Chapter 19
Chapter nineteen
“Oh my god?!” Sami exclaimed. The mattress bounced with how quickly he sat up. “When? How? Did he just get out of jail?!”
“No! He…” Baz sighed. Where to begin? “My mother overdosed on heroin when I was fourteen.”
“Oh.” Sami’s forehead fell into creases. “Huh?”
“My dad was the one who introduced her to drugs. So.”
“Right. Did he tell you that?”
“Like he would. But I caught them smoking weed as a kid when I was too young to realize what it meant.”
Sami gasped theatrically. “No. The devil’s lettuce? You’re right, he shoved that needle into her arm.”
Was he seriously defending Jack?
“He is a deadbeat, queerphobic piece of shit that made her life so miserable, she turned to drugs! It is absolutely his fault. Everything is.”
Baz never wanted to uproot his life when he was only sixteen.
He never wanted to see his sister crying and spending her teenage years plotting to run away.
He never wanted them to have to work three shitty minimum wage jobs each to make rent.
They did it because the only thing Jack was capable of was drinking and yelling and hating Eevee for daring not to be the son he wanted her to be!
All Baz had wanted was a home. Why had that been too much to ask?
“Okay. I believe you.” Sami cupped his cheek.
Baz nodded, drawing a steadying breath. It wasn’t Sami’s fault his dad was a bum.
“Do you want to tell me what happened?”
That was the last thing Baz wanted.
And yet, under Sami’s kind, understanding eyes, the words spilled out of him; an avalanche of memories he failed to hold back, failed to shove back into the pit where emotions were supposed to die.
About how tense things had been at home.
How he had watched his mother fade away until the day he and Eevee had come home from school, how they found her lying next to a needle and a crumpled note that read “I’m sorry.
” Eevee’s screams and sobs, her desperate attempts to wake Mom up, still pushed tears into Baz’s eyes even now.
It had been ruled as a suicide with no further investigation because of course Jack’s cop buddies protected him.
Everything had fallen apart at home afterward. Whenever he wasn’t working, Jack was constantly drunk and rotting on the couch, doing nothing but staring at the ceiling while the empty bottles racked up next to him. That he managed to keep his job was further proof of foul play.
And then, there was the day he caught Eevee trying on their mother’s old clothes, and the apathy had turned to rage.
After that, Jack, barely able to look at them, had dragged them to church to meet a priest who was supposed to ‘fix’ Eevee’s delusions. It was a miracle Eevee had grown into the kind human she was today despite all the hate funneled into her.
Sami listened to it all, nodding, only contributing the odd ‘damn.’ It must have been the longest he had ever gone without talking.
He didn’t get a chance—Baz tumbled down the spiral of memory lane and was spit out an empty husk.
Out of words, out of breath. Every secret, every painful memory laid bare between them. A rotting pile of shit.
And yet, Sami, wonderful, warm Sami, wiped the tears from his cheek, wrapped his arms around his shoulders and held the pieces of him together while Baz fell apart.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and “thank you for trusting me,” and “you’re safe with me,” never ceasing to bless Baz with tiny kisses he scattered across his face and hair. His nails were drawing circles on Baz’s scalp, and Baz fell apart some more.
“I’m sorry,” Baz croaked, his face still buried against Sami’s perfectly hairy chest. The best pillow he had ever known.
“Don’t you dare.”
He did dare, and he muttered it again, only for Sami to hold him tighter.
Baz waited for the merciful numbness to free him from the pain in his chest, but it didn’t come. When the sobs subsided and his eyes dried up, in midst of the emotional wasteland left behind, a single rose sprouted and unfolded its blood red petals. It smelled of oakmoss and lime.
He lifted his head, searched for Sami’s lips that found his first, soft and tender.
“You’re okay,” Sami whispered.
Baz nodded. He dreaded to think how puffy his eyes were, how utterly unattractive he must look, how he had ruined their night.
He wiped his cheeks dry and took a deep, trembling breath. “Are you out to your family?”
