Written Into Love

by Joe Lechene

  “Tristan, do you know why Erik was thrown out of his house?”

  He stiffened under my grip and his body lightly quivered. I could tell that his once dry eyes started to flow again. He started to shake in my embrace and the sobs started once again. In between sobs, he said, “It was all my fault. I’m the reason that this all happened to him.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  He rolled over and faced me. His black hair was sticking to his tear soaked face. I used my other hand and moved them off his face, revealing his deep blue eyes. The look on his face was enough to make my heart melt for him. He looked like he was in so much pain.

  Taking my thumb, I brushed the tears off the side of his nose. He used his sleeve and wiped the snot off the tip of his nose. After sniffling again, he continued, “We went to the same high school. That’s how we met and first started hanging out. After a few months, well we ended up kissing and shortly thereafter we were together.”

  “That’s really cute.”

  He wiped his nose with his sleeve again, “A couple months later, we were at his house having sex on the couch. His dad came home from work early and walked in on us. He flipped, the fuck, out.”

  Tristan started crying again and I moved my arm up his slender body, resting my hand on the back of his head. As I ran my hand through his hair, he picked up where he left off, “Erik didn’t even have time to completely pull out of me before his father grabbed him by the neck and pulled him off the couch. Erik went flying across the room and into a wall. He beat the living shit out of him, saying that ‘he wouldn’t have a fucking faggot for a son.’ After Erik was unconscious on the floor, he looked at me and told me to go pack his shit up.”

  This time I wiped the snot off his nose as he sobbed some more. “I put my clothes back on and ran to his room. After throwing as many clothes as I could into the two duffle bags that I could find, I carried them back to the living room. By then, he was starting to come back around. He got dressed and we left his apartment for the last time.”

  Tristan sniffled and continued, “I already knew that my parents wouldn’t accept us, so we went to my place and I packed what clothes that I could. We left my house in the middle of the night and ended up at the shelter. If I wouldn’t have hooked up with him, to begin with, he’d still be alive.”

  I ran my hand through his hair again as he wiped his nose. “Tristan, there was no way that you could have predicted that course of events. Yes, it is incredibly sad that neither of your families accepted you for who you guys really are. The only ones at fault here are the fuckers that beat the life out of him. They’re the ones that need to be held responsible, not you.”

  He started crying again, so I pulled him into my side and he rested his head on my chest. I continued to hold the back of his head as his tears soaked the fabrics covering my chest once again. Eventually, he drifted back off to sleep, with myself dozing off shortly after him.

  V

  I waited in my office while Tristan showered and got dressed. While he was showering, I decided that it would be best to call my publisher and let her know that my next set of chapters would be late. After explaining what happened last night, she told me that everything would be fine and she would just extend my deadline for another week. The last call on my current list to make was their boss, my ex-boyfriend David. I wanted to call him when I was up earlier this morning, but I figured that he would still be sleeping.

  The phone rang a couple of times before he answered, “Hello, what’s up?”

  “David, it’s Ian. I have some sad news. Erik got the shit beat out him again last night. This time though… he didn’t make it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The injuries were too bad, he had internal bleeding and a ruptured spleen. He passed away on the operating table.”

  The phone went silent for a minute before I heard anything. “Oh fuck. I’m so sorry man. I wish that I would have been there to walk them out last night. I told them when I wasn’t there to get the bar manager to walk them, but they’re too stubborn sometimes. How’s Tristan holding up?”

  “Terrible, he’s been a complete wreck. The only time that he doesn’t cry is when he’s sleeping.”

  “Have you made the arrangements yet?”

  “We’re heading to a funeral home when Tristan gets his ass out of the shower and dressed.”

  Just as I finished my sentence, I heard the door close and Tristan walked down the hallway past my door in a towel. There were still droplets of water running down his slender torso. He went into their room and shut the door behind him. I was just glad that he was finally clean. He was getting pretty ripe laying in the bed beside me.

  David said, “Well, let me know when it is and I’ll try to make it. I’m really sorry Ian. Tell Tristan that I send my sincerest condolences.”

  “Will do. I’ll text you when we get everything planned out. Talk to ya later.”

  “Later man.”

  I ended the call and dropped my phone on my desk. Not really one for spending time on the phone talking to people, I think that I had enough for the day. I debated working on my book while I waited for Tristan to get dressed, but I said, ‘fuck it’ and just sat there vegetating. It wasn’t too much longer before Tristan came into my office wearing a fresh pair of skinny jeans and a black, long-sleeved shirt. His eyes were still red from crying, but other than that, he looked good under the circumstances. Once he was waiting for me in the doorway, I put my shoes on and got up. I met him in the doorway and we headed out of the apartment.

