Room 242

Spencer slept with his arms around Ryan all night, the situation somehow stilling his normally restless sleep. He only woke once, when Ryan was whimpering, but fell asleep shortly after the older boy promptly quieted. The pair managed, somehow, to sleep until a little after ten AM.

That was when Ryan woke, sitting bolt upright and screaming before turning and vomiting onto the other side of the bed. He barely heard the door that separated their room from Brendon and Jon’s slam open. Spencer’s hand on his back felt distant, somehow. He purged until there was nothing left for him to throw up before beginning to cry.

“Sh, Ry. It’ll be okay.” Spencer murmured comfortingly. “Brendon, get me a glass of water.” But the boy addressed couldn’t move. He stared at Ryan transfixed, face paled. Slowly, as if in a dream-state, Jon moved toward the bathroom. The other three heard running water and Jon emerged with a glass and a washcloth, which he handed over to Spencer.

“He’ll be all right, guys.” the youngest of the four said quietly. Not believing him, but understanding a dismissal when he heard one, Jon grabbed Brendon’s arm and lead him back to their room. The door clicked shut behind them.

“Ryan,” Spencer said gently, “I still think we should call the police.”

“No.” The word was so small, as if a child spoke it. “No.”

“All right. But you need to tell Jon and Brendon. Or I can.” Spencer finished wiping Ryan’s face and handed him the glass of water.

Ryan wrapped both hands around it and brought it to his lips, looking so young. Spencer bit his lip, fighting tears. Why Ryan? It could have been anyone but Ryan. Not Ryan with the big, brown eyes that were staring up at him, terrified.

“Why?” One word, shaking. One word that sounded as if it had been drowned in tears.

“They deserve to know why we’re not playing the show tonight, don’t you think?”

“I can play the show.” Ryan said immediately. “I want to. Don’t cancel it, Spencer. Please.” There was pleading in his voice, desperation. He didn’t want to sit in a hotel room thinking about it, images playing like a silent film in his head.

“No.” Spencer said, firmly but quietly. “You can’t just ignore it. It happened.”

“I know.” Ryan said. He tried to say it sharply, angrily, but it came out with tears and a choked sob. “You tell them, Spence. I can’t.” He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. “Can I take a shower?”

He didn’t need permission, of course, but he seemed to want it, so Spencer nodded in response. “I’ll tell them while you’re doing that then.”

“Leave the door between open?” Ryan asked quietly.

“I can bring them in here, Ry.”

The older boy nodded, slowly climbing out of bed, wincing slightly. He dug a loose pair of jeans from his suitcase, fighting to keep the pain from showing in his face. He found a shirt that was about three sizes too big underneath the rest of his clothes. He didn’t want to wear anything tight. The idea of his body being so on display scared the shit out of him.

“I’ll be right here.” Spencer promised before Ryan disappeared into the bathroom. He waited until he heard the water running before he knocked on the adjoining door. Jon opened it. “I need to talk to both of you.” Spencer said seriously. “About Ry.”

Jon beckoned Brendon from the bed with his finger and they wordlessly followed Spencer into the other room. The youngest boy sat down on the edge of his bed, Jon to his left and Brendon across from him on the bed Spencer and Ryan had slept in the night before. There was silence for a few minutes.

“He’s crying again.” Brendon said suddenly, voice shaking. Sure enough, if they tried, they could all faintly hear sobs from the bathroom.

“He’s got a right.” Spencer said quietly, staring at his hands. He didn’t want to be the one who had to do this. The one who had to tell Jon, whose face was clouded with worry, and Brendon, who looked pale as a sheet and was shaking like a leaf. More than anything, however, he wished there wasn’t anything to tell.

“L-Last night . . . Ryan got gang-raped.” he blurted out, tears suddenly pouring down his cheeks. “He called me at three in the morning. He couldn’t talk and I yelled because I thought it was a prank call and then I went downstairs to get him and he was covered in come and the room . . . there were eight of them, he said. Eight guys who raped him. They knew who he was, they picked him out.”

He was crying as Jon’s arms came up around him, hating himself for being so weak. He needed to be strong, needed to be strong for Ryan. He wasn’t the one who had been raped, he had no right to be crying. “You took care of him, Spencer.” Jon said quietly. “You did good.”

“Why didn’t you call the cops?” Brendon asked softly. Spencer looked at him. The other boy had pulled his knees to his chest, looking so alike and so different from the way Ryan had when he was in that same position the night before.

“He wouldn’t let me.” the youngest murmured. “I wasn’t going to rape him all over again. But w-we have to cancel some shows. He doesn’t want to, but . . .”

Jon nodded. His eyes were dark, his mouth was drawn. He seemed to be trying too hard to be gentle. Repressed anger. If he had his way he would kill them, kill the bastards who had done that to Ryan. You don’t do that to a person. Any being capable of such a thing shouldn’t be allowed to breathe the same oxygen as the rest of the human race. He kept a gentle arm around Spencer’s shoulders, but the other was curled into a fist.

