by Mia Kerick
He gulps noisily. The sound is rather pitiful, but it doesn’t break my heart. It doesn’t even still its slamming beats.
“I was hoping we could talk.”
“You’re a little late for that.” I shake my head. “No, Bodie. You’re too late for that.”
He jumps to his feet and scurries to stand before me. “Please, Oliver.”
“I’m gonna tell you up front: I can’t forgive you for what you did.” I don’t recognize the steeliness of my tone.
“Then don’t forgive me. But hear me out.”
I brush past him and up the stairs.
He doesn’t follow.
“We can’t get back together, if that’s why you’re here.”
A short gasp rips through the darkness behind me. “I-I know. I broke the trust between us.”
“You sure as fuck did. And in the process, you broke me.”
“Oliver…”
“Where are you staying?” Time to get down to business. I do this part well.
“On the ground beside my bike.”
“That sounds just lovely.” Sarcasm comes easily to me. “Look, you can stay here tonight. Your bed is exactly as you left it.” I haven’t returned to his room since I discovered the note. His bureau drawers are still strewn about the floor. “Leave in the morning.”
“I didn’t come here looking for a place to stay.”
“Don’t argue with me. I’m tired and don’t have the fucking patience for this.” I unlock the door to the kitchen and hold it wide, still refusing to look at Bodie’s face. “Come on.”
At first, I don’t think he’s going to come inside. Most of me is relieved—the part that hates him for what he did to me. He used my body and stole my heart and then left me, without a word of explanation. But a tiny piece of me is terrified he’ll leave me yet again.
He sighs. “Will you let me explain?”
“Maybe in the morning. Right now, I’m dead on my feet.”
I wait as Bodie trudges up the steps and passes me on his way into the house. Hugo is overjoyed to have his other best friend home and follows Bodie down the hall to the bathroom. I hear the water running and remember that Bodie left behind his toiletries in his mad rush to leave me. I’m not yet ready to study his face; to interpret whatever expression I’ll find there. I don’t want to listen to his reasons—his excuses—for breaking me. So I wait until I hear his bedroom door close before I make my way to the bathroom and get ready to turn in.
My bed feels cold and hard and incredibly empty tonight, just as it was for the first few nights after Bodie left.
I’ll never forgive him for leaving me as he did.
Chapter 26
The first thing I think when I wake up is, I’m not alone. It’s actually more of an awareness than a thought. A sense of safety. Of hope and partnership. But my comfort is quickly replaced by the brutal knowledge that, in fact, I’m as alone as ever. I bucked my better judgment, gave my heart to Bodie, and he threw it into the abyss. And now he’s here—I have no real understanding of why. Maybe he merely seeks to relieve his guilty conscience.
I climb out of bed, slip in and out of the bathroom, and then creep to the kitchen to brew coffee. The house is so quiet that when I let Hugo outside to pee, I check to see if Bodie’s bike is still parked in the driveway. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d pulled another Houdini act and disappeared again. An inexplicable whoosh of relief overwhelms me when I see it.
Such a beautiful morning, bright and crisp in the way of late September. I sit outside on the picnic bench to drink my coffee and try like hell to ignore the elephant in the second bedroom, so to speak. Within fifteen minutes, Bodie pushes open the screen door. No coffee mug in hand, auburn curls wild and unbrushed, wearing only faded jeans he didn’t even take time to button at the waist.
“Can we talk now?” His voice is scratchy and tense. Desperate. I doubt he slept at all.
“What’s the rush? It’s already been three weeks. Can’t it wait until after we’ve had coffee?” I’m being cruel, and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s my best defense.
“I can’t drink coffee right now.” He stands in front of the door, more or less wringing his hands.
Although I’ve successfully avoided eye contact, I can’t miss the way his ribs and pelvic bones protrude. Even his brawny shoulders are bonier than last time I saw him.
“You’ve clearly missed a few meals too.” My words are snarky, yet I’m truly concerned. As I would be for any homeless, starving stranger on my deck.
