Ten

by Tia Fielding

  “Nobody wants to invite the snitch?” Makai grinned wryly and got a snort and a nod from Emil.

  “Right. So, when the… the people took me, I was basically a virgin in all accounts.”

  Makai already didn’t like where this was going, but he couldn’t help but nod encouragingly. They needed to talk about all of this, after all.

  “I…. First it wasn’t too bad. The first couple of days they gave me food and just kept me tied up. But then the… the woman came in and….” Emil downed half of his beer in one long gulp. “She was the boss, I think. The details are hazy. I didn’t want to know afterward. One of the men was her boyfriend. She…. Evy, my therapist, she says the woman was sadistic.”

  Makai felt a weird protective rage rise from somewhere within, and he tamped it down quickly.

  “She decided they didn’t need to feed me as much because she liked it when I got weaker. She… the last couple of days….”

  Makai shook his head when he saw how difficult this was for Emil. “My turn.”

  Emil nodded and curled up tightly again as if to protect himself from the discussion.

  “In the first prison, I…. See, I went there as a tall skinny kid,” Makai explained.

  Emil’s gaze snapped to him, looking incredulous. “What?”

  “Yeah,” Makai said, then snorted. “I mean, I was pretty much as tall as I am now, but I was lanky. No muscle to speak of.”

  “Wow….”

  “Yeah, so, certain prisoners there, they saw me as an easy mark. It was….” He took a sip of his beer and leaned back in the chair, forcing his body to open up instead of close down. If he went that route, he’d be a sobbing mess in no time. “It was the usual gang-related shit first. The word was I’d been in the gang when I hadn’t, and they beat me up a couple of times. I spent some time in isolation just to calm the situation down after I’d healed. But then someone… a few guys, they cornered me one day in the laundry room where I was working, and….” His limbs jerked at the memory, the tremor trying to make its way into his body. He could’ve sworn the smell of linen drifted to him from somewhere. “They raped me. And when they got away with it, the next time they did it, it was much worse.”

  He hazarded a look at Emil, and saw huge tears roll down his cheeks.

  Then Emil wiped his eyes angrily, and asked, “Do you have anything stronger than beer?”

  Makai’s eyes widened and he chuckled. “Yeah, I do, actually. But we’ll have to eat something too. I don’t want to have to explain to your dad why you’re in the hospital for alcohol poisoning.”

  Emil rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’d be offended if that wasn’t true. I haven’t drunk much, ever, but I think for this….”

  “Agreed.” Makai drained his beer and carefully stretched his arms as much as he could without tearing the stitches. “Do you feel okay being with me in the kitchen?”

  “Oh yeah, and it’s open plan anyway. I won’t go to the corner, though.” Emil winced, and so did Makai.

  “Look, I’m really sorry about that,” Makai said. “I should’ve thought—”

  “What? That I could snap at any moment?” Emil looked angry, but it didn’t seem to be directed at Makai. That made it somehow worse. When he went to speak, Emil waved his hand agitatedly. “No, I didn’t mean it like that. I know better by now. It’s just a knee-jerk reaction.”

  “O-kay….”

  “I know I can’t control it and I know I can’t expect anyone to remember to mind my delicate sensi-fucking-bilities all the time, but it’s frustrating as hell to not ever see it coming.”

  “Did you… what’s it called?” Makai tried to remember the correct term.

  “Dissociate, yeah. I do that when something triggers me. Not all the time, but sometimes. Has been happening a lot around you lately,” Emil said and snorted.

  Makai frowned.

  “The accident, at some point I blanked out. That’s how it usually goes for me; I just lose focus in a way, then snap out of it at some random point. And I don’t remember anything about the drive to the hospital.”

  “Holy shit, that’s an hour,” Makai blurted out.

  “Oh yeah. Honestly, part of it could’ve been regular everyday zoning out. I just snapped out of it, and we were there.” Emil wrinkled his nose in a way that made him look cute.

  “Okay, well, we need to figure out the food. Can you see if there’s anything you’d like to eat?” Makai gestured to the kitchen.

