Last Chance

Chapter 12:

Joel stirs in anxiety for the next two days. He watches the street for Charlotte or a police or ghost car.

I know none of this can be good for his physical or mental health and attempt to distract him. His stomach is still in good shape, he continued to eat normally and gained more weight to his body and colour to his skin. He hasn’t had any dizzy spells either.

I was worried the stress Charlotte was causing would affect the drug trial. But it was hard to distract Joel when I also needed to work on the computers Wyatt brought over. I offer to drive Joel over to one of his friend’s house but in further retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t because the police showed up Wednesday morning.

Jamie was gone to school when they showed up at 11:00 am.

I open the door willingly and politely and attempt to act normal.

“Hello, son,” one of the officers greets me.

“Are you Joel Kingston?” they ask.

“No, that’s my fiancé. He’s inside. Is this about Jamie Kingston?” I ask.

“Yes, we got reports that you kidn*pped him and are abusing him and that he’s a minor,” they explain.

Joel hears all this from the living room and surprisingly gets up and comes to the door.

“He’s seventeen, so he’s legally allowed to stay wherever he wants regardless of his parents’ wants or needs, and they technically kicked him out for being gay. He’s here because he wants to be, and we haven’t done anything to him. If you wish to speak to him, he’s at school right now so you can go there and talk to him or wait here till he gets home,” Joel exclaims.

The officers look surprised to see this, I guess.

“We’ll be here if you have any issues or if Jamie doesn’t answer your questions,” I continue more calmly.

The officers take a few steps back to talk to each other. A few minutes pass before they turn back to us.

“Officer Miles is going to stay with you while I go confirm with Jamie your story,” the other officer explains.

“I’ll come with you,” I reply suddenly realizing there might be an issue with both of us staying here with the other officer. They might think we could overpower them. “Make sure you lock the door and if Charlotte shows up, don’t let her in,” I emphasize the word to try and make a point assuming they had had some contact with Charlotte and also maybe drew some of their own conclusions about her and the situation.

“Sure,” the other officer replies. The one staying at the house steps inside and Joel goes to retrieve his phone just in case Charlotte does show up.

Officer Kingsley and I get into the squad car and we drive to the high school that Jamie attends. We get out and go into the school to the main office. It’s lunch hour by now so Jamie might not even be in the school if he and Sam went out to lunch or something. The assistant at the desk pages him though and he shows up five minutes later with Sam.

Other than looking tired and having dark circles under his eyes he looks to be completely in perfect health.

“What’s going on, Luka?” he questions looking at the officer nervously.

“Have you been staying with your cousin, Joel?” he asks.

“Yes, why?” he asks, I guess not wanting to assume anything.

“Your mother says you’re a) a minor, b) they kidn*pped you, and c) are abusing you,” he explains.

Jamie looked annoyed and worried.

“I’m seventeen, if you want proof there’s my ID,” he states holding up his ID showing his birthdate and clearly stating he’s seventeen or older. “I also left because I came out and they didn’t accept me and wanted me to break up with Sam. And they haven’t laid a hand on me since I started living with them,” he states this clearly with a steady gaze.

I hoped this would be the end of it.

Officer Kingsley takes Jamie’s ID and studies it probably to make sure it was authentic since Charlotte had lied about him being a minor to him.

“I can vouch for that, too,” Sam replies, looking worried at the officer, too.

“Jamie, follow me,” Kingsley states handing Jamie his ID back. He leads him about ten feet away, out of earshot, and talks to him.

Jamie looks more annoyed at this but complies. He answers Kingsley’s questions with mild politeness, honestly, he probably just wanted to go get food and enjoy his time with Sam but Charlotte just had to ruin it.

“Okay, if you have any concerns though here’s my card,” he finishes by holding up the card with the local police department and their number and his own number.

Jamie nods and takes the card, just to get it over and done with at this point.

“Everything seems fine here,” Kingsley finally states.

I was relieved, to say the least.

Jamie and Sam say goodbye to me and go off to have their lunch. I and Kingsley get back in the squad car and are driven back to my house.

When we arrive, we saw Charlotte sitting on my front steps cuffed with Officer Miles behind her. Her cheeks have turned red in either the cold outside or embarrassment.

