Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2007 20:07:38 -0400
From: Jay Kool <jaykool74@hotmail.com>
Subject: My So Called Life - Chapter 20

"My So Called Life" -- Chapter Twenty by Jay Kool (jaykool74@hotmail.com)

I apologize for the delay, but it was hard to figure out the direction I
wanted to go with the story.  Once I figured it out, I wasn't sure I wanted
to write it down.

"Depression Sets In"
--------------

	"Jack, Tyler is in no position to travel and attend your wedding.
Weddings are supposed to be joyous occasions.  One of his best friends died
a month ago, give him a bit more time before you force him to accept your
new life"
	A few minutes go by with Patricia trying to remain calm while
talking with her ex-husband Jack on the phone.  "He never asked you to
postpone your wedding and your life.  Damn-it Jack haven't you done enough
to destroy his childhood!" she yelled as a response to her ex-lover's
suggestion that Tyler was ruining his life prior to slamming the telephone
on the hook.
	Patricia looked up to see Tyler with a tear streaming down his face
staring at her from the hallway.  "Honey, I'm sorry I didn't mean for you
to hear me talking with your father."
	"He's going to make me go celebrate his new life when all I can
think of is ending mine.  It's my fault Jason is dead, I killed him.  I
damn myself to hell."  Tyler violently whispered while turning around to go
back to bed.  Staying in bed all weekend long was Tyler's new hobby for the
past three weekends and no one could get him to go out and do anything.  If
that wasn't bad enough, he also quit eating and weighs the same as he did
when they moved here, except he is 2 inches taller.
	Patricia tried to tell Tyler that he didn't kill Jason, that there
was nothing he could've done any differently to save the boy, and that all
things happen for a reason.  She tried taking him to therapy only to have
the doctor state he can't help Tyler until he talks to him to tell him what
is going on.  Tyler abandoned all of his friends and will not even look at
or talk to David for betraying him.  David called a few times to see how
Tyler was doing and Patricia filled him in on the sad details in hopes that
he would find a way to help her son.
	Patricia spent hours searching the internet, the library and
bookstores for books that would help Tyler's grieving process, as well as
talking to therapists that specialize in the grieving process, but they all
stated the same thing.  Tyler cannot seem to get out of the blame phase; he
blames himself for Jason over and over again.  And if that wasn't enough,
now Jack was pressuring her to send Jason to be the best man in his
wedding, he wanted to hold it in 2 weeks.  Why couldn't he get one of his
friends to be his best man and leave his poor son alone?
	Day by day, Tyler limped along in life.  No better from one day to
the next.  No hope.  No happiness.  No love could be felt by the grieving
boy.  He went through the motions of life without being alive.  Another
month went by and Jack refused to postpone the wedding any further giving
an ultimatum: Tyler attends the wedding this weekend or Patricia gives up
the alimony used to keep her and Tyler in their home.  Patricia conceded to
Jack and decided to send Tyler to the airport.
	"Honey, come on and hurry up or we will be late.  I don't want you
to miss the flight or your father will have conniptions."
	"Yes mom, give me a few minutes and I'll be ready to go."  Tyler
normally would have been throwing a fit at being forced to attend his dad's
wedding, but he was now just accepting life as it came at him.  He finally
loaded his luggage in the car and got in the passenger seat reluctantly
buckling the seat belt.  If his mother wouldn't make him wear it, he
wouldn't.  Then he might get lucky enough to die in a car crash and end his
miserable life.
	The trip to the airport was mostly spent in silence as Patricia
would ask Tyler a question or make an observation and receive no response
from Tyler.  She parked the car in short term parking and helped him check
his luggage at curbside counter outside at the airport before giving him a
kiss on the cheek and a big hug.
	"I love you more than anything in the world Tyler.  Please try to
have some fun and be a nice boy this weekend.  I'll miss you when you are
gone."  Tyler fussed as she doted over him and whispered that he loved her
too.  Eventually he was on his plane heading for Chicago, as his mother
headed home to an empty house.

