Chapter 7
Gavin
“L ook at the screen, Gavin. Look at it and tell me what you see.” I shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut.
“No!” I wouldn’t look. I refused. But then I felt him grip my arm, and someone else grabbed my head.
“Look at the screen, Gavin. This is the only way to fix you. You have to understand that a life like this will only bring you pain. Pain is the only way to teach you. Open your eyes. Now!” They practically pried my eyes open and made me look. I was already crying before they even got to the pain.
Heat. I thought it might be the worst. He hit the side of my leg with it and held it there so long I knew it would scar. I cried out in pain. Why the fuck didn’t he ever say anything? Why didn’t he at least stop the worst of it? I didn’t understand. It was almost like he wanted me to be humiliated, to cry, to hurt. Like he thought I deserved it, even though I didn’t. I knew I didn’t. Not anymore than he did.
“Stop!” I cried out, “Please!” because they weren’t letting up. I was doing what they wanted. When they didn’t let up on the heat and cold it was almost worse than the electricity. I wondered if they did it to all of us, or only the ones they thought were the worst. They seemed to think I was the most evil person in the building, even though I’d always tried to be a good kid and I wasn’t really sure what I’d done that was so wrong. I had no idea what the others went through, though.
They weren’t listening to me. The heat was searing into the side of my leg, and a sob finally broke free. “Do you feel that pain, Gavin? Can you feel it? Do you know what this is? It’s punishment for all the evil thoughts in your mind. We know they’re there. You have to force them out. You have to make the demon leave you. You have to help us, because he has a firm hold on you.”
Finally, the heat was gone, but the pain was still there. The bible was once again on my forehead, pressing me into the table. I couldn’t focus on anything but the hurt. I could smell my own burnt flesh. I needed the pain to stop, but all they were doing was pushing my head into the table and muttering those strange prayers. A tear slipped out. “Please, stop.” I needed to put something on it. I needed ice or anything, even though ice so often meant pain, too. “Please!”
◆◆◆
“Gavin? Gavin, wake up!” I jerked awake, covered in a cold sweat. I had no idea where I was for a minute, not immediately recognizing my surroundings. Fear gripped me when I realized I wasn’t alone, and I jerked away from the person in front of me, because I was sure they’d gotten me somehow, they’d taken me somewhere and were about to hurt me again.
“Hey,” a soft voice said, “It’s ok. It’s me. It’s Nick.” Soft light filtered in through the window around the curtain, and from the open doorway of the bedroom where a light was on in a hallway I didn’t recognize. I tried to focus on the pretty face in front of me. There was worry in the eyes that watched me, but he was staying back and holding up his hands to calm me.
Finally, it all came back to me. The bridge, the youth center, Nick . The guy who’d offered a complete stranger a place to stay even though the stranger was worried about people coming after him. The guy who’d shared his beer and food and TV, and who, for some reason, seemed happy I was there instead of annoyed or bothered. The guy I’d just jerked away from like he was about to murder me when all he’d obviously done was try to wake me from a nightmare. “Nick,” I said, sounding a little hoarse, “I’m sorry.”
He relaxed and let his hands drop. “It’s ok,” he said, “Are you alright? I got up to get some water and I heard you talking in your sleep. It sounded like you were having a bad dream. I’m sorry I woke you.”
I took a shaky breath. “No, I…I appreciate it.”
“Are you alright?” he asked me again.
I nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m ok. It was just a nightmare.” I wasn’t ok, though, and it hadn’t just been a dream. I hadn’t been ok since I was seventeen, and I hadn’t had many normal dreams since then, either. I was still shaking, and I didn’t want to go back to sleep just to end up in that place again. I didn’t want him to leave, but I didn’t want to say that. The man had already gone above and beyond. I was not going to ask him to sit there with me like some little kid afraid of the dark.
“Do you want me to get you some water?” he offered. I felt horrible asking him to cater to me, but I thought it might keep him in the room a little longer. I hated being alone after my nightmares, left to fester in my fear and paranoia, but I’d never had another option. Having another human being there, one who cared and felt safe, was making it fade away faster, making me less terrified.
