Whatever the Cost (17 page)

There is nothing to be said. Jacen can only hold Liam and infuse every pore of his body with love, letting him feel connected to someone and no longer alone with the darkness in his past.

Sniffling, Liam turns his head slightly and asks with a shy kind of smile, “You want to see him?”

Without waiting for a reply, Liam scoots out of bed and walks from the room, reappearing quickly with his wallet in his hands. He opens it and holds it out for Jacen.

The worn-edged, slightly crumpled picture in the little plastic sleeve shows a sandy-haired, brown-eyed boy with a carefree grin.

“That was a year before he died,” Liam says softly. “I love that picture of him. He looks so happy. All I ever wanted was to see him smile like that.”

“God, he’s just a
baby.
” When Jacen looks up and sees the fond pride and unabashed love shining clear as crystal in Liam’s eyes, Jacen feels the pure sincerity of it. This is Liam, he sees.
This
is Liam at last. The masks and personas have fallen away.

Liam climbs back into bed, facing Jacen this time, taking the wallet back and holding it between them, some of his smile lingering at the corners of his lips.

Using that lingering connection to what’s now just a ghost, a memory, Jacen poses the question, “What would Timothy want you to do?”

“To quit,” Liam answers instantly, certain. “To leave with you and make a new, better life somewhere else. That’s what he’d tell me. He would want me to be happy. You know, for a long time I was really angry at him for leaving me. Doing this, selling myself, my love, was like payback for him leaving me all alone. But I don’t want to hurt him anymore. I want him to be proud of me for once.”

Reaching out, Jacen takes hold of Liam’s hand, and whispers, “I’m proud of you, Lee.”

With a sad smile, and a small laugh thick with emotion, Liam nods and stares at their hands, intertwined.

When the wallet gets set aside, Liam’s attention turns to Jacen, plain straightforward expectancy shining out at him. “Tell me. Tell me how you got here. Please.”

“It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time. And I think it’s kind of important to know why the man who’s become the most important thing in my life became a hooker.”

“I get that,” Jacen allows. “But I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“Jacen,
please
. You can tell me anything. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Yeah, well, not all of us are as perfect as you.”

Liam rolls his eyes. “You know I’m not leaving or letting you shower or sleep until you talk to me. I can be quite annoying when I have to be.”

“Christ,” Jacen groans.

“Just start talking. Start at the beginning and go from there.”

“You really want to hear this?”

“Yes. Now go. Start. Do it.”

“Fine,” he grumbles. “Okay. The beginning: I grew up in a big family but a poor one. Really poor, like, embarrassingly so. On a dairy farm in the Midwest. But my grades were good and I was the oldest in the family. My parents put all their hopes on me and dreamed of me going off to college, making something of myself. Becoming something important. Getting out of there. I wanted to study law, maybe become a politician someday. I’d have power and responsibility. I could make an impact. People would look up to me. I wouldn’t just be useless trash anymore.

“They saved every dime, every penny. I worked any odd job I could find from as soon as I was able to swing a hammer or push a mower or work a register. It all went into the college fund. I applied for grants too, and I did get a couple. I tried my hand at sports, thinking maybe I could get a scholarship, but that didn’t happen. Wasn’t really my thing, I guess. But it was enough, anyway, the rest of it. It was enough, even though the banks kept denying our loan or aid applications.

“I got accepted to the local university. It was far enough away that I couldn’t commute from home, so I had to live in town. I got a crappy apartment that was about the size of a closet and lived there. It was awesome. It was my own place. My parents, they’re super conservative, super Catholic and really old fashioned. Being at college and getting away from all of that... it was a whole new world opening up for me. For once I wasn’t living under their thumb. I could make my own choices and be whoever I wanted to be. I was on my own, one hundred percent. I was free. No one was there to judge me. All I had to do was work as hard as I could and follow my dreams. My whole future was laid out in front of me and anything was possible. I wasn’t doomed to live on a farm and milk cows my whole life. I could be someone. With a college degree, any college degree, I could get a job good enough to take me anywhere I wanted to go in the world.”

