31 comments/ 45799 views/ 100 favorites The Devil in Devlin By: cliffgirl08 "James, please pick your jacket up off the floor and put it in your bedroom, that's a good boy." The quiet words, spoken as much to not provoke an argument as to convey a request, came from my foster father, Randy Simmons, as he took a few careful steps over my prone body lying in front of the television watching cartoons. I had arrived home from school two hours before with a half-completed term paper on John Keats, the English poet, due the following day for my senior literature class. My assignments also included all the odd-numbered algebra equations from page 250 in my textbook and an art project on the use of shading. But I needed to take the edge off my increasingly stressed out life and had neglected both homework and chores in favor of a few mindless hours of Scooby Doo and Spongebob Squarepants. I don't even like Spongebob. My name isn't James. It's Devlin. Devlin James Royce. But the foster home I lived in, probably my last since I was close to turning eighteen and would be exiting the system once I graduated from high school, was headed up by a Christian, God-fearing couple with four kids of their own. They saw the devil in me, or rather my given name, and decided they just couldn't in good conscience call me by it. However, one of Jesus' brothers, an author of a New Testament book in the Bible, was named James, as well as two of his disciples, so they figured they were good with my middle name. Ugh, Devlin... James... whatever! Hell, most days I didn't care as long as I had a roof over my head and a warm bed, three square meals a day and clothing that fit and didn't look as if it had been passed through four other boys before I got to wear it. If no one was beating on me, I was in great shape. Oh, and don't foist your religious beliefs on me either. It definitely made for some interesting conversations when my fosters discussed me with my teachers at school or my social worker, Ms Hopkins. "Mrs. Simmons, his name is Devlin, not James. It's important that you don't erode his already fragile sense of self-worth by refusing to acknowledge him correctly. You know the rules." They most certainly did, although as far as I was concerned, my self-worth was anything but fragile. There was definitely some gray mixed in with the black and white of Department of Children's Services regulations that should have been straightened out beforehand in regards to my personal freedoms but I was doing okay. If you were going to force comparisons of religion in my life... Hmm, this is going to be too confusing if you don't understand where I'm coming from. Literally, I mean, so maybe I should attempt to explain it from the start. I know how it looks but, despite everything, my life up until the time I was thirteen wasn't too bad. Honest! My parents met when they were twelve and fell in love. Mom was Jenny, and Dad's name was Charles. They were in their mid-teens when they had me, but life quickly turned sour. The realities of two high school drop-outs trying to raise a baby on minimum-wage killed their love for each other, and they split up before I turned one. I guess Mom didn't learn from having me either because she went on to birth two more kids by the time she was twenty. Two half-sisters I haven't seen for half my lifetime are out there somewhere. I don't even remember what they look like. For all I know, I've run across them in my travels and wasn't even aware of it. Okay, so after Jenny ditched Dad she went from bad to worse and turned into a prostitute who spent her days whoring herself out in exchange for crack and heroin. She'd disappear and leave us kids with a long parade of neighbor ladies who lived next door to our ratty tenement apartment. So many different ones, I've forgotten most of their names, but the majority of them felt sorry for us and treated me well. Dad was a good man who caught a break in his late teens and learned how to build high-rise business structures. He worked hard at a construction job during the day and tended bar in the evenings. I learned all this from him later, not her. Jenny didn't have anything nice to say about Dad, so it was a conversation I avoided with her because once his name came up she tended to start throwing things. Mostly I recall him being a presence more and more in my life the older I got, but it wasn't much by anything she did, unless you want to call neglect her contribution. So I suppose I was just lucky. Whenever four days had gone by without Jenny returning from her dens of iniquity, I would get to spend time with Dad. The neighbors would telephone him and demand that he come get me. Who took in my half-sisters would forever be a mystery because they weren't Dad's responsibility, but there was talk of a paternal grandmother out there. But Charles would collect me until she turned up, and he was a decent father and tried to do the right thing by me. As a youngster I felt relief when he was around because it meant food in my belly and working heat and electricity and a warm coat to wear in the winter. Shit, I don't know why he never sought permanent custody. No, that's a lie. I know why because I heard Dad talking about it with his sister one time when they thought I was asleep. It was some fucked up regulation that had Dad being afraid the law would come after him for child support payments he was supposed to make. But he refused, you know? He caught on quick that Mom wasn't looking out for our welfare and any money he paid towards my support would end up in her veins. "And I'll be damned if I support that whore's drug habit," he'd said in the only ugly snarl I ever heard him use. Ever! He was usually so calm and quiet, rarely talked much above a normal tone of voice and wasn't given to wasting words. He had this way of looking at people in the eye that made them know his promise was golden, and he expected the same from others. I'd never call him a trusting fool, though. He inspired honesty and made me want to earn his goodwill. His one angry retort about my mom just proved that he loved me and showed how much he resented her for not taking better care of me. When I was nine, Jenny ran off with some drug dealer, but like I said, she wasn't much of a mother so her departure was more of a reprieve than a problem. My sisters disappeared out of my life at the same time, and I went to live with Charles. It was rough at first since he had never been forced to parent full-time. He was so young when I was born, he was barely twenty-five when I moved in. Money was tight, but we got along with the help of his sister, my Aunt Kayla. I thrived living with my dad. Despite my mother, I was a good kid, and we were happy. He taught me that education was the key to moving out of the cheap apartments we lived in and doing better for myself. If I wanted to get anywhere in life, I would have to study hard and sacrifice; that, and keep my dick in my pants. He was kind of bitter about my mother but he never passed that on to me. Dad just explained her as having a tough upbringing and a myriad of challenges she couldn't work through. Then he would tell me about how sweet and warm she was when they met and fell in love. Before the drugs and life cursed her. I listened to all my dad said and applied myself in school. I wasn't a straight-A student, but I paid attention, and a love for reading helped a lot. I wasn't into sports, and Dad never pushed me to play, even though he was on the football team in