Not Who You Thought (BxB Drama-Romance)

The Beginning All Over Again

Now

August fourteenth, 9:32 AM 

Lucas: are we still doing our Big Plan?

Charlie: a hundred thousand times over and over, YES. Big Plan is not only a go, it's a need!

Lucas: are you nervous?

Charlie: I think I am

Lucas: just remember in a few hours we'll be out of here

Charlie: I love you

Lucas: I love you too Charlie, a hundred thousand times over and over

11:45 AM

The Victim Witness Assistant helped direct you in what to wear. As soon as you walked out of those double wooden doors I knew that you didn't dress yourself. What does a rape victim wear? What says that you were abused? What shows that you are youthful and injured? What facial expression and what outfit conveys to the jury that you've had your dignity stripped from you again and again?

They wanted you to have color in your cheeks and so they applied blush to your face, which is completely palid and drawn. They gave you round glasses that have no prescription in order for you to appear scholarly. They wanted your arms to show, and so they put you in a short sleeved button up with a navy blue tie. They wanted you to look younger than your actual age and homosexual, and so they let you wear the pink converse you bought using your father's money even though the platform soles give you two extra inches of height. The shoes make you happy; the tie around your neck and the gel in your hair does not.

You convey no fear when you stand there. There's barely a blink in your steady eyes, the only thing giving away the anguish you feel is the tremor in your voice and the way your lower lip quivers whenever you stop speaking. I stare at you the whole time, watching the line of your straight back when you stand, observing the rigidness of your neck when you gaze out into the courtroom and plead your case.

Every word cuts deep into the jury, and out of every cut bleeds horror at your situation and anger towards your father. Your words have been rehearsed, the things you explain lived over and over again in your nightmares and in your mind. I know it's hard to speak about, and yet you do it with a strength I would never be able to possess. Your words conjure up a story so horrific no one wants to believe it, despite the honesty written all over your earnest face.

I know you'll win. When the FBI raided the house they found the pictures and videos of you. It was practically an entire library. Not only you, but you with Joshua. You with other kids, too. Out of the four different children that were used for content, I was not one of them.

"Lucas Vargas," the judge is a middle aged woman with eyebrows painted on and a severe expression on her face. I feel both terror and admiration towards her. "Did you know that Charlie Grayson was being physically abused by his father?"

It hurts for me to admit the truth. Underneath your eyes I want to sink into the ground, to bury myself beneath the courthouse and underneath the feet of all these people.

I am no longer Lucas Vargas the artist, I am not Lucas Vargas the jock, and I am not Lucas Vargas the boyfriend. I am now Lucas Vargas who was intentionally blind to the truth, and I am Lucas Vargas the traumatized child that was almost molested. I am Lucas Vargas with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder who recovered his memories too late.

"Yes," I say. "I knew that Mr. Grayson hit him. Charlie never told me, but I would see bruises often when we were intimate. I knew that he was being hurt by the way he became startled whenever I touched him unexpectedly. He told me that his father would give him money when he felt badly and wanted to atone for what he did. Charlie often had large bills and would use them to buy himself clothing or purchase food for the both of us whenever we went out."