PART III: Over My Shoulder (Running Away)
Over My Shoulder (Running Away)
23,583 words, PG-15
Adam/Kris
Part II
Kris’s Sunday morning shift requires him to be there early, and he is always there first, after David, no matter what. So it’s quite surprising for him to see Adam sitting alone on one of the barstools, sipping something from a white mug. Kris closes the door with a bang, to disturb him a little and to let him know someone else is here now, but Adam doesn’t move.
Kris is nervous, actually. He hasn’t really seen Adam since he broke his wrist - it’s the first proper time, and Adam wasn’t exactly happy with him when he left. In fact, he seemed incredibly angry with Kris. So will he still be mad at him now? The only person other than Adam who has ever been seriously angry at Kris is his father. Kris doesn’t really know how to assess the situation, given his previous experiences - he doesn’t have a very strong benchmark.
“Why don’t you come sit down?” Adam’s soft voice breaks through Kris’s thoughts, through the stark silence, and it shocks him a little.
He gathers his bearings before saying, “Oh - uh, okay?”
Kris makes his way around the counter, moving to make himself a coffee, but Adam pushes a cup across to him.
“I made you one already.”
Kris isn’t used to Adam’s voice; it’s quiet and soft, but at the same time it’s harsh and cold - delicately severe. It makes Kris uneasy.
“Thanks,” he takes a small sip (it’s kind of embarrassing, actually. His right arm is in the cast and he’s not used to using his left hand for holding a cup. He feels uncoordinated and gawky) but before he tastes it he can already tell that this coffee is his favorite - a vanilla latte; he can smell it. “This is my favorite, you know.”
Adam nods slightly. “Yeah, I do. You’ve said it a few times, so that’s what I thought you’d like.”
“I do.”
He can’t help but see a resemblance to what he did for Adam the other day, and this gesture - well, it both freaks Kris out and just makes him want to smile so wide with happiness, because Adam remembered his favorite coffee.
Kris carries his coffee around with him as he walks to sit next to Adam, separating his stool a bit so he’s not too close to Adam; he doesn’t want to make him uncomfortable. They sit in silence for a while and it agitates Kris further. He can feel his body becoming jittery and kind of restless. The silence is awkward, and because it’s Adam, Kris feels as though he should say something; shouldn’t he try to apologize, or impress him, something like that?
The thing is, when he looks over at Adam, he can see two massive hickies coloring his skin: one in the crook of his neck and one on his shoulder. Kris can only see these because Adam’s loose sweater is slipping off his shoulder and his black wife beater exposes a lot of skin. Had Adam been standing, Kris wouldn’t be able to see a thing.
(Kris has never realized before how freckled Adam’s skin is. He is covered in them. His fair, creamy white skin is completely shaded in with millions of tiny freckles; they spiral, curve and create paths and trails that Kris wonders how far they go.)
The hickies make Kris unsettled and he feels much more insecure and younger than he did before. He knows that Adam probably has a boyfriend or something, judging from all the phone calls and tears - but he’d never thought about Adam and sex. Or Adam and kissing. Or Adam and anything like that. He just - the thought never entered his mind before, but he also just presumed that - well, after Adam’s rape all those years ago, he just never thought… Kris was just stupid. He just didn’t think. He was being his usual naïve self, who thinks that everything is as simple as it seems. His mindset is that of a child’s - plain, unsuspecting and callow.
He looks over at Adam’s shoulder and then down at his neck again - and they’re kind of beautiful in a fucked-up way, almost mesmerizing. The hickies are a deep purple-red and the colors kind of blend into each other, small splodges staining his skin, tingeing it territorially.
Adam turns at that moment and catches Kris staring at him. He immediately tenses and straightens up; hiding the marks on his skin.
“I - uh, I was - I…” Adam continues on, a trickling mumble of words and unfinished sentences trying to give reason; his expression worried.
“I’m sorry about Wednesday; I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Adam stops his own muttering and looks at him hard. “You - you don’t need to apologize. I - I overreacted and I’m sorry. I’m just… I’m not really used to people being - it seems stupid really, but I’m not really used to people being nice to me. Especially boys. So - I’m sorry.”
“I wasn’t trying to, you know, intrude or anything - it’s just that, I didn’t want you feeling any more bad or upset - because you already were - about your -”
“Yeah, I get that now.” He smiles at Kris slightly, but Kris can tell that even though it’s small, it’s genuine.
