Chapter 10
There was silence after Jaylin admitted that he had essentially been using Hiro to cheat on the person he was currently with.
They hadn’t even kissed or anything, Hiro had never even touched Jaylin, but Jaylin knew it counted as emotional cheating.
He had been greedy for Hiro’s attention, soaking up every kind word, each gentle, interested question, and in doing so, he’d been leading Hiro along for weeks.
Brent he didn't care about, but he’d been unfair to Hiro in every way.
He was kind of glad now that he hadn’t shown Hiro the notebook full of comic pages that were sitting in Jaylin’s bag. It seemed so stupid now. Pointless and childish and stupid.
He brought up a hand to scrub over his eyes. Fuck. “I’m sorry,” Jaylin forced out, knowing it would never be enough. “I can–I can get a ride home and get out of your hair. I won’t bother you again.”
“Jaylin…” Hiro sounded heartbroken, and when Jaylin managed to look up at him, because Hiro deserved that much, the raw expression on Hiro’s face made guilt burn like acid in Jaylin’s throat. He had done that. He had made Hiro look like that.
“I’m sorry,” Jaylin whispered again, and the words got caught as he tried to say them.
He needed to make himself get up and leave, but he couldn't get his body to move. It felt leaden, weighed down with guilt and shame. There was also a tiny part of him that just… didn't want to go yet. It wanted to prolong this last moment with Hiro, no matter how painful it was.
More greed, on Jaylin’s part, and he was so disgusted with himself by it that it finally propelled him to stand.
“Wait—!” Hiro reached out a hand. Jaylin froze, even though Hiro wasn't close enough to touch. Hiro never touched him. “Please don’t leave.”
“Why?” Jaylin spat, anger at himself spilling over into a barbed defense. “I already ruined everything, I-I proved just how worthless I am–”
“Don’t talk about yourself like that,” Hiro snapped. The force of it was startling, though Hiro softened his voice right away. “You’re not worthless. And I’m not—I’m not mad at you. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
A wretched, bitter laugh escaped him as Jaylin fell back onto the couch. No matter how much he should leave, Hiro had asked him not to. Jaylin owed it to him to stay for whatever he wanted to say. “How can you even say that?”
Hiro took a deep breath and let it out, shoulders straightening in a way that had Jaylin sitting up at attention too. “Because I’m pretty sure you’re not with your current… partner because you want to be. And… and sometimes people do things because they don’t have any other choice.”
“I did choose though,” Jaylin admitted in a tiny voice. “I chose to… be with him.”
“Okay.” Hiro looked at Jaylin like he could see right through him. “Why?”
Because I was desperate. Jaylin didn't say.
Because I couldn’t get anywhere, no matter how hard I tried.
Because I wanted just a chance at something better, someday.
Something inside him cracked and Jaylin opened his mouth.
“I couldn’t afford school and also pay for food and rent.
He… he offered to comp my classes in exchange for…
me.” Jaylin had to break eye contact again as he said it out loud.
“He had all these rules he wanted me to follow, and he didn’t want me to work because it’d ‘take away from my studies’ so I couldn’t even get a job to try to save up to pay my own way and…
” Jaylin trailed off miserably. Hiro didn't need to hear a sob story. Jaylin had made his own bed.
Hiro nodded. He had smoothed out his expression so that no anger or disgust showed through, but his hands were clenched in his lap. “Does he hurt you?”
It was the last question Jaylin expected, but he opened his mouth to say no. It wasn’t like Brent smacked him around. Not like other people had. He just made Jaylin uncomfortable and humiliated him. Pushed his boundaries and dug his fingers in too hard and sunk his teeth too deep.
At Jaylin’s silence, Hiro’s lips thinned. “How can I help?”
“W-what?”
“How can I help?” Hiro asked again. “Jaylin, please… please let me help you. Can you stop contacting him? Do you have a safe place to go?”
Another bitter laugh bubbled out of him. “Hiro, I can’t—he pays for my classes. I can’t just disappear. Besides,” Jaylin added quietly, “he knows where I live.” He couldn't quite bring himself to say, he pays for that too.
Hiro scooted closer to Jaylin on the couch, and held out his hand, an offering. It was the first time Hiro had ever initiated a touch and Jaylin took his hand with shaking fingers.
Hiro wasted no time linking their fingers together, and Jaylin had to bite down the pathetic little sound that threatened to escape at just that simple, gentle touch without motivation.
Meant only for comfort. “I understand,” Hiro said.
