In the Absence of Monsters

by Jp Barnaby

  I wished I could take it from him, the fear, the pain it would cause – but I couldn’t.

  “Gabriel, I’m going back to Washington,” I said, and was surprised by his lack of response. He looked almost relieved.

  “Okay, I think maybe that’s a good idea. You can get out of here for a while. You can get away from me, and away from him, you will have space to think things through,” he surmised methodically.

  I took a deep breath.

  “No, Gabriel, it’s Jayden who wants to go, and he wants me to go with him.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wished I hadn’t said them, as it was going to be so much worse than I had feared. Recognition blazed in Gabriel’s eyes but he made a visible effort to keep his emotions in check. At his sides, his hands balled into fists and he took long deep breaths before he spoke.

  “Why are you going with him?”

  “I know we haven’t really talked about it, but the reason I came to Chicago in the first place was because I was very depressed. Jayden and Lexi had flown out to Washington to check on me, and asked me to stay with them because they were worried about me. If I hadn’t come with them, I don’t know that I would be alive right now.” His eyes widened but he didn’t interrupt. “Jayden is going through a difficult time right now after losing Lexi. I owe it to him, and to her, to be there for him – to help him as much as I can.” I closed my eyes and took another deep breath.

  Opening my eyes again after a long pause, I looked directly into his face. “And…I want to go. I’m in love with him. I want to be where he is."

  The anguish flashed across his face so intensely, it looked like someone had kicked him in the stomach. Sharply, he looked away from me, and I saw that he was fighting to keep his emotions in check. When he finally he looked back, he wasn’t looking at me, but at the floor in front of me.

  “How long?” he asked in a low, trembling voice.

  How long? How long have I been in love with him? Years, I realized – but I needed to know that’s what he meant. “How long?” I prompted.

  “Have you known?” he asked loudly, almost yelling.

  “Since Lexi’s funeral. That’s when I really understood what I was feeling.” Relaxing back onto the couch, his tense posture loosened, his face contemplative.

  “Ethan, are you sure? Are you sure it’s not just some knee-jerk reaction to losing Lexi? You have had a real emotional time these last few weeks – maybe if you wait, just until you’re thinking more clearly…” he trailed off. Something in my expression must have told him I didn’t appreciate his rationalizations.

  “Damn it!” I growled as I started to pace. “It’s taken my whole fucking life for me to figure out what falling in love even was. Don’t fucking tell me that I screwed it up now. I love him, I can feel it.” Putting my hand up to my chest, I continued, “The times Jayden and I have been together since I moved here, I’ve felt it…in my heart … Every single time… No amount of time is going to—” I stopped dead at his expression. It was a look of pure rage, and it occurred to me what I’d said. I reached for him, but he jerked back, repulsed that I would even try.

  “You’ve been fucking him while we were together?” he asked, and while his voice was low and steady, I noticed that his hands were shaking. Normally, his face was pale and open, but it was now tight and flushed and furious. I couldn’t lie to him, but I didn’t think he needed the entire truth right then either, so I just nodded. “Since we made love?” Looking away, I nodded again.

  Trembling, he stood up and stood still for a long time. I didn’t dare approach him.

  “Get out,” he finally said in a flat defeated tone.

  “Gabriel, I—” I wanted to make things right, I couldn’t stand knowing that I had hurt him.

  “Get the fuck out!” he screamed at me and turned around, stalking up the stairs. After he got to the top, I heard his bedroom door slam, and then a thud followed by breaking glass. I closed my eyes at the sound. The force of the door slamming must have caused a picture in the hall to hit the floor.

  I did what he wanted and I let myself out.

  As the door closed behind me, I couldn’t help but see that as metaphoric – the door closing on the last remnants of my childhood. I had just lost my best childhood friend.

