Chapter 28 Jay #2
"Xanax, mostly. Sometimes Ambien when I can get it.
Benadryl when I can't. Whatever I can get my hands on.
" I can't look at him anymore, so I stare at the ceiling.
"I know it's bad. I know I need to stop.
I know it's dangerous. But when I don't take them, when I try to sleep cold sober—the nightmares come, and I can't—I can't do that every night. I can't survive that."
"You dream about what happened? About Henderson?"
"Every night." My voice breaks on the words.
"When I'm sober, when I don't have something to knock me out completely, I dream about Henderson beating you and me being frozen, unable to move, unable to help.
I dream about him bringing that belt down on your back over and over while I just stand there.
" I stop, swallow hard. "I dream about all of it.
Every night. Over and over. The same nightmares for years. "
Ivan pulls me into his arms, wrapping himself around me completely, holding me tight against his chest like he's trying to physically hold me together. I bury my face in his shoulder and try to breathe through the tightness in my throat, through the pressure building behind my eyes.
"I'm broken," I whisper against his skin. "I know I'm broken. I've been broken for a long time and I don't know how to fix it. I don't know if I can be fixed."
"You're not broken." His arms tighten around me. "You're hurt. There's a difference."
"I am broken. I can't sleep without pills.
I was drinking too much before you showed up.
I start fights in bars because I'd rather feel physical pain than emotional pain.
I live in a motel room and I have nothing.
I don't have a damn thing to give you, Ivan.
Nothing except all this damage. All these scars. All this shit."
"You have you. You're my Jay. That's all I want. That's all I've ever wanted. Just you."
"I'm not enough. I'm not—"
"Stop." He cuts through my spiral. "Stop telling me what you're not. Stop deciding for me what I should want. I know exactly who you are on the inside. I've known since we were kids."
"I was different then. I was a kid and trying to keep us both alive. Now I'm just—surviving. Barely."
"No, you weren't different. You were a kid trying to survive, just like me.
And now you're an adult trying to survive, and you've done it alone with no one to help you, no support at all.
" He pulls back just enough to look at my face, his eyes blazing.
"That's over now and you need to get that through your stubborn head.
You're not alone anymore. I'm here now."
"What happens when you go back to your real life and I'm here by myself again? What happens when the nightmares come back and you're not here to—"
"Then I keep coming back," he interrupts.
"The next weekend. And the weekend after that.
Every single weekend if I have to. Or you come to me.
Or we figure something else out." He cups my face in both hands, forcing me to look at him.
"I'm not losing you again, Jay. I'm not letting you disappear back into this darkness.
Whatever it takes, however long it takes. We will make this work."
"What if you get tired of me. What if you realize I'm too much work, too much damage, not worth the effort?"
"I'm not going to get tired of you." He says it like it's the simplest thing in the world, like it's a fact as basic as gravity. "You're stuck with me now. For good. That's just how it is. Get used to me being around."
I want to believe him. I want to believe this can last, that I won't find some way to ruin it, that I'm capable of being someone worth staying for. But belief is hard when you've been abandoned over and over.
"Can I tell you something?" Ivan asks, his thumb stroking my cheekbone.
"When I first got to the Reyes house, when Rosalyn and Mitchell first took me in, Rosalyn tried to hug me.
" He shifts, settling more comfortably against me, his warmth seeping into my skin.
"Just a simple welcome hug. And I flinched so hard she thought I was going to bolt out the door and run. "
"What did she do?" I ask, trying to picture it. Young Ivan, small and scared, flinching away from kindness.
"She backed off immediately. Gave me space.
Didn't push. But she kept trying, not in a pushy way, just little things.
A hand on my shoulder when she passed by.
A pat on the back when I did well in school.
And I couldn't handle any of it. Every time someone touched me, I expected it to hurt.
I braced for pain. I flinched. For years. "
I know that feeling. I know it in my bones, in the way my body still tenses when someone reaches for me.
"How long did it take?" I ask. "Before you could let her touch you without flinching?"
"Years." He says it honestly. "Years before I could accept a hug without going stiff as a board. Before I could let Mitchell pat my back without flinching. Before I could just—be touched without bracing for pain."
"But you got there."
"Eventually." His hand finds mine again, laces our fingers together.
"And now I make a point of it. With the little kids, the new foster placements who come through the Reyes house for respite care.
I hug them. Even when they flinch, even when they pull away, even when they don't know how to accept it—I keep trying.
Because I want them to know what a hug is supposed to feel like.
I want them to learn that not every touch is going to hurt. That some touches are safe and good."
I picture Ivan, this man who went years without being able to accept comfort, now actively giving it to scared kids who don't know how to receive it. Passing on the kindness that someone once showed him.
"That's—" I don't have words adequate for what I'm feeling. "Ivan, that's—you're—"
"It's what you did for me," he interrupts.
"You were the first person who touched me without hurting me.
You held me when I was scared and shaking.
You let me sleep in your bed when I was scared.
You showed me what it was supposed to feel like.
I'm just passing it on. Doing for them what you did for me. "
I stare at him, speechless. All those nights in the barn, all those times I held him while he shook with fear, I never thought about it as teaching him anything. I was just trying to keep him safe. Trying to make the world a little less terrible for one scared kid.
"You don't even know, do you?" Ivan says softly, his eyes searching my face.
"You don't know how much you saved me. Not just from Henderson, from everything.
You gave me a template for what kindness looks like.
What safety feels like. What love looks like.
I've been chasing that same feeling my whole life.
That feeling of being held by you in the dark. "
"Ivan—"
"You can learn again too," he says fiercely. "You can learn that not every touch hurts. That people can stay. That you're worth staying for. It'll take time. It might take years. But I'm patient. And I'm not going anywhere. I promise you that. I swear it."
"I don't know how to do this."
"Neither do I. Not really." He pulls me closer, until my head is on his chest and I can hear his heartbeat, steady and sure. "But we'll figure it out. We've figured out harder things than this. We survived Henderson. We survived being separated. Surely, we can figure out how to be together now."
I let myself sink into the warmth of him, into the solid weight of his arm around my shoulders. It feels foreign and familiar all at once. Like something I lost a long time ago and am only now finding again. Like coming home after years of wandering.
"Thank you," I whisper against his chest. "For still being the person who holds on when everything falls apart. For being the same person you were when we were kids."
His arms tighten around me until I can barely breathe, but I don't complain. I need this. I need to be held this tight in his big arms, need the physical proof that he's here, that he's real, that he's not going anywhere.
"Always," he says against my hair. "That's never going to change. You can count on me. I'm gonna tell you this so many times that eventually you'll hear it in your dreams."