Haunted Heart (7 page)

“It wasn’t your fault.” Duncan’s voice cracked, but it was strong and adamant. Clearly he believed what he was saying. Surprisingly, that made Ruben feel a bit better.

Still, he distanced himself from the past events as he walked down memory lane, like he had been taught by the psychiatrists. “He came posing as an event planner, hired by Rose for one of her charity functions. I knew so little about that part of Grandma’s social life that I had no way of knowing if it was true. He seemed to know so much about Rose. So… I let him in.” He tried to say it with nonchalance but doubted he was successful.

Duncan sighed, and it was an almost despondent sound. “You lied because of his false story. You lied to protect Rose from the reason why you’d let him in.”

Ruben nodded, thankful Duncan understood. “Yes. That and being gullible. I should have known better. But he smiled and cajoled, and I was smitten. A teenage crush.”

“That’s perfectly understandable,” Duncan said, his tone soft and soothing now. He was offering Ruben comfort with his voice, and it worked like a charm. “We instinctively trust people who are kind to us. It’s part of our psyche, I think. It takes a hardened and callous person to betray that faith. Especially what… that man did.” Duncan took a harder edge to his words when he spoke the last part.

“Thanks for not saying evil. That would’ve been a bit melodramatic.” Ruben tried to bring some levity into the situation with a chuckle, but it rang hollow.

“I didn’t say he wasn’t evil,” Duncan retorted, his tone laced with cold fury.
He feels that for me
. Ruben wasn’t sure how he felt about that. A part of him liked it. “I’m afraid I’m one of those people who doesn’t get it. How causing another human being unspeakable pain and trauma can make someone hard and horny. It’s sick. To want to… force it, to violently take, to be brutal. No, I don’t understand it. And… I
do
think that man was evil to do what he did.” Duncan lowered his gaze, fidgeting nervously. “To someone as beautiful as you.”

“So ugly people can be raped, then?” Duncan’s gaze shot up, eyes wide with disbelief and growing anger. Ruben flushed with embarrassment. He had meant that as a joke, but since he didn’t have much experience with humor or social situations, he was clearly unsuccessful. “Sorry….” Ruben could feel Duncan’s eyes boring holes in him, and it was a sickening feeling.

The silence stretched to uncomfortable lengths, growing more awkward and thicker by the minute.

“Ruben?” Duncan sounded gentle again, and Ruben felt totally unworthy. He wanted to run to a corner and sniffle, and he hated being so utterly weak. “You are a good person. I believe that with every ounce of my being.” Tears did cloud Ruben’s vision then. “What happened to you on that day, for a young man unaccustomed to smooth talkers…. You did nothing wrong.”

“I shouldn’t have let him in.” Ruben just knew he sounded miserable to the point of whiny.

“That’s what men like that count on. Their charm, their smiles, their whole approach is tied to your trust. Lies come easily to them. It is all too easy to fall for their unspoken promises. You didn’t do anything wrong.
He
did.”

Slowly, Ruben nodded. He longed to believe what Duncan was saying. But doubts and fears had plagued him for so long they had eroded his self-confidence into holey swiss cheese.

“Please, tell me,” Duncan asked. His tone was husky, but Ruben had a feeling the fury he radiated was aimed at his attacker.

Ruben felt small, and the instinct to curl into a ball was strong. He fought it. “He came in. We talked in the parlor. Small talk, nothing serious. I offered him coffee. He said yes, and I went to make it. I… I didn’t hear him walk up behind me. He hit me with something, on the back of my head. I was dizzy and in pain. I fell on the floor. He half dragged and half carried me to the bedroom. I don’t know why he moved me. He tore my clothes off. Then he was on top of me….”

Taking deep, calming breaths, Ruben focused on the routine of going over what had happened, using simple words and short sentences, minimizing the effect. The shrinks had taught him this, and he was grateful not to have to go into deep descriptions.

“You don’t have to—” Duncan started to speak, his voice all but broken.

Ruben shook his head, quieting his guest. “No. No, it’s fine. The shrinks said it would help to use words to go over it instead of mulling it over in my head.” Then he realized he had just admitted to Duncan he had been in the care of psychiatrists. It was an intimate knowledge of his past, even though he had never been admitted to an asylum, and he had never seen the inside of a padded room.