“Yes. Well, to my parents. They are the only family I’m close to.”
“Do they mind? Are they religious?”
“They’re casual Christians at best. And no.
I was in college when I told them I was seeing a guy.
My dad kind of shrugged it off and said as long as I didn’t get anyone pregnant before marriage, he didn’t care.
And my mom went weirdly quiet. She didn’t talk about it until that situationship was over, but then she suddenly showed up on campus and she said, ‘Sami, since you like men, I have found the perfect place for you to find a good one!’ And she showed me fucking Grindr,” Sami chuckled.
Despite everything, Baz couldn’t help but join in.
“Seriously?”
“Yes! She was so pleased with herself, I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Grindr isn’t exactly where people go to find true love. I did download it. Wasn’t for me. Probably because I kept thinking of my mom.”
“They sound awesome.” What Baz wouldn’t have given for parents like that. But what he felt wasn’t the ugly sting of jealousy—no, he was glad for the love Sami had experienced. If only there was more of that to go around.
Well, he had Eevee and Joel. Tough as their childhoods had been, they had always been there for each other through it all. That was far from nothing.
“They’ve done their best all my life,” Sami said. “Plus, my mom makes the most amazing hummus. It’s a taste of heaven. She could murder someone in front of me, and I’d look the other way just to get more of that.”
Baz doubted hummus was the only reason Sami kept in touch.
The way he spoke about them, with such care, there was no doubt that he was just as dedicated to his family as Baz was to his, if not more so.
Baz had done a terrible job returning the love and support Eevee had given him the last few years. He needed to change that.
“I’m happy for you.”
Sami’s smile dropped along with his jaw when he gasped. “Wait. Is that why you hate me? The drug thing?”
He had tried and hate Sami for that, hadn’t he? How stupid of him to condemn Sami’s character like that when Sami had given him nothing but grace since the start.
“That was a part of it,” Baz admitted.
“Does it help that I only sold my ADHD meds to, like, three people during exam season, two of whom I’m convinced have it but were undiagnosed?”
Baz blinked. “Wait, that’s it?”
“Yeah. Stupid, I know, but I was young and needed the money.” No sign of humor betrayed the sincerity of Sami’s words.
“It was only, what, two years ago?”
“In case you haven’t realized, I’m still young.”
“What did you need the money for?”
Sami shrugged. “Oh, you know. Textbooks. Food. My mom’s hospital bill from when she fractured her wrist. Insurance didn’t cover it, and the debt collectors came knocking at my parent’s door.”
Oh. Oh, god. Sami had just been trying to help out his family, and Baz had treated him like crap for it. Sami had literally told him he was missing context the night at the bar, and Baz… The sharp stab of shame lodged into his chest like a knife.
“Sami, I’m so—”
“Don’t.” Sami drew the knees to his chest, his gaze vacant. “I take full accountability for what I did, and I can’t blame you for holding that against me. Trust me, I do too. But I’d do it again in a heartbeat to help the people I love. If that means you hate me even more—”
“No!” Baz couldn’t fathom the thought. He wasn’t sure he had ever really hated Sami—only how much he wanted him when he shouldn’t. “I don’t hate you. I am sorry for judging you without knowing better. I should have listened when you told me there was more to the story.”
“Well, I didn’t exactly volunteer the details either.”
“You shouldn’t have had to for me to treat you with respect.”
“It’s okay. I get why that triggered you now. And I enjoy proving people wrong.” A soft smile played around his lips. He lay down on Baz’s chest; the heat of his body rushed through Baz. He hugged Sami tight.
“I’m still sorry. I know it doesn’t make it better, but that night in the bar, I just had a fight with Eevee about our dad, and all I knew was that you’re working for Ian—”
Sami silenced him with a quick kiss. “It’s okay, honey. We all have bad days. To be honest, it only made me want you more.”
Baz huffed. “You’re such a masochist.”
“Guess I am. But so are you.”
Hard to deny that when he had been eating out of Sami’s hand since day one. Now, he saw crystal clear why.