In Chicago:
	Tyler landed safely in Chicago and on schedule (a rarity) and was
greeted by his father in the waiting area, permitted due to Tyler's age.
Tyler figured that Jack's girlfriend would be working on wedding plans or
something and wasn't there to greet him.  Tyler was surprised as his dad
gave him a big hug with tears running down his face, and even more
surprised when he told him they had to head back to Bloomington.
	"Tyler, your mother was in an auto accident on the way home from
the airport and it is serious.  We have to head back home immediately."
The sentence out of his father's mouth was like a cannon ball hitting him
in the chest.  Tyler immediately collapsed to his knees in a ball of
hysteria.  His heart was pounding and it felt like he was being ripped from
limb to limb.  Why was God so evil and cruel to him his mind screamed?
      When he woke up, he was in a nurse's station in first class already
aboard a plane heading for home and he thought that he must've been
dreaming because he didn't get off the plane yet until he saw his father
sitting across from him.  The plane landed and before Tyler knew it they
were at the hospital in the intensive care unit.
      The head nurse permitted Tyler to visit his mother after hours and
let him spend the night.  Tyler woke up in the morning to the sound of
David's voice telling him to wake up and thought that he still must be
unconscious.  "Hey wake up sleepy head; I'm here to visit you and your
mom."  David playfully nudged Tyler to wake him up.
      The food caterers brought Tyler a hospital breakfast of oatmeal,
toast, orange juice and milk.  Tyler told them to take it away that he
wasn't hungry and the nurse in the room told him to eat the food or she was
going to send him to the waiting room.  The nurse figured he was too skinny
for his own good and needed to eat, and she knew his story.  She saw him in
the hospital as a patient and a visitor, she also knew about Jason and the
way his father left him.  Since his mother was in ICU, she was taking the
responsibility to ensure that he ate healthy while he was staying at the
hospital.  He obeyed because there was no way he was going to leave his
mother.  She had been there so many times for him and he loved her more
than he would ever let her know.
      "Your mother's siblings will be arriving this afternoon, would you
like to greet them at the airport when I pick them up Tyler?"  Jack
inquired of his son.
      "No dad, I'm not leaving mom until she wakes up."
      "David, you take care of Tyler while I'm not here, okay?"  David
shook his head yes in reply to Mr. Stewart's request as he left the room.
      "Ty, I forgive you for everything.  I know half of what happened was
my fault.  I'd do anything to see you smile and hear your laugh."  Tyler
still could not look at David.  His shame and grief were still too much to
allow him to live beyond the moment of being with his dying mother.
      Family visited and tried to keep Tyler company in the waiting room
when they came to take Patricia for emergency surgery for internal
bleeding.  Every hour that went by drove Tyler further and further into a
frenzy of worry about his mother.  He bugged the entire hospital staff
trying to find out what was going on and received no answer until the third
hour of surgery when the head surgeon asked his aunts and uncles to come to
his office leaving David and Tyler in the waiting room.  They had to
promise to tell him what they heard the moment they came into the waiting
room.  An hour passed while he waited for his family to tell him what was
happening to his mother, it took all of David's strength on two occasions
to stop Tyler from leaving the waiting room to find out what was going on.
	The hospital staff and David could provide no comfort or hope for
Tyler.  The moment his favorite aunt Jenny came to talk to Tyler, he jumped
out of his chair running up to her.  She asked David to leave the room for
a few minutes but couldn't persuade him, so she let him stay.  "Tyler, my
baby, there were some complications during the surgery." Jenny stated
between dabbing tears from her eyes and trying to remain strong for her
nephew.  "Patty fought as hard as she could, but it was a fight she
couldn't win and she went home to visit God."
	"No!!!" Tyler wailed falling into his aunt's arms with David
closing the circle of the hug.  All three were crying as Jenny tried to
console Tyler, as his father walked in.  For the first time in Tyler's life
he saw his father crying.  "It's your fault, you had to make me go to the
wedding this weekend, you couldn't postpone it!"  Tyler yelled as he broke
lose from Jenny and David.  He pounded his fist on his father's chest, but
the blows did not hurt his father nearly as much as the death of his
ex-wife and his son's pain.  Aunt Jenny told Tyler that it was nobody's
fault that God has a plan for everyone and it was time for Patty to join
him in heaven.
	Soon all the family was in the waiting room trying to console one
another and Tyler who couldn't stop crying and saying that he wished it was
himself that was dead.  At a loss of how to help Ty, one of the nurses's
had a doctor's permission to give him an antidepressant to help calm him
down.  The family soon noticed that David was visibly shaken as well and
asked him if he was going to be okay.  He played it brave and said that he
would be and called home to his mother to be picked up from the hospital.

