"Okay," Myra muttered, the light inside of her doused to smoke. The sound made him wince again, wishing he hadn't done any of this. She began to tie the knots limply, her head hung down when she suddenly snapped her eyes up to glare at him. "Why?"
"Myra, please, it's..."
"No, why. Why don't you want to see me...see me naked? Normal boyfriends do. Boys are always trying to sneak peeks of naked girls. What's wrong with me?" Her voice cracked, the tears evident as she began to shake.
"Nothing!" Gavin tried to reach out to comfort her, but she whipped away, fat tears dribbling down her cheeks. Maker's breath, how could he do that to her?
"Yes there is," she mumbled. "I know, okay. I'm not stupid. I know I've got...nothing here," she stared down at her breasts that even just the quick glimpse of were forever burned into his mind. He knew he'd never forget and, in truth, he didn't want to. "Like, like a boy's or worse, flatter than that. Fried eggs."
"You do not have..." he bit into his lip wishing to console her, but having no idea what would do it. "You're beautiful."
Her glare could wither a forest.
"Adorable, cute, your figure is lovely."
"Lovely? Just...sure. Fine. That's what normal people say after they shrieked at having to see it. I screamed because it's just so lovely I feared my eyeballs would melt."
"Myra," he tried to reach for her, but she yanked her hands back clearly wanting to run but also bitch him out at the same time. Myra chose the latter as long as she had an audience.
"So, what? You're willing to kiss me but anything beyond that is too much? Too weird? I'm too wrong to even try?"
"It's not that," he sputtered, digging his nails into the back of his neck. A shake returned to his hands, one he thought he finally moved on from.
"Then what? Boyfriends want to touch their girlfriends. Want to kiss them. Want to...want to sleep with them."
Gavin cringed, his entire body curling up in pain.
"Okay, fine, I get it. I'm just... I don't know why you didn't declare me hideous and call it a day."
"You're blighted well not hideous," he reached over, finally gripping onto her hand. She froze instead of yanking it free.
"Then why? Why won't you...? What? Is it, is it all the rumors about me? The ones that seem to think I'm the town whore."
"I don't believe those for a moment," Gavin spat out, "and I wouldn't care."
"Cause I'm not," Myra shook her head, tears splashing on the top of her strong cheekbones. "I've not even... Everyone else around me is having sex. Shit, Rosie's getting some, Bryn...but not me. No. Not me, never me. No one's even...touched me before."
He wanted to tell her he adored her breasts and feeling them safely secured in his palms, but she'd never believe it. What was left to him? The truth? Groaning, Gavin tried to shake away the past he wore like a muddy cloak. Even when he thought he'd moved on from it, it wouldn't go. It never would.
"I haven't done anything," Myra muttered, glaring at the ground. "I'm a virgin."
"I'm not."
It slipped free, Gavin's soul sputtering out of his mouth before his eyes opened wide. He wanted to take it back, to deny he said it, but as he lifted his head and fell into Myra's hurt eyes, there was no dam strong enough to keep his secret at bay.
"You...you're not, you've had," she blinked, her eyes darting around the tent as if she thought it was all a farce and clowns would come rolling out of the sides. "When?"
He tugged his knees up to his chest, one arm wrapping around to keep them safe while the other...it kept wrapped around Myra's hand. "I was fifteen," he confessed, his eyes closed tight.
"Maker's balls!" she gasped.
"And she...she was twenty six." Gavin buried his head in his knees, expecting some kind of reaction. A yell perhaps. For her to get even angrier that he'd debase himself with another woman and not her. But when he looked up Myra was deadly silent, her eyes wide and her lip hanging open in shock.
"I thought, it wasn't..." Swallowing, he began again, "She worked on the farm sometimes, came up from the village. We met haphazardly while I was out in the fields. And she'd, she'd bring me things, little treats out of Redcliffe or things she spotted that she thought I'd like.
"I don't know why I did it," Gavin gasped, fingernails digging into his knee.
"Were you ra--?" Myra reached over and he snapped.
