Beyond Complicated (26 page)

"That's not funny," he growled through his teeth.

His hand gripped mine tight and he forced me to look him in the eye. "You tried to commit suicide and you caled it a breakdown. Why didn't you tel me?"

"Would you tel me if it were you? Would you?

Hel, how would you have handled the whole thing?

Have you ever wondered? How would you have handled being gang raped on camera, set up by the person you love the most? What would you have done if it were reversed?"

"I spent four years thinking it was what you wanted and that you walked out on me with a big paycheck. How the hel am I supposed to answer that?

I've only known for two weeks, less than two weeks…" he sighed, laying his forehead on our joined hands.

"I was scared. I was in pain. Real pain. I was ripped inside. My shoulders, I don't know, the stress of being cuffed from behind and used like that messed up something. I can't remember what. I kept reliving it. I couldn't sleep. I dreamed it over and over and every time there were more men and they al looked like you.

I wanted to sleep. I asked a friend for something to help me sleep. She brought me her prescription of sleeping pils left over from a surgery. I was standing in the kitchen looking for something to drink. I was alone. My parents always kept drugs in the cabinet beside the fridge and I found my Dad's depression meds.

Somehow, I decided that was just what I needed. I took both bottles. Al of them. Seemed like the right thing to do. I dimly remember going out on the back deck to drink the rest of my juice and something in my head found a moment of clarity. I don't know. It's hard to make yourself puke when you can deep throat a dick, did you know that? I don't remember anything after that. And that's al hazy. I just wanted to stop hurting and sleep without dreaming. I don't remember taking al of the pils. Next thing I remember is this funny looking shrink in my face. And the cuffs. They shackled me to the damned bed. It was surrounded by bars, not like this. Like jail, I didn't do anything to deserve that. I didn't. I didn't deserve this life. I didn't hurt anyone. I was just a kid and I didn't know any better and it never stopped. This shit hand I've been dealt. I can't love who I want. I can't live the life I want. I have to hide and lie and do things to survive that I don't want to do because I was a stupid kid one night."

I didn't know I was crying. I didn't know Kel had awakened and sat listening to me. I didn't know the heart monitor in the nurses' station had gone off until one of them came in and injected something in the tube.

My arm became realy numb and I heard the nurse tel Seth that if he was going to stress me out then he would have to leave. I held his hand tight and said no or rather I slurred the word. The drug was kicking my ass. Fast.

And his distraught face would haunt me in my dreams.

I'd fucked up my life again. And probably lost the one man I truly loved in the process. And then I let the dark take me under because there was no sense in fighting anything anymore.

The next time I woke up I faced a different man. One who I didn't expect to see sitting by my side.

"Hey, Da," I said, my throat uncomfortably parched.

"What time is it?"

"Noon. How are you feeling, boy?" He seemed to have aged since I saw him last, which was what? Just yesterday? "You gave us al a scare, you know?"

"Sorry, I didn't mean to." Somehow along the years that had become my mantra. Sorry, I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to get that girl pregnant. I didn't mean to lose my scholarship. I didn't mean to take naked pictures. I didn't mean to stick my dick in some guy I'd never met before. I didn't mean to have a nervous breakdown and spend six weeks hospitalized. I didn't mean to screw my son. Or whatever the hel Kel is now. And I sure as hel didn't mean to have a heart attack on the kitchen floor at Grace's birthday party.

"Oh, hel, Grace. I realy messed her big day up."

"You'l just have to buy her that pony she wants to make up for it," Da said with a laugh but it didn't touch his eyes. "Liam?"

"Da, don't ask me anything you don't want to know the answer to." I thought I'd warn him before this went into the realm of way too personal when we've never had that kind of relationship. "My life hasn't been pretty. I'm sorry I've kept a lot of it from you, but it's better that you don't know."

He didn't speak for a few minutes. I scratched at the tape holding the IV in place, noticing the scars on my wrist as I did. I never realy knew how I got them, a few smal slash-like scars, tiny unless you knew what you were looking for. They told me I tried to hurt myself, but never how. I knew now I'd used scissors.

No wonder my Da looked at my hand as I absently scratched. "I'm not suicidal, Da. I'm not going to spend another six weeks in the damned psych ward if that's what you're thinking."

"I wasn't. Not realy," he said softly. "Okay, yes, it crossed my mind. But because it's the hospital and you. Liam. You were always so different I've never known how to talk to you."

"Just say what you need to say, because I'm gay doesn't mean—"

"It's not that, god, Liam, hel, I can live with that, I think. I've been living with it since you hit puberty. I knew. At least, I suspected. But you played bal. And you were good. You liked cars and sports and fishing and boys. I told myself it was just my imagination. You were a kid and hadn't discovered girls yet. Footbal and boys and always boys. Christ, son, other boys had girly mags hidden under their mattresses. You had a naked man magazine under yours."

I groaned, oh, shit, I'd forgotten about that.

"That wasn't mine, I swear to god it wasn't, Toby Matthews brought that over one afternoon when the guys came over. He was such a damned homophobe and he—oh, god, Da, I swear it wasn't mine, he left it on the table and I hid it, meaning to stick in the trash on pick up day. Guess I forgot. I think he was looking to lure someone."

"Probably Brad Carlisle. The rumor about him made it to the teaching staff. No one ever caught him with a guy but there was always that rumor. That the two of you were—"

"We weren't—god, Da. What is this? Do you want me to have a heart attack? Christ. And why does everyone keep bringing up Brad? Yes, Da, I'm gay, I've always been this way, I never looked at girls or girly magazines but I didn't look at gay magazines either and I never slept with Brad, not in that way. I didn't know he was gay. He never told me and I just wanted to live through high school. That was my goal. Get through high school without getting my ass kicked for being queer and figure it out in colege."

