11. Hotaru
“If your mother was abused at a boarding school, why the fuck would your dad send you to one?”
Arlo lies casually with his head at the foot of my bed. His school issue blanket is neatly folded under his clasped hands, which prop up his brain. It’s this ridiculous game he plays.
The game where he comes in, chats about the day, gets comfortable and then drifts off into a sweet slumber. He plays it as though he’s not planning on sleeping in my bed as he has for the past week with his covered feet by my face and mine by his.
I play it as though I’m not counting the seconds every day until he walks through my door.
We’ve done a good job of steering away from the difficult topics. Apparently, that’s out the window now.
My fingers stick to the keys of my laptop, stalling progress on the second commission I’ve taken on since Arlo had this diabolically amazing plan for my first business venture. I have to be slow and methodical with my clientele.
One loudmouth and I’m kicked out.
Inexplicably, I don’t want to leave this shitty school in the middle of nowhere I’ve been scheming to escape since I arrived.
“I’ve asked myself that many times.” I lean against the back of my chair, ignoring the code lighting up the screen on my desk.
“And?” Arlo turns over onto his belly, propping his face onto the backs of his hands.
It’s even harder to ignore the bulge of his biceps and shoulders at this angle, but it’s an art I’m perfecting. His curious eyes make it easier to overlook the sculpted beauty of his face.
“I don’t like the answer.” I laugh. It’s devoid of humor. Arlo knows it.
The edges of his mouth turn down. His gaze narrows. The striations in his jaw ripple. “Your father?—”
“Has cause to shun me.” My interruption is sharper than I intended. I hold my breath, terrified that I’ve scared Arlo with my harsh retort.
He shoves up into a plank and snaps his feet underneath him. Crisscrossing his long legs, he sits tall. Anger fills his gaze. “There can’t be a good enough reason to send your kid to the same type of place that fucked up his wife.”
“Do you think your uncle’s mother feels that way?” I’m defensive. I know it, but I can’t stop the words from overflowing. “There are valid reasons to avoid a child.”
An exhale hisses out of Arlo so forcefully, I’m surprised when I don’t feel my brow singe. “You and my uncle have nothing in common.”
“We both have dicks.” I shove from the chair and begin pacing the small room, made smaller by Arlo’s presence.
“Would you beat someone so brutally just so you can shove it up their ass?” Arlo’s voice is thicker, angrier than I’ve ever heard it. His words. His rage stops me in my tracks near the open bathroom door. Slowly, I turn to face him.
“Would you starve someone for days on end to wield power over them?” His upper lip curls into a snarl. “Would you lock them in a room with nothing but the stench of your ejaculate to keep them company?”
“No.” My insides collapse. Instantly and silently, tears stream down my face. “Never.”
“Then you two have nothing in common.” He stands and grabs his blanket. “Don’t ever forget it.”
“Wait.” I hold my hands out, barring his escape, but he keeps on coming, forcing me to choose between touching him or letting him leave. I drop my hands to my sides.
The storm of wind his retreat creates whips against my cheeks. A chill rattles through me. A chill created by the fear of losing my only friend and the best friend I’ve ever known.
“It was me.” My breath whooshes out of my lungs, and I gasp to fill them again. “The incident. I triggered her.” I turn around and find him stalled on the threshold of the door. His shoulders are hunched, and his breathing is ragged. “I triggered my mother’s bottled trauma.”
Slowly, Arlo turns to face me. The anger is gone. There’s curiosity and sorrow in its place but not pity.
“She walked in on me getting head. Of course, I didn’t think it was a big deal at the time. I apologized, took the girl home, and went to a friend's house. That way, she wouldn't have to deal with me for a few hours.” I pinch my eyes shut for just a second and pull in a deep breath before I open them again.
“While I was gone, my mum took every pill in the house, hugged her childhood journal to her chest, lay in her bed, and went to sleep. She never woke up.”
His eyebrows go up just a little, but he doesn’t say anything.
“That journal held a firsthand account of what you just described over the span of three years. Then she became pregnant by one of the rapists.”
“You?” Arlo’s voice is nothing but a whisper.
“No. She was sent away to have it dealt with.” I collapse into the desk chair, almost unable to hold up my body weight. “All the while, she maintained excellent marks in her schoolwork, graduated with honors, and then was allowed back home.” I suck in a breath. “Where her parents procured her a marriage of convenience with a foreigner since she was disgraced.”
“Your father?”
“Yes. My father who now views his marriage as a false one, since he was lied to and views me as a false son.” I pick at the seam of my shorts. “I don’t blame him.”
“Just because your mother wasn’t a pristine virgin when he married her? Fuck that,” Arlo spits.
“No. Because his son didn’t have enough self-control to lock a goddamn door. Because his son made his wife spiral into a dark hole that she couldn’t see a way out of. Because his son is a deviant.”