"No! No, I was not... Boys can't even be, not by..." Sucking in a breath, he tried to start anew, "I agreed, I let her do things." It was new and exciting, but scary at the same time. She seemed so worldly and he was just that farm boy out in the middle of nowhere. But every time after he felt as if he tarnished his soul, rot and decay sliding across the surface until nothing would remain. Yet he kept on doing it until...
"Gavin," Myra slid a bit closer, her words soft. She wasn't screaming at him, she wasn't mad. She looked hurt but a different kind of pain, the sympathetic one.
He drew a hand to his cheeks and felt wetness clinging there. Damn it, not again. Drilling into his spine, he walled off that old throb and glared at the ground. He was broken, a mirror that pitched off the wall and shattered into a thousand silver shards. For two years he'd carefully pieced each one back together into the frame but all it took was one touch and they all erupted apart.
A hand drifted over his cheekbones, and he blinked in surprise as Myra gently collected the tears in an old kerchief. She didn't say a thing about them, simply sat back and waited with their hands clenched together.
"It was a relief when my parents found out. I didn't..." he shuddered, his foot tapping on the ground, "It meant I didn't have to do it anymore. Didn't have to, that's idiotic. Isn't it supposed to be good? It was, sort of. If I..." If he fooled himself, he could pretend it was. But he knew why he kept going back to her, because he did once. There seemed little point in saying no now that the dragon was out of the cave.
"My mother was going to kill her."
Myra snorted, "That doesn't surprise me."
"No, I mean she was literally moments from killing her," Gavin stared at Myra who gulped at the thought but looked nearly as bloodthirsty as the Hero of Ferelden facing down a woman that hurt her son. "My father stopped her."
"Shame."
"I didn't," Gavin winced, his ears ringing with how at fault he was for it all. "I didn't want her to be hurt, to-to suffer. It didn't seem fair."
It did take two, even if one was only fifteen and his stomach became so knotted at the thought, he began to vomit up blood after. When he was first found out, by one of the older washerwomen, Gavin was terrified. He knew his parents would be angry, but he didn't understand how far beyond rage they'd become.
Knock kneed, he stood at the back while the washerwoman with a tight grip to her arm so she wouldn't flee informed his mother first. Gavin braced himself for a scolding, but it was to her that his Mom burned with a vengeance. She didn't even wait until they were alone to unleash her magic, pinning the woman to the wall. Gavin could hear her gasping for breath, his mother slowly crushing her ribs as she ranted. He couldn't understand a word out of her, the blood in his ears pooling as he began to beg for his mother to stop, to let her go. That it wasn't worth it.
But she wouldn't hear him, wouldn't listen, so he did the only thing he could think of and shouted for his father. The great Commander practically shrieked at the view of his wife pulverizing a woman with her power, before Lana informed him of why. Cullen turned ghost white and whipped his head over at Gavin. "Go to your room," was all he said, his tone colder than the frozen depths of winter.
So that's where Gavin sat, perched upon the edge of his bed wishing he could be anywhere else, anyone else. He wouldn't lift his head for hours, aware that something was happening outside, but not caring. Whatever life he thought he had was ruined, the stains never coming off no matter how hard he scrubbed. What would his parents do?
Some wayward people were shipped off to the chantry. Would that be his future? Days of prayer, fasting, quiet con
templation? Or would there be something much worse?
When his door opened, he didn't even look up, his brow too heavy to lift. "Son?" It was his father, come to dole out the proper punishment no doubt.
Gavin stared down at his wrists, wondering if he shouldn't lift them up for the manacles they deserved. The bed beside him dented as Cullen sat down. For a moment neither man said a thing, both letting the whistle of the abbey air flit through holes in the rock.
Cullen's hand landed upon Gavin's shoulder and he said, "It's not your fault."
"But Dad, I..."
"No," when his father turned to look over at him tears burbled in those same amber eyes, "It is not your fault."
But it was. He knew it, he felt it -- the regret stinging into his skin with every breath. If he'd just stayed away from her, if he'd told her he wasn't interested, she'd have...she'd have left him alone. "I'm so sorry," Gavin blubbered, curling deeper into his dad.
