Survivor Stories

by J P Barnaby

  “It was my fault,” Ben whispered to his hands, and an unseen weight pressed on Jude’s chest at his misery. “I should have been there. It was my job to watch out for her, to keep her safe, and I didn’t. I failed and she… she….” A sob cut off the rest of Ben’s sentence and he dropped his head into his hands. Jude dropped Max onto the cushion next to him and fell to his knees on the floor in front of Ben. He wrapped his arms around Ben, and even in the despair of the moment, his heart leapt when Ben reciprocated almost desperately. Clinging to Jude with trembling arms around his neck, Ben’s body shook with sobs, and Jude held him, whispering quiet, soothing words.

  Ben tensed when Jude rubbed his back. It didn’t stop Jude, but he opened his eyes and looked down the back of the thin shirt covering Ben’s back at the red marks on his skin. Though he was dying to ask, because it looked like someone had beaten his best friend, he didn’t comment. He’d finally, finally gotten Ben to talk to him, and right then, it was more important for him to listen. Somehow, he’d discovered another secret his best friend didn’t want to share with him. Rather than put Ben through the torment of an explanation, he just let it go. They’d have that conversation another day, after the devastation of the admission about his sister had faded.

  “How old was she?” he asked, trying to disguise the hurt in his chest. He hadn’t even known that Ben had a sister. Then, the marks on his back—what else didn’t Jude know? They’d lived together for years and he thought he knew everything about Ben. He couldn’t help but wonder how many more secrets Ben kept hidden from him.

  “Barely seventeen,” Ben murmured into his neck, and he closed his eyes. God, how long had he wanted to feel Ben’s voice against his skin? He hated himself for taking comfort in the touch when Ben needed it so desperately. With an effort, he forced his mind back to the issue at hand and off the spicy, clean smell of Ben’s skin.

  “How old were you?”

  “Eighteen, old enough to know better. I’d taken a year off between high school and college to try and figure shit out because I was a total fuck-up. I’d been a fuck-up most of my life. That night, you wanna know where I was?” Ben asked, his voice growing more agitated as he pulled out of Jude’s arms. The torment grew in his crystal-blue eyes, and he gazed up at Jude because Jude was half a foot taller. When Jude didn’t reply, he continued. “I was getting stoned and making out with Chris Gilbert behind his garage. I was getting my rocks off while my sister lay bleeding out on some filthy garage floor.”

  “You didn’t know.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It was my job to protect her. From almost the moment my parents adopted Juliette, they told me to look out for her, that I was her big brother,” Ben countered in anguish, and Jude realized that he wouldn’t be able to get through to Ben with arguments or logic. Pushing up off the hardwood floor, he sat back on the couch and shooed Max away from the next cushion. Using the hold he already had on Ben’s shoulders, he pulled his friend down on the couch beside him. He didn’t have to provide much encouragement before Ben’s head rested on his bare chest. Slowly, and with deliberate care, he stroked the perfectly smooth scalp beneath his fingers and tried to get through to Ben in another way.

  “You were adopted? I didn’t know that,” Jude whispered against the top of Ben’s head and stroked his tender skin, desperate to comfort him. He couldn’t stand to see Ben so fucking broken. The horrific guilt in his voice tore at Jude.

  “Yep, I was born the drug-addicted son of a crackhead. The state took me away and I was adopted a few months later. So, I’ve been a loser pretty much since the very beginning.”

  Jude stopped talking; he didn’t know if he could take any more of Ben’s secrets right then. He couldn’t think about the way Ben’s admissions picked at the frayed edges of the hole Ben had ripped in him over the years. One drunken night in his arms and Jude had never been the same. Instead of thinking about how much Ben hid from him, Jude put into each touch every bit of the love he held for Ben in his heart and prayed that his friend could feel it. He would deal with the fallout of his shattered soul when Ben could breathe again.

