation.”
“What? That you know things are hard? That not only did I lose one friend you stole a second one from me in the process. That I can’t even talk to anyone about this because I have to keep YOUR secret!”
Yelling. This was what I deserved. This somehow felt better, but he calmed himself switching to a friendlier tone.
“Listen, I’ll keep your secret. But tell me, was this all for nothing?”
I looked at him deeply in the eyes. He knew it wasn’t for nothing.
“Daniel… Dan… I didn’t plan to hurt you. I didn’t plan to get back together with Sarah. I didn’t…”
“What? You asked me here, the least you can do is not be a coward!”
“I DIDN’T PLAN ON FALLING IN LOVE WITH YOU!”
The words burst out of my mouth almost taking my teeth with them. This. This was the weight I was carrying. This was what I couldn’t say.
“You… you loved me?”
“I still love you.”
“Then why did you leave?”
I just stared. I didn’t have a good answer. I was pulled back by the familiar. It’s just with Sarah it felt like we had this cosmic connection. She would have dreams about me being hurt and call me in the middle of the night having no idea that she saved me from myself. Maybe that was the real reason.
I had stared for too long and you just shook your head.
“I know this is too much to ask of you, and if you say no I understand. Please… please would you still be my friend? I don’t want to lose you. I shouldn’t have even kissed you, you’re my best friend.”
“Yeah… yeah maybe. I’ll see you at school.”
He stood up and left. I sat there at the bench thinking over every word. Every look on his face that I was able to catch before I looked away in shame and sorrow. The sun began to set after I had been there for hours. I made the walk back home, my joints stiff from sitting still for so long.
In my bed, I stared at the ceiling. Tears came to my eyes all to easily and I just let them roll-off. I didn’t force them, but I didn’t stop them. It was a gentle slow cry. I reached for my phone and texted Sarah.
Charles: Hey
Sarah: Hey, what’s up?
Charles: Nothing, just in a mood. Can I meet you somewhere?
Sarah: Yeah, how about that bridge down by the stream walk. It’s not far from the Standpipe hill. Do you know of it?
Charles: Yeah, I know the bridge. I’ll see you there soon.
I made my way down the winding path towards the bridge. There was an encampment of some down on there luck people hanging out in tents off in the distance along the stream. It wasn’t a pretty sight, but they had to live somehow.
I saw her walking along the trail. It would take her a minute to get to me. I stood still just watching the way she carried herself. She looked so damn cute all the time.
“Hey, is everything okay,” she asked.
“Yeah everything is fine, I just wanted to see you.”
“Aww that’s sweet of you,” she said sticking her tongue out.
I leaned forward and kissed her. She wrapped her arms around me and kissed back. I had missed these kisses and now savored every one. We slowly broke our kiss apart and I looked into her eyes.
“Do you want to get out of here?”
“Where to?”
“My grandparents are out of town…”
“And if they caught me, they’d kill you.”
If they caught what I had done with Dan they would have stoned me in the town center.
“We won’t get caught.”
“We almost got caught in his office that one time when you said he would ‘never go there’ on that day. You say a lot of things to get what you want you know.”
“I promise you; the house is free.”
“Well that convinces me, let’s go!”
She grabbed my hand and started running off the bridge in the direction of my house. I ran after her, slowing down once we started to make out way up the hill. We walked the several blocks to my house, she started kissing me by the time we hit the driveway. By the door she was trying to pull my clothes off already.
“Just a minute girl, someone will see us!”
“I want them to see!”
I nearly kicked the door in, and made my way to my room, clothing now forming a trail that you could follow to where our naked bodies where. After kicking off her underwear, I scooped her up into my arms before she could protest and threw her onto my bed.
“Oh my god!”
“Roar!” I shouted. I was such a dork. I jumped onto the bed and she opened her legs allowing me to rest between her as I started kissing her soft skin everywhere.
I started kissing my way down her chest, pausing for a few minutes to give special attention to her breasts. I would take us much of it into my mouth as possible, leaving little hickeys in oddly shaped circles around her nipples.
“No marks!”
“And who’s going to see these?”
I continued leaving marks down below her breasts, and down her stomach. I made my way down to her lips, placing her legs on my shoulder as I gave a first wide lick all the way up her pussy. I worked my way up to her clitoris giving it all the attention I could. She started to softly moan.
