For the last few minutes,Iggy’s face had run the gamut of negative emotions, swinging mostly between grief and anger, with a hint of betrayal, and Malcolm had deserved most of it. Maybe he hadn’t fought hard enough to make Iggy listen, to get Howie to listen, to explain his side back then. But Malcolm had been suffering, too, upset and turned-around, and he’d had no one to confide in. His sister was in a bad marriage, his parents were not options, and he wasn’t close enough to anyone else at school to talk to. So he’d held it all in.
It had taken several years of grueling therapy for Malcolm to accept he’d done nothing wrong that night, and that he’d had no control over how Iggy had reacted. That two hot-headed teenagers had jumped into a relationship with their whole hearts, and that at seventeen, neither of them had been matureenough to handle the consequences of cruel pranks (and crimes) perpetrated against them by their peers.
Hindsight had given him a horrific 20/20 picture of something he’d tried very hard to forget—until Iggy returned, and they dragged it all into the present.
“You were drugged by who?” Iggy asked.
“I don’t know, a lotta the night’s a blur after that first beer. But I avoided the punch bowl, didn’t take any shots, and only remember three beers clearly, but I was still sick as a fucking dog the next day.” One image from that night did stick out, the only focused part of an otherwise blurry snapshot: Iggy’s devastated face framed by that bedroom doorway.
Malcolm had been vaguely aware of the girl kissing him, touching him, then of seeing Iggy. But Iggy was there and gone so fast, it had felt like a mirage, a reminder that he had someone out there, and his someone wasn’t the girl feeling him up. Wasn’t the girl going down on him. Had people been laughing? He still wasn’t sure.
“I don’t even remember leaving the party,” Malcolm continued, pulling from the few clear memories he still possessed of That Damned Night. “Colby gave me a ride home, which I know is true because he told me later that I couldn’t find my key, and then I passed out on the front porch swing, which is where I woke up the next morning.”
Iggy watched him with a flat expression, but his eyes were wet and bright, as if the assumptions he’d held tight to all these years were battling it out with Malcolm’s truths.
“After I got my head back on,” Malcolm said, “I tried calling you. All weekend. I didn’t blame you for being mad. I was mad at myself. But then you weren’t at school Monday. Or Tuesday. I tried talking to some people about the party. The girl was a friend of a friend from college, no one knew her, but there was arumor that someone at the party had GHB. So, I looked up the side effects. Matched my hangover.”
“Fuck.” Red spots appeared on both of Iggy’s cheeks. “Christ, Monte, you were roofied and…fuck.”
“And my best friend in the world, the person I loved more than oxygen, had ghosted me.” Malcolm no longer felt betrayal over that fact; he felt only grief and soul-deep weariness. He’d let his anger go a long time ago, unable to function while it burned him alive inside. But he still felt an unexpected flash of relief at having finally told this truth to the one man who’d needed to hear it most. “I didn’t cheat on you, sweetheart. I would have never, ever done that.”
“Goddammit. This is all my fault.” Iggy lurched off the bed and took three long strides forward, until the small room’s opposite wall stopped him.
“You didn’t drug me, Iggs. You didn’t set us both up to get laughed at by a cruel fucking prank, perpetrated by a bunch of twatwaffles who didn’t understand that drugging someone is a fucking felony. I just wish they hadn’t gotten away with it, but it’s not like I had proof they’d done anything, even if I’d had the balls to go to the cops.” He snorted hard. “Can you imagine how my old man would’ve reacted if I’d complained to the fucking cops about getting head from a chick? I’d have walked at graduation with broken bones.”
Iggy coughed hard. His shoulders were trembling, and Malcolm stood, alarmed by the physical response. “I could have had proof for you. If I had listened to Uncle Howie, if I’d gone to the hospital the next day like he wanted…”
“What are you talking about?”
Iggy’s next words punched a gaping hole into Malcolm’s heart: “I was drugged, too, Monte.”
“No.” Malcolm crossed the small space and rested his hands on Iggy’s hips, grateful when his Iggs didn’t pull away. Iggy stood there, limp and listless. “What do you mean?”
“I blamed it on the cold meds at first, but I only had one beer that I remember. Then I saw you and they were laughing, and then I was outside, but I couldn’t see the sky, because something was tied over my eyes.”
Malcolm growled.
Iggy raised one hand to rest on Malcolm’s shoulder. “I could smell the earth, and I could hear running water. Feel grass all over, because my clothes were gone. My hands were tied to the trunk of a tree with rope I couldn’t untie. I screamed and no one came. I threw up until I had nothing left.”
Heat and rage coursed through Malcolm, and it took everything inside him not to haul Iggy into a fierce hug. Not to do anything to scare the man trembling in front of him, caught up in a painful memory. “They tied you up and fucking left you there?” he snarled.
“Someone did. I’ll never know who. But I guess someone involved had a change of heart, because all I remember is a branch breaking. Someone whispering to get up. I realized the rope was loose, so I took off the blindfold. They left my clothes and a bottle of red Gatorade. I followed the creek home. All I—” His voice shattered in the most painful way possible. “All I wanted to do was call you. For you to hug me and say it would be okay, but all I could see was you with that girl. I thought you were in on it, that everything we’d had was one long con, and that party was the finale. And all of that at once, Monte? It broke me. Broke me hard and into little bitty pieces.”
“I’m so sorry.” Malcolm eased Iggy into his arms, into the kind of hug they both needed right now. All arms and chests and safety and love. And forgiveness. He couldn’t guess what was in Iggy’s heart right now, but Monte’s was spilling over withforgiveness now that he better understood why Iggy had shut him out so completely. Why hiding had been safer for Iggy than confronting what he’d seen at the party.
Iggy had been protecting himself, too. Just as hard, and from the exact same enemies. One enemy or dozens, they’d probably never know for sure. They’d both been attacked from different directions, and it had torn them apart.
“I knew you were in pain,” Malcolm said, “but I never imagined it was so awful. You’ve got no idea who cut you loose?”
“None.”
Red Gatorade. One had been left behind. Malcolm’s gut churned. “Iggs, yesterday at the ballpark, Clive mentioned red Gatorade, and you got weird. We all went to high school together?—”
“No. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care who did what, not anymore. I don’t want revenge or to solve a mystery.” His fingers clutched the back of Malcolm’s shirt. “Fuck. I thought you were just drunk. I had no idea you’d been drugged, and I am such a selfish prick, oh my god.”
“No, you’re not. If you’re a selfish prick, then so am I.”
“You were the one who was roofied and sexually assaulted by some older college girl, Monte. Fuck.”
