Fall Apart

by SE Culpepper

  Damon let himself inside with his key and tried not to look around or stay in one place too long. He was afraid of crying any more than he already had. Tears had to stop some time.

  He took the hallway to Todd’s room and flipped on the light switch for the closet. A shoebox was on the shelf and the baseball mitt was next to it. Damon took both of them down and found a very old note inside the glove. On it, Todd had written in black marker, “Luke says, ‘Blow Me.’”

  The laughter was unexpected and even though it still caused twinges of pain in his ribs, he was happy that a different emotion was causing the ache for once.

  “What am I gonna do without you, man?” Damon asked the empty room. Almost immediately, Todd’s words came back to him:

  Go out and DO something.

  “I know,” he said with a sad smile. “Get rid of the porn first.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  “This is ridiculous,” Max said, pointing at the screen with his glass of wine. “Who does that?”

  “It’s a musical,” Alarik answered. “There’s bound to be some dancing.”

  “He’s prancing.”

  “He’s declaring his love.”

  “He’s arrogant.”

  “So are you,” Alarik fired back and Max’s head came up in surprise. “What? You don’t agree with me?”

  “I’m not arrogant! I’m shy.”

  Alarik snorted and turned his attention back to the television where Liesl and Friedrich were singing and flirting. Max was right; there was some prancing.

  “I really am shy,” Max spoke up again. “I don’t think I’m arrogant at all.”

  “I know you’re shy, but I also think you’re aware of your impact and you use it. You’re intense.”

  Max made a funny face and not for the first time, Alarik noticed how much the wine had loosened up his friend. “If I’m intense, then you’re too…perfect. No one knows how to talk to you.”

  “People talk to me all the time. I’m very friendly!”

  Max said something in Japanese, but the only word Alarik understood was “no,” which Max said a couple times in a row. Alarik held up a hand to stop him. “It’s unfair to speak in Japanese right now.”

  Setting his nearly empty glass of wine on the coffee table, he glanced at Alarik with soft eyes. “It’s harder to speak other languages when I’ve had this much wine.”

  “Finnish?” Alarik asked.

  “Forget it. That’s too much for me right now.”

  They settled into another silence, but instead of watching the young romance unfold on screen in front of them, they were watching each other: Max with his chin cupped in one hand, his hair falling down over his right eye, and Alarik with his head back against the cushions, his gaze appraising.

  “What are you thinking about over there?” Alarik finally asked.

  Max took a lazy, slow breath and closed his eyes. “I’m thinking, I wish you would confess to me.”

  “Confess what?”

  “I want to know your feelings. I want your confession, but I don’t think it’s coming.”

  Ohhhh. That sort of confession.

  “You know I care for you, Max. I was falling for you very quickly when we first met, but…you know what happened. Then, I met Damon.”

  Max’s eyes were still closed, but his shoulders stiffened. “He’s released you. You haven’t even known him as long as you’ve known me. What’s so special? Why hang on so tight when he doesn’t act like he wants you?”

  Every single word stung and each statement was something Alarik had already said to himself. What sucked worse was that he didn’t have a great answer for why he was tormenting himself.

  “Damon is too real to me,” Alarik admitted. “He’s not egotistical like so many of the people I’ve been with in the past. I understand his need for space right now. Losing Todd was like losing part of himself. It’s impossible to let go of my feelings for him and I’m not ready to let him disappear from my life. I’m in love with him, Max, even though he’s hurting me.”

  Max’s eyes had re-opened at some point during Alarik’s musings, and they were flinty. “How long do you wait for him, Alarik? Hmm? You once said you were falling for me, but we know how long you stuck around.”

  Alarik’s temper flared again and he got up from the couch to put some space between them. “You forget that until the accident with Todd, Damon actually gave me a clue that he was interested in me. You teased me with attraction and left me nothing to go on. You didn’t even touch me intimately until the night at Zane’s. I was starving for your affection.”