Jacen pauses there, like he wants to live in that moment longer, savoring the remembered possibility of old hopes. His tone of voice is vastly different when he starts speaking again. The hope is gone, replaced by bitter resentment.

“The... well, the beginning of my sophomore year, I’d just finished busting my ass with three different jobs over the summer, working as an intern in a law office, bussing tables, and working as a janitor at my school. I never slept and I was fucking exhausted all the time but it was worth it. I was making it work. I went home to see my family for Thanksgiving break, to share my worldly tales with all of my brothers and sisters.” Jacen stops, laughing at himself with more malice than Liam can bear.

“My brother, Dennis, seventeen-years-old, had just got himself a car,” Jacen sneers. “It was an old Ford pickup. He paid for it himself, just like I had done, working hard, saving up. I was so proud of him. He wanted to show it off, you know? Take it for a spin. So we went for a drive, just the two of us, cruising around.”

Concern darkens Liam’s eyes. “What happened?”

“We got sideswiped by a drunk going eighty in a twenty-five mile-per-hour zone. The truck rolled down an embankment and the other guy drove off before the cops came. When I woke up, I had six different broken bones, two in my left arm, and the rest in my legs and feet where they’d been crushed by the car. It took me almost a full year of rehab before I was able to walk again.”

“Oh my god,” Liam groans. “And Dennis? I’m afraid to ask....”

“Brain damage,” Jacen replies, staring straight ahead. “He had broken bones, too, but it didn’t even seem to matter, because he was gone. We’d never get him back the way he used to be. He’d never get better. My baby brother, whom I loved with all my heart, was
gone
. And you want to know what the worst part is? I hated him for it. I hated him for taking me out in that piece of shit truck like a show-off fool. All of that work, all of that
money
I had saved up... it went to pay the medical bills. My whole future, my dreams. Pfft.
Gone
. Gone just like him. But you know, just because life sucks doesn’t mean you get to stop living it, so I pushed myself to get back on my feet just to get away from him and my parents. I was
so angry
, Lee. In one moment, everything good in my life was stolen from me.”

With a grimace that masks profound sadness, Jacen hesitates for a moment, remembering a life he used to have. When he begins to speak again, it’s with determination, but Liam can still feel Jacen’s grief, under the surface. “But I did it. I did my PT and eventually I got better. I moved out and didn’t keep in touch. I found some of my friends from school and got my old place back. I had enough time to work without school to worry about, so rent was no problem. I’d work 24/7 if I had to. The anger never dulled, though. So I acted out. I had this opportunity fall into my lap. Some rich guys from one of the frats were offering cash to anyone who’d be willing to suck them off whenever the mood struck. It was more money than I’d make in a week, at all of my jobs combined, just for some BJs. After that, I got addicted to it. It was like a drug, all of that money, and how easy it was to get. I started to place ads in the personals, you know? Escort service things. Really vague. I got a couple of older, bored housewives calling me for sex, and that was awesome. It became my career. That’s how I got into it. It’s not as dramatic as your story, but it is what it is. I’m not angry anymore. I like my life, especially now that you’re in it.”

Liam studies Jacen’s face like it’s a book, like Jacen tends to do to him, his eyes sharpening as if, should he stare hard enough, he might be able to crack the code of Jacen’s words to find what’s hidden underneath.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t buy it.”

Dumbstruck, Jacen blinks, “Excuse me?”

“I don’t buy it. I don’t accept that you started this because you were so fucking greedy that the easy money was just too tempting. That’s not who you are,” Liam accuses.

Hurt, Jacen pulls away. Liam pulls him back. “Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe you don’t know me at all.”

“You said you were raised in a religious home! Conservative! How do you go from being an innocent farm boy to sucking guys off for a few hundred bucks? You’re not a shallow person, Jacen! Even the hard work, the accident, losing your dream, it wouldn’t be enough. It shouldn’t be enough to cause this,” Liam argues.

“You’re wrong. It was plenty.”

