“Don’t do anything stupid,” I say. He ignores me.
“Sal dropped this off for you before.” North pulls an envelope out from the top drawer beside my dresser. I’m too tired to take it. I don’t care about a fucking envelope. I want him to acknowledge what the hell I just said.
“North.”
“It’s money. A fair bit, if the weight is anything to go by. She said it’s to help pay for your medical bills or repairs or whatever. It’s from her and a couple of the barflies, and that under no circumstances will they take it back so don’t even try.”
“North.” I raise my voice, but it breaks over his name.
“What?” he snaps.
“Promise me.”
He won’t look at me. His eyes roam over the door like he wants to flee through it. “I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”
“Don’t go after him.”
“What the hell else am I supposed to do?” he says through his teeth.
“Let the cops handle it.”
He just looks at me, because we both know Johnson will sweep this under the rug, just the same as he always does. Rob Underwood and the Sarge have been fishing buddies for years; even I know it’d take a fucking miracle for him to actually charge his friend. Johnson knew about the beatings from when North was a kid. He had a moral obligation as both a man and an officer of the law to do something. He knew, and he did nothing.
“I can’t do that.” North draws his hand away from mine and rakes it through his hair. Tension rolls off of him in waves. He’s not the only one who’s agitated. I turn my head. All my synapses fire like the burn of acid eating away flesh. A lump constricts my throat. Fat tears spill over my cheeks and run down my busted up face, the saltwater stinging my wounds, and my whole body gets in on the action. My lungs burn; my hands shake and curl in fists. I don’t know if it’s all in anger or frustration or fucking sadness. All I know is I feel like shit, and my heart hurts just as badly as the rest of me.
“Hey,” North says, and his voice is gruff too. He takes my hand, but I can’t look at him. I can’t see through my fucking tears anyway.
Even now—after surgery, after having the shit kicked out of me, after broken bones and a busted up face—I won’t hide who I am or take back anything I’ve done. I can’t. I like men, and no amount of beatings will change that.
It’s not in me to run away, because I’d spend the rest of my life running from who I’d become. That isn’t how my dad raised me. That isn’t the person I want to be, always hiding, never able to say and do what you feel.
Fuck that shit. It’s gonna take a lot more near-death experiences to make me apologise for who I am.
North comforts me as my tears turn to salt on my cheeks and I calm a little. He kisses the top of my head and he whispers that he’s sorry, and that he wishes it’d been him. I don’t respond. My words are stripped away from me by grief, anger and regret, but the truth is it doesn’t matter. What’s done is done. It can’t be undone, but I can make sure it never has to happen to North. I lived for twelve long years without him; I can do it again if it means keeping him safe. I’ll do anything for this man, including push him away. But I know him, and he won’t go without a fight.
Not now.
The choking cough of the engine in Dad’s Ford Ute sputtering to life wakes me. I blink up at the blue and orange sky with grit-filled eyes. My whole body aches. There’s a five-year-old attempting to play the drums inside my head, and my eye socket feels like it’s going to explode. I’m no stranger to bruises, but this is the hardest my dad ever beat me. He’d said he wanted me to remember so I would never be tempted to turn poofter again. It’s not like I could forget. All he’d had to do was say a few little words—“If I catch you with him again, I’ll kill the both of you.”—and I’d never want to talk to Will again for the rest of my life.
The beating was a bonus.
Soon he’ll show up on my doorstep. The man I shared my body with, the man who showed me what it was to love, the only person who tames the darkness inside of me, and when he comes to me—despite how badly I treated him last night—I have to find a way to break his heart so my father doesn’t kill him.
I shift against the wooden plank beneath me, and my entire body screams its protests. After the beating, I waited until Dad had gone to bed, and I’d tiptoed inside, grabbed a bottle of booze and a clean handtowel and came out here to Butt Rusted.