There was something addictive about Sami’s directness, his honesty in every rude, challenging remark.
Baz never had to pretend, never had to twist himself to impress him.
He could just be himself, the worst version of himself no less, and Sami was okay with that.
Didn’t try to change him, didn’t once make him feel like who he was wasn’t good enough.
Baz had never experienced that kind of safety with another person before.
“The world isn’t quite so black and white after all, is it?” Sami said.
Oh, how ignorant Sami must have thought him. Hell, he had been.
“I guess not.”
“So… since you misjudged me, is it possible you’ve misjudged your dad too?”
“How could you say that?!” That was a fundamentally different, way less ambiguous situation. He knew exactly what Jack had done. He had lived through it. He tried to sit up, but Sami’s weight kept him pinned to the mattress.
“I’m not saying you did! Just… people are complex. Everyone sucks sometimes. There is no excuse for what he did to you and your sister after you lost your mother, but he also lost his wife. That couldn’t have been easy either.”
That was assuming Jack had loved her, which he hadn’t.
He had barely been around the months before her passing.
She might still be alive if he had cared about her as much as Baz and Eevee had—well.
That hadn’t saved her life either. But they had just been kids with their own crises going on.
They’d had no grasp of how much she had suffered!
Jack had been the adult, and he had given up on her.
Hadn’t he?
After all, they had just been kids. As an adult, Baz could see why two hormonal teenagers weren’t Jack’s go-to confidants at the time. Assuming Jack thought like Baz did might be giving him too much credit, but he supposed it could be possible he had misread his parents’ relationship.
Admittedly, he had never looked back, never thought to reconsider what he thought to be true. Jack hadn’t given him a reason to. What if Eevee was right about him having changed?
“Anyway. I should, you know…” Sami pressed a kiss onto his cheek and scooted out of bed.
Panic struck Baz. “Where are you going?”
“The train is a mess at night, and I don’t want to overstay my welcome.” Sami picked up his dress shirt and pushed his arms through the sleeves.
Which part of Baz pouring his heart out and crying in his arms had made him think he was imposing?
“You aren’t! I want you here.”
Sami paused with one leg in his boxers. “Really?”
“Really. Stay. Please.”
Baz reached his hands toward him, begged him to come back into their cozy nest. Sami stood as still as a statue as he regarded them.
Did he not want to? Had Baz said too much, had he freaked Sami out with the size of his baggage?
A smile softened Sami’s face. He dropped his boxers and took Baz’s hand. Thank god.
Baz pushed the shirt off his shoulders because that wasn’t allowed tonight and kissed him just because he could. He lifted the comforter, and Sami, without hesitation, returned to his rightful place in Baz’s arms.
Baz kissed his forehead, his neck, his shoulder.
“Thank you,” he whispered, and got treated to the brush of Sami’s lips once more. He could get used to this.
Sami hadn’t lied about keeping him up all night if he stayed over, though Baz had anticipated a sexier reason than Sami being a restless sleeper who tossed and turned and kicked in his sleep, only stilling when Baz restrained him in his embrace, though never for long.
Good thing Baz wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway.
His restless mind kept circling back to what Sami had said about Jack.
The memory he had held onto all these years as proof of Jack’s rottenness didn’t let him go—the one when Jack had found them in their mother’s closet and destroyed Eevee’s moment of gender euphoria with his rage. He had forgotten that it was incomplete.
The closet, the whole bedroom, had been untouched since Mom’s death until they snuck in; Jack had spent his nights on the couch.
Between the screaming and shouting, he had sniffed the shirt Eevee had worn, tears glistening on his cheek.
A choked-up sob had followed them up the stairs to Eevee’s room where they had plotted their escape.
It didn’t mean anything—after all, Jack had never apologized for how he reacted. Instead, he had pretended it didn’t happen and turned to religion. He had never coped well with change.
So to lose his wife and then be confronted with the queerness of his daughter, something he knew nothing about, catching her going through his dead wife’s clothes that he hadn’t dared to disturb…
That didn’t make it better. But was it irredeemable?