After Ben (41 page)

“That’s Maggie and her husband, Mike. She’s my assistant, and a very good friend. She stopped me from starving this year.”

“And this?”

“Evan.” Theo smiled. He’d caught him during a rare moment of relaxation. Evan’s face was pink with pleasure.

“He is very beautiful. If you had told me that this was your Morgan, I would wonder why you were still here, Theo.”

“Oh, now he really is too young.” Theo clicked onto the next picture. “Anyway, he’s with Joel. See? Morgan looks very different from Evan. He’s tall, dark, and brooding, not small, blond, and vulnerable looking.” It was true. “Besides, Evan’s older brother would kill me.”

Marco pulled the screen closer. Scanning the faces in the background. “There are two of them? Show me the brother. How much older is he?”

Theo snorted, then clicked through until he found a shot of Aiden, who had come to collect his interns at the end of the evening. Leaning against a wall, cat’s eyes slanting sideways as he waited with his arms crossed, Aiden was the perfect image of a protective big brother. Marco stared and stared. Shaking his head a little, he asked, “So where is your Morgan?”

Theo showed him his blurred cell phone picture, explaining that, although they had known each other since the end of the summer, they had only been together for ten days or so. “It seems like so much longer. I feel like I’ve known him forever.” He rushed to fill Marco’s silence. “I don’t mean that I feel more for him than….”

“Stop, Theo. Start from the beginning. I have a year to fill. Tell me everything.”

Theo did. It took all afternoon and a bottle of rich red wine with their lunch, which they ate next to the windows overlooking the courtyard. Marco didn’t seem to mind when Theo went off on tangents, recalling instances with his brother, then relating conversations with Morgan. He just sat, pulling the crusts from his bread—just like Ben—asking questions and nodding in encouragement.

He listened as Theo told him about staring at his bedroom ceiling for days that turned into weeks, and he leaned closer when Theo described how he broke some of the things his brother had really loved. When Theo told him that he spent hours and hours at work just waiting to go home to bed, so that he could sleep Ben back to life for a few hours in his dreams, Marco held his hand again.

“It was so hard to be alone.” Theo stumbled over his words. “Sometimes I wanted to be with him so much, I thought… I thought about….”

Marco hushed him. “Enough,
tesoro
. Now, tell me how you got from there to here.”

That should have been much easier, but Theo found it difficult to distinguish in his mind which came first: the interns, Peter, or meeting Morgan on the forum. Explaining it all to someone else made Theo guess that he must sound a little crazy.

“No more than usual, Theo. You gave up any claim to sanity when you took my brother home with you instead of me.” They smiled at each other. Marco continued, “So, these young men knew your Morgan, but not for the reason you imagined?”

“Yes.” Theo had lain awake the night before, cell phone resting on his chest, after reading Morgan’s two-word message over and over and over—
talk soon
—thinking that he should have talked to a lot of people a lot sooner. He figured he should have pinned down Joel when he said that people came to the shelter for different reasons. Maybe if he’d asked the right questions in the first place, he would have known much sooner that Morgan’s first visit to the shelter hadn’t been as a volunteer.

It seemed so obvious now that he’d been there seeking refuge.

Sure, Morgan wasn’t the same as the others there. He wasn’t an alcoholic or other substance abuser. He wasn’t someone who had lost everything to untreated mental illness, like some of the men he’d met. Fuck no. Morgan had been there because he had nowhere else to go. Theo remembered Peter’s description of the spiral of abuse. It made him feel sick to think of his Morgan gradually becoming isolated from friends, perhaps moved away from his family and encouraged to work in an isolated field, then told over and over and over that he was unlikeable.

He’d walked away from a beating that left him black and blue, leaving his keys, money, phone, and even his own fucking winter scarf behind. He was lucky to be alive. As Theo described how they met online without realizing that their paths would cross in real life, he found it hard to speak. He was so angry.

“Theo, you say that you love him, no?” At his nod, Marco pointed to the laptop that sat on the end of his bed. “Maybe you should talk to him like you did when he was still an equal.”

Theo frowned. “What do you mean, ‘when he was still an equal’?”