  “Let’s see….” Emil got off the couch and pointedly almost brushed against Makai in passing.

  Well, okay, then.

  Chapter Eight

  EMIL WENT into the kitchen, reeling with the conversation. He knew his own shit was horrible—he’d accepted it and learned to live with it to a point. Hearing Makai’s full story, even part of it, was different.

  For the first time in a long while, Emil felt like he wanted to hurt someone. This time it wasn’t for himself or for the hurt someone caused his family through him. No, this time it was for Makai.

  When he’d told him about being raped, Emil had felt such pure rage that it had scared him a little. If those men had been there and he’d had a weapon, the men wouldn’t be breathing anymore.

  He looked into Makai’s fridge and most of what was in there was food he liked and could eat. “Panfried chicken and rice with some salad?” he asked over his shoulder, where Makai was holding his distance.

  “Sure, do you want to make the salad?”

  “Yeah, I can do that.” Emil took the ingredients and the chopping board to the counter.

  He liked that the ingredients for the salad were exactly his favorites, and as he was mixing the arugula in with the other greens, the reason for that came to him.

  “You… you’ve been buying things I like to eat?” He looked at Makai, who blushed and ducked his head.

  “Uh… thought it would be easiest way to make food you like?” He tried to sound like it wasn’t a big deal, organizing his meals around Emil’s issues.

  Emil abandoned the cutting board, took the few steps separating them, and laid his hand on Makai’s abruptly tense shoulder.

  “Thank you,” he said, and stayed in Makai’s bubble as long as he could before moving away. It felt like a long time, but it was probably more like five to ten seconds.

  He chopped the ingredients and made the salad, and while they waited for the rest to cook, Emil sat on the chair Makai had left in the kitchen.

  “She starved me on purpose,” he said quietly. “All they fed me were leftover pizza and stuff like that. Things they didn’t want anymore. I still can’t eat pizza five years later.” He remembered the feeling of hunger so intense he’d thought he’d literally die. He also remembered the smell of the slices that had started to spoil already, but someone thought to feed him.

  “So, no pizza, then,” Makai said seriously, even though he could’ve joked about it. “Anything else that’s triggering?”

  “Uh…. Nothing else on that level. I mean, I still can’t eat a lot of things, but that’s the PTSD in general. They had to tube-feed me in the hospital because I refused to eat anything. For about a month or so.” He looked away. He didn’t have many memories of those times, and he preferred it that way. “It’s been a long way to get to even this point.”

  “I can understand that. I got scared by a shopping cart once,” Makai said, but this time there was humor in his tone.

  “What?” Emil chuckled.

  “About a week after I got out. I’d just parked my mom’s car. We were going to Target. Anyway, got out of the car, and at the same exact time, someone pushed their empty cart into one of those collecting spaces. I guess it rattled against the side rails or something, but suddenly I was in my cell when the door closed.” Makai tilted his head from side to side, as if working out kinks from his neck. Emil figured it was his way of fidgeting. “The sound must’ve been similar. I froze completely, started to shake, and my mom freaked out. That’s what snapped me out o
f it, Mom opening the car door and pushing me back in and hysterically trying to get me to look at her.”

  “Jesus….” Emil could see the situation in his head. It wasn’t unlike things that had happened to him and his family in the beginning. “At least a big part of my shit was handled in the psychiatric hospital after the actual hospital,” he said without thinking. Then he flinched when he realized he’d outed his nuthouse stay.

  Makai seemed to catch his expression. “Hey, it’s okay,” he said quietly. “Whatever made you survive, right?”

  Emil swallowed hard and nodded. Yeah, that wasn’t a bad way to think about it.

  Makai pointed him toward the plates and utensils, and he grabbed them both another beer to drink, not particularly caring if it went with the meal or not.

  Once they sat at the small table by the living room window and started to eat, it seemed like most of the heavy stuff was put on hold for the moment. Emil didn’t feel the slightest bit uncomfortable sitting with Makai like this, and the table was smaller and Makai bigger than Evy had been at the diner what felt like only days ago.

