Chapter 18 - Cooper
Cooper
I jumped at the opportunity to spend more time together when Teddy offered to drive me home from the hospital.
Now, as we stand outside my building, I’m practically paralyzed with indecision.
Do I invite him up? I mean, this is Teddy.
I don’t doubt my safety with him. My worry stems from something else entirely.
What if he thinks I’m coming on to him? Isn’t that what inviting someone up means?
I can’t cross that line. Dr. Krazinski has helped me make some pretty decent progress, but not that much.
He still has no clue what happened after I moved.
How can I explain without explaining? Should I just explain?
But how can I burden him with that? Maybe it’d be best to just—
“Hey.” A warm voice interrupts my internal meltdown.
I look into his calm eyes and feel myself relaxing.
Teddy raises his hand to my face, stopping just shy of actual contact, and I feel moisture fill my eyes as I lean into his touch.
He wipes away the tear that’s managed to slip free.
“Tell me what’s going on in that beautiful head of yours. ”
“I was considering asking you to come up, but then I realized how that sounded. The rest was the Cooper Special: a silent crash out.”
He smiles softly as he continues gently rubbing my cheek. “I don’t have to come up if it makes you uncomfortable. I’m here no matter how much or how little you can give, LB—absolutely no expectations. You and me, that’s all I’ve ever needed.”
His words remind me exactly who this man is; who he’s always been. Teddy is my home. Something I’ve longed for since I was fourteen. Decision made, I nod. “Okay. I want you to come up, if you’d like. There are some things I think you should know, and if I’m being honest, I want you to know.”
His reply comes easily. “After you.”
Everett
Cooper opens the door to his second-story apartment, and we step inside. I follow his lead and leave my boots at the door.
“Would you like something to drink?” he offers.
“Some water would be good.”
“You can have a seat.” He gestures to the couch as he heads to the kitchen.
I start towards the couch as he suggested, but I find myself distracted by a painting on the wall. It’s breathtaking. With most of the canvas done in shades of black and white, it’s almost completely devoid of color, except for the bottom left corner, which is a vibrant kaleidoscope.
“This is the piece I’m most proud of.” Cooper’s voice comes from my right, startling me. I turn towards him and follow his line of sight. Looking down, I realize I’ve been rubbing my chest. “What do you think?” he asks with a quiver in his voice.
“LB, this…” I blow out a breath. “This is incredible. I’m not sure why, but the color—here at the bottom—makes me incredibly sad.
” As I hear my words out loud, my cheeks begin to heat.
“But what do I know? I’ve never been good at art,” I say, gripping the back of my neck.
Cooper’s sad smile as he gazes at the painting makes me think maybe I’m not so wrong after all.
He turns back to me, but his gaze avoids my face. “Why don’t we sit down? This is kind of a long story.”
“Sure.” Cooper lets me sit down first before choosing a spot far enough away that accidental contact won’t be an issue.
Grief sweeps through me. The boy that used to climb on me like a spider monkey, without a care in the world, is long gone.
I miss being able to touch him like I used to.
The hugs. The cuddles. Petting his hair.
The little, intimate moments that I was too young to fully appreciate.
I miss that part of our connection, but not enough to risk his healing.
Besides, every touch he initiates feels like the most epic victory.
Earning his trust is no hardship. It’s an honor.
“So, this won’t be easy for me to say.” His fingers stop tapping on his thigh long enough to scratch his eyebrow but quickly return to their frenetic rhythm.
“I think it might be easiest to just get it all out at once. If you can, try not to interrupt because I’m not sure I’ll be able to start again if I stop.
Max is the only other person I’ve told, and even then, I only managed the highlights. ”
“I meant what I said outside, LB. You give as much or as little as you want. I’ll be here no matter what.”
He nods and then hands me a business card that he’s pulled from the pocket of his hoodie. Looking down, I realize it’s for Dr. Krazinski’s office. “You might need to call him after I’m done,” Cooper says before taking a deep breath and beginning.
??
“The first six months with Silas were amazing and terrible.
He was so understanding. I cried almost all the time.
He told me it was okay to cry. It was okay to miss my parents.
It was okay to be angry with them. He comforted me when I cried over missing you and not hearing from you. He became the father I never had.
“Things changed so slowly, I didn’t even notice at first. It was small things.
He’d tell me you and my parents didn’t deserve my tears.
That I had been abandoned, but he would always be there for me.
His touches started to linger. My shoulder.
My back. My elbow. All inconspicuous places.
It was so nice being comforted. It reminded me of you.
“Then the photos started. They made me uncomfortable, but they weren’t inappropriate at first. He’d catch me shirtless, fresh out of the shower, or just lying in bed.
Memories, he’d call them. He said normal families took photos all the time, and it only felt strange to me because my parents had been so neglectful.
I knew Mom took pictures of us sometimes, so I ignored my discomfort.
“He was so smart about it. Every escalation was done so smoothly. He was able to explain away my unease with simple reminders about how I had never had a real family and didn’t understand how they worked.
After I made it out, I realized that I did know what a real family looked like, because I had you and Mom, but at the time, his explanation sounded true.
“When it first became physical, I didn’t fight as much as I should have.
I owed him after all. He’d saved me from poverty.
He’d given me a family. He’d been patient and kind, and ‘couldn’t I just do this one thing for him?
’ That worked for a while, but eventually I realized that what he was asking of me was wrong.
I started to fight back, and that’s when the mask dropped.
