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  TOMAS MOURNIAN

  All copyrighted material within is

  Attributor Protected.

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2011 by Tomas Mournian

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  All Kensington titles, imprints, and distributed lines are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotion, premiums, fund-raising, educational, or institutional use.

  Special book excerpts or customized printings can also be created to fit specific needs. For details, write or phone the office of the Kensington Special Sales Manager: Kensington Publishing Corp., 119 West 40th Street, New York, NY 10018. Attn. Special Sales Department. Phone: 1-800-221-2647.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  eISBN-13: 978-0-7582-6798-6

  eISBN-10: 0-7582-6798-3

  First Kensington Trade Paperback Printing: February 2011

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Printed in the United States of America

  To Hugo

  CONTENTS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  RUN

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  HIDDEN

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  INVISIBLE

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  GONE

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  A READING GROUP GUIDE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Timing being everything, I’m most grateful to John Scognamiglio’s generous gift of time to find the hidden truth of hidden. Mitchell Waters, my most excellent consigliere, makes me laugh as he walks me through my paces. And Rachel Cohn, to whom I’ll be forever grateful for giving me a voice.

  It took a village to write hidden, and mine was far-flung: Daniel Lee, Stacey Szewczyk and Alan F. and Eder Azael all read—and reread—the manuscript and gave insightful comments. Kristine Mills-Noble designed a cover that is nothing less than a gift. Amy Maffei’s copy edit was both precise and mindful of my intention. And Craig Bentley: Everyone should be so lucky to have a publicist who sounds like a movie star.

  Friends and fellow earth signs Jose Jimenez, Andrew Harburn and Lou Hunter listened to me all the way through.

  Patricke said “Ahmed” at precisely the right moment, and Orlando gave me J.D.’s glance. Likewise, the City of Angels has blessed me over the years with the guidance of Marilyn R. Atlas and Kylie Mackenzie and John Turck, Eileen Rapke, and Joao Neto. Also, Kathryn Galan, Octavio Marin and Alfredo de Villa, and Chris Soth, Linda Palmer and Darren Stein. San Francisco sent good juju, too, sustaining me with signals and crucial information from Shannon Minter, Regina Marler and DeeDee Shideler.

  For showing me the value of fighting the good fight, I’m indebted to editors Colleen Curtis, Kevin Koffler, Tim Redmond,

  Gabriel Roth and Bruce B. Brugmann, and Gia Lauren Gittle-son, Bob Roe, Michael Caruso, Barbara Walters, and Glenda Bailey.

  Special thanks to Greg Beal, Joan Wai, Shawn Guthrie and Catherine Irwin.

  Fellow yogis who reminded me to breathe: Abbe Britton, Noah Maze, Ross Rayburn, Jeff Fisher, Sita White and Durgidas.

  Those three great spirits who reached out and refused to let me slip, there they were: George Michael, Nancy Jo Sales, and Siri Sat Nam.

  The Corporation of Yaddo.

  And, finally, in memory of Lance.

  RUN

  Chapter 1

  Iam high.

  “I—”

  My voice catches. I cannot string together a whole sentence. My eyes open. I’ve been deposited in the back of my parents’ black Mercedes. I look at the dashboard clock. Where did the last forty-five minutes go?

  Beyond the windshield, gates swing open. The car rolls forward. I turn: I want a parting shot. Through the back window, I see twenty-foot walls lined with electrified barbed wire.

  The Mercedes picks up speed. Desert surrounds us. No wonder Serenity Ridge was built in the Nevada outback. Even if a kid manages to escape, there’s no way you can survive the run.

  “I need to use the restroom.”

  My parents stick with their preferred mode of communication: the nonresponse. I won’t know if it’s a “yes” or a “no” for several minutes. Did I already say, I am high? Medicated, mobilized, and tranquilized?

  This morning, when the nurse slid the needle into my ass, I thought about Raoul. I met Raoul in fourth grade. Raoul loved waving Magic Markers under his nose, acting stupid and saying, “Chil’, this’ll make ya high.” The drugs jumped into my bloodstream, and all I could think was, “
Chil’, this’ll make ya the Reluctant Junkie.” And then I passed out.

  Now, I’d say, “I feel like shit” but the drugs make me so woozy, I don’t know what I feel. But that’s what they want: separate me from my feelings so that I don’t “act out” or run. Fortunately, they have yet to figure out that feelings are different than ideas. Being stripped of my feelings is a good thing. Because now I can focus on Idea Numero Uno: ESCAPE.

  You’d probably be similarly obsessed, too, if you’d been in my place. For eleven months, twelve days, four hours, two minutes and twenty-one seconds, I’ve been locked up in Serenity Ridge, an RTC (short for residential treatment facility, a.k.a. pay-as-you-go-prisons-for-queer-teens.) In my head, I hear, “Baby, you’re on the brink.”