Kris has another sip of his coffee using his left hand, and it just feels weird. He’s not used to it, at all.
“Shouldn’t you like, not be working? With your -?” Adam asks, pointing towards Kris’s arm.
“I shouldn’t be, really, but David said I could as long as I don’t break anything or screw up.”
Adam takes a deep breath and it seems as though he’s struggling a little with something - with what though? Adam sits quietly for a few more seconds, and then he says: “Do - do you want me to help you around here? With the things that you can’t really do?”
“Would you?”
Adam nods, his expression neutral. “Yeah. I’ll help you - it is kinda my fault that you broke it and all.”
Kris blushes, the heat a sudden rush to his cheeks and neck. “Well, thanks.”
Kris can hear David working out the back, his fingers tapping on his keyboard and his foot drumming softly against the ground - it’s that quiet. He wonders where everyone is… they should be opening relatively soon, and it’s kind of weird that no one else is here yet.
He notices Adam rustling with something in his satchel, and he sees a quick flash of a pack of developed photos - the shiny white package moving out of his vision as swiftly as it came into it.
Kris decides that perhaps this is his chance - maybe he could see Adam’s photos for real? Ebony said that he’s very private with them, so it’s not really a likely possibility, but he has to go for it, doesn’t he?
“So, uh - you’re interested in photography, right?”
Adam looks a little shocked, and answers kind of tentatively, “Um, yeah, I am… how’d you know?”
“You, uh, always have your camera with you, and you always come back from the developers at the beginning of your shift.”
Adam shakes his head incredulously, “How do you notice these things? You’re really… attentive.”
“I just pick up on them, I guess… it’s nothing really.”
“No, it’s nice. Well, I am.” And he kind of turns back to looking ahead, as though the conversation has ended, but Kris isn’t finished yet.
“Do you think - would I maybe be able to - to see some of them? Your photos?” Kris points to Adam’s bag. “You were messing with a pack in there…”
Kris feels panicky the moment the words leave his lips, and Adam’s hand tightens protectively over the material of his satchel - he’s probably overstepped a line here, or something. Adam’s expression looks quite conflicted, and Kris rushes to cover up his words, “No, it’s alright - you don’t need to -”
“I’ll - you can see them; this is just new, uh - usually I show somebody - but no, I’d like you - you can look at them.”
Adam pulls the package from out of his bag, and Kris can’t believe his luck; it’s pretty astonishing, actually. Adam slides the pack along the counter to him and bites his lip almost nervously.
He pulls the set of photographs out slowly with so much care, Kris is barely breathing. He goes through the photos gradually, looking at each one for a while - and they really are amazing. There are so many of them, and each and every one of them is beautiful in a different way. Most of them are of one guy (which is kind of like a heavy blow to Kris’s stomach when he sees this; it really shocks him, but it could be anyone right? Maybe Adam has a brother that he… likes to take photos of?), and the guy is gorgeous, in a really harsh, model-like way. He has really defined cheekbones, dark hair, is very tall and skinny, and his eyes are so clear, they remind him of ice. (He’s striking in every way Kris isn’t.) There are photos of the guy flipping the camera off, of him sitting on a bed in boxers, of him on a beach, of him walking away from Adam… so many.
But there are other photos, too; photographs of inanimate things like shoes and cigarette butts, clothes and beer bottles - things that seem stupid, but when they’re in Adam’s photos, they transform into something delicate or something bold and full of color; it’s the lighting and the angle and the texture, just everything.
“You’re really, really good, you know.”
“Really?”
“Really.” And Adam chuckles a little bit at that.
“I’m okay… I guess. It’s kind of hard to look at them in an objective way, ‘cause they’re mine.”
“No, honestly, I really love them. I think you’re seriously brilliant… like this one here -” Kris pulls out a black and white picture of the guy in a beanie, looking away from the camera, and passes it to Adam. “Like that one, it’s incredible. It’s all… grainy? Is that the right word to use? And the light, how it’s all really bright -”
“Exposure. That’s why that one you’re holding is very bright, it’s over-exposed - but then the one you have there,” he points to Kris’s left hand, “that’s under-exposed; see how it’s really really dark and dim? That’s to do with the exposure and aperture setting.”
