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“It mostly lasted until I was thirteen, about once a week. It became ordinary, like schoolwork. The same time, the same place. It was so mechanical that he didn’t even bother speaking with me after a while. I just walked in, got naked, laid on the bed, then he’d do what he wanted.”
“Do you think that anyone knew what he was doing?” Anthony asked, keeping his voice low like he was worried about waking someone.
“I think some of the other kids got wind of it, but they didn’t give me a hard time. I once asked Mr. David if he was doing that with anyone else, and he looked offended. ‘I told you that you were my favorite, Daniel. There’s only you.’I’ve no idea whether that was crap or not.”
“Who’s Daniel?” I asked.
He crossed his arms. “Me. Chris came later when I started college. A fresh start and all that.”
The realization I never knew his real name shook me to my core. I rubbed my face.Daniel.
“You said it mostly lasted until you were thirteen,” Anthony said.
Chris nodded. “It sounds ridiculous saying it out loud, but when I started growing hair under my arms and having a bit of pubes, Mr. David looked disgusted. For a while he made me shave everything off and we tried to pretend everything was the same, but it didn’t last. He knew I was no longer a little boy, so eventually he stopped inviting me to his bedroom. I think we barely said more than a handful of sentences to each other in the following three years.”
“Then you were adopted,” I said warily. Until now, I didn’t know anything about his life at the group home, but I did know a bit about his life with his adoptive family because they were still somewhat in the picture when we were in college. Chris used to get angry every time anyone mentioned them until no one dared to.
Chris scratched his arm, reluctant to proceed.
“It’s okay,” I said. “You don’t have to continue.”
He shook his head. “It’s fine. We’ve come this far. I was sixteen when Mr. David called me to his office. I was shocked since we hadn’t spoken in ages, and I hadn’t done anything that might’ve gotten his attention. I wondered if we were going to have sex again, and whether I should shave myself before coming to his office. It was weird thinking like that again after three years, but I couldn’t think of a reason for him to call for me out of the blue. When I got to his office, two people were there besides Mr. David; a man and a woman. I didn’t know a lot about rich people, but those two seemed loaded with their fancy clothes. They smiled at me, but it felt fake, and I remember thinking they were not good people. Mr. David told them I was the one he’d told them about, the one who should fit what they were looking for.”
Chris let out a long, shaky breath and closed his eyes. “The woman—I thought she was beautiful with her red hair—came to me and held my chin. She looked into my eyes and tilted my head from side to side. She said, ‘He’s perfect,’ but the way she said that felt wrong, not like a compliment. The man—Robert—said, ‘We’ll take him,’ and then signed on some papers that were waiting on the desk. It felt like he was buying a car. Mr. David told me to go pack my things, that I was going to live with those people from now on. I asked if they have a different group home, and why I was being sent there if I didn’t do anything wrong. Robert said that I was going to live in their house, to be their son. He said they have two other biological sons, and I was the final piece they had been looking for to make their family whole. It sounded genuine like they really had been waiting for me to come along. When you’re sixteen, you’re way past fantasizing about being adopted, so I tried telling myself I was lucky. I went to pack my things, and the other kids bombarded me with questions because something like that didn’t usually happen. They were worried about me but tried to hide it because, after all these years, we were family. I took my things, and we drove off. It was the last time I saw Mr. David or any of the other kids.”
He went quiet then, opened and closed his mouth a few times to continue, but no words were coming out. Finally, he leaned his face into his hands.
“Chris, I think it’s enough for now,” I said. It was selfish, but I really didn’t know how much more I could absorb, and something told me greater darkness lay ahead in the rest of the story.
“Okay,” Chris said and raised his head. His eyes were bloodshot although he wasn’t crying. “Best to leave it at that.”
We remained quiet for a while, the air in the cabin heavy. I didn’t know if I should comfort Chris or give him space. Anthony was the one who broke the silence. “I’m sorry it happened to you. No one deserves to go through this.”
Chris shrugged. “Maybe I do.”
“Don’t say that,” Anthony snapped.
“I’m not a good person, Ant.” He locked eyes with Jay, who was still holding the gun. “You know that about me.”
Jay looked away. “I don’t know what I know.”
“It was a good plan,” Chris said, “bringing me here by saying you weren’t coming. You cheated though, right? In poker.”
“Yeah, I cheated.”
Chris nodded, looking more impressed than angry. “Best cheating I’ve ever seen. But to be fair, you did have help.” He looked at me, and my face got warm.
“Sorry about that,” I mumbled.
“When did you start hating me?”
The question felt like a blow. “I don’t hate you. I could never hate you.”
“Then what was it?”
“After I heard about your connection to Jay going to prison and the way you treated Anthony, it made sense for you to face some consequences. I didn’t know things would go the way they did.”
Chris asked Jay, “What was your end game?”
