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It wasn’t true. Marc may have grown bored with me, tired of our life together, but I also knew, much the same as I knew the truth about my mother’s culpability in all of this, that Marc never hated me.
“It was easy to seduce the little twerp,” Jeb continued.
I’d had enough. Talk to an insane man and what are you going to get? Insanity. I scooted my chair back. This was a bad idea, and it definitely wasn’t helping.
“What? You’re gonna leave now? Didn’t get the answers you hoped for? I ain’t letting you off the hook so easy, faggot.”
I stood.
All these years, I’d love a phantom, a boy I wished for but who, in all likelihood, never existed. Perhaps I’d made the old Jeb up all those years ago, a heady brew of desire, Prince Charming, and balm for my questioning soul all at once.
I turned away, intending to head out the door, shaking and vulnerable, to head for the nearest bar. But there was something I was prepared to say to Jeb when I planned on coming here and, damn it, I would speak the words.
So, I turned back.
I met his gaze and ignored his smirk.
“You know I loved you once.”
The enmity left his expression. His ashen skin color whitened even more. His mouth opened. I figured he might have been expecting rage and accusations, professions of hate. Those things he could deal with. But love? Obviously, that truly caught him off guard.
He looked as though he didn’t know what to say. And that was okay, because I did.
“And believe it or not, I forgive you. Not because I can let go of what you did to me, but because of what forgiveness does formenow. It allows me to begin to heal from the wound you inflicted on my heart.”
He was trying not to laugh. I didn’t care. It was all an act, anyway. I’d reached him in a way he hadn’t expected.
“Try to find the boy you were, if he ever was even real. I’d love to believe he’s still in there somewhere. My Jeb.”
I didn’t wait for a response, but headed for the exit, clinging fast to the image of two boys swimming in the brownish-green currents of the Ohio River, one mistakenly believing he was the protector of the other.
But he halted my passage.
“Wait.”
I sighed, now impatient to be free of him. I stood, waiting, without turning again to look at him.
“You asked me why. I never told you the real reason.”
There was something in his voice—a kind of ache, of vulnerability—that now made me turn to look. He stared right at me as though he were trying to see inside. His eyes glistened.
“He chose me. No one ever did that before.” He lowered his head. His shoulders shook once, twice. He raised his head, wiped his eyes with the back of his head. “Now go on, get the fuck out of here.”
I kept my shoulders back, my head held high, and my tears at bay as I worked my way through the prison with its doors and guards.
He’s human. He’s damaged beyond repair. But he’s human. And he once loved. He once hoped. But, save for me, had anyone ever loved him? Had those parents of his, so involved in their own addictions and pain, ever given him anything that resembled nurturing? Had he ever known the meaning of the wordfamily?
Outside, I was relieved I wouldn’t have to take the long and scary trip home via buses and trains. No, I had a ride.
Hunter waited for me outside.
I pictured him in the beat-up, fifteen-year-old Honda Civic he’d managed to acquire for his new job at Old Orchard Mall in Skokie, working as a sales assistant in the men’s department at Nordstrom. He was doing great, surprising himself more than anyone else. His face was open, smiling, a welcome to a world I wasn’t sure I still had access. His hair, now cut short, his green eyes, and the dark stubble that defined the contours of his jawline caused me to have an epiphany—this was the man I imagined Jeb would have, could have, grown up to be.
If only…
Outside, Hunter waited in the idling car, expectant and grateful for my approach. In the backseat, Vito popped up and gave out a single bark in greeting.
Hunter had come to me not to terrorize me, but to save me. And he would always be that—my savior and maybe, if things continued as they were, my love.
The End