Kris raises his eyebrows and grins, “Well, I have no idea what aperture is at all, but it sounds very cool.” He passes Adam a picture of a strangely shaped cake, with an obscene amount of candy decorating it, “I really love this one too.”
Adam crinkles his nose. “That one?”
Kris shrugs and hands him another one. “Yup. And this one. The shoes are awesome,”
“Oh yeah, the Docs.” He smiles softly at Kris. “You know, this is the first time anybody has ever really liked my photos.”
“Really? You’re like… incredibly talented.”
“Oh, well, I wouldn’t say that exactly, but thank you. It’s really nice that you think that.”
Kris tilts his head to the side. “I don’t think you get what such a good photographer you are, Adam. You’re amazing - I don’t know what you’d call it or whatever, but I -”
“You’re just saying that,” Adam says as he rolls his eyes.
“No, no - you just take beautiful photos.” Kris leans in, closer to Adam and places his hand on Adam’s knee, and it seems almost… natural, Kris thinks. Adam curves his lips into a smile, and Kris asks, “What do you like so much about it? Photography.”
Adam thinks for a second or two, tapping his finger on the side of his cup. “Well, I guess it’s kind of - I’m not sure. You know when you look at a photo that you’ve taken, and you remember that exact moment, the exact emotion you felt then? You can look at it and remember how beautiful or awful the moment was, and it’s in your hands. It comes rushing back, and you know it all over again. It’s like, it’s yours, and nobody can take that place or that world away from you.” Adam tips his head ever so slightly, and his hair sways close to his eyes, falling to one side. “I guess it’s kind of how you perceive the photo - how you take it to mean something, how you can understand it. Like, you can tell that perhaps the subject is beautiful, really frighteningly beautiful, but you can realize that it’s incredibly scary and dangerous….” He pauses and looks at Kris. “If that makes any fucking sense. But it’s why I love it, I guess. And I just love to take photos of things that I like.” He shrugs. “That’s it really. It’s just something really wonderful.”
Kris stares up at Adam, and Adam flushes ever so slightly. “You’re really - you’re wicked cool, Adam. I like that.”
Adam shakes his head. “No, I’m not at all.”
“You are, Adam… you really, really -”
Adam suddenly leans into Kris, and he rocks slightly in his chair. He takes a hold of Kris’s chin - his fingers cool on Kris’s skin, grasping tightly, and he brushes his lips over Kris’s, small fluid movements smearing over his skin. Kris almost moves away from him out of astonishment and shock, but he’s too overwhelmed to do anything. He feels frenzied and feverish and scared all at once; he moves his hand up to Adam’s thigh to brace himself on out of fear that he might fall out of his stool.
“- really are. You are,” he whispers against Adam’s lips, but Adam just continues pressing tiny kisses all over his lips, back and forth, frantic. Eventually he settles for just kissing Kris properly, moving his mouth over Kris’s softly, almost gingerly. Adam’s lips are warm and smooth, a little glossy, and Kris gets pulled into it, into kissing Adam.
He becomes distracted with Adam, and he wants to keep kissing and kissing and kissing him. It’s his first kiss, damn it; he wants it to last. But then he remembers the hickies. And the phone calls. And Adam’s must-be boyfriend. He can’t do that to someone he doesn’t know. As much as he doesn’t want to - and boy, does he not want to - he needs to stop this. Like, right now.
“Adam - Adam, Adam, Adam,” he mutters into Adam’s lips.
“Hmmm?”
“I - we - we need to stop.”
“Huh?”
Adam’s voice is a little drowsy and slow, and Kris pulls himself away from his lips, as hard as it is. “You have a boyfriend. And I - I’m - it’s not fair to me or him or you.”
Adam straightens in his seat, a nervous and worried expression plastered on his face, and sighs, “I’m sorry; I don’t know what came -”
At that moment, Jack barges through the doors, followed by Hannah, Nick and Mia. Hearing this sudden noise, David enters the room from out back, and says, “Finally here now, are you? You’re late. Come on, we need to set up the place now.”
Adam looks at Kris and bites his lip, before glancing down at Kris’s hand, as if noticing it for the first time. Kris warily takes it away and slips off the bar stool, feeling the imprints of Adam’s fingers on his chin, cool and heavy.