“Sure. That would be nice. Thanks.”
He left the room and came back a moment later with a bottle of water. I thanked him again and took a drink, looking back up at him as he stood by the bed.
“Do you have nightmares a lot?” he asked me.
“Uh-huh.”
He looked even more concerned. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I shook my head. No way . I never wanted to talk about all of that with anyone. “No.”
“Ok,” he said, “Well, do you want me to go so that you can get back to sleep?”
It was yet another case of my mouth being quicker than my brain when I said, “No!” way too fast . Jesus, Gavin .
He looked a little startled at my outburst, but more surprised that I’d asked him to stay than anything else. The look cleared quickly and turned to understanding. “Alright,” he said softly, “Do you want me to sit here with you for a bit? I don’t like nightmares, either. Here, I’ll turn on the lamp, ok?”
I nodded, but I still felt ridiculous. I was grateful that he seemed to understand. I’d never had anyone to tell me everything was ok after a bad dream. All I’d ever had was a crummy pillow to hug and my own anxiety threatening to overwhelm me and whispering that they were right outside my door, waiting to take me back.
He turned on the small lamp on the table beside the bed, and the room was cast in a soft, comforting glow. He slid into the bed beside me, adjusting the pillow so he could sit up. I was still lying on the opposite side of the bed, and I let out a soft sigh, not looking at his face. He didn’t look at me, though, he seemed to understand that right then I felt like a little kid telling his parents the boogeyman was in the closet.
We sat there in silence for a good five minutes. I started to feel like an enormous tool, because I’d just met the guy and I was making him sit in bed with me in the middle of the night because I was a baby. I wasn’t even sure how to tell him it was ok to go back to his own bed. I was being selfish and silly and he probably regretted taking me home with him, even if he was lonely there. He would have been better off picking up a stray cat. At least it wouldn’t have been so needy.
Right after I opened my mouth to try to say something that would let him off the hook, he grabbed the bottle of water from the table beside him and offered it to me again. I took another sip as he said, “So, are you really ok?”
There was my opening. “Yeah, I am. I’m sorry. You can go back to bed now.”
He finally looked at me. “That wasn’t what I was getting at, actually,” he said, “I really want to know if you’re ok. I have nightmares, too, sometimes, but they’re usually about things that actually happened to me.” How the hell did he know? He went on, though, offering up a part of himself without asking me to share back.
“Mine usually involve that day I came home from work early,” he sighed, “I thought I’d surprise my fiancé and make his favorite dinner, because I was working a lot and he kept saying he missed my cooking. It seemed to be the only thing he liked about me by then, so I guess I was trying to cling to that. I stopped and got everything I needed on the way home and came in to find his jacket on the couch…beside another jacket I recognized. There was no one in sight, and I already knew, deep down. I knew why he’d been pulling away, spending so much time away from home, saying things that hurt me. But I still went to our bedroom, because I needed to see. That’s where I found him in bed with one of the few people here I’d considered a friend. This guy worked with Gabriel. He’s younger than me and still had everything Gabriel thought I’d lost, I guess. Jace always buddied up to me at social functions, and even though he was pretty, the niceness appeased me, because I thought we were really friends. Now I think it was just to curb the guilt he felt from fucking my man.”
“Damn,” I said quietly, “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “I’m better off without him. I know that. I don’t miss him, just the idea of us that I had in my head. It was all fake, all a lie. Now I’m here, far away from my family who told me I shouldn’t move here with him in the first place. I’m stuck with this sterile art museum of an apartment that I both love and hate, having dreams at least once a week of the way he shattered all the plans I had for the future.” He glanced over at me with a half-smile. “But I’m not bitter.”
I gave a little laugh. He still didn’t prod me about my own dream. He went on, “I’m figuring things out. And I know you’re feeling like a burden to me, I can tell. And I know that we don’t really know each other, but it’s nice having you here. It’s nice to have someone to talk to. I know that probably makes me pathetic, but it’s the truth.”