ninth grade. I loved to draw, and my teachers said I had a fair amount of talent. Dad encouraged me and never looked down on my pictures as wasted time or made me feel I couldn't be a great artist one day. We didn't have a lot of money for non-essentials, but he bought me sketch pads and pencils. For a poor man, Dad had a lot of dreams that he passed on to me and used to joke that I was going to be the one to become cultured, educated and rich, and then I'd buy him a house. We laughed over it, and he'd take me to a museum or we'd borrow textbooks that were a higher grade level then I was in and study them together. Dad would have done well in college, he was so clever. He taught me never to let anyone dictate what I could and couldn't do to improve my life. The only person limiting the scope of my success was myself and how I viewed circumstances. He was upbeat and would get angry if I acted like I was a burden. Even with working two jobs he always made time for me. Weekends were all ours, and he let his bosses know that he couldn't leave me alone and needed that time free. Dad let me hang with him when he did small repairs around the apartment or on his truck. We developed into a comforting routine, and he set reasonable boundaries. I kept my eyes open and stayed out of trouble. I guess you could say I behaved better than the average child, but I didn't want to disappoint my father. Even at the ripe age of thirteen, when many of my peers were acting out and pushing against authority, Dad was my hero. He died that winter just before my fourteenth birthday. There was a construction accident on a jobsite, and somehow Dad fell twenty stories to his death. It had been a relatively good day and I was doing homework waiting for him to return from work so we could go birthday shopping. The police showed up at the door with a tearful Aunt Kayla in tow to tell me what happened. I must have blacked out when I finally understood that Dad was never coming back because I came to on the floor next to the couch with my aunt sitting there just staring at me. I was wild with grief for weeks, and nobody could comfort me through the funeral. Dad was my only anchor, and then he was just gone. I guess negotiations of some sort went on between the families of my two parents over custody of me, but so much animosity remained even after nearly fifteen years. Jenny's mother shut her door in Aunt Kayla's face and said I wasn't her responsibility and she couldn't care less. So Dad's family decided to move me in with Kayla. I loved her because she was a relative, but she was kind of cold to me, and I thought it was her way of mourning. My grief counselor said that people go through the process in different ways and, at the time, I was too obsessed with my own loss to make it an issue. I was numb by day, wracked with nightmares of falling at night and, for awhile, I seriously considered killing myself. I suppose the insurance company from my dad's employer settled on him with some kind of accidental death policy that paid out close to two hundred fifty thousand dollars. I didn't care. There was no amount of money in the world that could make up for my father going away and leaving me alone. It didn't put my latest drawing up on the refrigerator or take me to an art exhibit to see a showing by a new artist. It didn't tuck me in at night and ruffle my hair in affection when I brought home a report card with almost all A's on it. I wanted Dad's smell back and the sound of his voice telling me he loved me. I would've given it all away just to hold onto him for one more day. But even if I didn't want the money, I never saw a dime of it. Five months after Dad died, Aunt Kayla called me into her bedroom one morning and told me to pack up my clothes and whatever I wished to take with me. She enlightened me on the situation of my birth by telling me how Charles wasn't really my biological father. My mother was a scheming tramp who had gotten pregnant by some other man, because even back then she was whoring around, and Dad had graciously married her to give her baby a name and a home. Wasn't it obvious we weren't related when I didn't look a thing like him? If I were going to describe myself, I'd say I'm on the tall end of average if that makes any sense- around five-foot-eight and skinny. My foster mom, Amber, complains they don't make jeans in my size because I'm a beanpole. You know, too big to wear kids' clothes, too small for an adult size? I worked out in the gym at my high school and developed some muscle mass across my chest and shoulders and down my torso, but don't look at me as being ripped. The best I could boast of was a modest four-pack. I have wavy mud brown hair that falls to my shoulders and is constantly in my face and hazel eyes, which are supposed to be my best feature. My skin is so pale you can see the veins under it, and I have freckles across my nose. Charles's grandmother was full Japanese which might account for my stature and delicate features; it was fairly obvious in Dad's high cheekbones and the shape of his eyes, but nowhere on me. I didn't know that I believed her, but even if it was an excuse to get rid of me, it wasn't my call. Dad was just Dad to me, and biological or not, we loved each other dearly. He'd never treated me like I wasn't his, but Kayla was nothing like him. Maybe it was financial or she was tired of taking care of me since she had no kids of her own and I cramped her style. In any case, she wasn't interested in my welfare, so why would I want to live with someone like her? No other relatives came forward to volunteer either. She signed over custody to Children's Services, and I was going into foster care, end of story. I walked out of her apartment that June day into a brand new life and never looked back. And, here again, I didn't do too horribly. Yeah, I was sent to the children's center for a few months because, face it; not many foster families like dealing with teenagers. Many of us end up in group homes which are just warehouses for throwaways before they're dumped on the street. However, I was one of the good ones. I was polite and sociable, not like those fucked up other boys who had been discarded by their mothers for gang membership or delinquency or drug addiction. I knew I wasn't better than them, but if being well-mannered got me into a home faster, I wouldn't cry crocodile tears over the sad situations they'd created for themselves. Even though it was supposed to be summer vacation, I still had to attend school every day. I think it was due to the fact that many of the residents cut class on the outside and were behind in their studies. I wasn't, I had been flourishing up until my life was upended. I started tutoring some of the younger kids just to have something to do because the courses at the center were far too easy for me. Boredom is the devil's playground or some such phrase. I spent my spare time drawing caricatures of the adults around me, and it didn't escape the notice of the directors that I was talented and educated and a better quality of foster kid than most. I got lucky. I was soon 'staffed', as they put it, meaning I was shipped off to live in a foster home. Six, in fact. Family number one, the Tates, agreed to take me in September and kept me for three weeks. They'd asked for a pre-adolescent boy, and the department thought they could slip me in under their noses because of my size. Not that I was any trouble, they assured me when they said I'd have to move on, but