  When my mother opened the door, she could immediately tell that something was bothering me. Her brow furrowed as she reached out to hug me but rubbed my arm instead. Standing on the porch looking at each other for a moment before she invited me in, I knew that she was waiting for me to open up to her, but I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. The pain of knowing that I would never hear Gabriel’s voice or see him smile again was just eating at me. I can’t believe I had brought up my sex life with Jayden. All I had to do was say that I was leaving, but I didn’t stop there. I had to hurt him, and in such a brutal way.

  She led me into the sitting room and I sat down on the couch next to her. With my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands, I stared at the floor. I felt her rub my back with her small hand, trying to comfort me.

  “Would you like to talk about it?” she asked in a motherly tone.

  “Mom, Jayden is not taking Lexi’s death well at all,” I started, keeping my eyes trained on the floor, not wanting to see her face when I told her I was leaving. “He wants to go back to Washington, and he’s asked me to go with him.” She was quiet for a moment before she reached over to hold my hand and I finally looked up at her.

  “Do you love him, Ethan?”

  I nodded.

  She squeezed my hand and then smiled. “Then I think you should go with him.” My face must have betrayed my surprise, because she continued. “I saw that very first day outside the restaurant how much he cared for you, how he wanted to protect you from the world. He cares about my son and he makes my son happy – that’s all I could have asked for.” She moved closer and put her head on my shoulder as she wrapped both of her arms around mine. “Just tell me that you boys will come back and visit once in a while?”

  I pulled back just enough to extract from her embrace and pull her into a closer one. “I promise.”

  “What about Gabriel?” she asked solemnly and I just shook my head, not yet ready to talk about that and she understood. As we sat on the couch, we talked for a long time about what might happen once Jayden and I got back to Washington and about the likelihood of patching things up with Gabriel, and about Lexi. My parents had been at Lexi’s funeral, they had come to support me during a time that I had needed them, and it meant everything to me. It had gone a long way toward starting to repair our relationship – much farther than a few Sunday brunches.

  As I got ready to leave, I asked her to say goodbye to my father for me, not that I didn’t want to see him, but he wouldn’t be home until late. She said that she would and pulled me in for one last hug. The tears in her eyes broke my heart, but she was right, my place was with Jayden. I didn’t know if I would ever be able to get him to see it that way, but I owed it to myself to try.

  It had started to rain on my way home from my parents’ house. I loved the rain, it calmed me, soothed my nerves, which was exactly what I needed before I got home to face Jayden. He was having a hard enough time without my histrionics. When I got home, I walked past the kitchen where he was sitting the table, and went upstairs. I sat in the bay window of my bedroom with my head resting against the wall listening to it rain. The soft patter of the drops on the window was serene in its simplicity. The natural beauty of it contrasted sharply with the chaos in my head – the image of Gabriel’s tortured face as he screamed for me to leave. Hurting him was the very last thing I ever wanted to do, he had been such a good friend to me, supportive and caring.

  He didn’t deserve to have his heart broken.

  And that was exactly what I had done.

  My chest tightened and my throat burned. In the solace of my bedroom, alone in the dark the tears fell silently. They fell for his pain, they fell for my fear, and they fell for the l
oss and the desperation we all felt at that moment.

  A noise from the hall brought me out of my musings and I turned to look. Jayden was leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets, watching me with a look of such sadness, my heart skipped a bit at the intensity of it. He held my gaze for a long time, watching my tears as they quietly dampened my face. It appeared as if he wanted to say something, but he just dropped his eyes and turned away.

  I pulled my knees up to my chest, rested my forehead on them, and waited for the dawn.

  Chapter Thirty

  When we had first returned to Washington a month before, I would have described his emotional state to be coping, however it had become virtually non-existent. Picking up where he left off, he had gone back to school to complete his master’s degree. It was like the last few years had never taken place. It was like he was trying to ignore that his relationship with Lexi ever existed, like his arrangement with me ever existed.

  He went back to his bedroom on the second floor while I stayed in mine on the third. As heartbreaking as it was to watch, I felt like could do nothing to soothe his overwhelming grief.

