Give me a Chance

Ben

I agreed to go with Josh, as we drove the two hours, Josh began to fill me in on what was going on with Chance. The more he told me, the more pissed I was becoming, I wanted to kick fucking Trey’s ass for what he was doing to Chance. I wanted to slap the shit out of Chance for letting himself be used this way, and why the hell wasn’t Josh helping Chance? Then I thought deeper, damn it, if I hadn’t been such an ass after graduation, maybe Chance wouldn’t have left, or I would have gone with him, and we could be looking out for each other right now.

I was jolted back to reality when Josh asked, “How should we handle that?”

I looked at him, “oh sorry, handle what?”

“What if Chance won’t talk to either of us, I told you he is already pissed at me, I have been riding him pretty hard about his drinking lately.”

I said, “Well, I am not sure, I am not very high up on his list of good friends right now either. I guess we will have to see how he reacts when we get there.”

“Yeah, I guess so, I hope he is at least sober tonight.”

We finally pulled into the dorm parking lot and headed up to Chance’s room, just as we turned down the hall, a kid came out of his room, “Josh, I am glad you are here, Trey and Cory have Chance in their room and there are some bad sounds coming out of there.”

Josh said, “Shit, come on we have to hurry.”

I felt my blood start to boil, we ran to the end of the hall to Chance’s room. Josh threw the door open, blocking my view, he stepped in, “Trey you son of a bitch get off of him.”

“Mind your own business, Josh and get out of here.”

Josh had moved enough so that I could see Chance laying naked on the bed with one guy trying to fuck him and the other trying to push his cock into his mouth, Chance was passed out. I saw red and just jumped onto the back of the first guy and started to swing wildly, we tumbled off the bed onto the floor. I ended up on top his chest and started punching his face, calling him every name in the book. The other guy pulled himself off the bed and tried to grab me, just as he had a hold of my hand and was pulling me up, Josh landed a punch on his nose sending him falling to the floor next to his buddy. Josh grabbed my arm and pulled me up, “Ben, chill a little, we need to get Chance out of here.”

We turned to help Chance, both of them began to stand up and yell at us to get out and leave them alone.

I turned and stood toe to toe with a 6’3”, 275 lb. naked man, who I later found out was Trey. I said, “Listen here you mother fucker you are done messing with my friend or anyone else, if you ever touch him again, I will kick your ass so hard, the only way you can shit is if you smile." He was towering over me as I was reaching up and pushing my finger into his chest with every word. I felt Josh move in for back up as Trey began step into me, getting ready to pound me, I was holding my ground. Just as Trey and Cory were going to start to fight back, the door flew open and two cops walked in, “alright everybody calm down. Somebody tell me what is going on here.”

I heard Chance start to choke, he had vomited in his mouth, I rushed over and turned his head and poured a bottle of water into his mouth, he started to breathe again. The cops pulled Trey and Cory to the other side of the room, two more cops had come in and one was asking Josh questions and the other one was helping me with Chance while he asked me about what was going on. Chance vomited again and as I and the officer had him breathing again, he yelled out into the hall for the EMTs. They came in and loaded Chance on a stretcher and started to wheel him down the hall to the ambulance. When I asked if I could ride with them, they said, no I needed to follow in a car, I ran back to get Josh, the cops said that we could go, but would come by the hospital later for a little more information. We followed the ambulance and parked the car in the lot, we got to the waiting room as they were taking Chance into the ER. The nurse told us she would let us know as soon as she had some news.

We sat in the waiting room, after a few minutes the events of night started to hit me, the adrenalin was gone, I realized how serious things had just gotten.

Josh let out a sigh, then started to chuckle to himself.

I glared at him, “what the hell are you laughing about?”

He said, “I’m sorry Ben, but when you jumped on Trey’s back and pulled him off of Chance, it was kind of comical. I mean little 5 foot nothing you on top of a big naked guy, you should have seen the look on Cory’s face, he didn’t know if he should help Trey or not, he looked so confused.”

I half smiled. “Yeah, I guess that would have been kind of funny looking, Trey did look pretty shocked too.”

