Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
GAGE
He woke disoriented, the way he always did after a massive panic attack and the medications he needed to get through it. The room he was in was dark and smelled unfamiliar, though a bit like Lucas’s shower soap and something like dirt and cookies.
He’d almost forgotten that Frankie had taken him back to their place instead of his apartment.
Opening his eyes, he rolled over and startled when he saw a figure sitting in front of him, nose almost touching his cheek. It took several seconds to see it was Elodie.
“Hello.”
She shoved her nose into his cheek and took a big sniff.
“Um?”
“Gross,” she said primly.
“Thank you?”
The door flew open a second later, and in the dim light, Gage immediately recognized Fenton, who took three steps into the room. Elodie threw herself on top of Gage with a heavy laugh.
“Excuse me. Is this make-your-own-rules day?” Fenton asked.
“I made my own rules up!” she shouted back.
Gage eased himself up to sit, and in small fits and bursts, he remembered why he was there. The panic attack. Falling apart in Lucas’s food truck. Panicking over whether or not he was going to be an absolutely shit dad.
Oh, and telling his dads and uncles to fuck off.
That was going to be a fun conversation.
“He’s my best friend,” Elodie said, tightening her grip when Fenton grabbed her around the waist. “I can…I can stay. He wants me to stay!”
“He needs rest,” Fenton said. He gave Gage an apologetic smile. “Sorry. She’s getting sneaky.”
Gage shifted her on his lap as he sat all the way up and rested his back against the wall.
He was in Lucas and Frankie’s guest room, which also doubled as Lucas’s space for when he needed alone time.
His braille D&D manual volumes sat on shelves, along with his figurines, and the maps they’d made over the years were hanging on the walls.
But there were also Elodie’s toys—Hot Wheels and Barbies and strange-looking stuffed animals with creepy faces.
It was odd to think of Lucas doing this whole parenting thing. Of him living with a child and being a stepdad and thriving in ways that felt a little too adult for him some days.
“She can stay,” Gage said when Elodie started to look actually upset.
Fenton’s brows dipped. “Dude, it’s fine.”
Gage shook his head. “We’re best friends. You can’t break our bond.”
Rolling his eyes, Fenton put up his hands in surrender and took a step back. “I concede. But you want some water or something? Every time I have to take a Xanax, I have the worst cotton mouth.”
Gage tested his tongue and grimaced. “Yeah. That would be good.”
Fenton shot him a salute, turned toward the door, then froze and looked back. “Fallon’s on his way. Frankie didn’t tell him while he was at the shoot. Didn’t want to stress him out. But yeah, he knows now.”
Gage knew he was in for some aggressive comfort, but in reality, that’s all he wanted. He still felt a bit raw and tender in spots he’d been trying not to poke, but he also felt oddly unburdened. God, had he really been hanging on to his fear about being a shit dad for so long?
“Did you cry?” Elodie asked. Her tiny fingers poked at his cheeks, her big eyes blinking at him.
He sighed. “Yeah. I did cry today. I think.” He wasn’t sure, but he had the ache in his head like he had been at least a little weepy. “Did you cry today?”
“Yeah. I cried at school because Carter…he, um. He taked my seat. Because I have the red seat, and I like it. And it’s my seat because I can see it, but I don’t see the other seats.”
“It sounds like Carter needs to keep his hands on his own stuff.”
“Yeah,” she said. “You could come yell at him.”
Gage laughed. “If I get time off work, I will. No one messes with my best friend.”
“Okay.” She wriggled out of his arms and hopped down. “You want chiten nuggets?”
“I’m good. Maybe later.” He watched her leave the room, better balanced with her orthotics than she had been a year ago. She walked like Lucas, with one hand on the wall to keep herself straight and on to where she wanted to go, and he realized this was the perfect house for his best friend.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, he massaged until he felt the pressure in his sinuses start to give a bit, and by the time he was breathing through both nostrils, the door was opening again.
It wasn’t Fenton this time.
Fallon was a little pale, and his brow was furrowed deep with worry. He took a few steps into the room, his own eyes wide behind his glasses, and in that moment, he looked a lot like his little sister.
“You’re okay,” he said.
Gage nodded. “I’m okay. It was a bad day.”
Fallon walked over and pressed a tepid glass of water into Gage’s hand. He gulped nearly all of it, swiping his mouth with the back of his hand, then set the glass down and shifted over to make room for Fallon. He curled up immediately, pressed against Gage’s side.
