by Layla Dorine
Terry sighed. To him, Nicky had always seemed like he had everything or didn’t need anything, depending on the day. It was like he’d been given charm, talent, and this inner fuckin’ glow that erased everything he’d lost when he was young. Or maybe that had just been the way Terry had seen him. Now, looking back on the past with fresh eyes, he could remember Nicky’s struggles in certain classes, and the way Terry had teased him for it. He wondered if all that teasing had pushed Nicky into choosing something that had come easy for him, rather than exploring other options. Had there ever been a time when Nicky had wanted something more, but been too afraid to chase after it?
Terry hung his head, clenching his fist, which he beat down on the worktable, making several tools rattle. Pain shot through his hand and he hit it again and again and again, until he wasn’t just hitting the table, he was punching the walls and wailing like a wounded animal.
Terry never heard his father come in. He didn’t know how long it took for it to sink in that his father had wrapped strong arms around him and was speaking in his ear, trying to get him to calm down. He just knew that he was exhausted by the time he stopped, and the pain in his hands left him a sobbing, shaking mess. Through it all Terry’s father hugged him in a way he never could recall having been comforted as a child. Only when he was calm did his dad loosen his hold enough to turn him around so he could take a look at the damage he’d done.
“Son, look at me,” his father insisted.
Terry tried to focus through tear-swollen eyes, but it was hard and all he really wanted was to go someplace dark and sleep.
“Terry?” his father tried again.
Terry sighed and forced himself to pay attention.
“Can you move your fingers for me?”
Terry tried, and it must have worked because soon his father was moving his hair back from his eyes and telling him, “That’s good. That’s very good.” And Terry wanted to cry again. Nothing he ever did was good, but there didn’t seem to be any more tears left.
“Come on, son, let’s get you into the house and get them cleaned up. I’m going to call your granny to come and take a look. She’s better with these things than I am, and you might need stitches. Some of these cuts are pretty deep.”
Terry had never heard his father ramble before. It worried him and he wanted to ask if everything was okay, but his throat hurt and it was taking all of his concentration to get on his feet. Soon they were shuffling along, his father keeping up a steady stream of words, most of which Terry didn’t understand. He should pay better attention, they might be important, but even when he tried everything was one big, foggy mess. Soon he was seated on the toilet, his hands held over the sink while his dad poured from a bottle. Liquid fizzled and bubbled over his hands. Shouldn’t it sting? he wondered, and wished it did; he deserved the pain.
“Why did you do this?” his father asked again.
And still Terry didn’t answer, maybe because he wasn’t sure. It was as if everything he’d felt had suddenly bubbled up and spilled over into a haze of red.
“I’m sorry I messed up the shop,” Terry stammered, wondering if his father would ask him to move out. Not that he blamed him. He should know how to control himself better; he wasn’t some stupid kid anymore.
“I don’t give a damn about the shop,” Terry’s father insisted. “I’m worried about your hands, and the fact that you were hurting yourself and didn’t seem to care. Why? What possessed you do that?”
“I-I don’t know,” Terry managed. “I was angry. I was reading Nicky’s letter and thinking about the past and what a shitty boyfriend I’d been, and I just lost it I guess.”
His father sighed. “Maybe we should look into getting you a heavy bag. It would be safer for your hands than hitting a wall or the worktable. You know, it might also help if you talk to someone about things—me, your grandparents, your cousin even—it helps not to hold everything inside.”
“I don’t deserve any help.”
“The very fact you say that shows just how much you need it,” his father pointed out. “Now stand still while I call your granny.”
Terry listened to their hushed voices after his grandmother arrived. He knew his father was telling her about what he’d done and why, and he readied himself for her disappointment. He was completely unprepared for the look of understanding he saw in his granny’s face when she stepped into the room.
“Let’s see about cleaning up this mess you made.” She dragged a chair over to sit down in front of him. “Anger is a powerful thing; isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied stiffly.
“So is guilt,” she said, just as soft, a kind grin appearing on her wrinkled face when he looked at her in surprise. “Now, boy, I’ve lived on this Earth for seventy-two years. I think I know how to spot such things when they’re right in front of my face. Do you think you’re the only one in this family who ever did something he was ashamed of?”
“I guess not,” Terry admitted.
She dabbed at his hands, smearing ointment on the cuts. “Let me tell you a story about your Uncle Jed when he was about your age.”
Terry frowned. He vaguely remembered Uncle Jed; he’d always seemed to lurk around the edges of the property, keeping to himself when he wasn’t chasing Terry and his cousins away from his favorite fishing hole.
“I haven’t seen him in forever.”
“Child, none of us have. Jed left out of here one day with the cops on his heels and he’s never come back. The only thing I know for certain is that they never caught him, but that’s all part of the story I’m about to tell you.” She started threading a needle.
“Now, your Uncle Jed, of all of my children, was the talkative one. You’d have never known that from the way he kept away from everybody when you were young, but, Lord, sometimes I wonder if he wasn’t trying to talk the rain down from the heavens, and he was so animated about it too. Always waving his arms about and pacing. Constant motion, that’s what he was, oh, and people loved him. He could charm them, and he just had this way of convincing folks to get along. He was always being named captain of some team or head of some organization at school, and your grandpa and I figured he’d go off to college and make something of himself. And for a time, he did.