“I’ll clean the cups,” he mutters, and walks away.
***
Fuck this, Adam thinks. Fuck this.
He grabs Kris by his shirt on his way out of the bathrooms - he’s just been cleaning them, and pulls him into the backroom. The room smells musty and it’s heinously ugly, but Adam doesn’t care. He’s been working up the courage to do this all day, and a hideous room won’t stop him.
He doesn’t know what he feels for Kris right now - he just wants to kiss him again. All he knows is that he hasn’t felt something like this in years; a sudden franticness as though Kris might disappear. It’s the first time a boy has kissed him who isn’t Dylan. In fact, Dylan has never really liked kissing Adam; so really, this is like a first kiss.
He’s got to make the most of it; he can’t be worrying about what he is and isn’t afraid of, he’s just got to do it, no matter what the consequences are. And they could be very, seriously bad.
Adam pushes Kris up against a wall, pressing him with the backs of his forearms. Kris looks utterly petrified, but in a good way, if such an expression is even possible.
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” Adam begins, “well - he’s not really my boyfriend. We’re not - he’s not - it’s not like that. I can’t really say anything else, but I don’t have a boyfriend. I don’t have a boyfriend, I don’t have a boyfriend…”
Adam trails off as he presses their lips together harshly, firmly mashing their mouths. His teeth accidentally bite Kris’s lips a few times, and to begin with Kris just stands there for a few seconds, doing nothing, and looking completely bewildered before he kisses back - but it’s all kinds of perfect to Adam. Adam felt it before, and he’s feeling it again; there’s something special about the way that Kris kisses him compared to any other. Maybe it’s just because it’s Kris, but regardless of that, Adam just feels an amazing sense of peace on top of everything else. It’s calming, sort of, to kiss Kris. It stops him worrying and puts him at ease.
“So what about the -”
Adam swallows his words and replies, because he knows exactly what Kris is talking about. “It’s not important. I’ll tell you another time.” It’s better without Kris knowing - it really is, because what would Kris do if he found out?
But it’s those fucking hickies; Dylan gave them to him last night, and they still feel raw. Dylan had been feeling particularly angry yesterday, and obviously, he took it out on Adam. After a few hits and one exceptionally nasty blow to Adam’s head, Dylan was over it, and decided he wanted what he usually does. A good fuck, Adam thinks bitterly.
“I don’t get it…” Kris sighs into his mouth. And his tone isn’t whining or prying; it’s almost as though he’s thinking aloud, like a whisper of quiet curiosity.
“Can we not talk about it now? I don’t feel like it; really, it’s not - let’s just do it later.”
Adam can tell that Kris is about to say something else: his mouth opens a millimetre away from Adam’s own, and instead of letting him speak, Adam captures Kris’s lips and kisses him roughly, forcing the words away.
---
Adam’s life continues on the same road for the next two weeks, almost unchanging everyday.
He never talks to Kris at school, not ever, even though they share two classes. Adam doesn’t want to bring what he has with Kris to school; he wants to keep it a secret, locked away for only them in the dark corners of the back room at Starbucks. And Kris seems to understand this; he doesn’t really acknowledge Adam either, not really. Sometimes Adam catches Kris staring at him, or he feels a hot prickle weave all over his neck from where Kris’s gaze is imprinting on him.
To be honest, Adam finds himself looking at Kris occasionally, too. It’s almost a subconscious action; he becomes distracted or he just finds his gaze wandering over to Kris, and it stays there. Kris just mesmerizes him. Everything about him: his small, compact frame, his slim litheness, his messy dark hair, with his crooked, floppy bangs; his smooth skin, his full red lips, the hard angles of his face and slightly hollow cheeks and his brown eyes that Adam just loves - all of him captivates Adam. Staring at him is comforting to him. Kris reminds Adam that he does have some - or at least one - good things in his life, albeit slightly fucked and weird ones. Anything that Kris does or says brings a small amount of peace to Adam and it folds away inside of him for when he really needs it - usually when he’s with Dylan. It’s just - when he looks at Kris, he feels soft and safe, protection and - there’s really no other word - love. It’s not necessarily love for Kris, it’s just as though his mind recognizes that he can actually feel love.
