Safety in Ink (boyxboy)

Chapter One

(Picture of Jayden - Jay)

Chapter One

Dear Jay,

I know it's been a while since we have talked to each other, but I wanted to write you this. It was hard leaving you that day. I had wished even hoped, sometimes, that you would come after me and stop me, so that I did not have to leave you. To convince my family that leaving was the wrong thing to do. But I know that would have been impossible... It is hard to change things that are already set in stone. Here I am writing you know though, with news of returning back home to California. I can't even begin to describe how excited I am to see you once again, as well as everyone else that I had left...

That's where I stopped reading the letter... I don't know how many times I just wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, and rip up this piece of paper into thousands of little pieces of nothing. I never wanted it to even exist, but I could not do it. Whatever I did, I could not bring myself to rip it up. Why? Because it was Anthony. He was coming back home. After five long years he was coming home. I had received this letter in the mail a couple week ago, my parents don't even know about it yet. The letter had not told me when, exactly, he was supposed to be moving back. This was all I got, as well as an email from him, giving me his number.

I had already written his number down, planning on calling him the day I had received that email, but then as soon as I was about to call him I had flashbacks of that day he left me. I was crushed and heartbroken. And now he thinks he can just come back and everything would be okay? I could not bring myself to do it. It had been forever since I had heard his voice. When he moved away he had never called me, never kept in contact with me, it was as if I had actually forgotten about him -- just like he wanted.

Eventually, I decided that I was going to call him. As much as I did not want to relive that day he left me, I desperately wanted to hear his voice again. I dialed the number into my phone, and it ringed a couple times before someone answered. "Hello?" I tensed up at the voice on the other side because I did not recognize it. My heart started pounding inside my chest. Was this Anthony?

"Anthony?" I said slowly, making sure that this was him.

"Yeah," The reply came hesitant, and my heart sunk and rose again, all at the same time. "Who is this?" I waited a couple moments, breathing in and out slowly. It really was him. "Hello?" The voice came again cautiously, wondering who was on the other side.

"It's Jayden" I spoke finally, and then was greeted with silence, the phone crackling from the connection. That was the only sound that filled the void until there was, what sounded like, soft sobs. My heart raced faster in my chest, "What--" I began to speak then I was cut off immediately.

"I thought-I thought I was never going to hear from you," His voice wavered as he spoke, and the more he spoke the more I could hear the hints of his old voice coming back to me... "I never got a reply to either my letter or email, and then when you never called... I just figured that you had forgotten about me." I bit down on my lower lip nervously, but he could not see me. He could not see just how much he was affecting me just from over the phone. I could not even begin to imagine what would have happened if he had showed up randomly on my doorstep.

"I—uh, was busy," I lied. No, I was a coward.

"I see..." He said and tried breathing, "I leave for California in a couple weeks. We were supposed to leave in these next couple days, but father is busy, and mother is frantically trying to pack all our shit up..."