Henry and I pull apart, my eyes widening when Derek strolls into the room. Derek is a year older, and I hate him. He bullies everyone. Henry looks nervously from me to Derek, andthenhe suddenly shoves me, hard. I didn’t expect it, so I stumble back, scrabbling to keep my towel from slipping and exposing my semi-erection.
“Get off me, you pervert!”Henry yells, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth.“He fucking kissed me. He forced himself on me!”
“What?”I stutter, but I can’t get any more words out as betrayal flows through my veins.
Derek’s calculating gaze drops to the towel, lingering for far too long to not notice the bulge. His lips twist into a sneer.“You dirty fucker! I always knew there was something wrong withyou. You wait, I’m telling everyone what a fucking queer you are.”
“No, wait-”
“I can’t believe I wasevenfriends with you,”Henry adds with a coldness to his tonethatI’ve never heard before.“You’re sick, Ben. Sick in the head. I’m glad I’m leaving tomorrow. I never want to see you again.”
“Get out of here, Henry. I’ll deal with the sicko,”Derek says, cracking his fists.
Too shocked to do anything, I’m helpless but to stand there while Henry walks away withoutevena glance back.
“I can’t watch.”I lowered my gaze, knowing what came next.
Henry ran upstairs and told the other boys what had happened. They rushed down to join Derek in beating the living shit out of me. I spent two weeks in the hospital wing, pissing blood and barely able to move from the cracked ribs.
When I returned to the home, no one wanted to talk to me. Everywhere I went, kids taunted me, and the teachers did fuck all about it. I was a pariah, andthatwas how I stayed until I finally leftthatfucking home.
“Why the hell have you brought me here? You think this is something I want to remember?”I snarled as Barbara moved to stand in front of me.
My body trembled with fury, the overpowering stench of sweat making nausea churn in my stomach. I begged my brain to wake up from the dream, desperate to get away from shadows of the past.
“It’s important you remember, Ben,”Barbara said, her voice soft.“This is a momentthatshaped your life. You were made to think there was something wrong with you,thatyoudidsomething wrong.”
Shame coursed through me. She was right. Before this incident happened, I never thought there was something wrong with me; Ijustknew I wasdifferent.But cruel taunts followed me for weeks, months,evenyears, after the incident in the locker room.
If someone tells youthatthere is something wrong with you for long enough, you start believing it.
Barbara reached out to gently rest her wrinkled hand on my forearm.“Let me ask you something. Have you ever let yourself imagine what life would have been like if Derek hadn’t interrupted you? Or better yet, if he’d found you and Henry kissing, and he’d clapped you on the back and congratulated you for taking the next step?”
“No,”I answered instantly, because not once in my life had I ever allowed myself to consider a different story.
“Why?”
A wave of anger rolled through me at Barbara’s inane question.“Because that’s not what happened. I can’t change the past-”
“No, you can’t change the past. But lessons can be learned so you can have a better future.”I didn’t reply due to the lump lodged in my throat. Barbara’s features softened as a sad smile pulled on her lips.“Those boys hurt you, didn’t they? And I don’tjustmean physically; they made you believe you were worthless, and made surethateveryone abandoned you. They pushed you into a black hole of pain, and you’ve stayed in there ever since.”
I released a humorless chuckle.“I think I was inthathole the day my mom abandoned me.”
It was another part of my past I refused to think about. What could a two-year-old have done to deserve being abandoned by their only parent? Maybethatwas the real reason I kept peopleat arm’s length; everyone in my life left me, and each time, it left a scar on my heart.
“I’m not sure that’s true,”Barbara said, lifting my chin to look at her. The locker room behind her slowly began to fade.“You decided early on in your lifethatyour mom abandoning you wasn’t going to hold you back, and you didn’t. You worked hard and made a successful business.”She released my chin, her gaze narrowing on me.“Yet,thathasn’t made you happy, has it? You continue to inflict the pain you carry on others every day because it makes you feel something you lost in the locker room onthatday. Your self-worth and power.”
I didn’t reply because everything she said was true.Evenif it was for the briefest of moments, when I was standing in front of someone, watching them cry or beg me not to evict them, I felt…untouchable.I felt like no one could hurt me.
But what sort of person didthatmake me? The type who enjoyed watching others struggle, when at points in my life I’d been the one to struggle.
“There’s something else I want to show you,”Barbara said, her gaze fixed on me as if she was reading my mind.
“I’d rather you didn’t,”I muttered, somewhat pointlessly.
The locker room completely faded, replaced by a swanky wine bar. My eyes landed on a group of people talking, all with wine glasses in their hands. An older me, aged twenty-four, maybe twenty-five, standing next to a healthy-looking Jake, both of us engaged in conversation with two beautiful women.
Bile tried to push its way up my throat, burning like acid as I swallowed it. I remembered the night playing out before me. Jake and I were celebrating making a profit during the first year of Morley and McScroodge Properties, something neither of us had predicted. Jake had called the two women over, telling me we deserved to have fun for the night.