“What happened?” I asked.

This was when Charlotte blew a gasket.

“You know what happened, you took my son, locked him up in your house,” a lie as the police officers had seen and she knew as she had been to the school last week as already stated, “and are hurting him. You’re also exposing him to your sins and poisoning him.”

How this last line was supposed to help her case I have no idea.

“Your child is over the legal age and can choose to live wherever he wants. From what I can see he is neither being held against his will nor being hurt by these nice young men,” Kingsley explains to her.

“You haven’t even seen him!” she exclaims.

Where did she think we’d come from? Space?

“We were just at his school, he looks and acts perfectly healthy. You should take a pointer or two from them. You’re supposed to love your child regardless of who they love and we could also charge you for not providing the necessities of life for him as he is still supposed to be under your care and you kicked him out depriving him of shelter and food at the very least. Either leave right now or we're taking you down to the station,” Kingsley exclaims.

Charlotte wasn’t having any of this regardless of the proof the officers had seen.

“I’m calling my husband, he’ll have your head,” she growls.

I guess Miles took this as a threat and it might have been, who knows?

He drags the woman up by her wrists, not harshly but enough to hurt her, and starts to drag her towards the squad car.

“Let me go!” she exclaims.

Joel is standing in the doorway looking a little shaken from the encounter.

“We gave you an out, you didn’t take it so now we’re taking you to the station,” Miles explains.

“They’re the ones who took my son and broke the law, you should be arresting them!” she exclaims.

“As we’ve already told you, ma’am, they have done nothing wrong,” Kingsley restates.

“So sorry for disturbing your morning. Have a good day, folks.”

“Wait,” I called.

I pulled out our lawyer’s card and handed it to Kingsley, “If she wishes to talk to us in the future, she can go through our lawyer,” I continue a little bit sadistically I might add.

“Right,” he replies taking the card and helping Miles get Charlotte into the squad car. They lock her in the back before getting in the front and driving off.

Things had gone quite well all things considered, although I did regret leaving Joel at the house. I go inside to find Joel on the couch.

“You okay?” I asked kneeling in front of him.

He looks a little shaken but fine physically.

“I have a headache,” he mutters quietly touching his forehead. “Can you get me the Advil?”

“Sure,” I replied getting up to retrieve the medication from one of the kitchen cabinets along with a glass of water for him.

I bring them back into the living room and set them down on the side table for him. He picks up the Advil, puts it in his mouth, and swallows it with the water. He sets the glass back on the table once he’s swallowed the Advil and rests his head on my lap.

I run my hand through his hair and feel the scars lining his head. They’re still visible through his hair.

I realized something else then. If we had been keeping Jamie locked up in our house, wouldn’t the school have been calling Charlotte to say he was missing classes? He’d only missed one day of classes on the first day he’d come over here. There was so much fabrication in her story it was ridiculous.

“Do you still want to have dinner with the neighbours?” I ask quietly.

“Yeah, it’ll be nice to get out of the house for a while and to get my mind off all this,” he replies looking up at me.

“Are you sure?” I ask Joel.

“Yeah,” he replies smiling at me and reaching up to touch my cheek.

“I was thinking about taking out a restraining order on her, but I don’t know if Jamie would want that,” he continues.

“How did she even find us?” I ask.

“Maybe her husband looked up our address? I wouldn’t put it past him,” Joel answers.

I wouldn’t either. Considering Charlotte was willing to lie to the police to get her way, I wouldn’t put it past her or her family to abuse their power, too.

“We don’t have to worry about it anymore. She has to talk to our lawyer now,” I reassure him.

He nods, lying there quietly.

I sometimes wondered why Joel got sick and not someone else in his family. Joel didn’t contemplate it too much since he had bigger things to worry about, like fighting the sickness. I wondered, since Joel used to believe in God’s whole plan and stuff what his plan was supposed to be in this case. Was losing Joel supposed to be some lesson for his parents or some punishment for us for not following God’s rules or plan, seeing as we were supposed to have free will or whatever?