  Two

  WITH A cramp the size of New York in his neck, Jude awoke to find Ben still fast asleep on his chest. He couldn’t believe they’d slept there all night. The last time they’d woken up together, well, that had been a different outcome. More than anything on earth, he wanted to wake Ben up with sweet kisses and remind him, even in the stark light of day, everything would be okay. The horrors of Ben’s past attempted to rear in his head, ugly and unwanted, but he pushed them away and listened to the slow, steady sound of Ben’s breathing. He’d worry about what Ben had told him later, when he could afford to let the monsters in. Instead, he shifted slightly as his morning wood pressed against his fly and his pocket vibrated like a nest of bees trying to escape. With a groan, he tried not to wake Ben as he fished in his jeans for the phone. When he read the display, he nearly dumped Ben onto the floor in his panic.

  “Ben… Ben, get up, I have to go. I’m late for work,” Jude said in a rush and pushed hard at the hundred-and-fifty-pound man on top of him. Ben, who slept like the dead even on normal days, didn’t budge, forcing Jude to squeeze out from beneath him. Rather than taking off for the shower at a dead run as he should have, he hesitated and looked down at the sleeping man slumped back against the couch. Ben looked so much younger in sleep, peaceful, like the weight of the world had been lifted by his dreams. Idly, he wondered what Ben dreamed about but wouldn’t allow himself to question if it was him. With a sigh, Jude went to Ben’s room, grabbed his pillow and comforter from the unmade bed, and went back into the living room. After tossing the pillow onto the couch near the arm where he’d been sitting, Jude nudged Ben to lie on it and covered him with the blanket. Just like a child, Ben snuggled down into the blanket and seemed to sleep even more deeply, as if hiding from the harsh realities of his life. Jude watched for a moment longer then went to the bathroom to shower and start his day.

  He dressed in record time from the next set of clothes in his closet rotation, grabbed a banana on his way through the kitchen, and headed for his parking spot in front of their building. The Jetta waiting for him was more than ten years old but still got him from point A to point B. Rust and prayer held it together, but he couldn’t bear to part with it. His mom had driven it up until the cancer took her last year. He and Susan had sold the childhood home that neither of them wanted, and he took the car. Everything else their mother owned resided either in Susan’s town house or the storage area of his apartment building. A few things, like her favorite Mark Grace Cubs jersey, stayed in his room. It hurt him to see it, but it made him feel good too when he remembered all the games they used to go to together.

  He slammed on the brakes at the exit to their apartment complex as the thought hit him right between the eyes. The doll in Ben’s room, the one sitting on his dresser—it had belonged to his sister. He’d always wondered why Ben had a doll in his room and just assumed someone had given it to him as some sort of joke. His heart hurt again for his friend. Before he pulled out onto the main road, he sent Ben a text to see if they could go have dinner after work. He didn’t want Ben to be alone. It was ludicrous, of course, because Ben had been living with it for years, but because Jude had just found out, the newness of it made him protective.

  After checking the time on his phone, Jude took off in a panic toward his office, ignoring the drone of the car radio. He’d been working so fucking long on this promotion; he refused to screw it up because he couldn’t make it to work on time. Dennis would love that. He’d been jockeying for the recently vacated senior accountant position as well. Too bad for him, their boss, Andy, liked Jude better.

  The parking lot, which filled up by nine, overflowed with cars, forcing Jude to find street parking. By the time he walked through the refined, darkly paneled reception area of Equestrian Financial where we keep your investments running like a thoroughbred he was twenty minutes late. Straightening his
light-blue polo and smoothing the crease out of his khakis, he waved at Jackie, the receptionist, and tried not to jog as he headed toward the accounting department.

  “Nice of you to show up,” Dennis said, not bothering to use his inside voice, as Jude rounded the last human resources cubicle on the way to the accounting department. The self-appointed gatekeeper of their department, Dennis’s cubicle sat at the very edge of their assigned space, on the border between Accounting and Human Resources. Jude had a suspicion Andy, their boss, wanted Dennis as far away as possible.

  A connoisseur of data, Dennis could tell you how often Robert went for smoke breaks and the standard deviation on Karen’s love life. Few in the department liked him, but as a team, they all had to respect him. His skill in finding account discrepancies and misapplied money was legendary. His personality, however, left something to be desired, as did his hygiene. Thankfully, the smell of popcorn from the kitchen overrode his usual odor of stale sweat.

