We Found Love (17 page)

“Um, you sure?” Wally’s question pulled him back to the here and now. He realized he was clenching his fists.

“Yep. See,” he said, getting into bed. “Going to bed. Like a good boy.”

Wally watched him carefully for a minute. “Well, uh, you know…. If you need something, hit the Call button. I can get a nurse back to the floor anytime.”

“I got the memo. Good night.” And with that, he gave Wally his back. The light was flicked off and the door shut in short order. Hunter was left to stew. He hated this. Hated it. And he couldn’t even confront Riley, ask him what the fuck had happened.

Wait.
He rolled over and looked at the door, blinking in realization.
Wally’s here.

He lay in the dark, listening to his breathing, the way his heart hammered with both excitement and nerves and unleashed anger. He could hear nurses and orderlies rolling carts, and shoes squeaking on the 1980s-throwback, mint green linoleum in the hallway. Time passed, he had not one clue how much, but the hallway lights had dimmed long ago. All was quiet now, all except his mind.

He waited another moment, listening, counting down. Then he bounded from his bed. He paced once or twice before cracking the door to check the hallway. All was clear. The only thing he could see through the windows to the nurses’ station was the glow of a computer screen. Wally was whacking again. Perfect.

He slipped out, crouching low and pulling the door shut as quietly as possible. He slid against the wall and down the hall. He’d never done this alone, never gotten Riley for one of their visits to their wing.
Their
wing. It’d always been Riley coming for him. He wished like hell it was under different circumstances, not when he was about to rip Riley a new asshole. But he’d say his piece. He was going to get into that pea brain right fucking now.

When he came to Riley’s door, he checked all around him, heart still pounding in his ears, breathing so heavily he was paranoid the sound may echo off the cinder block walls. He was expecting heads to pop out of doorways any minute now, but none did. He counted to ten, still checking each entrance, the nurses’ station, before twisting the knob to Riley’s room and stepping in.

Small relief swept over him as he stood to his full height. Guys his height were not built to run around hunched over for long periods of time. The luxury of stretching his aching muscles, even of seeing Riley was in fact whole and physically healthy, was short-lived as the reason for his visit dropped on his heart like a scalding-hot piece of coal from hell. Riley’s face had gone from surprised to smiling to guardedly wary.

“H-Hunter? You okay?”

Hunter’s laugh was sardonic, conveying no… “Fuck no.”

Riley stood but stayed close to his bed. “What’s wrong?” He didn’t look like he really wanted to know, probably because Hunter could feel the muscles in his face doing weird things. He probably looked wild.

“Get the key.”

“I don’t know if—”

“Get the key, Riley. We’re going.” Riley flinched at the use of his full name. It’d been a while since Hunter had used it, and he’d never used it with such inflection.

“What about—”

“Oh, you don’t care about getting me in trouble so long as it’s on your terms?”

Hunter could tell the second Riley’s hackles rose. “Fuck you, Hunter. I’m not going with you if you’re gonna fight. Fuck no.” Hunter knew this was Riley’s MO. His back was against a wall. Hunter hated that he’d caused it, but his heart fucking
hurt
.

“Fine, you know what? Fuck it. Just fuck it, then,” Hunter snapped, turning to the door and peeking out into the hallway.

“You’re gonna barge in here in the middle of the night to say fuck it?” Riley all but growled.

“What do you want, Riley? To have it out in here?” His voice rose on the next words, something he’d rarely done in life and never toward Riley. “You want to fight in your room? Get restrained again? I can do that.”
Fucking right I can. But….

“That’s fucked-up.” Riley shook his head. His shoulders rounded. “Don’t you get to leave soon? Why mess that up? For wanting to fight with me?”

“I’m not on my last leg, like you. I’ll just get put in my room for the day, lose a couple privileges. Only way I’d get locked up like that is if I put my hands on you….” Riley flinched but didn’t lose his composure. Hunter only recognized Riley’s version of flinching because he knew the man so well. Hunter shook his head. “And that’s why I said fuck it. You think I’d actually hurt you? Words or otherwise?”

