“Ooh, are we playing doctors and nurses? I volunteer to be the patient.”
“Tristan, can you be serious for one fucking minute?”I growled, doing my best to hold in my temper.“Not everything has to be a joke. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m fucking worried about you.”
His smile slipped from his mouth as he slumped into a chair at the kitchen table. Rubbing a hand over his forehead, his eyes met mine.“Sorry. It’sjust…humor has always been my way of dealing with this.”
The rage brewing inside me receded at the realization of his words. I took a seat in front of him and soaked several dry wipes in antiseptic.“Your way of dealing with this? This isn’t the first time you’ve taken a beating, is it?”
He winced when I lightly brushed the first wipe over his mouth, cleaning the cut to his lip.“No.”
“Why?”His head dropped to his lap, but before he did, there was a flicker of something in his gazethatI had never seen from him before. Shame. Gently, I cupped his chin and tilted his face up to look at me.“Why, Bug?”
He swallowed.“Remember I said there were good people in the world, but there were also some assholes?”I nodded.“Yeah, well, I ran into the assholes tonight.”
“Who are they?”I asked softly, dabbing a fresh wipe across his cheekbone.
“Guys I went to school with,”he shrugged.“They’ve always had a problem with me.”
“Because?”
He shook his head, his jaw clenching.“Because I’m gay.”
My heart broke. I knew all too well what it was like to be targeted because of close-minded assholes. It wasn’t right. No one deserved to be beaten up simply because of their sexuality.
“You need to report it to the police.”
Tristan caught my hand as I lowered it.“No. I’m not going to the police.”
My brows lifted at the seriousness in his tone. “Why not?”
“Because they won’t do anything. It’ll be my word against Bill’s, and reporting him and his buddies willjustmake things worse. They don’t live around here anymore; they’re probably back for the holidays. As soon as Christmas is over, they’ll go back to whatever hole they crawled out of, and I can forget about them.”
“Andthenthey come back next Christmas and do the same again?”I asked, silent fury vibrating through me.
Tristan didn’t answer, and for a few minutes, we sat in silence while I cleaned his face. Nowthatthe blood and grime was coming off, it made it easier to assess his injuries. I wasn’t an expert, but I didn’t think anything was broken; he wasjustgoing to have some nasty bruises coming his way.
When I finished cleaning him up, I packed the kit away and returned it to the cupboard before stopping by the freezer to get a bag of frozen peas. Wrapping them up in a towel, I sat down again in front of Tristan, pressing it against his cheek in hopes it would ease the swelling.
“You want to know something, Bug?”I said, holding his stare.
“Sure,”he replied, his tone stoic.
I sucked in a breath.“My first kiss with a guy was when I was fifteen. His name was Henry, and he was my best friend. I’ve never told anyonethatbefore.”The browthatwasn’t hidden under the towel furrowed, but before he could say anything, I continued.“He was leaving the home ‘cos he’d been fostered, and the day before he left, we were alone in the locker room. I wanted to kiss him, but I didn’t know what to say or what to do. I was scared he would think I was weird if I kissed him. Butthenhe kissed me, and for a few seconds, it was like everything was right in my world.”
I moved the frozen bag to a different area of Tristan’s cheek, giving myself a minute for all the emotionsthatwere rushing to the surface to settle.
“What happened?”Tristan asked quietly.
“A kid called Derek came into the locker room and caught us. Henry shoved me away and told DerekthatI had forced myself onto him. Derek believed him, and when Henry ran off, Derek beat the shit out of me.”Tristan cursed, but I barely heard it, lost in the memory.“As ifthatwasn’t bad enough, Henry told a bunch of other boys who ran into the locker room and joined Derek in giving me a good hiding until I fell unconscious. I came to a couple of hours later in the hospital wing with several broken ribs, a broken nose, and was pissing blood. I stayed in the hospital for two weeks, but I wished I could have stayed there forever. By the time I went back to the main home, Derek had told everyonethatI was a dangerous predator, andthatif kids, especially boys, didn’t stay away from me, I’d try to force myself on them because there was something wrong with me.”
Tristan’s hand came up to cup minethatwas pressing the bag to his face, and he pulled it away.“What did the staff at the home do?”
“I didn’t tell them. I didn’t tell anyone.”
His eyes widened.“Why not?”
“Because I was scared,”I replied honestly.“I was scared of what Derek and the others would do, but it wouldn’t have mattered because they did it anyway. I spent years after being the social outcast, called every name under the sun, and beaten up whenever kids got the chance. But I wish I had told the truth about what happened. If I did, maybe Derek would have learnedthatit’s not weird for guys to be attracted to other guys. Maybe he never went on to become a bully. Maybe he would have apologized for what he did to me, and maybethen, I wouldn’t have spent years repressing who Ireallyam.”
Tristan stared back at me, unshed tears in his eyes. Seconds passed, and neither of us spoke until a stray tear escaped down his cheek.“I hatethatyou went throughthat.”
