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“I’m sorry, who are you?” Cordelia Sheppard asked, looking at her son with inquisitive crisp blue eyes. Her face was narrow and pretty, with straight wheat-colored hair that fell past her shoulders, and a toned body with olive skin, wearing a black wrap dress and a lapis set in a gold pendant around her neck.
Chase smirked and shook his head.
“Your son; Chase.”
Cordelia shook her head.
“We used to have a son, but... I don’t know; honey?”
She turned her head, tilting it slightly to look at her husband Austin Sheppard, who was dressed in a Brooks Brothers polo and a pair of blue jeans. His face was handsome. It was the face of someone who had obviously grown into his looks later in life, evident by the unassuming way that he stood next to his wife.
Chase was different by nature. He was always assertive; even standing still, he stood with the self-confidence that one could only be born with.
Austin had a squared jaw, strong nose, and round wire-rim glasses on his face. This, combined with his height, made Aaron instantly think of an educator or a librarian as he glanced at him.
“Oh, yeah... I think we did have a son once....” He winked at his wife and she cracked a grin and folded her arms across her chest.
“Yeah, but he was a real fucking asshole.”
Cordelia laughed and Chase returned it, running his fingers through his black hair, pushing it back from his face, his ink-covered bicep flexing as he did so.
“Yeah. Yeah, I know. I’m a dick.”
“Well,” Cordelia opened her arms and made her way to her son, “it’s fine. Why stop being a little shit now?”
They hugged and she kissed her son on the cheek, closing her eyes for just a moment, and when she opened them again, they lit up at the sight of Amanda.
“Hey, Mrs. Sheppard,” Amanda said with a wave and a smile.
Aaron, Carolyn, and Tammy looked at each other.
“I don’t believe it! As I live and breathe!” She let go of her son and mock-pushed him away towards his father, and made her way, arms outstretched, for the girl that had once been one of Chase’s closest friends. “And remember, Mrs. Sheppard was my mother-in-law. We use first names here.”
They both laughed and hugged, swaying from side to side, and when Cordelia Sheppard’s eyes fell on Tammy, Carolyn, and Aaron, her smile stiffened and her eyes seemed to dim.
“Mom, Dad... this is Tammy Reynolds, Carolyn Carter.” Chase took a step back and reached his hand out for Aaron’s, slipping his fingers between his and drawing him close.
“And this is Aaron.”
Aaron smiled, his heart beating fast, so fast that he could hear it pounding in his head, and his grip tightened around Chase’s hand.
Cordelia Sheppard gave an awkward smile and tried to catch her breath. Her gaze drifting from their clasped hands to her husband and then back to her son.
“But, that would mean....” Her bottom lip trembled as she stood there, rubbing her throat with one hand, the other gripping her waist. “And you’re not....” She shook her head and turned, pivoting on the heels of her bare feet and making her way back inside her house. “You’re just not....”
“Mom.” Chase rolled his eyes and looked at his dad, who said nothing.
Austin shrugged and his pale green eyes looked pained as he stepped aside to let Chase pass, who was still holding tight to Aaron and pulling him into the house behind him.
“Seriously?” Cordelia Sheppard asked her son. She was standing in the foyer, a perfect square with soft gray walls, white trim and a wall of built-ins filled with books. The bright sun was pouring through a large picture window, reflecting brightly off of the walnut floorboards.
Chase sighed and folded his arms across his chest, the blue-and-black striped V-neck tee tightening across his shoulder blades. He craned his neck back and looked at his father, who had stepped away from the front door. It was wide open and the girls were still standing out on the giant porch front.
“You guys can come in,” he said to them before turning his head back to face his mother. “What? I need you to say it. Otherwise I’m just going to assume this is because we got here later than expected.”
“Oh, don’t be glib!” Chase’s mother said, tossing her head dismissively. “You know what I’m talking about. That! This!”
She threw her arms out and moved them from Chase to Aaron, looking at them both with wide, tear-filled eyes. She quickly shook them away and sniffled demurely. “You know I’m not some homophobe; I just don’t understand how my son, who has never shown any sign of... that.” She directed her gaze at Aaron slightly, just enough to send her son the message, but Aaron had caught it.
