Violence Begets... (14 page)

When he stopped, I welcomed it because
my control was wearing dangerously thin. He didn’t pull away from me. He simply
laid his head on my chest and said nothing, breathing heavily.

After some time, I came back to reality
and found my control. Still without moving my hands from behind my head, I asked,
“Wanna get outta here?” He shifted his weight slightly, and I easily rolled out
of the hammock and stood up. I knew I needed to put some distance between us. It
crossed my mind to actually extend my hand to him to help him up, but I didn’t.

“Where we goin’?” he asked as he pulled
himself out behind me, not looking at me.

“Zarahemla.” He hesitated and I knew
he wasn’t ready for another round of resisting me alone. “I promise I won’t try
that again,” I said, nodding toward the hammock. He grimaced a little. He obviously
didn’t even like talking about it. “Unless of course you make the first move,” I
said, just to be an ass.

“Shut-up,” he mumbled but followed me.

As we left the party, I noticed he kept
his eyes glued to the ground. I was sure he was ashamed of what he’d just done with
me, and was worried others would see it written on his face. He didn’t even think
about saying goodbye to Jessica. I wasn’t about to mention that shit. The last thing
I wanted was him trying to prove to himself that he didn’t want me by messing around
with her. So I kept my mouth shut.

“Can I ask you something?” I said when
we were out on the street. Using this question made it seem like he could say no
if he wanted to. It gave the appearance of control on his part. I found that people
responded much better if they thought they were controlling the situation, when
in all reality they were only responding to what I helped them think.

“I guess.”

“Why don’t you trust me?” I asked him,
playing my first card.

He started laughing almost uncontrollably.
Admittedly, this unnerved me. I didn’t understand what he thought was so damned
funny. “You have to be kidding,” he got out between bouts of laughter.

“What’s your problem? It wasn’t meant
to be funny,” I spat out at him as I restrained the need to punch him.

“Why do you care if I trust you or not?
You have me where you want me. Well… most of the time anyway.”

I almost stopped walking. If I had him
where I wanted, he’d be in my bed.

“What the fuck's that supposed to mean?”

“Kevin,” he said, still laughing, “nobody
in their right mind trusts you. Isn’t that how you want it?” He was acting like
he knew me, like he was some kind of friend of mine. Well, he could fuck himself
because he didn’t know a goddamn thing about me. Before I could get my anger reined
in, he slid his hands in his pockets and asked, “Do you want me to trust you?”

My breath caught. My answer should’ve
been an immediate yes. But when he said it, it sounded different than what I really
wanted. I didn’t dare open my mouth, unsure what would actually come out, so I just
nodded my head.

“Why?”

“Why what?” I asked irritably.

“Why do you want me to trust you?”

“Why not?”

Rick shook his head, glancing down as
he kicked a rock with the toe of his tennis shoe. “Yeah, that’s the way to do it,”
he mumbled.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“You make it really hard for anyone
to get to know you.”

“Fine. Ask me anything you want and
I’ll answer,” I said. He wanted to know me. What the fuck did I have to lose?

“Whatever.”

“Whatever what? Ask.”

“Seriously, you think I’m gonna open
myself up like that?”

“What the fuck you talking about?” I
asked. “I’d be the one opening up.”

“I ask one wrong question and you’ll
lay into me. Sorry, not looking for a beating tonight. ‘Sides, like you’d be honest.”

I wondered why the hell I always felt
I was trying to control my anger around him. Most of the time, when someone pissed
me off, they got the full wrath of my temper without me even sparing a second thought
about it.

“Fine. Three questions,” I grumbled.
“Any question you’d like, and I swear I won’t kick your ass. And I promise I’ll
tell the truth.” I doubted he could cause any harm. He already knew my two biggest
secrets, and I was willing to do whatever it took to make sure he kept his mouth
shut.

“And what do you get out of it?” he
asked. He wasn’t stupid. I couldn’t very well tell him the full truth though.

“After you’re done, it’s my turn,” I
said.

He considered this for a moment. “To
ask three questions? Okay,” he said hesitantly. I’d bet his instincts were sending
up red flags, but thankfully he wasn’t listening to them.

“First question,” I said, pushing forward.

We walked several steps before he took
a deep breath.

“The night I found out about your dad,
why did you react the way you did?”

“Not going to start with my favorite
color or something a little easier?” I asked, trying to stall. I knew he’d go for
the gold, but I still didn’t like it.

“Don’t care what your favorite color
is.”

“I’m hurt.”

“No, you’re stalling.”

He could be such a fucker. I knew I
had to get him to trust me, and he was obviously smart enough to call me on my bullshit.
That left being honest. Damn it, I’d walked myself right into a fucked up situation.
On second thought, I knew I didn’t have to tell the whole truth. I could leave shit
out and not tell him everything. With this in mind, I carefully spoke my answer.

“So, when you ask why I reacted the
way I did, what exact reaction are you talking about?” Hell, if I was going to suffer,
so was he. He was going to have to fucking say it out loud.

“You know.”

“I don’t, for sure.”

He glared over at me, finally saying,
“Fine. Why’d you kiss me?”

I almost laughed because he actually
choked on the word kiss. But then I had to think about my answer, and the humor
left me altogether.

“I was scared,” I said simply. He was
patient with the silence, but I was better at waiting him out.

“Why were you scared?” he finally asked.

“Second question?” I pushed.

“Fine, second question. Why were you
scared?” he said angrily. I knew I had to keep things based in truth. I considered
each word, not wanting to give more away than I had to but enough to let him see
I was trying.

“No one knows what my father does to
me. It was just a lot for you to see, to know about me.”

