In My Hour of Need

Chapter 25

The laughter, oh the laughter. It sunk deeper and deeper into my skin. I couldn't take it anymore. If it was one thing I couldn't handle, it was being humiliated and laughed at. I sat at the floor, behind the table James was standing at. "Come on, Dave!", I heard James yell, "Wherever you are, come up here so we can see your red face when we laugh at you!" I was seconds away from starting to cry, and I never cry. I could feel the tears forming; I was trying to stop them, but failed miserably. Soon, I saw Junior hurrying around the room. Nobody had said anything about him; why was he hurrying? He stopped when his eyes met mine. Running towards me, he quickly looked to his sides to see if anybody had spotted him. "Dave!", he whisper-yelled, "Let's get outta here". I nodded. He grabbed my arm and started running.

We made it to the lobby without anyone following us. I was so embarrassed. Now everybody knew I was gay, and whoever passed could just take a look at my face and see that I had been crying. "How did Jason even find out?", I asked, wiping one of my eyes. "Uh...", Junior stuttered, "I might have something to do with that..." He avoided eye-contact with me. "Junior", I said, "You didn't tell him did you? Did you? Why would you do that!?" I freaked out. "I'm sorry!", he yelled, "It slipped out of me!" My jaw dropped. "It slipped out of you!? 'Oh, Jason, I love Metallica so much, and I'm gay! Whoops!' It's not something that just comes naturally into a conversation, you know!", I yelled back at him. "No, it's not like that!", Junior replied, "He was talking about his girlfriend, and he asked me if I had one, and I accidentally said I was gay... And when he asked who I was dating, I didn't feel like lying to his face..." I hid my face in my hand. "Oh dear god", I mumbled. "But why is it so bad?", Junior asked, "You're not ashamed, right?" I sighed. I was ashamed. Not ashamed of dating Junior, but ashamed of myself, for letting this happen. It's not like I wasn't happy it happened, but it was so strange, and being gay wasn't really accepted in our community. Besides, by the time Metallica's next interview was over, the world would know that Dave Mustaine was gay for David Ellefson. "No, I'm not ashamed", I said, "I just don't want everybody to know, and I still can't believe you thought Jason was a safe secret-keeper". He sighed. "Sorry". I looked at him. "No, it's OK", I said, "You couldn't have known". I opened my arms to him, and we hugged. As we stood there, I could hear people coming behind us. "Oh my god, someone take a picture!" I grabbed Junior's arm. "Run".

We didn't stop until we were back at our hotel. Panting, we went into our room. "You alright?", I asked Junior. "Yeah", he replied, "You?" "Yeah". I dumped down on the bed. "I feel so exhausted", I sighed, "I guess we have to tell Chuck and Jeff tomorrow instead". Junior pulled his sweaty shirt off. "Yeah", he answered, "Wait, what? You still think it's a good idea to tell them?" I sat up. "Well, yeah", I said, "They're still our friends and bandmates, they deserve to know". He sighed. "Right". I gestured him to sit next to me on the bed. "Come here", I said. He smiled at me, and sat down. "So, tomorrow then?", he asked, just to be sure. "Yeah", I said, "Even though I wish we didn't have to". He looked at me. "What?", he asked, "What do you mean by that? You're still ashamed, aren't you?" How could he get that out of what I said? "Wha- uh... no", I stuttered. "Yeah, you are!", he protested. Goddamnit. I sighed. "Let me explain to you in as simple terms as I can", I said, "I'm not ashamed of dating you; I'm ashamed of myself for letting it happen". He looked at me with that confused face of his, that meant that he was either mad, or... yeah, definitely mad. "Dave, that means that you're ashamed of us, which again means that you're ashamed of me", he said. Why, why did we need to have this conversation? "No", I said, "It doesn't. Junior, I'm not ashamed of you, just don't worry about it, OK? I love you, right?" He smiled at me. "Right. I love you too".