they didn't feel they could successfully parent a teenager. Like I was going to cause them so many more problems than one of those eleven year olds I'd run into at the center who would've just as soon shiv you than look at you? Numbers two, three and four, were each exactly a year of my life. In each home, I was one of three or four boys, the only one not in trouble before I was staffed, and most of them bullies. I was usually the smallest and learned how to think on my feet to keep from being terrorized. I looked the other way when another teen was targeted because, as cowardly as this sounds, having anyone's back besides my own was dangerous for my health. I was offered drugs, invited to join gangs and served as lookout when a foster brother shoplifted. I had all my stuff stolen on numerous occasions. The only thing I managed to keep from my old life was a picture of Dad I slipped into a tattered copy of Silas Marner that was on me at all times. Living there under those circumstances toughened me up quickly. The shitty stories about sexual molestation in foster care are basically true. Starting when I was fifteen I could be hauled out of bed at any time of night to take care of daddies, so-called uncles and older, and bigger brothers alike. When you're small like me, you have fewer options. The difference between a jaded life and a fucked-up one is learning to pick your battles and keeping your mouth shut. Food, shelter and clothing are much better options than living on the streets addicted to drugs and being pimped out. Okay, there's something else you need to know about me. I'm gay, and this had nothing to do with my abuse in care. Before Dad died, I had begun noticing males at school in a sexual way that I knew made me different from how the straight guys bonded. Straight guys weren't supposed to want the boy sitting next to them in science class to kiss the daylights out of them. I even went to Dad with a hundred tortured questions, and we discussed it. He explained that he was bisexual, so he wasn't completely surprised by my revelation. I recalled from my earliest memories of him that every once in awhile a strange man would show up at the apartment to spend a few nights in his bed, but he never had a long-term boyfriend. Or another girlfriend besides Mom either. I got the feeling he pitied me, but only because he knew being gay would make my life more difficult in the long run. But he accepted me for who I am, and it wasn't ever an issue. It became an issue in Foster Home #5. I was nearing the end of my seventeenth year when I moved in with the Comptons. They lived in the roughest neighborhood I'd ever been in, and I had to change schools again just after beginning my senior year of high school. Even though I was smarter than to announce that I was gay to my fellow classmates, too late I discovered that my foster brother, Barry, had a habit of snooping us kids' bedrooms. It didn't take long to find the very lifelike nude drawings of teenage boys hidden under my clothes in my dresser. Two days later I was jumped on the way home from school by a group of thugs calling me faggot and queer who beat me so badly they put me in the hospital for two weeks with internal bleeding, a head injury and broken bones. Exit the Comptons where it was deemed I was no longer safe. Enter the Simmons family, with their religious zealotry. Ms Hopkins, my caseworker, was upfront and informed them that I was gay. What they told her was that Jesus loves everyone, regardless of gender preference, and they would never press their faith on me. And they didn't, not overtly. They never expected me to attend church with them, and they soon found me trustworthy enough to leave me at home on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights by myself. I was exempt from morning prayers and Bible readings before bed. What they did do, however, was tell me frequently that they were praying for my immortal soul and leave religious tracts about homosexuality on my dresser. I pushed them into the trash, touching them as little as possible, like I was afraid they'd infect me if I got too close. My new family consisted of Randy and Amber who were in their mid-forties and Randy's mother, Maureen. Now, my foster parents might be Christian fundamentalists, but Maureen made them look like nonbelievers. I was fortunate because she spent hours at church each day so I didn't have to socialize with her much. The only time I saw her was at dinner and she liked to pinch me under the table if she thought I wasn't grateful enough for the blessings that were about to be bestowed on me. The only other family member at home was Caleb, their eighteen year old son. Perfect Caleb with his soaring six-foot-three, one-hundred-eighty pound frame and blue-eyed-blonde good looks. Football tight end, track star and captain of the basketball team where he played guard. He held a 4.4 grade point average, was president of several on-campus clubs, including the Young Christians Society, and also a leader in the church youth group. A paragon of perfection for me to gag over despite how beautiful his tight end was. The Devil in Devlin Caleb's bedroom was a shrine to God. No kidding. A few posters of Christian bands decorated his walls, for groups called Ashes Remain and Love Like Gravity that I'd never heard of, although he played their music enough. A large cross decorated the third wall. He had a bookshelf of paperback self-helps, several different versions of the Bible and study guides and even a prayer corner close to his guitar so when the urge came to compose music- another one of his talents- he could do so. Did I say he shredded on guitar beautifully and played keyboards? No? I'm pretty sure that after high school Caleb was either going into the ministry or heading up his own Christian rock band. Probably both. Thankfully, I didn't have to share his bedroom and had a place of my own to sleep. I think my room, all done up in neutrals, used to belong to one of Caleb's older brothers who was married and lived up north somewhere. I mostly left it the way I found it; bare walls, a single bed, nightstand and dresser. I wasn't going to be there long and had so few possessions anyway, and I had learned to hide my individual style from others. It was safer that way. My beating had cost me a lot in the trust department. Look, it wasn't that I was anti-God per se. Like most kids my age I felt I had the right to seek out my own moral truth, even if it wasn't found in any kind of organized faith. I didn't appreciate being accosted by street-corner preachers and told I was going to burn in hell if I didn't attend their church. I despised the well-dressed adults who drug their children out on beautiful Saturdays to canvas my neighborhood with their trite homilies and pamphlets. What I had to put effort into right now was making my way out into the world. That meant devoting energy to getting through high school and figuring out what came next so I could be successful and independent and all the other traits the adults in our lives wanted us teenagers to strive for. If I decided to put off searching for God for the time being, that was my right too, and nobody could force me to do otherwise. Not to mention that I was sure the doors of most of these fine religious establishments would be slammed in my face once they knew of my sexual orientation. I was the sinner people would point at and use as an example, where they'd insist a good preacher could pray the gay away in me