Physical Therapy (16 page)

I didn"t have long to figure out which before he let me know.

“What the fuck kind of person”—he advanced on me—“takes advantage of a crippled guy for
sex
!”

86

Z. A. Maxfield

Chapter Fourteen

“Whoa!” I held my hands up in a time-out gesture. “In here.” Mark followed me to Izzie"s office. I caught her eye as we went in, and it was pretty clear I had tacit permission to use the room. I left the door partially open behind us and indicated that he should sit in the chair. Instead of sitting at Izzie"s desk, I leaned against it, facing him. We contemplated each other for a couple of minutes before he got going again.

“Dang,” he said. He looked at his feet. “I didn"t have you figured for a guy like that.”

“What exactly did Ken tell you?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Mark said. “He didn"t have to. Mom and Dad were shouting, and you could hear them down the street.”

I cringed.

“You drift in here and get a job, and three days later my brother"s spending the night with you in a motel? That"s crazy. He was with Amy forever. He wouldn"t just turn around and…switch.”

“So what do you think happened?” I could see he was going to have a hard time explaining it away using only my personal charm as a motivating factor.

He tried a different tack. “Ken could have any girl he wants. He just thinks he"s damaged goods, and you"re letting him think it! If he believed in himself, if you didn"t reinforce the whole cripple thing…” He didn"t know what to do with his hands. I really liked this kid a lot. I didn"t want to be the guy that “turned his brother queer,” even if he was happier with that version of the truth than with admitting his brother might have been gay to start with. I didn"t want him to look at me with those angry eyes.

“Do you really believe it"s like that? That he"d just be with a guy because he doesn"t think he could get with girls?”

“Well—”

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“Does that even make sense? You"re old enough to know what men do with other men. Do you think your brother would—”

“Jeez. Shut up!” Mark covered his ears, and I would have laughed except he was so serious and I didn"t want to disrespect him.

“I think you need to ask your brother some honest questions,” I said.

“So do I,” came a voice from outside the room. I looked up and saw Ken come through the door. “Mom got a call from the school that you ditched. Somehow I had a hunch you might come here.”

Mark looked down at his feet again.

“Whatever"s between me and Jordan is our private business.”

“But—” Mark started.

Ken cut him off. “Since you"re my brother and you"re concerned for me, I"ll answer whatever questions you may have.” Ken tilted his head down and gave Mark a kind of warning look, up through his lashes. “But I won"t allow you to be disrespectful.”

“I get it,” Mark grumbled.

“Ask.” Ken came farther into the room, sitting next to me on the desk. It groaned beneath our combined weight but held.

“What is
up
with you, Ken?” Mark realized—too late—the double entendre and blushed a furious red. “I mean, what are you doing? You can get any girl you want. If you just say the word—”

“I know it may seem like a big shock to you—” Ken began, but Mark cut him off.

“Duh! Amy was nice! How can you just forget her and go all gay like this? It"s like she didn"t even count!”

“Amy was my best friend; of course she counted.” Ken looked genuinely shocked.

“I loved her. What are you talking about?”

“She was your girlfriend,” Mark said stubbornly. “And now you"re just going out with
some guy
because he wants you and you don"t think—”

“I warned you to be respectful,” Ken snapped.

“But Amy was pretty and smart. She was funny and she loved you. She was your girlfriend!”

“Well, no,” Ken told him. “She wasn"t. We let everyone believe that, though. I"m sorry. Maybe I should have been more honest.”

“Ya think?” Mark smacked the arm of the chair he was sitting in. “I thought you were so cool. I thought you were going to get drafted to play on a major-league team. I thought you and Amy would get married. I always told everyone about my awesome big brother.”

“Mark.” I could see Ken was overwhelmed by his brother"s words. Each one cut a new path through his heart. “Ken is still your awesome big brother.” 88

Z. A. Maxfield

“No.” Mark"s eyes filled with tears. “I had a brother who went away to school on a scholarship. He had a girlfriend. He was going to play professional baseball. I knew who
he
was. I was going to be just like him.” Mark dissolved before both our eyes, and if Ken"s heart wasn"t breaking, mine was breaking for him. I glanced at him, and his eyes were shining too.