Josh continued, “then when you were yelling at him, poking his chest I thought I was going to lose it. I have to say, you actually scared the hell out of me.”

“Why?”

“You had a look in your eyes that I have never seen before.”

“I just couldn't stand to see Chance laying there like that.”

“I know Ben, it made me sick too. You do know that if they hadn’t been so surprised and so drunk that they would have probably kicked our asses.”

“Shit, you are probably right, I hadn’t thought of that.”

Josh laughed again, “I will kick your ass so hard the only way you’ll be able to shit, is if you smile?”

“What?”

Josh said, “that is what you told Trey as you were poking him in the chest.”

I said, “really?”

“Yep.”

“Wow, I guess I can be a bad ass if I need to be.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes, Josh said, “he’s going to be ok Ben.”

“Thanks Josh, for everything.”

We both dozed off and on, until the sun started to shine through the windows, then the Dr. told us that we could see Chance.

We walked into the room, “What the hell are you too doing here?”

Josh said, “we just saved your ass, your welcome.”

Chance shot back, “no one asked to you to.”

Josh shook his head, “Jesus Christ Chance, you were blacked out drunk with two guys raping you. The Dr. said one more drink and you could have died from alcohol poisoning.”

“Oh, you make it sound worse than it was.”

“I can’t talk to you anymore, Ben maybe you can get through to him.”

Josh walked out of the room. Chance looked at me, “what, you and Josh good buddies now?”

I walked toward the bed, “for God’s sake Chance, Josh is about the only friend you have right now, he is just trying to help you.”

“Well, you’re right about one thing, Josh is my only friend right now.”

“Ok, I had that coming, I haven’t been a very good friend this past year, but I am here now. I care about you, and I want to help you. We both do.”

“So, what, you’re going to swoop in and rescue me and then go back home and strip for everybody again?”

“Shit, did Josh tell you about that?”

“No, I was home over Christmas, and I went to the club and saw the show for myself.”

“What I do to make money is my own business, besides you were off to college, playing football, why do you care?”

“I asked you to come here with me, maybe if you would have, I wouldn’t be laying in this bed, and you might not be a stripper.”

I stood there stunned, damn it, he was right.

I hung my head, “you’re right.”

He turned to me, “What?”

I raised my eyes to meet his, “I said you are right. I should have never pushed you away, I should have at least listened to you.”

“You’re damn right, you should have listened to me, and you should be ashamed of the way you treated Lynn too.”

I felt my heart sink, “God Chance, you are right, I have been a complete ass, I am so sorry.”

We sat in silence, I didn’t know what to say.

Chance finally said, “Ben, I can’t do this anymore, I need your help, how did things get this far?”

I started to cry, “I don’t know Chance, but I need your help too.”

Chance wiped away a tear, “will you take me home with you?”

I moved to sit next to Chance, “if that is what you want, of course I will.”

I lay next to Chance and wrapped my arms around him as we both sobbed like babies.

A few minutes later, Josh came back in the room, “so did you two idiots get your shit straight?”

I stood up and said, “yes we did, Chance is going to come home with me.”

Chance said, “yeah, Josh, we both owe you a big thank you. We are lucky to have a friend like you.”

Josh blushed, “well I don’t know about all that, I haven’t always been the best, but for some reason you clowns have started to grow on me. I do care about you.”

We sat for a few minutes, Josh cleared his throat, “so, did the little bad ass tell you what he did?”

Chance looked at Josh, “what do you mean?”

Josh grinned, “well, he jumped from the door all the way across the room taking Trey to the floor and then told him he was going to kick his ass so hard that the only way he was going to be able to shit was to smile.” He could hardly control his laughter.

Chance smiled, “holy shit you are a little bad ass.”

“Ok, I got a little bit carried away, can we change the subject?”

Josh said, “Ok, did the Dr. say when you could leave?”

Chance answered, “not yet, he said the cops were going to stop by this morning, so maybe after that.”

The police showed up around a half hour later and took Chance’s statement, and they asked Josh and I a few more questions. The Dr. came in shortly after and released Chance.

We went back to the dorm and packed Chance’s things and were on our way back home. I was so glad to have Chance back in my life, I told myself, don’t screw this up again.