if I simply repented. No, leave me alone and don't lecture me, don't tell me that God hates the sin and loves the sinner and don't offer to pray for me because I will figuratively spit in your face. Caleb, being in teen leadership, usually had a Bible study at home on Tuesday nights for seven to nine high school boys. On Thursdays, it was the same with a totally different group of teenagers. He invited me the first week I lived there, and I thanked him quietly and said no. From there on, I knew to stay out of the living room from 6:30 pm until after ten o'clock on those two evenings. I didn't mind, not really, although I was bored to death being confined to my bedroom. I brought it up the next time Ms Hopkins visited me, and let me make this clear, I was not complaining, I was merely explaining the situation. She went out and found me a small second-hand television and told Randy and Amber that I was allowed to hook it up. Otherwise, they were in violation of the Forcing Their Religion On Me rule. That was the closest I ever came to being kicked out of their foster home, and then I would've been in deep shit because I was almost too old to legally staff anywhere else. But I was, you know, curious about the church kids. Not to learn about God, and not even so much to hear what Caleb and the others talked about in way of more mundane conversation, but to see which ones at my high school acted like selfish pricks during the day and turned into saints at night. Hypocrisy was alive and well within the sacred church walls, and nowhere was that more true than with adolescents. Maybe because I wasn't in the youth group I could live without those rose-tinted lenses, and of course, my upbringing made it easier for me to spot the liars and con artists. For instance, I found out within two weeks of my staffing that Hannah Goldsmith, the sixteen-year-old daughter of the Simmons' pastor, smoked crack. Once I made the connection, I felt duty-bound to point this out to Amber and Randy. They called me a trouble-maker and angrily denied it at first, but a month later the girl disappeared, and I heard whispers that she'd been sent to some church-run rehab program. Rico Torres, the choir director's son who was headed for UCLA on a football scholarship, never met a test he couldn't cheat on and paid his friends to do homework for him. I never sampled her personally, but rumor had it that Julia Clarence gave the best head of any girl at school; her father was a deacon, and her mother was in charge of the church soup kitchen. The Milton brothers, Kevin and Keith, could quote most of the Bible to you straight up, that is, when they weren't stealing you blind. They had a lucrative little business going selling second-hand iPads, smart phones and cameras to any interested comers. That's not to say everyone was like that. The Simmons attended a very large, non-denominational church so the youth group was big. They came from all backgrounds, some jocks, even fewer cheerleaders, several brains and lots of nerds. There was also a healthy proportion of normal, mainstream kids who mostly ignored me in school so they must have been way too popular for their own good. Caleb's three best friends were Justin Chavez, Dakota Brewster and Esdy White, and no, Esdy wasn't his real name. I think it was something like Steven or Stan, and his middle name was Dorian, so he went by his initials. Esdy, get it? All as different from each other as could be. Justin was this super-tall, red-headed, well-muscled linebacker on the football team who liked to act as if he'd been hit in the head a couple times too many. Esdy was a tiny nerd with long blonde hair and could pass for a girl from the rear. Dakota sported the Scene look and had layered black hair all in his face, tattoos and piercings and liked his violet eyes rimmed in kohl. They were decent enough guys. Maybe Justin acted a little superior at school with that whole jock image to maintain, but they weren't blatantly rude or hostile. I'm fairly sure they didn't know I was gay. Ms Hopkins had made it abundantly clear to Caleb that he was not to tell anyone at school or church because none of us wanted a repeat of my last staffing. I had shown up at the Simmons home directly from the hospital on crutches and liberally covered in healing scabs and bruises, my arm in a cast and my ribs and misshapen nose taped. It was clear I had suffered cruelly. My doctors told me I was lucky to be alive. Caleb had looked at me and winced sympathetically, and even though I didn't trust many, I knew he wouldn't give my secret away. Justin, Dakota and Esdy were also in positions of leadership within the high school group, so they had to attend planning meetings before the twice-a-week Bible studies. It was hard enough for me to lock myself in my room for three and half hours, but add an extra hour in front of that, and I felt like I was in prison. So I let myself out occasionally to walk to the kitchen for snacks, exercise or just to gratify my morbid curiosity. The guys waved and called greetings but otherwise ignored me. So there I was in the Simmons household and it was five months before graduation. To tell the truth, aside from the religious angle, this was the best staffing of my life. I was the only foster kid in placement so nobody preyed on me, Caleb was cool for a brother and pretty much left me alone and Amber and Randy were honorable and only a minor annoyance on the religious front. I grudgingly had to admit that they went out of their way to assure that I was being treated with courtesy and respect. Except for some early discomfort for enrolling in school mid-term, I was accepted for myself and happily overlooked as one of the nameless masses at my new alma mater. I felt normal for a change, just like any other high school senior. Seeing as how I was almost an adult, between my fosters and my caseworker, a lot of hard work had been put into my future. I had already been accepted by a college- Cal State University at San Francisco, and the Simmons' had agreed to keep me until my August departure. I had scholarships lined up, some in art and some because of my good grades, and I was eligible for several public programs for disadvantaged youth due to my position as a ward of the state. Even Aunt Kayla got tapped for support payments once my social worker found out about Dad's insurance. Over four years' time I would be getting a decent education and embarking on a career. The hope was that my own children, if I ever had them, wouldn't end up in the system too. I was being hailed as one of the rare success stories. I went to school one January morning with Caleb driving like he always did. I had my license but no vehicle, and he didn't want me behind the wheel of his brand new Jeep Wrangler. Once we arrived in the parking lot, I didn't dash off like usual, and Justin, Esdy and Dakota were waiting on the front steps. Dakota turned to me and asked, "Do you have anywhere you need to be?" "Not really." Despite the rude wording, the question wasn't meant to insult, but I was a little apprehensive, not knowing what to expect. "We're going to Starbucks and thought you might like to come along." The popular coffee shop was located in the small plaza on a diagonal from the school. Dakota turned to look at Caleb for approval, and he shrugged. "That sounds like fun," I said warily. This was definitely different. In the back of my head I wondered if it was a new tactic to lure me into church. Inside, we waited for the queue