“Hey,” he said, dropping his crutches and kneeling awkwardly in front of his brother. “Hey, I"m still here. I"m still me. You don"t have to be like me, but I still love you, bro.”

“I don"t care!” his brother spat, leaping up and charging for the door. “I don"t know you. I don"t know why you want to be a fag and a cripple and forget who your friends and family
really
are.” Mark ran out the door, and although Ken tried getting back to his feet and making a grab for his crutches, I could see the exact moment when he gave up, realizing that catching his brother was hopeless.

“Oh,
fuck
.” He sank into the chair his brother had vacated, and the tears that had begun minutes earlier fell in earnest now. Ken looked appallingly young. Most of the time it wasn"t easy to remember he was only twenty-three, given his size and the way his accident had matured him.
Subdued him.

He seemed lost, and right then I wished to heaven that I hadn"t given in to our attraction. At the same time, I wanted to take him back to my hotel room and remind him why he"d wanted me in the first place. It was new for me, this fear that I had ruined his life and the accompanying desire to ruin it much, much further.

“He doesn"t mean it,” I told him, going to my knees in front of the chair just as he had. “You know that. He can"t mean that.”

“He thinks he means it.”

I took his hands and kissed the palms, folding his fingers over them. He seemed numb with shock. I just let him cry.

“Do you have brothers and sisters?” he finally asked me.

“No,” I told him. “I don"t. I always wished I did. Cooper"s the closest thing to family I have besides my mom.”

“I shouldn"t have told them. I should have kept it quiet. I should have lied about it, about everything.” He leaned back and stared at the ceiling.

“How could you have done that?” I asked. “How could you have gone through life living like that?”

“I don"t know. I always thought I"d get into a ball club, be away from home, some different city every night for half the year. Someplace where I could fuck around anonymously. I thought I"d hide it.” He looked to me like someone with all the hope sucked out. “I thought if I did that, I could keep my family from ever finding out.”

“These things have a way of coming out,” I told him. “Your family will—”

“Look”—he cut me off—“my parents like to think they"re cool. They"re waiting for me to say „psych!" They think that with all the trauma that happened to my body and Physical Therapy

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my brain I"ve lost my sense of self.” The way he was looking at me was odd. It was as if he was making some sort of decision. “They think I"m taking this opportunity to exorcise my demons by fucking the boogeyman.”

“What?” I was stunned.

“Yeah. My mom has some theory that I"m drawn to you because of your past.”

“That"s…”

“Yeah. It"s a joke.”

My heart sank. “I was going to say monstrous.”

“Whatever.”

Whatever. Didn’t he have a clue how that made me feel?

“They think I"m going to change my mind.”

We sat in silence for a time. “That"s all right.” I decided to help him. “You could tell them you were confused. You could tell them that you were experimenting. I wanted you. You"d been drinking…”

“I could.” He wiped his face and took a deep breath. “I could tell them it was all a dream. Maybe it is. Maybe I died in that car instead of Amy and this is all a big misunderstanding. Purgatory.”

“Ken,” I whispered. My mouth went dry, and for the first time, I was afraid for him. He looked reckless, like he was spoiling for a fight.

“I have no clue. Do you?” He got up and held his hands out for his crutches.

When I gave them to him, he shoved his forearms into them and turned away. “If you can figure out how I should feel right now, call me,” he said without looking back.

“Izzie has my number.”

* * * * *

I spent the rest of that day in a fog. I worked hard and had two new clients. They were both long-distance runners, young women who"d been friends since high school and trained for marathons together. I liked working on them, and it seemed like they got something out of it, saying they would definitely be back. They tipped me well and left smiling.

I was going to like living in St. Nacho"s, but I could see I"d made a misstep getting involved with Ken. I was drawn to him. I was concerned for him, but I didn"t know if I wanted what he offered. I wasn"t prepared to have my life in St. Nacho"s complicated by a relationship. It had only been three damned days, and already I was caught up in something I didn"t completely understand.

