He Changed Me (BoyxBoy)

Chapter Fourteen

            I lost him. He’s no longer the person he was when I saw him that first of class, a week after that, and a week ago. All he does is work, sleep, barely eat, and study. No matter how hard I try to talk to him I can’t get through. He still refuses to go see his sister. He doesn’t think he can live with the pain of seeing her in a vegetative state. He said he needed time before he even thinks about seeing her. From what Hunter said their father, Vince, visit Amelia and his wife from time to time. He also told me that he doesn’t blame Seth because if he was home he wasn’t sure if he could see her.

            When he called to apologize to Seth all Seth said was, “Okay” then he spoke to him for a few seconds and hung up. As I was waiting for one of my parents to call I opened Photo Booth and decided to talk to my camera as part of the assignment.

            “Travis here,” I stared. “I’m worried about Seth. He’s uh—he’s going through a tough time and I thought when he opened up to me he would trust me to help him but instead he has completely shut down. His hair is all messy and he stopped shaving again. I’m not even sure if he knows how to articulate a proper sentence anymore. Everything he says is all mumbled. I don’t know what to do. I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. I just want to help him. That’s it for now, I guess.” I sighed and stared at my image on the screen. I looked like crap. With another sigh, I moved the cursor and clicked the box in the circle that would end my video.

            I wondered aimlessly on the Internet until Skype started ringing. I answered the call and waited to see which of parents face appeared. Turns out it was my dad.

            “Travis? You look like shit,” said the man who’s not fund of swearing.

            “Thanks, dad,” I mumbled, rolling my eyes.

            “How’s the boyfriend? He asked, smirking.

            “Dad,” I groaned. “Not the time for your teasing”

            “What’s going on?”

            “He told me why he left.”

            “Oh?”

            “Yeah. It’s horrible. There was an accident with his mom and sister. His mom had mental breakdown, basically and tried to run her car off of the bridge—”

            “But it collided with a trunk instead. It was all over the news, Travis”

            “Are you serious? Now I feel like shit. Fuck!” I said exasperated. All this time I was fucking moping around so caught up in my feelings and didn’t even know what was going on around me.

            “Travis, don’t beat yourself up. The past is the past and there’s nothing you can do to change it”

            “You’re right.” I sighed. “I just don’t know what to do”

            “When your mom’s parents kicked her out because she was pregnant with your brother and mine cut me off, she became someone I didn’t recognize anymore. I’m not telling you to do this but I dumped her in a bath of water—”

            “And you’re alive to tell this?” I questioned dubiously. I love my mom with all my heart but that woman is crazy.

            “I can’t believe it myself,” my dad said. He really looked like he couldn’t believe it. “Anyways, that woke her up and I just simply asked her to go for a walk and she opened up to me. Things didn’t get better for us but I was able to be there for her—for each other, and work through the difficulties. Again, I’m not saying you should dump him in a bath of water but maybe he just needs a little push”