by John Inman
Wyeth leaned down and laid a gentle hand to Deeze’s cheek. “Your students are all safe, Deeze. They are saying on the news that you saved them by hustling them into a corner and using your desk and your body to shield them from the bullets.”
“Jakey,” Deeze said, his eyes filling with tears. His hands were shaking as he gripped Wyeth’s wrist. “There was blood on him, Wy. It splattered across his face. I saw it.”
Wyeth smiled and stooped to brush a kiss over Deeze’s forehead. “Then it must not have been his blood, Deeze. Jakey’s fine. They’re all fine. I saw it on the news. None of the kids was hurt. A few scratches from the glass is all. Nothing serious.” He gazed at the numerous injuries on Deeze’s body. “Maybe the blood was yours.”
Deeze seemed to accept Wyeth’s words as truth. The terror on his face lessened. He relaxed on the gurney, but his bandaged hand never left Wyeth’s wrist. His fingers still held on tight. His eyes took on a faraway cast, as if he were suddenly somewhere else, as if he were reliving the hours behind him.
“It was a boy,” he said. “The one I took the gun from. A student. I’ve seen him before. An eighth grader, I think. Some poor Mexican kid. I-I punched him. I beat the shit out of him, Wy. Is-is he still alive? Did they arrest him?”
Deeze looked as if his heart were breaking. The tears in his eyes spilled onto his cheeks. He clutched tighter at Wyeth’s arm, making a blush of red appear on the gauze surrounding his wrist where the bullet had furrowed the skin. The way he was grabbing at Wyeth must have reopened the wound.
Wyeth took Deeze’s hand in both of his and forced it down onto Deeze’s chest, muttering soft words, urging Deeze to calm down, wishing someone would give Deeze a sedative, administer something to help him relax.
“They’re all fine, Deeze. The boy with the gun too. You didn’t hurt him. Lie still, okay? We’re going to take you home soon, Laurie and me. But if you get yourself all worked up, they won’t let you go. It’s over, baby. Okay? You saved a lot of lives today, Deeze. They’re calling you a hero on the TV.”
“I wasn’t a hero. I was terrified.”
“Maybe that’s what made you a hero. You did what you had to do, terrified or not. Now rest. Sleep if you can. All right? I’ll be right outside. Me and Laurie. We’ll take you home as soon as they let us. So shush for now. Try not to think about anything. Lie still.”
A tiny pout twisted Deeze’s mouth. “You’re still shushing me. Even after everything I’ve been through.” Then he offered a tremulous smile.
Wyeth smiled in return and planted another kiss on Deeze’s forehead. He started to pull away.
“No,” Deeze said. “Wait with me here. Don’t leave.”
“All right,” Wyeth said. “I’ll stay until they throw me out.”
“Good,” Deeze said.
STILL CLINGING to Wyeth’s hand, Deeze had begun to close his eyes in exhaustion when he heard a sound behind him. His eyes popped wide open again when he saw Laurie standing in the treatment room doorway, peeking in.
She looked embarrassed, like maybe she’d had just one job to do and had somehow managed to muddle that. “Sorry, cuz, but I’m going to let this kid in,” she said. “Otherwise he threatened to kick me in the leg.”
Squeezing past her, little Jake came running into the room. His tiny face was twisted in nervous fury. He gazed around, then spotted Deeze on the gurney. Taking off like a shot, he dove onto the gurney right under Wyeth’s nose and burrowed into Deeze’s arms.
“Ouch,” Deeze grunted, then he laughed and hugged the boy back. A nurse hurried over to pull the boy off, but Deeze waved her away. “Let him be,” he said softly. “The kid’s had a rough day.”
The nurse stepped back, although she was clearly unhappy about it.
“Are you okay, Mr. Long?” Jake asked, not seeming to care one little bit about all the people staring at him.
Deeze grinned at the boy in his arms. “I’m fine, Jakey. Just fine. Are you okay too?”
Jake nodded. “Uh-huh. But I was scared.”
Deeze sighed. Sadly. “Me too.”
Deeze eased the boy to arm’s length to make sure he was really unharmed. What he saw satisfied him, and he relaxed.
