by Sloan Parker
When Richard had us both dried off, we went to the bed. I crawled to the middle of the mattress and lay down while he went around to his side. Luke moved in to lie beside me, his damp underwear still on, his wide eyes watching me with concern. No matter what I was feeling, I got how lucky I was to have them, to know I wasn’t going through this alone.
Richard got in the bed. “Come here.” He drew me to him. He didn’t try to kiss me or get anything sexual started. He held me with my head pressed to his chest as we’d been earlier when I’d fallen asleep.
When he made no other move, I said, “I thought we were going to do something.”
“We are doing something. We’re holding each other.”
I laughed. “I meant sex.”
He caressed my bare shoulders and back. “We’re going to stay right like this until you can breathe without sounding like you’re running a marathon, until you can think about what you’re feeling without trying to avoid it. Then you’re going to talk to us.”
I shook my head. “No.” I buried my face in his chest. “Please, don’t.” I kissed his skin. Once. Twice. “I need you.”
He caught my chin in his hand and lifted my head up. “You got me. You got us.”
Luke slid in closer behind me and wrapped an arm around my waist. “Always.” There was a slight shake in his body. I could feel the fear in the clench of his arm.
I didn’t want to disappoint them or hurt them, but… “I don’t want to talk anymore. I don’t want to feel like this anymore. Everything was just starting to get good again.”
“I know,” Richard said. “You don’t have to talk until you’re ready. Just lie here with us.”
I breathed deep. “Okay.”
“No.” Luke lifted up. “I want to know what’s going on. Right now.”
“Luke.” Richard’s voice was patient but determined.
“What? Why are you picking now not to be so damn pushy about shit?”
I hated that they were arguing again because of me. I couldn’t stand to hear it. I sat up, crawled over Luke, and headed for the bathroom again. I got dressed in the pajama pants I’d had on earlier. On my way back through the bedroom, I avoided looking at them.
I didn’t stop until I was down the stairs and at the front door. With my backpack in hand, I went into the kitchen. I had the bottle out on the table in front of me, an empty glass beside it by the time Luke and Richard entered the room. Richard wore his sweatpants again, and Luke was in a dry pair of underwear. They stopped at the table but didn’t sit or say a word.
I clutched the bottle of Jim Beam, letting the base scrape the surface of the table as I spun it around and around. “This was my dad’s drink.”
“What are you doing with it?” Luke sounded even more anxious than he had upstairs. When I didn’t answer, he added, “Why did you drink tonight?”
“Because my friend Kimberly got a job and she asked a group of us to go out celebrating with her.”
“So? You’ve gone out with your friends from school before. You never had a problem being the one who wasn’t having a drink.”
“I do when I’m the last one in my class without an internship, and I’m feeling kinda shitty about it. People have a drink after a crappy day, right?”
Richard swiped the bottle off the table and pointed it at me. “You keep telling me not to hold back on what I’m really thinking, that I shouldn’t worry if it sounds too controlling, so here goes—”
Before he could say more, Luke seized the bottle of bourbon from him. “Well, I don’t give a fuck how I sound.” He aimed the end of the bottle my way the same as Richard had done. “You are not drinking this.”
I snatched the bottle back from him. “I know I’m not. That’s not why I bought it.” Despite my words, I opened the bottle and poured some into the glass.
Richard breathed deep, a shaky, uneven sound I tried to ignore. He stepped around my chair and sat beside me. “Matthew, you don’t need to drink this—or not drink it—in order to prove you’re a better man than your father.”
“Jesus.” Luke reached out and cupped my chin. He tilted my head back. “Is that why you bought this? Is that why you drank tonight? To prove something?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess.” I sighed as I faced the glass of booze again. “Which is fucked up. I know that. It’s the reason my dad started drinking. After he left, my mom told me about my grandfather. He was an angry drunk who hated my dad. He abused him from the time my dad was two years old until he left at seventeen. He burned him with cigarettes, whipped him with his belt, beat him every day, sometimes until he was unconscious. My dad had scars all over his body that he hid from me. He was a broken, damaged man before I was born, before he ever had a single drink. From what Mom said, returning home for his father’s funeral brought up all the pain he’d tried to bury. I guess he started drinking because he wanted to prove he was nothing like his father. But instead, it released all the rage he’d never let out.” I picked up the glass of bourbon and tipped it back and forth, watching the slosh of gold liquid. “I just don’t understand. If he loved us, why wouldn’t he at least try to get help?”
“Because,” Luke blurted out from where he still stood beside the table, his arms crossed over his chest, “he was a selfish prick.”
Richard nodded, but then he added, “Or maybe he did what he thought was right for you. You’re better off without him. Maybe he understood that.”
“I guess. But I don’t get how he could walk away. How could he hurt me like that and then just leave?”
“You don’t get it, Matthew, because you could never understand a man like him. You are nothing like him.”
I didn’t want to give that serious thought right then. Instead I told them, “I decided not to say anything to my mom about what he did to me. It would destroy her if she thought she didn’t send him away soon enough. I won’t—I can’t—do that to her. It was never her fault.”