“He graduated near the top of his class, was the king of his prom, and got a partial scholarship to a good school in the city. He met a lot of new friends and let himself be charmed into some things he shouldn’t. One night he was out with some friends who decided to drink. Your uncle tried to get them to let him drive when it was time to leave, but his friend was adamant that no one else was going to drive her car. Now, your uncle knew better than to get into that car and yet he did it anyway. Along the way, his friend was being reckless and showing off, and they got in an accident, running two other vehicles off the road.
“One vehicle was driven by a man coming home from work, another by a mother driving home from a family vacation with her husband and their three children. The husband, who’d been asleep the time of the wreck, and one of the children were the only survivors. Four lives lost, and not only could your uncle have prevented it by insisting on taking the keys that night, but he compounded it by refusing the families closure. You see, rather than tell the truth, he aided his friends in covering it up. We didn’t learn the truth until years later. But, when your uncle came home at the end of that school year, he announced that college wasn’t for him, and just like that he asked your grandfather for permission to build a house farther back on the property and to earn his way by helping around the farm.
“Of course we were glad to have him home, but wished he’d reconsider. After all, going off to school had been so important to him. I wish we’d insisted on getting the full story. Over the years we watched him disappear into himself more and more, until the only times we saw him at all was when he was working the fields far away from anyone else. Then one day, years later and completely out of the blue, he comes to us and tells us what
happened. We were shocked of course, and confused as to why he’d waited so long to reveal the truth. He showed us the news article of a man who had gone out on that stretch of road and taken his own life at the spot where his wife and children had been killed years before. It also talked of the teenager who’d been left behind in the wake of that father’s death. He had other articles too—all the ones that had been in the papers following the crash, all the ones of the families’ pleas for someone to come forward, and all the times they had tried to prompt police to reopen the case.
“He’d also been following the life of his friend, who’d graduated, gotten a good job, married, and had children of her own. She’d become a fashion designer, was in magazines, even appeared on television. Needless to say, the guilt simply ate away at him until, finally, he called up his friend and insisted she go to the police and admit that she was the driver of the car. Well, she went to the police all right, but said it was your uncle who was driving. We tried to get him to stand firm and tell his story, but he insisted on running instead, said he deserved a lifetime of being hunted like an animal for having allowed the accident to take place.
“Sometimes I think he would have been better off locked up somewhere. At least then we’d know where he was and that he was safe. But that grief he carries around with him has consumed everything that used to matter to my son. Worse, though, it’s eaten him up. I don’t even know if I would recognize him if he was standing right in front of me. Your grandfather and I get a postcard every now and again. Never says much; it’s just his way of letting us know he’s still living. I don’t want that for you, child. You have so much life left to live. The past shapes all of us. Your job now is to accept the lesson, no matter how hard, and find the path that will lead you forward. We’re all here to help you, but before we can do that, you have to be willing to forgive yourself. You’ve made a mistake and you’ve asked forgiveness, yes?”
“More than once.” Terry hissed as she stitched up one of his cuts.
“Then you have done all you can,” she told him sternly. “Forgiveness isn’t a right, it isn’t absolution, nor is it an obligation.”
Terry hung his head.
“How will you know that I’ve changed? How can I show him how bad I feel for everything I did wrong if he’s cut me out of his life and refuses to give me a chance to prove myself to him?” Terry asked softly.
“He might never know,” she told him. “Or one day the Fates might see fit to show him proof of how sorry you are. But, Terry, change isn’t about what we show others; it’s about what we show ourselves.”
She grew quiet, allowing her words to sink in while she sewed. He was quiet as well, thinking about everything she’d said.
“Why’d he do it?” Terry finally asked.
“What?”
“Why’d Uncle Jed lie for her?”
His granny cackled bitterly and shook her head. “I believe he fancied himself in love with her, or at the very least, infatuated enough to think that she’d be grateful.”
“Oh.”
“Sometimes, it’s important to look at the people you care about and ask yourself if what you have is a positive thing, or if it’s toxic.”
“Me and Nicky were toxic,” Terry said. “When I look back, all I can see is how selfish I was.”
“Then it was a good lesson learned, no matter how painful,” she explained. “And maybe the reason he never stopped it was because he didn’t see it through the same eyes as you see it now. Hindsight is always twenty/twenty, but the present is like watching the world through a veil of whatever shade we are wanting to see.”
When she was done stitching, she spread more ointment on his hands, bandaged them, and instructed him to keep them dry. “I’m always willing to listen when you’re ready to talk,” she offered.
“Thanks, Granny,” he said, trying to smile.
“In fact,” she winked, “if you give me a little advance warning I might even have your favorite cookies waiting on you and a good strong cup of coffee.”
He did smile then—a tiny one—and hugged her before she left.
“I love you,” she told him before drawing back to kiss his cheek. “Now you just gotta learn to love you too.”
