The Art of Hero Worship

by Mia Kerick

  “I guess.”

  “I think his roommate, Mason Maguire, requested a transfer out of their dorm room a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. He’d been telling a bunch of us all year that DeSalles was a total headcase and he couldn’t put up with it much longer. He didn’t say a lot in the way of specifics, but I’ll tell you, DeSalles was supposedly bent out of shape when Maguire ditched him.”

  “Where did Mason end up living?”

  “On the RetroHouse third floor in a single that opened up. Cops said that his room got broken into Friday night at dinnertime but Maguire wasn’t there, and a little while later DeSalles was shooting up the theater.”

  “So, it was like a revenge thing?”

  “I guess so. Warped, huh?”

  I turn my back to him. “Sure. Makes no sense, really. You know, I’m still wearing your friend’s clothes? I don’t know if he’s gonna want them back any time soon.” Stupid thing to say.

  “I don’t think he’s too worried. Speaking of clothes, I’m gonna pull these off. Can hardly breath they’re so damn tight.”

  I hear rustling as he pulls off his borrowed clothing, and soon the creak of the bed. Then he seems to settle down.

  “You want to tell me about your girlfriend?” Liam’s deep voice cracks a bit and I know he’s nervous. “I’m a pretty decent listener.”

  “No, not right now.” I’m not ready to think, let alone to talk, about Ginny. “Sure wish we had a keg.”

  “Well, when this is all over, I’ll take you out for a brew or two.”

  “I’m not twenty-one. I can’t go to a pub.”

  “Well, I think you earned a couple of beers, getting through that shit the other night. My friend’s a bartender at a pub near my house, so you can come visit and I’ll make sure he serves you, ‘kay?”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  It’s dark in the room. The shades are drawn tightly, which makes it seem like time is standing still. But outside of this room the early morning sun will soon shine in the real world onto a new day I’m not ready to face. Before I start to think too much, which seems to lead to major stomach issues, sweating, and a lot of trembling, I shut my eyes and think about tennis. Tennis is a safe topic for me, always has been.

  “Night, Jase,” Liam says.

  “Good night,” I reply, although I know it’s already morning.

  ***

  I’ve been lying here for hours, turning from one side to the other, then onto my back and onto my stomach. No matter what I do, sleep won’t come. I’m shivering then perspiring, and I cling to the plastic bag like it’s a damned lifeline. I use the bathroom and try to decide if it would be rude to turn on the TV.

  I’d figured he was asleep because his breathing has sounded so even for the past hour, but all of a sudden Liam pops up out of bed as if he’s as wide awake as I am, walks purposefully to the door and checks that it’s bolted. Then he comes to my bed and says in a husky voice, “Move over.”

  Without a hint of resistance, I slide across the bed so that I’m against the wall. Liam stretches out on his back in the middle of the bed and pulls me right onto his bare chest, which is as rugged and furry and manly and safe as the rest of him. I rest my head over his heart and listen to the only sound I want to hear right now—the steady thudding, a constant reminder that he’s very much alive. Then his big hands come around me and begin to stroke my back. He does this with hesitance, at first, and so softly I can feel the calluses on his palms scratching my shoulder blades. But soon he starts to knead my skin, and I can literally feel the tension draining from my back into his hands. He spends a lot of time working on my neck, as if he can tell it’s where most of my anxiety dwells.

  “Go to sleep, Jase. Just sleep…. We’ll figure things out tomorrow.” Even though he doesn’t specify how we’ll figure things out, I like the hopefulness in his voice and I decide that for now, I’m going to believe him. I feel warm, but not too warm, and safe and comfortable and soothed. I close my eyes and drift away.

  ***

  I wake up crying.

  Okay… if I’m going to be real, I’ll admit that I’m sobbing. In these strong arms—no, sprawled on top of the solid chest of a man I hardly know—I sob in a way that I never have before. And hopefully, I’ll never have occasion to cry this bitterly again.