"But Sabrina threw a wrench in that plan." He looked everywhere but at me. I ran my hand through my matted hair, finding a sliver of glass. There were smal pin prick scabs on my neck that I hadn't noticed earlier, obviously from the shattered glass. "I asked your friend to look into criminal charges against her. If it's stil something we can do."

"Can't we just leave it alone? Why can't we just let this whole thing rest? The truth is out now. I was a stupid… why didn't I see it? Maybe I did. I don't know. I just wanted the past to stay there, I think. Give her the damned money and see the boy and pretend none of it happened. Can't it just stay that way?"

"No. I'm sorry, Liam. I am. But if you were older when she manipulated you, then I wouldn't have a thing to say about it. You were sixteen and we paid her medical bils for nine months. It was a hardship on us.

The first year of his life we provided insurance and paid her a smal amount of support. That was money that should have gone to you for school. We paid for a paternity test that didn't happen. We paid your legal bils when she took you to court the first time. Your mother and I agree that we want that money returned.

What you want after that is up to you. But, son, the door is open, now is the time to walk through it. You became something you are ashamed of to fulfil those obligations. She robbed you of the life you could have had. And Kelton. I love the kid. I hate seeing him like this. The hate he harbors for his parents. And those other two kids. I wish… I wish we could go back and ask more questions. I wish I could go back and chalenge that damned paternity letter. It was a letter, not a lab report. It should have been a lab report. We paid for it. We should have had a copy of the lab report."

I watched him in stunned silence, I'd never heard him speak more than a few sentences unless he was angry or in class. He was one of those silent type men. Grunting at the table when it was good. I often wondered how Mom put up with him but they seemed to get along very wel. "I did what I thought I had to do.

I knew the money was an issue. I saw the strain. I gave back what I could. You know that. I was just getting farther and farther behind in school and working more and more to cover bils and baby things. They offered me a lot of money. I wouldn't have to do anything I was uncomfortable with. I took it. I've never been ashamed of what I did. And I met Seth. I never would have met Seth."

"You wouldn't have come home from California and tried to kil yourself if you hadn't met him either.

He's the reason you were broken. What he did to you, him and his friends. Just laughing like it was…"

I sat frozen watching his face turn from red to white as he looked at me. "How do you know about that?" I whispered, fear beating in my chest. There was only one way he could possibly know. "Does Mom know?"

"God, no, I wouldn't have shown her that.

Christ, Liam, I'm sorry. The package came while you were comatose, I signed for it. Coleen was at Moira's helping with the baby, we were getting ready to go to the hospital that evening. I opened the package and found a check for an obscene amount of money and the DVD. I shouldn't have watched it. I should have turned it off. But I knew why you'd done what you did. And if you didn't make it at least I knew why. That boy, Seth, I recognized him yesterday. He did that to you and…"

"He didn't know, Da, he didn't. He thought I had agreed to do one last video. He thought it was one big last thing that I'd wanted to do. The producer told him I wanted a big paycheck to tide us over for a long time. He lied to Seth. Convinced him I helped write the script. I loved Seth. And yeah, it was why I came back.

I thought he set me up. I blamed him. I blamed al of them. I didn't want that. I begged and I pleaded and I fought them but… you saw it. He meant to humiliate me, he wasn't going to let me go. He said so in the end when he took his turn. That guy was the one who raped me, Da. He did it because he wanted to own me. He couldn't so he tore Seth and me apart."

"Twenty grand is a great deal of money—"

"That's chicken feed. He paid me enough to assuage his guilt. I should have made five times that for that video. He's probably made a few milion off of it.

Da, honestly, I am not having this conversation with you right now. I told you, my life is painful, you don't want to dig into it too deeply. You won't respect me if you know the things I've done. For money."

"I wondered where the money came from.

When I had power of attorney I paid your bils, and there was so much in your account. You couldn't have made al of that working as a CPA for a couple of years. But you didn't, did you?"

"I did. I worked a nine-to-five job during the week and made a couple of movies a month on the weekends. I made more in a weekend than I made in three months at the day job. We were working to get Seth through law school and then we were done with the movies. Going to come back here and be a family. I was going to introduce him to everyone. We'd been together for six years by then. I was going to tel him about Kel and we were going to be normal. Wel, sort of normal, as normal as we could be, considering."

Da sat for a long time after I stopped talking.

He seemed to be in another world. His hands moved on his knees. That was about it. "Da? I don't want you… I never wanted anyone… I didn't mean to cause anyone pain. I'm sorry, so sorry. I was stupid and afraid and I wanted that monkey off my back."

He seemed to be thinking. His eyes were deep black like mine, cloudy now as if storms brewed behind them. "Kelton and I had a long talk this morning," he said finaly. I groaned. My whole world just came tumbling down. Al of my secrets. My father knew al of my secrets and any hope I ever had of a normal life was gone. If I escaped with a scrap of dignity, I would be lucky, if I were realy lucky my family wouldn't slash my name out of the family bible.

"Okay?" I said in the silence. Dread and sorrow filing my chest.

"He said the things that bitch was screeching about yesterday were true. That you and him have a relationship."

I didn't know what to say. I could only nod my head and look away. Shame. Even if he isn't my biological son, I stil thought of him as my son.

"He takes ful responsibility for that. He said he thought you knew. That he thought everyone knew the truth. He says he seduced you when you were weak.

And it's on him. You never did anything to him. Liam?"

I couldn't stop the tears roling down my cheeks, I couldn't look at him. I puled my legs up to my chest and I sat huddled like a kid during a thunderstorm. "I'm leaving. I took a job in New York. I won't come back. I promise. I don't want you to take legal action against Sabrina. I'l send you the money.