of high schoolers in front of us to place their orders, and then it was our turn. I pulled out my wallet but Dakota said he'd get it for me. I wasn't much into frou frou drinks and was going to order a simple coffee, but he talked me into something a little more substantial, and I selected a café mocha. We miraculously found an empty table in the corner and sat down. Taking a sip, I was pleasantly surprised by the flavor. "Good, huh!" Caleb insisted, and I nodded in agreement. As we sipped our coffees an embarrassed silence settled around us. That I was a foster kid was no secret, so I reasoned that they probably had questions they were dying to ask me. Not even Caleb knew my entire story. I wasn't surprised when Esdy cleared his throat and stared anywhere but at me. I tried to smile. "Just get it over with, guys. I'll answer anything as long as it's reasonable." Justin went first, but it took a few minutes to spit it out. "Uh... how long have you been a foster kid?" "About four years." I didn't offer more than I was asked, deciding they could feed me the queries. "So why?" Dakota asked next and then blushed. "I mean, what happened to put you... um, you know, here?" His fumbling was kind of amusing, but I was afraid if I laughed it would irritate them. "My mom ran off when I was a little kid so she was long gone," I answered frankly, "and then my dad died." "Was he sick?" Esdy inquired. I shook my head and looked down at my hands. "You know McIntyre Towers in the downtown?" Four heads inclined. Set within a garden-like plaza, the Towers were three huge corporate buildings made of black glass that rented out office suites to large companies, some of which took up entire floors. It had become a landmark. "My dad was one of the construction workers and a crane operator punched the wrong button. The bucket swung around and hit the scaffolding he was standing on. Dad fell from the twentieth floor and landed on rebar." I heard at least one of them gasp and closed my eyes to the mental images, knowing that despite the four foot long, half-inch thick iron bars jutting up from the cement below like swords, he would've died anyway just from the impact of the fall. I still couldn't walk past those buildings without getting dizzy. "Dude," Dakota whispered. "How awful! But didn't you have any family you could stay with?" All of them were regarding me with sympathy. It was usually hard to deal with; although, I'd gotten so used to revealing my story to various social workers and mental health workers I had fortified myself against the outright anguish. I made a face. "My aunt didn't want me. She said my dad wasn't really my dad. I was a charity case with a druggie slut for a mom who got pregnant with me, and he was stupid in love with her. He married her knowing I wasn't his son. When he died, she felt no obligation to keep me and no sympathy either." "That sucks," Justin groused. "It is what it is." I shrugged. "So here I am, finally getting ready to graduate from high school. Next term I'll be in San Francisco at college, and four years from now I'll be earning a college degree and making my way in the world. All this foster care shit will be just a stepping stone that I can forget and never have to look back on." "Forget?" The voice was Dakota's and he sounded kind of sad. I looked straight up into eyes so dark they looked violet, circled in black that had nothing on the shade of his layered hair. I thought hard about life in the Simmons home. "Not that Caleb and his parents haven't been good to me. The boundaries are clear, and the consequences are fair so it's better than most places I've been." Esdy sucked his frappuccino loudly through the straw. "Better compared to what?" I shuddered, and Caleb took the opportunity to answer, flicking me a glance of compassion. "Don't ask." I smiled back at him, co-conspirators now, and it broke the ice for all of us. We fell into an easy routine now that I'd formally met Caleb's friends. At first, it was a simple sharing of the few minutes between the end of the boys' leadership meeting and the arrival of the nine or so others who attended the two mid-week Bible studies. Then Justin, Esdy and Dakota showed up on a Friday evening two weeks later to watch a DVD they had rented, The Big Year. It was kind of silly, with a tame PG rating, but I've always had a thing about Owen Wilson. When they invited me to join in, I sat down to enjoy it with them. I celebrated my eighteenth birthday in early February, and the Simmons family even threw me a birthday party. The three guys came over for icecream and cake, and we played a video game Randy and Amber had bought me. There was a lot of laughter that night because each of the three, quite by accident, gave me the exact same gift, a Starbucks gift card, due to not checking amongst themselves. At least, I teased them, I could get my coffee fix on without feeling like I was imposing on Caleb's companions. Monday night at one of the guy's houses became a scheduled event, and Caleb took me with him to be the backup player in their video game competitions. We viewed rented films together and would laugh uproariously at each other's critiques. Generally, since they limited themselves to the innocuous movies that wouldn't rile up their parents, the movies were pretty childish so the views we expressed were too. Bowling or mini-golf every other Wednesday, and laser tag on Sunday afternoons at the arcade. We played board games; I was a shark at Monopoly and ended up usually owning everything. They even cajoled me into a couple Saturday volleyball game nights in the church gym. Away from home, Caleb called me Devlin or Dev because the other guys did, and sometimes he forgot and did it at home to warning looks from his parents and grandmother. The more I hung around the four of them, the more they seemed like ordinary guys. They prayed before eating which kind of embarrassed me when we'd stop for fast food out, and I could count on one of them inviting me to a church service or the next youth outing, but once I said no thanks they didn't press me. This was what being a regular teenager felt like, what I could've had from age thirteen up if my father hadn't died, but instead of being bitter for the chaos in my life up until now, I was grateful for Caleb and the rest of the family coming along when they did to at least give me a taste of it. At least I was making friends. Dakota found out that I had a 3.88 GPA, and he asked if I could tutor him in AP Government which he really struggled with but had to get at least a C in. He was college-bound like me, wanting to major in international finance. He had seven university acceptance letters at home awaiting his vacillating decision, and we discussed the pros and cons of each one. He asked me why I chose to attend San Francisco State, and I said it had an excellent art program. When he discovered I could draw, he begged me until I did up a quick caricature of him. He told me he'd treasure it until the day I became famous and it would be worth a fortune. I laughed at him. I was surprised by how quickly the time flew by, and it was April before we knew it. Sometimes I just stared at my perfect foster brother sitting across the living room from me, surrounded by his friends who had also become mine and silently wondered at what point my life had shifted. I wasn't in love with Caleb, but he'd done a lot to open me up to a wide range of 'what-ifs' and it gave me comfort that my life was nearly normal. No, I didn't