Thirteen
ADAK
It’s impossible to concentrate on the game, much less the game two days later in Colorado. By that time, I’m completely out of my mind worrying about Oren. He assures me he’s okay, but I’m not sure I can trust that anymore.
He’s not okay at all. Not this entire time I’ve known him.Somehow, I’d convinced myself that he had the situation under control. He didn’t.
As soon as the game against the Colorado Thorns is finished, I adjust my flight, telling Traer that I have a personal emergency to handle.
Since there is absolutely no way that my entire team and everyone around me have missed the mess of worry I’ve become over the last couple days since the first phone call, he doesn’t question me.
He just pats my shoulder and tells me to go.
Boulder is not as far from Anaheim as it could be. I could have still been in Chicago when I decided to head home early. That would have been worse. The wait to get to Oren is literally eating at me.
By the time the car pulls up to my house, I’m practically vibrating with energy.
I make my way inside, locking the door, rearming the security system, and then turn around.
The house is quiet. Of course, since that was my first thought, I hear the distinct yet faint roar of a plane as it flies overhead.
Dropping my bag and kicking off my shoes, I step further into the house. The lights are off. I head upstairs and see the faint glow of a lamp from my bedroom.
Standing in the doorway, I see Oren asleep on my bed. He’s wrapped up in a bunch of blankets, his phone gripped tightly in his hand, even in sleep. His eyebrows are puckered, his jaw tense. Even his shoulders are stiff.
He’s been through hell. My heart aches even as anger rushes through me. Not just at his family, but at myself for not acting when I knew something wasn’t right. And then I fucking left him here to deal with it on his own!
I inhale deeply and move about my room, changing out of my clothes that feel gross like an airport, and into pajama pants and a shirt. I contemplate climbing into bed with him and hesitate.
I’m not sure if it’s my concern about his mental state that stops me or reflex that tells me everyone assumes that it’ll turn sexual if you climb into bed with someone. I’m stuck in indecision for a minute, but ultimately, my need to feel that he’s whole and unharmed outweighs my concerns.
So I carefully climb into bed.
Oren’s eyes immediately snap open and I still. It takes a minute for his eyes to focus on me. When he finally registers that it’s me, the sound of relief nearly breaks my heart.
He lets go of his phone and reaches for me, so I waste no time pulling him against my chest and wrapping him in my arms. For a very long time, we say nothing.
I keep trying to hold him tighter, as if I can mold his body to mine and we’ll fuse together.
I want to take away all the trauma and pain that I can practically feel in his hold on me.
After a long time, Oren asks, “Why are you home so early?”
“Believe me when I tell you I haven’t been useful to anyone for the last two days.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“Don’t apologize. I’ve been so scared for you. You’re all I think about most days, but my fear and worry have just been…” There really aren’t words. “I need you to tell me the truth,” I say. Oren swallows, his fingers digging into my back. “Are you okay?”
I can feel his reflex to tell me he is. I think he’s been living that lie for a very long time. But finally, he says, “No.”
The way his voice breaks, it takes everything in me not to immediately become furious at the men who did this to him. But that’s not what Oren needs right now. He needs me here, comforting him. Keeping him safe.
“What can I do?” I ask.
He shakes his head. It’s minute. I don’t think he’s telling me no. It’s that he doesn’t know what he needs or how to fix his situation.
“They’re going to find me,” he whispers.
“I’ll have them arrested if they step foot on my property,” I say.
“It won’t last,” Oren says, and I can hear a tremor of fear. “My dad and brother work for the prison. They’re friends with a lot of cops.”
“Yes, but I’m a public figure. And I won’t be ignored if they need to play dirty,” I say.
“I just—I don’t know.”
I tangle my fingers into his hair. “Want to tell me what’s going on and we can figure it out together?”
“I don’t want to burden you,” he whispers.
I kiss his forehead and then gently pull his face back so he’s looking at me.
“We’re partners now, Oren. That’s what we decided, right?
” He nods. “You’re not alone and you never have to fight alone again.
We’ll figure out what to do together. But I have to know what’s going on, so I know where to go. ”
“I just want them to leave me alone,” he says, frustrated tears filling his eyes.
Pressing a soft kiss to his lips, I gently urge, “Tell me, sweetheart.”
He takes a deep breath, holds it, and then lets it out in a rush. “I don’t know where to start,” he says.
“From the beginning.”
I grin when amusement flashes across his face before vanishing behind knitted eyebrows.
“I don’t even know when it started. My guess would be when my mom died.
Five days after Haze’s birth. Slowly, all her pictures vanished.
I’ve tried to find them, but the only one that remains is one on the wall in the living room.
A single picture with all six of us when Haze is three days old. ”
My hold on him tightens. A loss like that can wreck a family.