“Drink your coffee, Oliver. We can talk after.” He steps back inside the cottage, leaving me to my thoughts.
“Come here, Hugo,” I call to my single source of comfort, realizing the time has come to endure another painful conversation with Bodie. I’m afraid of what he’s going to say and of what he wants to happen as a result of his explanation. Frankly, I’m as scared that he doesn’t want me as that he does.
Bodie is sitting on the couch in the living room. Shirtless and barefoot and rather dazed. I plop down in Dad’s old chair and study his face for the first time since he returned to Gillamour Island. His cheeks are gaunt. Circled in dark shadows, his haunted eyes stare back at me.
Chills shoot up my spine.
Something is profoundly wrong.
But I press on. “You said you wanted to talk.”
He shudders. Then he shakes his head. “Ain’t…ain’t so fuckin’ easy, Oliver.”
“It can’t be that bad.” His behavior is disturbing; thankfully I’m still in control of mine. “Just say what you came here to say.” My demand sounds businesslike. “I’m waiting.”
“I…” Bodie chokes on his next word. “L-let…I let him…”
“You came here to tell me something.” I glare, trying to rally my hatred of the man who broke me. And I growl, “So spit it out, damn you.”
He nods. Not once, as is his habit, but over and over. As if in nodding, he can summon courage. Still staring at me with that eerie gaze, he pulls in a shaky breath. “I l-let him fuck me.”
His words hit me like a punch to the gut. “You did what?” The living room spins before my eyes. Bodie’s deep red hair blurs into a pool of blood, dripping over his head and neck. “Who?”
“Jack. The night…on the night you went with your dad. I let him fuck me.” He grabs his belly, as if ready to vomit. And the sound that erupts from his throat—the guttural groan—is one of agony.
My world is still spinning uncontrollably. His words are the craziest I’ve ever heard fall from human lips. “I know you, Bodie. You would never let that happen. I know you.” My breathing comes quicker. In seconds, I’m panting, which does nothing to squelch my dizziness. But Jack did suggest as much. My head is so light, I fear I will float away.
Bodie’s gaze glides up to the ceiling; he’s lost in memories. And is clearly suffering. “I let Wilkins mess with me too. For a long while I didn’t stop it. I thought…”
I slide from the chair and fall to my knees on the floor before the couch. But I don’t reach for him. “You thought what?” My voice is no longer businesslike. Not growling or demanding. It’s closer to a whisper—a mere hiss in an otherwise silent room.
“I thought if I let Wilkins do stuff to me, he’d be happy, and he’d stick around. And then Mom would stay too.” His eyes are now as black as the night that I left him alone in the restaurant with Jack. So they could talk. “It worked. For a while.”
I have no idea when the tears started to stream down my cheeks. But I cry because I trust this man, and I already know that whatever happened with Jack was yet another sacrifice of his unwilling body. I don’t wipe the wetness away. “And why did you let Jack fuck you?”
After another deep breath, his haunted stare meets my own. “’Cause I couldn’t let him fire you.” Direct, as always. Painfully so.
My stomach heaves. “Bodie…”
Searching my eyes, his response is careful. “You got a mortgage, Oliver, and school pa
yments, and you gotta buy food and take care of Hugo. And you’re saving for a car.”
I need to know how it went down. “What did Jack say to you that night?” With fingers like claws, I grab his knees and squeeze them hard. Too hard. He doesn’t push me off but again looks away. “Answer me.”
A quick nod and a deep breath. “He said I had to let him fuck me or he’d fire you, and you’d go broke.” Bodie speaks like it was a simple choice. Like he had no choice.
“No, Bodie, no…” My anger falls away like snow from a tin roof.
He did it for me.
“I screwed up—knew it right away. Quit my job before I was outta the employee lounge.” He stares out the picture window. But I know he’s not studying the hedge-lined street. Bodie’s in a sightless daze. “Afterward, I couldn’t face you.”
