Victim of Love (28 page)

Another week started and the meticulous drudgery of my life went on. Many times I was tempted to grill Laurie about Beck’s past, about what had happened to his friend, about what made him the way he was. But there was no point. Even if I got those answers, there was nothing for me to do with them now. I’d lost him. But late in the week, when Laurie asked if I was free for lunch, I did take a risk and ask her a question.

I sat across from her in the cafeteria, watching her spear a piece of lettuce with her fork, and asked as casually as possible, “How’s your brother?”

“Beck? He’s okay I guess. He’s traveling right now.”

She went back to her salad, unfazed. As for me, my sandwich sat in front of me, barely touched. “Are you sure he’s traveling?”

Laurie looked at me. “Of course I’m sure. Why?”

“No big deal. A friend of mine collects antiques and he has a piece he was curious about, just thought I might run it by Beck.” I might have stopped lying in the past couple weeks, but clearly my skills were still sharp.

“Ah. No, he’s definitely traveling. One of my few rules Beck follows is he has to let me know when he goes out of the country.”

“Where is he?” I asked as casually as possible, taking a bite of my sandwich, though it felt like sandpaper going down my throat.

Laurie tapped her nails on the table, thinking. “Spain I think. No, maybe Portugal.” She gave her head a shake, then pointed her fork at me. “No, Spain. Definitely Spain.”

I nodded. “Spain. That’s awesome.”

Townsend came out from the bowels of the kitchen and joined us briefly as we finished our lunch, announcing that Pippa was, in fact, pregnant. I was appropriately jubilant and congratulatory, but it pained me that my enthusiasm was forced. I was having trouble feeling anything beyond despair and anger, anger with Beck, anger with myself for driving him away. I knew the pain would subside eventually. That was the way life worked. Time healed all wounds. But it was taking its damn sweet time.

I wanted to heal. I wanted to be past it, to be able to feel happiness for my friends, enjoy my work, to stop missing Beck. But when another two weeks passed and I was still pining for him, I started to slip into depression. I began to refuse invitations to go out, opting to sit home at night and watch movies for hours on end. My way of dealing with my broken heart became to not deal with it at all, and escapism was my friend. I let my mind be occupied with anything but what was inside it, allowing the television to think for me, ordering lots of takeout because cooking for myself seemed a monumental waste of energy.

I began going to bed very late so I could be assured I’d sleep like a dead man, and not toss and turn all night, enacting a hundred fantasy variations of my last encounter with Beck, none of which concluded as badly as the one in real life, which I fucked up entirely.

It would pass eventually, I knew. I tried to think of it as a natural part of the process, going into a cocoon to nourish and heal myself. Once I was whole again, something would instinctually send me a signal, and fully healed, I would reemerge. Maybe not as a butterfly, but I’d settle for a fully functioning moth.

Then, one Saturday afternoon, while I sat on the couch eating Fritos and watching old episodes of
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
, a knock came on my apartment door.

Chapter Eighteen

Monsters in the Dark

When I heard the knock on my apartment door, I panicked. Not because I was afraid of who might be there, but because I was shirtless in sweatpants with Fritos crumbs all over me, I hadn’t showered, and it had been a while since I’d deep-cleaned my place. I tidied up as much as I could in a minute’s time, pulled on a tee shirt, and went to answer the door. Whoever was there would just have to deal with a less polished version of Olsen.

Opening the door, I blinked at the man standing there, because for a few long seconds, I didn’t recognize Beck. In jeans and a loose fitting blue tee shirt, he looked both sexy and terrible. His skin was brown with a deep, dark suntan, hair a bit longer and disheveled, but the most striking difference was a short beard. Slightly more than a few day’s growth, the beard was flecked with silver. I’d have called it a goatee but it had clearly just grown that way, no shaping with a razor, scruffy and unkempt. His pretty eyes were edged with dark circles, and he stared at me, his expression a conflicting combination of resolve and trepidation.

“Hi,” I said, looking him over.

“Hi.” He smiled weakly.

“Um...what are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you,” he said. “Please. If you’re not busy right now.”

I stepped back and waved him in. “Come inside.”

I closed the door and led Beck into my living room. “I like the beard,” I said.

He chuckled softly. “Thanks. I’m getting rid of it soon.”

“How was Spain?”

