by Carrie Davis
“I was?”
To his surprise, Lincoln smiled. “You were. Very right. And…well, when I went out west, I made up my mind to do it, to find someone I could talk to, and I actually found a good doctor. Someone I could feel comfortable with and it did me a lot of good. It forced me to confront some issues that I’d let myself ignore for far too long.”
Standing, he drew in a breath. “It’s sad that it’s taken me this long to accept who I am and actually be proud of who I am. I mean, there are teenage kids that can face reality better than me, but for what it’s worth, I can say it now, Drake.”
“Say what?”
“I’m gay. After a few thousand dollars in therapy, I can admit I’m gay.”
“Linc... I...”
“You don’t have to tell me how pathetic I am. I know.”
“You’re not pathetic.”
“But I am. And I… God, Drake, there is a lot I need to say to you, but before I do, before I get into all of that, I want you to know something else.”
“What?” Drake asked, curious as Lincoln smiled.
“I love you.”
“Oh God, Linc...”
“I mean it, Drake. I love you. I have for a long time and I need you to know that now.”
Head spinning, heart thumping in his chest, Drake knew he should say something, knew he should react, but he couldn’t think, couldn’t form a rational thought or even remember to breathe.
Lincoln had just said he loved him. He had admitted he was gay. It was all too much to fathom, too much to process all at once as Lincoln watched him, clearly trying to gauge his reaction.
I should tell him I love him, too, because I do. I always have.
“It’s really unfair of me saying that before I tell you the rest.”
Drake shook his head, trying to focus. “The rest? What does that mean?”
“It means it’s time, it’s past time I tell you the truth about my past and after I do, there’s a chance you may never want to see me again, much less have me love you.”
Chapter Four
Lincoln
Watching the emotions play in Drake’s eyes, Lincoln drew in another breath, willing himself not to lose his resolve now. He had come this far, he had told Drake how he felt, what Lincoln knew he would always feel, but in some ways, that had been the easy part.
Loving Drake was…it was right and natural and Lincoln was relieved to have finally admitted his feelings. He had held it inside for too long, and regardless what happened when all the truth finally came to light, Lincoln knew he wouldn’t regret admitting his love to Drake. He only regretted that he hadn’t said the words before now.
“You love me? Did you really just…” Drake’s shock was obvious and Lincoln smiled.
“I really did say it. I love you.”
“Linc... But you... I'm so...”
“I know what I said, after our night together, but the truth is, I was still running scared then and I wasn’t ready to face who I really am or admit what I want.”
“And what do you want?”
“Honestly? I want you. I want a life with you. I want to work with you and come home with you. I want to go to sleep holding you close to me, but I don’t know if I have a right to those things, a right to love you.”
“Why?”
“There is a lot you don’t know about me.”
“And there is a lot I do happen to know and I… Linc, I have loved you...”
“Don’t.” He took a single step closer. “Please, please don’t say it. Not yet, Drake. Even if you feel it, even if you really feel the way I do, don’t say it. Not until I tell you everything about who I am and the things I’ve done because you deserve to know all of it before you say those words to me.” He knew how desperate he sounded, how afraid, but he couldn’t hide his fear as Drake slowly nodded and Lincoln let out a sigh.
He wasn’t handling this as well as he had hoped he would, but at least he was doing it.
He was facing the past and in doing so, he was taking a risk.
Drake would either accept him or reject him, but at least he would know everything, from start to finish, both the good and the bad.
“Whatever it is you want to tell me, Lincoln, I’ll listen.”
“I know. It’s just…it’s not easy. No one in my life now knows everything.”
“Nelson did?”
He smiled sadly. “Of course. Nelson did for me what he did for you. He saved me.”
“From what?”
“From the streets. From prison. Mostly, he saved me from myself.”
“Prison?”
Swallowing back his fear, his dread that at the end of all of this he would be rejected, Lincoln forced himself to nod. “It’s a long story and I… I should back up to the beginning so you’ll understand.”
“Lincoln... Really, there's no need to...”
“Please. Let me get this out.”
Drake nodded, leaning back against the wall beside the window. Lincoln drew in a breath he held for a long moment as he tried to regain some control over his raging emotions.
He had to do this and he had to do it without falling apart.
Drake deserves to know the truth and he needs to hear it from me.
Walking back to the sofa, Lincoln sat down again, staring down at the floor, unable to look at Drake for fear of what he would see.
“My dad left when I was three. He was never around a lot before that. He and my mom were not even eighteen when they had me and they really weren’t cut out for being parents, but when he left, my mom took it hard.”
“I’m sorry. That couldn’t have been easy for either of you.”
“At the time, I didn’t really understand what was going on. I just knew my mother was upset all the time and after a while, she started going out a lot at night. She would find a neighbor to babysit me, if one was around, and if one wasn’t, she just put me to bed and went off to have her fun.”
“She left you by yourself?”
“She figured if I was in bed, asleep, it would be fine, but I woke up a lot of times at night and she wasn’t there.”