  …

  The meeting at the funeral home wasn’t entirely what I had expected. As it turned out, it was cheaper to cremate someone in this city than to actually bury them. I wasn’t really keen on the idea and neither was Tristan, but after looking over the expenses, we didn’t really have a choice. At least the cremation came with a little funeral and an urn, that wasn’t cheap either. On the plus side, his ashes would be safe in our apartment and we wouldn’t have to go to a cemetery to visit him.

  I don’t think that the funeral arrangements were what either of us had in mind when we left, but they were as good as they were going to get. Plus, just having that done was about at the limit of my savings account. Picking up life insurance suddenly jumped up higher on my priority list.

  When we left the funeral home, I was actually shocked that Tristan hadn’t started crying again. Of course, he hadn’t said a word since we left the apartment either. We caught a taxi back to the apartment since I didn’t feel like walking to the subway terminal. Tristan stayed close to my side the entire time since we left the funeral home. He was staying really strong, but I could tell that it was only a front and that it was going to collapse as soon as we got home.

  We weren’t in the apartment barely long enough for me to shut the door before he was hanging onto my side crying again. Guiding him through the living room and over to the sofa, I sat both of us down. Tristan sat down beside me before laying his head down on my lap. I ran my fingers through his hair as I laid my head back on the sofa. I knew that he was going to have this pain for quite some time. However, getting him through the next two days was going to extremely difficult.

  …

  When the police finally showed up late in the afternoon, I let them into the apartment and we all sat down around the dining room table. Tristan sat there with his arms crossed the whole time and barely gave them more than a one-word answer. The only time that he gave a more in-depth answer was when he described their attackers. It was exactly the same as the last time that I tried to get the police involved. ‘Three people all dressed in black wearing black ski masks.’ Even I was smart enough to know that the police weren’t going to have any luck with that description. Unless there were similar attacks reported elsewhere. And from my understanding over the past two years, there weren’t.

  After the police finished asking all of their questions, they got up and I walked them to the door. I could tell during th
e questioning that Tristan was having a hard time thinking back to what had transpired. As soon as the door was shut, he had a breakdown at the table. Kneeling down beside him, I wrapped my arms around his stomach and held him. He bent over in the chair and rested his head on the top of mine. That was how we stayed for the next hour. Tristan crying into my hair and tears slowly trickling down my face.

  …

  The two days before the funeral service turned out to be worse than I was expecting. Tristan spent most of the time laying in my bed. I didn’t think that he was quite ready to be in his own bed alone yet. Now getting him to eat or shower, that was another story altogether.

  He was entirely too skinny, to begin with, he couldn’t afford not to eat at all. I had to take his arm and pull him out of bed. Then, I had to walk him to the little dining area that we had and sit him down. He would sit at the table and just pick at his food, barely eating any of it. After the first meal, I told him that he wasn’t leaving the table until his plate was empty. He grumbled, but he eventually ate all of his meals.

  The other problem I encountered was getting him to shower. It wasn’t until the day before the funeral that I realized that he hadn’t showered since we went to make the arrangements. He was just getting up for meals and going right back to bed. When I woke the day before the viewing, I could definitely tell that he was getting ripe. His arm was draped across my chest and the smell from his pit was enough to make me cringe. After waking him up, I told him to go shower. He reluctantly got out of bed and went into my bathroom, not even bothering to close the door behind him. Shortly after I heard the shower turn off, he walked back into the bedroom wearing a towel. Tristan walked out of my room and I heard the door to his room open and close. He reemerged a few minutes later and crawled back into bed beside me. Now he was wearing a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. He resumed the position where he was laying, with his head on my chest and arm draped around my chest. I ran my hand through his still damp hair as he fell back asleep.

  I could understand that he wasn’t ready to deal with life right now, but he still needed to take care of himself. Erik gave his life to protect him and Tristan couldn’t waste that gift away. That was something I was going to give my all to make sure happened.

  VI

  The next morning, I woke up to Tristan lightly snoring on my chest. After glancing at the clock on the nightstand, I decided that it would be okay to let him sleep for a little while longer. Before too much longer though, the pressure on my bladder was becoming overwhelming. After sliding out from underneath a sleeping Tristan, I walked as quietly as I could to the bathroom and slowly shut the door. When I had concluded with my business, I washed my hands and looked at my face in the mirror. From the subtle bags forming under my eyes, I could tell that the past few days were starting to take its toll on me. I started washing my face with warm water. Not that it was going to help, but it made me fill better. Today, at nothing else, I had to stay strong for Tristan.

  When I went back to bed, I found that Tristan had rolled onto his side facing away from me. After covering myself back up, he pressed his back into my side. Not really thinking, instinct took over and I rolled on my side toward him, spooning myself against his slender back. When my arm draped over his side, his hand grabbed the back of mine and pulled my arm tightly around him. I could feel a tear run down the side of my cheek as Tristan’s hair brushed against the side of my face. The strange thing was, the tear that I was shedding wasn’t for Erik. It was for the man that I was holding in my arms.