Beck seated himself in one of my chairs, and frowned up at me. “You knew I was in Spain?”

“Laurie told me.”

He nodded. Clasping his hands, he looked nervous and slightly unwell, a sheen of sweat glowing on his tanned face. “It’s good to see you, Olsen.”

I seated myself on the couch. “Good to see you, too. But you kind of look like shit if you don’t mind my saying so.”

He gave me a small smile. “I don’t expect you to forgive me for taking off for so long, for refusing to talk to you. And I sure as hell don’t expect you to run into my arms and take me back. But I need to...I need to...” Beck’s face paled slightly, and he stood. “I need the bathroom. I’m sorry.”

Beck took off down the hallway and the bathroom door slammed closed.

I got up and moved to the edge of the hallway, listening to the sounds of Beck vomit. I winced, and crept back into the living room once I heard the water running in the sink.

Eventually Beck came out of the bathroom and returned to the living room, sitting on the floor with his back rested against the chair. He let out a long sigh, closing his eyes.

“Are you sick?”

He shook his head. “Not really. Just nerves.”

“Nerves over what? What’s the matter, Beck?”

He looked me in the eye. “I didn’t kill Kevin.”

I moved over and sat down on the floor in front of him. “I believe you.”

He held his hands up. “I came over here because I need to tell you what happened. I need to do this because...” His lip trembled. “Because I can’t have you thinking that about me.” He shook his head. “I can’t, Olsen. Not you. But telling you this is going to be hard and it’s kind of taking a toll on my body right now.”

I took his hand. “Then don’t. I don’t need to know. Not if this is what it’s doing to you.”

“You
do
need to know,” he said, raising his voice.

I squeezed his hand. “I don’t.”

“I tried to run away from this. From you. But no matter how far I went, the idea that you had those kind of doubts about me...I can’t. I can’t have you thinking that about me because I
love
you, Olsen.”

I took his other hand and squeezed them both. “I love you, too,” I said. I meant it. I knew I did, because even in the state Beck was in, even after he’d abandoned me for so long, hearing him say those words to me was everything. I felt the walls of my cocoon breaking away, releasing me, letting my heart fly.

Beck took a deep breath and let it out. A change came over him. I saw it happen as he rolled his shoulders and got himself back together. He released my hands and straightened, lifting his chin. An act of pure will on his part, but suddenly the sick, trembling man was gone, and the Beck I knew was back. He pulled a photograph out of his pocket and handed it to me.

I looked at it. A young, handsome man with sandy blond hair. Extremely handsome, I thought, worthy of someone like Beck. He smiled widely at the camera. He stood on a sidewalk, and I could see that the backdrop was Boston, recognized the landmarks.

“This is Kevin?” I asked.

Beck nodded. “I have to do this, Olsen.”

“Okay.” I rubbed his knee. “Okay. I’m here. Tell me about Kevin.”

Beck chuckled, and I was relieved to hear it, though his eyes still looked haunted. There was fear there too, swimming under the surface. “You’re going to think I’m weird but...I can’t do this if you’re looking at me. Can you go sit over there?”

I smiled. “I already think you’re weird.”

He laughed, nodding.

“That’s fine,” I said. “Whatever you need, okay?” I got up and moved to the chair on the other side of the living room. I still had a view of him from the side, but I was out of his line of sight.

“He worked at the museum. We met. And for two years we had an affair.”

Beck’s voice was monotone, almost robotic. He wrung his hands so tight I could see the white of his knuckles, but his face was placid, blank.

“You were in love with him,” I said.

A quick glance my way, then Beck looked down at his hands again. “No. I wasn’t.”

“You can say you were in love, Beck. That tattoo on your hip—”

“The tattoo was penance. My way of giving him something he wanted but didn’t get from me when he was alive. Acknowledgment. But I wasn’t in love with him. And that became a problem. Because he was in love with me.”

“Okay.” I didn’t want to interrupt his flow, but felt the need to voice acknowledgments to his words.

“For a long time he was fine with the way things were. He wasn’t out either, and claimed to share my philosophy that there was no point to sharing private things, sexual things with other people. But then he got mixed up with some bad people and started doing drugs.”

I nodded, though he couldn’t see me. “What kind of drugs?”

