Call Out Your Name Ch. 05

"What about college in three months?" she hedged. "You never did tell me what college you'll be playing for."

"I'm not going to a four-year college." I held my breath, waiting for the yelling to start. I hadn't wanted Mom to ever know of my change in plans, but at this point I was incapable of delaying the admission, even as a ruse to get me into her house.

"Why not, young man? You had better have kept up your grades..."

Oh my god, really? I'm having a mental crisis and she wanted to discuss grades. It was as if neither of my parents had a compassionate bone in their bodies. For fuck's sake, my boyfriend was dead. Was it all about outward show with them or did they even love me in the slightest?

I was weary of backpedaling so why not spill my guts and give up all my dirty little secrets. I talked about my loneliness and how tough moving in the middle of the year had been, not that I hadn't told her the same thing ten times already. I said my grades were excellent, straight A's in fact, and despite the confusion with forms and addresses, I had been scouted. I had simply chosen to give up my scholarship.

"And of course this was all about your boyfriend, I'll bet," Mom scoffed. "So now he's..."

"Mom," I interrupted, defeated. "I don't need your self-righteousness or another lecture. I've already heard them all. From coaches and scouts, my guidance counselor at school and Uncle Carl alike. All I want to know is whether I can move back home for awhile."

"No. No, you can't," she yelled. "I thought I raised an intelligent young man but I guess not. I raised an idiot. Now that you have no scholarship or any way to go to a university next year, you will have to make due. I'm certainly not paying for you. It's time you grew up even if it means learning from your mistakes the hard way."

With that she hung up on me. I stood there for the longest time staring through my bedroom window as the sun went down, not seeing anything.

On the following Tuesday I went back to work for my uncle. It was my first weekday out on the boats, and I threw myself into doing my best. The crews must have learned that Jesse was special to me and gave me condolences like he was family. He was. My family. Except for Carl and Elaine, my only family.

Staying busy kept my mind off my loss, at least temporarily. It all sneaked up on me at times when Jesse's face would skim across my brain and the grief would overpower me, bringing me to tears. It seemed like I was crying all the time but I couldn't stop. I knew it made those around me uncomfortable, and several times Carl sidled up to me and asked if I was alright. I wiped my eyes and nodded, and he would ruffle my hair or put his arm around me in a reassuring way. He was giving me time, and I appreciated it.

Another couple of days went by, and I was feeling a deep need for closure. Honestly, there would never be real closure where Jesse was concerned. Mitchell would go to trial and probably be convicted. Years could pass and my life would slowly muddle on. But I would never forget Jesse or stop loving him. I didn't want to forget him. I wanted to love him forever.

What I needed was something I couldn't find wandering around Calberia. I wanted a chance to say goodbye in my own way. In a place that was special to both of us, aboard the Sorsha Lynn where we'd first made love more than two months ago. I knew all I had to do was ask Carl, and he'd probably let me take the boat out for an evening.

"Tomorrow night?" he asked when I made my request. "After the Santa Cruz diving charter?"

"Just for a couple hours," I pleaded. "I'll give you money for fuel, make sure she's locked down tight and bring the keys by your house when I'm done. Please?"

Carl looked at me sharply, and I knew what he saw. I was a wreck, emotionally and physically. I couldn't keep food down, and I'd lost a lot of weight in the past two weeks. My cheeks were hollowed out and my clothes didn't fit right. I had no energy, and the only reason I was working was to get me out of the house and away from Dad. My eyes were dull and always burning, and my whole body shook in exhaustion and anguish because I only slept in short naps where longer periods of sleep eluded me. I'm sure Carl thought I was losing my mind.

He looked a little abashed and rubbed his ear. "Has your dad said anything about taking you to a therapist or psychologist? You have to be depressed with everything you've gone through." I stared at him defensively. "No, Shane, listen to me. I know Ken doesn't pay as much attention to you as he should, but you need to speak to someone professionally about Jesse."

I wiped my eyes and tried to smile. "Let me think about it, Uncle Carl. I know you mean well. You're probably right, and I'll talk to Dad. But what about tomorrow night?"