  “Yeah, like I’m ever late. It’s the first time in five years, Dennis,” Jude snapped and caught the look of surprise on Dennis’s face. He wasn’t much on confrontation, especially when it tended to get ugly, as it usually did with Dennis. Most of the time, he just didn’t see the point, but his nerves were frayed and he wanted to lash out at someone because he couldn’t take his frustration out on Ben. Even more frustrating, Jude realized as he reached his cube, was that he’d left his messenger bag at home. No iPod and no lunch—great. The lunch he could live without, a great deli place lay within walking distance of the office, but the iPod—it drowned out Dennis pretty effectively, and that made it worth its weight in gold. With a sigh, he sat down and logged into his computer.

  It would be a very long day.

  BEN WOKE slowly. The ache in his back registered first, followed closely by the crick in his neck. The room felt different, and he couldn’t quite place it. Unwilling to open his eyes just yet, he floated in that moment of bliss, just off the surface of consciousness, where he still lived at home with his parents and Juliette and his life hadn’t been irrevocably altered. A rapid ticking played at the edge of his hearing. Ticktickticktick…. Ticktickticktick…. He tried to hear his mother laugh again, but the constant ticking distracted him and made him lose his focus. With a great effort, he forced his eyes open and stared in confusion at the coffee table in front of his face.

  Ticktickticktick…. Ticktickticktick….

  Max sat on the hardwood floor in the marginal space between the couch and the coffee table and used one rear paw to scratch himself as the other played a loud and rather annoying rapid-fire, machine gun tapping against the wood. A groan forced its way from a place deep in Ben’s spine as he stretched and faced the dog. Instantly, the ticking stopped and Max’s wet tongue attacked Ben’s face in loving, Pedigree-flavored kisses.

  “Ugh, Max!” Ben cried, grabbed the little dog from where he stood propped on hind legs, and sat up. Memories from the previous day hit him with gale force, and he fell back against the cushion cradling little Max in his arms. He’d fallen asleep on Jude’s chest last night after a harsh session with Kage, after he’d told Jude about Juliette and after Jude had seen Kage’s marks on his back. He’d told Jude about his pain fetish. God, he was always so vulnerable after a session, and the way Jude looked at him when he’d seen the marks Kage left. He’d have probably told Jude all his secrets had he not fallen asleep. It was almost as bad as the morning he’d woken hungover and naked in bed after spending the night fucking Jude. So many awkward days followed, he didn’t know if they’d ever be able to maintain their friendship. Something in Jude changed that day, and they lost a bit of the camaraderie they’d shared. He wished he knew how to get it back.

  The DVD player clock read 9:38. Jude had obviously gone to work, which meant he hadn’t left because of what Ben told him the night before. The pillow under his head and blanket draped across him actually gave Ben the opposite impression, that Jude hadn’t deserted him after he’d learned the truth. Instead, Jude wanted to take care of him.

  Dragging the blanket and pillow back to his room, Ben checked the printed schedule hanging on the corkboard above the light switch. He didn’t have to be at work until noon: lots of time for a shower, breakfast, and a few Motrin, not necessarily in that order. The phone on his bedside table vibrated, and Ben saw that in his nervous disquiet before the talk with Jude, he’d forgotten to charge it. The display showed three texts—one from Kage, one from Jude, and one from his mother. Forgoing the first one from his mother, he read the invitation from Jude and smiled. Maybe everything between them would go back to normal. Next, he responded to Kage’s text indicating that he had made it home safely. Kage didn’t check in often to see if Ben had made it home; something in his face must have made the Dom nervous. Images from the day before blurred in his mind, one into the next, and he pushed them away before checking the final text.

  When are you coming home?

  Most loving sons would take the question to mean a visit, but Ben knew better. His mother lost her daughter four years ago and her son shortly after. Just a few months after his sister’s murder, right before Christmas and before the grass had even started to grow on her grave, his parents had put their house on the market. Originally, he’d wanted to go with them, but instead, he’d walked out the door amid his father’s yells and his mother’s tears. His life was a runaway train, destined to crash and burn. Dreams of college, of making a real life for himself, had been hauled away in the coroner’s van with his sister. Instead, he’d answered Jude’s ad for a roommate and let his parents walk out of his life. His heart broke as he returned the text, because their house wasn’t his home. He wasn’t sure he’d ever have a home again.

