by J P Barnaby
That’s where Aaron found him.
“Do you want me to stay for a while or go home with my mom?” Aaron asked in sloppy, halfhearted signs. Everything about Aaron, from the way he curled in on himself to the dark circles under his eyes, made Spencer want to tell him to go home, but the words wouldn’t come. The ball blurred with his tears as he watched it bounce back to him again and again.
Boing
Boing
Catch
Boing
Boing
The action stopped when Aaron caught the ball in midair as it flew back to Spencer, and Spencer looked up into his face. He was thankful he sat on the floor because the pain he saw would have brought him to his knees.
“Answer my fucking question,” Aaron said aloud, not bothering with the signs.
“Are you going to tell me what is going on?” Spencer signed, afraid if he spoke his voice would shake.
“I am not going to have a choice. It will hit the news soon enough, and then everyone will know. They will all know.” Aaron slid down the refrigerator across from Spencer after finally succumbing to the weight of the world on his shoulders. He’d never seen Aaron so completely broken—not even that day in the quad when he’d scared him so badly. A cold blade of fear pierced him, digging into his soul. It was the first time he’d truly feared for Aaron’s safety, because the lack of a person behind the blue eyes he loved so much meant Aaron could easily go home and hang himself in the garage, taking himself away from Spencer forever. Please, God, whatever it is, please let Dad be able to help.
“What do you mean?”
“The police came to talk to my mom and me this morning. They found the men who attacked Juliette and me. There is going to be a trial.” Just like that, Aaron shut down completely, like it had taken that last little bit of energy to get the words out, and then he broke into a million tiny shards of pain. He fell sideways onto the floor, curling up into a ball and pulling his knees to his chest. It reminded Spencer painfully of the day they met, and he only caught fragments of what Aaron said.
“… can’t testify….
“… die first….
“… get away with it….
“… oh God….”
Spencer launched himself at Aaron, pulling the man he loved across his own body, holding the pieces together as Aaron lay sobbing in his lap. God, he couldn’t hold Aaron close enough, tight enough. The weight of his pain suffocated Spencer, and he had to swallow back the bile in his throat before he could scream for his father.
Aaron’s mom reached them first, dropping to her knees in front of her son, hair falling across her pale face. Spencer’s father stayed in the doorway, assessing the situation before he strode over to the canisters on the counter they never used. Spencer guessed that in other households they would contain flour or sugar, but his father jerked off the lid and pulled out a pint of Jack Daniel’s. His heart stopped pounding, stopped beating for a split second as he watched. His father pulled a small glass tumbler from the cabinet above the sink and poured a bit of the whiskey into the glass.
“Spencer, Michelle, can you help Aaron sit up, please?”
He reached above the pile of bodies on the floor to open the freezer door. He dropped two ice cubes into the whiskey, took a can of Coke from the case near the back door, and filled the rest of the glass. After swirling it for just a second, he handed it to Spencer.
“Aaron, I want you to drink that, slowly. Small sips. It’s going to help.”
“You. Are. Going. To. Take. Booze. From. Your. Stash. And. Give. It. To. A. Patient.?” Spencer asked with disgust as he tried to coax Aaron into a sitting position and still breathe around the death grip Aaron had on his waist. He didn’t come easily, and Spencer shook as he put a hand to Aaron’s cheek.
“Look. At. Me.,” he whispered, but Aaron kept his eyes tightly closed around the tears streaming from them. Spencer used his sleeve to wipe the tears from his own face, his voice cracking as he tried again. “It. Is. Going. To. Be. Okay., Baby… I. Promise… Just. Look. At. Me., Please., Aaron….” Aaron’s head came up then, and a stabbing pain lanced Spencer’s heart at the utter devastation in his boyfriend’s face. Lost. That’s the only way Spencer had to describe it.
Spencer put the glass to Aaron’s lips, and at first, it merely rested there. Aaron made no move to take it or drink the contents.
“Make it go away. Please. Please, Spencer,” Aaron said, and Spencer took the opportunity to tip the glass. The liquid splashed into Aaron’s open mouth, and he swallowed and opened again.