  …

  “Tristan, hurry up. We’re gonna be late.”

  “I’m trying,” he replied through his bedroom door. “These fucking pants don’t fit.”

  “Open the door and let me see.”

  The doorknob turned and quickly opened. I looked at his waist and realized that he wasn’t kidding. I figured that an old pair of my dress pants would be close enough to fit him. However, they were still way too baggy for his slender waist. I didn’t know what else to do and time was running short.

  “Ah, they sure are. Fuck it, just throw on a pair of your black jeans. They’ll have to do.”

  Tristan looked somewhat annoyed since that’s what he was wearing before I asked him to try the dress pants. The door shut abruptly and I went to my office across the hall and waited. When he reappeared, he was wearing his black skinny jeans, a white dress shirt, and a black suit jacket. The shirt and jacket were some of my older ones. They were a size too big for him, but he still looked good in the ensemble. Actually, if Erik was here, I think that he would approve of it too.

  “Well,” he asked?

  “Sorry, yeah. That looks pretty good on you. I think I actually like the skinny jeans better.”

  “Sweet,” he replied. “Can we get going? I want to get this over with.”

  “Yeah, let’s go.”

  Tristan followed me out the door and down the stairs to the lobby. Since we were running close on time, I hailed a cab out front. It wasn’t like they were going to start anything without us, but I wasn’t one for being late. The cab got us to the funeral home with about five minutes to spare. I handed the driver his fare along with his tip as we jumped out the door. We headed inside and went into the room with the name ‘Erik McAleer’ in white letters on a black sign. I kept my arm wrapped around Tristan’s shoulder as we went inside. When we went into the room, we found it vacant. In the middle, sitting on a pedestal was a bronze urn, with an 8x10 picture of Erik beside it. I could feel Tristan tense up under my grip when he saw it.

  Right after we walked into the room, two other gentlemen walked in behind us. I immediately recognized one as the funeral home director. The other man was dressed in black with a white collar. I had requested a non-denominational service, so I guess we’d see what happened. The two men approached us and shook our hands.

  The priest introduced himself to us, “Hello, I am Father Matthews. I’ll be presiding over the service today.”

  “I’m Ian and this is Tristan, he was Erik’s boyfriend.”

  The priest put his hand on Tristan’s shoulder, “My son, I am truly sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you, Father,” he replied. A tear ran down the side of his face before I wiped it away.

  “Well,” the funeral director said, “unless any other guests are expected…”

  Just then two other people walked into the room. It was a man and what I presumed was his wife. Tristan pulled himself into my side and pressed his face into my chest. That pretty much confirmed that this couple was Erik’s parents. I moved us to one side of the urn while they stood a couple of feet back from us on the other.

  “Mr. and Mrs. McAleer, I’m sorry for your loss.” Mrs. McAleer nodded back at me, while her husband just glared at us.

  I bent my head down and whispered to Tristan, “Don’t worry about them. They’re just here for closure. This time is for Erik.”

  He nodded into my side before lifting his head back up. Still not looking in their direction, he straightened up under my arm. Thankfully, the priest began the service before things got any more awkward in the room.

  “We meet here today to honor and pay tribute to the life of Erik, and express our love and admiration for him…”

  …

  By the time that the service had ended, Tristan was a complete wreck in my arms. Thankfully, Erik’s parents left the moment that the service was over. They didn’t say one word to either of us the whole time that they were here. Actually, I kind of got the impression that if it wasn’t for Erik’s mother, they wouldn’t have shown up at all.

  After they left, we thanked the priest and funeral home director. They handed Tristan the urn containing his late boyfriend’s ashes and gave me the picture of him. Once we got back outside, I felt relieved breathing in the New York City air.

  “Are you fine if we walk home? I think that the air will do us good.”

  Tristan replied, “Yeah, that sounds good.”

  Still holding him
close to me, we started walking back toward our apartment building. Luckily, the spring air was decently warm and there was a light breeze blowing between the buildings. We walked through the streets, in no particular hurry to get to our destination. As we were walking back, I started to wish that I had planned our route a little differently. When we walked by the spot where I had first seen the two of them on the street, I started to lose it. This time it was Tristan trying to calm me down. He took his free hand and rubbed the back of my neck. The subtle affection was helping some, but it didn’t stop the tears from flowing.

  People passing by us on the streets just looked at us like we were crazy. But, I didn’t give a fuck what they thought. I hung onto to Tristan as we walked the last few blocks to our apartment. He stayed supportive the rest of the way back, guiding me along the way. When we got there, he took me inside and into the elevator. After reaching our floor, he walked me to the door and unlocked it. Once we were inside and the door was shut behind us, I collapsed on the couch. Tristan sat the urn down onto the coffee table beside the picture that I dropped there. I had fallen back into the arm of the couch and Tristan cuddled up beside me. He laid beside me, rubbing my stomach through my dress shirt until I finally passed out.