Chapter Fourteen #3
“He said he can’t help me—to come to Felix.
” I laugh, looking straight into Aaron's eyes. He’s closer now—maybe ten feet away.
“I don’t want this life anymore. I’m so fucking done.
” I turn and throw the rock as hard as I can at the wall behind me.
It makes a hole in the drywall of the hallway and the force of the swing rips at the cut on my arm, spraying more blood on my clothes and the floor.
I turn back to face them. They haven’t moved—I don’t think they know what to do.
“Bear, I think you should—”
“Think I should what? Hm? Strip naked and clean my wounds? Go to bed and figure it out tomorrow?” I’m smiling, even laughing a bit, but there's a glare there too—an anger. “Well, guess what? Tomorrow morning I’ll still be Benjamin and this miserable life will still be mine.” I look around me, spot a coat rack in reach and knock it onto the ground.
Felix and Aaron just watch. Concern and pity in their eyes. It pisses me off, and I don’t know why. I’m manic—freaking out. I have no control. I think I could kill myself tonight and not even flinch.
“No matter what I do, I still have a dad who beats me, a dead mom, no home to call my own, a best friend who I keep dragging into my trauma, a boyfriend who won’t look at me, and—” I look at Aaron, who flinches, ready for whatever I’ll say to embody him, to tear him down.
Instead, I let the tears fall and shake my head.
“There’s only one way out of here—out of this.
I’ve been so good, don’t you think?” I look between the two of them, and when it becomes clear I’m waiting for an answer, Aaron says,
“Yes, Button—you’ve been very good.” He means it—I can see it on his face.
“Then why,” I kick the desk next to the door, shaking everything on it.
“Is it so wrong that I’m done now? You’re both looking at me like I’m this sad, pathetic thing.
Fuck you! I’ve endured it all. Everything.
I’ve been so good—not that anyone’s cared.
Not that anyone's noticed.” I’m gasping for breath, glaring at the two of them like they did this to me.
I’m acutely aware I’m taking this out on the wrong people, but I don’t have anywhere else to go. If I go somewhere else, I really will kill myself. I know it. I’m digging my fingers into the cut on my wrist.
“I never hit him back—I never tried to take Mom. I’m so nice to people, I try hard in school and in the pool.
I do my best to stay positive all the time and find comfort in things like the dumbass sun.
I listen well. I’m told to jump—I jump. Do you understand me?
I’ve been doing this for almost seventeen years.
Is that not enough for you? How much more do you need from me before you’ve decided I’ve done enough suffering and have the right to be done? ”
Felix is sobbing into his hands, staring at me like I’m someone he’s never seen. Like I’m a stranger—like he’s afraid of me.
“Don’t… don’t look at me like that. Felix, stop—please stop looking at me like that.” I shift my gaze to Aaron. His eyes are just as they were at his graduation, when I told him I was dating Drew.
So tortured and sad—all of the longing and fear, the desperation. It’s familiar—it’s okay.
“Aaron,” I whisper. Then, louder, “Aaron? Make him stop. Make him stop looking at me like that. Please.” His face crumbles further, as if my needing him to fix this is breaking his heart.
“Bear, no, I—”
“No! You’re looking at me like you’re afraid—like you don’t know me. This has always been here, Felix. I’m still me. Aaron, please—make it stop—it’s so loud in here.” I’m crying audibly now, hands in my hair. I turn to run. I’d rather die.
Tina and Greg are in the hallway—Tina silently crying in Greg's arms as they watch me. They look so sad.
“Oh no… no, no, no.” I’m surrounded. Trapped. How much did they hear? Will they abandon me now that they know who I really am? The noise is so fucking loud I sob. I can’t—I don’t want this.
“Aaron—” I turn toward him.
“I’m sorry but I’m going to touch you.” Then he shoves my face into his bare chest, holding me against him tightly.
For a moment I freeze, shaking and overwhelmed.
Then I smell the familiar scent of his pillows—clean and flowery.
I feel his heart beating rapidly and the muscles of his chest tensing as he holds me. I melt into him and cry.
I hear Felix try to approach and for the first time in our entire friendship, Tina tells Felix to leave me alone.
“Baby, I think he needs Aaron right now. Why don’t you come downstairs with me?” She says through tears. “You don’t need to be alone. Come sleep in our room.” I hear the three of them leave.
I don’t know how much longer we stand there, frozen in time.
“Button, can I clean all your cuts and bruises? Wash your hair?” I lean back and look up at him. He’s so handsome—so familiar. I’ve missed him. So much. One night is fine, right?