“No. I refuse to accept that. There’s something you aren’t telling me, and I can’t figure out if it’s to protect me or to protect yourself. Either way, it’s scaring the shit out of me and you have to tell me what it is.”

Jacen’s face hardens. He sets his jaw and grits his teeth, blinking his eyes clear. It works for a little while, but Liam’s resolve is stronger than Jacen’s.

“You can trust me,” Liam says softly.

“That
was
the truth,” Jacen struggles to say. The words stick in his throat.

“No. Not all of it.”

“Why? Because it’s so easy to see how
damaged
I am? How fucked up? Is it just so apparent that I’m easy to fuck over? That’s an awesome thing to say to someone you care about. Maybe you just want me to be something I’m not. Did that ever occur to you?”

“Who did this to you?”

Jacen’s eyes dart away.

“Someone in your family?”

Releasing a sharp exhale, Jacen tenses, closing off, pushing Liam away mentally.

“No. Then who?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Jacen insists, sounding like he wants to believe it and can’t quite manage it.

“Jacen,
please
tell me what happened. Tell me who. It’s okay. I promise it’s okay.”

“Can’t you see I don’t want to talk about this?!”

“So there is something. You aren’t denying it. Someone hurt you. Was it a relative? Was it a teacher? Was it your priest? Come on! Jacen, give me
something
! Talk to me! Just say a name. Say it! Spit it out. Say the name. Just the name.”

Jacen whispers something.

“What...?”

There’s a long pause. Jacen’s face is a mask. He takes a deep breath and then stops fighting, stops hiding, stops caring.

“Mr. Andrews,” Jacen says a little more clearly. “Brian Andrews.”

Liam gets very still, his heart pounding. His eyes widen. “Who is Brian Andrews?”

“He was our neighbor.”

Liam gazes over at Jacen with enough naked affection that it penetrates the invisible outer shell he’s built up around himself over the years. The real, vivid concern for his well-being, for the naïve, long-lost little boy he used to be, enables Jacen to speak the truth aloud for the very first time.

“He owned the land next to my family’s property and he told me he was going to buy us out and kick us off of it if I told anyone. He could have easily done it. My brothers and I were friends and schoolmates with his kids. My parents thought I went over there to play and when I came home with money, they thought I’d been doing
chores
.”

“How long?”

“Forever.”

“Jacen,
how long
?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“
Jacen
,” Liam begs, shaken, sitting up, his face going pale and slightly green.

“You don’t want to know, Liam. Trust me. And it never stopped. It only stopped when I wasn’t living there. He even found me when I was in a fucking wheelchair after the accident.”

“Younger than fifteen?” Nothing. No reaction. “Younger than ten?”

Jacen looks at him coldly. “It wasn’t only about sex and being attracted to little boys; he told me I was his
favorite
. It was an
obsession
. He got off on terrorizing me when I was an eighteen-year-old in that wheelchair as much as he did molesting me as a little boy. I was more than an opportunity, I was a
project
.”

Liam presses the back of his hand to his mouth and closes his eyes as helplessness, nausea and rage at the cruelty in the world paralyses him.

Now that Jacen has started to let out some of the pent-up bitterness, it unleashes a flood of admissions, bottled up for much too long. “And when the fear of losing our home and livelihood wasn’t effective enough, he’d threaten to go after my brothers. He threatened to go after
Dennis
. I knew he would have done it too, to fuck with my head, but he didn’t need to. All he had to do was make me understand that he could. Or he’d just make it hurt a lot. He was good at that, hurting me in creative ways. When I left for good once I could walk again, I took some of the tapes he’d made of us over the years and sent them to the local police department. I sent some to the local news station, too. I had no choice! I couldn’t let that be my life a single second longer, but I couldn’t escape without showing the world the monster he was. I had to
show them
. That’s one of the reasons why I’m never going back. I changed my name, moved far away, and put it all behind me. I’m not that person anymore. As far as my family knows, I’m dead. I plan to keep it that way. After seeing what he’d done to their child, right under their noses, for all of those years? I’d rather be dead to them.”