My chest feels like it’s going to cave. I’ve already triggered Arlo. I’m bound to do it again, and the last thing in the world I want is to hurt him.
I bury my face in my hands. The weight of the world crashes onto my shoulders.
“I love that you’re a deviant.”
“What?” I fucking sob, barely able to fill my lungs.
“I love that you’re confident in your body and your desire. I love that your attraction to people knows no limits. I love that you aren’t scared to talk about those things.”
“Why? When you’ve been through hell, how can you even stand to be around me?” I scrub my hands down my face and sit up. Still, I can’t bring myself to look at him. “What if I trigger you? Again?” I’m almost yelling now.
Arlo walks to my chair and kneels at my feet. My heart fucking stops in a game of freeze tag I didn’t know we were playing.
“In case you haven’t noticed, I can’t stand being away from you.” He lifts his blanket between us, shakes it, and then tosses it onto the foot of the bed. “You offer me more comfort than I ever expected to feel in the presence of another person.” His eyes search mine. “Yes, you push me out of my comfort zone. More than that, you give me hope.”
“Hope?” I wipe my nose with the back of my hand.
He nods. “You give me hope that one day I’ll be able to enjoy the physical things we are meant to enjoy.”
“You want me to teach you how to jerk off?” I laugh and cry too.
“Fuck you, asshole.” Arlo winks.
“Any time. I’ll bottom for you.” I lean forward, press my hands to my face, and sob into my lap some more.
A few moments later, the weight of Arlo’s blanket settles over my shoulders. I never thought a scratchy old bit of fabric could bring me comfort, but I reach for those very edges in the night to assure myself he’s still nearby. The physical representation of him that I can touch and feel brings me more comfort than my plush down blanket ever could.
I hold those edges and let the sadness seep from my heart and bleed through my eyes.
He doesn’t touch me, but I feel him close. Just inches away while I snot and sob until I have nothing left.
“Come on.” The edges of the blanket go taut, and Arlo heaves my weight off the chair. “To bed, you sad sack.”
“Bet your sacks are sadder.” I laugh, though my throat is thick with tears.
“Maybe so.” He pulls back the corner of my plush comforter and ushers me up and under.
“Thank you.” I hand him back his blanket and crawl onto the bed, being sure to only take half of the small mattress. The part next to the wall has become my half. Even though I fucking hate the cold cinderblocks inches from my head, I hate the idea of him feeling stuck there in the middle of the night more.
Arlo tucks me in like a child. He closes my computer, then turns off the light. His weight dips the mattress. I have to fight to keep my body from rolling into his. It’s the most tense and uncomfortable way to sleep.
Yet I’ve had the best sleep of my life since he’s taken up my space.
Once settled, he takes a deep breath and slowly lets it out.
“Doesn’t seem fair,” I offer into the dark.
“What’s that?”
“You shared harder, darker stuff than me this evening, and I’m the one who cried like a baby.”
He’s quiet for so long, I figure he’s either not going to respond or he’s fallen asleep. Though I think the former is most likely. It’s his prerogative.
“In a way, your story hurts me more than my own,” he finally says.
I’m gaping in the darkness. “How is that possible?”
“I know how wonderful you are. I know what you deserve, and I know what you don’t.”
My heart expands so wide, it takes a mold of my rib cage. I press my hand to my sternum to keep it inside my body. “Arlo, you’re the bravest, most beautiful person I’ve ever met. I know you don’t deserve any of the shit you’ve dealt with since your parents and brother left the house that day. I also know you’re not going back to your uncle’s hellhole ever again.”
“I have to go back, Hota.”
I sit up and flick on my bedside lamp. Arlo blinks up at me.
“No, you don’t.” I’m up, pulling my knees under me to keep from touching him. “We’ll talk to the headmaster, the cops, hell, the news. Anyone who’ll listen.”
“I don’t have proof.”
A pit forms in my belly, pulling the contents of my stomach to the ground. I’m kicking myself for not stepping in when he first showed up and for not taking pictures of his injuries and emaciated frame. But he was so skittish back then. So terrorized.
“Stop.” Arlo pushes to sit, facing me. “It’s not your fault.”
I open my mouth to speak, but he cuts me off.
“The guilt is all over your face, and it’s not yours to carry. Not even with your mother.” He smiles and shakes his head. “How were you to know she’d walk in? How were you to know she wouldn’t be just regular mom-level freaked out by it?” His dark eyes center on me. “You helped me more than anyone the very first time I saw you. That’s not nothing. It’s everything.”
“You can’t go back there.” I throw the cover back and am about to get up when he grabs my leg through the blanket.
“I have to.”
“To…get proof?” I choke.
“No.” His perfect head shakes slowly.
Then I know. Like a lightning bolt behind the eyeballs. I know the answer to why he’s been watching wrestling practices for weeks on end with no intention of trying out for the team.
“You’re going to kill your uncle.”