“God, Lincoln, I’m sorry. I can’t believe a mother could do that.”
“Mine did.” He shrugged, still not looking up. “I made excuses for her for a long time. I mean, I told myself she was young and confused, but the truth is, she didn’t care.” She proved as much later, but he didn’t jump ahead to that. “When I was eight, she came home one morning and she told me she had a new boyfriend. Some guy she had met at the restaurant where she worked. His name was Daniel and she said he wanted to marry us and be a family and I couldn’t believe it because it sounded like maybe I was going to have a real family.”
“When I met him, I… I was young, but somehow I knew right away that the guy was bad news and I knew he would cause trouble, but my mom didn’t want to hear it. She said she was in love and she wouldn’t let some stupid kid screw that up for her.”
Leaning forward, he rested his arms on his knees. “She married Daniel and she said we weren’t going to settle down in one place right away because Daniel wanted us to travel with him.”
“Travel?”
“Yeah. Daniel called himself a preacher. He had a good act.”
“An act? Meaning he was a con?”
“A first class con, but people bought into it, and he wasn’t one of those happy, God loves people kind of acts. He was all gloom and doom and filled with disgust for anyone who didn’t fall in line with his supposed beliefs.”
“A bigot and a con,” Drake said and Lincoln nodded.
“A bigot and a con and… Daniel was a lot of things and none of them good.” He sucked in a breath and bit his lip.
“Lincoln, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. I can see how it upsets you.”
“It does upset me, but I really need to do this.”
He glanced up then, quickly, to see Drake hadn’t moved from his place beside the window, watching. Lincoln told
himself he was grateful for the physical distance between them, but a part of him wished Drake were closer.
Pushing the desire from his mind, he forced himself to speak again.
“I can’t even begin to calculate the amount of money Daniel managed to bilk from people, but he always stayed in a town until he felt he had gotten all he could and then we moved on.”
“And your mother was okay with that?”
“She was just as good as Daniel when it came to running a con.”
“Right.”
“Having a kid as part of their happy little family added to their appeal. I was window dressing, I guess you could say, but eventually, I got old enough to speak my mind more and more and when I did, Daniel made damn certain I regretted it.”
“He was abusive.” It was a statement, not a question, but Lincoln nodded.
“In a lot of ways and my mother… Well, she wasn’t about to upset Daniel by defending me, so she just pretty much ignored it.”
“She let him...”
“Do whatever he wanted. And he did. And fighting back…fighting back just made him angry.”
“No, Lincoln...”
“I hated it. I hated every second...” He closed his eyes, pulling in a much needed breath. “But my mom wasn’t any help and I couldn’t ever stop him from doing whatever he wanted and it made me sick, when he touched me… I hated him and then I had to sit and listen to him lie to people...” For a moment, it felt as if the memories were about to suffocate him. He couldn’t escape the emotions, the disgust. He felt lost in the past, until two hands wrapped gently around his and he looked up to find Drake sitting on the coffee table, so close to their knees brushed together.
“Drake...”
“I love you.”
“Don’t...”
“I know you don’t think I’ll be able to say that when you’re finished telling me what you need to tell me, but trust me when I say that I have loved you for too long to stop now.” He smiled despite the tears in his eyes. “And now that I know you happen to love me back… Well, I’m afraid that you’re in for a surprise if you think I’m going to go away easily.”
“I don’t deserve you. I’m a mess. If you walk away...”
“Enough of that. I’m here now and I’m not going anywhere.”
Lincoln looked down at their hands, locked together, and he sighed, unable to deny to himself that being close to Drake felt right.
He could almost get lost in just being close to him, as they sat in silence for a moment, the only sound the rain slapping against the roof and thunder rolling restlessly in the distance.
“It went on for years. Until I was fourteen.”
“What happened then? Did your mother finally leave him?”
“No. He came after me one night and I… I just couldn’t let it happen again. I couldn’t stand being near him and I...” He lifted his eyes to Drake’s, his heart racing. “I fought him, harder than I ever had, and that just made him angry. More angry than I had ever seen him and I… I ran to the kitchen and I...”
“Linc...babe... Oh no...”
“I managed to get a knife and I used it. I used it to stab him in the chest.”
“You mean…?”
“I killed him. I killed my stepfather.”
Chapter Five
Drake
“Lincoln...”
“It wasn’t planned. I mean, I didn’t decide to kill him, I just wanted it to stop.”
“It’s okay. I understand. I really do...”
But Lincoln shook his head. “I killed him, Drake. I stabbed him in the chest and...” He closed his eyes suddenly. “I can still see and smell the blood… I can hear the way he sounded, when he fell, to the floor and...”
“You were defending yourself.”
“I killed him...”
“Linc, look at me, please.” Drake kept his voice calm, kept his own emotions under control, a task that wasn’t easily accomplished when he thought about the nightmare Lincoln had suffered at the hands of a truly twisted bastard and an uncaring mother.