So I nod.
He walks me to the bathroom where he peels off my shirt, shorts, and briefs. Shoes and socks in the corner. After warming the water, he guides me in. Slowly and softly, he washes every inch of me, holding the back of my neck as he cleans my face. I’m staring at him while he does. Then I say,
“Aaron?”
“Yes?” He keeps his focus on the gash that was hidden on my jaw.
“Your soft is different.” The air in the room changes—a change in atmosphere—as Aaron closes his eyes, gripping the back of my neck a bit tighter, breathing deeper.
“Yeah?” Is all he says.
“Yeah.” I confirm. “It’s odd. Everything you do is so much different than everyone else.
My mind and my body reacts to you differently.
I think if anyone else would have grabbed me just now I would have hit them.
” I try to smile, to make light of it. But Aaron has stopped scrubbing, holding my neck and staring down at me so painfully I can feel it physically. “I’m sorry.” I look away from him.
“Don’t be.”
Aaron finishes cleaning me up and drying me off, then he carries me to his bed and lays me down, putting his sweats on me and tucking me under the blanket. I shove my face into his pillows, breathing deeply. So much weight leaves me—dissipates like it was never there.
“I’ll be in Felix’s room if you need me.” He says, walking toward the bathroom. I sit up abruptly.
“What? You’re leaving?”
“Yeah.” The panic returns—my chest rising and falling faster and faster. Tears prick at my eyes as I stare at his back retreating. Why? Why do you all leave?
“You... you’re leaving too? Why? Did I do something? Did I talk too much?” Aaron spins around, eyes wide as he stands in the threshold of the bathroom in his basketball shorts.
“What?”
“I—” I’m trying to catch my breath, to calm down.
“I don’t want you to leave me. You can’t leave me—not you.
If Drew needs space, then fine. I have no parents to love me—whatever.
But you can’t go Aaron—not you.” Aaron sits next to me and pulls me into his lap, cradling me, my face shoved into his neck.
“I would never leave you, Button. Never. I just didn’t think you’d want to touch me all night.
” I don’t say anything—I just cry softly into his skin.
“Ah, this is so fucked. You have every right to be angry. To be done. I’m not mad or disappointed and I don’t think less of you.
If I were in your shoes, I think I’d be a lot less brave than you are.
” I grip at his bicep, holding as much of him as I can.
“Don’t ever think I don’t know who you are. ”
I pull far enough away from him to look at his face. The only light in the room comes from the nightlight in the bathroom, but I can see him clearly. I always see him. His eyes—those calculating, ever intense, green eyes. They stare into mine, trying to make me believe it—make me see.
“You know who I really am?” I really hope he does. That someone does. He runs a hand back through my hair, smoothing my fringe off of my forehead.
“Baby, I could find you in a room full of people blindfolded, deaf, and three bottles deep.” I laugh, dropping my head to his shoulder.
“Good. At least one person does.” His arms tighten around me.
“Button, if they don’t—why are you wasting your time?” I pull away again, further this time. I want to see every little reaction, every thought that flashes through those eyes.
“And what would I do instead?” His eyes fall away from mine. “Aaron?”
“Yeah?” He’s picking at the waistband of the sweats he put on me.
“Will you hold me?” His eyes lift to meet mine again. “You don’t have to stay through the night if you don’t want to. But please—just hold me until I fall asleep.”
Aaron wraps an arm around my waist and turns us to lay down, side by side, facing each other.
He pulls me against his chest, throwing a leg over mine, one arm under me and the other wound up to the top of my back, palm pressed onto the back of my head.
I wrap my arms around his torso and breathe him in; my face pressed to his chest.
“Until I’m no longer in front of you, I will hold you whenever you need me to.
” He says, kissing the top of my head before resting his chin there.
I feel this peace—this contentment. I feel a need to tell him things, to hear his voice comfort me.
I need someone to talk to about it all, and the only other person who knows is… well… him.
“I won’t let Drew call me baby.” Aaron’s arms tighten.
“Why?” His voice is weary—almost afraid.
“Because I’d just think of you.” Aaron grips my hair and pulls my head back, looking me in the eyes.
“So much is different and I have no one to talk to about it. I don’t have a family to go to, and I can’t talk to Felix about, well, his brother.
” He’s searching me. My face, my eyes, my fucking soul. So intensely—so intimately.
“You can tell me.” He finally says. I swallow loudly, suddenly nervous. The hand that had gripped and pulled my hair now rubs at my scalp.