Chapter 23 #2
“It always hurt. He would fuck my mouth too hard. He would fuck me too hard. I don’t think it ever crossed his mind to worry about how it felt for me. And somewhere along the way, I started to think that was how it was for people like me.”
Mike makes a broken sound against me, and I almost stop, but I have to tell him this part.
“I know what it looks like. But I’m not—it’s not that I don’t want to suck your dick. Or get fucked. I do. You have no idea how badly I wish I could do that. But I can’t make my body understand that it’s safe with you.”
He nods, looking up with a smile. “We don’t have to do those things, Alex. I was happy with the way things were before until Trent got in my head. You know I love it when you fuck me.”
I shake my head, not willing to accept that this time. I know Mike needs more than what I can give him. “It’s not okay, Mike. Talking about what happened has made me realize that I didn’t treat you all that differently than he treated me.”
The words come, careless, but the nausea follows as the reality sets in.
I don’t bottom.
I can’t ever come out.
Did you tell anyone?
The countless times I came with no return, the fact that I can count on one hand how many times I’ve touched Mike’s dick, the anger I felt when he didn’t care that people were talking about us.
Not letting him come home with me for Christmas.
Oh my god.
I’m Jason.
I push Mike out of my arms to stand up. “I’m so sorry, Mike. I never meant to— I wouldn’t have—” I didn’t even realize I was doing it, and that’s the worst part.
Mike follows me, appearing directly in front of me, and the expression on his face stops me in my tracks. “No.” He says, his eyes drying and his voice firm. “That is not true.”
“Yes, it is. I kept you a secret. I took everything you gave me, and I never once asked—”
“Alex.” He cuts me off. “Stop. What he did to you and what we had are not even in the same universe. Don’t compare us to him.”
I look down at my shoes, unable to stop.
“No. Look at me,” he says, and I have no choice but to listen. “Do you remember the first night we fucked in your bed?”
I nod. Of course, I remember.
“I cried,” he admits. “After you went to sleep. I figured after you were gonna roll over and ignore me.” His eyes don’t leave mine. “But you went and got a towel, Alex. You held me. Do you know how many people have taken care of me after sex?”
My throat tightens, but I shake my head.
“One person. You. You are so good,” he says, his hand coming back up to my cheek, wiping a stray tear. “You’re so loving and so careful with me. You didn’t want to hurt me, so you went to your brother and asked him for advice. You made a playlist.” He laughs, and I do too, both of us still crying.
“Mike,” I start, even though I have no idea what I’m gonna say.
He beats me to it.
“You are nothing like him.” He slides his fingers into my hair and grips it tight to punctuate his point. “Don’t ever say that again.”
And fuck.
I love him.
I nod, a fresh wave of tears spilling over as he pulls me into him. I drop my forehead onto his shoulder, and he holds me, letting me fall apart in his arms all over again.
“Come here,” Mike says, pulling away. I let him go reluctantly.
He crosses the room to where his black acoustic guitar leans against the wall, and picks it up, sitting back down on the couch and settling it across his lap.
“I wrote you something,” he says, patting the spot beside him, waiting for me to join him on the couch. “That day, we got into an argument. Before I rode you and— Anyway. That was the day that I realized something.”
He looks down at the strings, and then he starts to play.
Pretty eyes, broken smile.
I think I might stay for a while.
Never thought I’d feel this way.
But here I am, not afraid to say I love you.
I don’t think I breathe until the song is over. I listen, and I watch his hands on the strings as he tells me, in the way he knows best, everything he never said out loud. That I always knew was there, even if I was too scared to bring it up.
When the last chord fades out, Mike looks up, a nervous expression on his face.
“I love you too,” I tell him, no need to draw it out.
Mike blinks, disbelief flashing over his face for only a moment before he covers it up with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. “Well, obviously.” He says. “Who wouldn’t love me? I’m extremely lovable.”
“Shut up.”
“I have great hair, I’m hot, I’m funny, I’m an incredible musician, which you just witnessed—”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say, cutting him off before this goes on forever. “My turn.”
“What?”
I hold my hand out for the guitar.
He narrows his eyes, but gives it over, and I settle it across my lap.
I haven’t touched a guitar in almost two years, but the muscle memory is still there, my fingers finding their position. I strum the open strings, the sound filling the room while Mike watches me, with a tilt to his head. “I used to play.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Mike says.
“Guitar. I used to play.”
“And you never mentioned that before now?” I look up, and he’s wearing an expression of complete betrayal. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I shrug. “It never came up.”
“It never—” He shakes his head in disbelief. “How long have you played?”