By now Carolyn, Tammy, and Amanda had stepped into the house behind them.
“Ugh!” Cordelia threw her arms up in the air and made her way into the rest of the house, and Chase was walking behind her.
Aaron and the girls looked at his father, who extended his left arm out as if to say ‘after you,’ and they were quick to follow Chase and his mother into the house.
The front room to their right continued the light gray and white trim theme, and there was a plush eggshell blue sofa opposite white damask club chairs. Cordelia moved through this now and past pocket doors pushed all the way back into their frame, an unobstructed downhill view of The Hammond School with its neo-gothic architecture—rivaling any of those New England boarding schools—and the glittering bay beyond it dotted with the white specks of sail boats, was framed in the giant picture window in the dining room.
His mother stood poised against this now, and Aaron almost felt as if she had done it on purpose, leading them all into her house and off of the porch where her neighbors might see.
“Mom, I’m really surprised that you’re taking it like this. I mean, you know, like, 500 gay people.” Chase kept his arms folded tightly around him.
Aaron wasn’t sure if it was out of frustration or in order to brace himself against the fear and the possibility of rejection that every queer kid goes through when they come out. A process that never stops, and can always be just as uncertain and terrifying.
Either way, he wanted to go to him. He wanted to wrap his arms tightly around Chase and protect him. He wanted to be the tree that he could lean on, steady and unmovable.
“They’re not my son,” she said to him. “Everything’s going to be so much harder for you if you’re....” She choked on her words, pressing her hand against her chest, covering that radiant blue stone.
“If I’m gay?”
She looked at him and her lips quivered, and though there was a mist of tears on her eyes, she was miraculously keeping them at bay.
“Would that really be the worst thing?” He asked.
Cordelia shook her head.
“Not the worst thing. I just, I never suspected. You had never even hinted... how did I miss it?”
Austin moved across the room in long strides, taking his place by his wife’s side, not touching her, but at the ready in case she needed his support.
“How would you have known?” Chase asked.
“You’re right. How would I have known when all you’ve done for the past nine years is keep secrets?” his mother said. “You’ve been a stranger more or less since....”
Aaron and Chase looked at each other, and then they both glanced at the other three, Carolyn and Amanda took a second look at just one another and then back at Chase’s parents, standing there like Mary and Joseph gazing upon their chosen son.
“I know....”
Aaron could feel Chase’s trauma. He could see that, like him, Bailey’s death and their eighth grade year had indeed lingered for him long after they had left Proctor. It wasn’t just changing tastes and styles, everything about Chase had shifted because of that year.
Chase stood there helpless, searching for the words to continue on, but not finding any. In order to explain all of it, he would have to talk about Bailey—the real Bailey—and the dark and dangerous liaison that went on between the three boys. He would have to rip open a Pandora’s Box of teenage lust and nightmares that had shattered so many.
“It’s just been a lot of years and a lot of secrets. We rarely see you, and when we do, you’ve just been so distant. It’s in the eyes, son,” his father said to him. “You never came across as gay in any way, so we just put that in our ‘don’t have to worry about that’ box and figured you just weren’t in the mood to settle down.”
Chase laughed and shook his head.
“I honestly never thought I would be good enough for anybody. I didn’t think it was fair to pull anyone into the baggage.”
Cordelia and Austin looked at him empathetically.
“Can’t you just be glad that I have somebody?” Chase asked his parents.
He craned his neck to the right to look at Aaron, and when he did, all Aaron could do was take his hand. Those turquoise eyes were glistening with tears, echoing the sunny water outside of the window, and the smile on his face and slight tilt of his head told Aaron everything that Chase wanted from him.
He wanted Aaron by his side. He wanted Aaron to anchor him. He wanted to show his parents that despite it all, despite Bailey and that year and the fucked up mind games and spilt blood, he was okay. He had someone. He wasn’t alone. Which was the worst thing. He knew that for Chase’s parents, they had spent the past nine years worrying that their son was completely and utterly alone and that he would remain so for the rest of his life.
Aaron braved a shy smile and looked at Cordelia and Austin, hoping that they would soften and begin the process of moving past it.
“Of course, my darling! That’s all that I care about.”
