7. Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
I thought once Gunnar left, I would feel less uneasy. It seemed like a logical assumption.
It’s uncomfortable to invade someone’s space. I don’t really know him. I feel guilty about taking advantage of his kindness.
Not to mention having to navigate the way I’m ping-ponging between wanting to run as far away from him as I can or wanting to grab him and kiss him and lay out all my suffering at his feet. It’s exhausting. And he never asked for any of this.
Guilt pulses through me at a low, steady voltage while I take a shower. I don’t know why I decided to do this. I didn’t need a shower. I just needed to get away from Gunnar so I could clear my head and escape his forlorn, pitying looks. But now I’m wet, cold and half-washed, while my ankle is throbbing so much, I feel a genuine urge to cry.
No . This situation is already embarrassing enough. If I spend all my time weeping about it now that I’m safe and lucked into someone taking care of me a lot more than I deserve, I’ll never forgive myself.
Instead, I focus on rinsing off as quickly as possible, then half-hopping, half-collapsing out of the tub. I sit on the toilet while I towel off, which is sweet fucking relief, and then give myself a breather before facing the monumental task of getting dressed again.
It’s when I’m finally sitting still that I hear a noise. Nothing much, just a faint scratching from somewhere out in the apartment.
My blood buzzes in my veins, and I can already feel my sense of self disconnecting from my body. Like I’m preparing for whatever’s coming. Like I know that it has to be more than just a noise.
He found me. It’s the only explanation.
I have thirty seconds of sluggish inner debate between trying to quickly dress and prepare myself or just sitting here, resigned to my fate. Ultimately, I settle on something in between.
With leaden movements, I pull on my borrowed sweats and the hoodie I slept in. It still smells a little like Gunnar, and that hint of his warm scent grounds me back in reality. Possibly more than I would like, right now. If what I think is about to happen is, in fact, happening.
I allow myself a sigh before slowly pushing open the bathroom door. My footsteps are whisper-soft because of muscle memory, even with my fucked-up ankle. I hate that my body continues to thrum with fear through it all, although I don’t show it externally. It feels like I should be acclimated to this by now.
Once I’m out of the bathroom, I look around for wherever he is. Lurking in the shadows maybe, ready to scare the shit out of me for his own amusement. Or standing in the middle of the apartment like he owns the place, and it’s a done deal that I’ll be leaving with him. No questions asked.
But there’s no one here.
I explore further, moving slowly and silently, pain throbbing higher and higher up my leg with every careful step. There’s no one in the kitchen. There’s no one in the open-concept living area, and nowhere for someone to hide. The bedroom is the only room that’s really separated, but it’s empty, too.
There’s no way an adult human could fold themselves up into Gunnar’s tiny closet, but I look anyway. When I tease open the door, there’s a single moment where my brain screams at me that this must be it. He must be in here, because he isn’t anywhere else. It’s enough that I almost think I see him.
Then, when I see nothing but fancy-ass suits and air, I feel even more ridiculous.
I should sit down. Before I collapse, or my foot falls off, or something. I want to.
Except, the thoughts and images tugging at my chest won’t let me. I pace around the apartment one more time, drawing all the open blinds after looking at everything I can see. I worry that I catch a glimpse of him in the tree line a couple of times, but nothing comes of it.
Besides, I don’t think he would hide like that. If he knew where I was, he would just come for me. He has no reason to hide. There’s nothing here that he’s afraid of.
I check that each window is latched, along with the doors. I freeze for a minute when there’s another distant creak from the stairwell outside—the one I dragged myself up, disoriented and desperate, just a few hours ago—but it stops. When I head for the couch a second time, I feel the brief urge to check the windows again, but it’s so stupid I don’t let myself.
‘Collapse’ would be a polite way to describe how I get from standing up to slumped on Gunnar’s sofa. Once I’m ensconced in his deep, worn cushions, I realize I should have brought an ice pack or ACE bandage or something.
Oh, well. It’s too late now. I’m definitely not getting up anytime soon unless the building is on fire.
If Eamon does get in, I’ll be easy to find and we can get it over with quickly.
I sit here, too drained to think or move or be afraid of anything. But the longer I do, the more the sensation of dread seems to work its way into each one of my cells and make itself a home. I hate it. My mind is resigned to whatever is going to happen. I don’t see why my body can’t get on board.
