I inhale deeply before admitting, “I say this next part with a broken heart, but I used to make their lives a living hell. I got all of my ‘popular’ friends to tease them, bully them, make theirlives miserable. We ended up torturing Marcus a lot more than I would like to admit, and he was just so…different.” I can see the look in Elliott’s eyes shift, but all she does is take a bigger gulp of her wine. “My mom and dad were higher-ups in town, we had money from my family line and basically owned the whole town. So everyone wanted to be my friend since the Sinclair name was on almost every building.”
That small town was full of closed minded people who wanted everything to fall under the strict rules they followed, that their parents followed, and their parents’ parents followed. “Everyday at school I would watch Kam and Marcus talk, making jokes and hanging out…it made me want to rip them apart, take Kameron for me, my friend group. But no matter what I did, Kameron was always there for Marcus, getting in my face, defending him to a fault. Fuck, we even got in a fist fight about it once.” I huff out.
Elliott gasps, “You fought him? Why?”
“I was angry.” I admit to her and also to myself, “Mad at them for being so comfortable in their own skin, how they were so close and bonded. I was fighting with the terms of my own friendships and how transactional they were. People wanted my name but not me as a person. I was battling myself and my feelings, pushing down who I really was because I knew it wouldn’t match what my father would want me to be.”
“What did he want you to be?”
“Like him.” I state flatly. “My father was a typical old school, small town man. He wanted me to be a stereotypicalmanly man. An emotionless male that goes to college, gets a job, a wife, and has some kids to hate, kind of man. He didn’t want me to beme.He wanted me to be what he thought I should be, a perfect trophy son that would carry on the Sinclair name. I wanted his approval and love so badly back then that I shoved it all down and began to hate myself whenever it would try to peek its way out. When Kameron and Marcus showed up, I felt my facade slipping.” I feel a knot start to form in the back of my throat, a sting in my eyes that I haven’t felt in years, starting to creep its way in. I clear my throat, hoping it eases the tension in my throat. “Ahem–so when I started high school, I was finally free of them for a year, well at least at school. I still had to see them around town, but they hardly went to the same places my ‘friends’ and I went. It felt like that masked version of me would get to survive, stay where I’m expected to. It wasn’t until they joined for their freshman year in high school that I saw the change in them, how tall they were getting, their facial features sharper than before. I was on the football team, always in the gym so I knew I looked different. I was fine with sharing a school with them again. It was big so I could keep my distance, but then Kameron had to go and try out for the team. And of course–”
“He made the team.” Elliott and I say in unison.
“Yup.” I laugh as I take a drink of wine. Seeing her glass is almost empty, I grab the bottle and top it off for her. “I wasfurious. Convinced he did it just to get under my skin. Little did I know that he was just trying to get a scholarship for college. It had never crossed my mind that could be the reason he joined, I thought everyone had money to send their kids to college. I was naive back then, a spoiled brat with personal problems.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“I was trying really hard all season to ignore Kam. He would invite Marcus to all of the practices, games, home and away, plus all of the team get-togethers. I had to see them everywhere. It was worse than in junior high. All the hormones that were pumping through me, my emotions, my feelings towards them. They would catch me staring and I would have to glare like I wanted to beat them to a pulp, when all I really wanted was tobethem. My father saw me watching them from one of the team functions one time and ripped me a new one the minute we got home, calling me every harsh word in the book. Telling me he didn’t raise a sinner and he wouldn’t let me go to hell for being tempted by the Devil. He beat me so badly that night and I just took it.”
I remember the look on my father’s face. He was beyond angry, disgusted that I would look at another male that way. How he knew I was having lustful thoughts was beyond me. I just laid there taking it, ashamed of myself for disappointing him. For allowing myself to show him that side of me…to everyone that night.