All of these feelings are heightened when he kisses Kris - which is something they do a lot. Often Adam finds himself tapping Kris on the hand gently, and Kris will almost immediately follow him out the back, into their little room; sometimes Adam will just wait for him in the room and within five minutes Kris will have realized that Adam isn’t in the café, and he’ll come find him. Sometimes it’s almost telepathic: their eyes will just meet and suddenly Adam’s heart is racing and he wants nothing more to be and to stay with Kris in that room forever, holding Kris’s hipbone with one hand and his broken wrist in the other, closing his eyes and kissing Kris into a void.
He just wants another person so badly, and he’s not sure if it’s Kris. He wants to be able to tell that person things he’s never told anybody else, wants to tell him secrets that are hidden so far down inside him; he wants to tell him his hopes and dreams, and his wishes for his future and what he wants to change about his past. Adam wants to tell that person about his fucked-up past, to let him know why he is how he is. And more than anything, he wants to tell them about his music and to show them his voice, to sing for them - something he hasn’t done in three years. He wants to make someone cry from his voice, to make that person smile and giggle, to make them want to dance, to kiss someone, to hug someone - he just wants to invoke emotion from somebody other than himself.
And that person could be Kris.
---
Adam's back is flat against the dimly lit, cold wall of the backroom, and Kris is pressing against him, his small body sinking over Adam, his warmth spilling over him, through Adam’s clothes.
Kris whispers Adam’s name into his lips and Adam seizes his mouth with his own, and at that, Kris leans all his weight onto Adam. He stands on Adam's shoes, his feet on tip-toes, straining as tall as he can to reach Adam's mouth. Adam loves all the little things that Kris that does; small things that don’t seem all too important, but they show that he really cares.
Adam slides his hand down to rest on Kris’s hip, the sharp angle of the bone jutting into his hand. He breathes softly over Kris’s mouth for a moment; Kris’s yielding lips like silk against his own.
“Kris…” he moans into Kris’s lips, “Kris -”
“Shh… stay quiet,” Kris mumbles.
And out of nowhere, Adam suddenly remembers that one night from all those years ago: the night he was raped. Dylan had said exactly what Kris just did all that time ago - shh, stay quiet, and he’d covered Adam’s mouth with his hand; Dylan’s fingers and palm jarred so severely tight over his lips that Adam almost forgot how to breath at all. It sinks into his mind heavily and it forces its way into Adam’s vision, blurring everything.
The man’s hand pushing against Adam’s mouth, covering it entirely, his hot palm sinking into his lips; whispering an instruction to be quiet, to not talk, shushing him…
Adam tries to push the scene out of his mind, to distract himself, to only think of Kris; he tries so hard, but -
The long, icy fingers digging into his shoulder, the short nails jutting through Adam’s heavy jacket…
Adam kisses Kris harder, sharper and more forcefully, trying to dissipate the images, attempting to clear his mind, but he can’t -
The hard grassy ground cutting into his back; the feeling of cold and invasiveness and sheer petrifaction - the feeling of heat and wanting to die… the man’s emotionless, lifeless face staring into Adam’s eyes; the man’s own deep pools and mirrors reflecting heartlessness and frigid flatness.
“Get off me! Get off, get off - get away from me!” His mind is so full of complete terror and memories that Adam shouts and pushes Kris away with such a strong force that Kris stumbles and falls to the ground. “Don’t touch me - don’t touch me; don’t come near me.”
Adam sinks to the floor in a corner, and pulls his knees into his chest, breathing heavily. It’s gone, he tries to tell himself, it’s in the past. You’re not that person and that person’s not you. But his attempts aren’t working; his mind is so distraught and tangled between reality and the past that he almost can’t tell the difference between the two.
Adam breathes in and out through his nose, long deep breaths; the clear, sharp sweet air passing in and out of his nostrils. He has to concentrate so hard on remembering where he is, even who he is that it’s confusing him beyond normality.
“Adam?”
Kris’s voice is tiny, nervously hesitant and so, so careful.
“Leave me be. Just, don’t. Leave me alone - I can’t think like this… ”
His eyes are shut tightly, and Adam rubs his fingers over his temples -
Something touches his knee, something warm and heavy and Adam jerks away from it, pushes himself further into the wall.
“Don’t.”
“Adam, you’re here.” Kris doesn’t speak for a few moments, only leaves his hand atop of Adam’s knee. “You’re here with me. Whatever it is, it’s gone… it’s not here and you’re not there.”