My heart gives a painful lurch, and my throat tightens at the thought of never having that again. The words my father called me ring in my ears, and I roar and beat my fists against my head. Grief for what I’ve done, who I am, and for what I’m about to do swallows me up.
Fuck. I punch myself in the head over and over until it takes some of the pain away and all I feel is numbness.
“North?” Will stands before me, his eyes are wide with worry, his beautiful mouth agape in horror. “Holy shit.”
He reaches out to touch my face. I reel back as if it could burn me. In a way, I guess that’s true—every touch, every glance, every whispered word in the dark is seared into my memory forever. And now that’s all I’ll have of him. Memories. Because if I try to make it more, if I ignore my father and be with Will anyway, neither of us will survive it.
“Did he do this to you?” he demands.
“No, I did this.”
I snatch up the half-empty bottle of Jim Beam from the floor of the boat and crack it open. Taking huge gulps, I wince as it stings the cut on my lip and burns its way down my oesophagus.
“You have to go to the police.”
“And do what exactly? You know Johnson won’t do fuck all. He’d likely kick my arse too, once he found out why my father beat the shit outta me.”
“You can’t stay here, North.”
“Where the fuck else am I gonna go?” I scoff, and shake my head. “Huh? To your house? Go work in the pub? Live in your apartment? That wouldn’t get people talking at all.”
“So what if they talk? What the fuck do you care?”
“I care because I’m not a goddamned faggot,” I snap. Spittle flies out of the corner of my ruined mouth. Will steps back, as if I just dealt him a physical blow. “You know what? Get the fuck outta here. My dad could come back at any minute and he won’t just kick your arse, he’ll beat your fucking head in.”
Will’s whole body stiffens. From head to toe, he’s six feet of corded muscle and fury. Even his teeth are grinding. “Why are you being such a cunt?”
“Because I’m done with your bullshit,” I shout. “Jesus, Will, take a fucking hint. We fucked, and it was a mistake.”
“Every time?” he sneers. “You didn’t get off at all?”
“I’m done.” I climb to my feet and lunge down from the boat, even though it hurts like a bitch and my entire body screams.
“Bullshit. That arsehole has you running scared, and you know it.”
I lunge towards him with my fist cocked and ready to fly. Will flinches, his arm coming up to block the swing that I couldn’t bring myself to take.
He’s right. I’m terrified. Not just for him, but for me, too.
“You gonna hit me now? You gonna be just like Daddy? Huh?” Will shouts, and it surprises us both when my fist connects with his face. He slams into the hard ground and my heart squeezes painfully as he glares up at me, swiping away a drop of blood at the corner of his mouth. I close my eyes because the pain, the blood, the fact that I just punched his beautiful face when all I wanna do is kiss it and sink to the ground begging for forgiveness—it’s too much. “You dick.”
“Get the fuck outta here,” I say in a monotone voice.
“You’re a fucking coward, Underwood.”
“At least I’m not a fag,” I snap back, but the words have no weight to them. How can they when we both know they aren’t true? Will spits as he pulls himself up. I stare at the blood pooled on the sandy soil. If he comes at me now, I’m fucked. I don’t have the energy or the will to fight him. At
this point I’d probably let the little shit beat me to death, because the look on his face as I called him a fag, the betrayal and disbelief in his gaze when I punched him, broke me in ways he will never understand. And I can’t take it back, because I’d rather have him think I’m an arsehole for the rest of his life than die because of me.
“Fuck you, North.”
“Been there, done that. Biggest mistake of my goddamn life.”
My heart gives a panicked little leap when Dad’s ute roars up the long winding drive leading to our house. I can’t breathe.
“Get the fuck outta here!” I shout.
Will glares as he melts into the trees. My heart squeezes painfully again, and a thousand memories of our childhood come flooding back—a thousand days of running and playing in the graveyard, of causing trouble in school, a hundred nights of kisses, touching, dreaming of something bigger than this town, somewhere we could be us. It took only a second to break both our hearts. I wish I was dead. I wish I could lie down in this boat, go to sleep and never wake up.
