NaNoWriMo Day 2

Among the various cuts and bruises Yan sustained he also managed to get several broken bones, including his right arm and three ribs.  He remained in the hospital for three more days until he was finally discharged and had no choice but to go home.  The thought of going back to his apartment was somewhere between comforting and terrifying, though the thought of being alone was definitely on the terrifying side.  As it turned out however, Geri lived only two blocks away from him and promised that she would come by to check up on him as often as she could manage.  Yan looked forward to that.

Waving goodbye to the hospital staff that he had come to depend on for the better part of a week, Yan climbed into a cab and headed home.  He was wearing a set of hospital scrubs, having left the clothes he’d worn to the club at the hospital for disposal.  They were torn to shreds and covered in blood, and even if they hadn’t been he wouldn’t want to keep something with such a negative memory attached to them.  The scrubs weren’t stylish or pretty but they at least were comfortable and gave him a much needed sense of comfort.

“You okay back there?”  The cab driver asked as Yan stared absent mindedly out through the window.

“Hmm?  Oh, yes I guess so.  I’m just a little tired that’s all.”

“Yeah, you don’t look so good.”

Yan closed his eyes and smiled, holding back a remark about how the cab driver didn’t exactly look too hot himself.  He knew the man was just trying to be helpful and he couldn’t fault him for telling the truth.  Yan knew he looked horrible right now.

The cab stopped several moments later and the driver informed Yan that this was his stop.  Yan’s eyes snapped open and he apologized before reaching for his wallet.

“Nah, they paid for it back at the hospital,” he was told.

“Oh?  Who paid for it?  Is that standard practice?”

“I’ve never seen ‘em do it before, but one of the nurses did.  She must think your cute or something.”

“Thanks,” Yan half said, half laughed as he climbed out of the cab.  

He said goodbye to the driver and headed towards his apartment, climbing the stairs with some difficulty though thankfully managing to do so without calling out for help.  He wasn’t sure who would help him anyway but someone might, the neighbors were fairly friendly people.  After digging through his purse for his key he opened the door and sighed.

“This is the point where I wish I had a dog,” he said to himself.  “Or a cat, a cat would be good too.”

Yan turned on the light and walked slowly inside, nervously looking around as if there was a chance of being jumped inside his own apartment.  He peeked into his living room, ready to grab the nearest object in case he had to defend himself from some monstrous attacker.  However, as his hand touched the nearest object just in case he looked over and realized his first line of defense was the blown glass fish that his aunt had given him last Christmas.  It was then that he realized how ridiculous he was being and relinquished the fish, instead heading into his bedroom to put on some of his own clothes.  

“God if my father could see me right now he would kick the ever loving shit out of me,” he said out loud to himself.  “Of course if he were still alive he’d have kicked the shit out of me for being gay so I guess either way I’m screwed.  His son wasn’t going to be a sissy after all.”

After a bit of fuss with the cast on his arm and the pain in his ribs Yan managed to wiggle into his nightgown.  Once he was settled inside the soft pastel purple fabric he felt much more at ease.  

“Oh yeah, I’m not a sissy, no not in the slightest,” he mumbled, glancing down at himself.  “I wear dresses, I fuck guys… I get beaten up behind clubs for wearing dresses and fucking guys. Nope, there are no sissies here.”  

He rolled his eyes before grabbing his worn out teddy bear and heading into the kitchen.  He knew he was being too hard on himself but his father had been so sure that Yan was going to turn out to be a man’s man, which technically he had, but that wasn’t quite what his father had in mind.  In a way it was probably good that he died when Yan was just a little boy, as he had been saved the horrifying truth of his only son’s sexuality.

It happened when Yan was six.  He had been visiting his aunt Debbie, the same one for a taste in glass sea life when he remembered her answering the phone and turning deathly pale.  By the tone in her voice he knew something was wrong, and he stood by impatiently with his stuffed bear waiting to be told whatever horrifying news she had learned.  His heart had shattered when she turned her tearful eyes on him and informed him gently that both his parents had been in an accident.  Even at six Yan had a vague concept of death and he understood that he would never see his parents again.  After their talk he remembered his aunt’s phone ringing off the hook with people calling to console her on the loss of her sister, along with no doubt wanting to know the fate of the little boy she had been babysitting.  She had answered them at first but the tears of a heartbroken child were more important than whatever consolation her relatives had to offer, and she spent the night comforting Yan until he finally fell into a fitful sleep.  Soon afterwards she was awarded custody of him.

Yan had always loved his aunt Debbie, but it took some time for him to adjust to living with her permanently.  She was much more free spirited than his parents had been which in the end worked very much to his advantage.  When he first got the idea that he was gay at the young age of twelve Yan felt no shame asking his aunt about these strange feelings he was having towards the boy next door.

“Yan, sometimes boys just don’t like girls,” she had said.  “Sometimes boys like other boys.”

“But isn’t that wrong?  Boys are supposed to like girls.”

“Some people will tell you that, yes.  But we can’t change who we are, and if your heart tells you that you don’t like girls then you can’t make it start.  You can try all you like but in the end you’ll just be miserable.”

In retrospect Yan realized that though her words were true they were probably a little heavy for a twelve year old.  Still, he took them to heart and the next day he decided it was okay if he told his best friend Thomas that he wanted to kiss him.  Yan was promptly punched in the nose.  Suddenly Yan realized that though his aunt’s words were still true, there was a certain level of discretion that was also called for.  Thankfully, Thomas didn’t tell the other boys what had transpired, and in fact three years later he gave Yan his first blow job.

At fifteen Yan knew who all the gay boys were in school, could pick out the curious ones in a heartbeat and had kissed just about all of both.  Somehow he managed to do all of this all while keeping the reputation of an upstanding heterosexual member of student council.  When he came out at age eighteen everyone, save for his aunt and his inner circle was shocked.  All things considered Yan had been fairly fortunate in life, at least if you didn’t count the part where his parents died in a horrible car accident.

So if Yan was as fortunate as he had always thought, why was he feeling so completely crummy?  He reconsidered Geri’s words as he put a pot of boiling water on the stove and emptied a package of instant hot cocoa powder into a mug.  She was right; it was time for a change.  With quiet determination Yan decided that tomorrow he would find out who had saved him and give them a proper thank you.