“When I went to school the next day, people whispered in the hallways about my busted lip and black eye. I didn’t tell anyone what happened, I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it. I went through the day on autopilot.” Elliott rests a hand on my leg, letting her thumb rub over the fabric of my dress pants in a small, gentle circle. “I felt like everything I was, everything I worked so hard to hide, was unraveling. I didn’t know what to do. I skipped my last class of the day and went to the locker rooms to head towards the football gym. I beat the punching bag we had until my knuckles split open. By the time I stopped, I couldn’t tell if it was sweat or tears that covered my face. When I looked up, Kameron was sitting on the bench, his head lowered like he was waiting for his turn. I immediately got angry seeing him there. It was his fault for tempting me. HimandMarcus.”
I take a sip of wine, letting myself take a deep breath, “I went up to him and pulled him from the bench, punched him right in the gut as I screamed it was his fault, over and over again. He saw right through me. I don’t know how, but he did. He just wrapped his arms around me, stopping my punches and I broke down in his arms. We sat on the gym floor in silence for so long that when the doors opened to the gym because our teammates were filing in for practice, I shot up so fast and didn’t even thank him. I went back to how I treated him, but every autopiloted motion and word tasted bitter. I hated myself even more for it. Kameron took my torment though. He didn’t throw me under the bus and call me out to the whole team.”
“I’m so sorry.” I look at her, watching her fingers trace my free hand and looking where we connected, “That you felt like you couldn’t be you. You must have felt so trapped in your own skin. I know what that feels like, to feel like you have to live up to a standard that was never meant for you.”
Fuck, she cared how I felt.
Or was that just a common thing, to feel empathy for others?
Did it mean more?
I squeezed her hand, “It was rough and as much as I tried, Kameron kept inching his way into my life. I didn’t know how to stop it because in all honesty, I really didn’t want to. I didn’t fully let him in until after my father died. He was driving home one night from a work dinner and crashed his car. The police said he had triple the legal limit of alcohol when they tested his blood. My mother was hysterical, she loved him. I didn’t understand why…but I can still hear the cry she let out when the police showed up at our door that night.” The memory erupts and shivers run down my spine. My mother was more than heartbroken, she was distraught.
“After that, my mom fell into a pit of depression. She wouldn’t eat or sleep, she would just sit in his office in his big cushioned desk chair and stare out the window. I would make sure breakfast was on his desk for her every morning before I had to go to school and when I would get home she would be in the same spot, food untouched, and I would repeat the motions for dinner.”
“Kameron was the first person to actually ask me howIwas doing. I don’t know why but in that moment, I caved. I let go of everything. After that, it was the three of us. My old friends looked at me like I was rebelling because of the loss, but they didn’t know me. Not really. When I started to bring Marcus and Kameron to the house to hang out, my mother still wasn’t okay. But rather than feel uncomfortable or ignore the issue, they made my mother feel seen. They would say hi, give her positive words, say their goodbyes and thanks. I think they helped her feel somewhat normal again. They started to come around more and more and my mother started towantthem around. She began to look forward to their visits and the house being full of life, and she saw for the first time that I could be myself. I felt like I could breathe again.” I pause. “I should have mourned my father more, I see that now that I’m older, but I also know it wouldn’t have changed anything.”
Elliott scoots closer to me on the sofa, “Grief isn’t a linear path, everyone experiences it differently.”
“I just hope my mom knows that I felt the loss too.” My voice cracks as memories of my mother begin to flood me. “I hope she knows that she was the reason I was able to love myself again and that I was able to find people who loved me. I don’t think I would have had that if he had stayed alive. Fuck, that is so fucked to say. I’m sorry, Elliott.”
“Hey,” she places both hands on the sides of my face. “You don’t have to apologize to me.” Her soft palms spread warmth through my cheeks.
“I fell in love with those men long before I ever loved myself.” I don’t think as I scoop her up in a hug. The only way for her to comfortably accommodate this position was to bring her legs around me, straddling me. The sound of her inhale has me squeezing her tighter against me.
“Thank you.” She says in a hushed tone.
I pull away just enough to be face to face, “For what?”
“For telling me such an intimate memory. It helped me understand you more, understand all of you a bit more.”
“You made it easy to tell.” I push a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear, letting my knuckles trace down her neck.
You're pushing your luck.
I didn’t care, I had her in my arms. Her eyes dipped to my mouth and back up again.