She opened her arms and engulfed her son once again, crushing his firm and muscular frame against her tiny body. She took her hands to his face and cradled him there, mother to son, staring deep into each other’s eyes.
“My beautiful boy, I just want to see you happy.” She kissed him on the forehead and then turned her attention to Aaron.
“And aren’t you just the cutest!” she said to him, chuckling and wiping away the remaining tears from her eyes.
“Yes, a very nice-looking young man,” Austin Sheppard said with a smile. He hugged his son tightly.“I’m proud of you, bud.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
Cordelia looked at the three girls standing there awkwardly in the background and laughed.
“Okay, well now that we got the ‘very special episode of the Sheppards’ out of the way, who wants wine?”
“Uh, sure...” Chase said, looking to Aaron and the girls.
“Wine would be perfect, Mrs. Sheppard,” Carolyn said with a smile.
“Oh, you called me Mrs. Sheppard; now I really do need a glass of wine!” she laughed and led them through the dining room, making their way around the custom-built table and that impeccable view of Puget Sound.
They passed through another pocket door frame and entered a large white and stainless steel kitchen, with another bank of windows that ran almost the entire length of the wall where the sink and back counters were, continuing that picturesque view of the Hammond School and the bay, along with the rooftops that speckled the hillside leading down to Tacoma Avenue.
They all gathered around the white marble island, the pale gray veins running through its surface as if it were white flesh that had been dipped in lacquer, watching as Cordelia went to grab an unopened bottle of red from the counter, nestled in a corner beneath the cabinet next to the fridge, while Austin grabbed a handful of wine glasses from the cabinet opposite the sink.
Chase stood at the end of the island closest to the dining room, facing another picture window on the side of the house that looked out on the beautifully maintained three-tiered courtyard that moved down the hilled plot of land. The window was cracked, raised just above the sill, and the warm spring breeze and the gurgling of the fountain below made him smile.
He was leaning on the counter, and the portraits of horror movie ghouls and alchemic symbols covering his arms were vibrant in the light. Every shade of color and every black line stood out in the afternoon sun. Aaron stood next to him, watching Chase’s parents pour the glasses and slide each one smoothly across the marble and place it in front of each person.
As if on purpose, Austin gave everyone their glass, with the exception of Aaron, who watched as his glass came to him courtesy of Chase’s mother, who smirked at him in a way that made him uncomfortable.
“Thanks,” he said to her. Cordelia titled her head ever-so-slightly and raised her glass, everyone else following suit behind her.
“To our prodigal son, for giving us the chance to get to know him, perhaps for the first time.”
Chase smirked and his eyes sparkled in the light, making Aaron once again think of water.
“...And to the both of you.”
Aaron and Chase looked at each other and Aaron could see that for Chase this moment was like taking his first real breath.
It made him smile to see that relief and that momentary sense of peace wash over him, but beyond that Aaron was uncomfortable. He could not stop thinking about why they had shown up here in the first place, and what they had to continue to do.
“Cheers!” Austin said, and everyone echoed it, taking sips of their wine.
Austin and Cordelia immediately began interrogating Tammy and Carolyn. Not questions of the past, just current inquires—small talk—the usual ‘do you go to school? What do you do?’ type of questions, which made Aaron breathe a sigh of relief.
He knew it wouldn’t last long, though. It never did, and eventually deeper questions would be asked, more familial tales told, and when that happened Proctor and that April day would come back to the surface, and Chase’s parents would have to go through it all over again.
When the piece on Bailey had been written about in the News Tribune, they had kept Aaron’s name out of it, though they had talked about a young male witness who had been there when the accident happened, but that the boy had been ruled out as a suspect.
It didn’t end speculation, and Aaron had to wonder how much his parents did or didn’t know. Had his name ever reached their ears? He hadn’t said his last name, and neither had Chase, so at the moment ‘Aaron’ could mean nothing to them, but their connection would be revealed at some point—it was inevitable—and he worried what damage that could bring.
After twenty minutes of small talk, Cordelia told them to go get their things and bring them inside, directing them to their rooms and getting them settled in. They had all been given rooms on the second floor, his parents having converted the attic into a massive master-suite five years previous.
