There's A Place For Us

Chapter 7: Hugo

I slept in his room that night because I felt like Seth would somehow find me and punish me for telling them what he’d done to me. I was glad Timothy knew, I wasn’t alone in the dark anymore and somebody believed me. I wanted to be closer but I didn’t know how Timothy felt about any of this. I still couldn’t pick up on what he was and his room wasn’t helping me. He had movie posters up but they were from a variety of genres, the books were throwing me off, too.

I started pretending to roll over in my sleep to see if I could get a sense but he never moved away, I wasn’t sure if he was a heavy sleeper, was comfortable with or he was just accepting it. Maybe he thought he couldn’t kick me out now because it would be rude.

His parents called a lot, I think they thought something was up after his large spending spree for clothes for me, I think they were more worried because he was giving a legitimate reason as to why he’d purchased the clothing. I was worried I’d get him in trouble or that his parents would just show up at the apartment, they sounded like the kind of people to plan surprise visits when they were worried. How was Timothy going to explain me then? Timothy barely passed as an adult there was no way I did. They’d know something was up.

Honestly, I didn’t want to go back into foster care. All that was waiting there was a long talk, punishments from the people who’d thought I’d run away and was a bad kid. People who thought this was all my fault and not Seth’s. I hadn’t even wanted to move from the last home before Seth. But it was too crowded and the foster parents had chosen the younger kids over me. Seth had obviously worked for years to gain their trust, once he had it and was always the picture-perfect, 4.0 GPA student who would do no wrong, could do no wrong, he started breaking the rules because he was already perfect and had their trust. I had nothing, as always. No reason for them to trust me, no secure form of schooling, no home.

At least with Timothy, I had something. A place, I don’t know if I had his trust but maybe that would come with time, as it was supposed to.

I don’t know why Seth’s parents thought I had any reason to lie, it wasn’t as if I could benefit by getting him kicked out because I couldn’t get him kicked out, he was adopted, it is hard to go back on an adoption. I was warning them. Maybe they kept them because they knew. They thought if they sent him anywhere else he’d hurt more people at least here they dictated what and who because he was under their roof. It didn’t stop him from hurting me though. If they had wanted that why hadn’t they called CPS back and told them to find another place for me rather than kicking me out?

Who knows anymore? Why did I care? I wasn’t there anymore, I wasn’t going back, I was with Timothy now and that was where I was staying.

I liked sleeping next to another person, I remember sleeping in my parents’ bed when I was little, I remember they started saying when I was five I needed to sleep in my own bed. I always found sleeping in my own bed cold. When I was out on the street in a sleeping bag it was worse. I would wrap myself up as tightly as possible and try to keep my own warmth in but in the middle of winter, while surrounded by snow, it wasn’t easy.

I heard Timothy the next morning, his alarm, his stumble out of bed to the shower. Was he going to leave me here? I didn’t have key privileges yet. I decided to get up and prepare to go out so he could lock the door and not worry about me leaving it unlocked.

“I’ll be home late, tonight, so I’ll just leave the key with you. You can go somewhere if you want just make sure you lock the door, tomorrow I’ll go get a copy made for you, okay?” he informs me coming out of the bathroom dressed with wet hair.

“Are you sure?” I ask.

“You haven’t stolen anything, and what are you honestly going to do with it, you can’t pawn it off because I can just report and the cops will find it. I don’t think you’re the type honestly either,” he continues.

Maybe he did trust me. I wanted to trust him, too. I wanted to trust him and like him. I wanted so many things that were probably impossible.

“I’ll see you tonight, okay?” he replied before he left.

“Yeah, see you,” I replied.

He left and I just stared at the keys. I was afraid to leave. What if I left and his place got robbed despite me locking the door? Would he blame me for not being here? He said I could leave, as long as I locked the door. Honestly, I didn’t want to leave, I wanted to know if we could be anything. But looking through his personal things was…wrong. What was I going to do with it once I knew? Tell him? What if I had flashbacks to Seth? He didn’t need this burden.

He said I wasn’t a burden but I felt like one to all the foster parents I was dropped with because none of them ended up adopting me, I wasn’t a Seth, I couldn’t hide what I was. I wasn’t good at providing hope that I’d be more.

I never told anyone I wanted to be a soldier aside from Timothy. I always thought people would want more from me. College or university degree, a high-paying job, a family. But I wanted to fight for people who needed help. I wanted to give hope to those who had little hope, give them a second chance to make something of their lives.

I walked around Timothy’s room, not touching anything, just inspecting it all on a surface level. I looked at the books, the posters, the trinkets. I discovered a camera on his dresser. It was covered and dust and looked unused. It was a nice camera, one of the ones who would be given to use in photography class, where you could choose the settings. I laid back on the bed but on Timothy’s side and I felt a lump under the mattress. I knelt beside the bed and hesitated before lifting the mattress up. There lay a book, a diary actually as it was stated on the cover. Timothy’s diary. This might be able to tell me, but I didn’t have any right to read it, to invade his privacy.

