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“When Mom would relapse, Dad was always there to shield me. He'd make sure she got help, and that I was looked after. Her family would always pay for rehab, but as it turns out, they were the ones to pay for the drugs too.” His voice was grave when he soon added, “It took me years to realize they were also the reason behind her addiction.
“After my dad got killed, in a training accident, things fell apart so fast, I didn't know what to do. There were benefits and money from some settlement I guess, but my mom was so out of it. I honestly don't know if she spent it on drugs or if it got stolen. We got evicted a few months after his passing. We slept in the car for a bit and then there was no more car. When she overdosed in one of the overnight shelters, I was terrified.
“It was a fucking miracle there were decent people there who called an ambulance. I was in the emergency room with her when her family came. I hadn’t spent much time with them before – a brief visit, here and there when I was little. It had been years though, and suddenly I was huddled with them in the waiting room, anticipating updates on my mother. The police came and went, and I was told to go home with them.
“Living with the Kellys was weird – certainly no loving reunion. I don’t know what I had been anticipating, but they simply took me in. That’s what was expected of them. Of course, they could have contacted my dad’s family, but it seemed they took me in mostly out of social obligation, and to maintain a certain image. Once food and board were provided, they checked out. I hardly spoke to them, and they did a fine job ignoring me.
“My mother was in a coma for a month. At first, I went to visit every day, but then…it was too hard looking at her heal, knowing she would shoot that poison in her veins as soon as she was well enough to leave the hospital and get some cash.”
There is another long pause. Sebastian is so still in Ty’s arms, as he utters quietly, “I met my uncle some weeks later when he came back home from overseas. The Kellys live on this giant property. It looks like a ranch, but there are no animals, just some old wells and abandoned mineshafts. A bit of a dead land – no workable farmland, no grazing pastures, or fields. The gold mines were already bled dry by the time they had acquired the property generations ago.
“It was okay. Boring and secluded, but I was safe and fed. Definitely, better than the shelter, even if my grandparents avoided talking to me at every cost. Spending time with my uncle on the property made everything bearable.”
Sensing something big coming and feeling a slight tremble in Sebastian, Ty pulls him closer. Cy scooches in. They have him now, firmly tucked in between them. He must feel that he’s safe. That they are here to protect him from the horrors of his past.
Ty keeps rubbing his back with firm strokes. There is something so vulnerable about the man in his arms, that Ty has forgotten his own pain. He is ready and more than willing to share the burden of Sebastian’s suffering. Listening to him talk about his loss forces him to realize how much they have in common. Had they been this open with each other years ago, they could have both found solace and support. He’s glad for second chances, for the opportunity to pay it forward and make things right.
Sebastian takes a deep breath. His next words are muffled but in Ty's mind, they ring loud and clear. “At first, I thought he was my friend. He was always around, teaching me stuff, and taking me for walks around the property.The safer parts, he’d say. I know better now. He’d take me out for food. Harris signed me up at a private school and for extra tutoring so I could pick up my grades and get ready for college. Taught me how to drive. Even taught me how to shoot. We spent almost all of our time together.
“When my mom got out of the hospital, she came to the house to see me. She tried to convince me to leave with her but I... I didn't want to. She begged me to come with her, but she was high, and I…I thought I can’t do this anymore. I didn’t want to live this way. Harris was so good to me. How could I choose her over him?
“I was angry. I didn’t understand why she blamed the Kellys for everything bad in her life. Sure, they were snobs, no argument there, but the more time I spent with Harris, the more I couldn’t understand why she lashed out at him and tried to make me leave the one person that had shown me kindness and decency after my father’s death.
“She insisted the Kellys were not good people, that there were serious reasons why I never got to see them and why she kept me away from them. Her rambling confused me. I was listening to her, thinking, why can’t I have a normal life? Why can’t she just…disappear?”
Sebastian shifts and Cyril follows his movement leaning in closer and running his hand over the back of his head, soothing him. He doesn’t say anything, but Ty can easily feel Sebastian melting into the touch. This gives him enough strength to push through with his story.
“He wrote her a check. She left. She leftme. I didn’t see her for years after that day. Harris was the one who was always there for me. I felt like I could tell him everything. This probably sounds pathetic, but he was my best friend. Back then, I honestly believed it.”
Cyril is shaking his head, looking hesitant for the first time in days. Ty can’t let Sebastian down now, but it is glaringly obvious this revelation he is about to unleash next is going to be devastating.