“It doesn’t make you pathetic,” I said, “Being alone sucks sometimes.”
He smiled and looked at me again. “Yeah, it does.”
I sighed. “So we’re just two weirdos, happy with company, even if it’s a stranger. At least we’re in the same boat.”
He smiled again. “We probably have more in common than we realize. How about a speed get-to-know-each-other session? We’ll take turns asking questions, and both of us will answer with the first thing that comes to mind and see if any of our answers are the same.” It was the strangest thing. He was up in the middle of the night, sitting in bed with me because I had a nightmare, and he wanted to play a break-the-ice game. Had my dad hit me harder than I thought, and all of it was actually a dream? Was I in a coma or something? Either way, I’d just go with it. I nodded. He didn’t hesitate. “Favorite animal?”
I could have gone with something simple, like a cat or dog, but fuck that. “Panda bear,” I said quickly, because how could you not love them after all those videos online? They were ridiculous. They were like God’s joke to the animal world. I wasn’t sure how they even survived in the wild, but I’d give my front teeth to have one as a pet.
That man literally said, “Panda,” right as I did.
We both started laughing and talking about all the videos we’d seen of pandas falling, sliding, being startled by their cub’s sneeze. He’d officially broken the ice. Our favorite bands weren’t the same, nor our movies, but it gave us a chance to talk about the things we liked. And damned if his favorite food, even being a chef, wasn’t Hawaiian pizza just like mine. We both dreamed of going to Switzerland. We were both very upset that decaf coffee existed. And we both had an irrational fear of antiques.
We both liked art but didn't really understand the modern kind, and that conversation led to one about the art on my body. Nick didn’t have any tattoos because he couldn’t make up his mind, while mine told my entire life story. No one knew what any of them meant but me, and I hinted at all that when we were talking about them. I saw him looking at the ones he could see, obviously curious. He must have gotten braver after our get-to-know-each-other session, because he said, “Can I pick one tattoo and you tell me its story? Just one?”
I hesitated, because I had no idea which one he’d pick, and I didn’t want him to know the story behind most of them. Finally, though, against my better judgment, I said, “Ok.”
He looked at the skin he could see, but even though he couldn’t see my entire body, he wasn’t lacking in options. I prayed he wouldn’t pick the devil poised to strike on my upper arm. I let out a breath as he passed over it and pointed to one on my forearm. “This one is cool,” he said, “What does it symbolize?”
I looked at the snake wrapped around the crescent moon that had constellations inside of it. I hesitated. After a moment, he said, “You don’t have to tell me. We don’t have to play this game. Want to go back to our favorite things?”
But I’d agreed to one tattoo, and I finally sighed. “No, it’s ok. That one is about Caden.” He looked up at me, curious but not prompting me to go on. “The snake is me. That’s why it’s wrapped around him. I know you probably have no idea what happened between me and Caden, but my dad is…a bad man. We were sixteen when we dated, and we were best friends growing up. It all went bad, and it was my fault. My dad called Caden the devil and all kinds of things when he caught us together. It was…really bad. But Caden was never the devil. He wasn’t the serpent luring someone into eternal damnation. He just wanted to look at the stars. He liked to point out the constellations. We’d sit outside for hours after dark, just talking and looking at the sky, it was something we’d always done. But when we got older, my feelings changed, and I was kind of getting the feeling that he felt the same way I did. So one night he was trying to tell me about some star pattern, and when he turned toward me, I kissed him. Shocked the hell out of him, but he kissed me back. I don’t think he ever would have acted on it if I hadn’t, and we never would have gotten caught. It was me who was the snake. I was the devil, not him. I ruined his entire youth. I’m the reason he hid for so long and made himself miserable.”
I pulled my other arm out from under my pillow to show him a tattoo on the opposite side. A tattoo of the same moon with constellations, a snake falling away from it. “This is the one I got when he finally found his way. When I realized I hadn’t ruined his entire life, the day he gleefully made an ass of himself proclaiming his love on live TV. Because he didn’t care. He didn’t care what anyone thought. He was in love, and he was done hiding it. He wanted everyone to know. You have no idea the amount of relief I got from seeing that. He was never the devil. It was always me.”