I swallow the huge lump in my throat that makes it difficult to breathe. “What the fuck were you thinking, Bodie?” My words are angry ones; my tone is full of sorrow.
The directness of my question captures his attention. Bodie gazes down at me, his expression softening. He places his palm on the side of my face, as he has done so many times before. “I was thinking that I loved you, and I didn’t want you to lose your home.” Once again, his reply is uncomplicated.
I crawl between his legs and wrap my arms around his waist. “No. That’s not what I meant.” I press my head against his belly. “What—oh, God… what were you thinking when you decided you couldn’t face me?” I can’t stop crying. “Bodie, I love you—you should have told me what happened.”
When I glance up, his eyes are closed. “Oliver, you told me about how broken up you were when you found Jack on the couch in the lounge fucking another guy. And he did the same damned thing to me on that very same couch.” He shakes his head. “Nope. Couldn’t tell you. How would you forgive me? Figured it’d be better if you never found out.”
“But you’re here now.”
Bodie opens his eyes and looks at me again, as he tangles his fingers in my hair. I see his longing for me. I feel it. “Was fuckin’ killing me to be without you, Oliver. So I thought on it and thought on it and I changed my mind about leaving. Decided to take a chance, and I came to find you.” He bites down on his bottom lip, unsure of his decision. Unsure of me.
“Well, there’s no forgiveness necessary because I know you. You’re loyal and true, and you wouldn’t hurt me on purpose.” I’ve never spoken truer words.
“But I screwed up. I let him fuck me, and then I left and lost you.”
“Oh, God, Bodie…” I crumple into his lap and sob in earnest.
“Just like always, I bolted before you had a chance to send me away.” His last statement is just too much. I drag him down to the floor beside me. He crosses his legs and then folds his arms, his posture defensive.
“Bodie, you came back.” I drape my arms around his strong shoulders and kiss him. But he doesn’t return it; his lips stay loose and slack. His yearning eyes are dry.
And finally, he pushes me away. “Oliver, what are you doing?”
“I’m kissing you.”
“But I was with someone else.”
“Did you want to be with him?”
Bodie shakes his head furiously. “Fuck, no!”
I reach up and curl my hand around the back of his neck. “You really shouldn’t have, but you did it for me.”
“I did.” He lets his arms fall to his sides. “I did.”
“And know what?”
Again, he shakes his head.
“Jack tried to be with me two nights later. I got wasted because I couldn’t believe you’d left, and he took me into the employee lounge to sleep it off and—”
“Jack fucked you too?” Again, Bodie closes his eyes. Stricken with anguish.
“He tried. Said he’d fire me if I didn’t sleep with him.” I wipe my eyes. “Bodie, I said no, and I left.”
“Did he fire you?” This time when he opens his eyes, a glimmer of anger replaces the defeat.
“Yes.”
It takes a long moment for him to think this through. “I screwed up, but I was trying to help you. And he fired you anyway…” Bodie sounds so lost.
“He did.”
“This is so fucked up.”
We collapse into each other’s arms and spend a few minutes simply breathing. My breaths come in shuddering sobs. Bodie’s chest heaves silently as he absorbs the moment. There’s one thing I’m sure of: his pain over the past few weeks has matched mine. He may have left me without an explanation, but I did not suffer alone.
“Where do we go from here?” I finally ask.
Bodie tilts his head, considering my question. “Not too sure if you still want me. I told you I was gonna stay, and I left anyhow.” His arms snake around my waist and pull me closer to him. “But this time was different. I didn’t leave because I was scared you were done with me. I left because I didn’t want you to find out that I loved you so much I gave my ass to Jack.”
“Christ, Bodie, I love you too.”
His jaw drops. “Still? After everything I did?”
I ignore his question because it’s so senseless. I love him more because of what he did. “Move back in.”
His eyes don’t look so dark anymore. “You for real?”
