“Or I thought it was dead. I forgot how to love. I found other things that substituted
for love. I mean, don"t get me wrong, not all the foster families I was with were bad.
Some of them were good, kind folks trying to help kids in need. Though others were
clearly just in it for the money, churning kids through their houses as fast as possible,
with as little care as they could get away with. But even with the good ones, it never
lasted. Sooner or later, I was moved, for one reason or another. As I got older, I started
acting out and getting in trouble. I would fuck things up before anyone else could do it
for me. At least I had some kind of control that way, or it felt like it, for a while.”
Jeff was listening hard, aware something new was happening. Reese had never
talked this long at a stretch in all the weeks they"d been together. And certainly he"d
never talked about his past. He was offering Jeff his secrets. He was giving him a gift. If
only it weren"t too late.
Reese continued. “When I met Hank, it was the same old story. I was seventeen, the
new kid yet again, in the closet, angry and confused. Hank was there for me. He took
me under his wing. He was my first. My only for a long time. But that"s not what kept
us together. Or not the main thing.”
Reese paused for so long Jeff turned to look at him again. He was staring straight
ahead and when he finally spoke, Jeff had to strain to hear him.
“It was near the end of senior year. A terrible accident. I—I was in a fight. These
kids snuck up on us. Hank was knocked out. I think I lost my mind. I punched this kid.
I—I, oh god. I"ve never said this. Not aloud. Never.” Reese"s voice cracked and he
stopped speaking. Jeff remained still, waiting.
Drawing in a breath and blowing it out, Reese finally continued. “I didn"t start the
fight, but I sure was intent on finishing it. Something snapped inside me when those
kids attacked us. When he went down, he hit his head on the corner of a table. There
was blood everywhere. You wouldn"t think one person had so much blood. I still see it
in my dreams—I slip in sticky puddles of bright red blood, drowning in it, suffocating
in it…” Again Reese"s voice cracked and Jeff thought he might be stifling a sob.
His heart welled with pity. If Reese was lying now, he was the best actor on the
planet and deserved a Golden Globe. If he was telling the truth…what then? Did it
matter? Did it change things between them? Did it erase what Reese had done?
“I was arrested,” Reese finally continued. “Hank"s dad did something. Pulled some
strings, to this day I don"t know what, but he got me off. It was ruled an accidental
death and the books were closed.
“But I did it.” This last sentence was uttered in a whisper.
He repeated in a louder voice, “I killed him. I delivered the punch that sent him into
that table. I took his life. Hank covered for me. He got his dad to fix it, but nothing he
did could ever bring that boy back to life. He could never undo what I had done.”
“Oh, Reese,” Jeff said, forgetting his promise to remain steadfastly silent. “It was an
accident.”
“Even if he hadn"t fallen the way he had, I would have killed him anyway, don"t
you see?” The anguish was ripe in Reese"s voice. “I would have. I was out of my mind
with rage that day. I was reacting to everything—all the perceived wrongs done against
me over the years, not the least of which was being bullied for being gay. I wanted to
kill him. I wanted him dead for humiliating me the way he had. Don"t you see, I wanted
him dead!”
Jeff was quiet, taking in the enormity of this burden Reese had been carrying
around for so many years. “Thoughts don"t equal action, Reese. From what you"re
saying, it was an accident. He died, yes, but you didn"t murder him. You hit him in self-
defense and he fell.”
Reese shook his head. “They would have charged me with murder, I know it, if
Hank"s dad hadn"t stepped in. He put me to work too, after high school. One of his
construction companies. I worked for Hank"s family in various capacities all these
years, and I guess, by default for Hank, since he"s the sole heir. Hank was angry when I
quit working for his family business to try something on my own. He kept telling me I
was a fool. I think he sensed he was already losing me at that point, even before I knew
it myself.”
Finally Reese turned to face Jeff. “Hank isn"t like other people. The term spoiled
really applies in his case. His parents used money as a replacement for love. In all the
years I knew them, I never once saw them touch him or each other.
“To people who don"t know him, which is most everyone, I guess, he"s able to mask
it pretty well. He draws on his sheer force of will, wit, good looks and definitely his
money to gloss over his inability to connect. I was the only one who knew how empty
he really was inside. Or maybe empty"s the wrong word. Frozen, somehow. Shut down.
“Instead of trying to help him, I went along with it. For years, I played his games
and made them my own. I told myself it was the challenge of the sexual hunt that I
enjoyed. The rush of seeing who I could get in bed, without ever involving my
emotions. We fed off each other in that way, encouraging and excusing each other"s
behaviors. We thought we were slick—nothing got to us, nothing hurt us.”
Reese sighed. “Until you, Jeff. Until I met you.”
Jeff sat, wordless, his mind in turmoil. Now was the moment to stand. To open his
arms and welcome Reese into them. To give him the absolution he so clearly wanted. To
forgive and forget.
But he didn"t move. Though his heart ached for the damaged, hurting man, he
couldn"t get past the betrayal. He couldn"t forget the video Hank had watched of Reese
making love to him on the bed. No,
fucking
him on the bed, fully aware as he did so
they were being taped.
After what they"d shared—the fiery, tender intensity of that first time—Reese had
still had a chance to stop what he was doing. He could have destroyed the video. He
could have lied to Hank and said it didn"t work out. He could have been honest and
admitted he didn"t want to play their sick games anymore.
But he hadn"t. He"d handed over the video—perhaps their entire night had been
recorded and Hank only bothered to share a portion with Jeff. Reese had accepted the
money for the deed and then pretended to be falling in love with Jeff, never admitting
to the horrible thing he"d done.
