Chapter 12 #2
There’s uncertainty in his kiss, and for a moment, I stand frozen because I can’t believe he kissed me. But then, I press my lips firmer against his, wanting this so badly. Wanting to chase the euphoria rushing through me.
I pull my gaze away from the image, knowing what’s about to happen, and wishing I could reach out to younger me and give him a warning. But I can’t, and the memory continues to play.
“What the fuck is going on here?”
Henry and I pull apart, my eyes widening when Derek strolls into the room.
Derek is a year older, and I hate him. He bullies everyone.
Henry looks nervously from me to Derek, and then he suddenly shoves me, hard.
I didn’t expect it, so I stumble back, scrabbling to keep my towel from slipping and exposing my semi-erection.
“Get off me, you pervert!” Henry yells, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth. “He fucking kissed me. He forced himself on me!”
“What?” I stutter, but I can’t get any more words out as betrayal flows through my veins.
Derek’s calculating gaze drops to the towel, lingering for far too long to not notice the bulge. His lips twist into a sneer. “You dirty fucker! I always knew there was something wrong with you. You wait, I’m telling everyone what a fucking queer you are.”
“No, wait-”
“I can’t believe I was even friends with you,” Henry adds with a coldness to his tone that I’ve never heard before. “You’re sick, Ben. Sick in the head. I’m glad I’m leaving tomorrow. I never want to see you again.”
“Get out of here, Henry. I’ll deal with the sicko,” Derek says, cracking his fists.
Too shocked to do anything, I’m helpless but to stand there while Henry walks away without even a glance back.
“I can’t watch.” I lowered my gaze, knowing what came next.
Henry ran upstairs and told the other boys what had happened. They rushed down to join Derek in beating the living shit out of me. I spent two weeks in the hospital wing, pissing blood and barely able to move from the cracked ribs.
When I returned to the home, no one wanted to talk to me. Everywhere I went, kids taunted me, and the teachers did fuck all about it. I was a pariah, and that was how I stayed until I finally left that fucking home.
“Why the hell have you brought me here? You think this is something I want to remember?” I snarled as Barbara moved to stand in front of me.
My body trembled with fury, the overpowering stench of sweat making nausea churn in my stomach. I begged my brain to wake up from the dream, desperate to get away from shadows of the past.
“It’s important you remember, Ben,” Barbara said, her voice soft. “This is a moment that shaped your life. You were made to think there was something wrong with you, that you did something wrong.”
Shame coursed through me. She was right. Before this incident happened, I never thought there was something wrong with me; I just knew I was different. But cruel taunts followed me for weeks, months, even years, after the incident in the locker room.
If someone tells you that there is something wrong with you for long enough, you start believing it.
Barbara reached out to gently rest her wrinkled hand on my forearm.
“Let me ask you something. Have you ever let yourself imagine what life would have been like if Derek hadn’t interrupted you?
Or better yet, if he’d found you and Henry kissing, and he’d clapped you on the back and congratulated you for taking the next step? ”
“No,” I answered instantly, because not once in my life had I ever allowed myself to consider a different story.
“Why?”
A wave of anger rolled through me at Barbara’s inane question. “Because that’s not what happened. I can’t change the past-”
“No, you can’t change the past. But lessons can be learned so you can have a better future.
” I didn’t reply due to the lump lodged in my throat.
Barbara’s features softened as a sad smile pulled on her lips.
“Those boys hurt you, didn’t they? And I don’t just mean physically; they made you believe you were worthless, and made sure that everyone abandoned you.
They pushed you into a black hole of pain, and you’ve stayed in there ever since. ”
I released a humorless chuckle. “I think I was in that hole the day my mom abandoned me.”
It was another part of my past I refused to think about. What could a two-year-old have done to deserve being abandoned by their only parent? Maybe that was the real reason I kept people at arm’s length; everyone in my life left me, and each time, it left a scar on my heart.
“I’m not sure that’s true,” Barbara said, lifting my chin to look at her.
The locker room behind her slowly began to fade.
“You decided early on in your life that your mom abandoning you wasn’t going to hold you back, and you didn’t.
You worked hard and made a successful business.
” She released my chin, her gaze narrowing on me.
“Yet, that hasn’t made you happy, has it?
You continue to inflict the pain you carry on others every day because it makes you feel something you lost in the locker room on that day. Your self-worth and power.”
I didn’t reply because everything she said was true. Even if it was for the briefest of moments, when I was standing in front of someone, watching them cry or beg me not to evict them, I felt…untouchable. I felt like no one could hurt me.
But what sort of person did that make me? The type who enjoyed watching others struggle, when at points in my life I’d been the one to struggle.
“There’s something else I want to show you,” Barbara said, her gaze fixed on me as if she was reading my mind.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” I muttered, somewhat pointlessly.
The locker room completely faded, replaced by a swanky wine bar. My eyes landed on a group of people talking, all with wine glasses in their hands. An older me, aged twenty-four, maybe twenty-five, standing next to a healthy-looking Jake, both of us engaged in conversation with two beautiful women.