“So you did what you did?” I noticed
he still avoided using the word kiss.

“Question three?”

“Kevin, this is not going to work if
you play games with me. This was your idea, remember?”

He was right. I had to play nice. I
couldn’t make everything so painful—well, painful for him. I saw no way to escape
the unease that had settled in on me.

“So, yes, I kissed you,” I forged on.

“That doesn’t make any sense to me.
That’s what I don’t get. I find out what your dad does to you, and you know that
my dad does pretty much the same thing to me, and it scares you, so you kiss me?
Help me connect the dots here, Kevin.”

I reached for my flask and took several
swigs before offering him some. He shook his head, and I took a few more drinks
before putting it back into my pocket. With my goal in mind, I proceeded.

“I didn’t expect your reaction. I expected
pity or some other bullshit like that, but when I walked into the bathroom, I didn’t
see pity in your eyes.”

“What’d you see?”

I took a deep breath and blew it out
slowly. “I saw someone who cared.”

“And that scared you?” he said, trying
to fit the pieces together.

“Fuck yes.”

“Why?”

I ran my hand over my eyes and into
my hair. This was a stupid idea.

“Because it’s been a very long time
since someone looked at me that way.”

“Like they care what happens to you?”

“Yes.”

“I still don’t understand why that led
to what it did.”

I marveled at his ability to dance around
the subject while still avoiding the word 'kiss' whenever possible. At this thought,
an idea entered my mind. I’d been responding to him from my point of view, and to
this day I still didn’t fully understand why I’d kissed him. I looked at him curiously
and asked slowly, “Rick, are you asking if I’m gay?”

Without looking at me, he replied, “I
know you’re not.”

“And just how do you know that?” I’d
actually never really come out to anyone, and it surprised me that I felt nervous.

“You have more girlfriends than anyone
I know.”

“So?”

“So, you like girls too much. You’re
just screwing with me. I know that.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

He looked at me, and I swear to god
I saw hope in his eyes. What the fuck that meant, I had no idea.

“Wrong about what? Are you?”

“Just screwing with you? Or gay?”

“Either. Both. I don’t know!” he said
in frustration, and I enjoyed watching him grasping for answers instead of me.

“No and yes,” I said simply and watched
as he processed my reply.

“So you are…” When he didn’t finish,
I helped him out.

“Gay, yes. Just screwing with you, no.”
In any other situation I would’ve denied the shit out of being gay, but I fucking
knew he needed to believe I wasn’t just toying with him if he was ever going to
end up in my bed.

 He fell silent for the rest of the
walk to Zarahemla, and I didn’t like it much. It’s not every day you come out for
the first time, and his lack of response pissed me off. I wasn’t entirely sure he
actually believed me. Once we got there, I considered taking a seat on his same
level, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I automatically pulled myself into
my spot on the broken wall that positioned me higher than him. He sat back and lit
up a smoke, his eyes darting around the ceiling, not focusing on anything. It was
like watching him search his own head for words.

“Out of questions?” I finally asked.

“No, too many to pick from. I don’t
want to waste the third.”

By my count, he was well over three,
but I resisted the urge to point that out to him.

“Am I ever going to have this chance
again?” he asked.

I thought for a moment. If I was able
to get something in return, I could always use these to get what I wanted. However
painful they were, they weren’t as bad as him turning on me. It was a risk I was
going to have to take.

“I suppose. Another day, another time,
we could try again.”

He nodded, still putting a lot of thought
into his final question.

“Why did you pick me?”

“What?” I asked, sincerely confused.

“That first day, you offered me a smoke.
Why me?”

“I was trying to be nice.” The lie came
automatically and he didn’t justify it with a response. God, he was a shithead.
He knew what fucking buttons I didn’t want pushed. Half-truths based in reality,
I reminded myself. “You looked like you needed a friend.”

“And you’re so friendly and all,” he
said with biting sarcasm, and I knew his patience was running thin.

“I was that day.”

“Look, again, this was your idea. What
was your reason?”

“Okay, you looked like you needed a
friend, which made you an easy target.” He flinched, and I felt the stirring of
something—guilt maybe? I pushed on. “I need people around me who are easy to keep
in line.” He looked away from me, and I didn’t like what I was seeing on his face.
“People not like you. I was wrong about you; you’re not an easy target.” His eyes
shifted back to me, looking skeptically at me for any hint of a lie.

I wanted to get rid of the look on his
face so I plowed ahead without thinking. “Just look at this goddamn situation. Do
you think we’d be here if you were just like the others? You’re different. You push
all the wrong fucking buttons, and you know too goddamn much. Do you think that’s
what I planned? I picked you because I thought you were weak. I was wrong. I’m never
wrong. Okay, fuck. You’re not the easy target I thought you’d be. Happy now?” I
jumped off my seat, clamping my mouth shut. I thought that might have been the most
words I’d said in one breath to anyone. I slammed around the floorboards, looking
for a stash of weed.

“What are you looking for?” he asked
quietly.

“A fucking joint,” I blurted out, my
irritation almost boiling over.

“I’ve got one.” I spun around and watched
as he pulled one from his pocket. He held it out to me. “Want mine?” he asked.

Motherfucker if my head didn’t fly back
to the first day we met, with him on the ground and me holding my smokes out to
him. What was I agreeing to if I gave in to him? Did I have a choice? Had he had
a choice? If I said no, did I shatter the trust I had just built? The questions
assaulted my brain too quickly for me to defend myself against them. Just as I had,
he started to pull back, pushing me to make my decision. Was he playing the same
game? Fuck if I had time to find out.