At the sound of more footsteps behind them, Deeze turned to find Jake’s parents, the people he’d seen on the beach that day so long ago when he and Wyeth were first beginning to know each other. Jake’s mom and dad both looked shell-shocked. The mother stepped forward with the obvious intention of plucking Jake out of Deeze’s arms, clearly afraid the boy would hurt him, but Deeze waved her away as he had the nurse.
“It’s okay,” he said quietly. “He’s not hurting me.”
The boy’s father still clutched a magazine from the waiting room. He wrung it, forgotten in his hands. He must have been wringing it a long time. The cover was wrinkled and spongy with sweat.
He cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable but determined to say what he’d come here to say. “We…. We wanted to thank you, Mr. Long. Jakey told us what you did.”
At that, Jake’s mother stepped forward shyly, staring down at her son wrapped so lovingly in the arms of the man who had saved his life.
“Thank you for our son, Mr. Long. We’ll never forget what you did today.” A lump formed in Deeze’s throat. Before he could speak, Jake lifted his head from his chest and peered at him with two of the bluest eyes Deeze had ever seen in his life. While he watched the boy, Jake turned to study Wyeth, who was standing at the edge of the gurney with tears of pride and joy and misery and a thousand other emotions streaming down his cheeks.
“You got Band-Aids for him?” Jake asked, his face serious.
Wyeth nodded. “As many as he’ll ever need,” he answered softly.
Reassured, the boy burrowed back into Deeze’s arms and closed his eyes.
Jake’s father blew his nose into a hanky with the sound of a goose honking his way south for the winter, causing Jake to dig his face into Deeze’s armpit and giggle.
Even Deeze grinned at the sound of the boy’s innocent laughter.
“And life goes on,” he whispered, more to himself than anyone else. Reaching out, he once again grasped Wyeth’s hand.
WYETH STARED around him while a spark of the old terror lit his eyes. A crushing weight of dread settled over him. Or was it euphoria? He wasn’t sure.
This cubicle they were all in—the whole emergency room, in fact—was awash in misery, in the permeating reek of medicine and desperation. Cries could be heard in different areas of the ER. Whimpers of pain. The soothing murmur of doctors’ voices. But there was death here too. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it was here somewhere, lurking around the next corner, perhaps. Waiting to cull the herd. Waiting to swoop in when it saw an opening.
But not today. Not with my Deeze, Wyeth thought, his eyes narrowing with hope, with determined certainty.
A rush of gratitude so intense it was almost painful clenched Wyeth’s insides as he stared down at the man and the boy on the gurney.
He had come so close—so close—to losing Deeze! And this boy too. They both could have lost their lives so easily today. And so many others as well. A tremor shuddered through him. He swayed on his feet. The next thing he knew, Laurie was there, wrapping him in her strong, capable arms.
He dropped his head to her shoulder and tried to get a grip on his emotions.
In the end, it was the feel of Deeze’s hand, still resting snugly in his, that brought Wyeth back, that anchored him.
He turned at the sound of weeping and saw Jake’s mother sobbing into her husband’s chest.
Glancing down, Wyeth met Jakey’s eyes staring up at him. The boy wore the only smile in the room. It was a gentle smile. Gentle and trusting.
Wyeth thought it appropriate that only the child would winnow the group’s emotions down to its most basic element. Gratitude. Gratitude that his friend and teacher had done a wonderful thing today. He had saved Jake’s life. Jake’s and countless others’.
Over the top of Jake’s head, Deeze shot Wyeth a wink. Then the weariness kicked in and his eyelids fluttered. Gradually, his body stilled. He dozed.
On tiptoe, all but Wyeth left the room. Even little Jake allowed himself to be lifted away from Deeze’s embrace, nestling comfortably in the crook of his father’s arm.
While Deeze’s breathing quieted, Wyeth sat in a straight-backed chair at Deeze’s side, never so much in love as he was at that moment. Even the surrounding bustle of a big city emergency room couldn’t draw his attention from Deeze’s peacefully sleeping face.
But a tap on his shoulder finally did.
He looked up to see Laurie standing over him. She tilted her head toward the treatment room door. Not wanting to disturb Deeze, she whispered, “You should come and see this.”
Reluctantly, Wyeth eased his hand from Deeze’s grip and, without waking him, followed Laurie toward the door.
She urged him forward. “Look.”