Bile tried to push its way up my throat, burning like acid as I swallowed it.
I remembered the night playing out before me.
Jake and I were celebrating making a profit during the first year of Morley and McScroodge Properties, something neither of us had predicted.
Jake had called the two women over, telling me we deserved to have fun for the night.
I’d slept with a couple of women by this point, pressured into it by Jake, who had no clue why I struggled to get excited when a woman gave me attention.
I hated both encounters, but I kept telling myself that fucking a woman meant I was normal.
That there wasn’t anything wrong with me, like so many people said there was.
Drawn to the vision, I stepped closer, my heart thudding.
“So, handsome and successful. How come there’s no lady in your life?” Jennifer purrs before sipping on her wine.
I hide my cringe when she rests her hand against my chest, oblivious to how uncomfortable I am. I open my mouth to reply when my gaze catches on someone staring at me from across the bar.
He’s fucking gorgeous. Tall, broad, olive-skinned, with a perfectly trimmed beard. His black shirt is tight around his shoulders and chest, showcasing his athletic frame. His lips lift into a shy grin when he catches me ogling him, and my cheeks heat as we stare at each other.
“Are you okay? You kinda slipped into a trance?” Jennifers says, pulling my attention away from the gorgeous stranger.
“Yeah, sorry. I thought I saw someone I knew,” I reply, trying to ignore the way my body is heating. “Why don’t you tell me what you do for work?”
Jennifer launches into a spiel about her work, but I’m not listening. My attention has fallen back to the guy who’s still staring at me. His eyes drop to Jennifer, who is animatedly talking, before they meet mine again, and he smirks.
I can’t help but return it, and for the first time in a long time, my cock twitches. Not because a woman is sucking it in an attempt to get me hard, but from a simple look from a stranger.
An elbow nudges me in the ribs, and I rip my gaze away from the man to find Jake glaring at me just as Jennifer and her friend disappear into the crowd.
“What the fuck? What’s wrong with you? She was putty in your hand, man, and you just let her walk away.”
“Yeah, sorry. I just…I wasn’t feeling it,” I reply, trying to ignore the little voice in my head that tells me even Jake knows there is something wrong with me.
Jake snorts. “Well, I hope you’re not feeling that guy over there.”
“What?” I say, a little too quickly, as panic stabs me.
“That guy over there,” Jake replies, nodding across the bar. “He’s been blatantly eye-fucking you for the last few minutes. To tell you the truth, it’s making me feel sick.”
“Don’t be stupid,” I protest.
“I’m being serious. And for a moment, it looked like you were giving him the come on.
” He pauses to finish the rest of his wine before placing his empty glass down.
“Please don’t tell me you prefer cock over pussy.
I’ll have to consider my life choices if I discover my best friend is a cock-sucking faggot. ”
I closed my eyes as the memory of that vile insult made my fists clench. There’d been times during our partnership that Jake made homophobic comments, and every time, I’d wanted to smack him as hard as I could.
But I never did.
I was nothing but a coward, too afraid that he would be another person to abandon me if I admitted the truth.
“If you ask me, Jake was a narrow-minded asshole who deserves those chains,” Barbara hissed, her tone laced with venom, before she added softly, “Do you remember what happened that night after you left the bar?”
I sighed. “You mean when we took Jennifer and her friend back to the hotel, and she got so fed up trying to get me hard that she decided to join Jake and her friend? Yeah, I remember.”
I also remembered how, for weeks after, Jake had teased me about having erectile dysfunction, to the point where I hooked up with a random woman, just to prove to him that there was nothing wrong with me.
“Were you happy for him?”
My brow quirked. “Happy Jake was getting laid?”
“Happy that he had someone to enjoy being with. And not just this woman, but any woman he was with?” Barbara clarified.
I shrugged, confused by the question. “I guess.”
“Then answer me this. Why is it that Jake got to be happy, but you don’t? Is it because men and women only get to be happy when they’re hooking up with the opposite sex?”
I didn’t believe that, but I couldn’t bring myself to say the truth.
That I didn’t deserve to be happy.
“Everyone deserves to be happy, darlin’,” she said, reading my mind and smirking. “Even you. But you’ll never be happy if you stay in that black hole of pain that you currently live in.”
“It’s safe there,” I replied, my voice cracking.
“And lonely?” She raised a brow in question before she cupped either side of my head and pulled me down to her level to place a soft kiss on my forehead.
Releasing me, she took a step back. “People get hurt in life, Ben, it’s what you do with that pain that matters.
You can either let it pull you further into the darkness, or you can use that pain to make your life better.
Maybe even make other people’s lives better. ”
The outline of her figure began to fade away along with the wine bar, but I wasn’t ready for her to leave. I was finding her presence oddly comforting. “I don’t know how to live anywhere but the black hole,” I admitted, knowing our time was running out.
“Maybe there is someone in your life who can show you the way. You may not have noticed it, but he’s already changing you. Two weeks ago, would you have given someone a lift home because you didn’t want him to get cold?”
Too lost for words, I was helpless but to watch Barbara fade away, the last thing to vanish was her knowing smile.