“I do. You had something you needed and you figured out a way to get it. There’s no shame in that. ”
Jaylin ducked his head, hunching away from the kindness.
The understanding. “I wish I could have just done it on my own. My grades in high school were shit, not enough for any scholarships, and I couldn’t…
I couldn’t apply for them anyway, or even loans, because I couldn’t figure out how to access them.
Those I could find… I couldn’t write the essays they wanted. ”
“No one was there to help you,” Hiro said, and he sounded pained.
Jaylin said nothing, because it was true. When some days he’d wanted to cry from the unfairness of it all, from how stupid he’d felt, he’d had no one.
Then Aditi had introduced him to Hiro, who had changed everything for him. And now Jaylin had Hiro and Aditi and Diego and El Guanaco too, and he didn’t want to lose any of it. He didn’t want to lose the new, fragile hope that had bloomed inside of him.
“Okay,” Hiro said, giving Jaylin’s hand a squeeze. “Okay, one thing at a time. When do you have to see him next?”
“This Saturday,” Jaylin said, chest constricting. “He wants… he wants me to spend spring break week with him. But I don’t–I don’t think I–” he cut himself off, holding back the sob, and folded into Hiro’s chest when Hiro gently tugged him forward.
Hiro was so big and warm and comforting, and it was so nice to just be held that the sobs threatened to escape. It took Jaylin several long moments to compose himself.
“I don’t think I could make it through a week,” Jaylin was finally able to force out, fingers clinging to Hiro’s soft sweater. It was somehow easier to talk when his cheek was pressed against Hiro’s chest. “He’s… mean. He likes it when I–when I’m unhappy.”
It cut differently, saying it out loud. He hadn’t really let himself come to terms with the fact that Brent was actively, purposefully cruel to him.
Hiro started to gently rub Jaylin’s back, a comfort touch that Jaylin couldn't even remember the last time he’d had.
It felt so good that Jaylin melted a little further against Hiro, for all that his insides were twisting with misery.
He wished so desperately that he could have Hiro’s soothing touch for any other reason.
That he could fully enjoy the delicious warmth of Hiro’s body as Hiro held him, safe and comforting.
“Can you get out of it?” Hiro asked.
Jaylin shook his head.
Hiro’s chest rose and fell as he breathed. “Okay,” he said, sounding determined. “Then we have tonight and tomorrow. We can make it work.”
“Make what work?” Jaylin asked hesitantly. He made himself pull out of the embrace to search Hiro’s face.
Hiro looked like he was ready to take on the world as he slid his phone out of his pocket.
“Everything.” And then he suddenly looked uncertain.
“If… if you want my help. If you’ll trust me to help you.
And please just—just know that nothing, nothing I want to give you is because I’m expecting something back.
I just—” Hiro’s expression then was halfway to distraught.
“Please let me help you. Please, I just want you to be safe.”
Jaylin wet his lips, that fragile bud of hope inside him unfurling just the slightest bit. He didn’t know what Hiro could even do, but Jaylin trusted that Hiro would do his best to take care of him. “What, um, what did you have in mind?”
***
Jaylin bit his lip and played the group audio message he had dictated into his phone for what he told himself would be the last time.
Hi. Uh, it’s Jaylin. Um, feel free to say no but I’m trying to, um, get out of a bad situation and need to move out of my apartment.
Um, tomorrow. No big deal if you’re busy, but any help would be appreciated. Thank you.
He grimaced down at his phone, totally without the brainspace to try to re-record the message without all the um’s and uh’s. He took a deep breath, and pressed send.
There. That was… that was done. Now he just needed to not think about it—
His phone buzzed in his hand.
Bewildered, Jaylin checked it. It was Carlos, responding to the group text. Oh, that made sense, Jaylin guessed. Carlos seemed like the type to always have his phone in his hand.
The message was: Time??? ADDRESS??
Oh.
Yeah… right.
Nerves made him clumsy as Jaylin dictated I’ll probably get started around 7am, then added his address.
Moments later, Carlos texted, got it!, and nothing else.
Okay. Jaylin determinedly shoved his phone into his pocket.
He had asked for help, given the time and place, and now he needed to not think about it anymore.
Even just dictating the initial plea had been so difficult he could barely do it.
Asking for help was such a foreign feeling to him.
Until just recently Jaylin had known it to be a waste of breath to try.
But he had friends now. And maybe… maybe that meant something.
Either way, now it was done.
He left the kitchen to rejoin Hiro in the living room again.
Hiro looked up from the laptop he had open and smiled. “Hey, there. How’d it go?”