Adam tries to get rid of Kris’s hand from his knee, but Kris resists him, only taking some of the pressure off. “Adam, listen to me - come out of your head. Being alone won't help you; you need someone else here." Kris rubs his thumb in circles over Adam's jeans, slowly and gingerly, and Adam feels as though the walls are closing in on him; he feels claustrophobic. "My mom used to get like this sometimes, and if she was left alone, for her, the lines between what was happening in her mind and what was happening in reality would cloud so much that she couldn't even tell the difference,” he pauses slightly and Adam feels Kris's presence surge over him, a rush of something that only Kris can make him feel.
"I can't leave you, Adam, because you need to be brought back into this world. Let me stay; you need somebody to be around when you’re like this - if I leave, you might not be safe. My mom and - never was and - I can't leave you if you're at risk. You know you’re not yourself."
And with that he bends his head down, a slight duck of his neck, and kisses Adam's knee; a baby peck of his lips, but a kiss nonetheless. Adam opens his eyes carefully, one by one, to look at him. Kris's eyes are trained on him steadily, their deep brown softening as they meet Adam's.
"Don't shut me out like that, Adam. Because when you do that, I'm not a person to you anymore; you turn me into your enemy."
But it’s still as though his mind isn’t listening and he feels himself falling into the blackness of all his memories; Kris’s voice is distant, but it’s coming closer.
“Adam, come on. You’re scaring me a bit.”
“I’m fucking scaring myself,” he voices, his words a harsh whisper. Adam wraps his arms around himself - he’s so cold and his teeth are chattering.
Kris sighs quietly. “Look - Adam, you’re freezing. Will you let me come closer? I can warm you up… this room is really cold.”
Adam says nothing, not knowing whether or not he wants Kris to be that close to him right now. Kris watches him for a while, and after a few minutes of silence, he moves back against the wall and slides his arm around Adam’s waist, pulling him in tight.
Adam’s body instantly tenses, but Kris’s closeness is muddling with his emotions, playing with them, and so he lays his head in the crook of Kris’s neck. Kris brings his other hand up to Adam’s head and because of the restriction of movement from his cast, Kris just plays with the very wisps of Adam’s hair using his fingers.
Kris’s proximity begins to get to him - his sheer nearness to Adam is something that he hasn’t felt in years, and the sweet simplicity - the intimacy makes his heart beat faster, and he feels the sting of tears welling in his eyes. Adam hates himself when he gets like this - it seems ridiculous - but he hasn’t had a person willingly touch him in years, a touch coming from somewhere special inside a person, the really beautiful golden part of them - a very personal touch. Even as a child, his parents would never hug him if they could avoid it, and they certainly don’t touch him now; he barely ever sees them. The only person he’s had any real physical contact with in the last five years has been Dylan - and he has only wanted to touch Adam ever because he’s fucked in the head and is crazy; he feels like he needs to control Adam at all times.
Adam’s tears fall from his face fast and his body tremors slightly - fuck, Adam hates it when he cries.
“Hey, hey, hey - Adam, Adam; please - please, don’t cry.”
But Adam only cries harder, and Kris instead brings him into his body closer than before. He shushes Adam gently, over and over, almost like a lullaby.
Adam is scaring himself - all of his emotions are building up and up and he wants - no, needs to tell Kris about Dylan so badly, it’s like the words are bursting from him, but he can’t speak the words, can’t voice them.
“Adam, Adam,” Kris whispers, “please don’t cry, please… sshh, it’s going to be okay - I’m here for you; it’s going to be okay. Please don’t cry Adam -”
“I was - I was… raped when I was thirteen.”
The moment the words are out of his mouth, Adam feels sick. He feels disgusting and dirty. Kris is going to think he’s awful and revolting and gross and damaged -
Kris tightens his hold on him, and Adam almost feels as though he might stop breathing from it, he is being squeezed so strongly.
“Nobody’s… mattered to me like this, Kris, not ever, and it just really… kind of -”
“You don’t - Adam, you don’t need to explain.”
“No, I - I do. I just… I don’t think I know how. But I need to tell you, I just do.”
“Well, I’m here for as long as you need, Adam.”
Adam takes a deep, shuddering breath and wipes his eyes before sitting up straight.