  “I need some Tylenol after we eat,” Makai said when they were halfway through the meal.

  “Back getting sore?”

  “Yeah. There’s bruising there, and I got knocked pretty well by the debris, even where it didn’t pierce skin.”

  “I can understand that. I fell from a tree once as a kid, and I was sore for days,” Emil said, the memory coming to him from somewhere far. “I was a pretty active kid.”

  Makai smiled. “I was a total geek.”

  “Really?” Emil would’ve pegged him as a jock.

  “Oh yeah, my brother was the athletic one. I was inside playing video games and reading.”

  “You haven’t gotten any games yet. Will you?”

  “I’m not sure what to get. A PlayStation would be nice, I guess. Might have to order one online when I reacquaint myself with using a laptop and so on. It’s so weird how different everything is only ten years later.”

  “It doesn’t feel like it on the surface,” Emil admitted, nodding thoughtfully. “But I’m gonna take your word for it.”

  His fingers were starting to ache, and he flexed them once he was mostly done with eating.

  “They were broken?” Makai asked carefully.

  “Yeah, both hands, almost all fingers. Two days before they found me.” Emil frowned. “I used to play the guitar in my teens. Can’t anymore. Or probably could but haven’t felt like trying.”

  Makai nodded solemnly. “Maybe one day. I’m a big believer in never say never.”

  Emil gave a noncommittal shrug. “I guess. I’m getting splints in the mail at some point soon. They should help with the everyday stuff.”

  Makai pushed his plate away a little and leaned back in his chair. He looked massive in the small wooden chair.

  “What?”

  “You just look so big. I mean I get that you’re tall, but it sometimes seems like the house was made for someone much smaller.”

  Makai snorted. “It probably was.” Then his expression got serious. “I…,” he started and went quiet again, looking away from Emil. He seemed to be gathering the words he needed to say, and Emil, knowing all about that, let him. “Are my looks a big deal for you? I mean, the muscles and stuff?”

  For a while Emil sat quiet. He didn’t know where Makai was going with the question, but he said honestly, “I mean, you’re attractive, but it’s not really about your looks. I can appreciate them, but I really like your brain a lot, and your heart.” A blush heated his cheeks, but he’d sworn to be as honest as he knew how to when it came to important people in his life.

  Makai cleared his throat. “It’s just… working out, getting to look like this, it was a prison thing. I exercised every day because it gave me a routine and it made me less vulnerable.” Makai got up and took their plates to the sink. “I don’t even know if I really liked it, you know? Or if it was something to fill the gaps I had in my days.”

  “Okay…?” Emil still wasn’t sure where this was going.

  “I don’t know if I’m going to work out much from now on, at least not anytime soon. I have other things to do. I just wanted to put that out there, in case you liked my looks. I will lose muscle mass slowly but surely if I don’t exercise.”

  Emil got it then. Makai was insecure.

  “Hey, as I said, it’s what’s on the inside that counts. The muscles are awfully pretty, but they’re just a small part of you. If they’re gone one day, then the rest is still there, right? It won’t change how protective and funny you are, or how….” Emil stopped and looked away. Then he steeled himself and turned his gaze back to Makai. “Look, we need to talk about sex, and I’m not drunk enough for that.”

  Makai dropped the forks and knives he’d been rinsing and had to pick them up again.

  “Okay, yeah. I agree. There’s a bottle of Fireball in the cabinet over there. There’s Coke in the fridge and ice in the freezer.”

  Emil grinned. “Let’s do this.”

  LIKE HE’D said before, Emil had never really been a drinker. He’d been drunk a few times, just like other teens had been, before the kidnapping. After getting out of the psychiatric hospital, he’d never felt like it. He’d had a couple of beers with his dad while watching sports or whatnot, when they were trying to bond, but that was about it.

  The cinnamon whiskey went down smoothly with the Coke, but it also made itself known pretty damn fast.

  “You know who you remind me of,” Emil said as they sat on either end of the couch.