  Max latched onto Alarik’s wrist as he passed and tugged him to a stop. Swinging up from the couch, he moved in until their chests touched and forced Alarik’s chin up with a finger. Yet, still, he said nothing. His head lowered a fraction, his eyes dropping to Alarik’s lips and that was all it took for Alarik to know the thoughts he’d had about something happening between them couldn’t become a reality. He was too wound up in the way Damon had made him feel; the way that Damon had told him he cared. He couldn’t throw it away until he was absolutely sure it was over between them. As of now, Alarik believed Damon was simply lost, but he would come back. Alarik had to believe it.

  Gently, he pulled Max’s hand from his chin. He kissed it and with an apologetic smile, he removed himself from the embrace.

  “With things as they are now, Max, I can’t let anything happen. I won’t. I love Damon and doing anything with you isn’t fair.”

  “You’re so loyal to a man who does nothing but inflict pain.”

  “He needs time,” Alarik defended Damon. “When he comes back, I don’t want a dark cloud of guilt hanging over my head because I wasn’t patient enough, or because I got lonely. I don’t want to hurt you, either.”

  “And what if he never contacts you again? What if that decision to send you away is as permanent as it seemed?”

  “I’m not ready to give up.”

  “Even if I confessed to you? If I told you everything?”

  “Do you really want to do that, knowing my resolve to be with another man?”

  Max swiped his hair out of his eyes and turned his back on Alarik. “I think you’re making the wrong decision. I think you’re making a decision out of fear.”

  Isn’t that a bit of the pot calling the kettle black.

  “Max, if I start something with you, are you ready to be out? You still talk around the truth. You’ve never told me who you are; you only hint at it. Hints aren’t enough. Veiled words aren’t enough. I don’t want my life and love locked behind closed doors. If we were together, I’d want it one hundred percent in the open.”

  “I’m a private man, Alarik.”

  “I know that. I’m telling you it’s not fair to ask me to be a part of your secret, but not-so-secret life.”

  “I’d give you everything I could!” Max’s voice raised, his accent stronger.

  “I don’t need your things, Max. If you can’t tell the truth about yourself to me, the man you say you’d give everything to, where would our relationship go? Where’s the honesty?”

  Max’s stare was broken as he looked back at Alarik. Fräulein Maria was singing again in the background and it was the most awkward soundtrack for serious discussion ever. “There are certain things that are very difficult for me to say. Things I’ve been told my whole life a man shouldn’t say to another man.”

  “You need to figure out if that’s truly what you believe and if you’re going to live your life by it,” Alarik returned. “As for me, I don’t think that’s right. I’m gay. I want to share my life with a man. I want his passion, his love, his touch, and his companionship. I want to have sex, too, of course. Honestly, I don’t think I could abide even an inkling of suspicion that my partner was ashamed of providing for me in those ways and receiving love from me in return. You have so many decisions you still need to make.”

  Max was red in the face, his tension visible from his jaw down to his feet.
His body was braced as though he were about to be shoved across the room. “I don’t think you understand the expectations my family has of me. I don’t think you appreciate the weight of my circumstances.”

  “Max, darling, I do. I know you’re under more pressure than the world can see, but you have to think about what you need for your life. I’m not telling you to forsake everything for selfish ends; I’m telling you to be realistic about your future. You don’t deserve a life of misery and lies, trying to make other people happy.”

  Max walked a few steps closer to him, his hands open in front of him. “Don’t you see? This is why I need you. I need your words. Your understanding.”

  Alarik reached for Max’s hands and looked into his beautiful golden brown eyes. “You’d also need my silence. My discretion. You’d need me to deny who I am.”

  Max was staring at their hands, shaking his head. His voice wobbled as he spoke. “Maybe with you, I could be different. I could…say what I feel.”

  Alarik sighed and drew Max into his arms. “I think a few months ago, I would’ve been glad to accept that as enough, but…” He paused, searching for words to say to this lost man. “I think the fact that you’re not really ready, even when you think of me, speaks volumes.”