“Good., Drink. A. Little. More….”
Aaron took another long swallow and started to cough, a hacking, spitting thing that made Spencer hurt, but he held the glass away so it didn’t spill and waited for the fit to be over. Eventually, Spencer got the entire glass of whiskey and pop into Aaron, who lay against him not moving.
“What do you think we should do?” Aaron’s mom asked, directing the question to Spencer’s father while Spencer sat running his fingers through Aaron’s hair as if he were a toddler who’d fallen on the sidewalk. Aaron had serious scrapes and bruises, but they weren’t on the outside where Spencer could kiss them better. Instead, he kissed Aaron’s forehead, and Aaron snuggled closer into him. He hadn’t said anything else, and that worried Spencer. Aaron had a habit of retreating into his own mind when things got hard, and he couldn’t stand the thought of Aaron never coming back out of his head. To be trapped in there with nothing but memories and nightmares would be the worst possible kind of hell.
“That’s the best I have in the way of sedatives in the house. We need to keep him calm so he doesn’t go into shock. Then I will call a colleague and see if we can’t get him an emergency prescription to keep him sedated until he’s lucid enough to reason with. I can work with you to have him declared incompetent to testify if I need to. Hopefully, the prosecutor will get them to accept a plea and it won’t come to that.”
Spencer hated the way he talked about Aaron like he wasn’t there or like he didn’t understand. Aaron fisted Spencer’s shirt tighter, and he kissed Aaron’s hair, damp with sweat, as he made his decision.
“I. Am. Taking. Aaron. To. My. Room… You. Are. Not. Doping. Him. To. The. Gills… Give. Him. Some. Fucking. Time. To. Get. His. Shit. Together….” Spencer slid his feet under him so he could stand, shouldering most of Aaron’s weight to get him off the floor. He glared at his father as Aaron leaned heavily on him. “Use. The. Jack. To. Dope. Yourself. Up. Instead….”
“Spencer, if you’d been calm, you’d have seen that the bottle was full. I never touched it. I’d forgotten it was there until right then.”
“Sure., Doc… That. May. Work. On. The. Girlfriend., But. Not. On. Me….”
Aaron’s mother followed them out of the kitchen and helped Spencer get him up the stairs. He’d considered taking him to the spare room, but it only had a twin bed, and his old room still had the king. No way would he leave Aaron alone right then. Aaron needed to be held, and Spencer would be the one to do it.
“Do you need anything?” she asked when they reached his bed. He shook his head and didn’t even bother undressing either of them. Aaron remained unresponsive as Spencer sat carefully on the edge and brought Aaron down next to him. His insides froze at the lack of anything in Aaron’s eyes, and he slid from the bed to kneel on the floor and remove his boyfriend’s shoes. Gently, reverently, Spencer laid Aaron on the side of the bed closest to the door and climbed in from the bottom so he didn’t have to go over the top of Aaron’s unmoving form. Without caring what Aaron’s mother thought or saw, he pulled Aaron into his arms.
“It. Is. Going. To. Be. Okay., Baby.,” he whispered against Aaron’s hair. A small flare of hope warmed Spencer when Aaron snuggled closer to him as if he’d heard and trusted Spencer enough to make it true. The flare died when he remembered that Aaron shouldn’t trust him. He would be going back to work on Tuesday, after the Labor Day holiday ended. He only reason he’d been at his
father’s house when Aaron showed up was because the company gave their employees the Friday before Labor Day off too. He couldn’t bear the thought of leaving.
AARON OPENED his eyes slowly, breaking through some kind of crust that seemed to glue them closed. He turned, and everything in him felt like shards of broken glass, thousands of tiny pinpricks against his soul. He had no idea why. Panic crept into the back of his mind. Something held him down. Spencer. It had to be Spencer. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes to see Spencer’s sweet hazel eyes staring back at him.
“Hi….” Spencer’s voice, soft and calm, helped to put the panic back in that little box at the top of his spine, perfectly positioned to flood his body at a moment’s notice. Sometimes, if he closed his eyes and concentrated hard enough, he could feel it sitting there, like a time bomb waiting to go off.
