Impact-Chapter 2

Yeah, took me 10 months to write the second chapter, but it's done now, so I hope you enjoy it. Might wanna read chapter 1 first though. I'll bump that for y'all.

Impact
Chapter 2
By Ben Freeman

   By the time I woke up, Kenny had already left. I apparently had slept my most sound sleep in my entire life and didn’t hear him get up, make Derek’s bed, get dressed, and leave. My head was pounding right now; still in quite a bit of pain from last night’s fun, but I had recovered a fair amount so I could at least sit up. I did just that, leaning against the wall that was parallel to my bed, holding my head in my paws as I tried to gather my thoughts. I shot a quick glance at the clock to check the time. It was after 1pm, so I’d been out for a good long time. I took a few deep breaths and closed my eyes, trying to force myself to get out of bed

   After a few moments of debating in my head whether to get up or not, the rumbling in my stomach made the decision for me. Right about now, I really could have gone for a nice home-cooked meal, or a nice juicy burger at a Bar & Grill place ANYWHERE, but sadly, you know, campus and all. It was the dining hall for me, and that was gonna have to do. With a groan, I threw my legs over the side of the bed and stood up on the floor, my legs wobbling a bit from having been so exhausted. I really needed to pee, and I really needed to shower too, so my next destination was the bathroom. I took of my somewhat blood-soaked clothes and threw them into my laundry basket. I wrapped a towel around my waist and grabbed my shampoo and headed to the bathroom.

   As with most dorms, floor bathrooms are kinda big, but they’re essentially public bathrooms with a separate area for showers. It was getting to the time where the students who had been drinking the night before would be getting up as well, and I wanted to claim a shower stall for myself so I didn’t have to wait. I set my shampoo down onto the shelf inside one of the stalls and came back around to the other side.

Now, I probably forgot to mention how absolutely terrible these bathrooms smell. Given it was my first weekend here, I figured it would smell of vomit and urine and all other kinds of wonderful smells that you could find in a dorm bathroom. Well, it was that, but to a very disturbing extreme, not to mention the fact that it was all over the place. I did my best to keep a straight face and just go about my business, but in my mind I was going mad from the terrible stench. Weekend custodians must not have started until NEXT weekend. Surely we can all understand how that works. I was trying to ignore all the features of this sticky environment as I was answering natures call in one of the urinals when someone disturbed my concentration.

   “Man, you look beat. You have a rough night last night?” said a generic male voice, one of the furs who lived on my floor.

   “You could say that,” I didn’t even open my eyes as I answered. I was still trying to keep my mind away from the smell, and I didn’t need to listen to this nonsense AND be reminded of my brutal beating.

   The guy was standing next to me taking care of his own business. He chuckled at my response. “Yeah, those bars here are something else. Cheap booze and great music, and the chicks! Oh my god! Hehe. You look like you had a few too many. That’ll teach ya, heh heh.” He laughed at his own statement, apparently thinking he was clever. I finished pissing and tucked myself back in under my towel and turned towards the shower, not even bothering to make a response.

   The guy followed after me into the shower area. I opened my eyes to finally see the fur that had been annoying me. He was a skunk, average looking guy. He was getting undressed to take his own shower and had pretty much shrugged off the fact that I didn’t want to have anything to do with him at this moment. I stepped inside my shower stall and proceeded to take a nice long and relaxing shower, taking extra time to clean the blood that had dried on the fur around my face.

   Once I finished my shower, I came back out to the main area in the bathroom to brush my teeth and stuff and got a good look at my face in the surprisingly clean mirror. My face was a bit swollen on the left side, and my lip had been cut. My eyes would likely have been black, had they not already been black from my black fur. I wondered why the skunk would have made a joke like he did when I looked like this. I heard some footsteps behind me as he came out of the shower area to do the same as I did. I quickly started brushing my teeth, at least now having an excuse to not respond to him. That didn’t stop him from talking however.

   “Aaah, I love hot showers. Never feel as clean as you can be unless you have hot water going through your fur. Right wuffie?”

   I blinked in surprise at his comment and looked over at him with a confused look, my paw moving up and down as I brushed my canine fangs. He chuckled and patted me on the shoulder.

