Love Him Steady

by E M Lindsey

  He was an interloper who had defied generations of genetics that produced a legacy of Deaf Pride long before they had rights and privileges and jobs. When spoken language was drilled into them by angry-faced hearing teachers forcing them to sit on their hands and repeat the mimic of sounds until it resembled nothing like speech, his parents had raised their hands and declared they would not be defined by the hearing.

  ‘Never my children,’ his mother would say. ‘Never them.’

  She didn’t like him, but she was determined to raise him with the same cultural values as everyone else in their long legacy of Deaf identity. It was the one thing about his childhood he didn’t regret.

  Wilder’s voice was used for unintentional sound—crying, laughter, screaming at the top of his lungs as he ran through fields. And no one ever noticed, and it never mattered.

  But he was an outsider. The Deaf school wouldn’t take him, and with good reason, but it forced him to endure a culture he just fundamentally didn’t understand. His mainstream school sent him to hours of speech therapy, and the teachers there were frustrated because he was capable of spoken English, but it didn’t make any sense to him. He would sit in lessons for hours and try to repeat the things they told him, and he didn’t know why, because it was so much easier to just sign. He was tired of being punished, tired of being forced through sentence after sentence until his throat hurt, and his hands ached from squeezing his fingers tight so he wouldn’t reply with his hands. He wanted it to stop, wanted to go to school with his sister, with the other Deaf kids because that was where he belonged.

  Except, that wasn’t where he belonged.

  “You’re hearing, and you need to learn to function like a normal person,” his speech pathologist told him when he finally found the words to make her understand why he was so damn miserable. He was five, and he was so alone, and he was so lost.

  “Normal people use words like this,” she said.

  He still didn’t understand, and if that’s what normal was, he didn’t want it.

  If this was normal, then normal was bad. Normal was wrong.

  He was in college by the time he realized that his mother’s opinion of him was not the rule, it was the exception. He wasn’t allowed to play with the other hearing kids Deaf parents had. CODA was a filthy word in his house—a word that meant wrong, and broken, and unchangeable. He used to fantasize about waking up with all of his hearing gone and he’d cry, and his mother would hug him, and finally, things would make sense. He would be wanted, he would fit in, he would have a place in his family.

  By the time he learned that her opinions were small, and cruel, and reviled amongst her peers, the damage was done. At Deaf events on campus, he met CODA who frowned when he asked how they managed through all the pain. Deaf adults gave in to their urges to hug him—total strangers offering affection where he’d been starved of it so desperately his entire life. They sat him down and told him that she was wrong, not him. That there is a line between lamenting that cultural divide between yourself and your child—and the abuse that he suffered at her hands.

  It made him feel sick to understand that his entire life had been a lie. It made him want to tear his hair out when he finally had words to label her for the way she had treated him for most of his life, because none of those words changed anything. Abusive—she was abusive, and he was abused, and it didn’t matter, because nothing would erase the damage she’d done.

  His freshman year was a mess after that. He found his way into the LGBT club, found his way into the Deaf club. He searched for somewhere that made him feel like he could finally put those shattered pieces of his identity together in a way that gave him form and structure—but he felt too fragile to trust himself.

  He was lonely. He knew, deep down, he pushed people away out of fear, because there was no telling who was hiding cruelty behind a kind smile and a handful of careful words. He avoided thinking about things like therapy and doctors and help, because it would mean having to re-live the last nineteen years of his life, and he wasn’t strong enough for that.

  Wilder was trying to be braver, but there was no way to hide his vulnerability. He didn’t know how to stop himself from acting like every bit of kind attention was a gift. And it was only a matter of time before someone took advantage.

  It happened in a bar—one of the few on campus that often ‘forgot’ to check IDs at the door. He and a couple of his friends from his Chem class were nursing beers and trying to look like they were older and more mature. Wilder thought maybe if he could pretend just enough, someone would be willing to look past all the battered and bruised bits of his insides and find patience enough to love him in spite of it.