“Is it me? Am I stressing you out?”
Gage closed his eyes. “The situation is.”
“If it’s too much for you—”
“No.” Gage turned slightly and tipped his chin up. Fallon looked terrified, and Gage hated himself for the few moments Fallon might have thought he was too much. “Don’t give me a way out, sweetheart. I don’t want it. I need to sort myself out because I want to be good for you.”
“Is that what you’re worried about?” Fallon quickly took his hand and began to trace the lines on his palm the way he always did when he was anxious.
Gage watched the motion for a few moments before answering him. “There’s a part of me that worries everything that happened at school broke me. Like…like that it fundamentally ruined something inside me that I need to be a good partner and a good parent.”
Fallon said nothing.
“It’s something I plan to work on in therapy. This whole…thing—this recovery and coping thing—it’s not going the way I thought it was going to go. All the trauma I had before this was…I don’t know, textbook, I guess.”
“What do you mean?” Fallon asked quietly.
Gage nestled in closer. “The identity crisis I had when I was a kid about being visibly mixed race, though no one could really pinpoint which race I was, even me. I felt like an outsider all the time, and it didn’t help that my dad loved me as much as he did.
I was angry until I wasn’t, and sad until I wasn’t.
And finding out where my bio parents came from made me feel a little better, even if it didn’t answer any of my questions.
I cried, I raged, then I coped. Just like the therapist told my dad I would. ”
Fallon started to play with the hem on Gage’s jeans.
“I got diagnosed with ADHD kind of late, which made me mad at my dad for not noticing sooner. I acted out, and I was rude to his face and made him feel like a shitty parent. Then I felt guilty and kind of leaned into people-pleasing for a while to make myself feel better. Therapy helped with that too. My dad said he expected it. He said he read all the books, and he was preparing himself on what to do.”
“Okay,” Fallon whispered.
“When all of this happened,” Gage said, his voice a little thready, but stronger than it had been before, “I expected to be really sad. And scared. I expected to have nightmares of the assault—even if I couldn’t remember the actual events.
I expected to be triggered by the smell of booze or dudes who kind of looked like Jonny.
I expected to feel gross after being touched.
I thought I would forever be triggered by the thought of having a child.
None of that happened. So…I don’t know. I thought maybe I got lucky.
That maybe there was nothing I had to cope with.
I didn’t realize I was angry for a long time. ”
Fallon looked up at him.
“Then I thought I was feeling better because being with you made me so happy. Only…maybe I’m not as happy as I thought I was, because people keep asking me if I’m okay.
They keep…they keep assuming I’m not. They think I’m doing all the wrong things to get myself through it.
” He went quiet. “And then I lash out and say things I don’t mean, and fuck.
If I can’t figure out how I’m going to react at any given moment, how can I be the man you need me to be for you or Mango? ”
Fallon licked his lips. “I don’t know.”
Gage knew that was an honest answer, but it was a punch to the gut anyway. Irrationally, he wanted Fallon to tell him that he was fine. That everyone was wrong, and he seemed happy. That he wasn’t worried at all.
But Fallon didn’t lie.
And this wasn’t some magical world where a handful of amazing orgasms and falling in love cured him from everything he’d been through.
“I’m still angry about Charlie,” Fallon whispered.
Gage’s eyes widened. Fallon never talked about him.
“I’m angry at myself for sticking around so damn long, even though I knew he was a terrible boyfriend.
I’m angry at myself for—for what happened that night.
I wasn’t too drunk to know what I was doing.
He’d hurt people I loved, including myself, and I still slept with him.
I don’t know what kind of person that makes me. ”
“A human one,” Gage said.
Fallon laughed softly. “Yeah. But I understand what you mean. Everything feels upside down sometimes, and I’m afraid that one day, Mango is going to say or do something that looks or sounds like him, and I’m just…going to remember the way it felt when he hit me.”
Gage leaned his head down and let his lips rest against Fallon’s temple. “That might happen.”
“I won’t hate them. But I might hate myself a little more.”
“Will it help if I promise to love you extra hard during those moments?” Gage murmured.
Fallon’s head snapped up, eyes wide. “Do you love me now?”
Gage realized that in all they’d done and everything they’d said, he hadn’t used the words. He’d been afraid they were coming too soon or would be too heavy for Fallon to hold, but that was absurd now that he thought about it.