   “I know you can’t disagree with me, wuffie. You certainly needed it. I could tell. That must have been one hell of a fight to see you all beat up like that” he said, his paw still holding my shoulder

   I leaned over the sink to spit and rinse out my mouth. Once clear, I turned to him, still looking pretty confused. “Why do you keep calling me wuffie? My last girlfriend did that all the time, and as I figure, it’s a term for affection. You like me or something? I don’t even know you yet”

   He laughed and patted my shoulder some more. “No no no, I just call wolves ‘wuffie’. I’m just messing with ya man. I just wanted to lighten ya up some. You looked really shitty. And I know why too. I..uh..I kinda saw what happened last night. To you that is. Not exactly, but enough to know what happened.” He said, his paw still resting on my shoulder, which was starting to bug me at this point. “I’m a witness, dude, so you can count on me to help you. Call me Mike”

   I kindly removed his paw from my shoulder and got my stuff ready to take back with me to my room. “Well, Mike, I’d love to hear your side of the story, but this ain’t the place to be doing it. I’m gonna go get dressed, and you should do the same, alright? You can knock on my door in about 10 minutes and we can talk. I’m Aaron, and I’m down in 324.” I pushed the door open and stepped out. “Check ya later”

   I walked back down the hall to my room and punched to combo to open the door. I hung my towel up to dry on the bar in my closet and rummaged around my dresser for stuff to wear. Derek probably would have seriously minded my walking around the room nude, but he wasn’t here, and this is what I do at home and what I’m comfortable doing. I was just pulling out a pair of boxers when someone knocked and my door, causing me to jump and drop the clothes in surprise. I grumbled to myself, “Damn skunk didn’t wait.” I walked to the door and looked through the peephole and saw what I didn’t exactly expect, a cop. I opened the door just enough to peek my head out but still enough to hide my naked ass. “What’s up?”

   The German shepherd police officer looked at me peeking my head out in this manner and gave me a few moments to get myself dressed. I threw on my best Slayer shirt and a decent pair of goth pants and came back out to talk to the officer.

   “The gal from security last night called us and said you looked like you’d been in a fight. From the looks of it you have. Care to come with me and tell me all about it?” He said, sounding really condescending.

   I don’t like cops generally. I respect the badge and their position and I appreciate the job they do for us, but god damn! Do they have to be such pricks about it? I rolled my eyes and folded my arms, leaning against the door to my room.

   “It wasn’t a fight so much as a beating, which I received…” extra emphasis on the “I”, “…and it was to stop the bastards from doing the beating from giving it to someone who didn’t deserve it.” I said, giving the cop a look that told him I wasn’t messing around

   The cop nodded and looked down the hall. “Well, you can still come with me and tell me and my partner all about it. We weren’t accusing you of anything, and we’ll even supply the coffee and donuts. To make things less hostile.”

   I couldn’t have stopped my ears from perking at that comment, even if I tried. Free coffee and donuts. F-R-E-E! I heard myself accepting his offer before I had consciously even though about it. I blinked a few times in astonishment of my own reflexes as I followed the officer to the stairwell, noticing out of the corner of my eye Mike coming down the hall. I motioned for him to follow and he hurried after and I heard him pick up his pace and follow us down the stairs to the lobby. Waiting for us in the front lobby was the officer’s partner, a cat lady with grey fur, and Kenny, looking rather ashamed. Mike came into the lobby afterwards and assured the officers of his being a witness. The officers took us to their car and took us out to a small café near where I saw my movie. I sat in between Kenny and Mike during the car ride. Mike simply looked out the window as we drove along, nothing really important seeming to occupy his thoughts. Kenny on the other hand looked very upset, and it was clear he was blaming himself for all this.

   The officers got us a table and sat us down. The woman officer went to order our coffees and baked delights while the other sat down with us and began to ask about the fight.

   “The only thing we know right now is that you two…” He pointed at Kenny and I “had been through a bit of a scuffle last night. We just want to know what’s up.” He looked at Kenny who reflexively shrank into himself, looking down at his knees and shifting a bit in his seat. I decided to speak on his behalf.

   “Well officer it goes like this. I was on my way back from seeing a really terrible movie last night when I came across a group of lions from the football team standing around Kenny here after hitting him. I decided to step in and teach the lions a lesson. I didn’t stand up to them very well though. They kinda whooped my ass.” I purposefully left out the part about the fight being because Kenny was gay, thinking that the last thing he wanted to do at this point was come out to a few new people he didn’t even know.