  He caught a set of small, blue eyes across the bar. Thin lips curved into a smile, long fingers traced a circle around the rim of a pint glass. Wilder was hooked, and there was no one around at the time with enough experience to tell him that someone like Scott—someone with dead eyes and a cruel mouth—was only going to ruin him.

  Men like Scott were predators, they made it their mission to recognize those subtle signs of someone who wouldn’t run—someone who had been conditioned to be grateful for the scraps they were given. Someone like him.

  It only took a few words, a few compliments, and Wilder was gone. Scott went home with him, and somewhere between their first and third date, he stopped leaving. And it was good at first—just enough to disarm Wilder. Just enough to convince him that all he needed in the world was Scott in his bed at night. Wilder had been desperate for someone to validate his existence, and Scott fucking him into the mattress—no matter how rough it was or how much it hurt—did just that.

  But it didn’t last. The scraps of kindness evaporated and left behind Scott’s temper, and his possessiveness, and his paranoia. Wilder managed to graduate by the skin of his teeth, because Scott wouldn’t stop accusing him of flirting with the other students, the TAs, and the professors. His grades dropped, but he scraped together enough credits to walk that May, his parents and sister missing from the crowd, and was welcomed afterward by the coldness in Scott’s eyes.

  And yet, he stayed.

  He got a job, and they got a new apartment. Scott spent Wilder’s money—keeping them constantly broke. He was out all night and came home angry and made Wilder pay for whatever had gotten him worked up. The careful bruises became bolder, the too tight grips became violent. He lived with it—his health failing. He was dizzy all the time, his ears ringing all the time. He couldn’t eat, his insomnia raged, and every time he brought it up to Scott, the man just laughed and told him to suck it up. The unease in his gut grew to full-blown terror, and it formed into a quiet, unacknowledged belief that Scott was probably going to kill him one day.

  And still, he stayed.

  He had no idea why, no matter how often he asked himself. He knew he should pack his bags and run as far and as fast as he could. But he had nothing. Scott had met his parents once, and his mother had told him across the table in sign language that Scott didn’t understand, if he continued in the relationship, he had no support. His mother had made him choose in that moment, so he had.

  Scott had gone home triumphant, and Wilder had gone home an island.

  In the end, he was both right and wrong.

  In the aftermath, Wilder didn’t remember much about the night Scott had almost killed him. He knew there was a fight, and he knew there was something cold and vicious in the way Scott looked at him. After that, there was pain.

  He woke up on the little triage bed in the ER. His eyes felt heavy, like they were coated with sleep, and there was a funny, heavy, buzzing sensation in his ears. He knew he should be hearing the beeping from the monitors that were strapped to his body—just like he knew there should be pain from the places on his arms and thigh which were wrapped tight with gauze—but everything was just absent.

  “Mr. Torres, I see you’re with us now.”

  Wilder heard him, but only just, like the man was speaking under water.
“I…there’s something wrong.” His mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton.

  The doctor gave him a sympathetic look as he stared at the chart. “How much do you remember, Mr. Torres?”

  He swallowed again, and his tongue got stuck to the roof of his mouth. It took him a moment to pry it away, and he coughed. The sound was heavy, muffled in his ears, and he wondered what the hell actually happened. “I was home with my boyfriend…and he…” His throat went thick with unshed tears, and he turned his face away. “What’s wrong with me? What happened?”

  “Well, for one, you had a nasty blow to your head, Mr. Torres. It resulted in a mild concussion.”

  At least that made sense. He nodded, and then the world swam, and he panicked, grabbing the handle on the bed like he might topple over as the room turned upside down. “I’m so dizzy, and I feel…I can’t…hear well.”

  “Part of it is the concussion, but part of it isn’t,” the doctor said. “We did a CT scan and found some nerve damage in your ears. Have you been experiencing vertigo lately?”