	----------------------------

      Six days Tyler sat in numbness or shock.  He had gone through so much
in the last month that his brain was refusing to function in order to give
him a break from reality.  Needless to say, his father's wedding was
postponed another three months.  His mother's funeral was postponed in
hopes that he would get better, but they had to go ahead with it to prevent
the body from decaying.  For the second time in a month he heard the
funeral mass that was becoming all too familiar to him, "the Lord is my
Shepard, I should not want..."  He finally showed emotion and came back to
reality when they lowered his mother's coffin into the grave.  He noticed
all of his family and friends were at the ceremony and decided he had to
say something.
      "Friends and family, I want to thank-you for standing by me during
the last month.  I realize I haven't been the best of friends to anyone.  I
have wished for death so many nights I cannot remember how to live.  My
mother was the first person to accept me for who I am.  She didn't care
that I was gay or too skinny or a dork.  She stood behind me no matter what
I did.  I love her more than my own life and I will never forgive myself
for being such a spaz that I caused her to die."  The effect of his speech
on the crowd caused a few gasps and tears among them.  David immediately
took Ty in his arms in a strong embrace whispering that he loved him in his
ear.
      The procession greeted Ty one by one on their way out.  The all
basically told him they would help him out any time he needed it and they
were terribly sorry for the tragedies he sustained the last month.  The
Bloomington Post ran a story on the front page about Ty, his mother and
Jason.  The whole community wanted to help him overcome his loss and to
help Ty to start to live again.
      David convinced Ty's dad to let Ty spend the night at David's house.
David had to find a way to get through to Ty and wanted Ty to know that he
still loved him and wanted him back in his life as his soul mate.  They
rode home together in the back seat with Ty in David's arms and David would
kiss Ty's neck or forehead or on the cheek to show that he still cared
about him.
      After the third night of sleeping with David (and I mean sleeping,
not anything else), Ty started to open up and talk to David about
everything that was going on in his life.  All of the pain he felt, and how
he wished he would've committed suicide in Chicago before he ever moved
here because it would have saved him and his friends the pain that he had
caused.  That his mother would still be alive and possibly still married to
his dad living happily in Chicago.  David consoled Tyler and made him feel
emotion and love again; something David was afraid Ty wouldn't feel for
years, the way things were going.  It was so easy for Tyler and David to
start making out, as David wiped the tears from Ty's cheeks.  That night
rekindled their relationship.  Ty realized that he had been forgiven by
David, even if he couldn't forgive himself.
      Three nights turned into a week then into a few months as Ty's dad
had to attend to his school district and finance in Chicago.  David's
family had Ty eating and laughing again as they kept his attention diverted
from his grief.  Everyone at school including the bullies were helping Ty
overcome the missed weeks of school so he would be promoted next year and
start high school with them all.  Tyler played nice with his father sending
him, and his aunts and uncles a weekly Tyler newsletter.
      Soon the last day of school would be here allowing Tyler and David to
spend the summer bonding with one another.  Ty gave little thought to the
plans his father may have for them.  Ty was absolutely shocked when he came
home from school with David to check the house to find a moving van in the
driveway being packed by movers.  "Dad, what the hell is going on? Why is a
moving truck being filled with mom's furniture?"
      "Tyler, you are moving back to Chicago with Diane and me.  You didn't
expect me to move down here, did you?"
      "I was hoping since the house mine now that I could stay here."
      "Sometimes you are such an idiot for a genius my young boy.  You are
not old enough to live on your own.  Plus I am planning on selling the
house and furniture placing the money in a trust fund for you to pay for
college, a car, and a good down payment on your first house."
      "I'm glad to know that I have a say in my life.  When are we going to
hear mom's will read?  I'm pretty sure she didn't put you in charge of
being my primary parent."
      "No she didn't, but the law did.  As your father, it doesn't matter
what her will says about who'll raise you in the event of her death.  As
for the house, if you would've paid attention to the will, it stated to
sell it and the contents to set up the trust fund.  Your mother wanted the
best education and start in life you could possibly have.  I am following
her wishes so stop giving my so much shit over it and shut up!"
      "What about David?  I can't leave him, I love him." Ty stated with
tears running down his burning cheeks.
      "I'm sure you'll find another little fag for a boyfriend in Chicago."
      Ty took off running as hard and fast as he could to David's house.
His heart and mind were racing with the bad news his father had told him.
How could his mother not have something set up to protect him from his
father?  Ty was almost hit by a car running across the street to David's
house, but it didn't faze him.  Ty banged on the door yelling for David
even though he was out of breath and dripping with sweat.


If you like this story series so far, you may want to read my other fiction
story series:

(The stories are archived in previous years; please do a find on them...)
Gay --> high school --> Music Store Teens
Bi --> college --> College Firsts

Any non-flamer feedback is welcome, email me at jaykool74@hotmail.com I
will be creating a mailing list for chapters as they are released.