   The cop pulled out a small notebook and started jotting down what I was saying. I kinda liked the idea of a figure of authority taking notes on one of my lectures…Well, if you could even call it that.

   “That’s really all I can offer. Not much else I wanna say, unless you guys wanna add anything,” I said as I looked on either side of me to Kenny and Mike, seeing if they were up to talking. The other officer came back with our goodies and set a cup of coffee in front of each of us and set the box of donuts in the middle of the table and took her seat next to her partner. She looked kinda pissed, probably because her partner made her get the food. Can’t say that I blame her.

   The male officer looked over at the extremely meek-looking Kenny, who would likely create a black hole out of himself if he shrunk into himself any further. He averted his gaze from the cop and shook his head.

   “I’m not ready to talk, sir…” He said, his voice barely audible, his hands gripping the bottom of his seat, shaking in either anger or fear, and considering what I knew of him already, it was probably fear.

   The cop gave a nod and looked over to Mike. “Well let’s give the otter a minute and hear your side of the story, since you apparently have something to say about it,” he said, flipping the page of the notebook to start fresh on another sheet

   Mike sat forward in his seat and sipped his coffee, staring down at the table while he worked on what he wanted to tell the officer. After a few moments and many sips of coffee he spoke.

   “Well, I’d been out drinking with a few gals I went to high school with at their friend’s apartment. I know I’m underage and all, and you can write me a ticket or whatever, but that’s not important. Anyway, we caught word that the lions from the football team were throwing a party, and when lions party, it’s a hell of a party, so we figured it’d be fun. We got there and of course it was pretty wild. Girls were throwing their clothes off and there was just a lot of destruction goin’ on. You know, in typical jock fashion.” He stopped to sip his coffee again

   I merely listened to him talk, munching on a tasty chocolate, cream-filled donut, looking at Mike as he told his story. He sounded like the typical party-goer to me, but I didn’t want to make that call just yet.

   “I noticed this otter here there, standing against a wall, looking like he’d made a mistake in showing up,” Kenny made a loud wince as Mike said this. Mike continued his story with only a quick glance in Kenny’s direction.

“Then one of the lions yelled, ‘Who wants to do some Smack?!’ and my group decided to get the hell out of there. Just as we were leaving, I heard the otter yell something about calling the cops, and that’s when hell broke loose. They noticed that rainbow thing he was wearing and dragged him out of the house, calling him ‘fag’ and ‘queer’.” Kenny made another loud wince at Mike’s comment, and this time Mike stopped. “Dude, you okay?”

Kenny shook his head, looking as far in the opposite direction of Mike as possible. “P-please, just c-continue…” he stuttered. From the sounds of it, he was crying.

Mike got a rather guilty look on his face and sighed. “If you say so. Well, at that point we decided to get the hell back to campus. If someone DID call the cops, we didn’t want to be there when they showed up. We WERE doing something we shouldn’t have. As we got far away, we heard some loud yelling behind us and we turned to see the lions beating the hell out of this guy here,” He gestured towards me.

I winced this time, not wanting to hear him talk about my beating in such a way. “That’s all” He said, finishing his story, and his coffee in a long sip after that.

The male cop nodded and looked over at Kenny. “Kenny, I’m not going to ask you much, but I do need to ask you two things, alright?”

Kenny turned his head a bit just to look at the cop out of the corner of his eye. The female cop pulled a white handkerchief out of her pocket and handed it to Kenny. He wiped his face and blew his nose with it and handed it back to the cat, who took in with a disgusted look on her face and got up to throw it away. Kenny sniffed and nodded his permission to the cop.
The cop took a deep breath in preparation for asking his questions. “First, why were you at the party in the first place? I’m not trying to play the ‘Blame the Victim’ game here, but I would like to know why you were there at all. Doesn’t seem like your kind of place”

Kenny sighed heavily and looked down at the ground. “M-my professor told me I should go t-to a p-party to meet people. I-I don’t have any friends…And this was supposed to be the biggest party” he struggled to say between stutters and sniffles. “I’m really lonely, s-sir…”

The cop nodded and proceeded to ask his next question. “Son, are you gay?”