She makes it sound so simple, Terry thought as she left the room. But the story she told him had made him understand that she knew how difficult it was too. That night, he fell asleep thinking of Uncle Jed, those lives wrecked and lost on that back country road, and Nicky, whose own life Terry had changed irreparably.
Chapter Sixteen
Nicky woke in the morning and groaned, wishing he could roll over and go back to sleep. Unfortunately, he knew better than to even try. By the time he really started drifting off, his alarm would sound and wake him right back up again. It sucked. Levering himself from his bed to his chair, he flipped on the lamp and wheeled himself to the bathroom to piss, then wheeled back to his bed. It was still dark outside, so he flopped in his chair and reached for the decorative box beside it where he kept his writing paper and all of the letters he’d received. The last letter from Gray was right on top, and he felt his cheeks heating up at the memory of it. Still, that didn’t stop him from retrieving it and smoothing it open, Gray’s familiar scrawl greeting him as he looked down at the page.
Dear Nicky,
I know I just wrote, but tonight, as I lie here listening to the thunder overhead and watching the lightning flash outside my window, I find myself missing you more than ever. Have you ever thought about how erotic a storm is: the crackling energy of it, the pulse and cadence, the ebb and flow of wind and rain, sound and light all crashing together? It reminds me of the way it felt to be buried balls-deep in the tightness of your body, gripping your hair as you fucked yourself on my cock, your delicious moans and sexy panting filling the room. Your eyes, when you come, remind me of lightning, bright and crackling, alive and almost glowing. Your need, as you beg, as you squirm, as you grab hold of me and groan in my ear for me to fuck you harder, it all reminds me of the symphony playing outside right now.
I need to feel you in my arms again. Need to feel your body moving against mine, need to know that I can still make you madly anticipate every touch. I can’t tell you how much I love how responsive you are. The thrill it gives me to hear you cry out my name and feel you clamp down on my dick as your body shudders and shakes. So beautiful, with your head thrown back, gasping, groaning, screaming out your pleasure for me.
I wonder if I could make you out-scream the storm tonight, Nicky. If I could fuck you so hard, so deep, so completely, that you’d drown out the chaos outside so there was only you and me, alight with the flashes that tear through the room. Damn, I need that right now.
Moaning, Nicky closed his eyes, unable to keep reading the words when all he wanted was everything Gray was promising in the letter. His fingers traveled south, beneath the waistband of his sleep pants, to stroke over his hard, aching length. The feel of his cool fingers on his hot flesh made him pause and scooch lower, moving his knees wider apart so he could fondle his balls before stroking his cock again. Groaning, he opened his eyes enough to be able to read the letter, Gray’s words making him harder and hornier than he already was.
To be honest, I’m not sure what I want more. You bent over the table, you on your back on my bed, or you in my lap, riding me like a wild thing. Yeah, that last one edges out the others tonight. I’d want you in my lap, thighs spread wide, hands on my shoulders, while I hold tight to your hips, helping you rock and grind on me. I bet you’re thinking about it right now. Are you stroking yourself for me, Nicholas? Are you remembering what I feel like buried deep inside of you? I am. I’m remembering the way you groaned and shuddered the first time I inched my cock into that tight hole of yours. I remember the way you moaned and cried out that I was big, bigger than you were used to. Goddamn, kid, I almost came right then and there, knowing that I was stretching you in ways you’d never been stretched before.
I’m so hard and achin
g for you right now, Nicky, and the storm outside has only gotten louder and more out of control. There’s rolling thunder, and all I can picture is you moving your hips to the beat of it, fingers digging into my shoulders hard enough to bruise. It wouldn’t be enough to let you stay in control. I’d have to pick you up, press you to the wall, see if we can make this trailer rock in ways that even the wind hasn’t managed yet.
Nicky bit back a scream as he came all over his fingers.
Slumping in his chair, he reached for the T-shirt he’d discarded the night before and wiped the sticky mess from his chest and stomach. If anything, the letter had made him come harder now than when he’d read it the first time, and he’d been seeing strobe lights then. Now he really wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, but he had about an hour to get ready for physical therapy, and it usually took about that long for him to make it there.
Groaning, he sat up straight and ran a hand through his hair. It was sweaty and damp, and he knew he needed a shower, but the only moving he really wanted to be doing was in bed, with Gray, snuggling closer, and lying so his head was on Gray’s chest, right over his heart, so he could listen to it beating. Sighing contently, he let his eyes drift closed and imagined he was in Gray’s bed, Gray’s fingers sliding through his hair. He’d never felt such a sense of belonging as the one he felt at Gray’s side. Nicky snuggled against the arm of the chair, weightless and drifting, until the clatter of the box lid hitting the floor startled him.
Glancing around, it took him a moment to realize where he was and what had happened, and still another to remember to look at the time. Fuck it all. He’d somehow let twenty-five minutes slip past; now he was really going to have to hurry. Carefully, he refolded the letter and tucked it back into the box, replaced the lid, and pushed himself from the comfortable recliner back into his wheelchair. Nicky hurried to wheel himself into the bathroom to take the quickest shower he’d taken in months. Dressing, however, was never quick, and he cursed his clumsy fingers and the leg that would barely co-operate.