Kale moved to speak, but the acrid taste of vomit in his throat stopped him. The sense of violation Kale felt was strange. He’d always assumed his drawings had been lost or destroyed. At best, they had been packed away somewhere. Kale should have known better. Such practical courses of action lacked the dramatic flair with which Jason insisted on imbuing everything.
“This is who I am, Kale. Do you like what you see?” Jason spread his arms. “I’m a pitiful excuse for a human being. Welcome,” Jason wobbled to his feet and turned in a slow circle, gesturing with his bottle, “to my confessional.”
Kale was too stunned to maintain his slavish behavior. He met Jason’s stare straight on. He wouldn’t have been able to tear his eyes away if he’d wanted to. The brown eyes that had always been so soft and quick to light up were now nearly black. Kale thought he could almost see Jason’s demons clawing their way out through those dark orbs.
“Don’t you have anything to say?” In a strange mix of belligerence and vulnerability, Jason’s face begged for words from Kale.
Kale couldn’t look at that face anymore. It tore at something inside him. Given a chance, it would tear at him until it untangled the twisted hate in his gut, and that could not be allowed. Instead, he eyed the bottle. “I thought you didn’t like whiskey.”
The vulnerability drained from Jason’s face to be replaced by a hard mask. “Tastes change.” Jason shrugged and downed the last swallow.
“Yes, so I’m learning.” Jason had changed. This wasn’t the man whose lock of hair he held in his pocket. Everything changes, that was the only thing Kale could hold to. Why had he expected this to be different?
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jason walked toward a table holding fresh whiskey bottles.
“It means, I never thought you’d violate me this way.”
“Why not? I’ve violated you every other way. Surely this can’t be any worse.” Jason was back in his chair, nursing a new bottle.
Kale shook his head. “It is.” Kale found it hard to speak past the bile in his throat. “I know they’re yours and you can do anything you like with them, but I didn’t expect this.”
“They’re not mine, Kale. They’re part of you. That’s why I have them here.”
Jason always liked to pretend Kale was free, and it was damned annoying. He wasn’t free, and he never would be. Why couldn’t Jason accept that? “But you owned me when I did them.”
“Yes, I owned you, but not in any of the ways that matter. Not in the one way I wanted to.”
“I’m a slave and you’re my owner, why have you never been able to wrap your head around that? That’s the way it’s always been and the way it’s always going to be. Stop mourning—or whatever the hell it is you’re doing—for something that has never existed and never will.”
“Oh, I am mourning, Kale. I’m mourning for you.” Jason walked to the sketch Kale had drawn of a flowering weed in the park. “This was you, Kale.” Jason’s voice had lost its hard edge and was just a whisper as he stared transfixed at the picture. A second later, he closed his eyes. When he reopened them, he was back to his distressed self. He pointed to the drawing of the library rotunda Kale had done after his first visit to campus with Jason. “All this beauty. And now look what I’ve done to you.” Jason sneered at him.
These were some of the happiest memories of Kale’s life, and Jason was using them as some grotesque decoration for his own pit of despair. If he hadn’t been so angry, Kale might have felt pity. But he was mad, because a part of him saw the truth in Jason’s words. Kale was a completely different man from the one who had drawn these pictures. All that was inside him now was bleak darkness.
Jason strolled around the room, stopping to admire certain drawings as he went, as if in a museum. Kale didn’t know what to do. He could barely hold himself together. He couldn’t take on Jason’s problems as well. It wasn’t his place. Still, there was a part of him that wanted to try. He started toward Jason, and his foot stubbed against something. Looking down, he saw his forgotten book. It would be so much easier to retire to his room and indulge in the escape he had sought.
Scooping up the book, he resolved to do just that. This wasn’t his problem to fix, he didn’t know how, and he shouldn’t even want to try. Jason was still gazing at the drawings, and Kale left without saying a word.
