There's A Place For Us

Chapter 8:Timothy

The next morning, I woke up and Hugo was gone. I wasn’t mad anymore by then but I was filled with regret. Hugo had spent the night out in the cold. Not only was he just not there but everything was gone. All the clothes I’d bought him, his sleeping bag, the new bag I’d bought him to fit all of it in. Everything, was gone, like he’d never been there, to begin with. I wanted to go find him but I had class and I was still annoyed that he thought I could just quit school.

University was expensive and we were way past the date of canceling classes without something on my permanent record. My parents would drag me home as soon as they found out I wasn’t in classes, and it would be as simple as them calling the university.

How would I explain it? They’d want to know what my plan was, and I’d have no plan. At this point, the only thing I knew was that I liked Hugo and that wasn’t going to do anything for me. They didn’t even know Hugo existed. I didn’t even know if he liked me. He was concerned, that was obvious but that didn’t mean anything.

I only had one mid-morning class so I left early and arrived early. I kept an eye out for Hugo but the more I thought about it, unless he wanted to risk getting caught by the c-train security he would have stayed by my neighbourhood. It would be harder to find him there. I was distracted, as eccentric as my professor was this morning and as engaging as that could be, I couldn’t be bothered. After class, I went exploring the university grounds, really, I was making sure Hugo wasn’t there.

I hadn’t wanted him to leave. But I guess the last time someone got angry at him they’d wanted him to leave so he just made it easier for me and left of his own accord. I wanted him back, I had to find him. I checked the train station before getting on the train and taking it outbound toward my apartment. I checked the neighbourhoods around my apartment thoroughly. I prayed I’d find him.

I probably looked like a madman, walking down the street, checking all the alleys behind fenced yards. Finally, I gave in, and walked back toward my apartment. Now that I’d seen homelessness though, it was all around me. I wanted to stop and give every person I saw with a sign some change, but I didn’t have any on me. I let myself into my apartment building and climbed the stairs to the floor my apartment was on. I was hoping he’d be sitting outside my locked door but he wasn’t. I began to wonder if I’d ever see him again.

I went about my normal schedule, but the distracting weight stayed with me. I couldn’t focus enough to study and couldn’t find the textbooks interesting enough to stay engaged.

A week passed and life finally seemed to be returning to normal when a loud thumb came on the door of my apartment. I got up cautiously and went to the door to look through the peephole. I couldn’t see anything so I slowly unlocked the door, but before I could open it and look around Hugo burst through it. He was covered in sweat, was wet and looked sleep-deprived.

“Hugo?” I questioned.

He was trying to catch his breath. He looked up at me nervously.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

He dropped everything and sat in front of the door.

I walked closer and knelt down. I inspected him, he seemed fine physically, but something had spooked him.

“Seth,” he muttered.

“What?” I asked.

He’d never mentioned anyone by name. I had no idea who Seth was.

“Stay here,” I continued quietly.

I moved his bag near the couch, I came back and took his shoes and coat off him. His hair was a greasy mess.

“Breathe, breathe,” I whispered.

“You need a shower,” I continue.

I stood to go start the shower but he grabbed my wrist. I knelt back down.

“I promise I’m not going anywhere and he can’t get you here, okay?” I tell him.

He just nods his head and lets go of me. I go into the bathroom and start the shower. I pull a towel out for him. I go back to him with the towel. I kneel down again.

“Do you want anything to eat?” I ask.

“Yeah, sure, thank you,” he mutters whipping his forehead.

I hold the towel out to him as a peace offering for now. He takes it tentatively and looks up at me.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters. “For what I said, it was…childish.”

“You’re a teenager, you’re supposed to be childish, impulsive even,” I reply. “Go take a shower and if you want we can talk about what happened, okay?”

“Okay, okay,” he repeats trying to calm himself still.

He got up slowly and steadied himself with the wall. I stepped around him to lock the apartment door to ensure my word he was safe. I watched him go into the bathroom and then went to the kitchen to prepare him something to eat. I pulled out some pasta and filled a pot with water and set it to boil.

My phone started ringing. I looked at the caller ID, it was my mother. I stared at it deciding whether or not to answer. It was late, she wouldn’t call if it wasn’t necessary. I answered the phone and put it on speaker.

“Hi, Mom,” I answered pouring the pasta into the water to cook. “It’s late, what is it?”

“I just saw your grade,” she started.

She was talking about the test I’d taken last week before Hugo disappeared. I had just gotten the grade back today, I hadn’t wanted to think about it. I didn’t want to think about more now that Hugo was here.

“Mom, can we talk about this later? It’s late and I have a class in the morning. It wasn’t intentional, I am trying my best, it’s hard,” I respond.

“Life is hard, this is nothing. You don’t have kids or have to worry about expenses. All you have to do is get good grades at that university and graduate and get a good job. That’s all you have to worry about,” she exclaims.

“It’s not,” I mutter quietly.

“What did you say Timothy?” she questions. “Tim?”

“That’s not all I have to worry about!” I shout before hanging up.

I throw my phone onto the couch so it’s as far away from me as fast as possible without breaking it. I didn’t even want to cook the pasta anymore. I sit down on the kitchen floor. This past week there had been this weight over me and I didn’t know what it was. I heard the shower turn off. Hugo wasn’t troubling me, it was school, the grades, and my interests. I had been thinking about what Hugo said, as unrealistic as it was.