But no. Instead, I continue to jump and tremor at every noise I hear like a frightened wild creature until my patience with myself is about to snap. I need something—anything—to soothe myself with. A distraction, at the very least. It’s getting later, so the low rumble of people from the bar below is kind of helping. But it’s also pushing the thought that he could be in there deeper and deeper into my brain.
What would have happened if I’d gone down with Gunnar like he’d suggested? When Eamon came in, which way would be the quickest to run out of the building from behind the bar? If I ran to the back, it would be faster, but with fewer people to potentially help me. In the front there are more people, but I can also picture each one of their faces as they looked between me and him, trying to decide who to believe.
The crazed one who still looks too young to even be in a bar, or the gangster who is always calm and collected and will inevitably be prepared with some rational explanation.
I’m his boyfriend. I’m fucked up on drugs. My homophobic parents kicked me out. He’s trying to help me get straight. You can’t believe the words I’m saying. The doctors said this would happen. I’m overdosing on psych meds. Just leave me with him. He knows how to keep me safe from myself when I’m like this. You can trust him. He’s the most trustworthy gangster there is, for some reason.
And on and on and on.
Gunnar would believe me, but get himself hurt in the process. Same with Sav. Kasia would believe me, but I think she hates me too much to do anything about it, probably. Plus, I think she has kids. No one should be getting orphaned because their mom tried to help save me from a situation I was never going to escape. No way.
The rest of the people down there are strangers. None of them would take my side. They’d grab me for him while I tried to duck down a hallway or find any exit, thinking they were being good Samaritans or some shit. Like always.
The images play out in my head on a loop. Each time, my body flushes with adrenaline like it’s really happening, keeping me tingly and tense. Poised for flight, even while I remain slumped—alone—on Gunnar’s couch.
I’m aware that this is wasted mental energy. I understand that it’s actively exhausting me to think about it for no reason, considering it’s never going to happen because I’m not fucking going down there. This is all pointless. But none of that means I’m able to pick up my brain and remove it from the carousel of hypotheticals that it’s created for me.
A little part of me is afraid that if I stop thinking about what might happen, I’ll start picturing what’s already happened, which seems infinitely worse. And not thinking about any of it is clearly not an option.
I need to do something. There’s a TV in the corner. The silence is officially fucking killing me, so I dig around for a remote and turn it on.
Gunnar has fewer subscriptions than my lola, apparently, but whatever. He has Peacock. Maybe he likes weird niche sports, along with his love of weird, fancy clothes and playing savior to damaged men who invite themselves into his home.
My eye is instantly drawn to the long row of mediocre horror films that it’s offering me, each with nearly identical dark posters. The repetitiveness of it is already soothing me. I scroll through them absently until I find an old one I’ve seen a million times: Candyman .
I hit play and crank the volume as loud as I can without it potentially being heard over the music downstairs. I’ve been jumping at every creak and groan in this old building for an hour and I need it to stop.
As soon as the ambient noise and worse—the deafening fucking silence of this empty apartment—is drowned out by the haunting music of the opening credits, I feel my muscles unclench one by one. Once I stopped moving, all the aches and pains of my body became more insistent than before. They’re pulsing and throbbing from my head to my toes, making it impossible to truly take my mind off why I’m here, but the sound of the movie is intense enough that I can let it pull my focus.
I’m still fizzing with a low-level, whole-body anxiety, but it’s manageable now. I fold myself and my attention into it before throwing all of that at the movie, and basically counting down the minutes until Gunnar might get home.
I’m tired. So fucking tired. But no matter how much more relaxed I am now than before, the idea of sleeping while I’m the only one here and anything could happen still doesn’t seem right.
Instead, I let myself space out as much as possible. My consciousness drifts, rolling from side to side like I’m riding a gentle wave, not moving frantically, but still too quickly to let any single thought get purchase.
When Candyman finishes, I put on Halloween . Then I skip the early sequels, because the comedy to horror ratio is not in my favor there, and go to the requel. Then the requel sequel.