“Since I was ten. Nate got me my first guitar for Christmas.”
Mike is staring at me like I’ve told him I used to be a porn star, and it would be funny if the truth weren’t the most heartbreaking part of all of this.
I position my left hand.
The chord I’m reaching for is one of the first ones I ever learned. A simple C chord. I could play it in my sleep. And I know what’s going to happen. But the guitar is in my hands, and I still have this stupid hope inside of me that this is all some fucked up dream.
When I press down, the pain is instant.
I’ve learned to work around it, the pain in the cold, the pain when I hold something too tight, it’s barely noticeable most days, it’s not even my dominant hand.
But this.
This is what I lost. The particular pain that shoots from my fingers to my elbow when my fingers press down the strings is too much to push through.
Believe me, I’ve tried.
I lift off the strings with a wince and set the guitar to the side.
“Alex?”
“He broke my hand that night,” I tell him, like I’m not talking about the thing that destroyed me. “It’s fine, now. I can use it. But the way it healed… it still hurts to play.”
Mike stares at my hand, resting his chin in his own.
He doesn’t say anything, but I can see him working through it. What it means. What was taken. He understands better than anyone else how it would feel.
But he doesn’t say that.
“Okay,” he says quietly. And then, he perks up. “Okay, hang on.”
“What?”
“Hang on!” He shouts, already running up the stairs. When he comes back down as fast as he went up, he’s carrying a guitar case I’ve never seen before.
It’s in better condition than the cases I’ve seen him use, banged up from taking them to bars and leaving them lying around. Covered in discolored stickers from having beer spilled on them.
This case is tan, with no stickers or dents in sight.
He brings it over and sets it on the coffee table in front of me, unlatching it with a different care than the usual handling of his instruments.
Inside is an electric guitar.
A Fender Stratocaster with a wooden body, shining, like new.
“My dad was left-handed,” Mike says, looking down at the guitar. “He had one of these when I was a kid, and I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. When he’d play, it was like he was a real rock star, you know?” He laughs a watery laugh, running his finger along the strings.
“I never got it back after they died. I don’t know where most of their stuff ended up. I was only able to take a few things. But I remembered the guitar. And when I had the money, I found an exact match.”
“Mike,” I say, resting my hand on his shoulder.
“I want you to have it.” He looks up at me. “And before you say anything—”
“I can’t take your dad’s—”
“It’s not his. His is gone.” His voice is steady, matter-of-fact, even though the truth is a painful reminder. “It’s a guitar that looks like his. And I want you to have it.”
“But I can’t. I’m not left-handed.”
Mike smiles at that, sitting beside me on the couch with a bounce. “Okay. You know who was left-handed?”
“Who?”
“Jimi Hendrix. You know what guitar he played?”
I shrug.
“A right-handed Stratocaster,” he says, pointing at me. “Paul Simon. Sting. David Bowie. All left-handed, all play a right-handed guitar.”
“Okay?”
“The point,” he continues, “is that you played guitar for eight years. You already know how. That doesn’t live in your hands. It lives up here.” He taps my temple. “Your hands just have to catch up to what your brain already knows.”
He looks at me, completely serious, using his masters in music theory on me.
“And you call me a nerd.”
“I’m not a nerd. I’m a rock star,” he says proudly, and I don’t even roll my eyes, because what he said is starting to sink in.
He lifts it out of the case and holds it out to me. I take it, settling the Strat across my lap the wrong way around, and it feels really bizarre.
“Play something.”
I look at the fretboard. My right hand finds the right shape on the neck, and when I press down, the strings cut into my skin in a way I haven’t felt since I was a kid when they would leave indentations in my fingers.
I strum with my left hand.
The chord rings out, a little buzzy, but otherwise normal.
I played a G chord.
It didn’t hurt.
I get this feeling, like I can feel my soul coming back to life, where I thought I was dead, my passion stolen from me.
But he didn’t steal anything.
I play it again, and it still feels awkward, but I adjust my fingers, and it comes out clean.
When I look up at Mike, he’s already smiling, big and bright-eyed, and he looks so fucking happy for me that all I can do is set the guitar down on the couch beside me, as gently as possible, and cross the space between us.
I tackle him backward onto the couch, both of us going over, and he laughs in surprise, his arms coming around me automatically. “I fucking love you,” I say, muffled into his shirt.
“I love you too, and,” I look up when I hear the smirk in his voice. “I’m not gonna lie. Watching my boyfriend with a guitar is making me kinda horny.”
“Your boyfriend?”
He meets my eyes, still smirking. “Obviously.”