There's A Place For Us

Chapter 15:Hugo

He wanted to marry me. I’d never thought about it. Getting married. The idea seemed arbitrary, crazy or insane but it was what people did. It was cute, and now that I thought about it, it was what I wanted. I wanted to be with him, mind, heart, and soul. But it was insane right now, which made sense. He said he’d wait and that made sense, too. We had time. We sat together, in each other’s arms, maybe we were holding that moment and maybe we were holding the future of what could be. Maybe we were holding happiness and maybe we were holding sadness, about what could and couldn’t be.

“I’m going to cancel my classes tomorrow,” Timothy said quietly.

“When are you moving back to Hampton?” I ask concerned.

“Not until I’m sure you have another, safe place to stay or unless you’re coming with me,” he reassures me. “I promise you’re not spending another night on the street, okay?”

I nod quickly, of course, he wouldn’t leave without making sure I was safe. That was the kind of person he was. He wasn’t anything like Seth, but I had to keep telling myself that, I guess I never noticed how much damage Seth had done until I wanted to be with someone. Sure, I had nightmares and I was vigilant about trusting others but I never noticed how much I restrained myself from the people I did trust and like until I met Timothy.

He also restrained himself from me to make sure I felt safe in his presence and I knew I was, it was my mind that said otherwise. It kept whispering in my ear telling me he’d hurt me eventually like Seth did and then it would be my own fault because I trusted him. I stayed around, I let him house me, feed me, clothe me, and I told him things I’d never said to anyone, it would be like when your best friend betrayed you. I was waiting for the shoe to drop, like it did before. Multiple shoes had been dropped on my life, my parents’ deaths, the moving of foster families, and the incident with Seth, everything couldn’t go right after just meeting Timothy, he wasn’t a guardian angel. Those didn’t actually exist.

Timothy was human, that was what he was. In all retrospect, I didn’t know if I believed every one of us is or was. I didn’t understand where Seth was coming from, where or why he felt it was right to do what he had done and was doing to others. He hadn’t even apologized after. It was like he felt no guilt or regret and that was made evident by the fact that he’d gone and done it again and again. I didn’t understand where serial killers or murderers, or other rapists who didn’t see the wrong or apologize for what they did were coming from. Maybe it was because I was human, too, that I didn’t understand them. Maybe they weren’t human in the emotional sense. Maybe I’d have to learn to live with not understanding because I wasn’t them either.

I was glad I wasn’t them, if I had a wake-up call one day, I wouldn’t know how to live with myself, after having done that to someone, and not just someone but someone underage. The repercussions that had on someone young like me, I hadn’t even had my first kiss back then, and he bypassed that all the way to fourth base with no consent.

“You okay?” Timothy asks.

I brush one of his curls out of the way and study his bright blue eyes. The sincerity reflected in them, the concern embedded in their pupils and irises. Seth’s eyes were nothing like them, they were dark, stark, and dead. Timothy was a butterfly, brightly-coloured and diurnal and Seth was a dull, plain-coloured moth fluttering in the dark of the night. I had a place in Timothy’s heart and life and no place in Seth’s.

I brushed a finger along his jawline, feeling the blond stubble prick my fingertip.

“Hugo?” he questions searching my face.

“I am,” I answer quietly smiling.

“You sure?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I reply.

“Good,” he murmurs.

“Are you an only child?” I ask suddenly.

I guess I just wanted to know what to expect back in Hampton. I wanted to adjust or be ready to adjust to change after living here all my life.

“Yes,” he replies quietly, studying me. “Maybe that’s another reason I want to follow their plan, I’m their only legacy. I feel like I need to make them proud. I should want to do that but not if it makes me miserable on the other hand.”

“How did you not figure all this out before you met me?” I ask jokingly.

“I needed to meet you to apply it to myself. People often have trouble taking their own advice,” he answers. “I’m also glad I didn’t, we both wouldn’t be here.”

He was right.

“What did you like to do when you were younger? Did you always want to be a soldier or was it just the only option after your parents died?” he asks leaning on caution mentioning my parents’ deaths.

“I want to be a doctor at first, like them, but after they died, I wanted something that wouldn’t have me rushing around and in danger of dying and leaving my family alone. Then, the incident with Seth happened and I wanted to be able to protect myself and others from experiencing something like that. Children should get childhoods, they deserve to learn and feel comfortable and only do that when they are ready and old enough to understand the repercussions something like that can have on themselves and whoever they are doing it with. It can seem like fun and feeling good at the time but in reality, it can be devastating, damaging, degrading, it can be so many things we didn’t think it would be,” I answer.

“Maybe that’s why they say to wait for marriage, by then you’ll know the person, trust them,” Timothy replies.

“That might be a bit much, but it’s a good concept,” I answer.

“So, if I wanted to wait until then, it would be a problem?” Timothy inquired with curiosity.

“No, but…what if we couldn’t afford a wedding? Or we think we’re ready for it before we get married?” I question.

“We don’t have to have a big wedding. A wedding can be as simple as going down to the courthouse and getting the papers signed, most people just like to make a big deal because it is a big deal and they like to invite their families so the courthouse isn’t exactly appropriate,” he reasons.

Now we were on the topic of weddings, again.

“Are you sure you want to be a soldier? There are other ways to protect people, you could be a social worker or a lawyer,” Timothy continues.

“Those require years of university and money I don’t have,” I remind him.

“Once you catch up in school, I could get you a simple job, retail or something, at I place I used to work or something, I’m sure they’d love to have you. You could save the money but if you still want to be a soldier I understand,” he continues.

“We’ll worry about it when we know, okay?” I reason.

I didn’t want to make plans and have hopes if the social worker thought Aunt Sam wasn’t a good fit or just happened to disapprove of her specifically.

“Of course,” he replies.

We end up sleeping in the bedroom together, and for the first time in a while, I don’t have a nightmare about Seth. My sleep is peaceful, dark and deep. Timothy’s alarm wakes me at 7:00 am to go to the university and cancel his classes. The office doesn’t open until 9:00 am but the train ride is an hour and a half and he doesn’t want to wait in line for long.

We eat breakfast together and we kiss goodbye at his apartment door. I watch him slip out. I start to worry he’ll run into Seth again. My brain eats away at the common-sense center. What if he becomes friends? What if he likes him?

This, of course, is irrational in the time he most likely will be gone for. But I still worry.