  I, on the other hand, had come back to Washington as a completely different person from when I’d left. Jayden and Lexi had rescued me from myself. That broken, devastated soul devoid of hope had been replaced by one who had found love; that had found hope.

  I held onto that light inside me during the dark times with Jayden. The worst of those times were when I looked into his eyes and saw the emptiness there. I understood that feeling all too well, empty and dejected, like there is absolutely no reason for you to keep breathing. I never wanted for him to have to cope with that hollow, dead kind of existence.

  Pulling out of the parking lot of the clinic, I sighed. There wasn’t anything I could do about Jayden right now, but I wished he’d talk to me about it, maybe if I knew exactly what was going on with him, I could help. Notwithstanding anything else that was happening in our lives, I was his friend. I looked up and noticed that one of the lights in the clinic sign was out. I’d have to have Jamie fix that tomorrow. When I had come back to Washington, realizing that I didn’t have the same emotional baggage I’d had when I left, I had called Dr. Thomas without any real hope of securing my previous position at the hospital. He informed me about a free clinic where I could put my skills, and the fact that I didn’t need a salary, to good use. After I met with the director, he was thrilled to give me some place to spend my free time. The work helped to keep me grounded, and I found myself opening up and forming at least friendly relationships with the staff. I had mostly kept to myself while working at the hospital, but something in me had shifted. The change in my social habits gave me hope that maybe I was finally over that last hurdle in my recovery.

  Now, if I could just help Jayden.

  I pulled out my phone to see if he was interested in dinner. Maybe beer and a pizza would help relax things enough so we could talk. Usually, he just brought something home and ate in his room while he read. It was not unusual for me to go days without seeing him. Tonight I wanted to remedy that. I just… I wanted to see him.

  “Yeah, Ethan?” he answered in a dull monotone, sounding tired, and worn, and defeated, and my chest clenched a bit to hear it.

  “Well, hello to you too,” I said with a sigh.

  “Hello, Ethan. How is your day? Is it fucking fantastic? Mine pretty well sucks,” he spouted off, and I was taken aback, realizing it was the most I’d heard him say in weeks. “Sorry,” he murmured, a little embarrassed by his outburst. “Did you need something?”

  “I just wanted to know if you felt like some beer and pizza for dinner,” I said softly, starting to regret dialing the phone. The silence on the other end wasn’t helping that regret either.

  Finally, he spoke, “I think that would be a fine idea. I’m leaving here in a few minutes, why don’t you pick up a pizza and I’ll get the booze?” he suggested, perking up a bit.

  “Okay, see you at home,” I replied, and after his acknowledgement, ended the call.

  The conversation had made me hopeful, maybe he would let me in, let me know what was going on with him. I had a feeling it was more than dealing with Lexi’s death, there was something else and it was killing me that I couldn’t help. Even emailing my mother hadn’t helped, she had said that he would come to me in his own time; I just hoped that time was soon. It has been nearly two months since Lexi’s death. I needed to find a way to help him live again, because right then, he wasn’t living.

  He merely existed.

  I called in a pizza on my way home, making it a large in the hope that it would last a while, and we would have an excuse to keep the conversation going. As I sat outside, waiting for the pizza, I went over a few conversation starters in my head. It was difficult for me, as I wasn’t used to having conversations with people. For the next twenty minutes, while I waited, I practiced and rehearsed what I would say to him. Finally when the pizza was ready, I felt confident enough I could have the conversation with him. I stopped in to get the pizza and then got back in my car and headed home.

  A few minutes later I pulled up behind Jayden’s car in the driveway. Since I had to wait for the pizza, he’d probably been home for a while, and I hoped that he was still waiting for me in the kitchen, because I really wanted to talk to him. Balancing the pizza in my left hand, I opened the door. As I closed it behind me, I heard Jayden’s voice in the kitchen. I headed in there, but stopped in the doorway. Jayden was sitting at the table across from a full six-pack of beer, the pristine bottles unopened. In front of him was a nearly half empty bottle of Jack Daniels. Directly in front of him was a small shot glass, and a glass of what I could only assume was Coke.