I’m not sure exactly how deep I am into the franchise when Gunnar finally comes home, but I’m numb enough to my surroundings that it doesn’t make me crawl through my skin to hear him open the door. Besides, it’s Gunnar, so he has to be unnecessarily considerate. He knocks gently before unlocking the door to his own apartment and then slips inside while calling my name.
I lean up from the couch to look at him, but that’s as far as I’ll move. I’ve been lying here for so long I’d be surprised if there wasn’t an imprint of me. I haven’t even gotten up to pee, but I also haven’t had anything to drink since the coffee Gunnar poured me fourteen hours ago, either. It’s fine. The less I consume, the less I have to move and wake up the beast that has its teeth in my ankle.
It’s dark in the apartment. Only the TV screen is lighting the space, because it’s dark outside as well and I doubled down by drawing all the curtains, and on the TV it’s also night. Michael Myers is dragging some wayward teenager by the hair across her front lawn with his stabby-stabber in his hand, ready to go, undeterred by her feeble kicking and screaming.
I know how she feels. Well, not really, because I keep my hair as short as Eamon will let me—he still likes to be able to grab a handful—but still. Vibes are the same. I can empathize, fictional screaming girl.
“Are you okay?” Gunnar’s voice cuts through my mental meandering.
I shrug. It’s quickly becoming my default answer.
“Yeah. My ankle hurts, but everything else is fine. How was work?”
“Y’know, the same. Drunk people. I taught Sav how to make a margarita, though. You should have seen it. He was pretending not to be excited about it. It was real cute.”
He’s answering me, but I can tell by the dim tone of his voice, as well as the crease between his eyebrows that I can just about make out in the dark, that his focus isn’t on his words.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he says slowly, moving closer to the couch.
“Yes? Why?”
His eyes flick to take in the TV. “Can I turn on some light?”
I shrug again, but when he turns on a lamp, the brightness hits me hard and I have to squint.
“That’s better. Are you sure you want to be watching this?”
He’s looking between me and the screen again, but I’m too fucking tired and dozy to figure out what he’s talking about.
“I love these movies. Except the ones in the middle. Why?”
Gunnar doesn’t answer me. Instead, his frown continues to deepen, almost comically exacerbated by the deep shadows the lamp is casting across the room. He looks me over from head to toe, now that he has the light on, and for a second, I think he’s going to reach out and touch me.
He doesn’t, though. I’m catching on to a pattern. Gunnar only touches me when I’m on the cusp of vibrating into little fragments and his hands seem like the only thing that can stop it. Or, if he thinks I’m going to fall over like some clumsy toddler and break my neck in his apartment.
“Tobias, your ankle! Have you been like this the whole time?”
“Wha—” I start, but his brisk movements are already cutting me off.
Gunnar is fired up, moving around me. He touches me now, but only to carefully lift my foot off the floor, where it was resting, and rearrange it up on a pile of pillows. The whole process makes me gasp, but when I look at it, I realize it does look even worse. I guess I’d been too lulled to notice all the blood pooling around the joint.
He grabs more ice packs from his apparently endless supply in the freezer, wraps them in unnecessarily fluffy little hand towels, and then arranges them carefully as well. When he’s done, he stands back to regard his work. I swear, a full minute passes before he seems satisfied.
As an afterthought, he brings me two more ice packs for the biggest bruises on my face, then he finally sits down, parking his ass on the little ottoman next to the coffee table.
I immediately notice that it’s different from before, when he seemed happy to share the couch and rest my foot in his lap. I also notice the sudden tension he’s carrying and the way he’s avoiding looking me in the eye. He’s looking at me, sure. But it’s always my body, and always in a clinical way. Like I’m a problem he’s trying to resolve. Not like he did this morning.
“Tobias, I think we should talk about something.”
Yep. There it is. I’d get up to pack my bags if I had any.
Although it’s kind of a dick move to get me all cozy and shit right before he kicks me out.
“You want me to go.”
It’s a statement, not a question.
“What?” His gaze snaps to mine, but after a few seconds, he looks away again, running his hands over his face. “No. Not at all, Tobias. You can stay here as long as you need to. I want you to stay here where you’re safe. That’s not what I’m talking about.”
Well, now I have no idea what he is talking about, but whatever it is still can’t be good, based on his expression. I keep my mouth shut and wait for him to continue.
