Beyond Complicated (27 page)

Just let al this die. Keep Kel safe from her. I—"

He grabbed my arm and shook me. "God damn it, Liam. Listen to yourself. Just listen. No one wants you to leave. No one. Yes, this is a mess and yes, you've fucked up your past and people know about it now. No one believed Sabrina yesterday. No one thinks for a second that you're sleeping with Kel."

"But I am. I'm sleeping with him and Seth and there is no way to hide that. I'm in love with him, Da, both of them. I want Kel like he's candy. Or cocaine or crack or something. I'm a horrible person. May as wel cal me a damned pedophile now and let me go. The damage is only going to get worse."

"He's in love with you too. Damn, Liam, I saw that years ago. Over the moon in love with you. I thought it was just hero worship or something. While you were in here the last time, I saw it. That year you sat in my garage and the two of you worked on that damned car, I saw it. I ignored it. You didn't return the crazy in love eyes. You were lost in your own personal hel. And he was faling in love with you with every passing day. You showed him decency when he had none at home. Gave him attention. Treated him like a man instead of a kid. You always treated him as if he was your equal. And then I noticed that you started avoiding him. I worried that maybe something had changed. You wouldn't be alone with him. You watched him from across the room at family get-togethers, you didn't make contact. But you watched him. He grew up and left home and you stopped coming around as often and when you did, you left when he arrived. You seemed strange."

"I wanted him," I admitted finaly. The painful lie I told myself. That year I spent every day with him, talking to him, getting to know him, showing him things my own dad had shown me when I was his age and younger. Cars. It was the only bond I had with my dad.

Besides fishing and I wasn't that fond of fishing. I touched Kel's hands as we leaned under the hood and I wanted him. I fel in love with him that year. I took that knowledge and I blocked it out, along with San Francisco, and I moved out. I got a job that kept me too busy to see him. He slept at my apartment off and on, trying to keep up the pretense of weekends with Dad. But I found reasons not to be there.

"I know. I knew more than you give me credit for. You shut me out when you were a kid. Puled inward. When Brad used to sleep over, I wondered if this would be the night the two of you figured it out.

You never did. That I could tel. I heard the talk at school about you and Sabrina before you told us she was pregnant. I didn't believe it. But I remembered that night you came home drunk and half dressed. I stil don't know how you got home."

"She drove, and left me sitting in the driveway.

Someone picked her up and she was gone. Next time I saw her she was waving a pregnancy test in front of my face. Da, I was so stupid."

"You were a kid. Kids do dumb things. I taught stupid teenage boys for forty years, you learn things being around them al the time. Like how to spot trouble. Kenny Jones was trouble like I'd never seen before. Bastard should have been expeled at least three times before he finaly quit his senior year. Brad took away his starting position. Brad was just a sophomore and he had a beautiful arm. He was also gay. We could tel. You hid it better than he did. But you were so damned big and you could take a hit and get up laughing. You scared the hel out of guys your size or bigger. And beautiful, you were so damned beautiful.

The girls couldn't stop screaming your name on a Friday night but you didn't see them. Not a damned one of them. Until Kenny Jones set Sabrina Adams on a mission to fuck up Brad's life. You got caught in the crossfire. I heard the rumors. She was a senior just turned eighteen. Kenny had enlisted as soon as he got his GED and was getting ready to leave. He wanted revenge on Brad. And it al spiraled downhil. I couldn't prove a damned thing. I chalenged the birth. I wanted a paternity test. I got a letter saying a bunch of crap about one hundred percent without a doubt you were the father. So we left it alone. I don't want you to leave and I don't want you to go back to that life because you think I want money. I want you to have your life back and I want you to be happy. Not this stranger you've become who can't or won't stand up for himself. I'm not gay, I don't know what it's like. I can't help that. But dammit, Liam, I don't understand you, I've never understood you. You could knock a three hundred pound man on his ass but you can't deal with a hundred pound bimbo. You can't deal with your sexuality and you can't own up to having feelings for someone. You hide and you lie and you leave. I hate that about you.

Your lies and that you won't let anyone in. That boy Seth. He loves you, he'd go to hel for you, I saw that yesterday. Kel loves you, he threw away his entire life yesterday to protect you. At least have the bals to stand up for yourself. Stand up against the wrongs you've endured. Be a goddamned man, for once in your life."

"What do you want me to do? Announce to the world that I have unnatural desires for a man I thought was my son? The porn thing is out of the bag. Thank god they don't know my screen name so it'l be hard for anyone to find them and yeah, they are al stil up and running. Every studio I worked under keeps those things active, especialy after Seth and I got together. I can't stop you from suing Sabrina. But I don't want the money back. I don't want to go through a court battle where every single thing I've ever done wrong in my life wil come out. I've never messed with drugs. I've never hurt another person. I've never committed a crime. But I have had sex with so many men it would make your head spin. If they force me to reveal my porn name, you'l see it. Mom wil see it. Moira, her kids. Who else do you want seeing that video? Even the edited version that isn't as graphic is bad enough. Do you want our family knowing al that shit? Realy? And about Kel?

She'l drag al of that out. She is a nasty piece of work, how do you think she got the judge to triple my support in the first place? Lies and half-truths and those damned boobs. Poor, poor pitiful Sabrina, the whole world is out to get her. That's how she is. I want to keep what little bit of privacy I have. I don't want to have to leave but I want you and Mom and Moira and Greg to be able to live here without dealing with my shameful secrets every day. Why does that make me selfish? I'm sorry I'm not a man, not like you want me to be. I made mistakes and I live with those mistakes. I can't drag al of this out for public consumption. What if it were you?

Do you want your past out there for people you don't know to see? Not to mention the people you do know.