"Okay, Shane," he finally said in his slow drawl. "Tomorrow after we finish with the charter you can take the Sorsha Lynn out for a couple of hours. But remember we have a very busy day on Saturday with a large group of fishermen. I don't want any delays. Understand?"

I nodded and smiled, thankful he trusted me. "I promise I won't leave a mess."

He slapped my shoulder in affection. "You're a good kid, Shane. Remember that."

The next day I had a hard time holding in my impatience to get the workday over. I was polite to the clients and crew, but there was this air of expectancy that buoyed me through the long hours. I think what fueled my anticipation was the belief that in our most intimate place I would finally be alone with Jesse for the first time since he left me.

It was eight o'clock and the pier where the Bayliner was tied, empty except for the birds and a few crabs on the pilings. I was almost ready to sail, having retrieved a backpack of essentials that were vital to tonight from my car. Surprisingly enough, all the accessories I'd taken on our special cruise two months before had been sitting in a satchel in my closet, untouched. I don't know why I never unpacked it, but I guess it didn't matter as long as I could use the same candles, listen to the same playlist and drink the Blue Moon beer that Jesse had bought for us.

Ninety minutes later I cut the boat's engines and listened to the silence surrounding me. It was peaceful out here alone on the ocean. The trawler rocked gently in the water, and I could hear the faint slap of the current against the gunwales. The air smelled strongly of fish, salt and damp. I felt the sogginess of the mist blowing in the wind on my face, and I was cold standing on deck even though it was the first night of summer.

I was far beyond the shoreline, and tonight through the swirling fog I couldn't see the distant lights coming on in the homes up in the hills above town. No stars either. Or maybe it was the tears spilling out of my eyes that kept blurring my vision. Not that I missed the twinkling points. Not that I wanted their cheer, it was just in passing that I noted the absence of any signs of life except me. Me and the Sorsha Lynn creaking in the swells.

I didn't throw out an anchor. It was an odd thought. My anchor was missing, my Jesse. The boat didn't need one either. If I could go rudderless for the night, so could my uncle's ship. This was a special place for us and I had to be here. Like nobody would ever understand, this was where I felt closest to him. Where we'd first made love more than two months ago. I could surrender myself to his ghost—talk to him, cry for him, live with him without anyone judging me.

I wondered if Jesse was watching me shut down the engine and listen in the darkness for the stillness I knew would engulf me. If he would sustain me through the oncoming ordeal as I sought to remember and forget at the same time. Did he feel the agony of my loss inside me and know how I had cried for him every day since his murder? I even cried in my sleep, finding no peace in my dreams. Jesse, oh Jesse...

I stepped down into the galley, crossed it and quickly entered the stateroom. The scene of the crime, so to speak, if falling in love could be considered that. I guess to people like Mitchell and my parents it was. I thought of the pack of items from April and it felt like eons ago. I remembered thinking that the candles, the rose and the music would woo Jesse and entice him to know that I was his forever. That he was mine. Funny how forever had such a short fuse.

Digging into the bag I came up with a handful of dried rose petals. I was not aware that the rose I gave Jesse ended up inside, but it felt like a deeper sense of déjà vu. I set the candles all around the berth, using the drips of candle wax on the surfaces to guide me. I guess Uncle Carl had not been in the stateroom since Jesse and I took the trawler out or he didn't notice the leftover drops of wax. I set up my iPod and brought up my favorite playlist, including the songs Jesse and I loved by The Offspring. The first loaded song, Want You Bad, Jesse's favorite, wailed from the speakers.

If you could only read my mind...

The sheet we'd used to cover the bed was still in a wad in the bottom of the bag and I brought it out in amazement and then felt stupid at my surprise, as if I'd forgotten its existence. Spreading it out over the bed, my fingers touched the stiffness of the semen stains, and I nearly lost it in paroxysms of grief. My Jesse and me, our mixed essence spotting the fabric like a gift to remember us by. I held the roughness against my cheek. I cried harder, if that was even possible, wetting the cotton with my tears.

