ODDS OF LOVE

Episode Three

                       Spencer : The Past

Trigger Warning : Attempted Suicide

Thirteen year old Spencer Norland woke up on his birthday morning with a pounding rain hitting the windows and an IV embedded in his slim arm as he reclined on a narrow hospital bed. 

It hurt.

Something went wrong.

Really really wrong.

He had researched all his viable options in the Arlington library and even borrowed his Aunt Samantha's nursing textbooks. He studiously reviewed and studied drugs , dosages , interactions , everything. He had prepared so carefully. With all the sleeping pills and Valium he had found in his mother's bathroom medicine cabinet there was no way he should still be alive. None. The housekeeper Rosita kept calling it a miracle from God and kept crossing herself while murmuring prayers in both Spanish and English as the two paramedics had rolled him out of the mansion on a stretcher. That was all his very befuddled mind  could remember. 

Why was he still alive ? 

Why ? What had he possibly done wrong ? What were the odds of his still being alive after all his hard work ?

He eased himself into a sitting position gingerly just as his mother entered the private hospital room at University of Virginia Health University Medical Center. Doris glared at her son , her arms crossed strongly across her flat silk dress clad chest. Spencer blanched to the shade of spoiled cottage cheese and begged silently his fickle heart to just stop beating right then. 

" How dare you embarrass the Van Buren name , young man ? I swear you are really showing your sperm donor father's common middle class blood. 

                                         DuBuis : The Past

Thirteen year old DuBuis Lane slipped away from his birthday party that still continued on without him within his family's crowded with relations and friends two bedroom apartment at Project W. He had a bad headache and wanted to rest or nap or something but since he slept in the living room on the sofa bed and the space was currently occupied by the enormous polyester slacked behinds of his three aunties Flo , Vera and Josie that was looking impossible at the moment. The old people were too busy eating his Mama and MeeMaw's cooking and playing spades and drinking the Hennessy his Uncle RoyBoy had brung over on the secret. 

He never had any privacy , he thought as he steadily crept onto the tenement rooftop. This roof was the only dang place he could be alone. 

On the roof there was no Mama with her ever worried eyes fussing over why he wasn't eating enough , why he wasn't studying enough , why he had missed bible study at church. 

No little pesky sisters trailing him asking one million billion questions with their large brown eyes that thought he could solve all their problems. Especially Faith. 

If his sisters only knew , he laughed sullenly. He couldn't even solve his own issues. Like the thoughts that invaded his head every night he tried to sleep. Like the wet spots he woke up in every morning. Like the forbidden magazines he kept hidden away in his battered old bookbag. The ones that didn't contain pictures of butt ass naked girls in them. These ones had pictures of men. Men with hard bodies and big dicks. The ones he jacked off to after locking the bathroom door at night. 

He liked blond slim guys the best. 

God. He missed Pop. What would Pop think though about him ? What would Mama think ? Mama with her big ole gold cross and beloved old family bible. 

" Pop , " he whispered as he looked out over the roof top edge down to where a couple of corner boys in baggy jeans that showed their boxers and basketball jerseys and backwards hats were peddling their wares to a big SUV full of White college boys that were hooting and hollering so loud he could hear their idiot asses all the way up there on the roof. He knew the corner boys worked for his uncles. Of course they worked for his uncles. Every teenaged boy at Project W worked for his uncles. Except for him. His mama forbid it. And his uncles wouldn't allow it. They said he was going to college. Not jail or the graveyard. " Pop. I gotta tell you something big. I.... I ... I like men. I'm what Uncle RoyBoy calls funny. But I'm not funny , am I ? I'm a man. Thirteen today. I'm a man. Like you. "

The SUV was quickly replaced by a White lady in a Mercedes Benz. Busy night. Wasn't it always ? 

" I just like men. A lot. A whole lot. Is that ok , Pop ? " 

Author's Note : If you are feeling as low as Spencer realize there is help out there and that people do love and care for you out there. If you reach this low point ever please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800- 273- 8255. Peace and soft hugs to all. Thank you for reading the story. More to come !