“Last night. And this morning. And… All of it, really. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.” He’s tripping over his words more than I’ve ever heard from him. Normally, he has this whole suave, secret agent vibe going on. But right now, it’s closer to ‘high schooler reading his oral presentation to the class’. It’d be endearing if it weren’t so patronizing.
“I think I’ve already crossed a bunch of boundaries,” he continues. “You’re in a difficult position, and I don’t want to confuse you. Or make you think you owe me anything. Or that anything is more complicated than it is.”
He’s barely even making sense now, but I’ve put together the pieces. Despite what he must think is my childlike, innocent intellect.
“You don’t want to confuse me?” I repeat, my voice dull. “You think I might be confused ?”
I’m drawing out the word, not because I don’t know what he meant by it, but because I’m honestly astounded he had the fucking balls to say that to me.
“You’ve been through enough, Tobias. I don’t want to make it worse.”
For some reason, it’s so much more annoying when people are rude with a full-ass, genuine look of compassion on their faces. It kindles the spark of anger in my chest into a low flame. I’m still too broken to get up and move, but there’s no mistaking how I feel when I speak again.
“Let me get this straight. You think that because I’m so fucking stupid that I ended up in a situation where I got my ass endlessly abused… Where I chose to stay instead of facing the consequences of leaving until the consequences of staying got even worse… You think that because of all that, I’m just some helpless, hapless thing. That I’m so used to being a whore that I can’t delineate kindness from violence, and I’ll never understand that you’re not expecting sexual enslavement in return for my safety. Am I getting that right?”
Gunnar’s eyes widen. “Fuck, no. That’s not what I meant. You know that’s not what I meant.”
I ignore him and continue, because the fire in me is burning hotter by the second.
“Or is it that I’m so much younger than you, and my face makes me look even younger than I am, so I must be all innocent and desperate? Bound to immediately fall in love with you for showing me a little compassion. Like a puppy. Or a duckling.”
The last words come out slowly, letting each consonant pop to get my point across how ridiculous it sounds when you actually say the inside thoughts out loud. Gunnar was shocked at first, but now his face is hardening.
“Stop putting words in my mouth. You know that’s not what I mean.”
“Do I? Because it’s definitely what you’re saying. Oh, poor Tobias. Oh, the poor victim. Oh, he must be protected from himself because he’s too foolish to make his own good choices. Did it ever occur to you that I might have been fully aware that Eamon was a terrible choice this whole time? But a terrible choice is still a choice when there aren’t any others?”
Gunnar sighs but doesn’t interrupt.
“And besides, even if Eamon had tricked me. Even if I used to think I loved him or whatever, it still wouldn’t justify you talking about me like I’m a child. I’m an adult. Help me or don’t help me, but don’t treat me like I’m too stupid to know the difference between generosity and coercion, just because I’ve experienced it. I think that makes me especially fucking qualified to know what coercion looks like.”
For the nth time this conversation, Gunnar runs his hand over his face, looking as weary as I feel.
“I’m sorry. It’s not what I meant. But you also don’t get to piss and moan when this horrific thing happens to you, and I’m trying to put boundaries in place to keep anyone from getting hurt. Either of us. It’s an unusual situation.”
Part of me wants to flag at that, because he’s not 100% wrong. But my anger is still leading the charge, and I have enough bottled up to last a while.
“So help me god, Gunnar, if you say the word ‘boundaries’ one more time, I’m going to scream.”
Gunnar shakes his head. “I need to take a shower. And sleep. It’s been a long day. Would you rather sleep out here or in the bed?”
He stands up as he’s talking, making it clear this part of the debate is over.
I roll my eyes at him, even though I know it’s petty. “I’m fine here. You can sleep in your bed.” At least here I have the TV to fill the gaping maw of silence.
“Are you sure? Because you’re still pretty—”
“Fuck, Gunnar, yes. I’m fine. All I’ve done all day is lie on this couch and it’s probably all I’ll do tomorrow. You went to work and you’re also twice my size. Sleep in the damn bed.”
He nods, turning and heading toward the bathroom. I pretend not to see the sadness in his eyes, even as I shove my own into the box that contains all my other undesirable emotions. We can fight about this more tomorrow. Or never. Or until he kicks me out. I’m genuinely almost past caring.