Chapter Ten #2
He smiles carefully at that, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Thanks, Caleb. That was really thoughtful.” His fingers toy with the blanket. Pink spreads across his cheeks, and he instantly looks more like himself.
“It’s nothing,” I whisper.
Silence stretches between us, but it doesn’t feel uncomfortable.
The sound of Kayden’s soft breathing fills the room, and the warmth from his body emanates toward me.
He chews on the string of his hoodie, his arms still clasped tightly around his legs.
I want to touch him, hold him, but I’m not sure it’s what he needs right now.
Eventually, I gesture at the half-empty glass of water on the bedside table. “Refill?”
He shakes his head.
“Can I get you anything else? A soda, maybe?”
“No, thank you, Caleb.”
Fuck. I have a feeling I’m messing up, and that I’m doing this all wrong. I know nothing about body dysphoria other than that trans people can suffer from it to various degrees. I should have looked into it more. I should be better for Kayden.
“Would you rather… Do you want me to leave you alone? I can go if you—”
“No!” he blurts. “I don’t want to be alone.
” He looks me dead in the eye, his bottom lip trembling in that barely noticeable way it used to do when he was a kid, and something had happened at school.
Kayden was always sensitive growing up, and I know from Sal that he kept a lot of things bottled up inside.
I reach out and squeeze his knee gently.
“Okay. Then I’ll stay. For as long as you want.
” He lets out a breath, his gaze dipping to my hand resting on his knee, and then they come.
Fat tears spill from his eyes and trail down his cheeks.
He makes a pained sound in his throat, then buries his face against his knees.
I don’t think. My body acts on pure instinct as I close the space between us and wrap my arms around him.
Kayden lifts his face, his lips moving wordlessly, his eyes spilling over with unfathomable distress.
A string of sobs falls from his lips before he buries his face against my chest. His legs are still tucked between us, so I carefully turn him in my arms, then wrap them around him again.
His body shakes as one wave of cries after another moves through him.
I carefully press his head against my chest and rest my chin on top of it, shushing into his downy hair.
His body is stiff at first, but after a while, he relaxes and grows heavy against me.
My hand finds the back of his neck, and I stroke his bare skin above his hood.
He feels clammy to the touch, like he’s not just emotionally distressed but physically ill, too.
“I’m…” he hiccups, but I shush him reassuringly.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay.”
He fists my shirt and clings to me like he’s in the middle of a storm, afraid of being swept away if he lets go. He’s still crying, and we just sit there, as I hold him and he keeps his face buried against my chest.
When I start moving further up the bed, he whimpers in my arms, squeezing my shirt tighter. “Don’t leave,” he begs.
“I won’t,” I assure him, pressing a kiss to the crown of his head like I used to do when he was a kid and woke up from a nightmare.
“I won’t, I promise. Come.” I pull him with me as I turn, resting my back against the headboard.
He follows me, not letting go, and I draw him against my side.
He tucks his head back against my chest, and I pull out my phone from my pants pocket.
“I’m just gonna shoot your dad a text. I promised to let him know you were okay when I got here. ”
“Okay.” His voice is muffled against my chest, and warmth spreads through my body. His shaking has ceased, and he’s stopped crying. I’m making Kayden feel safe, I can tell. I didn’t mess up after all. I quickly shoot Sal a text, and seconds later, he writes back.
Sal: Thanks man. I’ll come by at 4:30. Can you stay until then?
I’ll stay. No worries.
I place my phone on the bed next to me and lock my arms around him again.
“Was Dad very upset?”
“A little.”
He trembles, and I reach for the blanket and pull it up over him. “You cold, sweetheart?”
He shakes his head. “I just… I hate this.”
“I know.”
“I hate how much this has affected my parents’ lives. How it’s still affecting their lives. They didn’t…”
“They didn’t what?” I trail my fingers up and down his back, on top of his hoodie. I think I know where he’s going, and it breaks my fucking heart.
Kayden’s voice is tinted with anger when he speaks. “They didn’t ask for any of this, Caleb.”
“Neither did you, K.”
“That’s not what I meant. I just wish that…” he sighs.
“What, sweetheart?”
“I just wish that I were normal.”
Anger rises inside me. Not at him, no, never at him, but at anyone who has ever made Kayden feel he isn’t normal.
I sit up and ease him carefully away from my chest. “Look at me.”
He avoids my gaze, and I reach out and lift his chin.
“Please look at me, K.” His eyes reluctantly find mine, a wild ocean roaring inside the piercing blue.
“You are fucking normal, whatever that even means. There is nothing wrong with you. Not a damn thing, you hear me?” I hesitate, then exhale, the tightness in my chest giving way to something I know in my heart to be true.
Something that has always been true. “You are perfect, Kayden, just as you are. You’re so fucking perfect. ”
He shakes his head, squeezing his eyes tight, about to hide against my neck, but I don’t let him.
“You are. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you, sweetheart. Not a single part of you isn’t exactly the way it’s supposed to be.
” I don’t know if that’s the right thing to say.
I hope it doesn’t trigger his dysphoria.
“You only say that,” he murmurs, digging his fists against my sternum as he tries to push away from me, but I won’t let him. I won’t allow this to be his truth, not even for a second.
“I mean it,” I grit. “You’re an amazing young man, and if the rest of the world doesn’t see that, then that’s on them, not on you. Never on you, K.”
“I’m not… I’m not a real man,” he sniffles. “Not really.”
“Kayden.” His words feel like sharp knives slicing through my skin.