Chapter Twenty
The throbbing was constant. Jason rolled over and cracked his eyelids open. The dim light in his room sliced into his eyes. There was a glass of whiskey on his bedside table, but he wouldn’t drink it. Not yet. Not until he was sure he remembered everything that had happened and had a plan to deal with it.
Last night had been worse than a nightmare. For years he had kept the contents of his study a secret, and then the one person he didn’t want knowing about it came traipsing in. The horrified look on Kale’s face had mirrored Jason’s self-loathing. Even after the humiliating revelation of his secret, Jason didn’t have any plans to surrender it. He couldn’t. The memories were too important.
What must Kale think of him? Nothing good. Gods, he must appear like some sort of predator keeping all those drawings and then seeking Kale out and buying him again. The thought made Jason sit up. If Kale had any fears about Jason’s intentions, Jason needed to alleviate them right away.
Jason reached for the drink on his side table and downed it in one gulp. There was no point in waiting. It wasn’t fair to Kale to put off the inevitable conversation, no matter how awkward it made Jason feel.
Once he was dressed, he felt marginally better, but Jason was cognizant enough to know that if he avoided talking to Kale until he felt fine, it would never happen. Before he left, he took a minute to look out his window over the back garden. It was a beautiful day. Jason remembered lying in the grass with Kale in a much smaller garden. Those days were gone, and they were never coming back, but perhaps Jason could improve Kale’s future.
When Jason reached Kale’s door, he still didn’t know what he was going to say. If he thought about it too much, he was afraid he would lose his nerve and not say anything at all. Jason rapped his knuckles against the door three times and held his breath. For a moment, he wondered if Kale was going to answer. He didn’t know if he wanted him to be there or not, but before Jason could decide, the door opened to reveal Kale. The pale green eyes flitted to Jason and then quickly away.
“Yes, Master? Is there something I can do for you?” It broke his heart to see Kale behave this way.
“No. Actually, I came to talk to you, Kale.” Jason caught the nervous glance Kale threw behind him into the room. “It doesn’t have to be here. We could go to the parlor?” Jason had no desire to intrude into Kale’s space.
Kale nodded and stepped out into the hallway, closing the door behind him. If there was anything good about last night, it was that Jason had seen a glimpse of the old Kale, without the slavish affectations. Except they weren’t affectations; they were learned behaviors designed to keep Kale alive. The reasoning behind Kale’s attitude was even more bothersome than the attitude itself.
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that Kale didn’t sit when Jason did after they reached the parlor, but it annoyed Jason just the same. He knew they could never be to one another what he had hoped they would, but certainly there could be a degree of civility between them.
“Take a seat, Kale.” The hesitant shuffling as Kale moved to sit stirred a thought. “I’m not mad at you, if that’s what you’re thinking. What happened last night was not your fault.” Jason cursed himself for not reassuring Kale earlier. Clearly last night had been embarrassing for Jason, but he hadn’t stopped to think about how his response might impact Kale. An eternity ago, before he had fallen in love, Jason would have reacted to that kind of embarrassment by lashing out at his slave. Not anymore.
Kale sat back in his seat. His head wasn’t bowed, but he kept his eyes averted. It was clear that was as relaxed as he was going to get. It was magnitudes better than the resol
ute stiffness that was Kale’s usual posture when Jason was in the room.
“The first thing I wanted to do was let you know that, despite what you saw last night, I still have no intention of pursuing any kind of relationship with you.” Jason was hoping for some kind of reaction, but the only indication that Kale had even heard him was the slave’s right hand tapping at the same spot he had fidgeted with the day Jason found him in the mill. “I was also hoping for a chance to explain myself.”
This time Jason waited for a response. This speech was purely to assuage his own guilty feelings. He wasn’t going to force Kale to sit through it. They endured a strained moment of awkwardness as Jason waited.
“An explanation would be…” Kale pursed his lips, and Jason couldn’t deny the attraction he felt. Those lips held pleasurable memories. “…interesting,” Kale finished. Still, he didn’t look at Jason.