He wanted to be a man but wound up crying upon his father's shoulder like a child instead. Cullen wrapped his arms around him, not flinching at the pariah Gavin became. For a time he lay there against his father's chest, letting every bitter tear fall while his dad only rubbed against his back.
When the tears began to dry to salt, Gavin's sobs slowed as well. Cullen ruffled up Gavin's hair and he said with authority, "You have nothing to apologize for."
"I do, I should have..."
"She should have," Cullen spat out fast, "She knew you were a boy, she made those choices, not you. You couldn't."
It was an easy thing to say, but he did find it thrilling at first. No one since Myra... Even thinking of her churned his stomach white. She was sweet, and innocent, and had no place here. How much would she hate him when she learned the truth?
"I did it. I'd..." Gavin breathed through the fire in his lungs, "I would follow her to places, I'd agree to do...things." He was so green he couldn't even speak the name of what he'd done physically, his cheeks lighting up at the thought. Groaning, he flopped his head to his chest and tucked away from his father, "I wanted to...to be a...to do what everyone else does."
He did, and he didn't. Kissing a beautiful woman was exciting, even touching her in places that were whispered about, but seeing her naked felt scandalous. And then... He didn't like the and then, but he did because his body did. So he must have too, even if he... He didn't know what he liked anymore.
"I was stupid, I ruined...everything. I ruined me, I ruined..."
"Gavin," Cullen sighed and pinched into the bridge of his nose, "You've ruined nothing. I..." His father turned on his seat and tried to look his son in the eye. "When I was a little older than you, I was with a girl."
His head snapped up in shock, Gavin's mouth dropping. His whole life his father spoke as if his mother was the only woman in his heart. That even when they were apart by time and distance, she was it. She was his gift from the Maker.
"I thought being with her would," his dad sighed, "make me a man. But it didn't, and I regretted it. Regretted that I wasted that opportunity so readily without thought. And that regret hounded me for many years."
"So, I should feel bad is what you're saying?" Gavin inched up on his toes wanting to run. "I deserve punishment?" He wished to whip himself, but was growing incensed that his father agreed so readily.
"No," his father shook his head rapidly and sighed, "What I mean is...I did something similar. I thought that the Maker would turn away from me for it. That most would know I was unworthy. But then I met your mother, a woman I have never deserved, and she loves me...more than I can ever understand. We've had so many wonderful years together, we've had you."
Cullen reached over to hug Gavin again, but the boy fought him a bit, still wanting to argue and run. "You haven't ruined anything in your life. This is a setback, believe me I've had worse. Far worse that I pray to Andraste never happens to you. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
Gavin nodded his head because he didn't want to keep being lectured to. It didn't matter what his father said, it felt as if his entire world sundered in half and nothing would fix it. Cullen patted into his back and moved to rise off the bed.
He reached the doorway before Gavin turned to him. "Dad? Does Mom know about you and that first girl?"
Cullen chuckled, "Yes. There is nothing in my past your mother doesn't know of. Don't worry, you don't need to try to keep my secret."
"Good," Gavin smiled, a small weight lifting off his chest, when the entire thing crashed down. Staring at his hands, he whimpered, "What do I do?"
"What do you want to do?"
"Not that, not for...I don't know. What's it matter? I already did it, so..."
"Gavin," he breathed hard, "you never have to do that or anything else if you don't want to."
But he did in that moment, sort of. Some part of him did or he'd have done as he was told, right? Stopped it. "What if I can't tell when I do or don't?"
His father dug into the back of his neck, trying to work away a knot that had to be three decades in the making. "When would you want to?"
He turned into himself, trying to suss out the answer. When he was married. That was the right answer, but it felt too trite and broken. The wedding vows would mean little now. "When I love someone," he said instead.
"Okay then. Make a promise."
"Dad, I..."
"Not to me," Cullen held up his hand and a bittersweet smile dropped into place. "Son, this...this is your life, it's your heart. Make it to yourself."