Dad pulls in the drive, and a few moments later he walks through the graveyard, the hard tufts of grass crunching beneath his fisherman boots. He calls out to me, and I want to pretend I’m not here. I don’t. Instead, I dry my eyes with the back of my hand and sit up. Every muscle in my body screams at me to get back down. Every fibre of self-preservation I have inside tells me to run, but I stay, and I answer him because I’m tired and aching from more than just my physical injuries. I need something to distract me, to keep me from running after Will and begging his forgiveness.
I’m a complete fuck up.
“Here, Dad. I’m here.”
He stands three feet away from me, stock-still, as though even he doesn’t recognise his own handiwork. I must really look like hell, because my dad has been beating the shit outta me for years and I ain’t ever seen him feel guilty over it. He’s carrying a plastic grocery bag in his hands, and he fishes out a small silver box and tosses it at me. I catch it—Nurofen. “That’s all I could get over the counter.”
I stare down at the painkillers, his peace offering. I want to throw it back in his face, but I need something right now to take the edge off. He fishes out a six-pack of stubbies and tosses one of the cans to me, smiling when I catch that too. Like that somehow makes me more of a man, because a fag couldn’t possibly be that quick with his reflexes. I set down the can of
beer and pull out the bottle of Jim Beam I’d confiscated from the kitchen last night. Immediately, I pop three tablets from their blistered pack and toss them in my mouth, chasing them with a very hearty gulp of liquor.
“That little faggot come back here yet?” he says.
I glance up at him, at the hatred in his eyes, the scowl between his brows and the tight set of his jaw. I shake my head and look out at the bay.
“Good. You see that he doesn’t.” Dad takes several steps towards me and leans in until I can practically taste the beer on his breath. “’Cause if I see you and that poofter together again, I’ll personally see to it that neither one of you have anything left between your legs to fondle. You fucking feel me, kid?”
I swallow hard, but I don’t say anything.
“Do you fuckin’ understand?” Dad spits at my feet. I nod, but don’t speak. Instead, I take three more healthy swigs of my vitamin JB. Dad snatches the bottle off of me. “Get yourself cleaned up. I need a hand with the boats today.”
I tremble as he walks away, but I don’t dare make a sound until I know he’s out of earshot. I can’t hold it together any longer. All of the alcohol in the world couldn’t help me keep my shit together right now. Nothing I take will come close to dulling this pain, so I let it take me. I let it swallow me up. I give in, and I don’t think I’ll ever find a way to resurface.
Has there ever been anything worse than waiting on some pompous arsehole in a white coat to release you from hospital? Granted, it’s still early. They’ve only really just removed the breakfast that I didn’t eat from the tray table by my bed, and I seriously doubt they’ll let me leave today anyway, but hospitals make me twitchy as fuck.
I shift on the lumpy mattress. It’s uncomfortable as shit. The whole bed is. I’ve barely slept since I was brought in because from skin to sinew, everything hurts. I’m going batshit crazy in this room. At least at home I could watch porn and jack off. Though coming might be a problem, with broken ribs. Closing my eyes, I flop my head back against the pillow and wait for the inevitable. Visiting hours start soon, and I know North won’t be far away. Which is why I’m in such a shit of a mood—you know, aside from the fact that I was almost beaten to death and I’m still a little tender over it.
“Hey.”
Speak of the devil.
I open my eyes and glance over at the doorway. It’s filled with North, Jesus Christ. Even with the yellow and purple bruising from our fight outside the club the other night, he’s still fucking breathtaking.
“Hey,” I say.
He ventures a little farther inside. “I can come back if you’re sleeping?”
“No. Now’s as good a time as any.” I look away when his brow furrows into a confused little line. I’d give anything to not have to do this. All I want is for him to take me home and lie with me. I wanna eat shitty takeaway from Wong’s, and watch Chris Hemsworth movies in my apartment. My stomach dips and bottoms out when I realise that after this conversation, I’ll never get to have that with him again.