And Da, think about this. You saw only one, the one where I wasn't in control. Most of my videos show me as the aggressor. I have some that are worse than that. I was the one putting a blindfold on some poor kid. I was the one who laughed while I fucked him. Do you want people to see that, because I sure as hel don't."

He looked as if I slapped him. "Do I realy know who you are?"

"No, Da, you don't. You never have. And I can't just stop being what I am because you want me to. So I hide and I lie and I pretend that I'm fit to sit at your Thanksgiving dinner table. I'm not fit. So no, I'm not going to fight Sabrina. I'm going to do what I do wel. I'm going to pretend this didn't happen, I'm going to lie to everyone and I'm going to leave. And you and Mom need to make sure Kel gets over me. Don't let him turn into me. Okay? That's al I want. I'm going to walk out on him and I'm never coming back. Don't let him become me. I don't know how, just do what you can."

"And your friend Seth?" Da stood with his back to me, his hands clenched in fists at his side.

"He got over me once. He'l do it again. He'l hate me, but he'l get over me."

"You're a coward. I never expected…" he stopped speaking, his shoulders slumped. He didn't wait for me to reply, he just walked away leaving me sitting with my head hanging and tears streaming down my face.

"I know," I said quietly, listening to the heartbeat monitor blip along steadily. "I always have been."

The weekend doctors came to see me not long after my dad left. We talked about what might have occurred in my heart. The electricity in the lower two lobes went wonky and couldn't go back to normal.

They used big words but I can't remember them.

They've seen it before. It was a rare thing and might not ever happen again, but they didn't want to take any chances. I was going to have to go through the whole stress test routine on Monday before they'd let me go home. And I might want to consider changing my diet.

My blood work came back a little heavier on the cholesterol than they wanted to see. Nothing high enough to worry about, but I was getting close to forty and I might want to start thinking about these things.

When the doctors left, the nurse came back and unhooked me from the IV, took my vitals and asked more questions. Including why I seemed to want to argue with al of my visitors. Or rather, why they wanted to argue with me. I just shrugged. She looked at me funny and went "Mmm Hmm." And then she put me on a no visitor diet. Right along with my bland chicken breast and plain rice lunch. But I was hungry enough to eat it even though it had no flavor. I liked the cherry gelatin. I could have coffee but not salt. Damned cardiac unit.

That night it was just me, the limited cable selections on television and the phone. Kel caled twice to check on me. Seth caled once. My mom several times, she was upset that they wouldn't let her see me when she came by. My sister caled and I apologized for everything. Moira read me the riot act then laughed.

The kids didn't know what went on, some parent had the sense to keep them occupied until the ambulance left. Greg had to cal the cops on Sabrina and Ken to get them off the property. "Damn, Liam, those kids are living in hel," she said more than once. I told her that was Seth's assessment as wel. I also told her I'd try to make it up to Grace for leaving early which was what Moira had told her. I'm not buying a damned pony though.

I had a lot of time to think that night. Too much time maybe. What if my dad was right? What if running wasn't the best plan right now? A cal to Abigail the next morning cleared me of that notion. I was being let go. She said she tried to fight for my job but circumstances being what they were, yada yada. The whole time she knew that I knew that she was the only one in the company with any knowledge of the weekend's events. Abby and I never realy were friends. She was Moira's friend and then my too nosy boss. After I spoke with Moira that morning and accidentaly let her know that I was fired because of Saturday, I expected Abby's head on a pike long before I made it out of testing. And secretly, I wasn't the slightest bit ashamed for wanting that little revenge.

Stress testing for someone like me was a walk in the park. The most frustrating thing was how long it took to actualy get my heart rate to go up to the level they wanted. I run five miles a day on the treadmil at the gym, walking up an incline in a doctor's office was nothing. Eventualy we got there and after a thorough sonogram of my chest, a complete blood workup and a couple more ECG tests I was sent back to my room.

To eat another bland lunch and pace. I paced a lot that afternoon. Thank, god, Da had brought me clothes or I'd be pacing in the backless gown and my briefs. After lunch a group of doctors came by and asked less frightening questions than the day before. They were waiting on the results of the tests and if everything checked out fine I'd go home that evening. The nurse came in and told me I was supposed to folow up with a cardiologist and left the information the doctors gave her. She checked my vitals again. And suggested that I might want to take advantage of the wait time and shower. I stil had flecks of glass in my hair. I told her to go ahead and cancel the no visitor thing. She just smiled and patted me on the shoulder. I wondered just who had tried to see me to make her smile sad like that.

In the hours waiting for evening rounds and a possible release, I went out of my mind. Apparently hospitals were now on my list of places to avoid at al costs. I knew this from being trapped here too long al those years ago, but I'd forgotten. I felt eyes watching me. I paced and fidgeted and watched the door. I kept waiting for the men in the white coats to come and wrestle me into cuffs and rol me out to the loony section of the hospital or worse to the state hospital in the next county where they sent al of the hardcore crazies.

I'm not a pacer. I believe I've mentioned this before. I don't pace. When I stew it's in the fetal position. And I don't do that often. I had too much pent up energy to deal with. Too much self-doubt and too much memory eating me alive. Smal things I didn't remember from my long stay wanted to niggle back into my brain. Of drugs and hands holding me down and Kel crying and holding my hand. Caling me daddy and begging me not to die. Just be okay. I need you to be my daddy. I need you because without you it won't be worth anything. Liam, please, just be okay. I remember him being there and then he didn't come back. I remember wanting him. Begging for him. But he never came back. I was so afraid he'd done something to himself. I begged. But no one knew. My family didn't come often. They couldn't stomach what I'd become.