“Hi.”
“How. Are. You. Feeling.?”
Aaron took stock and tried to sit up, but someone had turned up gravity in Spencer’s room. His swollen, heavy head barely came off the pillow. Nothing else wanted to work either. He’d felt like this before, usually after a really bad night with flashbacks and meds and the haunting vision of his mother’s weary face. It took exactly thirty-seven seconds for it all to come rushing back, the gale force of a momentous hurricane, complete with huge waves of fear and anger threatening to drown him.
“Like someone beat me, raped me, and left me for dead.”
“Aaron., Dad. Said. He. Can. Declare. You. Unable. To. Testify.,” Spencer said with quiet desperation.
It had been years since the destruction incapacitated him like it had the night before. Spencer hadn’t been forced to witness it often, hadn’t been desensitized to the madness like Aaron and his family had. His sweet hazel eyes were full of compassion and apprehension. Pity. Fuck that.
“What he said was that he could have me declared incompetent.”
“Aaron….”
“And if he does, they will get away with it because no one else survived their little party games. Do you know what they said? They said these monsters killed six other teenagers, all boy-girl pairs. All dead. I am the only one who made it. Why, Spencer? Why me? Why couldn’t I have died like the rest?” The question had been forming in Aaron’s mind since the prosecutor explained his case. Why did he have to live when everyone else these animals came in contact with was at peace? He thought once Spencer came into his life, maybe, maybe, he could get through it, but Spencer left him, visiting every couple of weekends like a sailor on leave. Well, except he didn’t get laid.
“For. Me. To. Love.,” Spencer said and hugged Aaron just a bit tighter, but Aaron wasn’t interested.
“I’m sure that’s it.” Aaron threw back the covers and forced his body to work. He needed to take a piss, and while he didn’t want to admit it aloud, he needed to get away from Spencer for a few minutes. The anger and resentment from Spencer taking the job coupled with his unending kindness about Aaron’s freak-outs just made everything worse.
As he stood and stretched aching limbs, he noticed Spencer hadn’t undressed him before crawling into bed, and Aaron thanked him silently. Crossing the room in a few large steps, Aaron stepped into the bathroom and closed the door tight behind him, clicking the lock into place. He rarely locked the bathroom door at Spencer’s, but right then he needed the extra security to stop his back teeth from grinding against the way his life had fallen apart in the past month.
He thought things were bad when he came home from the hospital, but then he didn’t have to talk about it, he didn’t have to tell them. Even though he’d been able to say the word aloud after months of therapy, it didn’t mean he wanted to get into specifics with anyone, especially a courtroom full of strangers. Plus, the prosecutor had said they would be there. The men who murdered Juliette and ripped his life to shreds—he’d have to be in the same room with them again.
The dry heaves went almost as soon as they came, and he grabbed a toothbrush from the medicine cabinet.
He wouldn’t think about it. If he didn’t think about it, it would go away. His mother would make it go away.
His mother would save him again.
He couldn’t contemplate the alternative.
He refused to see the blue tint in his lips and the white gleam of the rope around his neck as he stared at his reflection in the mirror above the sink.
No.
Not again.
Nine
“ARE YOU going to stop me from testifying?”
Aaron stared down Dr. Thomas as he and Spencer sat together on the couch in the rec room on Saturday morning. He hadn’t had many sessions with the good doctor since Spencer moved downtown because of a few scheduling conflicts, and this one felt empty and hollow. Even though Spencer sat next to him, he didn’t live there anymore. All of the life had been sucked from the room, leaving only an empty shell without the computer and the video games. Even the fish swimming listlessly in the tank looked depressed. Nothing was the same.
Nothing would ever be the same again.
“Do you want me to stop you?”
“Why does every fucking question I ask you have to be turned back on me? Can’t you just answer one? Did they actually teach Deflection 101 at the college you went to?” Aaron asked, unable to stop the rage that exploded inside him. Everything had made him angry since the damn prosecutor showed up in his perfectly pressed suit and generic blue tie and ripped away the safety net Aaron had built over the last five years. Tore it away as if it had never existed, and now he had to start all over again.