  Setting the pizza down on the table, I looked closely at Jayden. His eyes were heavy and a little bloodshot; his jaw a little slack.

  I sighed.

  So much for having a real conversation with him.

  I put a plate in front of him, placing a couple of slices on it, but he ignored them completely and kept drinking his drink. After my third slice and first beer, his head fell onto his arms. As I watched, his eyes started to droop. I knew it would be my only chance to try and get him upstairs. There was no way I could support his entire body weight up a flight of stairs, I had to get him to cooperate with me if I was ever going to make it.

  “Okay, Jayden, how about if we get you to bed?” I asked, standing up. I could clean the kitchen up later, it was more important to take care of him.

  “You want to go to bed with me?” he asked with a smirk, and for the first time in weeks, I felt that jolt of sexual need shoot through me. I couldn’t help it, I grinned at him. Starting to stand up, he swayed, overbalancing, I caught him before his head slammed into the table. Wrapping his arm around my shoulder, I supported him as we shuffled over to the stairs.

  “Mmmmm… I like how you smell,” he murmured and kissed my neck.

  Fuck.

  I was never going to get him upstairs if he kept coming on to me. I missed him so much and wanted him so badly. Grasping him tighter around the waist, we made it slowly up the stairs. Finally, I pushed open the door to his bedroom and pulled him inside. We fell onto his bed, and I slid down to my knees on the floor to remove his shoes. He looked down at me, his eyes twinkling with the first light I’d seen in them in so fucking long.

  “Hey, while you’re down there…” he said, trailing off suggestively. Shifting, I adjusted myself in my jeans and finished taking off his shoes. Then I sat down on the bed next to him and began to unbutton his shirt. Roughly he pulled me to him, and without any kind of warning, kissed me hard. I was unprepared for the fierceness of his kiss and allowed myself to be pushed back onto the bed. Rolling us, I trapped him underneath me.

  Somewhere in my mind, I felt a nagging suspicion that it would be wrong to allow him to continue. He was drunk; he wasn’t responsible for his actions. Yet it felt so good to be with him, to feel him touching me. I stroked his face with my
fingers as we lay kissing on his bed, my chest close to bursting with that warm feeling, with my love for him. I moaned into the kiss, thoughts of stopping receding with the feeling of his hard body underneath me.

  Breaking away from his perfect lips, I started to kiss down his neck. His head fell back to the pillow and I took my time going over every inch of his smooth skin. The glow in my chest had reached a fever pitch.

  I wanted to say it. I moved my lips back up to his ear, but before I could get the words out, I heard his soft snoring in my ear. Pulling back to look, I realized that he’d passed out. I sighed, and leaned back down over him, my lips just an inch from his ear.

  “I love you, Jayden,” I said softly and pulled back, kissing his cheek gently as I moved. He was sound asleep.

  All of the urgency gone, I sighed and removed his shirt and jeans. It took a lot of effort, but I finally got him lying down on the pillow, on his back, snoring. As I watched him, it occurred to me that with the amount of alcohol he had consumed, he could vomit and choke during the night in that position. I rolled him onto his side, pulling his knees up and pulled the blanket over him. He smiled in his sleep and my heart leapt. Watching him for a few minutes, I cherished the peaceful look on his relaxed features before turning to leave. I heard him shifting, and turned back around, he had returned to his back.

  Twice more I rolled him onto his side, and twice more he returned to his back. There was no way I was going take that kind of chance with him. I walked over to the desk and pulled his huge leather chair next to the bed. After sitting down in the chair, I put my legs on his bed to watch him sleep. He looked so damned peaceful, but I wished he’d tell me what was bothering him; all I wanted was to help him. He sighed in his sleep, his face turned slightly away from me, and I heard his voice, soft, but distinct, as he spoke to an unknown person in his dream.