“You have described a tragedy, Theo. Your Morgan sounds like a poor, poor boy, treated badly by an adult—treated worse than a disobedient dog, even. You talk about this shelter as if it is a terrible place, as if the people who go there have no hope.” He paused, wetting his lips slowly as he thought before speaking again. “Is that who you met online, Theo? A hopeless man? Is that who dragged you away from staring at your extremely interesting bedroom ceiling? Did you spend all your time talking to a poor, helpless victim, or to a man who challenged and excited you?”

Theo blinked across the table as Marco stood, picking up the laptop and settling himself against the headboard again.

“Come, Theo.” He patted the pillows next to him. “Show me this pale imitation of a man who cannot stand his own ground. Take me to your forum and introduce him to me. I have to know more about this man-child, who was strong enough to haul you back to life, yet is weak enough to need your pity.”

Pity.

That word stung.

Theo guessed it stung Morgan even more.

C
HECKING
his cell phone one last time, Theo headed upstairs after dinner with his parents, who were both exhausted after a full day of shopping. Marco had met them as they returned to the hotel, promising to take them sightseeing with his mamma the next day. Theo didn’t know whether to be amused or sad at how quickly his mom accepted Ben’s brother. Perhaps the journey and worry was catching up with him, but he’d found it hard to smile at their enthusiasm.

“We know it’s too late to make up for the past, son.” His dad had nudged his feet under the dinner table. “But meeting Marco kind of feels like a second chance to get to know Ben.”

“He’s a brat.”

“Theo!” His mom glared. “He’s feisty, that’s all. Just like Morgan.”

Theo blinked. How it was possible for his mom to make that comparison, he had no idea. None.

“That’s right,” his dad agreed, “he just throws it all out there. Take him or leave him. He says exactly what he thinks and doesn’t back down.”

Theo remembered that sick lurch of dread when he heard Morgan arguing with his dad. He’d immediately thought the worst. He’d guessed that yet a-fucking-gain his parents and his partner weren’t going to get along.

“How is he, son? Have you two had a chance to catch up?”

Theo knew what his dad was asking. He’d flipped his cell phone over on the table and checked the screen again, then shaken his head. As they’d said good-night, his dad held his sleeve until his mom had walked ahead a little. “Keep trying, son. Seems like both of the brats in your life are talkative little devils. Maybe you just need to find the right place to have a conversation.”

They parted ways, and Theo sent one last message before heading to bed, telling Morgan that he missed him and that he hoped he was okay. After showering, he slipped between the sheets and pulled his laptop onto his stomach, paging back through the forum discussions Marco and he had read together that afternoon. You really wouldn’t have guessed that Morgan was anything but strong from the way he debated so fiercely on the Internet.

Yeah, strong and fierce were pretty perfect descriptors, he reckoned. Even after Theo figured out that Morgan had been dealing with abuse, he still saw him as strong. It was just the shock that had made him question—just for the shortest while—if he really knew Morgan. Reading back through his messages on the forum only highlighted how fierce he could be. Marco had commented on the way Morgan seemed to throw himself in the path of other people’s argument, particularly if he felt that a participant was being bullied. That made so much more sense now.

So much more sense.

From the first day they’d exchanged messages, from Morgan’s very first “these people are fucking idiots,” he’d revealed elements of his character that hadn’t changed at all over the months and months they’d known each other.

Theo felt ashamed.

Marco was right.

When Theo watched Morgan touch his stupid fucking fist imprint on the refrigerator, he’d felt a wash of pity so deep he’d almost staggered. Oh, it had been followed by anger all right. He’d felt fucking furious that anyone could hurt Morgan like that. But yeah, he’d watched Morgan wrap his arms around himself, as if he was holding himself together, and then pitied him as if he were some weak stranger.

There was nothing weak about him.

Theo closed his eyes and stood in Morgan’s shoes for a moment. He’d gone through what must have been hell, knowing intellectually that his life was fucked up, raging about injustice in the safest way he could. Then, he finally broke away. That must have been beyond hard. Peter said that abusers made their victims take the blame. When he looked back at Morgan’s messages to other people, Theo could see that he practically screamed at them not to take the same path.

