Chapter 7 #2
I reached out to cover his hand on the table.
“I know, Caleb. Your father was really good at making people believe what he wanted them to.” It was a polite way of saying the man was a lying bag of shit who deserved a bullet to the brain like no one’s business.
I’d seen the proof myself that Eli had been led to believe for years that he’d drunkenly instigated the first sexual encounter between him and his stepfather.
The fucker had gone so far as to doctor a video of the brutal rape to make it look like Eli had not only been a willing participant, but that he’d started it.
The reality was that he had, in fact, been drugged.
I had no doubt Jack Cortano had played the same kind of mind games with his sons.
“Anyway, Mariana did her best, but I didn’t make it easy for her,” Caleb admitted. He settled his fork on his plate.
I didn’t want him to stop talking, since I’d finally made some progress in getting him to open up, so I said, “Things didn’t improve with Mav and Eli?”
He shook his head. “They tried really hard. I know they only asked me to move in so I wouldn’t get into so much trouble—”
“That’s not true,” I interrupted. “Yeah, they were worried about you, but they love you, Caleb. They wanted you to feel like a part of their family because that’s what you are. ”
Caleb didn’t say anything for a long time. When he did, his voice was uneven. “I tried, Jace. I really did.”
He just sounded so lost that I couldn’t stop myself from linking my fingers with his on the table and saying, “I know you did, baby.”
This time, he noticed the endearment.
And I found that I wasn’t particularly upset by that fact.
“I went to the therapist, I tried to focus on my grades, I helped around the house,” Caleb began. “But it wasn’t real. I was still that same disgusting freak who let his dad do that shit to him.”
“Caleb—”
“Some of the kids at school found out about me. The guy prosecuting my dad said that my name wouldn’t be made public because I was a minor, but it still got out. First it was the kids, then the reporters…”
“Did Eli and Mav know?” I asked. My heart broke for him as I considered all the cruel things the other kids would have said to him.
“About the reporters, but I never told them about what the kids were saying… and doing.”
I tensed at that. “What did they do?”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“It matters to me,” I said firmly. I reached for his chin to force his head up. “Please, Caleb, I need to know.”
He closed his eyes and then looked in the direction of the stove. Probably so he wouldn’t have to look me in the eye as he spoke. “Just stupid stuff. They’d call me names when I walked by, write stuff on the bathroom walls about me, put things in my locker.”
“What kinds of things?”
“Jace—” Caleb whispered with a shake of his head. His fingers went to his arm and he began scratching at it. I doubted he was even aware he was doing it.
I got up and then reached for his hand. I pulled him along behind me as I snagged a throw from a cubbyhole by the stairs leading above deck.
The air was crisp around us. There were only a few boats out and about, but I knew that would change as the sun rose higher in the sky.
I tugged Caleb to one of the benches at the back of the boat.
I sat down and then pulled him down to sit next to me.
I maneuvered him until we were facing the back of the boat and he was sitting between my outstretched legs, his back against my chest. The position gave us both an unencumbered view of the water.
I wrapped the blanket around both of us and said, “For every question of mine that you answer, I’ll do the same for you.
I’m not untouchable, Caleb. I bleed on the inside just like you do.
I’ve just found different ways than you to not feel. ”
“Like how?” Caleb asked. His fingers were digging into the hands I had wrapped around his upper body.
“I push people away when they try to get close. I never offer trust or respect, it has to be earned. I can count on one finger how many friends I have.”
“Dalton?” Caleb asked.
“Yes. What things did the kids put in your locker, Caleb?”
It took him a long time to answer, but when he did, I felt a measure of relief. At least he was talking, even though I knew I wasn’t going to like hearing what he had to say.
“Drawings, mostly. More like a comic strip, I guess. It was of a father and son. Different sexual acts, the father asking the son if he liked it, the son saying yes, stuff like that.”
I suspected he was glossing over the worst of it, but I didn’t make him expound on the subject. I was already itching to hunt down the kid or kids who’d tormented him and make them feel just an ounce of the pain they’d inflicted on Caleb.
“Why don’t you have any friends besides Dalton?” Caleb asked.