Wyeth pushed the swinging door aside and peered out into the waiting room. As before, the seats close at hand were taken with people waiting, people sick, people crying quietly, looking worried, looking exhausted. But in the back of the large room, back toward the hallway leading into the emergency room, stood a wall of people that hadn’t been there before. Many of them were children, each and every one standing patiently with their small hands either folded in front of them or clutching a parent’s hand. Others, like Jake, were safely in their fathers’ or mothers’ arms, their weary heads resting on a familiar shoulder. Many of the heads lifted when Wyeth peeked through the door.
“His students,” Laurie whispered in his ear. “They’re waiting to see if Deeze is okay.”
The door squeaked behind them, and Deeze peeked through. Clutching the doorframe for support, he stepped quietly into the room, squeezing himself between Wyeth and Laurie, who both reached out to steady him.
The second he appeared, a hush fell through the crowd of waiting students and parents. Here and there a smile appeared. Then it began. Softly at first, then not so softly. Applause. Applause for the man who had saved their children’s lives.
Deeze lowered his head, blushing. Reaching out, he groped for Wyeth’s hand. Raising his other hand in silent thank-you to the parents and children before him, he shyly turned away.
Chapter Fourteen
THE NIGHTMARES began on the second night after the shooting.
Deeze tore himself awake, flailing in the darkness at some invisible threat. His hand struck flesh other than his own, and Wyeth gasped in surprise, wrenched from sleep by the blow.
His mind logy from the sleeping pill he had taken earlier, Deeze stammered an apology, then threw himself furiously out of bed.
Staring down at the mess of covers, slashed with a streak of red from the stoplight down on the street corner reflecting off the dresser mirror, he thought for one horrifying moment it was blood he was seeing. Then he recognized Wyeth’s pale body rising from the sheets, reaching out for him in the shadows.
Still confused and only half-awake, Deeze pulled back out of reach. “Don’t touch me,” he hissed, staring at Wyeth’s hand as if he had never seen anything more terrifying in his life.
But Wyeth would not be stopped. He climbed from the bed and wrapped his arms around Deeze’s naked back, pulling him close, making shushing noises as if soothing a child.
“It was a nightmare, Deeze. You’re all right. Calm down now. Shush, baby. Shush.”
Slowly Deeze’s muscles unknotted. He began to relax in Wyeth’s arms. They stood in the flush from the stoplight. In the blink of an eye, they were brushed with green instead as the light changed to Go. They heard the rumble of traffic as cars began to move, obeying the traffic light, sheep heading off in one direction or another.
Deeze buried his face in Wyeth’s neck. He was still trembling from the nightmare as he stared about the room, getting his bearings.
“I thought I was back at the school,” he murmured, his mouth on Wyeth’s sleep-warm skin. “The shooting. It was starting up all over again. I just sat there at my desk, frozen in fear, while the children were falling around me. There was blood everywhere. Blood and tiny, still bodies. No one cried. No one moved. I just sat there, Wy! I sat there and did nothing!” He shuddered. Letting out a feeble sob, he tucked his head under Wyeth’s chin as if hiding from the world.
A hot tear spilled onto Wyeth’s throat. He clutched Deeze more tightly to him, gently shushing him, calming his fears. “That’s not how it happened, baby. You saved them. You saved them all. It’s over now. You don’t need to think about it anymore.”
“But Father Mike. And the other teacher. They were dead in the grass. I saw them.”
Wyeth stroked Deeze’s back as they stood there in each other’s arms, their naked bodies pressed together. Deeze still trembled, but he was less tense now. Less manic. Wyeth could sense Deeze’s nightmare receding. He continued to hold on tight. Soothing Deeze. Muttering gentle words in his ear. Humming softly. Slowly, Deeze relaxed in his arms. Deeze’s fingers began a gentle stroking along the wales of Wyeth’s spine as if his senses were coming awake, rememorizing familiar haunts, beginning to reconnect to the man who loved him, returning the comfort being offered him, paying it back as best he could.
The stoplight outside changed twice more before Deeze murmured into the darkness. “I’m better now. Thank you, Wy. I-I don’t know what happened.”
Wyeth stroked Deeze’s curly hair. It was damp with sweat. “It was just a nightmare. After all you went through, I’m not surprised. Come on now, let’s go back to bed. All right? You think you can sleep?”