  Brink? More like, abyss. And I’m not sixteen, I’m fifteen (going on sixteen). Minor detail. I wasn’t cured of my “crime” (see above, “gay teens”). Coz I resisted. I lived in fantasy. I knew what was beyond Serenity Ridge’s walls and barbed wire: Swimming pools! Laughter! Music! Beach balls! Fun! Nekkidness! Tan golden skin! (Or, Boys! Boys! Boys!)

  “Ahmed?”

  Haifa’s eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. Haifa is Stepmother Number Four. Or, five. I’ve lost count. See, Moustapha, my father, believes in marriage, harem-style. IDK. I can’t place Haifa’s face because she’s the new Haifa? Or, because she’s had a radical nip / tuck? During my time in the queer penitentiary, this Stepmother has either acquired a new face or is a new Stepmother. Haifa Whoever twists her face into an expression that’s a cross between a grimace and a smile. Looks like? Aging supermodel with bad face-lift.

  “Um, yes?” I press my index fingernail to thumb and remind myself to: Pause. Think before I speak. Sound / act obedient. And bright. And alert. Even if I am loaded on downers and the car feels more like a coffin than a luxury four-door sedan. And I really, really want to scream….

  I feel a second set of eyes. Hidden behind mirrored, aviator-shaped shades, those eyes scan me for signs of “trouble.” Am I talking Green Beret? Special Forces Military Paratrooper? Or, Saddam Hussein’s ghost? No, just Dad, or Moustapha. Today, he wears one of his tacky Village People (the gay cop) getups.

  Moustapha waits for me to throw up my arms and drop my wrists, a Middle-Eastern Marilyn Monroe. In fact, he’d love nothing more than for me to spontaneously queen out with a shrill “Girrrllll!!!” He’d pull a hard U and drive back. Mou-stapha would have no problem leaving me at S.R. to rot on the forever and forgotten treatment plan.

  He hates me. He really hates what I am. Or, what he thinks I am: a wannabe cocksucker and buttfucker. What Moustapha really hates about me is that I remind him of my mother. (Or, “that bitch.”) The bitch who decided she had enough, stood up and left his hairy ass. Her “See ya!” still drives him crazy. And he doesn’t know, but I plan to leave, too. Leave as in, Escape. You know. “Junkie whore,” he said. “Just like your mother.”

  Moustapha believes his silence convicts me—for sins I have yet to commit (buttfucking, cocksucking, etc.). In Moustapha’s world, gay (“queer” in my world) equals sex. He could never understand how it’s possible I’ve had sex but am also a (emotional) virgin. By Moustapha’s dated definition—circa 1998?—gay is nuthin’ but a messed-up ’mo.

  “Did you enjoy Serenity Ridge?” Haifa asks. Amazing, she thinks I just got back from a trip to … Hawaii! Her question reminds me: I can’t feel the beige leather seat (but I can hear). Convenient. Allah forgot to turn off the audio.

  “Yes, I did. Very much.” I’ve mastered the Good Boy tone: flat, humble and certain. Now, if only I could get the straight dude part of my act down, everything would be fabulous. “Thank you for sending me there.”

  My stepmother nods, “pleased.” I study her hair. It’s rock hard. A helmet. I can’t figure out the look. Accidental motorcycle mama? Or, escapee from the Planet of the Apes? Then, I see the netting, and realize, that’s not Haifa’s hair but a wig! Thank G-D, no homosexuals were involved in her ’do. I blame Moustapha. I bet he told her that a bad wig counts as a head scarf. That reasoning fits with The Phantom of the Opera soundtrack. This being the couple who tell everyone they’re “strict, observant Muslims”—and so fake I want to barf.

  Hating them changes nothing. I shift my thoughts to the car’s alloy wheels. Beneath us, those wheels speed over asphalt—miles and miles of black … tar. I pray the road liquifies under the brutal late August heat.

  Flash! Black letters on a yellow face. The sign reads: LAS VEGAS, 30 MILES.

  Two days ago, in the cafeteria during breakfast, Eric leaned toward me and whispered, “There’s a store a couple miles after the sign that says, ‘Thirty miles to Vegas.’” I’d said, “Uh-huh,” and promptly forgot. Everyone said Eric was crazy. But damn if crazy Eric wasn’t spot-on correct.

  “Uhhh!” My body shivers. The sign signals escape (mine) is mere minutes away. Boy Scout, be prepared. Problem is, I got kicked out of Cub Scouts for trying to kiss a boy, Timmy. Also: I can barely keep my eyes open.

  “Wake up!” A girlie-boy voice. Oh, fucking hell. I’m hearing voices. Figure, it would belong to Lance. “Wake up, darling! Rise and shine!”

  I want to shout, “Lance, would you shut the fuck up!” But I don’t. Talking out loud to my (invisible) roommate from Serenity Ridge would be the perfect excuse (“He’s crrrraaaaaazzzzzz yyyyyy”) for my parents to turn around, drive me back to Serenity Ridge and drop me off.