I looked away, but a finger was suddenly tracing the snake on the first tattoo. “You’re not,” he said softly, a distant look in his eyes, “You were never a devil. You didn’t do anything wrong. You were just a kid who fell in love with his friend. You didn’t make Caden do anything. You didn’t turn him gay or make him hide. None of that was you. Whatever happened with your dad, that wasn’t your fault, either. Don’t carry that blame. I can promise you, even looking from the outside, you were never the serpent.”
I looked at him and he suddenly seemed to realize that he was touching my arm. He drew his hand back and cleared his throat. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
“It’s ok,” I said, still looking at him, “It wasn’t bothering me.” I cracked a little smile.
He smiled, too, and me opening up a little must have made him braver, because he went back to the one I didn’t want him asking about. He pointed at the devil tattoo. It was much darker than the other tattoo. It was realistic and angry, and the devil was lying in wait, because he had been. He still was. “What about this one? You said you felt like the devil, is this one you?”
I looked away. “No. That one was the real devil. The devil in disguise as a youth pastor.”
Nick looked horrified and pulled his hand back. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly, “I know we only agreed to one. I didn’t mean to pry.”
Since he looked so horrified, I sighed and said, “It’s probably not what you’re thinking, ok? I wasn’t the moon in this tattoo, either. I was never innocent. You won’t find that in any of them. I’ve never been a…great person.”
I knew I should probably shut my mouth, because all he had to do was tell me to leave his home, and I was shit out of luck with nowhere to go, again. But instead he said, “I can guarantee you aren’t as bad of a person as you think you are, Gavin.”
Instead of making me feel better, his words made me feel worse. That was something you said to make a bad person feel better about themselves. Something you said when you didn’t actually know them at all and had no way to know what kind of person they really were.
“You don’t really know me,” I said softly, and when he looked at me I went on, “I mean, I’m not a criminal, so I guess I have that. But I’ve never had any extra money, always had to scrape by just to pay my bills. So how, exactly, do you think I’m covered in ink? My friend is a tattoo artist, but he doesn’t work for nothing. Just because I’m not someone who goes around hurting people on purpose doesn’t mean I’m a good person, Nick.”
He looked confused for a minute, but I saw the moment the meaning of my words dawned on him. I looked down. “I don’t really want to talk about my tattoos anymore. I’m sorry I’ve kept you awake for so long. You can go back to bed if you want. I’ll be ok. This isn’t the first time I’ve been through a nightmare, and it won’t be the last.”
Instead of hauling ass like I thought he would, he sat up, laid his pillow flat, and flopped down on the bed beside me. “Nah,” he said, “Honestly I think both of us are better off not being alone right now. I had a bad dream, too, and my bedroom gets…oppressive when I’m alone in the middle of the night. My dream was why I was up in the first place. I always have trouble going back to sleep.”
I was a little taken aback. I hadn’t really expected him to stay, especially after I’d closed myself off again and told him he could go. He must have seen it on my face, because he said, “Is that ok?” to make sure he wasn’t overstepping.
I just nodded, not quite sure how to reply. He smiled. “Ok, then. Goodnight, Gavin.” He reached over and turned off the lamp. I just lay there, listening to his breathing even out. That fucker literally just went right to sleep, and there I was trying to figure out what to do in a bed that wasn’t empty besides me. I’d never had anyone sleep in bed beside me, except maybe during a nap after a random hookup before I took off in the wee hours of the morning for the walk of shame back to my car.
I turned over and stared at the light coming around the curtains. I had to admit, it felt nice to have someone there. It felt safe, like I wasn’t completely alone in the world. I knew it was a temporary situation, and probably a temporary friend, but I drew from the comfort it gave me. I closed my eyes and for the first time after a nightmare, felt myself relaxing back into sleepiness. I let myself drift into a mercifully dreamless sleep, lulled by the sound of Nick’s soft breathing.