And he did. Even as the hormones inside of him began to percolate stronger than a hot spring, Gavin did everything he could to keep himself away from girls. To not let himself grow enamored with any that might glance his way because...because he couldn't be trusted with himself. How could he know what was his heart and what was his body's doing? He'd already failed once, doing it again seemed easy.
Then along came Myra. He thought she was safe. She'd been nothing but chaste kisses for two years, the pair of them sneaking off to look at the stars and press their lips together while the crickets serenaded them. She never tried anything else, never pushed him, never made him feel wrong, just happy.
"Myra," he whispered her name, his eyes shut tight as he drew back to the new twisted future before him. She shifted in place, but kept her hand locked around his. "I told myself that...that I wouldn't do anything with a person until I, I loved her. I wanted to marry her, be with her forever."
Her throat swallowed, a lump moving down while she stared at the tent's roof. "I see."
"I like you, I don't know if I've ever liked anyone as much as I do you," he blubbered, wishing his words made sense, "but..."
"No, I get it. I do 'cause, I'm not ready for...I mean, love. That's a big BIG deal. And," she winced as if she should want the same as him. To be in love before making love.
He wished he could assure her that with all of that out in the open, they could return to what they were -- two kids kissing. But he knew he couldn't trust himself around her, not now. Not until he was...better. "My..." he began when she drew in a big sniffle.
Tears of a different type welled up in her eyes and she nodded her head, "I get it. I..."
"You hate me," he winced, his head dropping to his chest. "I'm sorry."
"No, I don't... Gavin, I can't hate you. You're too damn nice," she spat out, surprising him completely. He whipped his head up but Myra was staring up, trying to mask the tears in her eyes. "We can still be...I mean, just forget right? Pretend none of this happened, go back to kissing and I won't do dumb things that people convince me will work."
It would be easy, to smile and paper over the past. He wanted to, to cling to that youthful crush inside of him instead of what was burrowing deeper everyday. One part of him wanted it, while the rest feared that want. "I'm..." he chewed on his lips, his eyes rolling around the tent, "I can't, Myra. It was too much and I don't know if..."
He anticipated a fight, a big one with her starting a fire on her fingers, but
her entire body crumpled in half. She stared down at her hands as if they were covered in dung and shuddered. Sucking in a breath, the tears dripped off her cheeks. "Ya know, out of every reason you could have broken up with me over, and I know there's a lot, this might be the easiest one to understand."
"I wish I was better," he mumbled, truly meaning it. Everything would be so much easier if he'd been a better man then or now.
Myra jammed the heel of her hand into her eyes and tried to swipe the tears away, "I wish I knew a time warping spell so I could go back and kick that woman in the cu-- But, we can't always get what we want. I don't even know if one exists or if it's all fantasy stories."
Slowly, she released his fingers letting them fall unwanted and unloved back to his lap. Gavin tried to curl his other hand around the lost one, but they kept fumbling as if his skin was numb. Sliding back, Myra began to move to the tent flap and away from him for good.
He knew it was selfish, but he had to ask, "Myra?" She turned from her exit, the tears raw in her eyes, "Can we still be friends?"
A single sob erupted from her lips which, in her pain, were redder than any rose. Slowly she nodded her head before wincing. He knew it couldn't be that simple. "Give me time, time to...to think and stuff. And...be away from you, from all that stuff."
Gavin understood, it seemed a fool's hope at best. If he'd been able to control himself, he wouldn't have had to lose her as a friend either.
"But yeah," Myra said, causing him to look up and find a smile taped to her face, "I mean you're the nicest friend I have. I can't lose that. What if I want to borrow money off you one day or something."
He smiled at her half hearted joke, feeling returning to his fingers. Slowly he held them both, wishing it could be her doing it instead. Myra lifted up the flap, no doubt to find someone to console her. Probably Bryn, or...Maker, would he have to see her with another boy?
It only seemed fair. She wasn't broken the way he was. She deserved someone to share in all of those proper firsts with. Someone she cared for, hopefully someone kind and decent. And not Cal.
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