  All I need to do is keep my eyes open, my mouth shut and—What!?! I muffle my shriek. Where my male Mata Hari eyes should be (in the rearview mirror), there’s two squinty blue eyes. Blink: Corn-colored eyelashes come down like a pair of giant, frilly fans. Lance.

  I must be really loaded. Because I know he’s not here in this luxury car slash coffin. Lance, he of the square-jawed, blond flat top, football player body of death and … lisp! I met Lance the day I “officially” checked into Hotel d’Serenity Ridge. Looking at him, I’d expected a deep-voiced dude. Then he opened his mouth and a purse fell out. Looked like: Thug. Sounded like: Bitch.

  “Wake up,” Lance trills. Bitch is per-sist-ent. For the next twenty-nine miles, Lance’s voice keeps me awake, repeating the horror story. What Happened. To him, to me, to all of us: “You couldn’t hide….”

  I look away from the rearview mirror. No good: Lance’s face is there, in the window’s tinted glass. I surrender, listening to our story unspool like a book on tape, “‘Cause even if you didn’t get a boner when they were showing you the pornos …”

  The Mercedes lurches, rolls onto a large, dirt lot and parks between two semis. “Miller Time!” promises the side of the semi with its bright, painted letters. Beer is not what the doctor ordered. I need something to wake me up. Ritalin. Or, speed. Surely, there must be a meth lab tucked away somewhere in one of those desert trailers.

  I look back, blinded by the windshield field, bright and mi-grainey. What am I doing here? Can I really escape? My confidence dips. Lance’s voice pipes up, “… this little thing tracked your pulse, telling them when you got excited.”

  I reach for the door handle. Locked. In the rearview mirror, my father’s eyes drill into me. This pit stop is a test. See Ahmed Run. Knock Ahmed Down. Watch Ahmed Crawl. If only Moustapha knew how much energy it takes just for Ahmed to grab the handle. The lock clicks. The handle moves. The door swings open.

  My right leg steps out. Somehow, the rest of my body follows. I stand, suspended in hot air, dusty from the semis’ tires churn. My legs buckle and my lungs seize up. Cold to hot. My body’s shocked by the abrupt change in temperature.

  Sorry, Lance, but I can’t follow through on my half-assed plan. I’m too weak. Or, I might have caught a cable movie disease. You know, when the adult playing the child actor starts aging prematurely and dies in the quick ninety minutes that passes in-between commercials?

  “And then they’d shock you.” Lance’s lisp makes me remember: the dark room. The wires that creep up and reach between my legs, electric ten
tacles.

  I reach, grip the door, then the roof. I hold up my body. I feel like an old man. I can’t do this.

  “It felt like when you drag your feet over carpet.”

  Oh, yeah. Now I remember. The electric shocks. To my dick and balls. The pain. Every time I looked at the pictures on the wall.

  I can’t go back. No fucking way am I going back.

  White dust cakes my lips, tongue and mouth. Fuck it, I breathe deep because I can.

  Suddenly, I really am outside, alone, almost free.

  Soon, I’ll be able to walk anywhere, speak with anyone, live.

  Chapter 2

  Moustapha’s hand tightens on my tiny left bicep. He “guides” me across the parking lot, grip crushing both my arm and self-confidence.

  “Moustapha!” Haifa shouts. “Wait! I need something.”

  She’s stepped out of the car. I can’t believe my luck: Inside a store, Haifa always demands an escort. She won’t go anywhere alone.

  Glad as I am, I can’t help but think, My real mother wouldn’t pull this crap. Even though she left when I was like, two, I know her. Know what she’s like. For one, I inherited her common sense.

  This is how my stepmother shops: She drags my father into the liquor section and leaves me to wander the aisles. Mou-stapha acts tough, but he cannot resist the gravitational pull of my stepmother’s planet-sized demands.

  Our family’s shopping habits haven’t changed in eleven months. At some point, I will be left alone. And left alone to wander the aisles means Escape. My heart rate speeds up. I cannot, for the life of me, control my pulse.

  “My dick started bleeding and they blamed me, called me ‘uncooperative,’” Lance says, reminding me what happened the last time my heart sped up: It triggered a virtual fireworks display of electric shocks.

  “Make it quick!” Moustapha barks. He’s a die-hard fan of the bark-shout. I guess he thinks I’m not just gay but deaf, too. Add that to my case of premature, movie-of-the-week aging disease and I have so many health problems that it’ll be a miracle if I can make it inside the bathroom. He gives me a shove. I mouth a silent, “Thank you.” Really. I am that exhausted, grateful for every extra bit of help.

  The bathroom’s a cubicle-sized room. One toilet with matching sink. It stinks of shit, piss and vomit. Footsteps. Mou-stapha’s behind me. Is he here to change my diaper? Or, help me unzip?