––––––––
“So, here it is!” Chase said to Aaron with a smile, holding the black weekend bag in his hand, pushing open the original Shaker paneled door and inviting him into his room.
Chase stepped aside and let Aaron walk in first, his eyes taking in everything around him.
He felt off-balance and his heart raced. It was like stepping into another piece of Chase, as if he had split him open and cracked his ribcage apart to crawl inside of him and see as he saw. This had been where Chase had grown up, where he had formed himself and discovered all the things that he had after Bailey’s death and his disconnection from who he had been before it had all broken apart.
To the left of the door was a queen bed on a simple dark mahogany bedframe and headboard, much like the bed in his apartment back up in Bellingham, along with a matching dresser and book shelf, and all over the walls were posters kept in frames.
There was the famous black-and-gray of Kurt Cobain on the cover of Rolling Stone upon his passing, and one of the band The Wallflowers and one of Tupac. There were posters from the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Black Christmas. Those early seventies horror posters beautifully painted in their detestation, and Aaron thought it a lost art—movie poster painting—and would have loved having made a career of that after college.
Opposite the bed next to the window that looked out on the front of the house was a poster of François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows in a sleek black frame. The black-and-gray image of the adolescent lead staring out from a chain-link fence with eyes that sat heavy with the shadow of lost innocence, struck Aaron hard. He could not help but connect the troubled Antoine with Chase and the boy he had been back then.
“Oh, it’s cool. Not what I would have expected for your childhood room, though.”
Chase smiled and closed the door behind him, revealing the psychedelic-red Bay of Blood poster on the wall behind it.
“What, did you expect something more... basic?” he smirked, while setting the bag on his black comforter.
Aaron laughed and nodded.
“Yeah, you know sports stuff, trophies... a Scarface poster.”
“There was a Godfather poster, but that got moved down into the rec room.”
Chase gave a stretch, the hem of his tee rising and exposing the six-pointed star on his flat stomach. “It was pretty basic. All of that stuff was there. But then I grew up and discovered I had other interests.”
Aaron nodded and walked over towards the desk that was pressed against the wall next to the book case, glancing around and continuing to take it in.
“You changed.”
Chase nodded and cracked open the window facing out to the street, it squeaked as it slid up from the sill.
“Yeah, because of you.”
Aaron turned and looked at him. The sincerity in Chase’s eyes and the smile on his face warmed him, and yet he couldn’t understand how Chase could assign the responsibility of his change on him.
“Me?”
Chase walked towards him, and as he did it was as if the world had shifted, and in one flash of memory, Aaron was back in that long ago bedroom of his, watching Chase climb through his window and give him the kiss that would change everything.
“Yeah. Before you and I met in class, I had pretty much just played sports, dicked around with my friends, and just kind of went along with whatever was cool. It wasn’t even conscious, I just didn’t care enough to have any real or defining interests. I was who I was; I didn’t have to be interesting.
“But then you came along—this kid I had actually never seen in the first two years of middle school, when by that point I had thought that I had had classes with everybody in our grade—and we had three classes together; it was as if the universe was making up for lost time, and the last class of the day was with you.
“You were everywhere and you were smart, and creative, and interesting. You had a gaze that could look right into someone or through them in an instant, and they were always so sad, as if you knew some dark and terrible secret about the rest of us that was crushing you because you couldn’t tell it.
“The first few times I tried to talk with you, which I’ll admit, I was kind of being a dick—”
“You weren’t being a dick; you just had a lot of bravado, and you were intimidating.”
Aaron’s eyes carried over the desktop. There was a sleek chrome lamp and a pen holder along with a picture in a black wooden frame tucked in the top-right corner of the desk.
“Well, okay. Still, you had no interest in talking to me but I couldn’t help staring at you from across the room. Even Carolyn would say something to me on occasion if I walked over to your row, but you... you would just look away whenever I came near.”
It had been so long since he had thought about those first couple of weeks of school. How his heart had lit at the realization by the end of that first day of school, that he and Chase would have three classes together, and then the terror in realizing that Chase and Bailey Nguyen were best friends and that he had the both of them in his sixth period gym class.