I know it’s his dysphoria speaking. I know he doesn’t usually feel like this, but today he does, and it’s killing me.
“You are. You are this gorgeous guy. You have to know that. Everything about you is…” I swallow, searching for the right words, but my mind just keeps circling around that one word that truly encompasses what Kayden is.
There’s no other word that fits. So I speak it again, hoping he hears me this time. “Perfect. You are perfect, Kayden.”
He shivers against me, and after a while, he looks up at me, tears clinging to his lashes.
“You think I’m gorgeous, Caleb?” His question is so naked and vulnerable, it catches me completely off guard.
Kayden continues to stare at me. His bottom lip protrudes slightly into a pout, and he has that innocent yet sensual look about him that drives me fucking crazy.
Heat builds in my chest, but not in a sexual way; no, it’s different from that.
It’s more like the sum of all the previous weeks since Kayden came back home, now culminating in one single moment, intense and charged.
“I do. I think you are perhaps the most gorgeous guy I’ve ever seen.”
He gasps at my words, surprise flickering in his eyes. “I am?”
I just nod because I don’t trust my voice anymore. I don’t trust that Kayden won’t be able to tell just how completely and utterly mesmerized I am by him.
“But I’m—” My fingers fly to his mouth, silencing him before he can finish that awful sentence, the awful lie society has made him believe.
“Kayden,” I speak his name like a plea. He reaches up and pulls my fingers away from his lips, his eyes not leaving mine.
“But I’m not. Not really. I’m not a real man.” He looks so resigned. So terribly lost.
“Of course you are, baby. You’re as real as they come.
” I trace the outline of his full lips, and his eyes flutter close.
He leans into me, and I suck in a breath.
The air shifts around us. “You’re beautiful, Kayden.
And you’re sweet and kind and smart. So fucking smart.
You’re funny too. You’re the whole damn package, sweetheart.
Anyone would be lucky to have you.” I stop before I say something I shouldn’t, but it’s like Kayden has read my damn mind.
Opening his eyes, he seems to stare right into my soul when he asks, “Would you? Would you be lucky to have me, too, Caleb?”
Fuck.
“Kayden,” I rasp.
“Tell me,” he whispers. “Please be real with me. Would you? Would you want someone like me?”
Someone like him.
Jesus Christ. I would. Of course I would. And not just someone like him. I’d want him. I’m so ridiculously attracted to him, and I don’t think I’ve ever wanted someone as much as I want him. And not just in a physical way. No, it’s more than that.
I nod, and Kayden’s eyes grow impossibly wide. “You would?” The surprise is evident in his voice. Then his features soften, and his lips form into a barely there smile. I nod again.
“Tell me.” There’s so much fucking hope in his voice it almost kills me.
“I would.” I chuckle softly. “Jesus, sweetheart, you have no idea, do you?”
A deep blush creeps along Kayden’s cheeks, spilling down his neck, disappearing behind the neck of his hoodie. He looks feverish, but I’m the one feeling it, a desperate fire surging through my body. I tip my head back, groaning.
“Caleb?” He speaks my name with such intent, then tugs at the collar of my shirt, forcing me to look at him.
“No idea about what?” He breathes the words, like they stem from some place deep inside him where all his longing lives, and I can’t be anything but real with him. Not when he looks at me that way.
“How fucking attracted I am to you,” I finally admit. “How fucking impossible it is to be around you without telling you and…” I pause. Kayden’s mouth falls open. “And touch you.”
“You’re touching me now,” he smiles, all shy and sweet.
I laugh, and his smile widens. “Oh, sweetheart, that’s not what I meant.”
My admission pulls a small whimpering noise from Kayden’s throat. He continues to toy with the collar of my shirt like it’s the one thing keeping him tethered.
“Kayden.” I close my hand around his fingers, stilling them, and here goes fucking nothing, but I need to know. “Are you attracted to me too?”
He closes his eyes and sucks in a breath. I’m so far out of my depth here. It feels like I’m in freefall, about to crash to the ground, but then Kayden pulls me back with a simple, breathy “Yes.”
“Yeah?”
He nods, still smiling. “A lot, actually.” He blushes even harder, and I laugh again.
“Don’t laugh at me,” he pouts, narrowing his eyes.
“Baby, I’m not laughing at you.”
“No?”
I shake my head. “No. I’m laughing because I have no fucking clue what else to do.”
“Oh.” He dips his chin, and I think he heard something completely different from what I meant. I cradle his face, forcing him to look at me. I try to keep my voice as steady as I can so there’s absolutely no room for interpretation.
“Because what I really wanna do is something that’ll change everything between us.”
“It is?”
“Yes.”
“In a bad way?” His face is so close to mine now that I can feel his breath like a light caress on my face.
“I don’t know, K. I don’t know,” I admit.
He’s almost in my lap now, his eyes wide and wondrous. When he licks his lips, it almost kills me. “Does it involve my lips and your lips?” he asks, and there’s no mistaking the hope hanging to each of his words.
I swallow. “It does.”
He leans in, and now he is straddling my lap. His hands untwist from my shirt and slide up my neck and further up my chin until they rest against my cheeks. His eyes search my face. “I really want that too,” he whispers, his breath hot against my lips. “So much.”
“K.”
“I mean it, Caleb. I really want you to kiss me, and if you don’t, then I’ll kiss you.”
And it’s times like these that I wish I were a better man, because God help me, I can’t not do what he asks me to when he looks at me like that. All my good intentions, all my morals, just fly out the window. It’s just me and him and his beckoning lips.