He’d gone through hell, and then they found each other. They’d been two damaged people, but instead of drowning together, they held each other up, virtually and in real life. They’d needed each other equally. Theo saw the closed expression on Morgan’s face all over again when he awoke only to realize that Theo didn’t see him as an equal anymore.

There was no way he’d stay, not under those terms.

He wouldn’t stay to be pitied.

Shoving the laptop away, Theo pulled up the sheets, huffing as sleep eluded him. Every time he shut his eyes, he saw Morgan’s back blooming with bruises, or curved under him as they fucked. There was nothing weak about Morgan in bed. Nothing.

A few days before he left for Milan, Theo stepped out of the shower to find Morgan brushing his teeth. He saw the moment Morgan’s eyes changed from observant to speculative in the mirror, and watched, thickening cock in hand, as Morgan dropped his pajama pants to his ankles, then flexed his spine as he bent to rinse his toothpaste away. Yeah, there had been nothing weak about his “Come on, babe” or the way he’d lifted one knee onto the counter. He’d been in control the whole way through, gripping the faucet with one hand as he shoved back against Theo’s still-damp erection. His next “Come on” had been an explicit order.

It had been hot and hurried and Theo had done exactly as instructed. When Morgan told him to come on for a third and final time, he did. He’d come until that narrow, pale back was the only thing that held him up.

Theo huffed again and turned the other way, flipping his pillow to find a cooler stretch of cotton to press his hot cheek against. Thinking about what Morgan had been through made him recall his hissed, “Don’t hold me down.” Theo’s cheeks burned even hotter.

Eventually, he sat up, his face in his hands. Attempting sleep was pointless. Hauling the laptop closer, he clicked to find the most recent new threads of forum discussion. There were the perennial political debates, along with gripes about city spending cuts. Someone blamed teachers for everything, while someone else blamed food additives. It was comfortable and very familiar reading. One thread detailed someone’s dread of the upcoming holiday and associated family visits.

After initially scanning the discussion, Theo went back and read carefully before commenting:

THEO: It sounds as if you are very worried about your sister.

The thread described how the forum member’s sibling had changed since hooking up with her partner. She’d become withdrawn, and family occasions had become tense affairs. Someone else had commented that it was none of their business, and that relationships were personal. Maybe the discussion starter was being a busybody and should butt out.

THEO: If you are worried, let her know that she has options. Let her know that things might seem impossible to change, but there is always an alternative. Don’t let her be embarrassed into staying. Keep talking. Never stop talking.

Never stop talking.

Opening a new browser window, Theo searched for flight details, then made a booking, credit card in hand. It was nearly 2 a.m. when he called Marco.

“Tell me,
tesoro
, that you have finally come to your senses and realize that I am the right brother for you.” Marco’s sleep-filled voice was husky as he added, “You couldn’t have figured this out while we were in your room today? We were already on the bed, Theo.”

“Quit it, Marco. I’m going home. I need….”

“Relax, Theo. I shall guard your parents and return them to you in perfect condition.” Theo sighed with relief. “Import-export is my thing, no? When do you leave?” Marco asked.

Theo looked at his watch. “Check-in opens in a few hours.”

“Go home, make love, build a life together, then bring your Morgan to visit.”

Theo agreed that he would if he could. He thought to himself that Ben would be so proud of his brother as he quickly repacked his case, then killed some more time reading the forum.

The Internet discussion had moved on a little. Even though he had guessed it was coming, when someone typed “Maybe she’s been asking for it,” Theo felt sick.

THEO: Shut your fucking mouth.

His hands shook.

THEO: No one deserves to live with fear.

His eyes stung. He pictured Morgan’s apartment, and the way his chair was placed so that he could see who was coming from his spot by the window. Imagining the wait from seeing his partner walk into the building until his own apartment door opened made Theo feel a little dizzy.

THEO: You should walk a fucking mile before you judge a situation. You should put yourself in someone else’s shoes before you blame, or judge, or pity. It takes a long time to wear down someone’s confidence, and it takes much more strength of will to walk away than it does to take another punch.