Reese claimed he"d wanted to confess a dozen times. If he had done so on his own,
would Jeff have been able to forgive him then? If his hand hadn"t been forced by Hank,
would Jeff have found a way to reconcile the humiliation Reese had subjected him to
with the love he"d thought was developing between them?
He honestly didn"t know. And he didn"t know what to do now either. His heart was
filled with compassion, but did compassion equal love? Was it enough to begin to
rebuild what had been destroyed?
What was the difference between being in love and thinking you were? Was being
in love about what survived after time and temptation, misfortune, change, the need to
forget and forgive had all been faced?
While Jeff pondered these weighty questions, Reese stood slowly and turned away.
The sun was just below the mountains, casting the sky in gray and lavender. Reese
slipped away, the trees along the path swallowing him into darkness.
Somewhere a bird sang and Jeff bowed his head.
~*~
Reese returned home but he didn"t try to go back to sleep. Instead he made himself
a pot of coffee and booted up his computer. He had plans to make. His life was not
over. It was just beginning.
He felt a curious lightness, even though there had been no fairytale ending at the
top of the mountain. Though Jeff hadn"t come rushing into his arms, at least he"d
listened. If things had gone differently, he might have cancelled his request for time off,
but they hadn"t.
Still, something important had happened. For the first time in his life, Reese had
shared about his past and the secrets he"d held close for so long. He"d shared without
expectation of sympathy or as a way to excuse his behavior. He"d simply been ready—
at last—to fully open his heart to the man he loved. If only he"d found a way to do so
sooner, before Hank had intervened, maybe things wouldn"t have turned out as they
had.
For too long, Reese had allowed himself to operate within the worldview Hank and
he had created over time. In that world, Reese owed Hank because Hank had saved him
from his own guilt. Beyond the continuing habit of their sexual relationship, beyond the
sordid games they played to keep real feeling at bay, they"d both bought into the fiction
that the debt could never be repaid. Reese would owe Hank until the day he died. Reese
hadn"t helped matters by letting Hank buy him gifts and take him on expensive trips
around the world over the years. Had he been any better than Hank? Was it possible to
change?
Yes. He was a different man now. There was no longer any question. Had it been
Jeff"s love that had broken the spell? Or was it his own fledgling realization that he
could love in return? It was a sad, bitter irony that he"d lost Jeff in the process, but he
couldn"t deny, even in the face of that devastating loss, that he"d gained something in
himself.
Opening a travel site on the Internet, he scrolled through various beach
destinations, finally settling on a flight that left that evening for the Baja Peninsula. The
ticket price was deeply discounted—they were probably trying to fill the last remaining
seats. With a few clicks of the mouse, he purchased a roundtrip ticket.
There. He"d done it. He was going away, by himself, for the first time in his life. He
had no particular agenda. He would swim in the ocean, sleep on the sand and hopefully
find some kind of peace at last within himself over the loss of Jeff.
Whatever happened going forward, he knew he was a different man, a better man,
than he"d been before, someone who, if only he could have another chance, Jeff might
be proud to know.
Jeff was helping himself to some brownies someone had brought in when he heard
Bob"s booming voice from nearby. “Excellent, Reese. Glad to hear your trip was good
and we"ll look forward to seeing you tomorrow.”
Reese was back!
It was ironic—Jeff had spent the prior two weeks doing everything in his power to
avoid the guy, but once he left, he felt his absence as keenly as the loss of a limb.
Though he hadn"t fully appreciated it when Reese was telling his secrets on the
mountain, something had changed between them that dawn. It wasn"t that Jeff felt any
less humiliated or betrayed by Reese"s initial deception, but the sting was lessened by
an overlay of compassion for Reese"s difficult early life.
Jeff felt almost guilty in retrospect. His childhood perhaps wasn"t ideal, but at least
he"d had a family to see him through. He had no secrets—at least not the kind Reese
had. His parents knew he was gay, and while not overtly thrilled about it, at least
hadn"t disowned him. He"d even made a sort of peace with his brothers.
He tried to imagine what it must have been like, carrying the burden of feeling
responsible for another person"s death. Poor Reese. And no one out there who really
loved him—who would be there for him when he needed it most. All he"d had was
Hank, and he, from the sound of things, took complete advantage.
Listening to Reese talk on the mountain was like watching someone peel the layers
of an onion, gripping deep and pulling hard, tearing away the very protection he"d
armored himself with all his life. That offering of himself, emotionally naked, was
perhaps the best and most intimate gift Jeff had ever received.
And he"d let Reese go.
He"d let him walk away.
He"d stayed another hour on the rock, watching the rising sun turn the mountains
that curious pink-gold that made them look like they were lit from within, thinking of
Reese.
I still love him.
That realization hadn"t come as quite the shock it might have. Jeff had known all
along, beneath his hurt-drenched anger, he was still in love with Reese. It"s what had
made what had happened so very hard to bear.
He had driven by Reese"s place later that evening, thinking maybe they could talk.
He wasn"t going to commit himself to anything more than that, but maybe, just maybe,
he was ready to start a dialog again. To perhaps begin to piece together some of the
shattered fragments of their relationship.
Reese"s motorcycle wasn"t in the driveway and so Jeff had returned home, not yet
ready to call. He"d spent the week Reese was gone wondering and waiting. Had he
missed his chance? Had Reese reconciled with that bastard Hank and taken off for the