  My emotions are practically indescribable, yet I need to apply words to them, in an effort to make some sense of what I’m feeling. The pain is raw, grating, and unbearable… and unfortunately there’s more. I’m guilt-ridden and mortified. Devastation crossed with desperation—this is me, at the moment.

  And I’m not sure why I’m still here on earth. I want to disappear.

  Liam stays silent, but I know he’s awake because his hands have resumed the rhythmic stroking on my back.

  “Why’d you have to go and s-save me? Y-you should have let me d-die like I was supposed to!” I’m furious, which is evident in my trembling accusation. The pain would be over if he’d have let me die. I add mad as hell to my list of indescribable emotions. And highly irrational… I tack this one onto the end of the fast growing list.

  He inhales deeply. “We’re gonna survive this. Our bodies survived Friday night in the theater. Now we’ve gotta make our minds survive the aftermath.”

  “What makes you think I want to survive it? What makes you so sure I didn’t want to go with her?” It’s too hard to say her name.

  Wide palms freeze on my shoulder blades and rest there heavily. “Sorry, dude, but it wasn’t your day to die.” He takes another one of those huge swallows of air that causes both of our bodies to rise and fall. Then the mesmerizing movement of his hands resumes.

  I focus my mind on doing verbal justice to Ginny’s memory. And even if both Ginny and I knew deep inside that ours wasn’t a forever kind of romance, we also knew that the deep bond of friendship we shared would last. I admired her for being everything I was not—outspoken, opinionated, and at times, confrontational—and I was one of the few people whom she trusted implicitly.

  “She had dreadlocks.” As soon as the words come out of my mouth, I realize this is a strange place to start when describing Ginny’s awesomeness. But her long dark dreadlocks were what caught my attention when I saw her standing outside the dining hall on the first day of freshman orientation. “And she hated wearing the nametag they gave her that day… you know, the one that says, ‘Hello, my name is so and so.’” I can’t help but smile when I remember how Ginny had unpinned the tag that labeled her Virginia Eloise Blankenship as soon as our small group had started on the campus tour. She’d leaned against me and muttered, “Labels are for suckers,” and I’d been so honored that she’d chosen me to enlighten with that shiny pearl of wisdom. “Never saw her in anything but Birkenstocks or bare feet.” I smile again. “Kind of dirty bare feet, but they didn’t smell bad, or anything like that.”

  Liam doesn’t seem to think the facts I’ve chosen to share about Ginny are in any way odd. “Were you guys in love?” His voice is husky, likely sleep-deprived, but more likely indicative of his emotional preparation for what he now expects me to say.

  I, however, reply too quickly for it to be the full story on the subject. “I loved her.” I can tell he’s nodding because his beard is rubbing up and down against my head and it hurts. It hurts… I can feel the painful throbbing on both the inside and the outside of my head now; something is changing inside me. The knot of fear and pain is starting to loosen. “Who were you at the play with on Friday night?”

  He sighs. I already recognize it as an expression of frustration and of wishing desperately that things could be different. “I couldn’t help any of them. It happened too fast… and then I heard a sound from you and so I headed—”

  “That’s not what I asked.” I already know him well enough to understand that he’d have died trying to save his friends. He’d nearly died trying to save me, a perfect stranger.

  “There
were three of us. It was our marketing final project group. We were creating a sales plan for the product we developed, A Taste of Cinnamon Organic Whitening Strips—I guess the world is going to have to wait for an all-natural, recyclable, and sweetly spicy vehicle for dental bleach….”

  “Do you think any of them are… you know… still….” I can’t make myself say the word alive, which is strange.

  “No.” His response is gruff and firm and I realize he’s in a lot of pain over this. I also realize I’m not crying anymore.

  “I… uh… I’m not proud of how I acted… in the theater,” I inform him, while fighting to suppress what I suspect is going to be a hiccup-sobbing-gaspy thing, but it escapes my lips anyway, and is louder than I expect. “I… I let go of her hand… after she was shot.”