“Uh, well, I, uh, I said before that I was - do I have to say the word? I just hate it so fucking much; it’s such a vile, horrible word and I can’t say -” Adam feels himself nearly tipping off the edge again; the anger and fear just builds up inside him, choking his words.
“Adam, you don’t have to do or say anything that you don’t want to. Just, take one step at a time.”
Adam exhales, a giant outburst of breath, and continues slowly. “It’s just such a hard thing to talk about, and this is the first time I’ve ever said anything about it to anyone else, so I’m just - I don’t really know what to say.” Kris rubs his hand over his shoulder comfortingly, the warmth almost calming. “Well, I was… when I was thirteen, in the middle of my freshman year at my old high school -”
Adam feels his body heat rising massively and he feels claustrophobic all at once, and suddenly he’s too close to Kris. Adam pulls away from him and moves across to the other side of the room, opposite him.
“I just - I can’t be near you right now; I’m sorry.”
Kris just nods, and Adam pauses for a moment, thinking.
“I don’t really - I don’t want to talk about that part a lot, but the guy who did it - Dylan - he never turned himself in to the police, obviously, and we filed a statement and everything; at the time I didn’t know who he was, but I knew exactly what he looked like.”
Adam clears his throat, then continues, “I - when I was younger, I was so, so stupid. I was thirteen and I didn’t know any better. And, well - anyway, when my school found out about the rape, and through that they found about my being gay - or, at least, they presumed that I must have been gay for a guy to rape me; I never said anything about it though. At my school… they kind of - how do I describe it? A group of people of about… seven, I think? They kind of… cornered me during a lunch break one day one the field - and they basically just… after a while they began to yell and just shout at me complete kind of… well, the usual kind of stuff, you know, like calling me a slut and that sort of thing; like, that I’d have AIDS, and that I was disgusting and worthless… ‘Nothing but a gay fuck toy for some old guy’, that sort of thing. And a few of the big jocks got a bit… carried away, I guess, and they decided to throw a few rocks… and then a few punches after that. They would have run me out of the grounds, but it got kind of to a stage where I had to be taken to hospital… but I was at the point where I just didn’t care anymore, you know? I was thirteen, and I’d just been raped, and then, you know, with that group - I just felt like I couldn’t handle it, and I would’ve been happy to be dead… I just didn’t care anymore.”
Adam rubs his hands over his eyes, and looks up at the ceiling, just wanting to get this over with and finished. “I had the rest of the school year off after that. We moved houses, to here and I applied for this school… my parents nearly kicked me out, though, partly because of the rape and partly because we had to move for me. I wasn’t worth anything to them anymore.” Adam stops and takes a breath - he’s almost falling over his words because he just wants to get this story finished - and looks up at Kris, to gauge his reaction, to see his expression. Kris is staring right back at him, with an almost unreadable look plastered across his face.
“I kinda - I spent most of my days after we moved at home, alone, and I didn’t think much of it, really. And then, well - one day the guy who… you know, he turned up at the door, and I could tell it was him instantly… he looked exactly the same. He must have only been - he was only eighteen at the time… and I just had so many emotions and all these thoughts inside my head, and I was so confused and he just - I was lonely. I was so fucking lonely. And he - Dylan, he was just so lovely and kind to me at first; I didn’t think of going to the police at all, and he knew that I wouldn’t - I was too scared and he was paying me all the attention I had craved. I felt as though I needed him. And you know that feeling where you’re just desperate for another person to talk to? That was what I was feeling. I needed him, as fucked-up as that is.”
“Yeah… I’ve felt that before.”
He meets Kris’s gaze, and then sniffs quietly and wipes his nose on his sweater. “So… that was it really. Dylan became my only friend, but he never really was a friend and he never considered himself one; he was just… waiting, I guess. And that decision, to let him into my life was the worst fucking decision I have ever made. And so… I’m still - I’m still… with Dylan, if you can call it that. I just - I don’t want to say this wrong, but he’s not my boyfriend and he’s not my friend; I’m more his…- I’m like, in his captive, almost.” Adam pauses and grimaces, before saying sarcastically, “You could say I’m like his sex slave, if you wanted to be funny -”
“It’s not funny, Adam.”