Kenny let out a loud sob which everyone in the coffee shop could hear. His loud crying was drawing stares from the other people in the shop. I shot them all a glance that told them to mind their own damn business. Nosy people

The female cop finally chimed in. She moved closer to Kenny and put her hand on his knee and looked into his face with a gaze that would melt anyone’s heart, even a gay kid like Kenny’s. His sobbing quickly quieted down to soft whimpers as she gently rubbed his knee.

“Kenny, it’s okay if you are. We’re not blaming you for anything and we’re not judging you for this. We just want to know if you are since it may be a factor in why you were targeted. I know it’s hard to be out in today’s world, but that’s why we’re here. We’re here to keep you safe from people like them”

I simply just stared at the woman as she spoke to Kenny. I could honestly say after hearing that my distaste for cops was beginning to fade, and I just smiled. What awesome cops we have here on campus! Thanks guys!

Kenny immediately began to calm down and after wiping his face with a clean napkin and literally began to open up, unshrinking himself from his distant position and sitting forward at the table, taking a few moments to focus before he was ready to answer.

“I-I am gay. It’s been hard for me since my family hasn’t accepted it, and they kicked me out…I’ve been living with my aunt and uncle who are mostly okay with it, they are paying for my tuition here, but my cousin isn’t, and he likes to beat me up just for fun…” he sighed and shook his head. “…Because I’m gay and weak.”

The male cop simply nodded and closed his notebook. He put it away and stood up, reaching across the table and shook everyone’s hand. I gripped his hand a bit stronger this time, mostly in appreciation but also because I do that when I shake a guy’s hand. I’m such a dude. We all got up from our table, Mike holding the still quite full box of donuts, and we headed back out to the police car to be taken back to campus.
Kenny seemed a little less guilt-ridden now. His face kind of put on a “I need to lie down” look, and I figured that’d be what he was gonna do when we got back. Mike hungrily munched down a few donuts as we rode back.

We got back to our dorm about 3pm and the two officers escorted us back to the lobby. The male cop once again shook the hands of all three of us and thanked us for our help. The female cop did the same, except when she got to Kenny she wrapped her arms around him and gave him a big hug.

“We’ll get these guys, Kenny. You don’t need to be scared anymore” she said soothingly, patting his back.

Kenny smiled for the first time all day and hugged her back. “Thank you, ma’am. I’m starting to feel safer here now” he responded, looking over at me with a smile. I only smiled and blushed slightly at the comment. I guess Kenny kind of liked me. I couldn’t blame him really. After all, I did kinda take a beating for him.

The officers waved their good-byes and drove off, and the three of us stood in silence for a few moments. Mike looked at his watch and turned to us.

“Well, a bus is coming by soon that goes to the mall near here. You guys up for a trip?” he smiled, tilting his head in what I could only guess was the direction of the bus stop.

   I nodded and smiled. “Sure! I gotta see what DVD’s the movie store here carries anyway. Might as well check it out. How about you Kenny?” I said, turning him with a smile that said “Please come with us”

   Kenny smiled big, the biggest I honestly have ever seen someone smile. “I would love to go with you guys…My friends” he responded, wiping a small tear from his eye.

   “GREAT! It’ll be a blast” Mike shouted, turning in the direction of the bus stop as we all headed that way.

   I felt good, like I’d helped bring light into someone’s life who had known so much darkness. I was glad I did what I did, even if it hurt like a bitch. I guess there are just some things out there worth fighting for.

   “Oh, Aaron! You should come with me drinking next week. My friend totally has a thing for metal-heads. She’d love you!” Mike said turning to me with a grin.

   “Why don’t you introduce her to me and I’ll take her on a proper date, to a movie and dinner? I’d rather impress a lady with my more sophisticated charms than try and woo her with beer breath” I responded teasingly.

   “Aw man, that’s harsh” Mike said, rubbing the back of his head.
   Kenny laughed at us, and we turned to see him smiling as big as ever. “Harsh, but true. Hehe,” he giggled.

   We all laughed as the bus came around the corner and picked us up to take us on our mall excursion. I still felt very good about what I did, and I only hoped I could be there like that for anyone who needed it.