But I can feel the ripples of tension that have his skin pulled taut over his muscles. He is anything but at ease. A bomber jacket is resting on the ground beside him. Like he just took it off. Like he is expecting trouble.
“Maybe we’ll just give him a pink belly, then,” Gabriel says. “Teach him not to play in our sandbox.”
Before I can react, three of them grab me and push me to the ground. If I hadn’t already had the shit kicked out of me, I could’ve fought them off better. Or at least given them a better show. Gabriel straddles my hips as they hold me down.
At first, I just go with it. I’ve had a hell of a lot worse than a pink belly. But when Gabriel crawls on top of me, something inside me snaps. I’m tired of being hit. Of being handled and forced into situations I never wanted to be in. And I am damned sure tired of being straddled by men who are older than me. Bigger.
Earl knows what I’m capable of. He’s learned to tie me up or drug me first. These guys have no clue.
But before I do anything, I realize they’ve stopped. Everything has stopped. My shirt lies open, the edges tattered, and every gaze is locked on to my exposed stomach. Even the girls’. Their mouths open. Their brows drawn in horror.
Humiliation bursts inside me. Kim tries to get to me, but one of the lettermen holds her back. He’s not like the others. I felt it the moment they walked up.
“What the fuck?” Gabriel asks before he jumps off.
I grab the tattered ends of my shirt and scramble to my feet. The one holding Kim has slipped from longing to blatant carnal desire. He wants to save me. To rescue me. To kiss the wounds on my stomach and hold me until I’m new again. If only that were possible.
I get a similar reaction from the girls. They’ve shifted from desire to empathy in zero point three seconds, and I try to control the anger threatening to take hold of me.
The kid with the bomber jacket is standing behind Kim. He’s not gaping like the others, and I notice a knife in his hand. Was he coming to help me? Or, perhaps, Kim?
The struggle has reopened some of the nastier slashes. Two long, thin bloodstains spread across my shirt. Every gaze is laser-locked.
The one holding Kim lets her go at last. She runs to me. Throws her arms around my neck as the guy grabs my hoodie and holds it out to me. He wants to hug me as well. So bad, it hurts.
I take the hoodie and turn away. He’s good-looking as hell, but his desire is unwelcome. If we were alone, I would tell him the right guy will come along. And if that were not a lie. The right guy never comes along, and he commits suicide in less than two years. I know this because Gabriel finds out about him. Beats the shit out of him. Is branded for hell because of it. Because his actions lead to the death of an innocent.
I turn toward Gabriel. He scowls at me, and I realize I could save the kid. I could kill Gabriel right then and there. Before he beats up a friend for something that is completely beyond the boy’s control. The boy who doesn’t know it’s okay to be attracted to members of the same sex. It’s not a sin. If it were, every gay person I came across would be branded for hell. They rarely are. When it does happen, it has nothing to do with their lifestyle.
But who knows if the boy will really commit suicide anyway? The situation is too much of an unknown. Too risky. I have another job today, so I decide against intervening. I can’t risk being arrested before completing my first objective.
The others stare in silence as Kim and I turn to leave. The kid with the bomber jacket does the same. After a few feet, he slips his jacket over his shoulders. The back of it reads AMADOR. I commit it to memory.
Celeste calls out to me. “What’s your name?”
“Alexander,” I say over my shoulder.
Kim turns back to her. “Reyes,” she says, and I question her with a raised brow. She squeezes me harder. “Your name is Reyes. Reyes Alexander Farrow.”
I suppose it is.
12
We walk to the edge of the park and wait. I