It was the strangest cycle that year. Their sixth period was divided every eight weeks between two different classes. They would spend eight of them in gym, and eight in literature class, and then repeat. But they were all together and it remained that way for the entire year.
“It’s because I was afraid of you,” Aaron whispered.
Chase’s face grew dark and his mouth fell open, and whatever he had planned to say had been pushed aside as now he was at a loss for words.
Finally after a couple of seconds he spoke.
“Because of Bailey?”
Aaron shrugged.
“Because of Bailey, because you were always staring at me, and I couldn’t help but stare back. Because I wasn’t sure if you wanted to hurt me or not. Because everything about you drew me in and held so tight to me that I couldn’t rationalize what I was feeling away.
“So, yeah, I couldn’t look you in the eyes whenever you got close. Not at first.”
“This entire time I thought it was because you thought I was a jackass.” Chase laughed and Aaron shrugged.
He reached out for that picture tucked in the corner in its frame and turned it around. An attractive blond boy stood on the front porch of the Sheppard home, and his arms were draped over the shoulders of two other teens. One was a girl with light blonde hair, and the other was a black-haired Asian boy with a barely-there smirk on his face.
There they were. The three of them. Amanda smiling bright in a white t-shirt and denim cutoffs; Bailey in white high-tops, dark blue basketball shorts, and a green tank top.
Between them was Chase, and he was all smiles with his blond hair parted down the middle and touching his brows, and his eyes were bright in the sun. He was wearing black sneakers, a pair of jean shorts that every boy owned in the Nineties, and a thin white tee clinging to his chest and torso.
He guessed by the look of them, that the picture had most likely been taken during the summer leading into eighth grade.
Chase cleared his throat.
“I wanted to have something interesting to say for once in my life. I wanted to talk about something that would be of interest to you. I had never really cared that much about other people. But it’s like I wanted to be in on the secret. Whatever it was that saddened you so much.
“So I just started reading the books over there.” He cocked his head towards the bookcase. “And I don’t know. I just never stopped.”
Aaron continued to stare at the picture of those three teenagers, their smiles and their complete ignorance to what lay ahead of them reflected in their happy faces. He placed his fingers on top of the glass—right over a fourteen-year-old Chase—and sighed.
“I never liked looking at that picture... not after it happened. But even before... when things really got dark with Bailey, which I would say was right around Halloween of that school year.”
Aaron recalled a Halloween night long ago when he had walked to the video store in the Proctor district to rent some horror films for the night. It had been raining off and on all day, and as a result there had hardly been any activity on the streets. The air had smelt of logs burning in fireplaces, and the porches and windows had been aglow with smiling Jack-o’-Lanterns in the October pitch.
He had crossed through the empty field of the school, his eyes locked on the bricks of the main building and the flood lights had cast eerie shadows with their orange fluorescent. The grass had been wet and had been slightly muddy under his feet, and the sloshing of his steps had echoed in the quiet night.
On either side of him beyond the fence had been dark streets with monstrous trees and all that he had been able to make out were the illuminated windows and those carved candle-lit faces.
As he had crossed the grass onto the concrete basketball court, making his way around the gym and towards the covered breezeway to the men’s locker room, Aaron had spied two figures pass by quickly on their bikes, disappearing down the narrow alley between the gym and the main building. They had looked like ghosts, dressed in black jeans and t-shirts, their faces covered by something that could have been a mask or a white sheet.
“What happened?” Aaron asked Chase, still staring at the picture. He glanced up from the photo and looked at him and there was a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, fearing that he already knew the answer.
“It involves you.” Chase sighed and curled his right hand around the back of Aaron’s neck. He closed his eyes and drew his forehead against Aaron’s and rolled his head gently against his own.
Chase opened his eyes and drew back from him. He looked Aaron deep in the eyes, holding him in place and went on.
“We had been riding around that night. We had gone to a party at Amanda’s house for a bit, but Bailey got bored. He always got bored. It was just what it meant to be his friend, and when he got bored you left with him. If you didn’t he would still leave, but then you’d suffer for it later. Amanda and I learned it was easier just to go along with it so we didn’t have to deal with his shit.