  Max turned his face toward Alarik’s neck, breathing in deeply and Alarik would’ve been lying if he said it didn’t make his body respond. Still, the thought of Damon deadened all of that. He was lonely for his man; he was aching for him. Not for Max.

  “Don’t you think this feels right?” Max murmured against his skin.

  Sighing, Alarik tightened his hold for a moment before once again releasing the other man. “It has to go deeper than that for me, I’m afraid,” he whispered.

  With a desolate nod, Max rubbed his hands over his face and sank ungracefully back to the couch. “I don’t think I like the Thanksgiving holiday very much,” he said a few minutes later.

  “We could make s’mores?” Alarik offered, not really feeling it.

  “Might as well…”

  “You know I care about you.”

  Max chuckled coldly. “Yes, Alarik, I know. And, it’s still killing me.”

  ***

  The music on the sound speakers at the store was muted and fuzzy and Damon was in the back room looking for the speaker wire that was smashed or disconnected. Listening to music over crappy speakers was like working beneath a light that constantly buzzed and flickered, and this sound system always sounded the worst at the best parts of songs.

  He was working himself into a mood because everything he had to do required the use of two arms if he wanted to finish in less than three days time. As it was, Damon had already bumped the pins in his wrist twice and nearly passed out. The pain had sweat beading on his brow and his stomach heaving.

  He’d taken Jess’s shift and was beginning to regret the decision. She was doing an amazing job managing the store and Damon knew that the whole family felt bad for being surprised. After thinking about it, he decided it made sense for her to channel her energy and stress into taking care of the place. The responsibility was giving her focus and removing the helpless I-can-do-nothing-without-my-dick ex-husband look that she’d been wearing for far too long. Even Davey seemed to be happier, in spite of the fact that when he wasn’t in his pre-school class, he was playing with action figures and trucks behind the counter, or climbing on boxes in the back room.

  Leo and Molly wouldn’t say how much Todd had left them in the life insurance policy, but the relief in his parents’ faces told him it was significant. They were handing the store over to Jessica for an indefinite period of time and she was in charge of hiring part-time help as she saw fit. There were a couple of high school guys who worked on the weekend and Damon had a sneaking suspicion that his sister liked the “MILF” title they’d bestowed on her. Her walk had a new swagger.

  Damon hadn’t quite decided what he wanted to do with himself yet. He was fighting shame, sometimes on a minute-to-minute basis, and it was difficult to accept positive emotions might be okay. Self-condemnation was addictive; he didn’t think people who’d been through similar circumstances were honest about that.

  Each night when he got into bed and closed his eyes, he still saw Todd falling; he heard Todd’s yell, and then the horror of silence. Even during the day, in the middle of a mindless task, he’d occasionally find his mind wandering to that terrible scene. His eyes would go out of focus and it would take someone calling out to him, or another distraction, to bring him back to the present.

  He was getting to the point where he knew he probably needed to talk to someone or risk going crazy from the mess raging within. And the thought of climbing… It made him break into a sweat. Something told him that probably wasn’t a “healthy” sign.

  As he fiddled with speaker wires and mulled over life, an idea came to him that maybe wouldn’t make sense in the traditional field of psychological study, but it made sense to him. It wasn’t a good time to dwell on it, but he set it aside to think about later.

  The bell over the front door rang and he dropped the handful of wires impatiently. “I’m going to get absolutely nothing accomplished today.” He took the steps down the ladder very slowly, his body still a stiff, healing mess, and shuffled around boxes to the counter.

  Luke and Franco were waiting for him. Damon watched Franco flip the sign to “Closed” and turn off the light on the neon sign. Then, they all just sorta stared at each other for a minute. Luke cleared his throat. Franco jangled the change in his pocket.

  I feel an intervention coming on.

  “Fellas,” he finally broke the silence.

