Chapter Twenty-Three #2
Trenton had thought it would feel good to learn the reason Hilary hated bedtime. But it was only another hammer blow to find that yet again, the man’s suffering was linked to him. In this, it was the fear of his leaving. Of waking and finding him gone.
“I’ll read poetry.”
He watched Hilary internally debate that. “It fucked you up last time.”
“You can protect me.”
Hilary cried a little while they read. Not like in the kitchen with the gasping kind of sobs. These were quiet tears that were absorbed by the blanket. They lay there together, Hilary’s head in his lap.
Eventually, Trenton’s voice became hoarse, and it was difficult to keep his eyes open. For Hilary too. He got out the tape again.
“You won’t sleep like this,” Hilary said, still procrastinating. “You won’t be able to.”
“If you keep my hands in front, it’ll be fine.
Don’t forget my legs. You should tape my thighs and shins together, not just the ankles.
Yeah, wrap it around. Just like that.” It was important to make it so that he couldn’t walk, not even to hop, so that if he tried to roll off the bed, it would make a huge thump and wake even a deep sleeper like Hilary.
“What if you need to go to the bathroom?”
“I’ll be okay.”
“You won’t. You have a small bladder.”
Hilary began to cry again. So sad. So full of despair. Trenton had never seen anyone so sure of oncoming hurt. And he couldn’t even comfort him. “I’ll be here.” It was all he could promise. “You’ll see. And I won’t forget this time.”
Hilary cried himself to sleep, hiccuping briefly. But eventually, finally, he was still. Trenton watched him a while, his beautiful man. The evening had aged Hilary further, and he knew he had to do better.
He woke when Hilary jolted him awake, trembling, the fear making him mute. This time, Trenton had the words ready. Had practiced them as he was falling asleep. “I haven’t forgotten. I’m here. I love you, Hilary.”
He couldn’t even call it relief. What Hilary felt, what he sank into.
The man cried like his heart had been born only to be hurt by him, wracking him with it and shuddering over and over, made worse with a whole year of waiting for the shoe to drop.
All through it, he held Hilary close. “You’re going to see,” he promised him.
“Maybe not today. It might be frightening for a while, but I’m not going to forget, Hilary.
I swear it. Whatever I might have said in the past, whatever anyone might have told you, I’m not going to run. I’m here. This is me choosing you.”
Hilary took off a few days, calling in sick.
It wasn’t even a lie. He really was sick.
The stress and the crying even bringing on a low-grade fever.
Thankfully, it cleared up quickly, and by the weekend they were even going outside.
They went to the botanic garden together.
A waste, Hilary said, because it was still too early for flowers, but that wasn’t what mattered.
He held Hilary’s hand all while they were out.
Bringing him even to the bathroom with him.
Hilary seemed surprised by that part. “You don’t like it. When I hear you pee.”
That made Trenton laugh. “Why would I care about that?”
Hilary didn’t have a proper answer, but he seemed determined about it. “I don’t know. You just don’t like it.”
Slowly, they made their way through the poetry books.
They still made Hilary cry, but not all the time.
The man did love them, and certain passages Hilary made him read over and over until Trenton had them by heart and could recite them whenever he was asked, even without the books in front of him.
It grew warmer outside, and they celebrated Hilary’s birthday.
Trenton called some of the man’s coworkers at the hospital and organized a little something for him there as well.
They stopped taping him at night. Trenton had insisted on it for weeks—far longer than Hilary would have.
They did it in stages. First, Hilary demanded having his hands free.
“I like when you hold me.” But that soon became his legs as well.
“It’s annoying to cut you free in the morning.
And to keep buying the tape.” But still, Trenton would have insisted if he thought his beloved needed it.
But Hilary was doing all right. The fear still came over him, especially around bedtime, and he had a lot of trouble being alone, but there were more good days than bad.
Even Hilary thought so, thanking him, in a vulnerable moment, for putting up with the anxiety and all the accommodation it required.
Later, Trenton would hate himself for how he acted, but in the moment, he felt only warm and good.
He pulled Hilary close and told him there was nothing to thank him for.
Told him that he loved him, that he would do anything for him.
How Hilary didn’t knock his teeth out for saying so, he didn’t know.
But he would learn that mistake, the sickening nature of his so-called indulgence.
How smarmy and almost masturbatory his care was, as if he were really helping Hilary. As if he were ‘healing’ him.
It happened one day in late spring when they were expecting a package.
They’d already missed it twice, or so the shipper claimed.
They’d both been home during the first ‘delivery.’ The second time, Trenton had settled himself in the main room so he’d hear the doorbell, putting off his customary run to be home for the entire delivery window.
But then he’d gotten a text saying it had once again been missed.
So now they were both out on the stoop with a bucket of popcorn (or animal feed, as Hilary called it) until Hilary grew thirsty.
“I’m just getting some juice,” the man warned.
“Tackle that liar if he comes. We need to get the confession out of him.” And that was easy enough to agree to, keeping his eyes pinned to the road in front of the house like a proper watchdog.
And then it came—the call that would change everything.
They’d made the order on Hilary’s account, so he had the man’s phone in his lap because the driver was supposed to call.
But when the phone lit up, it wasn’t the delivery driver.
The screen read Prima Mamarina, a term he thought he understood.
Hilary had mentioned once that his mother was a dancer. “Hilary!” he called out. “Your mother!”
He got back a muffled, “What?”
“Your mother!” he repeated, louder. But it was hopeless.
Hilary could never hear anything without looking at the speaker’s lips.
Tests had shown there wasn’t anything wrong with his ears, so maybe it was some kind of auditory processing disorder.
Either way Trenton was stuck with what to do with the phone.
He could have let it go to voicemail and let Hilary call her back.
But that seemed rude. He could also go inside to Hilary, but that would have meant abandoning his post, and he’d sworn not to do that.
So he did what he thought was best—what he thought harmless—and answered the call.
“Hello,” he said, a little awkwardly. He’d never picked up anyone else’s phone before.
“Hilary’s inside, but he’ll be back out in a minute.
Did you want to wait, or should I take a message?
” He thought that was all right. Decently respectful, he hoped, if maybe a bit robotic.
He couldn’t help his nervousness. They hadn’t talked about parents, something Trenton thought was maybe Hilary trying to be sensitive about the situation, and he hadn’t wanted to bring up the topic himself.
In either case, he didn’t believe his beloved had any problem with his parents.
He saw messages from them come in sometimes on the lock screen.
So he was sure it would be okay, but the pause, after he finished speaking, was so heavy he thought he might be imagining it.
And then a single word.
“Trenton?”