love Caleb. The man I was crushing on was Dakota Brewster. I only stared at Caleb because I was afraid that gawking at his best friend would give me away. Dakota was like the coolest kid, the most avant-garde of the four with a heart of danger at his core and a deeper sense of self. If you weren't aware, you might say he took himself too seriously but we all knew better because he'd get this look on his face that implied that life as we saw it was all bullshit anyway. When a topic came up for discussion, he stayed quiet, but I knew he had an opinion in there somewhere, and by the time he stated it, there wasn't room for anything more. He was honest but not cruel and unfailingly modest. Like Caleb, he could riff on guitar, but he surprisingly preferred soulful love ballads over the harder alternative and indie rock and claimed he would never be good enough to join a band. I disagreed. Dakota liked street scene clothing- studded belts, Converse low tops, Hot Topic band tees in black and gray and the hoody he took everywhere. However, I couldn't say he fully embraced the lifestyle because the church frowned on the music and, at least for now, he was ruled by his parents' wishes. His hair was jet black in teased layers skimming his shoulders, and on his eyelids he wore kohl that I was amazed didn't get him grounded by his mother and father. Maybe they were willing to give an inch, and he was smart enough not to turn it into a mile. He had snakebites on his bottom lip and a ball on his tongue as well as a pierced navel. One time he was changing shirts in his living room to go out with us, and I noticed that the skin above his left pectoral was inked in a spiky tribal tattoo that swirled over his shoulder and down his pale spine into the waistband of his black skinny jeans. I had to turn around so I wouldn't stare. Everything looked good on him because he was as tall as Caleb and almost as ripped with glorious muscle delineation and a rock solid torso. Everyone in the group, indeed, in the larger church group, treated Dakota like a favorite sibling. This might sound strange but, even with the mysterious vibes, he was always smiling and was never mean or nasty to anyone. Caleb called him Kody a lot, and I heard it was a childhood nickname from way back that, aside from his family, only he got to use. Dakota was kind of shy but game for practical jokes as long as they weren't mean. He helped out in the soup kitchen at church and read to elementary-age kids at the local library. No kidding, this guy was one in a million. I loved watching his violet eyes change shades with his emotions. The Devil in Devlin As far as my feelings for him were concerned, I just woke up one day and decided I was in love with him. It was a thousand little things that suddenly coalesced in my sleep to help me see him clearer than ever before, and it filled me with amazement that I even could talk and spend time with Dakota every day. There were no harps... oh wait, that's death— anyway, no schmaltzy choirs of angel's music or lines of poetry running through my head. He was beautiful inside and out and he made me a better person just being around him. I fell so hard. Uh... yeah, that was the problem; we were both male. I was gay, and he wasn't. End of the painful, bitter story. I was not going to moon over some guy I could never have. To be on the safe side I started making excuses not to spend so much one-on-one time with him. Not that I didn't trust myself around him, but we steered away from the privacy. Instead of studying at his place in the afternoon when his parents were still at work and his younger sisters were happy with free, unsupervised rein, I directed him to the school library for an hour, using the excuse that I had to look up research for a term paper. Instead of rushing downstairs as soon as Dakota showed up at our house, I hung back until another arrival provided a safe second set of eyes. It was a tricky situation, working to make it look like I was treating him the same so he wouldn't ask questions even as I pulled away. I was not going to lose my perspective and make an ass of myself. I was not going to fall into some fucked up delusion that he could love me. Having just found friends, it would be suicide to allow Dakota to see my heart. I had to hold on to my pride, swallow my feelings and just finish the damn school year so I could get out of there. Fate fucked with me but good! It was the second Friday in April, and I had sent Caleb home ahead of me because I was meeting Dakota to help him study for a Government test. He was doing very well in the class and his semester grade now stood at a B-. Several times I had suggested that he didn't need my assistance anymore, but he would get this alarmed expression on his face and plead with me not to quit on him. What the hell, I could be cool and if we were in a public place, I was relatively safe. Despite my dilemma, I enjoyed being with him too and it gave me an excuse to see him more often. My locker was located in the six hundred wing along the outside wall of the long brick building housing the math classrooms. I had been delayed by my 6th period art teacher, and I was just swapping out my English textbook for my binder. I heard footsteps to my left rear and turned my head, surprised to see Dakota striding towards me. Lovingly familiar, he made my heart start to jump at the mere sight of him, although there was a little bit different in him that I didn't get right away. He usually waited for me in the library, but since school had ended thirty minutes before, maybe he thought I'd forgotten. "Hi," I said casually, checking to make sure I had everything we needed. "Just a minute..." Dakota moved directly behind me and twirled me around with a gentle but firm push to the shoulder. I found myself plastered against the neighboring metal door with him far too into my personal space for comfort. "Dakota, what..." I protested, but he didn't give me a chance to finish. With a quick glance in both directions down the hall to ensure we were alone, he plucked my binder out of my hands and deposited it back where it came from. I felt him rest his body against me as his hands immobilized my head, and the next thing I knew, his soft, full lips were covering mine. My mouth had already fallen open in shock, so he had no trouble sticking his tongue inside to begin coaxing my own to life. I loved it. Realizing I was with Dakota who apparently wasn't as straight as everyone else said he was. Kissing him felt awesome, and I now realized the difference in him- he had removed his snakebites. Maybe he thought I wouldn't like them against my own lips, but I could feel the ball on his tongue as it passed over my muscle. I wanted to give in to the bliss of that gliding tongue, the way we both moaned and how he was taking my breath away. The sweetness of his strong hands holding me, firm but not forcing. His mouth worked against mine and I gave it right back and melted into his hot body. I let it happen but at the same time I could see myself in the third person. Backed against the lockers, standing out in the open where any coed or teacher could walk by and see us. 