Beck huffed out a short laugh. “Every kind. Coke. Crystal meth. Opiates. I knew his behavior had radically changed, but it took me a long time to put it together. I might have experimented a little in my youth, and sure, I smoke weed a couple times a year. But hard drugs? I was clueless to the effects.”

Beck’s head bowed and he rubbed at his beard.

“He starting having mood swings, getting paranoid. Stopped coming to work. Lost his job. And suddenly our
arrangement
wasn’t good enough for him. He wanted me to come out, acknowledge him. But I wasn’t going to do that for someone I wasn’t in love with. I cared about him. Probably would have done anything to keep him safe. But I wasn’t willing to do that. Especially once I found out about the drugs.”

“Did you ask him to stop?”

Beck nodded. “I went farther than that. I told him that if he went to rehab, I’d do what he asked.” Beck glanced my way. “I lied. But I was trying to save his life. I figured that once he got out of rehab, he’d forget about that, that it wouldn’t seem important to him anymore. I was wrong.”

I stayed silent, waiting for him to continue.

“It only took a few weeks out of rehab for him to start back on the drugs. So I ended things. I couldn’t do it anymore. He’d still show up places I was sometimes, blasted out of his mind, starting shit. Crying. He’d come by restaurants I was at with friends. He’d come to my house. When he was like that, I’d just do anything to keep him calm. I wouldn’t kick him out if he came by my house. I’d let him rail and act crazy and whatever he wanted to do. But I wouldn’t put him out on the street. I couldn’t invite him into my bed anymore, but I still wanted him to be safe. I’d let him stay overnight on the couch. He’d always leave in the morning, looking ashamed, apologizing for the millionth time.” Beck took a deep breath. “But it didn’t stop.”

Beck went silent for a long time. His body language changed, pulling his knees up and wrapping his arms around them. Rocking slightly.

“What happened?” I asked softly, and Beck flinched.

For several minutes, Beck didn’t speak. Just sat there, rocking himself. Finally, he went still. “That night I’d been to happy hour with Laurie and two of her college girlfriends she had staying with her. We had a lot of margaritas and I was tired and a little drunk when I got home. So I went to bed early. I woke up to Kevin pounding on the door.”

His body jerked, a quick spasm, then he shook his head, hugging his knees tighter.

“He was lit, high on something. I let him in. I was groggy and tired and so not in the mood to deal with him. He kept telling me that he’d finally come to terms with our breakup. Pacing back and forth, the usual signs that he was drugged up. Talking a mile a minute. But then I think he started to crash, and the tears came. He didn’t have any pictures, he kept saying. He didn’t have any pictures of me. Any pictures of us. All he wanted was some pictures. If he had pictures, he’d leave me alone. It was the least I could do, he said. I was so fucking tired and fed up, but I tried to calm him and give him what he wanted.”

Beck glanced at me. I tried to give him a calming smile. He smiled back, but then his face pulled into a grimace. Again he did that thing where he rolled his shoulders, breathing deep and lifting his chin, physically struggling to control his emotions. I wanted to tell him that it was all right. He could break down if he wanted to. But this was Beck’s show. I had to let him do this his way.

“I set him up at my computer and gave him my photo files. Told him to have at it. Take whatever he wanted. Email the pictures to himself, whatever. It seemed to calm him. Well, as much as possible in his state. I left him there, obsessively scouring through my photographs. He started printing some of them out. He seemed content. So I went to bed. Fell back to sleep with the sound of the printer whirring out in the living room.”

Beck held his face in his hands, rocking.

“I was sleeping deep, still soaked in tequila from happy hour.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “So I didn’t stir when Kevin came into the room, and lay down in bed beside me. I didn’t wake up. Not until he shot himself in the head.”

A wave of shock blew through me. I saw tiny spots before my eyes. I forced myself to breathe deeply, ordering myself to get control for Beck’s sake. I’d expected to be told about an overdose. But not this. Not
this
.

Beck was still, staring at the floor. “It was dark,” he said, back to speaking in that blank monotone. “I knew something loud had woken me, something big. My ears were ringing. But it was dark. Confusing. It took me a moment to notice Kevin there in bed beside me. I kept looking at him, not understanding. In the dark, all I could see was that something...” Beck took in a hiccup of breath, and his voice cracked. “That something was wrong with his
face
.”