“Enough of that, just fuck me!”
I made my way back up and started sliding the head of my cock along her slit. I found my way to the entry and started to work my way in. She was so wet that it didn’t take long. I started working my way into a hard rhythm. She gripped at my back and started clawing. She would often do it hard enough to draw blood, and I would love the stinging feeling my shirt would give me and how it would remind me of her every time the shirt shifted and caused me pain.
We kept at this for 15 minutes, and I started to chafe. She had already gotten there twice and was starting to get a little sore.
She tried dirty talking to get me closer.
“Oh baby, you fuck me so good! I love it when you get it there. Oh yes!”
Finally, after another minute of this not working, she looked at me.
“Can I do anything to help you out there Mr. Mile?”
“Sorry, I’ll just try to think about something. I’m just… excited,” I lied. I was doing this often now. Lying to her, lying to Dan, lying to myself.
Dan.
As soon as I thought about him, I started to cum.
“Oh yes!” she screamed, biting at her lip and gripping the back of my hair like she was trying to scalp me.
We cleaned up and put our clothes back on. She gave me a kiss and headed in the direction of her house. I sat back in bed smelling the sweet aroma of sex in the air.
School days came and went and now it was October. Dan had finally started to come around and was hanging out with Sarah at least. We talked and maintained an image that everything was okay even though nothing was okay. We all were hanging out and making our plans for Halloween.
“So,” Sarah said, “I was thinking maybe we go to Bucksport and watch Rocky Horror. It could be fun; we could all dress up!”
“I think Chuck should be Dr Frank N Furter,” Dan chimed in. He knew I hated being called Chuck and this was now all he would call me. It was still nice to hear him.
“Oh, and what would you guys be?”
“We would be Brad and Janet of course. I mean it totally fits.”
I was started to get anxious. This was all too thinly veiled.
“Yeah because my legs are better!” I hoped that would fill the void before Sarah questioned what he meant.
“That sounds awesome!”
She had no idea what Dan meant underneath it. That Dr. Frank N Furter the perv seduced both Brad and Janet and nearly destroyed their relationship. At least that’s the dramatic angle that I had taken in interpreting this.
We gathered our costumes. I put on my corset, shorts, leggings, high heels, and makeup. Sarah and Dan dressed in the plain outfits worn by Brad and Janet in the film. We drove to Bucksport and waited in line. I was the fifth Dr. Frank N Furter that was attending the film, but I also was by far the sexiest looking one.
I paid for the tickets and we made our way into the film. I was supposed to enjoy this, but this tension was driving me insane. Every scene that had any subtext related to what was happening here made me sweat.
Sarah looked over at me.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah fine. I just feel a little woozy is all…”
Dan said nothing, just looking forward to the movie.
We filed out into the streets, laughing at all the songs we had sung. We decided since we were so close that we were going to attend Fright at the Fort. It was just across the water and a short drive from where we were.
We made our way in, and it was full of the usual jump scares. Dan started laughing, and I tried asking what. He leaned into Sarah’s ear and whispered to her. She laughed, and I asked again this time she whispered to me, “Dan said it’s kind of hard to take it seriously because some of their moaning is just sexual, not scary.”
I laughed and Dan looked over at me. He seemed to be loosening up a bit, seeing that I was being tortured by all of this, he finally took some mercy and started talking a bit more.
“So how about we head downtown and walk around a bit, maybe drive around and check out the trick or treaters?”
“Sounds good to us,” Sarah piped in. Us. That had to have hurt him.
“Alrighty then…”
We made our way downtown and walked around. Some of the stores were open, some had candy. We attempted to pass our fake ID’s at the bar and were immediately rejected, fortunately, Sarah was fast enough to swipe the ID’s before they kicked us out.
We jumped back into Dan’s car and made our way around the various known trick or treating neighborhoods. We trick or treated at a few of the houses, getting some eyebrow raises at my Frank N Furter costume. Sarah and Dan were dressed all up like normal-looking people and said their costume was being my parents.
We stayed out until 11:30 PM and finally decided it was probably a good idea to head home.
“Hey Sarah, mind if I drop you off first,” Dan asked.