  “A few years now,” Wilder admitted. He swallowed a couple times, like it might clear things up, but nothing happened. “Did I fall?”

  The doctor pulled a face, and though Wilder couldn’t hear it right then, he imagined the man hummed. “I’m afraid not.” The doctor turned his head sharply like he heard something, then his shoulders rose and fell with a sigh. “There’s an officer outside who would like to speak with you about last night.”

  Wilder felt panic rippling through his body. “What? Why?”

  “You were stabbed.” The doctor’s tone was firm, matter-of-fact, rising above the humming buzz in his ears. “Your neighbors found you in the hallway. You have six stab wounds and a concussion, Mr. Torres. You nearly bled to death.”

  He shivered once, then twice, then suddenly it was like he’d been plunged into icy water. The room went foggy, he lost his breath, and the rest of his hearing faded out. He didn’t come to until he was being wrapped in a heated blanket and a straw pushed through his lips, and even then, it still felt like he was gasping for air.

  Greedily, he drank cool gulps that soothed the ache in his throat, and he clutched at the blanket with trembling fingers. Sound came back, in fits and bursts until it settled into that weird, underwater fog from before.

  A nurse was speaking, but her voice was too soft. It was a low hum of syllables and tones, but no definition. Still, it was soothing, and he let her push him back and prop up the bed, so he was halfway to sitting, and he felt a bit more like himself after that.

  He could feel the wounds now, though, and the throbbing at the back of his skull. He rubbed it with careful fingers, then stretched his arm to see where the gauze covered at least a foot of open flesh. His arm ached, his skin felt tugged and stitched tight, and he knew without a doubt he wasn’t getting away without scars.

  “How?” he whispered.

  The doctor looked up. “The police will have more details than I do. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say it so bluntly. You went into mild shock. Just let me know when you feel ready to talk to them.”

  Wilder licked his lips, his tongue still a little too dry, and he swore for a second he tasted blood. He wondered how long he’d been in there, how long he’d been out. He wanted to know how his neighbors found him, and if it was Scott who…

  But, of course it was.

  There was no one else, and the police were the only ones with real answers.

  “I think I’m ready,” he said, forcing the words past his lips. “I need to get this over with.”

  The doctor raised a brow. “Are you sure? Mr. Torres, I understand that this is a difficult situation, but you have every right to take a moment.”

  Wilder shook his head, then fought off another wave of vertigo. “I need to…I need to know.”

  The doctor gave him a scrutinizing look, then turned on his heel and walked out, pushing the curtain behind him like a billowing cape. It settled, and the nurse fussed with his machines and said more words that he couldn’t understand. It was easier to ignore her, to close his eyes and attempt to remember what the hell happened that night, because although he knew Scott was capable of terrible things, something in him hadn’t expected to end up here.

  There wasn’t much though, just images, feelings. He remembered yelling at him, saying he wanted it to be over. He remembered Scott’s furious brows and his fingers reaching for him. He didn’t remember the knife, though, or the blow to his head. It was like a black, empty hole existed where the pain began.

  An officer entered a moment later—a tall, broad-shouldered man with dark brown skin, full lips, and soft brown eyes. He approached the bed but didn’t get too close, and his voice was a low rumble in his chest. “I’m Officer Daniels. Are you okay to talk?”

  Wilder nodded. “Yes. I’m…I think so.”

  The officer sighed, then looked down at his little tiny notepad that fit into the palm of his hand, and he began to write. “Your name is Wilder Torres?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re twenty-two years old?”

  “Yes.”

  The officer tapped his pencil on the pad of paper, then reached behind him and grabbed a chair. “I’d first… to ask if…you… questions?”

  It was the first time Wilder missed some of the words, and he felt a sudden wave of frustration even though he caught the gist. “What happened to Scott?”

  He watched the officer’s eyes narrow. “…arrested last night…down the street…”

  Wilder held up his hand. “Can you move closer and maybe speak up a bit?”