Brendon wasn’t speaking now, staring at the floor. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. This didn’t happen. This couldn’t happen. Nobody would do that to Ryan. Who could do that to Ryan? Why would anyone do that to anybody? Why Ryan? The shows were the furthest thing from his mind. It didn’t matter, nothing mattered.

The shower wasn’t running anymore, Spencer noticed. He licked his lips. “You guys, uh, he might not . . . want so many . . .”

Jon stood up briskly, nodding, and pulled Brendon to his feet. “Come on, kid. Let’s go.” Spencer listened to their footsteps and the door shut, but didn’t watch them go. He felt so alone, just sitting on the bed and waiting for Ryan to come out of the bathroom. It wasn’t too long before he did. Spencer got the feeling he had been waiting for Brendon and Jon to leave.

Ryan hadn’t bothered to brush his hair; it was sticking up at odd angles. His shirt hung almost to his knees. His eyelashes were clinging to each other and his cheeks were red from the hot water of the shower. He sat down on Spencer’s bed, leaning against the headboard. “Let’s watch TV.” he said. “Sit by me?” he asked.

Spencer moved up to the head of the bed, reaching across Ryan to grab the remote. He handed it to the other boy who silently flipped through channels for a few moments, the only sound in the room the snippets of shows as he searched for something to take his mind away from the present.

The newest Star Wars movie was on HBO. Ryan left it on that. Nothing too scary there, nothing that would make him feel like screaming, something he had seen before. Something he knew. Because currently, Ryan didn’t know anything.

Neither did the boy next to him, who was unsure whether or not his leg pressing against Ryan’s was going to make him have a panic attack. He stared blankly at the screen, not really seeing any of the images on it. The bad guys won in this movie. The bad guys were winning right now. He wished they were watching Return of the Jedi.

“I’m hungry.” Ryan said a few minutes later. “Do we still have pizza rolls in the freezer thing?”

“Yeah.” Spencer said, voice distant.

“’Kay.” The older boy swung his legs off the bed and stood up, walking to the mini-refrigerator in their room and opening it. “Want any?” he asked, turning to look at Spencer and tearing the bag open with his teeth. When the younger boy shook his head, Ryan shrugged and took a paper plate off the microwave, dumping about a dozen pizza rolls on it and putting it in the microwave. A few minutes later there was a beep and then Ryan was sitting next to Spencer on the bed again.

They sat there in silence, watching the rest of the movie (which was already half over). “You know,” Ryan said when the credits started rolling to the infamous theme music, “I can’t break anymore.”

“Ryan . . .”

“I can’t.” the older boy said stubbornly. “There’s nothing left of me to break. You don’t have to be so worried for me, Spence.”

“I’m not worried for you, Ryan. I’m terrified.”

* * *

Brendon was sitting on his bed, legs crossed Indian-style. Jon was in the shower and Brendon was alone in relative silence. His mind was swirling with thoughts, but they all seemed fuzzy. He wasn’t trying to imagine it, but he couldn’t help it. How Ryan must have felt, how scared he must have been. Trapped in a hotel room with eight guys who were forcing themselves on him. The thought made him want to vomit. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right.

He wished it were a nightmare, but he knew it wasn’t. He had never dreamed anything so . . . evil. He wanted to see Ryan, to touch him, to make sure he was still Ryan. But Spencer had said it was a bad idea and apparently Jon had agreed. Brendon didn’t think so. How could it be bad for Ryan to know they were there for him, as cliché as it was? He played with his socks for a few minutes before falling back on the bed.

Life was so hard sometimes.

He heard Jon’s fist connect with the wall in the hotel shower.

Jon didn’t cry like Spencer or withdraw into himself like Brendon. He fought with himself to not storm into the other room and shake the truth out of Ryan, to get a face or a name, to get someone he could put his hands on, someone he could rip apart. Nobody fucked with Jon and nobody fucked with the people he loved. He didn’t have a short temper, but he was quick to defend and quick to protect. His three band mates were his family, were closer to him than his blood sometimes. The thought of somebody putting their hands on Ryan, the thought of eight nameless bodies forcing themselves inside of him, the memory of Ryan’s scream and him vomiting onto the sheets . . .

“Fuck!” Jon yelled, punching the wall again.

* * *

“Don’t be.” Ryan said. “It’s pointless. It’s just me and I’m just . . . done.”

“Ry, don’t talk like that.” Spencer said quietly. “We—you’ll get through this all right. We’ll help you. I’ll help you. We’re going to fly home and you’ll stay with me and everything will work out. You’ll see.”

“One of them told me to write a song about it.” Ryan said in a voice so soft Spencer nearly missed it. He stared at the television. A new movie was starting; he didn’t recognize it. “He told me to write about it. He got . . . so far in my fucking head, Spence. Because now I can’t write about it. I can’t write about it and I don’t know what to do. I always write about it.”

He buried his face in his hands, pulling at his hair, crying quietly.

“Ryan—“

“It’s over. I’m over. There’s nothing left anymore. He took it all away from me. I’m nothing now.”