  Liam clears his throat, and says, “You never know how you’re gonna act when you’re scared. You know, truly terrified like on Friday night.”

  “I always thought I’d be a hero if something like Friday night ever happened and I was around. A hero, like you.”

  He sniffs, obviously uncomfortable with what I just said. “I’m no hero, Jase. All of my friends I went to the theater with died.”

  “But you… you totally saved my life.”

  “Nah.” He sniffs again. “I’m no hero. I just pointed you in the right direction.”

  “You climbed on my back and protected me from getting shot….”

  “A hero doesn’t just lend a hand to the person next to him.” He speaks deliberately. “If I were a real hero I would’ve attacked that asshole, accepting that maybe I’d have died in the process of saving other people—but that’s not what I did, was it? I stayed under the radar while he killed my friends and Ginny and all of those other people… little kids, too! I’m not a damned hero.”

  I disagree with his concept of heroic but I’m not up for a debate. “I never knew I’d get so freaked but I….” I have no good excuse for my failure to act bravely Friday night. And my inaction bothers me, but clearly not to the extent it messes with Liam’s mind.

  “Look, there’s no way to prepare for fear like that.” He speaks as if he’s been there before. “You just do what you can to survive.”

  “I guess so.” Even though the discussion is making me uncomfortable, my body is somehow relaxing again. All this sobbing has taken a lot out of me. But I have something else to let him know, for the record. “Plus, I’m not… Look, I’ve never done this kind of a thing before… you know, getting this close with a guy.” My face is burning and I wonder if he can feel the heat on his chest.

  He lifts his head from the pillow at the same time I lift mine from his chest, and we look at each other, which should be extraordinarily awkward, but isn’t. The expression in his usually penetrating gaze is soft and gentle and steady—everything that Dom’s eyes were not. Not that I saw Dom’s eyes on Friday night, but I really didn’t need to. I know they were hard and hateful and frenzied. I shudder again.

  “Right now we’re just two human beings and….” He swallows noticeably and repeats his last words to me. “You just do what you can to survive.”

  I shrug and then lower my head once again, deciding that analyzing how safe and warm I feel nestled against this rugged man’s furry chest can wait until later. That’s when his right hand slides across my hip and squeezes between our bellies. He wraps his long fingers around my dick and holds me, at first hesitantly, and then, when I remain silent, more firmly. I don’t move a muscle, not to shove him away or to shout, “What the fuck is happening here?”

  “I can take your mind off all of this,” he says blandly, as if he’s offering to read aloud to me from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. “Let me help you.”

  Neither of us moves, or even breathes, for almost a full minute, during which time my brain is scrambling at about a hundred miles an hour. On one hand, I want this escape from reality so badly, and as proof, my dick has swelled sufficiently to fill his palm. But I’m not gay… and I don’t know what it means to let Liam touch me this way. Is this just a warped sort of “friends with benefits” activity, or does it qualify as one more act of benevolence given by a powerful savior to his helpless victim? Or does it signify something more? What am I supposed to do? Do I want this or do I want to push him off me and curse him out?

  And, shit, he’s the fucking hero in this room. Shouldn’t I be the one worshiping him with my right hand?

  My raging thoughts are silenced by the movement of his hand. His grip is perfect. Nice and tight, but not choking me. His hand is huge and rough, like the rest of him. I think my entire dick fits in his fist… and it feels like nothing else has… ever. “Don’t stop….” I hear the words and I recognize the sound of my voice, but I don’t remember making the decision to allow this. It doesn’t matter. I drift into the pleasure, justifying it like this: taking a single short trip away from all the horror won’t hurt anyone.

  Somehow, Liam knows exactly how I like it. He knows when to move faster, when to grip harder, and at the moment I’m about to come, he even grasps my hip with his other hand to let me know I’m truly not alone… that I’m safe with him. He’s got my back… and more. I come all over his hand, take that awesome, after-the-climax breath… and then reality slams me hard.