“I’m glad if the doctors were able to help you,” Duncan said, sounding a bit relieved. “Everyone in the damn country sees psychiatrists. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Especially if they helped.” There was some humor in his voice, and Ruben appreciated his downplaying the severity of it. Ruben had suffered from depression at the time, but he had overcome that.

The agoraphobia had come later, out of the blue, catching him by surprise. After all, a whole week had passed since the incident in question before Ruben had gone out, intending to walk down to the mailbox as usual. But everything had started spinning. Then what had been a clear blue sky felt like a roof made of cement, collapsing on top of him with so much weight it would crumble him into dust.

Rose had found him half a minute later in a fetal position on the porch, screaming his head off, unable to move.

After that, he’d seen the shrinks via teleconferencing, and it had been too impersonal and distant to aid his anxieties in any meaningful way. Ruben had tried so very hard, but nothing had come of it. Rose was the only one he allowed near him. He had even pushed Benjamin away.

So here he was, five years later, trapped in the house where it all happened, unable to leave but praying he could.

“Thankfully, it didn’t take him long to finish,” Ruben said finally, his tone hushed to a near whisper. “I saw the clock on the nightstand as he…. It lasted for exactly seven minutes and twenty-nine seconds. He used a condom, at least. But it hurt a lot. It was my first time. If there’s a magical sweet spot inside me, he sure missed it.”

Duncan winced in empathy, and Ruben liked him all the more for it.

“When he was done, he took the condom with him. Then he slapped my face, punched me in the gut, kicked me a few times. There was more but… the memory’s distorted. Too much pain to see through clearly. When he went away, I heard him ransack the house downstairs. Later I learned he had stolen some of Rose’s jewelry and a couple of antiques. After that he left.” Ruben sighed. It had been a long time since he had last recounted this real-life horror story. As usual, he felt drained of energy, of the will to live, of light within. But, somehow, he also felt better for it, lighter, and he knew it was because he was telling this to Duncan. The man seemed to understand and empathize—and still care.

Duncan did care, didn’t he? Ruben shivered at the alternative.

“I heard the door slam shut, but I couldn’t get up for a long time. I guess I was in shock. Plus the injuries, of course. When Rose came home….” The lump in Ruben’s throat felt awfully big to breathe past. “I lied to her. I told her a stranger had surprised me in bed, asleep, and raped and beaten me, and then robbed the place.”

“That was true,” Duncan cut in, his voice rationalizing.

“Maybe. From a certain point of view.” Ruben glanced at one of the familiar pictures on the mantelpiece, where Rose was smiling happily, her slender arm around a grinning kid. There were times when Ruben couldn’t recognize himself from the photos. They spoke of a happier past he could scarcely recall. “I told her and the police I couldn’t identify the… the intruder, that I hadn’t seen his face.”

Duncan leaned forward, his expression strained, his gaze intense. “You mean, he’s still out there somewhere?”

“No. No.” Ruben shook his head. “About a month later, he tried to break into another house, this time in Silverdale, but the owner surprised him with a shotgun. A hunter. The man who raped me… he was shot and killed. I saw his picture in the paper and recognized him right away. There had been a thirteen-year-old boy in the house then. If he had….” A sob escaped him. “It would have been my fault.”

All of a sudden, Duncan was there, sitting next to Ruben, his warm, strong arm around his shoulders, comforting him. “No, Ruben. You can’t think like that. What-if’s never serve a useful purpose, only drive you insane.”

“But I am sort of mad, aren’t I?” Ruben leaned into the touch, his cheek resting gently on Duncan’s sweater-covered chest, the scent of deodorant, coffee, and male musk surrounding him. This was the closest he had been to a man, and he was shocked at how good it felt to just be held. “I can’t leave this house, even though it happened right here. I feel trapped here, and yet this is the only place where I feel safe, calm, and free. I know it sounds stupid.”

“No, Ruben, it doesn’t.” Duncan’s voice was soft and kind, as if he understood all the darkness Ruben carried inside. “We all have our own ways of coping with loss and tragedy. No one has the right to say that one way is better than another.”

“Y-you don’t think I’m a… a freak?”