“I know what I did in the past was unforgivable, but I can’t help remembering the time we shared together. I can’t help being in love with those memories. And then I remember how spectacularly I screwed it all up and how much I damaged you in the process. It hurts. It hurts so badly sometimes that I think I’ll never be rid of the pain. So I drink.”
“Does it help?”
Jason stopped to think about Kale’s question. He had never really thought about it. The habit was so deeply ingrained that it was beyond questioning. “No, I don’t suppose it does. Not really. But I need it. It dulls the pain for a moment. I keep hoping if I drink enough, I’ll forget.”
“If you want so badly to forget, then why the hell are you keeping all those damn pictures in that room? Why do you go to Flannigan’s, for gods’ sakes?” Kale’s eyes finally met Jason’s, and Jason was stunned by how wrong he had been. Kale hadn’t been keeping his eyes averted in a submissive gesture. He had kept them averted to hide his anger. Rage flared in his eyes that his voice only hinted at.
Here was the great paradox of his life. How could Jason explain it to Kale when he didn’t fully understand it himself? “I don’t know. I guess not remembering is more painful. Pretending you never existed, acting like what I felt for you wasn’t real, that is unbearable. If I don’t have those memories, it means I let my marriage fall apart for no good reason. My study is my own particularly bittersweet torture.”
Kale just sat and listened, his arms crossed. He had gone back to not looking at Jason. Jason didn’t know which was worse: thinking Kale was looking away out of an ingrained fear, or knowing that he looked away to hide his hatred. In the end, hatred won out—hatred he could abide, but it would pain him to believe Kale was still afraid of him.
When it was clear Kale was not going to say anything, Jason continued. “The back garden is yours. I know you enjoy being outside. It’s bigger than the garden at the old townhouse. It isn’t in great shape, but I thought you might find some pleasure there. You can do whatever you want with it.” Kale’s expression changed almost imperceptibly, but Jason couldn’t decipher if it was because Kale liked Jason’s gesture or not. “Don’t feel like you have to do something with it,” Jason hurried to add. “I just thought you would like it.”
“Thank you.”
“I know I wronged you—”
Kale snorted and shook his head, muttering, “You still don’t get it.”
Jason didn’t doubt that he didn’t fully comprehend the hurt he had caused Kale. “I’m trying, though. That’s the best I can do, Kale. I know it’s not enough, but it’s all I have.”
“It’s not enough. It will never be enough.” Kale met his eyes again for a brief moment, and the hurt and anger in them stabbed at Jason.
“I know. We’re two broken people, Kale. I deserve my lot, but you didn’t deserve any of this. I ruined you, and I’ll never forgive myself.”
There were probably a million things Jason should have said, but he couldn’t come up with any more words. He stayed for a moment longer, giving Kale a chance to say something. The silence thickened with each passing second. It was almost impossible to believe that they used to talk entire nights away, neither one aware of the passage of time. Once the oppressive tension grew so tight that Jason thought it would snap, he rose. In the doorway before he left, he turned back to see Kale hunch over and drop his head into his hands.
Chapter Twenty-One
All this time Jason was torturing himself for the wrong sins. Kale had wanted to set him straight, but he couldn’t. Was Jason really so blind? After all that time, he still failed to see through Kale’s lie. Jason shouldn’t have been agonizing over his sexual relationship with Kale. Hell, that was one of the few things in Kale’s life that he didn’t regret. It was Jason’s very insistence at remaining blind to the lie that Kale couldn’t forgive him for.
Jason should have made sure he was sold somewhere decent.
He should have insisted that Kale stay.
That was what Kale really couldn’t overcome. Jason should have seen through him. He should have told Renee to go fuck herself. He should have chosen Kale. Instead, Jason had believed the lie because he wanted to. He wanted Renee, and when he finally got her, he ruined that relationship too.