Slowly, Lincoln opened his eyes and looked at him and Drake gently squeezed the hands he still held. “I am so sorry for everything your stepfather did to you, and I hate that your mother let him do all of those things, because you were just a kid and she should have defended you. She should have taken care of you but she didn’t, so you had to take care of yourself.”
“My mother didn’t see it that way.”
“What do you mean?”
“She called the police and told them I murdered Daniel.”
“Did you tell them the truth?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t easy, but I told them everything and one of the detectives pushed my mother until she finally admitted that everything I said was true.”
“What happened?”
“I had to go before a judge. I was tried as a juvenile. My mother signed away her rights, which wasn’t upsetting at that point, and I was sent to a state run detention center where I was supposed to stay until I was eighteen.”
Lincoln paused, taking in several deep breaths and Drake didn’t push him. He knew how hard this had to be and he hated it. He had wondered why Lincoln was so reluctant to talk about his past, but never had he imagined anything so tragic and so very unfair.
Drake had believed his mother and father to be horrible when they threw him out, but Lincoln’s mother was worse.
She was no better than the man she had allowed to hurt her son and Drake hated her.
“I didn’t stay at the detention center for more than a month.”
“You left?”
“I had to. I… the place was horrible. And I… There were people like my stepfather there.”
“What did you do?”
“I ran. I was in a place in upstate New York and I ran and came to the city where I lived on the streets for a while.”
“And I know what that’s like,” Drake whispered.
“Not an easy life, but I… At least I felt like I had some control, even if I didn’t.”
“I’m sorry, Linc. I don’t even know what to say, other than I am so sorry you had to suffer the way you did. I’m sorry your mother failed you and...” He shook his head. “But I’m glad you trusted me enough to tell me.” He knew that was a big step, knew that sharing his history had been difficult for Lincoln, but knowing it, he now understood more about the man he had fallen in love with and he would prove to Lincoln that knowing the truth hadn’t and never would change his feelings.
“You don’t have to be sorry. I just needed you to know.”
“I’m glad I do.”
“No one else knows. Only Nelson did. Because he helped me.”
“He met you at a shelter?”
Lincoln smiled. “Yeah. Same as you. And I broke down and told him all of it. He went out and hired me a lawyer who really went to bat for me. The lawyer arranged for Nelson to be my guardian and because I was so young when I…when I killed Daniel, the records were sealed when I became an adult, so it was like having a clean slate.”
“Good. I’m grateful Nelson could do that.”
“He tried to get me to see a therapist, Drake. I want you to know that.”
“Linc, that was...”
“But I resisted. Refused. I insisted I was fine, that I didn’t need to talk. I just wanted to forget.”
“It’s not that easy to forget the bad.”
“Sometimes, it’s not possible. It wasn’t for me.”
Standing, Lincoln pulled away from his touch, walking across the room to look out the window. Drake forced himself to stay where he was, not to go after him. If Lincoln wanted, needed, some space he would allow it, respect it.
And when the time is right, I’ll show him how much I love him.
“I know now that I should have listened to Nelson. I should have talked to someone years ago, but I didn’t. I just sort of kept everything inside and I… I tried to force myself to live in the shadows, and that meant denying th
ings that were pretty obvious.”
“Like your sexuality?”
“Yeah. I was in denial about that for a long time, as you know.”
“Did Nelson know?”
“He never really confronted me about it, but knowing Nelson, I’m sure he knew.”
“What about relationships, Linc?”
Half smiling as he turned from the window, he shrugged. “I dated a few women. I tried hard, to have a real relationship, but I could never really let my guard down and more than one woman accused me of being emotionally repressed. And a few didn’t put it near that kindly.”
“What about men?”
“I ignored that attraction. I can’t explain it, but it scared me. And given my past, I didn’t know if being with a man was possible for me.”
“But we...”
“Yeah. We did. And that was the first time I let myself act on what I felt.”
“Linc, I had no idea...”
“And, as you know, I panicked and I ran and I am so sorry for that.”
“Stop apologizing for that. I understand it now. I just… I had no idea...” He could hardly wrap his mind around it as he stood. “I wish you had told me then.”
“I wish I had. But I needed to get some perspective first.”
“And have you?”
“Like I said, I took your advice about getting help.”
“I wish I could have been there for you.”
“I had to take those steps myself. And I finally did. I’m not perfect, but I have faced the past. I guess I’ve still got some work to do, but I know now that I don’t want to run anymore and I don’t want to deny myself what I want.”
“And you want me?” He smiled as he asked and Lincoln smiled back.
“I love you. I wish I could have said that sooner...”
“You’re saying it now. And I’m saying it back, Lincoln.”
“Drake...”
“I love you. Nothing you’ve told me has changed that.”
“My past is...”
“Just that. Your past. I have one, too.”
“I know you do. But you never killed anyone.”
Shaking his head, Drake crossed the room, stopping when a few feet stood between them. He wanted to reach out to Lincoln, but he held back.