The door opened and Hugo stood in the doorway with wet hair.

“I thought I was supposed to be the one falling apart,” he commented. “What happened?”

“My mom saw that I failed my test,” I mumbled. “We don’t have to talk about it, it’s not important. What happened to you?”

“I saw him. Seth. The guy who…” he trailed off.

“Where? Did he see you?” I asked.

“They saw me. His parents, him. They were at the university,” he exclaims.

“Did they know it was you?” I question.

“They stared directly at me. They knew. They could call CPS. They know where I am now. I’ll go back to them or into the foster system. I don’t want to,” he stated calmly. “I knew if I stayed on the streets they’d find me. I didn’t know where else to go.”

“It’s fine, I didn’t say you had to leave. You could have stayed,” I replied.

“I figured you’d want me gone after yelling at me,” he answered.

“No, I would never do that,” I continued.

“I guess we still have a lot to figure out about each other,” he whispered taking a step closer.

“I think you’re burning the pasta,” he continues.

I got up quickly and looked into the pot. I grabbed the pot and the strainer and brought them over to the sink. I strained the pasta and inspected it for any burns.

“No, it’s fine,” I replied dumping the pasta onto a plate.

“Timothy,” Hugo starts.

I look over at him, his eyes are on the ground. “Hugo?”

He seems frozen and unsure.

“Thank you, for listening and for providing me with a place to stay, just…thanks, I guess,” he says, it wasn’t what I was expecting but I don’t know what I was expecting either.

“You’re welcome,” I responded quickly before he picked up on my disappointment.

Hugo ate the pasta and I retrieved my phone from the couch and set it to charge in my room. My Mom was blowing it up with concerned text messages. She was asking if I was okay, what was going on, and if she needed to come here.

She was so pushy about it. Hugo, like me, in the beginning, had offered a free pass, we didn’t have to talk if we didn’t want to and that made it easier because neither of us was expecting anything. It’s easier when there are no expectations to talk about the issues you are having, if there are expectations, you are worried about not meeting them or clouding someone else’s expectations of you by having the problems. People also tend to invalidate the problems, like my Mom just did by saying that they were nothing.

Being lost and unsure isn’t nothing. I’m supposed to be going towards something now that I’m in university. Right now, I was just taking classes. I wasn’t in a program, I wasn’t sure what program I wanted to go into. I didn’t even want to go to school, I had very little motivation. Hugo had more motivation to become a soldier than I did to finish my classes and he had little going for him.

I guess it was one of the only things going for him as well. If he didn’t think he could, why would he still be here? He believed he could be more even after everything. I wanted to help Hugo more, I feel like I should tell someone about Seth and what he’d done, especially if he’d done it more than once and was going to continue. If they wouldn’t believe a then fourteen-year-old boy who had no reason to lie and had experienced it, why would they believe the nineteen-year-old boy who wasn’t a victim and only knew one side of the story?

I wasn’t sure talking to Seth would be a good idea and I had no way of finding him to talk to him either. Hugo wasn’t going anywhere near the university for a while so it wasn’t like I could ask him to point Seth out if he saw him. I still didn’t have the full names of either of them so going to the police would be hard. There were probably hundreds of people called Seth going to the university so that wouldn’t help either.

“Hugo, what’s your last name?” I asked quietly just trying to seem curious.

It would be the one he had at birth since he was never adopted. I could look up his parents’ death records in the city hall if the death had been an automobile-related crime. He had said it was a car crash but not who or what caused it. I only needed one name and I figured it would be easier to get his than Seth’s. There would be documents on the families Hugo had been placed within his file.

He hesitated before speaking.

“Hades,” he answered.

Hades was the God of the underworld or the home of the dead. It was weird and interesting. With that last name, it wouldn’t be hard for the police to figure out who I was talking about. But now that I thought about it, maybe it was another one of the reasons Seth’s parents didn’t like Hugo even though he didn’t pick his last name or any of his names for that matter.

“That’s interesting,” I comment.

“That’s a better response than most people gave me when they heard. Normally, people would say ‘How is it in Hell?’” he replies.

“It’s late, we should rest. Where do you want to sleep?” I continue.

I’d missed having him next to me in bed. It was weird. I’d always slept alone but now it felt weird, too.

“It’s your bed. You should sleep in it,” he replies.

“You haven’t slept in a bed for two years aside from last Tuesday,” I add. “I don’t mind, the bed’s not going anywhere. It’s also quite big.”

He seemed nervous and embarrassed.

“We could just share again, so it’s fair and no one complains,” he replies timidly. “If you don’t mind.”

“No, it’s fine with me,” I replied looking away as if we had some secret agreement.

“You shouldn’t put books underneath the mattress they’re not comfortable to sleep on,” he continues.

The only book under my mattress was my diary.

“Did you read it?” I asked.

“Your diary? No, that would be invading your privacy. I trusted you and you didn’t judge me, why would I in return violate your privacy?” he answers.

I wish he had so he knew. So, he knew I was gay. It would be easier than me saying it. I knew telling the authorities was the right thing to do for Hugo, but I knew that in return I would be violating his trust and privacy. I had to try though. Hugo living here wasn’t a long-term solution and I needed to figure out what I was doing myself.