Richard cupped my cheek. “I get that, but Luke and I want you to do what’s best for you with all this, not what’s best for your mom.”
“I am. I think going over it with her would just make me feel even worse. When I was at her place earlier tonight, I realized something. I don’t tell her everything about my life, everything the three of us do or say or about our sex life. It’s okay to keep things from someone you love if it’s what’s best for both of you.”
“It is,” Luke said. “But Richard’s right. You need to talk to someone about what happened to you.”
I held the glass, squeezing the hell out of it as if I could make everything disappear if I could just shatter that glass with my bare hands. “My dad loved me when he was sober. I knew that. It was the main reason I didn’t say anything to my mom when he started hitting me. Why I pretended it never happened. Why I couldn’t blame him at first and told myself it was just the booze. But it was his fault. He was the one who drank, who let the alcohol give him a reason to take all his pain and anger out on me.”
I couldn’t stop the frustrated words.
Maybe they were right. Maybe I needed to talk about this. But why? Why did this still bother me after all this time? Because I’d never allowed myself to be angry, to really let it all out. I had buried it down deep inside.
Like my dad had done.
I sucked in a sharp breath.
There was no way I would let myself become him. I was not keeping this inside any longer.
Forcing the words out, I said, “I remember every detail of the first time he hit me.”
Luke quietly moved to sit on the other side of the table facing me. I could feel Richard’s hand on my back, but I couldn’t make myself look at either of them. If I did, I might stop talking. I needed to do this. I’d never told anyone this story.
“My mom was working nights. He’d spent hours at a bar near our apartment that night, and when he came home, he was already drunk, which wasn’t anything odd at that point. Like usual, I started helping him to bed.
He tripped, and we fell into the hall wall. I guess he thought it was my fault. He shoved me, and when I tried to help him again, he hit me across the face with the back of his hand. He struck me so hard, the other side of my face smacked into the wall. When I turned to him, he did it again. Harder. That time I landed on the floor, blood from my lip dripping down onto my T-shirt. There was so much rage in his eyes. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I couldn’t believe he’d done that to me. I thought it was a nightmare. I thought I’d wake up at any moment, and it would all be over. Because that wasn’t my dad. That was someone else’s father.”
I lifted my head. “And you know what?” I grabbed the bottle of bourbon and the glass and stood. “It’s not ever going to be me.” I marched across the kitchen to the sink, poured the entire contents of both the glass and the bottle down the drain, then jammed the empty bottle into the recycling bin below the sink. The abrupt movements had my head spinning. I whirled around and sank back against the edge of the sink, covering my hands with my face.
The next thing I knew, I was on the floor, both of them there with me, one on each side of me.
Richard pulled me against him. “It could never be you. Just because you have that man’s genes doesn’t mean you are—or ever will be—anything like him.”
“I know that. I do. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” I shook my head. “I’m just so mad at him. He needed help, and he chose to run away instead. He never once tried to get in touch with me. Or Mom. He never sent us any money. She had to work so hard just to pay for food and rent. He left all that on her shoulders. He left—” I let my head fall back to the cabinet door behind me, trying to push aside the rush of emotions. I was so tired of feeling this way, of thinking about this, talking about it.
I wasn’t that scared, defenseless kid anymore.
I was a grown man.
Richard sighed. “Maybe you shouldn’t have gone to that park.”
“No. It’s not the park. I really like it there.”
“But,” Luke said, “maybe it’s too much.”
“I think maybe it’s exactly what I need. I have to find a way to let this go.”
Richard stroked my buzzed hair at the back of my head. “You will.”
I nodded. “I will. I have to.”
We were all quiet for a long beat. They sat there on the floor with me, Richard still holding my head, Luke’s hand on my knee, his thumb rubbing in comforting circles.
Then all at once it hit me what Richard had said earlier about the bottle of booze. I turned to face him. “I don’t want you to stop saying what you really think. I’d rather you were honest with me more than anything else.”
“I know. We all need to be honest with each other. About everything.”
“I want that too.”
He searched my face. “You sure?”
“Yeah, of course.”
He gave a nod. “Then here goes. I don’t want you drinking again. Not because I want to control you or tell you what to do, but because I don’t think it’s healthy for you. It’ll always be something that’s mixed up with your father and what happened to you as a kid. And it’s also pretty clear alcoholism runs in your family. If you ever feel like you did tonight, you don’t go out drinking. You talk to your friends or your mom, or you come home and talk to us.”
“I will. I promise. I feel better just talking to you guys about it.”
“I’m glad.”
We grew quiet once more.
“Matthew.” Luke hadn’t said anything for several minutes. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“That you had to go through all that when you were a kid. That your dad hurt you. I wish—” He stared at his bent knees, his jaw clenched.
I waited for him to continue, but he said nothing more. I looked to Richard.
He said simply, “Luke.”
Luke jerked his head up as if surprised to hear his name. His eyes were moist. He exhaled angry huffs of air as he looked my way. “I hate your father. I want to find him and end him.” He shook his head in agitation. “But mostly, I wish I’d known you then. Wish I’d been your friend. Someone you could’ve hung out with, been safe with. You shouldn’t have had to go through that alone.”