“I… I really don’t know,” he says again.
“At some point, they all started to hate me. Nothing I do is ever good enough and they make it very clear they don’t approve of…
anything. How I look, how I dress even when my father buys my clothes and won’t let me wear anything that he hasn’t purchased.
They don’t like the way I talk or how I walk.
They find it embarrassing that I work at a coffee shop. ”
“I thought you worked as a moderator.”
“I do. That’s what I really do. But if they knew I had a laptop, they’d take it. Shelton owns the coffee shop. He’s one of my best friends and knows my situation. So he’s helped me keep the cover for the past few years.”
“What else?”
Oren shakes his head. “Too much.”
“Have they hurt you? Physically?”
He shakes his head, but he has his bottom lip between his teeth. “As kids, Dane and Frankie used to beat me up and Dad would tell the school that we were just boys roughhousing. That’s what kids do. But I think when they got to high school, it stopped.”
There’s hesitation. Like he wants to add something. I wait.
“I have a bruise on my arm,” he whispers. “And my wrist. They’re fading now.”
“Did you take pictures of them?”
He shook his head.
“We need to document them.”
“I just want them to leave me alone,” he repeats.
I have a feeling this is far from over. Just this little bit I’ve heard makes me think that there’s going to be more. They’ve had control over Oren his entire life, and they’re not going to let that go without a fight.
There needs to be a way I can protect him from this. But I’m not sure how. “Tell me more,” I say quietly.
He nods and for the next several hours, I hear about the abuse that Oren has lived through almost his entire life.
How he’s been ostracized, shamed, and detested since he was a little kid.
At one point, he stops talking because I’m so furious that I’m shaking.
It takes me several minutes to get myself under control before Oren continues.
I’m struck by how strong Oren is. He’s survived maybe twenty years of this. All on his own. He’s had some outside support, but because of his father’s abuse of position, it’s proven ineffectual.
Oren’s struggle is heartbreaking.
“I don’t know what I did,” Oren says, tears in his eyes and his voice filled with emotion.
He tries to keep from crying, his bottom lip trembling.
“I don’t know why I was never good enough.
And now I’m gay and that’s just another thing I did wrong.
It’s not like I asked to be smaller than them.
I didn’t ask to be different. I didn’t ask to be gay. Why is it always my fault?”
“Okay,” I say, pulling his face to my chest and hugging him fiercely. He shakes, sobs wracking his chest as I squeeze him. “Okay. It’s okay now. I promise.”
How much he hurts, how deep and permanent those wounds are just ruin me.
I let Oren cry until he’s out of tears, only to find that he’s fallen asleep.
I’m also exhausted, since I took the earliest flight I could to get home.
But with everything he’s told me, I can’t close my eyes as I picture these men I hate more than anything.
If I’ve ever felt helpless before, it’s nothing compared to this. Fact of the matter is, I can’t take away his pain. I can’t remove those scars. I’m not sure I can even get his family to leave him the fuck alone.
I’m not sure where to go to find help with this. There are domestic violence hotlines, but I can’t force him to make that call. I understand all he wants is for them to go away. I’m just not sure how to make that happen.
But I silently promise myself that if I do nothing else in my life, I will find a way to separate Oren from his abusive family. At least right now, I know he’s safe.
He sleeps for an hour. When he opens his eyes and looks at me sheepishly, he has bags under his eyes. Nothing about that hour was restful.
“One more question,” I say quietly, brushing my finger gently across the stubble along his jaw. “Then we’ll stop talking about it for a while so you can find your balance. Deal?” Oren nods. “Do you have anything there that you’d like to get?”
“They won’t let me leave again if I go back,” he says, and I see fear flash in his eyes.
“We’ll see about that, but that’s not what I asked. Is there anything there that you want?”
Oren’s eyebrows knit together. Eventually he nods. “There are some things I hid,” he says quietly. “And… all my clothes. The only thing I took was my phone.”
“What about your laptop? You leave that at the coffee shop?”
He nods. “Yeah. Shelton has some of my important things, like my birth certificate and stuff. I found them years ago and got them out of the house before they could be held hostage, like me.”
“Okay. Good. I’m glad your more personal belongings are safe. No more heavy stuff for the day, okay?”
Oren inhales deeply and nods.
“Let’s shower and get some food. I’ll make some calls to arrange retrieving your items. Okay?”
“Okay.”
I press a soft kiss to his lips. When I try to move away, his hands tighten. “Thank you. I didn’t know what to do or where to go.”
“You’ve had a home here since the moment we met, Oren,” I say, and his breath catches. “Go take a shower.”
He nods and disentangles himself from the blankets. I watch him pad into the bathroom before rolling over to find my phone. Time to make some calls.