“I know that - but that’s all he keeps me around for, really. He wants me for sex, for some fucked reason - but that’s Dylan. He’s crazy; there’s something wrong in his head.”
“I don’t get what you mean by ‘keeps you around’? Why can’t you just leave him? You live with your parents, right?”
“Yeah, I live with them… but I spend most of my time with him. It sounds unreasonable and totally pathetic, I know, but you haven’t met him and you haven’t been me for the past four - nearly five years; I can’t leave him because he knows that he’s all I have, and if I left him, he’d just come back. There’s no one to protect me from him; I have no control over him and he has… complete control over me. This isn’t something that I’ve ever had to explain before; I don’t know how to say it so that it makes sense to you.” Adam looks up at Kris and speaks directly to him. “You have to realize: I shouldn’t even be telling you this, Kris. I shouldn’t even be seeing you. Dylan would kill me if he knew I was talking to another guy; I’m fucking playing with fire telling you this…”
“So then why can’t you go to the police?”
“What would I say, Kris? That I know the guy who raped with me, and I’ve technically been with him for the past five years? You don’t even get it; why would the police understand? It’s not a feasible story… and it’s my fault only.”
Adam’s sudden burst of anger dies down, and he feels tired and empty… he’s going to go home at the end of this day to the exact same thing he’s been going home to for years, and it isn’t going to change anytime soon.
“Kris, I need you to understand this… technically, Dylan has been… you know, to me this whole time - I’ve never wanted sex, not once. He hits me, you know, punches and that sort of thing - it’s not safe for me to leave him because I only know a little of what he’s capable -”
“He hits you?” Kris’s expression is shocked, almost disturbed, and his hand reached to his ribcage protectively, as though he’s remembering something.
Adam sighs. “Yeah… that’s why I can’t go to the police; he’s sick in the head, and I don’t know what to do about it. He threatens me… like, ‘I’ll kill you if you leave me’ or ‘I’ll kill you if you tell anyone’; that sort of thing. He just - he dominates me, Kris. I think that he needs to control someone all the time - and I’m that person. And whatever control means to him in his fucked-up head - that’s what he does to me.”
Kris just sits still for a moment, looking at Adam, and he rubs his hands over his face and through his hair. “Adam, well, - I don’t know what to say, really. Can - can I do anything?”
Adam shrugs and shakes his head. “What’s there to do? There’s nothing that I can do that would make this stop. I just don’t know.”
And that’s all it comes down to, really. Adam just doesn’t know.
---
Ebony passes Kris half of the sandwich they’re sharing, and takes a bite of hers - it’s their Wednesday lunch sandwich: chicken salad on rye.
“This is good, Eb,” Kris says around a mouthful, and she nods.
“It is.” She taps Kris’s knee and waits until he’s looking straight at her, before she continues. “Maybe I’m wrong… but yesterday when I came by your work, I kind of… noticed something between you and Adam. Is there anything, you know, happening between you guys?”
Kris feels heat rise to his face and he scratches his forehead - she must have been looking closely - and it’s a little unsettling that whatever it is that’s between him and Adam has been recognized by someone else.
“Well, yeah... you could say that, I guess.”
Ebony nods, and asks hesitantly, “Doesn’t he… doesn’t he already have a boyfriend, though?”
He thinks about this, biting his lip. How does Kris answer that? “Well - no, but yes? He’s not really, but that’s how is seems, I guess… I can’t really say.”
“’Cause it’s just that you guys look really sweet, you know, in the little glances and that sort of thing.”
“It’s just - you know when you’re so happy with what you have, you don’t care about any of the other parts? You don’t care how messed up it is, or anything like that… and, well - that’s how I feel. It’s just that this is the first time I’ve ever felt this about someone, and I’m not sure what to do about it sometimes.”
“Whatever feels natural.”
“And being happy with him feels natural. Adam’s just the best thing that’s ever happened to me… and he doesn’t even realize it at all.” Ebony smiles at him and Kris can’t help but smile back. “He’s just… he makes me the most happy I’ve ever been. When I see him, everything else disappears. Is that wrong?”
“Not at all… I think it’s lovely. Every person should have someone like that. I think everyone needs someone like that, actually.”
“And that’s it - I feel like I need him. I just - I needed someone like him to make me forget the other things.”
“Has he?”
"He helps.”
“That’s all there is to it, then.”
---
Part IIII