Finally Stevie found the person to
whom she did not want to say good-bye. Wes Bellardi was sitting on the leather
sofa in the family room, still appearing thin and fragile, but growing stronger
every day. He was sufficiently healed from his life-saving abdominal surgery
but burns had left him badly scarred. He wore a soft knit cap over his skull
where as yet little hair had grown back. But thankfully he still tested
negative for HIV.
As soon as he had been well enough to
talk, he had told Stevie the details of that Halloween night. His original plan
was to escape from the boat before the explosion and swim to shore.
Unfortunately, he drank too much vodka and lost his balance on the slippery
boat deck just after lighting the fuse. Wes had planned to disappear for a
while, hiding out as long as he could in the gay community at Berkeley,
allowing his father to believe he was dead. Stevie—and Senator Bellardi—had
been extremely relieved to know that Wes had not intentionally tried to kill
himself.
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