Dear Kurl,
All I really had in mind was keeping the pain at bay as long as possible, and the hot tub seemed like a pretty good bet. No one was in the tub anymore—they were all gathered around you and Dowell, or what was left of Dowell. Apparently I am the one who insisted Bron call the police—Shayna says I started yelling at her to call the police as soon as I saw you pick up my belt. I honestly have no memory of that, though.
I just remember realizing, halfway into the hot tub, that I was still wearing my trousers and that the hot water and chlorine would almost certainly ruin the wool. And then my sock slipped on the wet vinyl and I went in up to my neck and felt the hot water against my back like knives slicing into every single one of the welts at once.
By the time you guys figured out where I’d slunk off to, the cops were on their way and everyone had fled the party. You came over and tried to lift me out of the water by the armpits, but I slipped away from you. I ducked my head under the water and came up gasping at the pain in my eye.
And that’s how the police found us: me stretched out in the hot tub with my wool trousers turning to felt around my legs, you crouched at the tub’s edge with your hands submerged in the foam, Bron and Shayna arguing in furious hushed voices a few feet away, and Dowell slumped all alone nearby, hands over his face.
The paramedics took care of Dowell first, tipping him over like a side of beef and levering him expertly onto a stretcher. Professionals.
Then one of the paramedics told me to get out of the hot tub. I tried my best to comply, but I was so dizzy that two of them had to help me. They propped me on the deck with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders and helped me to drink a glass of water.
“They’ve been at him all year,” Shayna told the cops. “You can ask anyone.”
“There was a big incident earlier today at school,” Bron said. “Look at the bruises on his chest. He’s a target, pure and simple.”
“Look at his back. Just look at it!” Shayna started crying. The cops were trying to talk to you, Kurl, but Shayna wouldn’t let anyone get a word in. “Adam really cares about my brother. Enough was enough. Something had to be done.”
“Adam is your boyfriend?” the one officer asked her, and Shayna didn’t answer.
I saw your head turn to look at my sister.
“Adam,” said the other cop, the female one. “Are you her boyfriend? Is that why you got involved?”
“Is this a bullying scenario?” the male cop asked. “Your girlfriend’s little brother is gay, and he’s getting picked on?” He was writing it all down on his pad of paper.
You didn’t say anything, and neither did Shayna. But Bron was nodding, now. “Can you blame Adam? It’s really hard to watch. Jonathan is a really sweet kid; he doesn’t deserve this abuse. Gay bashing. All this homophobia.”
The cop wrote everything down. They hunted around the house for more witnesses, but everyone was gone, including, of course, the butcherboys.
They consulted with the ambulance crew about Dowell and me and decided that I shouldn’t be forced to ride in the same ambulance as my assailant, so they called a second one for me. They needed to run an X-ray on my chest, they said.
As we waited for the second ambulance to arrive, I volunteered the information about the painkillers and alcohol in my system. It took me a few tries to get the words clear enough for them to understand me. I was dizzy and getting sleepy in the blanket, and I was suddenly worried I might die. It felt like I might be dying.
Meanwhile I could hear that the police kept threatening to take you into the station, Kurl, to get a proper statement if you wouldn’t tell them, in your own words, what had happened.
But you wouldn’t say anything beyond your name. You just kept saying you were sorry, and your eyes were empty black hollows in your face. Your knuckles were bruised and scraped raw, so it was obvious that you’d done a lot of punching.
And Bron—and eventually Shayna joined in, too—both of them kept saying that you had merely been defending me, that you’d had to intervene to defend me from the bullies. Me, meaning your girlfriend’s little brother. The little brother of your girlfriend, Shayna.
Yours,
Jo