I nod. “Do you still have the job at Island Toolbox?”
“I talked to Mark yesterday. He said the job’s still mine in October if I want it.”
“That’s great.”
“Since I left here, I been camping on the mainland. Trying to figure out how to tell you what I did. And how to get you back.” He draws me against him and speaks softly into my ear. “Got up my courage and rode over Pinella Bridge yesterday. Lurked around Surf’s Up ’til I saw Mika. Said she was picking up her final check. And she told me where you were working. Stopped by Island Toolbox on my way to Ivory Tower. You know the rest of the story.”
“We’re gonna be okay, Bodie.”
Here we are, on the floor in front of my threadbare couch. Huddled together as if we’re both wanderers, lost and alone. But we’ve found each other. Our roaming days are over.
“Truth is, Ollie, I’m not a dude who was born for leaving. I just never had a reason to stay anywhere. ’Til now.”
I hate to do it, but Bodie is more important than anything else. So I call Wanda and ask for the night off. And based on her sympathetic reaction, she’s more than willing to allow it. This is a major change from the way it was at Surf’s Up. I felt like I’d be delivering a personal blow to Jack’s ego if I requested a night off.
We spend the day much as we did over the summer. We run the beach, and in the afternoon, walk Hugo into the village where we pick up Thai food. Bodie is quiet, and I’m not one to force anybody to talk. Been there, done that with my mother. Fucking hated it.
“Let’s eat at the dining room table tonight,” I suggest. “It’s a special occasion.”
He pauses in unpacking our Pad Thai from the brown bag. “How so?”
“You came home.”
For the first time since Bodie returned, his eyes glisten. But he shrugs and returns to his task.
“I’ll grab us a couple of beers,” I say.
A few minutes later, we sit down to dinner. Bodie doesn’t eat with the gusto he did before his ordeal. Our ordeal. He does more twisting the noodles around his fork than actually eating them.
“Don’t you like your meal?” I finally ask.
He stares at his bowl. “It’s fine.”
“Well, chow down, then.”
He lifts his gaze to me. “And what next?”
“What next? As in, what happens after dinner?”
“That’s what I mean.”
“We can hang out together on the couch. Watch a movie on my computer. Listen to music.”
“Seems so normal.”
“It is normal, Bodie.”
“But I’m different now.”
Strangely, I know what he means. Bodie was coerced into
sex. He allowed his body to be used out of sheer desperation, just as he did when he was a helpless child. And an act of love he had shared with me—had struggled to embrace and then grew to enjoy—has been as twisted in his mind as the noodles on his fork.
Everything must seem different about his world. About his level of control. About his sense of security. About loving me, emotionally and physically. I want to help restore normalcy to his life, but I don’t know how.
“Let’s eat dinner. We can think about what comes next when our bellies are full,” I suggest.
He nods. Just once. But I have yet to see his perfect crooked smile.
After dinner, we meet on the couch. I hesitate, waiting to see if he wants to take me in his arms, or if he needs to keep his distance. He sits on the very end, pressed against the arm, so I lean on the other side.
“Sorry, man. I just can’t get my head out of my ass.” He looks at me; a blend of fear and bewilderment lurks in his eyes.
“You have good reason to be feeling, uh…” I’m not sure of the correct word for what’s going on in his head.
“I got something on my mind.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s hard to put into words.”
“Just try.”
He slides to my side of the couch, turns his back to me, and leans against my side. Then he stretches out his long legs. “First, would ya hold me?”
“Of course.” I’m thankful that he doesn’t shrink away when I wrap my arms around him.
We’re both quiet for a long time. I do my best not to try and drag the question out of his mouth; he does his best to formulate the words. “Okay, so here it is.” Nothing. He clams up again. But I bide my time. “You know what Jack did to me.”
“Yes.”
“He wore a condom.”
Thank God. “That’s good.”
“I…uh…I…” I’ve never known Bodie to suffer over his choice of words.