“Will you hold me?”
The question was so innocent and so unexpected, Wyeth’s pulse quickened to hear it. “My favorite pastime,” he whispered, pressing his lips to Deeze’s temple, clutching his hand, tugging him gently toward the bed.
THEY COLLAPSED side by side onto the rumpled mound of blankets and sheets, not even attempting to straighten out the mess. Deeze rolled into Wyeth’s waiting arms and pressed his face to Wyeth’s chest. Wyeth cupped the back of his neck, holding him there, his lips in Deeze’s hair.
Barely audible, Wyeth’s gentle words filled the silent shadows around the two men. While Wyeth spoke, Deeze listened intently, inhaling Wyeth’s familiar scent. Loving the feel of the strong, capable hands stroking his back. Feeling the love Wyeth offered him, knowing it was real, knowing it was from the heart. Absorbing Wyeth’s strength.
“That day doesn’t have to scare you anymore, Deeze. You survived it. It’s over. And thanks to you, your students survived it too. It was a sad thing to have happened, but the world sees sad things all the time. What’s important is how we comport ourselves while they’re taking place. You did everything you could have done. You saved a lot of young lives, Deeze. There is nothing for you to be afraid of anymore. And certainly nothing to feel guilty about. There’ll probably be more nightmares. Why wouldn’t there be? Just remember who you are and what you did. And remember me too, please. I’m the man who loves you. Don’t ever forget that. All right?”
Deeze pressed a kiss to the sharp nubbin of Wyeth’s Adam’s apple. Rather than speak, he merely edged closer. Scooting farther down in the bed, he laid his cheek to Wyeth’s lean stomach, enjoying the feel of the hair there tickling his skin, the gentle rise and fall of Wyeth’s breath. The heat of the man beneath him. The soft thudding of Wyeth’s heart blending with the silent pulsing of his own.
He stared through the bedroom window at the stars outside. They were back in the sky now that the storm was over and the clouds had retreated. Life was as it should be again. Or most of it.
Deeze lifted his head and peered over the side of the bed. There on the windowsill next to the bed lay Napoleon. With his tail lashing back and forth in agitation, the cat was staring down at Chaucer curled up on the floor beneath him, innocently snoring away like a st
eam engine. Clearly plotting mayhem, Napoleon had a mean glint in his eye and a low growl stuttering in his throat. Deeze wasn’t sure, but he thought he could see the animal flexing his claws like switchblades. Oblivious to his peril, Chaucer snored on, his toenails scraping the hardwood floor, chasing dream bunnies in his sleep.
Napoleon hissed from his perch.
“Jesus, cat, give it a rest,” Deeze muttered.
Turning back to a happier place, he laid his head on Wyeth’s stomach again. Perhaps it was his warm breath blowing across the tender skin of Wyeth’s belly that began it. He wasn’t sure. But Deeze smiled to himself as he watched Wyeth’s cock in the moonlight, slowly filling with blood and lengthening before his eyes. His own cock hardened in response as he pressed it to Wyeth’s shin.
When Wyeth’s blossoming erection gave a final tiny jerk and came to rest against Deeze’s lips, Deeze opened his mouth and took it in. And as easily as that, the nightmare was forgotten, Deeze’s fears laid to rest. At least for now.
“Baby,” Wyeth muttered, his body already trembling. “It’s been so long.”
Later, when Wyeth arched his back and Deeze drank from him, Deeze squeezed his eyes tight, relishing the heat and taste and life of the man beneath him.
Yet even at that moment—that incredible moment—Deeze could feel the guilt waiting to claim him. It lurked there, just beneath the passion, on the other side of love.
Survivor’s guilt they called it. Deeze had never known it before, had never really understood it. But now that he did, he wondered if he would ever be free of it.
DEEZE AND Wyeth sat by the lagoon in Seaport Village. Their favorite spot. In the distance, they heard the calliope music from the carousel where the two had twirled their way into romance on that first date so many months ago. A Navy destroyer thrummed majestically along in front of them, heading out across the bay to the open ocean, stirring up the froth in its wake like a bride trailing a train of white satin across the water. A border of sailors in their dress whites, standing at parade rest, each and every one of them looking tall and proud and handsome, flanked the sides of the ship as it pulled away from port.