I laid the mattress back in place and sat beside the bed. I had confided in him, trusted him, I couldn’t do that and then break his trust. It was supposed to go both ways, I wouldn’t want anyone to force me to tell them what happened because it hurt, maybe what he felt hurt him, too.

I got up and grabbed the apartment key off the living room table, I got dressed in the new warmer clothing Timothy had bought me and went out, remembering to lock the door behind me. I was in a completely different part of town, a more residential area, with townhouses, apartment buildings and smaller businesses lining the streets. The morning rush was still going on, people rushing to get their morning meals and get to work. The teenagers getting their coffee before school, I wish I had as little to worry about as homework and whether I got my morning coffee or not.

Many of the businesses here had no loitering signs out front so it would hard to beg for money here without getting the police called on me. I walked around and ended up by my old high school, I hadn’t realized how close Timothy lived to it. Images of Seth flashed across my mind and even though he no longer went here I didn’t stick around for long. I didn’t want to risk anyone recognizing me and calling CPS on me either. I had avoided them and the foster care system for so long, I wasn’t going back. I wanted to be the one who fell through the cracks and stayed gone until I aged out and could make my own choices about where I went. I was doing fine, I was surviving and I was determined to make it to my eighteenth birthday with little help.

I walked back towards Timothy’s apartment and went back inside where it was nice and warm. As soon as I got inside the snow started falling again, blanketing the ground in white. Outside Timothy’s window, gray footprints appeared from the traveling people below. I ate some food which I still felt wasn’t mine so it was a small amount. The day melted away into the evening and Timothy got home at around ten. I was on the couch watching TV since I figured Timothy would want his bed since it had been a long day, and he hadn’t felt well yesterday. He dropped everything as soon as he got in the door, removed his shoes and laid on the other couch obviously tired. I found it cute.

“I swear I failed that test,” he mutters burying his head in the pillow.

His blond hair getting messed up.

“You’ll do better next time,” I comment.

“I don’t want there to be a next time, I hate university,” he mumbles into the pillow before rolling over. “I don’t want to sound ungrateful.”

“School’s not for everyone. It’s not like you’re completely abusing it. You’re trying, you didn’t fail intentionally,” I continue. “You could drop out, lots of people do it.”

“My parents would kill me, I’ve already worried them enough. I don’t know what I would do either,” he replies.

“Figure out what you want to do with your life. It’s your life but many people don’t act like it’s theirs. They go to school because they have to. Stay in the same place for others and not for themselves. I understand there are circumstances, but you don’t deserve misery. I believe improvement also comes when you enjoy what it is you are doing,” I explain glancing over at him.

“They say I need something that will pay me good money, but I’m at a loss for something that’ll do that and that I’ll enjoy doing,” he continued.

“Like I said, you need to take some time and find what it is. You need to spend some time with yourself and find what you love, you may have to take classes to do it, you may not. But you need to get away from the outside influences,” I continue. “Are you taking classes you’re interested in right now?”

“No, I got into Open Studies late, I took whatever had space,” Timothy answered.

“Are the classes next semester different?” I question sitting up.

“Some of them are, but I wish I’d waited to pick them, I could still change them but I don’t know what else I’d take,” he answers.

“You need a break. You’ve been going without stopping to think about what you’re actually doing or whether you even want it,” I repeat.

“I can’t just stop. Not without a plan,” he reasons again.

“That’s why you’re here because you had no plan going into this. Other people said they wanted you to or you had to so you threw yourself into it. You’re wasting money when you don’t know what you want to do and you hate all your classes,” I try.

“I can’t quit, Hugo,” he snaps getting up and going into his bedroom slamming the door behind him.

Had I done it? Was I going to get kicked out? I was telling him what I thought. I had gone through the regular school hating certain classes and vowing once I got out of the regular school system and it wasn’t necessary for me to take them that I wouldn’t. I still thought he needed to find what he wanted, what did he want to do, not what did his parents want him to do or what did he think would make him the most money.

You don’t go through college or university to get an education in something you hate, that’s what elementary through high school was for. To give you the basics so you could do anything and choose what you liked or wanted to do.

I laid back on the couch unsure what more I could do for Timothy. I decided to leave, even if he wasn’t kicking me out now, I’m sure he would. I got dressed, hung Timothy’s key back on the hook by the front door so he could easily find it and packed up all my clothes, new and old. I opened the door and hesitated looking around the place that had been home for the past four and a half days before closing the door. Closing another chapter of my life.