Like a million other young gay men, Bryan keeps his sexuality hidden because it’s safer that way. Yet other guys know he’s different -- they sense it, and make Bryan’s life pure hell. At home, things aren’t much better. He barely acknowledges his alcoholic father, and his mother has little time to spend with her family. So Bryan is alone, with no support, no shoulder to cry on.<br><br>Years of torture and torment, of name calling and humiliation, have taken their toll. Bryan does what he can to make new friends, but in trying to be something he’s not, he makes a huge mistake. Unable to cope with the repercussions, Bryan spends more and more time in a fantasy world he has created for himself. In this private world he is handsome, an object of desire. He is loved.<br><br>Is the hiding place as perfect as it seems? Or will Bryan go too deep and not be able to come out again?

The Hiding Place

“I can’t even do that properly,” Bryan wailed.


Somehow he remembered there was a second bottle of wine in the fridge. He found it, snatched it up and went running out the back door.


“Hey Bryan. Where are you going? Don’t do anything stupid.”


He heard Ben calling after him but the sound of his voice only made him laugh. Don’t do anything stupid? He already had. What a fool he’d made of himself.


He ran into the night, his hand clutching the icy cold neck of the wine bottle. Overhead wisps of cloud hung in the night sky, partly illuminated by a half moon. The night was still, broken by snatches of a strong breeze carried to the mainland by the ocean a few kilometres to the west. As he hurtled into the night his thoughts taunted him just as the boys in his class had done at school. All the hurts and disappointments came back in one overwhelming wave of misery.


Chapter 29