“Yeah.” Richard leaned into me and rested his forehead against my temple. “What he said.”
I sighed around a laugh. That was usually Luke’s line. Which was funny, considering how good Luke had gotten at saying what he thought and felt lately. He had so much passion inside him, so much devotion and kindness and love, and when he said something intimate and sweet, it always blew me away. I was honored that he’d let us see that man he’d tried not to be for so long. His words about my dad had been one of the most honest, beautiful things he’d ever said to me.
He tugged me against him, and I buried my face in his neck as Richard wrapped his arms around us both.
Chapter Twelve
When I could finally speak again, I sat up. “Thank you for what you said.”
Luke ran his fingers over my cheek as he whispered, “I’d give anything—anything—if I could make everything better for you.”
I sighed at those words, at his touch. “I know you would.” Now that the adrenaline had faded, I felt sick again. “My head hurts.”
Richard stood and gingerly pulled me up. “Let’s get you back to bed.”
Luke stood behind me and kissed my bare shoulder. “You can sleep in tomorrow, and I’ll wake you up with a nice long blowjob.”
I smiled back at him. The sweet words from him were amazing, but the sex stuff he said was pretty dang good too.
I hadn’t thought it was possible to love them any more than I did before that moment.
We headed up the stairs and got into bed. I wasn’t sure when I drifted off to sleep, but I awoke sometime later with my head on Richard’s chest, his arms around me and one of Luke’s arms draped across my middle. Without opening my eyes, I could tell the sun was up, but I didn’t want to move. Not yet.
A moment later the bed shifted as Luke sat up behind me. He leaned over me like he was trying to get a look at my face. Then he asked in a hushed whisper, “He’s been asleep this whole time?”
“Yeah.” Richard swept a warm hand across my upper back. I was just about to tell them I was awake, when he spoke again, his voice strained. “I hate seeing him hurting like this.”
Luke shifted closer. I heard them kiss, and then Luke said, “I know.” He pressed in close again and offered another kiss. “You think this is all about his dad?”
“A big part of it, yeah. But maybe it’s a lot of things all at once.”
Luke gingerly ran a hand over the back of my cropped hair. “What are we going to do?”
“I think he needs to see someone.”
“Like a therapist?”
“Yeah. But I’d really like him to come to that conclusion on his own.”
“Is that because you don’t want to tell him what to do?”
“It’s not that.” At first Richard didn’t say anything further. Then when he did, I heard the hesitation in his voice. “I think the only way he’s really ever going to heal is if he finds a way past this on his own. I don’t think you or I can try to pick up the pieces for him. As much as we’d like to.”
I couldn’t imagine how hard it was for him to admit that.
Luke rotated to sit up against the headboard. “That call earlier this morning should help.”
“Yeah. I think so.”
I shifted my head on his chest to give them some warning. “I’m not asleep anymore.”
Richard chuckled, his upper body jostling under me. “You been listening to us?”
“Maybe.” I lifted my head. “You don’t have to worry about me so much.”
Luke laughed at that. “Seriously?”
Richard threw him a pointed look. Amusement laced the expression.
I laid a hand over his heart and propped my chin on the back of my hand. “You were right
when you said it was just a lot of stuff at once. I don’t have a job yet and going back to that park brought everything up with my dad more than I thought it would, but I’m okay now.” I paused, thinking over the night before. “I shouldn’t have had anything to drink like that.”
I lifted up and turned to sit between them with my back against the headboard. They were studying me with concern. I knew what they needed to hear from me: that I would go see someone about this. I just didn’t want to talk about my father anymore. I didn’t want to rehash it with another person. I wanted to be done with it.
They watched me for another minute. Then Luke said, “You got a call this morning. On the house phone.” He grabbed the cordless phone from the nightstand. He hit the speaker button and played the message.
“Hi, Matthew. This is Alex Vega at Windtree Wildlife Rehab Center. Sorry to call so early, but I wanted to let you know as soon as I could. You are our top pick for the internship, and we’d like to offer you the position. Give me a call as soon as you can, and we’ll discuss the specifics. I really enjoyed talking with you at your interview, and I’m looking forward to working with you. Talk to you again soon.” The message ended.
“Oh my God.” I bounded up onto my knees. “I got the job?” I crawled to the end of the bed and swung around to face them. “I got the job? Really?”
Luke laughed. “What? You think we faked that message to make you feel better?”
Richard laughed too. “Congratulations, Matthew.”
“Yeah, kid, congrats.”
I smiled at Luke, then Richard. “Thanks.” The giant dopey grin grew. I couldn’t believe it. “I got the job.” A joyful laugh surged out of me. “I got the job!” I barreled forward and flung myself at them. They caught me in their arms and held on to me.
A comforting peace settled over me. Maybe what had been wrong with me lately, the unease and uncertainty, had more to do with feeling like I’d been failing than anything to do with my past.
Yet even as that thought ran through my mind, I knew it wasn’t that simple.
Chapter Thirteen