Back in his room, Kale saw the sketchpad on the table where he’d first found it. He hadn’t touched it. Was Jason right? Was Kale broken? He knew he was different. A person didn’t survive three years of hell and not come out the other side without some callouses to show for it. But was he dead inside?
He felt dead. He hadn’t felt the urge to draw since he arrived, but that was something that would come back, wasn’t it? Part of the reason he had avoided drawing was Jason. Kale resented Jason and his gift. But this wasn’t about Jason, not really. He needed to know if Jason was right. All those pictures in the study had been created by Kale. He needed to know if he was still capable of creating anything, beautiful or not.
Before he entirely knew what he was doing, Kale strode to the garden, sketchpad and charcoal pencil in hand. Jason was right. This garden was bigger than the old one, but it was untended. There was overgrowth, and despite the season, no flowers bloomed. Kale didn’t much care what it looked like. He only cared that he was outside, and it felt nice. If anything had ever inspired him to draw, it was nature.
There was no bench, so Kale sat on the ground. It suited him better, anyway. He put his hand in the grass and reveled in the cool feeling of earth beneath his fingers. It contrasted nicely with the steady warmth of the sun on his shoulders and back. Since going to work at the mill, he hadn’t been outside much, and before that, being outside had meant baking under the sun or freezing in the cold as he laid railroad track.
Things were different now. He had to change the way he looked at the world, see it the way he had a lifetime ago. He closed his eyes and tried to conjure up a pleasant memory. His mind immediately went through an extensive catalogue of moments with Jason, and he quickly dismissed them. The feelings between Kale and Jason right now had no place in this garden. Instead, he focused on an image from his childhood in Malar County. He remembered sneaking out with his younger brother and going to a nearby pond to listen to the bullfrogs and skip stones. It was easy to see the beauty in that memory. If only he could find beauty here.
He opened his eyes and surveyed the scene. The grass was thick, vividly green. The ivy had grown unchecked, consuming the fence and the wall of the house. The weeds were the only things flowering. It was tempting to be sucked into the memory of a time when he had been able to capture the beauty of a weed on paper, but Kale pushed the memory away. This was about the here and now. Was he capable of seeing beauty?
Yes, he could. His eyes pricked with tears he wouldn’t allow to fall. The garden was wild, but it was also beautiful. A quick pass of his sleeve over his eyes ensured that no wetness touched his cheeks. He picked up his pad and pencil and waited for inspiration. His hand hovered, poised over the paper, but the only urge in his hand was to scribble a black mess over the perfect parchment. None of the beautiful, flowing lines around him wer
e making their way to his hand.
He refused to give in to the urge, if for no other reason than doing so would make it real. If he didn’t act, it was just a problem he thought he had. As soon as he unleashed his darkness on that piece of paper, it would become real. While it was easier than he thought it would have been to see the beauty around him, there was nothing beautiful inside him anymore. And whose fault was that?
Kale grabbed the blank sheet of paper and tore it up, releasing his frustrations and preventing his tears from falling. What on earth could he do with a garden? How could he possibly make it better when he was such a wreck?
Chapter Twenty-Two
The metal on metal sound of the knife sweeping across the sharpener was hypnotic, satisfying. Good.
The kitchen was empty, but he needed to occupy his hands, so he had taken it upon himself to sharpen all of Sophie’s knives. She had mentioned on more than one occasion that they were getting dull.
“You don’t need to do that.” Sophie’s voice startled him out of his precarious reverie.
“I don’t mind.” His words were quick and clipped. Hopefully Sophie would overlook his tone, but Kale knew it was a vain hope.
Sophie gave him the entire time it took her to put away the purchases from her shopping trip before questioning him.
“What has you worked up?” Sophie sat at the table and looked at him with a pointed stare, making it clear he was not going to sidestep her question.
That wouldn’t stop him from trying, though.
“Kale.” The pointed stare transformed to baleful, and her tone brooked no argument.
“He gave me the back garden to do with as I please.”
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