“So we were out riding around and we had ended up at Proctor, and we saw you by the gym as we rode into the alley between the buildings. He wanted to fuck with you. He wanted to scare you. See, we were wearing white pillow cases that we had torn holes into and Bailey really wanted to mess with you. But I had told him no.
“Then it just got really weird and I felt uncomfortable and went home. He had just been really excited about the idea that it scared me. I turned that picture around that night when I got home.
“I didn’t want to look at it.”
Two things came over Aaron: the first was the relief in knowing that Chase had had nothing to do with that night, and the second was the realization that Chase had no idea what had happened after he had ridden his bike home.
Aaron sat the picture back down on the desk and walked across the room towards the bed, the images of that night bursting in front of him like the burning flash of a bulb. Memories of returning back from the video store and walking back across the field, hearing a strange yelp coming from between the gym and the main building. It had made his heart jump and he had looked around but there was only an empty field before him, and the school buildings behind him in the dark.
He had begun to walk again, to continue his way across the field to the street corner, when he had heard it again. Aaron had turned around once more to see a shape emerge from between those buildings on a black bike, his face covered by a white pillow case, and he could make out the two dark specks that were for the eyes.
“It still happened,” he said to Chase, taking a seat on his bed and rustling his hair with his left hand.
“What do you mean?” Chase was looking down at him, his eyes reflecting the apprehension he was beginning to feel.
“I mean, that night. I had never known for sure if it had been Bailey, but that night was one of the most terrifying of my life. I mean, I really thought I was going to die. He terrorized me that night.
“He had chased me and was saying all sorts of fucked up shit, but he had done it in some fucking weird voice so I wasn’t sure who it was.
“It took me forever to get home that night because he was cutting me off and making me have to reverse my steps and go a different way. The weather had sucked and so the streets were pretty empty.
“He had had something in his hand, a metal bat or a pipe or something. It could have been anything. But I was terrified that if he caught up to me, I was going to be beaten to death or something... it had been right out of a horror movie.”
He remembered those dark streets and the trees stretching to the night sky with leafless limbs that made them look like skeletal arms and hands. The silence, listening for the bike, running cautiously into dark alleys, only to see the shape on the bike cut in front of him and stop, breathing heavy with intense black eyes, staring at him from crudely torn holes in the pillow case.
––––––––
“Gonna getch ya, gonna kill ya,” he had said in a voice that growled with hunger and laughed with perverse joy all at the same time, knocking whatever metal thing it was that he had against the back of his bike.
It chimed out like a bell and cut through the quiet.
Aaron raced to one of the back yards, scaling the tall wood fence, and dropped to the other side. He cut through the yard and ended up on the other side, racing across the street and into another alley, knowing that the masked stalker was right behind him.
“Gonna getch ya, gonna kill ya,” he sang out, approaching the alley.
Aaron spotted a carport at the back of one the houses. There was absolutely no light and it was packed with a black sedan and minivan that Aaron could squeeze between.
Aaron forced his way as quickly and quietly as he could between the two vehicles and tucked himself into the space between the back of the minivan with its tinted windows and black paint, steadying his breath as quickly as he could and staying impossibly still, listening for that bike.
The chime came three times, echoing off of the houses and garages. It sang out to his ears and then faded down the alleyway. His heart raged fiercely in his chest as he heard the slow crunch of the gravel beneath the bike’s wheels, stopping in front of the carport.
After a moment of silence, the chimes sang out again, and as they did, Aaron felt everything inside of him tremble with the song.
Then he whistled.
It was long and bounced off of the vehicles and the cinderblock walls of the carport. As if he were using echolocation to find him. Aaron stayed crouched down, his knees threatening to knock together as he swallowed hard and held his breath and listened to the footsteps walking across the gravel and tapping on the concrete of the carport.
Another whistle and then three more steps closer. Aaron prepared to run, when suddenly the masked bike rider returned to it and rode off, continuing his way through the alley.
He caught up with him once more, two blocks from Aaron’s house, and this time he hadn’t stopped to bang anything against the back of his bike, or to taunt him; he just rode up on him as Aaron ran—nearing Mullen Street and his house on the other side—and hit him hard on the back of the legs with his weapon.
It flipped him onto the concrete and loose gravel, his back slamming hard against it. Aaron managed to keep his head from striking the ground, but he had still felt a sharp nerve-shaking pain that knocked the breath right out of him.