“Hm? Oh yeah, sure.”
I looked at him and he just glanced briefly at me. We made our way out to the development where she lived. It had used to be housing for an old Air Force base and had been converted to affordable housing after the base was either shut down or downsized. She hopped out, and I risked Dan taking off without me by walking her to the door. I gave her a kiss and wished her a goodnight before making my way back to the passenger seat.
“She doesn’t know. I kept your secret you know.”
“Thanks…” I was ashamed and couldn’t say anything.
He started speeding, rolling through stop signs and twisting around corners. I just looked at him. I was afraid of getting hurt, but I knew he wouldn’t intentionally hurt me. I just watched him drive, not paying attention to where we were going. It wasn’t his house or my house that much I knew. The car came screeching to a stop at the top of the standpipe hill.
I looked around and realized where we were. I turned back to look at Dan and he was looking at me.
“Get out.”
I opened the door. I was only a few miles from home and figured he was just trying to torture me a bit more. I deserved it. To my surprise he got out of the car too. He walked in front of me and there we were face to face.
“You said you loved me.”
“Yes. I did. I do. I … I… I’m in a position where there are no good choices Daniel. Dan.”
“You said. You loved me.”
“I did.”
“You never asked me how I felt. You just dropped this massive bomb on top of me and you never asked me how I felt. You’re selfish, you know that? You’re fucking selfish Charlie!”
I just stood there blinking.
“You’re a selfish fucking prick, and I hate that about you. I hate how selfish you are. I hate how you won’t let anyone in to help you. I hate how you love so easily, but you know what the worst thing about you is?”
I was starting to cry at this point, and my lower lip started to tremble.
“The worst thing is I hate that I love you too!”
The words hit me harder than I was expecting. I started to cry a bit harder now, not sobbing, just letting the tears fall and my lip tremble. He was breathing heavily from the anger and the yelling. His fist was shaking a little. He walked towards me and I thought he was going to punch me, and I felt like that was exactly what I deserved. He didn’t hit me though. He put his arms around me and hugged me and let me cry it out on his shoulder. He started to cry too.
I was such an idiot. I had already admitted how bad the relationship with Sarah had been and how self-destructive it was. I knew we were doomed to eventually fall apart again and yet here Dan made me feel alive for the first time in years and I abandoned him right as I was falling in love. Idiot.
Eventually the tears stopped and we both separated and looked at each other for a few minutes.
We got back in the car and he drove me to my house. I got home around 1:00 AM and plopped onto my bed. I was tired and emotionally exhausted. I got up, switching into my shorts and a nightshirt that was a bit big on me. I laid back down in bed and thought about what had happened. I touched my lips and thought of Dan’s lips. Something stirred in me and I slipped my hand into the bad of my shorts. I wrapped my hands around my cock imagining that it was Dan’s cock and that this was for him. I thought about our first night, and him entering me. I thought about all the sex we had had, and I pushed myself to the edge.
I felt so gross. I cleaned up and closed my eyes attempting to sleep.
It was now December. Dan and I had communicated even less somehow now. The tension was palpable. We made excuses around Sarah for why things were weird. His schedule, my schedule, blah blah. We just couldn’t stand seeing the other’s face anymore.
Sarah and I had now been dating for a solid four months. This was longer than the last time. She went to my dad’s house with me for Christmas, with the promise to her parents that my dad would ensure we were in separate rooms. He did not care in the least bit, deciding instead to slip me a condom because, “Atta boy!”
We only came out of the room to go to the bathroom and to eat. We spent three nights up and that one condom wasn’t going to cover it. She was on birth control though, and I was still stupid, so we just decided to fuck it. And fuck it we did.
The final night before dropping her off, we started to begin what we knew would probably be our last night alone for several weeks. We had been naked for hours already. We were laying down on the bedside by side just staring into each other’s eyes. I reached forward and took a single finger running it as far up and down her body as I could reach without moving my upper body. She did the same with me. I took time to gently shape her breasts with my fingers, rubbing her nipples the way she had instructed me to.
She leaned forward, pushing her tongue into my mouth. I closed my mouth around her tongue and started to suck on it softly. She responded to this with a giggle, reaching her hand out and tickling on my balls. I let her tongue go, pushing mine into her mouth and she latched on sucking my tongue right back. I reached my finger out to her and flicked it gently across her clit.