Checking the bag again, searching frantically, no? Yes, Jesse's brown t-shirt that we had used to wipe our bodies down after we made love, the one from the Broken Wings tour, was at my fingertips. Bunched up and enclosed in the tiny, airless space of the bag, the musky mingling of Jesse's sweat and his sweet scent wafted around me when I shook it out, and I almost screamed in delightful relief. I lifted the shirt to my nose and inhaled sharply. If I closed my eyes and breathed in slowly, letting the music rise and swell around me, I could almost imagine...

I smoked a blunt one of my crewmates had given to me on Monday to calm my nerves and took my time drinking three of the last Blue Moons, Jesse's favorite beer. Vaguely I heard Denial, Revisited blasting in the background. A piece of me felt like I was floating and I welcomed the sensation. It allowed all the good times to come back like the favorite melody of a song on our playlist.

My first glimpse of Jesse's magnificence across the patio at the high school five months ago, and the day he first talked to me with his beautiful voice and learned I wasn't his stalker. How we gazed at each other with joy and excitement from across that table in the library. The feel of his muscular body in my arms that same night when he came over to my house. The wonder of undressing his golden brilliance, the way the light emphasized every single pore until I was lost in him. Making love over and over and over, different days, different locations but each one a masterpiece. The plans we'd made to go to Hope Ranch and transfer to a university where I could take him with me before living the rest of our lives and be together always.

And if you go I won't believe that it's forever. And you can go, but I'll never leave 'cause it's not over.

There were the not-so-pleasant memories too, ones that made me cringe. How afraid I was at school to show him affection because I didn't want news to get back to my father that I was sleeping with a guy. I remembered him wanting to go to prom with me as his date, and the sadness in his eyes when I said no, again because of my selfishness. I refused to acknowledge his pride in me or allow him to give me the strength I needed. I left him to bear the stalker burden alone except for making demands and getting angry at him. And then that final night when we wasted all that time fighting about his insistence in seeing me; a moot point since he was already there. Had I just shut up and let it go, maybe he would have left earlier, and maybe he never would have encountered Mitchell.

My throat ached, and my eyes felt shriveled up, feverish with torment. Stripped down to my bare skin to lay back against our sheet covering the bed, my mind just spinning from one dream to the next and feeding myself on the best memories of him. Michael Buble's I'm Your Man started up in the iPod, and I smiled in recollection. The night of the Fine Arts Presentation at school when Jesse had danced and lip-synced this song directly to me, showing the world that he was my man and I was his.

If you want a lover I'll do anything you ask me to. And if you want another kind of love I'll wear a mask for you. If you want a partner take my hand, or if you want to strike me down in anger, here I stand... I'm your man.

Slowly at first, then frantically, I began to jack off to the song, my nose pressed against the softness of his shirt as I drank in his scent. The Cool Water cologne that was uniquely Jesse and smelled so much better on him. I felt the pull of my hand against my rigid, slick cock and recalled Jesse's soft lips taking me into heaven, the way he knew exactly how hard to suck and his gentle fingers sliding around my balls. I could believe he was there, could feel him all around me, and I wanted to live in a universe where Jesse was my lover and we would always be together.

His lips, his wet, sucking mouth, those golden eyes that would look up at me in adoration as he blew me and the black hair falling into his face that I'd smooth back and run my fingers through. Holding onto his face tightly when I could no longer stop the orgasm that crested over me in fierce waves, and he'd drink me down like I was the essence of life he needed for survival.

Just as now as I felt my balls lifting, the roiling of my burning seed inside traveling up my shaft. Like catching the tail end of an emotional comet riding high before plunging into obliteration. With uncontrollable snaps of my hips, I was spurting all over myself and crying out.

"Jesse," I sobbed over and over, my heart tearing from my chest in miserable ecstasy. "Jesse."

Then it was done, and the rapture was gone, leaving the desolation. I hated him for leaving me, and I hated that his death made me angry and for blaming him. I knew it was Mitchell's fault but at the same time, it was all so senseless how Jesse didn't have to die. If he'd only listened to me he might still be alive. If only I had obeyed that tiny voice inside me whispering that this would end tragically.

Ah, the moon's too bright, the chain's too tight, the beast won't go to sleep. I've been running through these promises to you that I made and I could not keep...

