Yes, I Am

Chapter Thirty Three

The wait is the worst. Half the night, my hands were tied and the rest half, I have been blind. I know my gaze is not a cure, the surgery is. The doctors need to work on his arm and take out the bullet, transfuse the blood he has lost. One of the nurses explained it to me. And yet, a part of me wants to break through the ICU doors and wrap him up in me.

Austin told his friends that Caleb is one of the victims in the terrorist attack that has taken over the news. Now the whole waiting room is full of distressed jocks who keep patting me on the back like it will jar my heart that's stuck inside my throat and make it settle back into my chest.

Quince still hasn't snapped out of his zombie state. He's staring straight ahead like the answers to what does the fox say are written on the drab white walls of the waiting room. I wish I had some glitter with me. From the way Blake is helplessly rubbing Quince's arm, I'm sure he's thinking the same too.

"You need to call his parents," Austin says softly to me.

I hang my head down, letting my chin rest on my chest. It's noon for them in Australia. The news of the shootings must have definitely really reached them but no one watches the news thinking that the latest tragedy could involve my kid. It's just not in the realm of possibilities. Not until that one call. 

I dreaded being that call.

"There is a phone down the hall," Austin says pointedly.

"Fine," I grumble and get up. I abort the mission about fifty times in five minutes. Even while the phone is ringing, I almost cut it so many times out of sheer cowardice. And when his father's warm voice filters through the receiver, my words die inside my mouth. I don't know with what words I'm supposed to tell him that his son is in the ICU.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" Ed says.

"Um, yeah." I take in a shaky breath. "This is Matt."

"Is everything alright, Matt? You don't sound too good," he says worriedly.

As much as I told myself I won't, I still start crying the moment I utter the word 'shot'. My voice is wobbling so much that I have to take deep breaths at least twelve times before I finish telling him the whole incident. For his part, he is surprisingly silent.

"Don't worry, kiddo. I'm catching the next flight to Florida. I'll be there as soon as I can," he says, his voice wobbling a little.

"It will take you almost a day to reach here. Caleb will be long out of the danger zone by then," I said. I didn't want him to spend a shitload of money and leave Oliver behind- who needed him way more- only to come here and find that everything is alright. Or worse, that nothing will ever be alright again.

"I'll come anyway," he says firmly. He books a flight that leaves a couple of hours later as he's talking to me. It will make two pit stops before landing in Orlando International Airport tomorrow evening.

"I'm sorry," I say quietly before we keep the phone.

"So am I, kiddo," he says.

"But it wasn't your fault," I say.

Before I can tell him it was mine and if I hadn't been there, Caleb would probably be okay, he says, "It wasn't yours either, but we'll all blame ourselves." If the phone wasn't stuck to my ear, I wouldn't have heard the last part, "We'll blame everyone and everything except the people who should be blamed."

I put down the receiver and rest my forehead against the wall. I can hear the ticking of the clock behind me, the receptionist tapping on her keyboard, a child excitedly telling his mother about how the injection didn't hurt him because he was a brave baby. All the sounds were stuck inside my ears because my brain had turned into a vacuum. For the first time in life, I close my eyes and pray. I don't know which God I am praying to. But that doesn't matter, does it? None of them are listening anyway. My heart is a grave dug by the cruel hands of tragedy and it demands a sacrifice.

I don't know if some divine presence decided to hear my calls and intercept me but a devilish one definitely did. My mother arrives behind me in all her I-care-so-I-say-the-tough-things glory, effectively driving away the little warmth I had brought back into my system. Her hand creeps up on my shoulder and I may or may not have made a sound close to a squeak.

"What's wrong, Ma?" I say when I get over my shock.

"I'm worried about you," she says.

I know she is. I know that despite her bigotry, her worry is genuine. And yet I can't help but be snarky. In her concern, I can't stop seeing the concern of all the assholes who think that the right priest or doctor can heal us and set us on the path of redemption, and it is because of these very assholes that innocent people are lying in hospital beds and coffins. One out of every four homosexual people are attempting suicide and they think that dipping us into holy water will 'heal' us.

"You're worried?" I nod in sarcasm. "When was the last time you talked to me?"

"Just the other day-"

"Three months, mom," I interject. "I appreciate you trying to be there during the worst tragedy of my life in whatever way you can. But you have to get it in your head that I'm never going to change, not just because I can't but also because I don't want to. I will always be a nerd, a literature major, a gay guy. You cannot change that. Nobody can change that. And if you ever threaten to disown me as a blackmail tactic, that will be the last you ever hear from me."

I stop for taking a breath, ignoring her shell shocked jaw that had dropped open at seeing me stand up for myself at last.

"You need time to think about this. It's a lot to process. So please leave. If I need you, I will call you," I say calmly in the most politely firm tone I can find.

"You don't talk to your mother that way!" she exclaims when she gets over here initial shock, returning to her original Mother Gothel form.

"Or what? You'll disown me?" I say sarcastically. "No need. I'll drop my last name tomorrow itself. Be sure to lose my number because I'm not attending any more gay weddings for you."

Her face is getting redder by the second and I can tell she is at a loss at what to say at my first outburst of open impertinence, so she falls back on her trusty holier-than-thou self. "I come here to comfort you and this is how you treat me? How ungrateful can you be?"

"I'm your only child! How heartless can you be?" I scream back.

"You can't blame me for your fear of accepting your sexuality. Why were you even hiding in the closet all this time?"

"I was looking for Narnia," I say dryly.

She obviously doesn't get the reference. She does get that I'm being snarky though. "Maybe your father was right. You're way beyond help," she says. Same old lines, same old threats. It doesn't even hurt anymore.

"Then why are you still standing here, woman?" I mock her.

"Because no matter how ungrateful you become, I'll always be your mother," she replies.

I scoff, rolling my eyes. I know that's not what mothers are supposed to be like. I've seen Austin's mother. She is caring and accepting to a fault. He could become a pirate, rob the US Navy, join Russian spies, murder The Dalai Lama and come back home wearing a bright yellow sundress; his mother would give him a hug and ask him if he was happy with his newest venture. I've heard tons of stories about Caleb's mother. She bakes him apple pies, for God's sake. My mom tells me I'm not worth her love.

I want to tell her all of this. I am getting prepared to dredge up every miserable thing from the past and throw it on her face. The only thing that can stop me is if something drastic is to happen at that very moment. And that it does.

"Caleb is out of surgery," says Austin, appearing at the end of the hall, panting as if he has been running in search of me. "He is out of surgery," he repeats, catching his breath.

And that's all I need to take off at a runalongside him.