“How you feeling today?”
“A bit like a piñata actually, you?”
“I’m gonna fix this. I swear to you, I’m gonna make that arsehole pay.” He leans in to kiss my shoulder. I draw away.
“How exactly do you fix this, North?” I point to my face and let out a heavy breath. “You should go. Scurry back to your safe little world, settle down with Tammy and knock out a couple kids. This never has to touch you.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I know you. Despite what you think you want now, one day you’ll look back and see that I’m right. You want those things. You want a nice, normal life.”
“Will.”
“Fuck. Open your eyes, North. Look at me—really fucking look. What would have happened if you hadn’t interrupted? Jesus, Brandon called the cops. The seventeen-year-old kid from next door who’s just like me saw them pull up to my door and he heard them beat the shit out of me. What kind of message does that send to a kid like him? Don’t come out or you’ll get your head beaten in?” My whole body quakes with agitation. I shake my head and lower my gaze from North’s to the starched white blanket covering me. “I can’t leave this town, and you can’t leave it either, which means that we need to end this before one of us checks out in a body bag.”
“I can handle myself.”
“Like I handled myself?” I shake my head. “You work with these arseholes. Any one of them could attack you at the mill, or in your big fuck-off house on the hill. I’m supposed to be okay with you going to work every day knowing that you might not come home?”
“I’ll deal with those fuckers. They can’t touch this; they can’t touch us.”
“They already have.” I burn up with rage, with sadness and remorse. I should have known better than to start up this shit again. “You can’t fix it, North. You can’t do shit. The best you can do for me right now is to walk away.”
I need him gone. I can’t keep doing this, because he’s wearing me down, and the last thing I want is for him to know that. I can’t have him know that. Give this man an inch and he’ll take seven more. He’s infallible, he’s a fool, and I’m an even bigger one for knowing how this would end and jumping anyway.
“Go home, North.”
“I’m not going to let you push me away. I was an idiot before. I won’t make the same mistake again.”
“No, you won’t. Because it’s no longer your mistake to make. It’s mine.” I lean up and press the buzzer for the nurse.
“What are you doi
ng?”
Nurse Kelly—a plump, no-nonsense aboriginal woman—walks into the room. Peering over the rim of her glasses, she gives me her stern-faced half-smile and says, “Is there a problem, Mister Tanner?”
“I need you to call hospital security.”
“What?” North says, his face flushing as he glances between me and the woman.
“This arsehole is making hateful gay comments, and I’m afraid for my safety.”
North’s head snaps around in my direction so fast you’d think he just stepped off the set of the exorcist. “What the hell, Will?”
The woman hits a button above the bed. Her voice fills the room and hall through the loudspeaker as she pages hospital security to room 318.
“What the fuck?” North shouts, getting to his feet. Three security guards pour into the room, and with a simple head nod from Nurse Kelly, they grab North’s arms and physically remove him.
“Get the hell off me,” North shouts, struggling in their grip.
“Sir, you’re going to have to calm down,” another nurse tells him, her expression staunch as she escorts them through the hall. I turn away as he looks back at me for answers, shouting my name, and I’m met with Nurse Kelly’s unimpressed gaze.
I glare back. “What?”
“A little extreme, wasn’t it? That boy’s been here since the arse-crack of dawn waiting for us to let him in, and here you are not ten minutes later having him removed. Two days you’ve been lyin’ in that bed, and he’s here every spare minute. Last night he ate the cafeteria food. I wouldn’t feed that shit to my dog, so if that’s not true love, I don’t know what is.”
I grimace at her words. “You don’t know shit about it, lady.”
She chuckles. She actually fucking chuckles. “You got a chip on your shoulder the likes I never seen, and maybe you have every right to carry that thing around, but that boy loves you, and you’re a fool to let him go.”
Finding North Page 16
