Devin’s POV

Liam was arrested the moment he got of the cruise ship and touched the land. Once he was locked up, with no chance of bail, I breathed a sigh of relief. I spent 6 months in the hospital. It was mid February when they finally let me out. During those 6 months, I had to talk to the police several more times while they waited for the court system. It took four months, but the trial finally began. Every day, my nurse would escort me from the hospital to the courthouse, where she would accompany me along with my mom and lawyers. Facing Liam was difficult. Sitting on the stand, having to describe what he had done to me was one of the most embarrassing, difficult things I have ever had to do.


It took six and a half months. It started in October, and ended in March. I missed a lot of school, so I had to go onto Independent study. Chris was away most of the time. It was hard. He sent me text messages as much as he could, but there were days where I didn't hear from him at all, sometimes weeks. It sucked, but I dealt with court. Once it finally ended, I cried from happiness. Liam could no longer do any harm to me. He had been sentenced to 50 years in prison. If he did have good behavior, it would still be something like 30 years, but as long as he was out of my life for a long time, I was okay with it.


I ended up finishing up my school year early, so when the time came to walk the stage, I walked with pride in knowing I did my best. They guys did come back then to walk the stage. Things between us were weird. It was nice to see them, but something was off.

It wasn't until Chris came over a few days later all alone and told me what was going on, did I know why it was all-weird. TJ had been kicked out of the band. He joined another band, Escape the Fate, which Ronnie was the singer for. Ricky had then switched to guitar to fill his place. Chris didn't directly say it, but he kind of hinted to me taking the role of bassist.

It took him three days to beg me to be the bassist. I smirked at him, and said “what’s in it for me?” and he rolled his eyes and said, “being closer to this hot guy named Chris.” “Hmmm. Sounds tempting. What’s the requirements?” I asked.

“Putting up with several guys for long periods of time, playing to crowds, driving the van for your turn, and more I guess.” He answered.

“Will I eventually be able to do this?” I said as I kissed him.

“ Oh you certainly can.”

“How about this?” I said as I squeezed his butt. Whaatt it was a nice butt.
“You can do that.”

“How about-” I started to say as he interrupted me.

“Will I be able to do this?” he asked as he pushed me softly into the bed.

“Mmhm.” I said as I kissed him.

We then were making out for quite a while when my mom walked into the room. She squeaked and said, “Guys, really, when I’m home. If you’re going to do it, please just be safe, and all that jazz.”

I turned red from embarrassment. “Yes ma’am.” Chris said to her, before she closed the door and walked away.

Laying down on my back, I whispered softly, “I don’t know if I’m ready to go all the way just yet.”

“I’m not sure either. Let’s just take things slowly and when the time comes, when we are both ready to take that step together, I want it to be special, and nice.” He said.

“You’re so perfect.” I said to him as I kissed his nose.

“Have you looked in the mirror?” he asked.


“ I have and I saw this handsome guy standing behind me. He’s tall, passionate about things that matter to him, he dresses quite nice, and he has three lip piercings and loves makeup just as much as I do.”

“Hmm. Well I see this handsome guy laying beside me. He’s tall, but not too tall. He has long hair, but not too long. His eyes are the perfect shade of blue, he looks perfect in anything he wears, and is a great bassist.” He replied back.


“Does anyone know that we’re together?” I asked.

“The guys know, but no one else. The record company said they wanted us to hide all relationships so that we appeal to girls and stuff. I don’t really want to, but when we signed the contract, we agreed to it.”

“So we have to hide that we are together?”

“For a little while. We plan to switch companies when we get big enough to be able to do that. It might take a while longer than planned. We've sold over 3,000 records. In order for us to be able to switch, we need to sell another 5,000 at least, and make another record. Luckily, we already planned it out; Ricky did all the recordings for guitar and Bass, so all you need to do is learn them. He finished a few days ago. The record is supposedly supposed to drop in about 5 months.”

“It’s May, so that means October?” I asked.

“Yeah. The album is called Creatures. We need to eventually announce that you are in the band, and take new pictures and when we eventually make music videos, guess who is in it?! You! ”

“I will admit, I like the video idea for Abigail that Balz told me about. I also think it’s a fitting name because we’re from Salem Massachusetts and The Crucible takes place here. Quite fitting.”

“That’s what the idea was. The video we’re also making for this album is called immaculate misconception. I think you’ll like both.”

“I can’t wait to listen to the songs.”

“Have I told you how big we actually are?” He asked.

“No…”

“Oh. Well, we've sold about 1,000 albums, we have a lot, I mean a lot of Myspace followers, a lot of face book likes, like 300,000 twitter followers. The record company projects that within the next three years, we will get even bigger.”

“That’s awesome!”

“Yeah! We've worked really hard. It took a lot to get the first EPs out on our own, and then later getting a small company to support us. “When love met….” We got a company to sign us and that helped launch us further. We have gotten the attention of a lot of record labels.”

“That’s great!” I said.

He smiled and kissed me again. We talked about random things. Eventually, we would have to talk about how court went, because most of it happened while he was away. It was something I didn't really want to do, but it needed to be done. Bringing up the subject took several days. But once we sat down and were ready to talk about it, we did.

I told him about how I had to go and sit next to the judge and say everything that happened. In court, I had multiple panic attacks, and I had to take a few minutes to calm my self. The jury saw how badly it affected me, and I guess that helped them chose. Every single juror voted to have him in prison.

The evidence against Liam was in great detail. There were pictures of the injuries he gave me several years ago, and then ones from more recently. I also had to talk about my eating disorder and self-harm. It was beyond difficult, but I had to do it, in order to show his extent of his harm.

His lawyer tried to say that I was crazy and tried to make me the bad guy. He would try to make Liam innocent, and I would cry and one time it got so bad I stood up and said, “Do you think I wanted to be beaten? Do you think I wanted to be raped? Do you think I wanted to be hurt mentally, and physically by him? I live in fear. I can’t eat without his voice in my head saying I’m fat. I can’t sleep without nightmares of him hurting me. I can’t live with him being able to walk down the street and being free to hurt me again. What if he hurts someone else? If I were a girl, he would have been the same. If I were a girl, he would still have beaten and raped me. If I were a girl, you wouldn't be questioning me like this. But I’m not a girl. I’m a boy. I’m a boy who wears girl’s clothes because I want to. I’m a boy who likes boys, and that is why this is taking so long. Its because I’m different. I just want this to end. I want to go home, and know that I won’t be beaten tonight for eating a fucking apple. I want to go home and sleep without being afraid that he will come into my room and hurt me. I want this to end.”


Needless to say, after I said that, court ended within three days. Sentencing took a few days, but after it was all finalized, it was done. I was done with court.

Admitting that all to Chris took a long time, and I couldn't look him in the eye. I was ashamed. But he pulled me into a hug and told me, “you have your bruises and scars, but I see a warrior. I do not see someone who is weak. I see a warrior who has gone to war, and is strong and came out alive.”


Chris was everything I could ever need, and could ever ask for. He supported me through everything, and I couldn't be more thankful.

Notes