Hunter stood strong under Riley’s glowering. “No, Riley. I’d never hurt you. But don’t think the last couple days you haven’t hurt me. And this… you not coming with me, that hurts.
Hurts
.”
Says the man who’s growling.
Irrational or not, he couldn’t stop angry, scalding tears from escaping. Only one or two, but enough to make him glad it was dark so maybe Riley hadn’t seen.

“I’ll….”
What was the pause?
Riley inhaled. “I’ll go with you. But I’m not fighting with you. Words or otherwise.”

“I didn’t come to fight. I came to make you listen. To maybe try to understand, both of us try to understand. Because….” He struggled for words. “Just…. Let’s go.” He waited as Riley retrieved his prized key, the key to wonderland. The wonderland he’d cross to lead Riley into the dark forest rather than waltzing on the Mississippi.

R
ILEY
FOLLOWED
,
watching from behind as Hunter moved all ninja-like in the dark, hanging to the walls like he’d become an old pro at this sneaking-around stuff. When they finally reached the door to their hideaway, Hunter held out a hand, and Riley passed over the key. Funny, he felt like he’d just handed a rope to the executioner.

Exhaling the breath he’d been holding on to, he stepped into the room. The lights flicked on, and he said a quick, silent prayer. Riley turned only enough to close the door behind them, and when he looked back, his eyes immediately zeroed in on Hunter’s. They were intense, and dark, and full of emotion—though which emotion or what mix of many, Riley couldn’t get a read on.

“You said no fighting,” Riley reminded.

“And I’m not.”

Settling back on his feet, Riley relaxed. “Then why are we here? Because I get the distinct feeling we ain’t dancing tonight.”

“Do I look like I want to dance?” Hunter’s acerbic words felt so wrong. He was a smartass, at times dry, but never cruel. He vibrated with some dark emotion Riley couldn’t identify, though. “This is not meant to be fun, not a date. This is a story. This is why I can’t fucking handle this shit.”

What shit?

“I know neither of us would be here if we could ‘handle this shit,’ but I have to….” Hunter closed his eyes the way he did when he’d lost his way. When he opened them, they still burned with that unnamed emotion, a blended misery of loss and anger. It slithered out of Hunter’s eyes and around the room. It was like a fairy-tale curse had descended on the place and the magic was no longer light, no longer an escape, but a darkness that reached into Riley and stole his breath. It was stifling and twisted.
What is this hell?

“Wha…?” Riley tilted his head. A frown pinched his brows. “Do I make it hard for you to ‘handle this shit’?”

“Can you just
stop
? For a few minutes? I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to snark each other to death. I realize this is a pot-meet-kettle situation, but could you just not think about how this affects
you
right now?”

Riley was mildly taken aback at the notion that he was self-centered. No one had ever spit that logic at him. He didn’t know how to respond to that. Hunter speaking again didn’t give him a chance to.

“Close your eyes.” Hunter watched Riley closely until he complied. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go wherever Hunter was leading, but he would. “I’m sorry, but we’re gonna go into the past a bit here. Can you handle that?” Riley stiffened, not knowing where this was going, not liking it. But he nodded.

“There’s a blond-haired boy, maybe seventeen, standing across the park, holding a soccer ball and laughing with his friends. It’s almost sickeningly wholesome. The guy’s gorgeous, and you want to wrap him up and make him smile like that at you. You know you like guys, and you’re begging he’ll like you too.” Riley squirmed. He didn’t like hearing about someone else who clearly had Hunter’s affections. “Then he looks your way, and he just…. Lights up.” Riley could see him. Beautiful and strong, like New Guy but smaller, fairer in many ways.

“Fast-forward. You’re walking down the halls of a school. It’s small, the kids loud. It’s the first day of school, and you hate all those bastards because they call you a nerd, pick on you for wearing old jeans, call you queer like it’s the foulest word they’ve ever heard. Then you come around a corner, and there’s that golden boy. He lights up as soon as he sees you.” Hunter’s reverent tone gave Riley gooseflesh.

“Fast-forward again. He kissed you. You can’t fucking believe it. He said he’s loved you since he saw you in the park; then he kissed you. You can’t breathe. He kisses you again.” Riley opened his eyes. He could imagine it, see it all too well. Hunter when he was shiny and new and full of love and hope. He liked that Hunter a lot, but the one he had now was… perfect. Damaged and rough around the edges, even at twenty-four years old, but perfect.