“Only if they’re teaching Projection 101 at yours,” Dr. Thomas said calmly. “The answer to your question is, I can, but unless you are completely unable to testify, I don’t think I should. I believe it would be better for you, in the long run, to face your attackers and gain power by their incarceration.”
“Would I?” Aaron asked, more to himself than Dr. Thomas or Spencer, who sat, as ever, by his side, one hand on his leg. Spencer hadn’t left Aaron’s side for most of the day, and he couldn’t decide if it annoyed him or comforted him. Why should he care now? He’d be gone the next day, back to his new job, his new friends, and his new life.
“Wouldn’t you feel safer with them in prison?”
“What if they don’t go to prison? Sometimes that happens. Then I will have put myself out there for nothing.”
“You will make a compelling witness, Aaron.”
“Because of the scars, right? The broken little toy.”
“You. Are. Not. Broken.,” Spencer interjected quietly with a squeeze to his knee.
He was, and deep down in his bones, especially lately, he felt it, like a hole inside him nothing would fill. His relationship with Spencer, his therapy, even his sanity, all were like living on borrowed time. Soon, very soon, he feared, one of them would crack completely, fraying the edges of his life.
“I am, actually.” He put his hand over Spencer’s and held on. At least he’d still have Spencer through the next night, and he’d take it. “Whenever I think about getting up in front of a room of people and telling them what happened to me, I can’t breathe. When I think about being in the same room with them, even after all this time, I want to finish the job they started. It takes every bit of my concentration not to think about it. But if I don’t testify, then they go free.”
“You’ll have to talk about everything that happened that night—the torture, the rapes, Juliette’s murder, and then after about being in the hospital and your recovery. They may call me to testify as well to give the jury a better understanding of how your experience affected your life.”
“It destroyed my life.”
“The only person who can tell them that is you, Aaron.” Dr. Thomas didn’t smile; he simply watched Aaron.
“How do I do that?”
“We will start with desensitizing you to the subject. You talk about it over and over again until you can recite what happened without feeling emotionally connected to it. On
ce you said that word ‘rape’ you could say it again more easily the next time. Understand?”
The terrible helplessness crept into him again, and he could only nod. Talk about it, describe it over and over until he could do it without feeling? Was that even possible? He couldn’t imagine a world where he could say it aloud over and over until it didn’t bother him anymore. The panic he’d managed to keep packed tightly in the back of his mind surged through him, and he held Spencer’s hand tighter even as he rocked back and forth almost imperceptibly in his seat.
“I can’t do this in front of Spencer. I can’t describe what they did to me with him here. Do we have to start now? Can we start on Tuesday?” Aaron’s panicked heart slammed in his chest. He definitely couldn’t talk about it in front of Spencer. God, it was humiliating enough without having his boyfriend hear it. All the things they said to him, did to him, made him do, he couldn’t stand it. Aaron’s parents had only heard part of it, and he knew what he could see in their eyes. He never ever wanted to see it in Spencer’s eyes.
Contempt.
Pity.
Disgust.
“It. Will. Not. Change. The. Way. I. Feel. About. You., Aaron….” Spencer’s hand moved from his leg up around his shoulders, and Aaron pulled away. He couldn’t stand to be touched right then, not with the memories of that night playing over and over in his head. Goddamn it, he wanted a drink to make them go away.
“It’s not happening,” Aaron said as he stood. Leaving Spencer and Dr. Thomas to watch, he left the rec room and headed for the kitchen. It took a minute for Spencer to follow, long enough for him to grab the little bottle of Jack from the counter and pour some of it into a clean glass from the cabinet.
“That. Does. Not. Solve. Anything….”
“How the fuck would you know?” Aaron asked, not turning so that Spencer couldn’t read his lips. He didn’t want to hurt Spencer but couldn’t stop the words from coming. The booze or sometimes the drugs were the only things that could stop the ripping pain of broken glass inside his head when the memories came. Just like the cold concrete beneath him or the monster on top of him. They would never go away, no matter how much Dr. Thomas thought he could desensitize him. It had been almost five years. Wouldn’t he be over it by now if that were ever going to happen?