'Devlin and Dakota, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G...' The old nursery rhyme flared to life. Sudden and kind of frightening, for a few seconds, I felt alive in a way I never had before. Just for maybe a count of five until sanity returned; then, one startling thought broke loose from all the rest and crystallized. This was not supposed to be happening. I was gay, but Dakota was straight and shouldn't be doing this, especially not at school. Despite his promise to me, I instantly identified the culprit. Caleb must have told Dakota I was gay and this was a test to see if it was true. I went cold, fully expecting Esdy and Justin to jump out at me from behind nearby lockers, and I reacted automatically. "Get the fuck off me." In rage I shoved Dakota backwards with all my might. I had to think fast and react faster, even if it meant going completely against my own ideals to dispel the notion that even a tiny part of me was gay. Adrenalin kicked in and took over my instincts to give me the strength to deal with the six inches he towered over me and his extra thirty pounds. Fight or flight, you know? Either would work as long as I wasn't pinned under him against the lockers with his tongue in my mouth. I know I didn't do more than shove, but he responded as if I'd punched him, suddenly jumping out of the way and regarding me cagily across three feet of dirty, trash-strewn cement. His chest heaving, his violet eyes were huge, pupils blown in lust, and he was trembling. "What the hell is wrong with you, Dakota?" I screamed, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. "Who do you think you are to just randomly walk up to somebody you barely know and kiss him like that?" "Barely know?" He sounded so wounded. "I thought we were friends." "Friends don't do that to friends, ass-hat." Now I was the one shaking but in anger. "Damn it, kissing me?" My fists had come up to defend myself in case I didn't make myself clear, and when he saw them- really looked at me- it was like he collapsed on the inside. "Sorry, sorry... I'm so sorry," he began to mumble, backing up. He held his hands out in front of him, palms forward in supplication and abject shame draining the color from his face. "Please... please, I am so sorry, Dev. You don't have to... Please don't tell anybody. Please... I'll just leave. I'm sorry." Whirling, he took off in the direction of the parking lot as if a banshee was after him. I banged around in my locker collecting my sketchbook and science notes for a Monday test. On second thought, fuck the test, fuck the drawing. I dumped everything back inside and slammed the door before running off in the opposite direction towards home. Yeah, Caleb had already left, but I could cover the usual ten minute drive in fifteen with a little hard running and by cutting through business parking lots and the field behind our house. "Caleb," I roared, thundering through the front door. I had barely broken a sweat but I was even angrier now than when I left school. "Jesus Christ, where are you, Caleb?" He stuck his head out from the kitchen, his mouth a round O. "Devlin, you used the Lord's name in vain!" "Don't be a child," I muttered scornfully, striding towards him feeling like I wanted to pound him. He backed up before my fury. "Why did you do it? Why did you tell Dakota I was gay?" "I didn't," Caleb squeaked, ducking under my arm to run into the living room. I followed him. The shock on his face was still very apparent but it had switched to a completely different kind. Less of a 'tell me you didn't just say that' look and more of a 'have you lost your mind?' one. I regarded him skeptically. "So I'm supposed to believe that you had nothing to do with Dakota getting all freaky on me after school?" "Why? What's wrong?" There was a third switch of facial expression in nearly as many seconds, his features now etched in dread and anxiety. "Dakota kissed me." "Damn it," he gasped, turning pale and sitting down hard on the couch. "I warned him..." It was my turn to regard him, dumbfounded. I never thought I'd hear the day when Caleb Simmons swore. He warned Dakota? His genuine worry rumbled through my numb brain, and my anger dropped from me immediately. "You don't seem all that surprised." I heard Caleb groan as he shook his head, his face lined with... I really wasn't sure. Definitely misery, some indecision, but mostly defeat. "I don't know what to do," he whispered helplessly. "It goes against everything I've been taught about God since I was a little boy, and yet... he's my friend, Dev. Dakota is my friend." I was starting to understand, but I still couldn't believe it. "What's going on, Caleb?" "First, tell me what happened," he demanded. "Everything from start to finish, and don't leave anything out." I gave him the long version of events, and he let me talk in silence without interrupting me to ask questions. But after I related how Dakota had run off, assuming Caleb was partly responsible for his behavior, I had several, like why he'd kissed me. But even without him saying, I already knew the answer. The blonde boy sighed and turned sorrowful eyes in my direction. "Kody is gay, Devlin, or at least, he thinks he is. He half believes he's in love with you, but I swear I never said a word to him. Not once, not even after he told me how he feels about you." I was stunned to find out that Dakota and I had unknowingly been on the same emotional page. But that would mean... Caleb was already ahead of me. "Can you imagine what would happen to Dakota if he came out?" He sounded heartbroken, and I could tell he was struggling not to cry. "With the way people in our church feel about homosexuals? I've known him since we were seven and I couldn't stand to see all our friends turn their backs on him or have his family throw him out of the house... or worse. It's been eating him up inside, hiding what he is, and where would he go if he admitted it, since all his friends have parents just like his?" I believed Caleb was telling me the truth and hadn't outed me. I was already beginning to feel terrible about the way I'd overreacted. There must be some way to go back and fix this, but first I had to know the details. "When did you find out?" "He stopped by one afternoon over Christmas vacation, and he was a mess. He told me he had been feeling a growing attraction to... to boys for well over a year, but up until recently he was in complete denial. What changed things was the first day he saw you at school. At last it was made clear to him, love at first sight, but he was so scared, Devlin. He said that since you were straight, you would probably get mad if you found out and never accept him, and he begged me not to tell you. And what could I do since I promised you the same thing?" I closed my eyes, feeling like a total douche. I had reacted exactly the way Dakota expected, done exactly what he was afraid of. I couldn't have mirrored his fears better if I'd been handed a script. "The more he got to know you, the more he admired you. You aren't the first foster kid my parents have taken in, but you're so much different from the others. Nicer. You don't have a chip on your shoulder or put up a front to act like a bully. That's why I hoped we all could be friends. Kody wanted to hang out with you, and I thought it would be a good idea. Seeing as you're gay too, I thought you would be a good influence on him even if I had to keep your secret. And I halfway hoped..." He took a deep breath as if to expel some foul thought from his head. "A couple weeks ago he threatened to tell his family and trust for the best. I tried to convince him to wait until next fall. He would be going away to school, and at least then it wouldn't matter, not like living at home. He's on scholarship, and his parents would be unable to control him financially. Any