He sucked in air, and the cold crisp damp was like broken shards of glass cutting into his lungs as he let it out in one cry that wailed through the night.
Aaron watched as the shape stood there, one foot on the ground, the other on the peddle, and beyond him was Aaron’s house and the light from the kitchen window cutting through the thick of trees that surrounded his yard, acting as a beacon of safety and hope.
Aaron struggled to his feet and the masked shape charged at him, peddling fast. Aaron was limping, and his body screamed at him and the tears were hot on his face. The pain made it too hard for him to cry out or scream, but he was determined to cross that street. He was set on the fact that no matter what, he would get to his house. He would get inside and he would be safe.
At that moment, a cluster of costumed kids and teens all came down the street. It was a large group, and Aaron shot to the ground just as that weapon came at his head, skidding across the alley and getting back to his feet again.
He ran into the gang of costumed kids, forcing them to all stop for a moment as he broke through them.
“Excuse you!” one of them shouted behind him.
They all gathered there in the entrance to the alley, allowing him to disappear into the shelter of his wooded yard and jump through his open bedroom window.
Aaron closed it and locked it immediately, and pulled the blinds and made sure both the front door and back door had still been locked.
That night Aaron had stayed in his mother’s room, lying in the dark, waiting until she came home from the party that she had gone to with her friend and her latest beau.
He had spent that weekend inside, fearful of his windows at night, fearful that whoever had attacked him would come back for him.
––––––––
He had always suspected that it had been Bailey, but Bailey had never hinted to it, and it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that it could have been some other psychopath on the hunt on Halloween night. After all, there was a whole franchise about just that very thing.
“Fuck....” Chase shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose, walking over to Aaron and taking a seat next to him on the bed. “So what happened? Like, what did he do?”
Aaron searched his face. He saw the guilt in his eyes and Aaron realized he couldn’t tell him. Chase would have blamed himself, regardless of the fact that he couldn’t have known and bore no responsibility, he would still play the ‘what if’ game, and Aaron refused to add to that.
“I made it home. He chased me around and I eventually got away. Nothing I couldn’t handle afterwards. I just had never been sure if it was Bailey. I don’t know if that should be a relief or not, but in a strange way it kind of is.
“At least it wasn’t some random psycho out hunting kids.”
Chase frowned.
“No, just one psycho who enjoyed hunting you.”
Aaron gave a sullen smile and reached out for Chase’s hand, feeling the comforting strength of his grip.
“And now we have another.”
Chase snorted and shook his head, his black bangs swaying with the movement.
“Yeah, right.” He rolled his eyes and stood. “I hate that this is happening right now. I hate that we’re here—you’re meeting my parents for the first time, and the reason is because someone or some—thing—out there connected to us and to Bailey is trying to kill you and anyone who tries to protect you.”
Aaron sighed.
“Yeah, yeah, it sucks. It’s a big fucking mess that’s about to get messier, but what can we do about it? We have to just keep going forward and try to get our lives back.
“Nine years, Chase! Nine years of us carrying Bailey and the monster that he was. The dynamics that existed between us then... whatever all of this is now—it has hovered over all of us for so long, if this will help put an end to it....”
Chase shook his head and folded one arm across his stomach; the other was bent as he rubbed the back of his neck.
“But will we ever really be free of it? Say we figure this out? Whether it’s a person or a fucking ghost....” Chase gave an embittered chuckle. “Say we put an end to this... does it really mean we’ll be free of it?”
He stood and averted his gaze from Chase, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
“I don’t know...” he whispered. Aaron tilted his head back up and walked over to him. “But we have to try.”
Aaron opened his arms and took Chase into them, wrapping them around his entire body. He and Chase looked down at his arms trapped beneath Aaron’s and they laughed, and Chase pulled them out and wrapped them around him, kissing him twice on the lips.
“Yeah, yeah... we do, don’t we?”
Aaron nodded against his shoulder and Chase kissed the side of his head.
“I’m sorry things couldn’t have been different.”
Aaron looked at him and shook his head, a gentle smirk on his face.
“Me too. But we all have our nightmares, only some are more real than others.”