She wrapped her hands around my cock and started to pull as I reached out and started to work my fingers in. We had already had sex four times so far that day, and I wanted to have more than this, but it was getting late. She lowered her body down and pulled my cock into her mouth. It was filthy from the day’s activity, but she didn’t care, sucking away at it anyways.
After she was satisfied with how wet she had gotten in she got up and sat on top of me, lowering herself onto my cock expertly. She started rocking her hips, creating this circular movement that she had perfected over the last four months. I leaned up kissing her on the neck and cupping her breasts as she did this. Our breath was in sync as she rocked away. She came first, grinding hard against me to get the most out of her orgasm. This pushed me to the edge, and I started to push another load of cum deep into her.
We paused here, and I just stayed inside of her. She looked at me and smiled.
“I love you.”
“I love you too,” I responded. I really did. She was one of my best friends as well. I had this cosmic connection with her, and we had all this history. There was no question in my mind if I loved her.
After the weekend was over, and vacation ended, we started back up with school. The monotony of it all was starting to get to me. I was intelligent, which made me bored. I had never gotten lower than a ninety on a test, and that was when I was super sick. Instead of taking the normal AP classes I chose to take college courses for credit and had already amassed a decent amount. I was going to be able to graduate college early, and possibly move on to a higher degree.
I made my way to Dan’s house. We had finally started to text and email every so often, which was better than nothing. I asked him if we could hang out, and he wasn’t sure about it, saying yes only after several days. I knocked on his door and Cindy answered.
“Oh, hello Charles.” She looked upset this time. Clearly, he had spoken to her. That was fair, she had seen so he wasn’t spilling my secret to anyone.
“Hey Cindy, I was here to spend some time with Dan…”
She looked at me, moving to the side. She nodded towards the hall, “He’s in his room”
I made my way down the hall and knocked on his door.
“Come in.”
He was sitting on his bed on his laptop. It looked like he was watching videos on YouTube.
“Oh, hey.”
“Hey.”
It was still awkward and uncomfortable, but I wanted to be his friend.
“Can I sit down?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
I sat down on his bed and he moved so that I could sit next to him. He was watching Ray William Johnson, the OG Daniel Tosh. We didn’t talk at first, just watching the videos in silence. Eventually he let out a chuckle at one of the videos, quickly stopping it. Another few videos pass by and he laughed again, this time not stopping himself. I got more comfortable and stopped suppressing my laughter. Finally, the tension was starting to ease.
After a particularly funny video we both burst out laughing. The computer almost fell off Daniels lap, so I reached out to steady it. He stopped laughing and I looked up at him and he looked at me. We stared for thirty seconds, though it seemed like it was an hour. He started to lean in closer and I kept looking. He was now inches from me, my hand still on the laptop. I leaned in and bridged the gap between my lips and his pressing them together in an embrace.
Oh god I missed him so much. The taste of his lips, how hot his body would burn when he got turned on, how his hands would wander around my body and he would touch me like I had always wanted to be touched.
He leaned back and crawled between his legs. We were both wearing some fitting jeans. He had on his Flaming Lips T shirt and I had on a white long sleeve that had three buttons at the top. He placed his palm on my stomach underneath the bottom of my shirt and held it there for a moment. I pushed closer and we were now pressing together through our jeans. He started grinding against me and I grinded back rubbing our erections together.
It started to slow down until we stopped kissing entirely. We were now breathing into each other’s mouths, the hot air touching my soul.
I leaned forward to kiss him again and he leaned back. His eyes had been closed and he let out in a whisper, “Sarah…”
He opened his eyes and it was like seeing someone snap out of hypnosis.
“Sarah!”
He pushed me off him and I sat back at the end of his bed.
“We can’t do this Charlie… You’re with her now. You shouldn’t have come here.”
“I wanted to be here though. I want to be your friend!”
“Yeah, and I want that too, but I can’t,” Dan said.
“Why?”
“Because I love you, and I can’t trust myself around you. What, do you think girls are the only one who feel that way? Every time I see you, I want you. I want to be with you. Seeing you with her breaks my heart and I just can’t do it anymore. We can’t be friends.”