  “Who?”

  “There’s this wrestler, like pro wrestling. My dad watches it sometimes to wind down from shifts, anyway”—he waved a hand—“there’s this wrestler you look like a bit.”

  “Could be the build?” Makai mused.

  “Well that, but I think he’s from Hawai’i or something.” Emil tried to remember the name of the guy but couldn’t.

  “You’re not talking about the Rock, are you?” Makai looked at him funny.

  “Psh, no. This is a younger guy. They might be related, though. I think Dad said something like that.”

  “Well, in any case, I don’t think you look like anyone I’ve seen before,” Makai stated shyly. Then he looked away. “But I do like what I see.”

  Emil, feeling self-conscious, sipped from his glass and then twisted it round and round in his hands. Sadly that only brought his own attention to his fingers, and he sighed. “Okay, so, sex.”

  Makai nodded and glanced at him. “I’ll start.” He thought for a moment before starting. “Like I said, I’ve never been with a guy in a consensual way. There’s a lot of the good stuff I’ve never done.” He licked his lips nervously. “But the second rape, the one that I don’t remember much about… I don’t know what they did. I didn’t want to know, either. It left some damage. Enough that the doctors said I should never try anal even if I wanted to. Something about not being able to have anything in me without serious threat of permanent injuries.”

  Emil felt sadness and rage, and they mixed with the mild spacey feeling of the alcohol. He was crying before he knew it. “That’s…. That’s horrible, Makai.”

  “When I’ve thought about it, like whether I’d want to bottom or not, it’s….” He sighed and looked out of the window instead of at Emil. “I wish I could’ve chosen to, you know. But it’s bad enough to have to watch what I eat too.”

  Emil bit his lip. “I hate that they did that to you,” he said finally when he could be sure he wouldn’t scream.

  “Yeah…. But if topping is something—”

  “Hey, no.” Emil raised his hand. “There’s no way for me to know, but even if it was, I would never hold something like that against you.”

  Makai nodded slowly. “I just thought you should know. Before we got to that point.” Then he looked at Emil with wide eyes. “I don’t mean I’m expecting anything or that we have to—”

  “I know,” Emil repl
ied, smiling tightly. “I know.”

  Mouse came to check them out on her way to the litterbox, and when she got back out of the utility space, the stench following her was enough to make Emil gag.

  “Holy hell, cat, what have you eaten?” Makai asked, coughing as he got up to clean after her.

  “And why didn’t you cover it. Are you trying to suffocate us?” Emil whined and went to the door to open it for some clean air. “Jesus fuck,” he muttered.

  Once Makai had cleaned the litterbox, he collected all the trash in the house to take out to the trash can.

  “Can you refresh our drinks? We could go out for a while?” he asked when Emil gave him room to get out of the house.

  “Sure.” Emil filled their drinks, hoping he got the amounts of whiskey and Coke right, and took the glasses to where Makai was waiting for him in the yard.

  It struck him then that it was only afternoon. “Why do I feel all weird that it’s not evening?” he asked Makai.

  “I don’t know. Time moves differently when you talk about the heavy shit, maybe?”

  Emil hummed. He could remember sitting in Evy’s home office and being surprised that their time was up. “I guess so.”

  They walked down to the dock, which was still unfinished.

  “I wish I could finish this before Saturday,” Makai said wistfully.

  “I could help, maybe?” Emil suggested. “I mean, I’ve helped Dad with some renovation stuff a few times.”

  “Really?” Makai looked pleased for the offer.

  “Yeah. We’ll figure out a good day for it. It’s Wednesday now, so there’s a couple of days.”

  “Great. I want to build the bench and bolt it in too. There’s still a couple of boards I need to replace and then make the bench and a railing. It’s probably faster with another set of hands helping me.”

  “They aren’t much, but they work.” Emil held out his free hand and showed Makai his battered fingers.

  “What happened?”

  Emil gestured toward the rocks on the shore, and they sat down, not quite side by side, but the distance made it all comfortable and calming instead of stifling.