On top of everything, I had to ask why? Why Jesse? Why us? For the first time in my life I had someone to care for who cherished me back. I was finally in love and happy. Understood and protected by this man who wasn't afraid to adore me and made me believe in a forever commitment. He listened to me and made me feel important, and I appreciated him in the same way because we complimented each other.

But amid the love and acceptance he gave me, self-loathing bloomed. I felt such deep guilt that I had done nothing about the threatening letters until it was too late. I wasn't there to protect Jesse from Mitchell, and I was furious over the fucking unfairness of it all. I wished it had been me who died. Why not me instead of Jesse, my shining star? Why, when I couldn't live without him?

His death left me hollow inside. Just empty with no way to fill the void.

I used a clean corner of the sheet to wipe the drying cum from my chest and stomach and then put Jesse's shirt back over my nose so that every breath I took in was of him. The Offspring's Gone Away switched on, and in anguish I turned my wet eyes to stare at a glowing candle as it melted its way into my eye sockets.

I reach to the sky and call out your name, and if I could trade I would. And it feels, and it feels like heaven's so far away. And it stings, yeah it stings now. The world is so cold now that you've gone away.

The next morning...

"Base?"

An earnest young man with close cropped brown hair and an eager-to-please attitude sat at his radio console, his headset in place. He was a seaman with the US Coast Guard in a cutter off the coast of California, and his hard-boiled captain stood over him listening intently. The kid was still learning.

"Base," the radioman repeated. "This is the USS Coast Guard Cutter Bayonne, WYP51429 out of Santa Barbara, come in?"

"Go ahead, Bayonne, over."

"Base, we are approximately ten nautical miles north by northwest of your position. We received a report at 0-seven-thirty this morning about a missing trawler, a Bayliner 3388, vessel number YHSG4916, the Sorsha Lynn out of Calberia. The vessel has been located, drifting and unoccupied at our position."

"Say again, Bayonne."

"Bayliner 3388, vessel number YHSG4916, stated as the Sorsha Lynn is at our position. It was drifting and appears to be abandoned. Vessel has been searched, showing signs of recent occupation, but no violence noted. The dinghy is still attached."

"Stand by, Bayonne."

"Standing by."

The young radioman sat back in his chair and looked up at his captain who nodded at him, pleased by his responses.

"Sir?" A midshipman appeared next to the two military men waiting for permission to speak. The captain nodded at him.

"Sir," the midshipman stated. "One of the weighted buoyancy control devices is missing."

The captain looked at the two men sadly and sighed, his heart heavy with regret. He didn't want to say what he was thinking to his subordinates, but in his long military experience certain signs stood out sometimes, and this was one of them.

The radio squawked.

"Bayonne, addition information received on the Sorsha Lynn, Bayliner 3388 YHSG4916 out of Calberia. Owner Carl Weatherby reports vessel was allegedly taken with permission by his nephew, Shane Elliott, age eighteen, at approximately twenty hundred hours last night. Mr. Elliott was supposed to return the vessel to port and return the keys to him. He has not been heard from since. Mr. Weatherby says he has been despondent over the recent death of a close friend, and the family is concerned about him."

The seaman got back on the horn. "Base, I repeat, Mr. Elliott is not on board the Sorsha Lynn but we have reason to believe he was. Would advise that a search and recovery dive team be sent to our location..."

To my readers: not every story has a happy ending, and some of you are probably angry with me right now for doing this to the boys. Believe me, it made me cry as the author to write the scenes of Jesse's death and afterwards, so I know how you're feeling. Thinking about how hatred and intolerance shapes our world I hope one day we find a better way. If you need that HEA and believe in an afterlife, keep reading.

Beyond the Cosmos...

"Shane, what are you doing here?"

The inquisitive voice came from off to my right and behind me and, while the speaker was so far invisible, I knew who it was. I was in a warm place where although there was no bright, white light like I'd been taught as a child, I could still see. I felt at peace, with no hunger or thirst, none of the terror or pain of my final moments on earth. Up until now I had been a little overwhelmed, but hearing Jesse speaking calmed me down considerably. I smiled, feeling lighthearted and tranquil now that he had found me.

Even as an idea of creating some answer that wouldn't make me sound fucking pathetic flickered randomly through me, I found that I had no option but to be completely truthful. There's no lying in the afterlife.