  The officer stared at him for a long moment, then shifted his chair closer and cleared his throat. “Is that better?”

  And it was. Wilder let out a small, relieved breath. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s going on.”

  Daniels shook his head. “I understand. Are you able to answer some questions about last night?”

  Wilder bit his lip, then nodded. “I don’t remember much.”

  “What about events leading up to the attack?” Daniels asked, and Wilder felt another chill of panic race through his limbs.

  He forced himself to breathe through it, to dig deep into the long years he had been under Scott’s furious, vicious control. He thought about years’ worth of bruises on his arms, the occasional too tight grip around his throat, the way Scott would look at him like he actually got off when Wilder was hurting.

  He knew what it was. He’d been fighting the truth, fighting the reality that he’d gone from one destructive, toxic home to another and still hadn’t run. He felt like a coward, and the reality of it threatened to choke him. He was terrified to admit it to Daniels, because he was going to ask the question Wilder had no answer for.

  Why did you stay?

  There were a hundred, a thousand reasons, and none of them would make any sense.

  Wilder felt something hot on his cheek, and he realized then he was crying. Daniels’ gaze was soft, and he leaned a little closer when he spoke. “I understand this isn’t easy.”

  Wilder shook his head. “I just…I feel so…” He sniffed and rolled his eyes away. “I feel so stupid.”

  “I don’t like admitting how many times I’ve had this conversation,” Daniels told him. “With men who are made to feel weak and cowardly for admitting that someone has hurt them. But I need you to understand one thing.”

  Wilder blinked, giving the man his full attention. “Okay,” he whispered.

  Daniels cleared his throat, and though Wilder’s hearing was going in and out, through waves of fog, he heard his tone plain as day. It was honest. And it was safe. “I believe you. Whatever happened, I believe you.”

  It was nothing short of a miracle that Wilder’s sudden and intense desire to break down didn’t consume him entirely. He managed a thick swallow and a barely there whisper of, “Thank you.”

  Daniels nodded, not quite smiling, but almost. “Do you think you can talk to me about Scot
t Spriggs and the relationship you two had?”

  And for the first time, Wilder knew he could.

  Wilder held his wrist with his free hand to keep the dropper from trembling as he slowly added the banana essence to the mixer. It was a delicate thing, a make-or-break moment where he’d either have something delicious, or he’d have to throw another batch of wasted ingredients into the bin and start over. His overhead prepared for waste, but over the last few years, Wilder had grown into an unforgiving perfectionist, especially with his bakes.

  Most days, standing in the too-warm kitchen of his Cherry Creek bakery, people like Scott Spriggs and his mother were nothing more than a distant memory. At best, a fading ghost—the impression of toxic energy left behind from a life he had abandoned. The moment Officer Daniels had left his hospital room and he was transferred into inpatient recovery, he had made a decision about his life. Enough was enough. He’d lived under the heel of too many angry boots, and there was no need for it. Not anymore. Refusing to deal with the trauma his mother had caused had led him straight into Scott’s arms, and he wasn’t going to make that mistake twice. He’d nearly paid with his life, and he’d gotten away with nothing more than a handful of ugly scars and progressive hearing loss—and both of those were nothing more than proof he had survived.

  He’d taken his trauma, his increasing deafness, the rift with his parents, and his fear of ever being touched again, and he threw them all into something new. Weeks after he was released from the hospital, he set foot on the community college campus with a bag on his shoulders and a firm set to his jaw, determined to find something that made him feel like he could breathe again. Something that had no connection to his former life. Something that could redefine the man he’d become, shaped by the events of his past, controlled by himself and himself alone.

  He started with culinary classes on a whim, but after fucking up his seventeenth poached egg, he was ready to put his spatula through the wall and never look at a boiling pot of water ever again in his life. He didn’t even fight it when the teacher, eyes full of pity, laid a hand next to his on his prep table and said just loud enough for him to hear, “I don’t think this is for you.”