  What the fuck have I done?

  “Um… Liam, I… uh… shit.” I have no idea what I want to say to him, I just feel as if I should say something. He jerked me off and I let him do it and liked it! Before I can think of a justification for my behavior or a one-liner to help us laugh it off, I’ve started sweating and panting. I don’t even consider making a polite offer of reciprocation or a weak excuse for the lack of one.

  “Think you can go back to sleep now?” It’s a simple question, but its frankness efficiently stops the erratic movement of my mind. And for some crazy reason I find myself relaxing, as if what just happened, never happened.

  Without replying, I close my eyes and listen to the steady thudding of his heart. It’s surprising how quickly I’ve become addicted to the sound.

  ***

  I sleep soundly, far better than I would have expected. Because of this, when I wake up, the guilt is overwhelming. How could I have slept like an exhausted baby when I was so recently present for the slaughter of seventeen completely innocent men, women, and children—including my very own girlfriend—in a college theater?

  And I’d love to say I’d completely forgotten about what Liam and I did last night, but it isn’t something I can exactly sweep under the rug, which leads me to more guilt and an entirely unique sense of panicked confusion. Naturally, I refuse to accept the minor detail that I’m aroused right now, lying literally on top of the burly chest of this man I hardly know, but who knows my mind, and now my body, better than almost anyone else.

  I’m aware that I should recoil from Liam’s chest as if he’s a burning bush I’ve stumbled upon, but I can’t. My fingers, as if with a mind of their own, tighten where they’re resting on his biceps.

  “You’re awake.” I wait for him to push me off his chest, which is what I’d expect a straight guy to do. He doesn’t move a muscle. None of this makes sense.

  “I… I’m….” And just like last night, I can think of nothing to say. Nothing at all. Thankfully, the phone rings, saving me from blurting out, “Oh my freaking God, I let you jerk me off last night!”

  Liam hesitantly unwraps his arm from my shoulder and stretches to pick up the phone from the night table. As it seems like the correct thing to do, I force myself to sit up and hop off the bed, then cross the two-foot space of cream-colored rug where I drop down on the bed Liam had once claimed as his. He listens to the person on the other end of the line for a while and the first thing he says is, “You’re kidding me.”

  I don’t like the sound of this. Whatever it was that just loosened inside of me enough to allow me to sleep like the dead, tightens up.

  “Has anybody seen him?”

  All too quickly, I’m getting
the picture.

  “So we’re supposed to just stay here… until… until….”

  I stand up and head to the mini-bar hoping that there’s something I can eat containing enough sugar to help me gain the energy I’m going to need to deal with what Liam is about to tell me. On top of the mini-fridge is a basket of candy bars and I pull out a Butterfinger. I take one bite… another bite… during which time Liam says nothing. By the time I take a third bite he has placed the phone back on the night table.

  He sighs the very sigh I already know so well.

  “What’s the word?”

  He sits up and swings his legs over the edge of the bed. “Looks like you and me are gonna be hanging here for a while longer.”

  I turn around and look at him directly. “Tell me why.”

  “They can’t find him, Jase. Dom DeSalles is missing.” He stands up and I’m again astounded at the latent power his enormity implies… as if maybe he can keep me safe.

  4

  The good news is that the police take care of all the details. We are provided with meals, comfortable clothing from a local sports shop, and since we’re technically off the grid, they have explained the situation, in general terms, to our families. I’m most grateful that they lifted from my shoulders the burden of informing Mom about my precarious situation. I don’t envy them the task; she’s highly-strung and my safety has always been her top priority. She’s obsessed by it.

  Meanwhile, Liam and I are stuck in a time warp where we can’t extend condolences to the relatives of those who were killed, or share memories of the horrifying event with other survivors. As the police search doggedly for Dom DeSalles, the two of us remain hidden. And with only each other to turn to, that’s exactly what we do.