“God Dan, you don’t have to be such a fucking Faggot!”
The regret kicked in before I could even finish getting those words out of my mouth. I just said the worst thing I could possibly say at this point.
Looking at his face I could see all the hurt. He refused to cry and stared a thousand yards past me.
“One day, I hope you can learn to love yourself. You hurt me. Get out. Just get out and don’t ever come back here.”
I ran out of the house and past Cindy.
“What was all that yelling back there?”
The tears were pouring down my eyes and I avoided eye contact as I slipped past her. My voice trembled and I said, “Please just tell Dan I’m so sorry!”
I kept running.
My internal feelings were starting to come to ahead. I couldn’t stand this conflict much longer. I loved her. I loved him. She loved me. He loved me. This was all starting to be too much, and Sarah saw the change. When the mood hit, I would shut down, and I was now shutting down. This was one of the biggest reasons why we drifted apart. I would get depressed and had no means of communicating. It was February and blistering cold. Snow drifts were several feet high in some places. This was Derry and it winter in Maine is no joke. I wandered around the town I had called home for so long looking for answers. I walked by my church first. I prayed for the first time in a long time. I asked for any help. Anything.
I walked downtown and looked at the buildings where all those memories had been made. I walked through the parks that acted as a bridge over the Kenduskeag stream. I kept walking and found my way to that bridge in town. The one I avoided.
There it was. This was the bridge where on Saturday night July seventh, 1984 at 10:00 PM Charlie Howard was ambushed when three boys jumped out of their car. They chased after him and his friend catching him. He had asthma and couldn’t outrun them. They mercilessly beat him, kicking him while he was on the ground defenseless. They picked him up, telling him they were going to throw him into the river. He screamed. He begged them telling them he couldn’t swim. They ignored him and threw him in. He was found at 1:00 AM the following morning.
This was why I preferred Charles. This was why I kept what I was secret. This wasn’t a big town. The boys all eventually were freed. They grew up and had children. I saw them in school. That was one of the real demons that haunted Derry.
I knew I had to confront all of this. It was more than the confusion. It was more than the depression. It was more than the anxiety. I was broken, and no one could fix me. I stared at the bridge and made up my mind what I was going to do.
Over the following weeks, people were excitedly talking about graduation that was now only two and a half months away. I went about enacting my plan in secret. I had already turned eighteen and nothing could stop me now.
I met with Sarah on a Saturday night. I brought her to the best restaurant in town and told her to order whatever she wanted. She picked the salmon and salad. I chose the steak. I looked down at my food, avoiding conversation.
“What’s wrong?”
“I… I have to do something, and I have to do it alone.”
“What are you talking about?”
“School is almost over. We all must start taking the next steps. I had plans but something changed all of those and now I have a new plan. I… I’m sorry.”
With those two words, you knew where this was going.
“You can’t do this to me again. Look talk through it; I know how you get. It’s okay to be depressed, you can talk to me about it.”
I stared blankly at her. My mind was already made. No going back.
I brought her home and she cried. I had broken up with her again. I had hurt her too many times and this would be the last time.
I sat there. Everything was all set. All social media had been deleted, all traces of me anywhere on the internet were scrubbed. I was a ghost of a ghost and there would be no way to find me after this.
I stared at the edge, looking at it. I had five more minutes. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone, daring myself to call. I opened it, scrolling through my contacts, finding the number. I typed in the special code I knew about before your number. I would be connected directly to your voicemail without your phone ringing.
“It’s… it’s Charles. Charlie. I just want you to know I’m okay. I need you to know that. Don’t come looking for me, because you will not find me. I’m a coward, which is why I’m speaking to your voicemail and not you. I already had the necessary credits to finish up high school. I could have gone to college last year, but I wanted to graduate with you. I just need you to know I love you. I love you with all my heart and soul and I will never stop loving you… but… this is goodbye.”
Click.
I took the back panel off the phone and removed the sim card. I put it on the ground and stomped on it, making sure it was thoroughly destroyed. The phone I tossed into a trash can.
I stood at the edge. Here it was, there could be no going back now. I put my foot out and leaned forward stepping onto the bus and out of my life.
Final Destination: Parris Island.