“I’m gettin’ enough whiplash from all the fast-forwarding. Can we not add car sickness to it by making me witness your first time?”

Hunter opened his eyes as well. “Fine. Now close them again.” Riley complied.
Glutton for punishment.

Hunter continued. “It’s graduation day, and you’re feeling all that shit people have been feeding you forever. You’re done with the homophobes, the small minds. You have a future, and you never have to see them again. You have this amazing boyfriend, you both have a scholarship to Tulane. Fucking Tulane University, all because you were nerds and you had each other’s backs. You were getting out of bullshit Bunkie, Louisiana, for good and together.

“His daddy busts you after the celebrations are over that night. He punches you and kicks his son out. Now, your mama, she’s not thrilled, but she takes him in. Her heart’s too big. So you stay until you leave for school. But that boy, the one you love with everything, he’s broken.”

Oh, shit. Was this like Andy?
Was Hunter really cruel enough to make Riley relive that?

“You’ve been in school for a month, sharing a dorm, happy and independent and people accept you. You’re gay, you’re in love. You have a future. He’s probably more happy than you, and you can’t figure out why. His grades suck, he’s always missing classes. But he’s happy; he seems healthy. What’s to worry about?”

Hunter dragged in a shaky breath, but Riley was too nervous to touch him. He sounded fragile, like the simplest movement in the atmosphere around him would break him into pieces that may never fit together again.

“Midterms are here. The campus is gorgeous. Spring is back, the humidity is not as oppressive as it tends to be in the city. There’s so much putting a spring in your step, except your boyfriend is hopped up. You found his stash over Christmas break. He promised he’d stop. Then you found another stash the day he was passed out and missed biology lab. Then spring break came, and while you visited your family he stayed behind and fucked someone else. He got high the whole time, and you had to hold his hand through the comedown for days, missing your own classes. He promised he’d stop, but you know he’s lying, he’ll never stop. He’ll never fucking help himself. His daddy broke him, then he let the drugs break him, then he broke himself when he hurt you.”

Hunter’s trembling vocal cords barely let him start the next part. Riley kind of hoped he’d never start. Then he cleared his throat and continued. “You notice he’s not as golden as he used to be. His eyes don’t light up a room. He still smiles at you, then goes out and is gone for days. You’re done. When he comes home next, you’ll tell him. ‘Get help or get gone,’ you want to say. He’s been kicked out of school and shouldn’t technically be living in your room anymore, anyway.

“You come home. It’s so fucking still, something has stopped. Even the clock on the wall seems to have frozen at that moment. Something isn’t just wrong, something vital has ceased to exist, and you can feel it with a nauseating clarity before you know what that fuck it is.”

Hunter continued, whispering an image Riley could clearly see. The dorm room with its typical dorm room things. There were posters on the walls, clothes on the floor. The twin beds were pushed together, brightly colored sheets rumpled. The bathroom door was open, and water was running. He felt himself wanting to stop Hunter from walking in there. He wanted to scream, to change it. But Hunter walked in.

There was a sleeping golden god. The shell of him, anyway. There was peace that hadn’t been there before, not in a long fucking time. He was still and gone, and a needle in his arm, vomit on his shirt, told it all. He was gone.

Hunter wailed. Hunter’s soul cracked. Riley opened his eyes so he could get the fuck out of that room, out of that memory. He watched Hunter as his body quaked, eyes tightly shut but leaking tears, snot running down his face. The look of pure grief. Riley had never seen or felt such a keenly palpable emotion.

“I dropped out. I was done. I was so lost. Thank God for alcohol. No one knew what to do with me, and I didn’t know what to do with them. Then my mama got sick after putting up with me going to rehab after rehab.” Hunter laughed derisively. “I thought I was doing good by not putting anything up my nose, not using needles. But I still went to jail for being dumb. I still fucked up with everyone. I still hurt everyone. I didn’t help myself, I’ve now realized. My poor mama died heartbroken and holding my hand, hopin’ I wouldn’t go down like Cory.” He choked on the name.

Hunter’s eyes popped open, and he looked longingly at Riley’s, pleading for something Riley didn’t know how to provide. “I can’t do that. I
won’t
do that. I won’t go down like that. I’m going to help myself.”