  They nodded at him and the awkward silence continued. It seemed like it could go on for hours. Just staring while listening to music over crappy speakers.

  “You guys need something? Running shoes? Skis? ‘Cause if not, I’ve got some other stuff to do that’s a little more pressing than, you know, watching you watch me.”

  “See,” Luke snapped. “This is what I expected: the brushoff.” Franco gave a nervous nod—one that said Luke was the ringleader behind this visit, but he was there as part of a united front. Free Damon! and all that nonsense.

  Miss me, but don’t be a dick about it… Todd’s words from the letter came back to his mind and he almost said, “Okay, okay,” aloud.

  He opened his mouth to try and smooth things over, but Luke beat him to the punch. “Just keep your mouth shut for a minute. Most of what you say lately isn’t all that pleasant.”

  Alright. That was fair. He leaned his good arm on the counter and waited, chastised, but a little pissed about it. He hated knowing he was wrong.

  “I’ve known you forever, Day, so it’s been pretty excruciating watching how everything with Todd has affected you. I know I probably can’t understand all the stuff you’re going through, and I’ve got my own issues about not being there that day, but I don’t know…” Luke’s eyes were on a shoe display, but they were out of focus, lost in his thoughts. “It’s like you’ve forgotten about everyone else who loves you so that you can beat yourself down.”

  Franco stepped to Luke’s side, his hand still jangling that change in his pocket. “If you think what happened that day is really your fault; if you think that telling us would force us to agree, then prove it. Tell me and Luke every single thing that happened and let us decide for ourselves.”

  Luke’s head jerked around toward Franco and his mouth dropped open. Clearly, this was not a part of the plan decided on in the car on the way over. Damon’s breathing quickened and he went pale. A cold sweat was beginning on his lower back and his stomach churned. He was a biological wonderland just then. He wished he could run. He wished the store would spontaneously combust so they wouldn’t have to talk about this right now. Or ever. His earlier conclusion that he should share his thoughts and fears suddenly seemed premature. And wrong. Very, very stupid and wrong.

  “No, man,” Franco stopped Luke’s protest. “Let’s not talk ab
out anything else. He thinks we believe he’s responsible. He’s pushing us away because he thinks we’ve already passed judgment. Since that’s what this is, I say, shit, it’s only fair that we get to have an actual choice.” Turning back to Damon, he cocked his chin up in challenge. “Let ‘er rip, buddy. Prove it’s your fault.”

  Damon stared at Franco for several seconds and that anger he thought had been receding over the past couple weeks found new meat to feed on and roared to the surface. “I rushed the time. I practically dared Todd to go too fast, in poor conditions, without a safety rope. It’s a miracle I had the presence of mind to remember helmets—fat fucking lot of good it did Todd when he fell past me from thirty five feet!”

  Damon’s chest was pulsing in quick bursts as he lashed out, his new way of breathing since he’d broken his ribs. He didn’t know why, but he wanted the guys to yell back at him. He wanted them to shout that he was a horrible piece of rotten shit, a worthless human, and when they didn’t, he was dazed. Where were the accusations and appalled scowls? Why weren’t they attacking him? Punishing him?

  Franco’s eyes were wet, but he shrugged like the words Damon hollered at him were exactly what he expected. He glanced at Luke. “You convinced?”

  Slowly, purposefully, Luke shook his head. “No… I’m not.”

  “Better start at the beginning, Damon,” Franco ordered. “We’re not buying it.”

  As fast as the anger leapt to his rescue, it dissipated, leaving him with the gut-wrenching sorrow. He staggered backward to the stool behind the counter and collapsed onto it, an old sack of bones. His eyes filled with tears and no amount of embarrassment could keep them at bay.

  Eventually, Damon began talking. Not about the climb or safety, but about Todd coming to his house beforehand, about Simone, and about the happiness he’d heard in their friend’s voice. Franco and Luke ended up leaning on the counter, listening to every word he said and letting them all sink in.