“Absolutely not. I would never think that.” Duncan’s breath wafted over Ruben’s hair, shifting it around, and then Ruben thought he felt Duncan kiss the top of his head, but couldn’t be sure. “What kind of agoraphobia do you have? I read about it a little but….”

“I can’t go outside. When Rose was still here, I could go out to the porch sometimes with her, you know, and drink coffee there.” He sniffled, hoping he didn’t get any snot on Duncan’s clothes. “But not anymore. If I try… I can’t breathe, my head starts spinning, and my heart hurts.”

“Panic attack,” Duncan said, obviously more to himself than to Ruben. “Does anything help?”

“At first there were shrinks and meds. I have anxiety medication now too, but I mostly use relaxation techniques to control the panic attacks.”

Duncan seemed to ponder this. “The first time I came here, you had a panic attack then, didn’t you?”

Ruben felt his face flush with heat. “Yes. I really tried not to but—”

“It’s all right. You don’t have to excuse or apologize for an instinctive reaction like that. I’m sorry I caused you such heartache. I assure you had I known—”

“No, I… I wanted to meet you.” Ruben’s whole body heated up at the confession and the implications of it. “No one’s ever believed in me other than Grandma Rose and Benjamin, and they’re family. I mean, had faith in my artistic skills.”

Suddenly, Duncan chuckled, the low sound reverberating from his chest onto Ruben’s skin. God, it felt and sounded good. “It’s more than your talent as an artist I admire. You were able to meet me, even invite me into your house. You are braver than you give yourself credit for.”

Gosh, that sounded too good to be true. Ruben felt stronger within, as though Duncan’s steady assurances awoke something inside him. Perhaps he did have more than a granule of courage in his heart.

Duncan went on, awe in his voice. “I mean, after breaking down when we first met, you still picked yourself up and tried again. And the next time you battled your demons and won, and I got the chance to see you and speak with you, and I feel privileged for it. Grateful that you let go of your fears, even for a short time, and best of all, that you did it with me.”

The warmth and brightness that filled Ruben’s heart with true hope at that moment was beyond his experience, but he savored the feeling, tucking it deep inside his soul for safekeeping.

Maybe Duncan was right. The sky couldn’t hurt him, vast open spaces even less so. It wasn’t like he had never puzzled at the oddity of his anxiety. Xenophobia, the fear of strangers, was something he had expected and could have understood. But worrying about what was outside the house when the terrible thing that had happened to him had taken place inside these four walls?

If he left here, if he somehow mustered enough strength, would he become afraid of unfamiliar faces, or crowds, or every brush against his skin, or invasions of his personal space? Was that what he had to look forward to? Substituting one fear for another.

“What are you thinking about?” Duncan asked him, still holding Ruben gathered in his arms, safe and sound.

“It’s strange,” he started slowly, his voice muffled against Duncan’s sweater. “But when I first invited you here, I saw in my head the two of us outside on the porch, drinking coffee and chatting away. It wasn’t until later I realized what I had done. How natural it had seemed in my head. But when I awoke from that normalcy…. That was when the panic struck me.”

“For a moment you forgot to be afraid,” Duncan clarified, pensive.

“I guess. Weird.”

“I don’t know. You know how it takes the body time to heal from wounds and injuries and illness, right?” Ruben nodded, silent, curious as to where this was leading. “Maybe your mind is starting to get past it.”

Ruben waited for the panic to swamp him under its relentless tidal wave. But it never came. With Duncan there, Ruben felt as calm and centered as he did when doing his exercises. The epiphany was still a hard pill to swallow. He had grown accustomed to his fear.

Who was he without his phobia? Could he be someone without it?

“W
HY
AREN
’
T
you with someone?” Ruben asked, clinging to Duncan’s sweater, inhaling the man’s scent, relishing his warm solidity.

“I
am
with someone.” From Duncan’s amused tone, Ruben concluded he was teasing, that he meant Ruben. When Ruben snorted, Duncan chuckled. Then he said, “My work is important to me, and it eats up a lot of my time. I don’t hang around in bars a lot. There’s no policy against fraternization at EP, so I suppose I could develop a relationship with someone there.”

Ruben tried not to shiver with unpleasant chills—and a hot streak of jealousy—but he didn’t do a very good job of it. “Have you?”