Hold Fast

Kellin called me later that night and I told him my idea. He was really hesitant at first, but the more we talked about it, the more open to the idea he became. Now the only people I needed to convince were my brother, Jaime and Tony. I knew that the guys would be easier to talk to than Mike, he being the one who was always looking out for me. (Remember that comment about him being more of an older brother… yeah my point exactly…) But I knew that he would eventually help if he knew that my mind was made up. I decided I would bring it up after Thanksgiving dinner tonight.
One of the perks of living in the middle of the mountains? No annoying relatives to bother us during the holidays. It was just me, my brother, and my parents. Well that’s what I thought at first until my mother told me that she had invited Kellin and his mom over. That was okay by me, having him here would make talking to Mike a whole lot easier.
All throughout dinner our parents exchanged really embarrassing stories about stupid things we had done as kids and my dad had threatened to bring out the album. After pleading with him for five minutes he admitted that he didn’t remember where he had left it last anyway. Needless to say that Mike, Kellin and I were beet red all throughout dinner. I was literally jumping out of my chair, followed by Kellin and my brother, once we were done. We could hear our parents laughing as we ran up the stairs and headed to my room.
“Man… can they get any more embarrassing?” Mike flopped face first onto my bed and groaned.
“Just be glad that your boyfriend wasn’t here to hear half of that stuff.” I complained. Kellin nodded in agreement.
“I’m seriously going to die if any more blood goes to my cheeks…” I turned to see that Kellin’s face was, in fact, almost as red as the shirt he was wearing. I chuckled and kissed his cheek softly.
“Hey I don’t wanna see that.” Mike joked. Kellin just punched his arm lightly. “So Vic, what did you want to talk about?” He sat up on the bed and gave me his full attention. Now I was nervous again… great. Kellin put his hand on my shoulder and gave me a comforting smile.
“Alright, what I’m about to tell you doesn’t leave this room until we tell Jaime and Tony. Got it?” He nodded and I went to continue. “Kyle needs help.”
“Well duh, I could have told you that.” Mike rolled his eyes slightly.
“No, Mike, I mean he needs to accept that he’s gay or bi or whatever he wants to call it. I refuse to be the victim of his sexual assaults again.”
“Well what do you plan on doing about it?” I looked to Kellin and he gave me a nod to continue.
“I want to catch him on tape.” Mike stared at me blankly.
“You what?” I could tell that he was trying to maintain an even sounding tone.
“He wants to catch Kyle in the act and use it to try and help him.” Kellin explained slowly. I could see things processing in my brother’s head and I wasn’t exactly sure how well it was going.
“So basically you want to put yourself back into a dangerous situation willingly? Is that what I’m hearing?” He was angry, but it wasn’t showing as much as he was feeling I’m sure.
“…yeah…” I avoided eye contact. It sounded so much worse when he said it.
“I don’t like it.” He stated simply/
“Mike, I don’t like it either.” Kellin agreed. “The idea of Vic putting himself in harm’s way again makes my blood boil, but we don’t really have very many options left.” I watched as my brother thought that over and finally he let out a frustrated sigh.
“Alright, so how do you plan on doing this?” I smiled. It was nice to know that if anything was going to happen that he would be there to support me.
“Well he seems to have a particularly fond spot for me, so I figured I could taunt him just enough to get him to try something again. I know that his anger is his weak point so it’s bound to happen.” I could tell Mike was liking this less and less as I explained it. “I just need to get him to say the right things so we can use it against him.”
“You do realize that this is blackmail, right?” Mike quirked an eyebrow at me.
“Well… yeah, but what else could I do Mike. I can’t just ignore this and let him attack me again. You have no idea how scared I was the other day.” I felt my voice crack a little bit and felt Kellin put his arm around my shoulder. Mike gave me an apologetic look and sighed.
“Alright, but I want Tony and Jaime in on this so we can jump in if anything goes even the slightest bit askew.” I smiled and went to hug him. He wrapped his arms around me tightly before letting go. “Let’s go and talk to the guys.”

Normal people would be pretty peeved about a bunch of teenagers showing up randomly at their house on Thanksgiving, but luckily for us, Jaime’s family didn’t care. We had met up with Tony on our way to his house. We hadn’t said anything about what Kellin, Mike and I had discussed earlier and I could tell that he was not enjoying being out of the loop. On the walk to Jaime’s, he kept probing Mike for answers that I was thankful he wasn’t going to give.
Jaime opened up the door to his house and led us up to his room up in the attic. Once we were all settled in, he turned to me.
“So what’s with the sudden visit?” he inquired.
“Vic has some stuff that he wants to discuss with you guys.” Mike explained.
“Alright, shoot.” Tony leaned over a little so he could look at Vic from Mike’s side.
With as much patience as I could muster, I began explaining my plan to them. They interjected here and there, giving me their opinions about the idea. Unlike Mike, they were more keen to the idea of blackmailing Kyle. I was sure that Jaime had some pent up frustration about Kyle that he was just itching to unleash. Tony, on the other hand, just didn’t like when people fucked with his friends. By the time I finished explaining, both of them had slightly evil grins on their faces.
“I like this plan.” Jaime commented, looking around at all of us.
“Yeah, so do I.” Tony agreed. Mike gave him a small glare. “What? Mike you know how much this entire situation has been bugging me.”
“Wait, what?” Kellin finally piped up. Tony looked at him, realizing he said something unexpected. Mike sighed.
“Tony has literally been trying not to kill Kyle since the first time he hurt Vic.” I looked over to Tony and he had a slight blush on his face.
“Tony is he serious?” I asked.
“Yeah… Vic I don’t like this guy. If it weren’t for the fact that Mike convinced me the bastard would get his, I would have kicked his ass long ago.” This was something I hadn’t been expecting. I was almost as shocked by this as I was by Kellin punching Kyle the other day. It was really comforting to know that I had friends that genuinely cared about me. I was beginning to feel like the luckiest person alive.
“Thanks Tony.” I felt my eyes begin to water and Kellin reached over and took my hand in his. He gave me a warm smile.
“Anytime.” I saw Mike give him a quick kiss and it made me smile.
“So, when does this marvelous plan take action?” Jaime asked, clearly excited.
“Well we have two weeks left until winter break, so sometime before then.” Kellin answered.
“Awesome, let’s get this bastard.” We spent the remainder of the night going over the details. This was either going to be one of the greatest plans that we’ve ever come up with, or this would backfire horrifically. Either way, I needed to prove something. I wasn’t going to sit around and be the weakling that everyone assumed I was. I was not going to be pushed around any longer.