“Because losing them is too fucking hard. I watched men I considered my brothers get blown to bits for eight long years over four deployments. I’d have to watch some high-ranking official say fancy words about men I considered blood having sacrificed their lives for something greater.
They’ve been saying the same shit for years now, and guess what?
We’re no closer to winning. Those men are still dead and their widows and kids are still trying to figure out how to go on without them.
What things did the kids do to you, besides the drawings and the name-calling? ”
Caleb shook his head. I leaned down to press my lips to his ear. “It’s okay, Caleb. You can tell me anything. It’s just between us. ”
He hesitated, then said, “Some guys cornered me in the shower after gym class one day. They… they forced me to face the wall and started asking if I liked any dick up my ass or if it had to be my daddy’s dick. Then they started to wonder if it even had to be a dick.”
I felt my blood run cold at his words. I closed my eyes and sent a silent prayer heavenward that I could hang onto my control, no matter what he told me.
“One of them went and got one of the bats from the room where all the sports equipment was kept.”
No .
I managed to keep the word in my head, even though all I wanted to do was yell it out loud.
But Caleb must have picked up on my distress because he turned and looked over his shoulder at me.
“Nothing happened,” he said quickly. “The gym teacher saw him taking the bat into the shower and yelled at him. The guys let me go and pretended like nothing was going on, then got out of there when the teacher told them to get to their next class.”
“Did you tell anyone?” I asked.
Caleb returned his gaze to the water and shook his head.
“I started skipping gym class after that, then my other classes. That’s when the drinking intensified.
I was failing most of my classes and since there was no way I could get my grades back up in time to graduate this spring, they started talking about holding me back another year.
I ended up dropping out. Mav and Eli were so disappointed. ”
Jesus fucking Christ. How had I not known things had gotten so bad for him?
You didn’t know because you didn’t ask, you fucking coward .
“Are you and Dalton together?”
Caleb’s question pulled me from my thoughts. “What?” I asked, completely thrown.
“Is he your boyfriend?”
“No,” I said. “He and I have never been together like that.”
“But he’s gay, right?”
“He is,” I confirmed. “How did you know? ”
“The way he looks at you,” was all Caleb said. “Why weren’t you ever together?”
I sighed because the conversation had taken a turn I hadn’t been expecting. But I’d promised him that I’d answer his questions. “Because I’m not what Dalton needs. And he’s not what I need, either.”
“What do you need?”
Yeah, this was definitely not the direction I’d wanted this to go. I debated how to phrase my response so I wouldn’t scare the hell out of him. “Caleb, when the pain gets to be too much for you, you cut to let some of it out, right?”
“You didn’t answer my question—”
“I’m going to,” I assured him. “Just answer mine first, please.”
“Yes. Most of the time I’m just numb, but when things get to be too much, I… I need to get it out. I’m afraid of what will happen if I don’t.”
“I use sex to accomplish the same things, Caleb. I don’t hurt my partners, but I’m aggressive with them.
I turn everything I’m feeling on them. I always make sure they get off, but that’s really all it’s about.
There’s no emotion when I touch them. I never see them again, never talk to them again.
I control the encounter, their reactions, my own… ”
“It’s not real,” Caleb murmured.
Humiliation went through me as he repeated my own words back to me. “And just like you, I’d rather have the illusion,” I said.
Caleb let out a heavy breath but didn’t say anything. After all, what could he say?
“Jace?”
“Yeah?” I said. It was funny because I suddenly felt wiped out. I’d gone into this thing in the hopes of drawing out some of the shit that was festering inside of Caleb, but somehow, he’d turned the tables on me without even trying.
“I know what I want now for keeping your secret about your complete and utter lack of grace on the ski slope.”
I smiled despite myself. “Okay,” I responded.
I was surprised when he turned around so that he was facing me.
He sat Indian-style between my outstretched legs.
There was a little color in his cheeks, but I wasn’t sure if it was because of the cold morning air or the emotion that had come with the admissions he’d made.
But none of that mattered the second he gave voice to his request and whispered, “I want to kiss you.”