“I told him I was gay when I turned sixteen. I wasn’t seeing anyone, but I trusted him, and I wanted to talk to someone about the way I felt. He told me he understood. He came out to me. We knew something so big about each other, it brought us closer together. Then he went on tour and was gone for nearly ten months. I … my heart was torn. My grandparents were as empathetic and talkative as mannequins in a department store. I had missed him so much. I…it didn’t feel like…I thought…” His breathing becomes ragged again, as he is very conflicted about what he needs to say next. “When he came back home, I went a day ahead on my own to greet him at the base.” Sebastian barely utters the last words when he starts shaking violently. He suddenly lurches up and heaves, his stomach spasming, only bile spilling into the dust. He keeps talking through his spit like if he stops now, he won’t be able to get through with it. “I barged into his small rental, and…there were so many men there. Fucking.
“I tried to leave, thinking I somehow had gone into the wrong house, but as soon as I turned, the door slammed shut and Harris was dragging me to the back of the house through the orgy. He threatened me. I had to keep it a secret. He wasn’t out publicly and never would be. He… he encouraged me to stay. I…he gave me something to relax. He said…he said, it’s what I should do todeal with it.”
Cyril and Ty are perfectly still, looking at Sebastian. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and doesn’t move back to the safety of their closeness. For the rest of this story, he will expel the truth out of his guts like the poison that it is. Ty admires him for being brave enough to do it on his own.
“I don’t remember my first kiss. I don’t even remember my first sexual encounter. I was so high on whatever drugs Harris had given me, that I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t care.” His head hangs low, and he doesn’t make a move to turn back and look at either of them.
“I guess not everyone’s first time is with that someone special…Mine was with several servicemen. I don’t remember anything about them or that night. The whole time I was at the training facility I would see a familiar face and wonder if this person has fucked me. Are they walking around gloating, knowing that they’ve had their dick balls deep in a Kelly? Were they pretending nothing had ever happened between us just to taunt me or had Harris instructed them all to keep their mouths shut?
“After all, he facilitated the orgies and supplied the drugs. The secret that we shared, bound us tighter together, but the truth was, we weren’t the same after that first night. He was no longer my family, my friend. He was a dangerous man, I now had to obey. There were consequences to any rebellion. People got hurt. People disappeared.
“Once the veil was lifted, there wasn’t much I could do but accept my fate. Swallow down all my doubts. Pretend it wasn’t all bad.
“We weren’t even hiding all that much. He was my loving uncle to the world. My mentor. My friend. Maybe even a father figure. Why wouldn’t we be close? Why wouldn’t we spend every free day together? Why wouldn’t he take me on trips off base?
“I knew it was wrong, but everything about my life had been wrong. My fucked-up mother still lived while my amazing, loving dad was dead. I was gay and wanted to be in the military, first because of Dad and then because of …him.He was my hero. In a fucked-up, weird way I wanted to make him proud. I wanted to measure up to the high standards he had set up for himself and for me.
“I knew I wasn’t supposed to ask for more. I knew there could never be more for me. I didn’t care how badly my personal life was spinning out of control. I didn’t think there was anyone out there for me anyway. Who would take me after all the sick shit I had done in the span of a few months?”
“I was hurting. He was hurting me. But I had no one. At my lowest point, I still held on to him, somehow hoping we could go back to the time when he was my friend, and our secrets weren’t dark and dangerous.”
Sebastian is sobbing now, shaking his head as if saying those words out loud is still something his body refuses to accept. Sebastian takes a deep breath and continues, his voice bitter and low, “Last year, my mother reached out to me. For money of course. I should have said no, but I hadn’t seen her in nearly a decade at that point and I don’t know…I just wanted to see her.
“She was not well at all. Worse than any other time she had lost the fight with the sickness that plagued her. She was barely standing – ashen skin stretched thinly over frail bones, teeth missing, angry scabs all over her face, and any visible skin. Looking at her made me sick with guilt. I hardly cared she didn’t give a shit about me. What I felt at that moment was remorse.”
“I finally saw her sickness for the way it was completely controlling her. I saw my mother and the loneliness she was drowning in. Without my father to care for her, without me, there was nothing holding her demons back. I had abandoned her to her addiction. The parasitic need that lived in her body, had gotten free rein to take over every aspect of her life. That is all she was – an empty shell, moved by a visceral need to forget her painful past.”