I hoped it was a lesson, at least they would learn when Joel was gone then and it wouldn’t be pointless because I wasn’t going to change for some holy being I didn’t believe in and had never seen any proof for and I knew Joel and my family wouldn’t want me to, either.

The time passes, Joel skips lunch thanks to the stress his stomach was now back to being nauseous. At 3:30 pm we go across the street to see if Alexandria needed help making dinner.

Joel sits at the kitchen table still not feeling great but better than he did a few hours ago and insisting he can eat normal food.

“I can make you soup, it’s no trouble,” Alexandria offers.

“No, I’m fine, really,” he replies eyeing me.

Troye and Nial arrive fifteen minutes later from school. Troye seems a little more comfortable this time and Nial is back to talking to Joel.

“My next-door neighbour said the police were here earlier, she said they took a woman away. Do you know what happened?” she asked.

I wasn’t sure if her neighbour had specified that they were at our house and she knew that or that they had just been around and she didn’t know we were the reason.

Joel stays quiet, probably not wanting to get into it again.

I just shrug. I think Alexandria gets the hint as I stir the dinner mindlessly round and round.

“Is everything okay?” she asks more quietly to me.

I glance at Joel and he shrugs, he probably didn’t want to be the one to say anything in case she disapproved of him choosing me over his family or something. Joel knew where he stood but hearing it was wrong from other people didn’t make it any better for anyone.

“Joel’s family, they aren’t the most…accepting people,” I hesitated. “I’ve tried everything, they think our relationship is a sin, they blame me for Joel being sick. Jamie likes guys, he tried to tell his parents, but the same thing happened so he left. Now his mother is threatening us with k********g, and abuse and she thinks we're infecting him with bad morals and all that. She was the one they arrested and took away.”

“I was wondering why not a lot of people seem to visit him at the house despite his health, I thought his family would want to spend as much time with him as possible. Do they really think if you two broke up he would magically get better?” she questions.

“I don’t know how they buy into that crap either,” Joel mutters quietly.

Joel was religious but he obviously hadn’t bought into everything his family had. If he had he would have pushed his feelings for me down, acted straight, found a nice girl, and attempted to be happy with her.

“Joel,” I warned him about his language.

I know the kids had probably heard worse but still.

“He’s right, though. It’s one thing to have faith and another to use it to impose it on others and use it as a threat or means of control,” she agrees quietly. “Are they really going to miss out on their last year with you because you love Luka?” she asks.

“They’ve missed out on the last eleven years of my life, why would now be any different?” he questions.

“Did they tolerate it at any point?” she asks.

“The first two years we were dating. They thought he was going through the typical phase and he’d “get over it,” I reply. “But he was a minor for one of those years so he couldn’t exactly be kicked out then or I don’t know maybe they were hoping he’d change still when he went off to college or something.”

“It didn’t happen, I knew it wouldn’t. I couldn’t live a lie anymore so I choose Luka. I made him happy and he made me happy, I know that’s all that should matter but it still hurt,” Joel replies, quietly.

“It should hurt, what they did is stupid. I can’t imagine choosing my faith over my children, especially if one was dying. You are who you are and you love who you love and no one should expect you to change that for any reason,” she exclaims.

“Doesn’t God love us no matter what?” Troye asks suddenly.

I didn’t think he was listening, it wasn’t the most thrilling conversation.

“If God loves you, your parents should love you,” the kid exclaims.

This kid had better value than some adults, (namely Joel’s family) four or five times his age.

“That’s right, Troye. He does love you no matter what. They're obviously lost,” she replies looking embarrassed but happy.

Dinner is ready by 4:30 pm and the five of us sit down to eat together.

Joel manages to eat the food and keep it down despite his headache and stomach flips.

We stay for a few more hours until 6:30 pm before going home. When we get home, we find a note from Jamie that says he and Sam went to a movie to get their minds off of what happened with Charlotte and that they’ll be back around 7:30 pm. I and Joel go upstairs to our bedroom and turn on the TV. We settle in and find our own movie to watch. We hear the front door at 7:45 pm. It unlocks, opens and relocks. We hear a set of footsteps on the stairs and they go into the spare bedroom. Jamie is back safely.

Hopefully, we can get through the rest of the week without any incidents involving Joel’s family.