  I can’t.

  The Motrin caught on the lump in his throat when he tried to swallow around the burning pain of his mother’s disappointment. Things would have been so much better for their family if he’d been in that garage instead of Juliette. The pills finally started to go down with his first swig of beer. They went down better with the second. By the third, he’d decided to have a couple of dogs from the package left in the fridge. They didn’t have buns, but good old Wonder bread worked just as well. Jude always had sandwich stuff for his lunch because he was the responsible one. He made sure the rent got paid on time, food ended up in the fridge, and their lights stayed on. Ben paid his share, but aside from his obsessive cleaning, he really didn’t contribute much to their little household. Well, nothing except pain.

  By eleven thirty, Ben was showered, shaved, fed, and ready to head to work. Over the last three and a half years, he’d managed to work his way up from a grubby almost-homeless kid to the shop’s best mechanic. One day, he would own his own shop. He’d managed to put back a couple thousand and would continue to do so for the next several years. By the time he turned thirty, he’d have what he needed. His mother, Jude, Juliette… he’d make them all proud, probably for the first time in his entire life.

  Deciding to chance the rain, he rolled the Fat Boy out of their shared garage space past Jude’s brand new Cannondale road bike and pulled out onto pseudo-Avenue headed for the gate. It was already early October, so he wouldn’t be able to ride for much longer. He’d have to start taking the claustrophobic little Toyota pickup his parents had bought him for graduation and put the bike back into storage. That thought really did break his heart.

  Jennifer, the editor in the apartment next to theirs, waved as he rode past. Ben waved back just before he turned out toward the main road of the complex and sped up. An out-of-control hydrangea bush obscured his view, and he inched out, only to jerk back as a big ol’ Ford flew past hauling a small fishing boat. The breeze ruffled his shirt, and the lack of distance between the truck’s bumper and his front tire caused his heart to race. Any closer and they’d have gotten very friendly. With another fast peek, he edged out onto the road and then accelerated to cruising speed.

  Ben loved his commute—short, scenic, and practically a strai
ght shot up the main street. Only two stop lights impeded his route, but God had chosen to smile on him because they were both green. Not that he had much chance of being late, but the wind didn’t blow across his face when he stood still. He’d grown addicted to the feeling while running errands on his boss’s Softail, and it took all of his willpower not to run out and buy one—until the last anniversary of Juliette’s death when he’d forced Jude to drive him to the dealership. The suffocating weight nearly broke him, but instead he bought the bike so when things became too much, he could have the freedom of the wind on his face.

  Only Rufus’s Softail sat in the lot when he pulled in. A number of cars were waiting in the queue area to be worked on, but it was unusual for the lot to be so empty. His boss, a mountain of a man with more piercings and tattoos than Ben could hope to achieve, stepped out of the open bay door as he pulled into an empty spot. Rufus leaned against the wall between bays one and two, watching as he approached.

  “Hey boss,” Ben said with a casual nod, the way most straight guys greeted each other. He didn’t lie about his sexuality, but he didn’t advertise either. In an atmosphere of hypermasculinity and an abundance of testosterone, he didn’t need the aggravation. His tats, shaved head, and muscled arms made him fit in with the group nicely.

  “Hey kid.” Rufus wiped the sweat off his forehead with a tattered bandana that had probably been red at one time. “Fuckin’ Henley called in today, something about his kid. Doesn’t he have a wife for that shit?” The meat above his dark eyes furrowed as he adjusted the POW MIA cap over his graying crew cut.

  “So, what do we have lined up for today?” Ben asked to avoid the minefield of insinuation and accusation before it went too much further. He was no pillar of ethics, but he did show up to work on time every day. On the other hand, he could see staying home if your kid needed it. God knows his mother had pulled him out of the gutter more times than he could count—well, until he became a coward and deserted her.