To my surprise, around dinnertime Cooper called. He told me Shawn was busy with rehearsals and he thought we could grab dinner if I felt like it. I was happy to have a plan that didn"t include eating grapes and a sandwich in my hotel room. He came by on his bike with a spare helmet.

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Z. A. Maxfield

“You still don"t drive?” I asked him.

He rolled his eyes. “Looks like my phobia is here to stay. I can"t seem to get over it.”

I felt such sorrow at that. “My fault,” I told him. “I"m so sorry.”

“I do all right. I don"t need to drive much.” He grinned. “I can if I have to, at least.”

“Now it"s more of a strong preference?” At one time his fear of cars was so powerful he became physically ill.

“Yeah.” He grinned. “I don"t tell Shawn that or I"d have to give up the Harley.” I put on Cooper"s extra helmet. “Can"t have that.”

“Where to?” he asked me.

I thought about how heavy my heart had been feeling all day. It felt lighter already, now that Coop was here. “Anywhere,” I told him. “Everywhere. You decide.” Cooper gave me a wink and put on his own helmet, firing up the Sportster. “Got it,” he said. “One anywhere, coming up.”

All my good memories of high school came roaring back with the sound of that engine. Starting in the spring of sophomore year, Cooper"s fascination with motorcycles in general and the Harley-Davidson in particular had begun. How many nights had I spent lying in my bed listening for the sound of that bike on the highway, far enough away from my home that my parents didn"t connect the noise to Cooper, and close enough that when I sneaked out the window I could meet up with him, hardly breaking a sweat, in five minutes? How many hot summer nights had we spent getting up to mischief using a bike just like this one, parking and camping by the Kinnickinnick River, eating fast food and drinking beer filched from one or the other of our parents?

I leaned forward and wrapped my hands around his rib cage now, where once I might have wrapped them around Cooper"s waist, maybe inched them down below his belt, jerking him off while he hauled ass down a country road. Now we screamed up the Pacific Coast Highway at a far more civilized pace than we used to and he belonged to someone else. I was… I didn"t know what I was, except for grateful that I still had a friend like Cooper.

There wasn"t a lot I could count on in the world; there never had been. My old man spent most of his waking hours trying to catch the perfect buzz. He had scared my mom and me when I was growing up, and now, that fear had turned to anger and disgust. My mom was resigned to a life that meant walking around on eggshells every minute of every day. I wasn"t.

Cooper was my knight in shining armor in those days, riding up the highway on his Harley. All these years later, I still saw in him the kind of quiet stillness that spoke of true strength, not the bluster and chaos of my father"s brutality. I wonder now if I would have stood even the slimmest chance at a decent life without his example.

Probably not.

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Even through jail, even afterward when I was lost and still lying to myself and everyone around me, I had Cooper to show me how a real man could live his life. I wanted to mold myself and cling to him from behind as we rode along, but I didn"t out of respect for Shawn.

When at last we stopped at a mom-and-pop Mexican place in some beach town almost an hour and a half up the coast from St. Nacho"s, Cooper dragged the helmet off his sweaty head. Ruffling up his short hair, he led me into the restaurant. We sat in a booth and tucked our helmets on the seats beside us.

The place was mostly a dive by anyone"s standards, but Cooper had a gift for sourcing great out-of-the-way places to eat. I had no doubt he"d tell me what to order as well.

The booths were red vinyl piped with yellow, and the floor was a dingy sort of white linoleum. There were tables and chairs set in the middle of the room, but they seemed to have nothing in common with the booths, as they were wooden and nondescript, as dismal as the booths were cheery.

A glass wall on one side looked out on the ocean, past yet another set of tables that matched neither of the two I"d already seen. These round cement tables, surrounded by semicircular benches embedded with pebbles, were topped with multicolored umbrellas. Now the umbrellas were cranked down and the view was spectacular. Fires dotted the beach where people were using fire rings. The water itself seemed as smooth and tranquil as Cooper; the whole of it soothed my spirit like nothing else had for years.

The paper menu looked like it had been handwritten in the twenties. Cooper shot me a look when the waiter came over that I recognized as his “do you trust me?” look. I had enjoyed more than one excellent meal in the wake of that look.