“He gave up all pretense of being the kind, loving uncle and showed me his true monster. When I would say no or try to resist, he would hit me. At first, it was in places that could be hidden. My back, stomach, legs. One day, I said something smart, and he snapped and punched me in the mouth. We just stared at each other in shock. He threatened to kill me if I told anyone where the bruise came from. With the look he had in his eyes, I believed him. I didn’t have any friends, so it was easy enough to lie about being in a fight to the few teachers that bothered to ask.
For a couple weeks, he seemed much calmer.
He barely touched me, and I got away with things I normally wouldn’t have.
“I should have known better than to hope.
Once it was clear I was keeping my mouth shut, it was like the chain on his demons snapped.
At this point, I was sixteen. He made me drop out of school, turning me into a prisoner in that house, and things got so much worse.
He delighted in hurting me. My screams increased his pleasure.
When beating me stopped doing it for him, he started cutting me.
I wear those scars as reminders. There is no escape from them.
“On my eighteenth birthday, I woke up to him rolling me onto my stomach before he forced his way inside me. That wasn’t anything new.
When he finished, he smacked me on the ass and said, ‘One last one for the road,’ and winked at me.
I didn’t understand until I made it downstairs and saw the suitcase that I’d packed the week before sitting by the front door instead of hiding in the back of my closet, ready for my escape.
He held a knife to my throat, threatened to sell me to these guys that were known human traffickers if I ever told a soul, and threw me out with two hundred dollars.
??
“I used half the money to buy a bus ticket as far away from him as I could get, which turned out to be New York. I spent six months on the streets alone. I was terrified of my own shadow. It wasn’t until I met Maxine that things changed.
She was homeless as well, after being kicked out by her family for coming out.
At first, I refused to let her in, but if you haven’t noticed, she has her own gravitational pull.
We spent the next six months hustling and saving.
Her HRT and food were the only things we spent money on.
“Eventually, we saved enough to take a bus to Atlanta, where we rented this shitty studio in one of the worst neighborhoods. Max got a job at this cute little coffee shop, but I couldn’t stand crowds.
There was too much risk of accidental touch.
I ended up scoring an apprenticeship at a tattoo parlor with this old guy named Gus.
I never understood what he saw in me, this scrawny kid with a permascowl.
The two of them saved my life in more ways than one.
“I resisted treatment for so long. I still feel worthless and disgusting, but Dr. Krazinski is helping. I don’t want to die, Teddy.
I really don’t. But I don’t know how to live with this weight.
The worst part is the scars. I can’t stand to look at myself in the mirror. They’re a permanent reminder.”
LB pauses before giving a single nod and standing.
His hands tremble as he clutches the hem of his ever-present hoodie.
“I’ve… I’ve never shown anyone before. Not even Max.
But I want you to know. No. I need you to know.
You’ve always been my other half, but I’m not the same person anymore.
My reactions aren’t the same anymore. I never want you to feel like that’s because of you.
It’s not. It’s because of these. The scars that he left, and that I ended up making worse. ”
Slowly, he raises his hoodie, revealing his pale stomach beneath.
What was once smooth, creamy skin is now a patchwork of scars.
My breath catches in my throat, and it takes all of my strength to keep my hands to myself.
I’m desperate to wrap LB up in my arms. To prevent the outside world from ever hurting him again.
To keep him safe from himself. Instead, I clench my fists and tuck them into my armpits.
My eyes sting from the tears threatening to spill over.
LB pulls his hoodie back down. “Please say something.” His words pull me out of my head, and I realize I’ve just been sitting here staring at his stomach.
“LB,” I croak. Quickly, I clear my throat before lifting my eyes to meet his. His pain and anxiety are clear to see, and I know I only have one chance to get this right. “I’m so sorry,” I begin, like an idiot, and his eyes slide away from mine as he moves to sit back down on the couch.
“No. Not like that. Not in a pity way,” I hurry to say.
“It hurts me that you had to go through that. That the world has been so cruel, and that the people that were meant to protect you failed at every turn. That the world took a boy who was sunshine personified and dulled his light. I hate that I wasn’t able to be there when you needed me the most.
“But if there’s one thing that’s always been obvious to me, it’s that you, LB, are the strongest person I have ever known.
You’ve been knocked down more than most people could even begin to imagine, but you keep getting back up.
You keep fighting. When I see those scars, I don’t see something ugly.
I see the most beautiful thing in the world—your survival. ”
LB’s chest is heaving when I finish. His cheeks are streaked with tears.
The tip of his nose is red, and his lip is swollen from him chewing on it.
I want to hold him and never let him go, but I can’t.
Instead, I place my hand palm up on the cushion between us.
His gaze bounces back and forth between my face and my hand.
When his palm finally touches mine, as light as a feather, I sag with relief.
When he laces his fingers with mine, my eyes snap up to his.
I can see the fear, but there’s also a hint of determination.
He gives a minuscule nod, and slowly, I bend my fingers. Neither of us speaks.
We sit there facing each other with our fingers interlocked, heads resting on the back of the couch, just staring.
I’m not sure how long we sit there, but the next thing I know, my eyes are blinking open to morning light.
Cooper is nowhere in sight; there’s a flash of hurt, but it fades quickly when the smell of sandalwood and vanilla tickles my nose and soft fabric rubs against my skin.
He couldn’t stay, but I’m still enveloped in him.
Snuggling in deeper, I close my eyes again, not ready for this moment to end.