university would provide the security to protect him when it all went bad... which I know would happen. He settled down and agreed to wait, and I thought he was fine." "What changed," I asked softly. I, too, had sensed Dakota's growing unease when we were together but I never would have guessed this. "Graduation is in two months." He lifted his shoulders helplessly. "But it doesn't make sense. It isn't like he's going to lose track of you afterwards. Did you know he's going to San Francisco next year for college? The same school as you, even though his parents are horrified because of the area's reputation." Caleb scrubbed a hand over his face. "I've read up on the internet about gay teenagers, and... uh... what they do when their friends and families reject them. It's scary, Devlin. He's like my brother, and after what went down today, I'm afraid he'll..." I kind of choked up because now I was beginning to get scared too; scared for the man I loved. I was concerned over the horror I'd seen in his eyes once he realized I was angry and why. Of course, he would never lead me on by kissing me if he didn't mean it. Blowing this totally out of proportion by not taking Dakota's gentle nature into consideration when he approached me at school, I had behaved rashly by hiding my own feelings for him, even if out of ignorance and fear. And with my rejection, what would he do next? If Dakota was as desperate as Caleb feared, he might be reckless enough to do himself harm. Dakota had been dealing with this confusion for so long, and he needed my empathy, not my condemnation. He had no way of knowing how much I cared about him, and I was the only one who could truly help him. I could make this whole problem go away- well, maybe not the homophobia from the community- but I could offer him the support and tenderness he needed to guide him through it. "Caleb," I said quietly. "If I tell you a secret will you promise not to share it with anyone but Dakota?" He looked at me, curiosity warring with concern on his face. "You know I'd never say a word." I looked down at my feet and tried not to blush, but admitting my feelings to someone I had convinced myself not to trust wasn't easy. After my father, Caleb was now the only person I could confide in, at least until I could tuck Dakota into that circle. "I'm in love with Dakota too," I whispered. "I have been for weeks." Caleb's eyes went wide and a huge grin broke out on his face. "Thank you, God," he breathed, and when I shot him a suspicious glare, he added with a shrug, "I prayed for this, for a peaceful resolution that would work out the best for both of you. You don't have to believe it." I didn't. As far as I was concerned, I was like a bug to God. Here I am, step on me. Caleb tried to call Dakota on his cell phone, but not surprisingly he didn't answer. I told him to leave him a message and say we'd talked and I understood the whole story now. At this stage, we didn't want to freak out if Dakota was safely at home, nor did we want to freak out his family by rushing over there. We talked about what to do next and decided to wait. Not true, Caleb decided to wait and, as the logical one who admonished against panic, I let him talk me out of it. Bad move! Three hours later Caleb found me in my bedroom after a tense supper, trying to derail my thoughts by doing homework, and if I thought he had been worried earlier, he was ready to crawl out of his skin now. Justin had just texted Caleb asking if he knew where Dakota was. His anxious parents, who swore their son was never late or somewhere he wasn't supposed to be, hadn't been in touch with him since he left the house that morning and were ready to pronounce him officially missing. No one had seen Dakota since he left me at school. He had obviously driven home at some point because his truck was parked in front of the house, but his sisters said he didn't go inside. Meaning it had been four and a half hours since he left me and he was wandering around on foot in the dark. Even though Caleb had tried to call him all afternoon, he wasn't answering his cell phone. For anybody, not just him. He was either ignoring the calls or he no longer had the use of his mobile. Or something worse had happened. Giving Caleb a dark look for not following my intuition, we climbed in his Jeep just as he received a call from his parents requesting that he go to the Brewsters' and help the members of the church try to find Dakota. We drove to their house, and the Simmons' SUV was parked near the corner. A police car was pulled up to the curb, and the place teemed with adults and young people. Amber Simmons rushed up to Caleb and me when we walked through the front door. I think she was a little put off to see me, but she didn't mention it. My focus was on Dakota's parents, and we edged closer. I overheard Mrs. Brewster tell a uniformed officer that nobody had seen Dakota since school ended at 2:45. I cleared my throat. Caleb threw me a glance that begged me not to do anything stupid. I had no intention of it. "Excuse me," I offered quietly. "I saw Dakota later than that. It was closer to 3:15." You could have heard a pin drop; the place went silent so quickly. Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at me. "Go ahead, son," the officer prodded. I heard several kids scoffing in the background. Randy and Amber moved up behind Caleb. I looked at the policeman's jacket, and the name 'Brown' was on the shield pinned to a pocket. I wondered if this was the same Brown who sat on the church board of directors who Randy had mentioned once working with. Any hope I'd had of coming clean with the cops and telling them the real story evaporated. Not to mention, the captive audience glaring at me with mistrust radiating off them as if they expected me to admit I was an axe-murderer who had dispatched Dakota myself. "I've been tutoring him in Government, and today was a study day," I stated. "Normally we meet up in the library but I was detained so it was around half an hour after the last bell. I was at my locker in the six hundred wing collecting the supplies we needed when he ran past me. He was heading towards the parking lot and looked upset." So far that was a partial truth but all they really needed to know. "Did he say why?" Over his shoulder I saw Caleb flinch. I swallowed hard and tried to look nonchalant. "No, sir." Randy bobbed his head, indicating me, and spoke up. "This is our foster son, Lonnie. His name is James Royce..." I saw Caleb make a face at them behind their backs for addressing me by my middle name. "...and if he says he saw Dakota, you better trust that he's telling the truth." The cop asked me a few more questions but nothing probing and went to call in the new information. Mrs. Brewster stood there gazing at me in silence, and I couldn't tell if she was suspicious or grateful. Her husband put his arm around her waist and speculated on what had been bothering Dakota so much that he would run away. I only vaguely listened to their theories, and they were so clueless it made my head ache. But I couldn't do anything to help them, not without outing Dakota and me. The crowd talked about organizing their own searches, and Dakota's family, church friends and their parents began to separate and drive off. I was wracking my brain to think where he might have gone. Caleb wanted to join in, but I delayed him for a moment once we were standing next to his car. I don't know why I didn't think of this before now, and I wanted to kick myself.