A red tainted Silence (73 page)

“Poor Jon. This is hard on him, too, you know.”

Lee nodded. “I know. We talked a long time about you two, but he’s hanging in there like he always does. He’s caught up to where we are. We’ll talk about it when he gets here.” The door opened. “When who gets here? The pack mule?” Jon stood in the doorway, three computer bags strapped over his shoulders. “That’s all I’m good for around here, lugging stuff for you guys.”

“Thanks, Jon,” I said.

Jon set the computers down and walked around the bed to me, ruffled my hair. “You doing okay, Nick?”

“I’m trying.”

He nodded, then bent over his brother and kissed him on the forehead. “I love you, baby bro. Sleep. Heal,” he whispered, then straightened, looked at me, and smiled sadly.

“You okay? You look exhausted.”

“I am,” I said, nodding.

“Why not take a nap? Lee and I will get started reading and will let you know if we find anything.”

I shook my head. “No, I can’t sleep. I want to keep reading, too.” 432

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Ten minutes later, Lee, Jon, and I were ensconced in chairs. We sat in a protective circle around Brandon while he slept, and once again we dove into the daunting task of trying to uncover who my lover, Jon’s brother, and Lee’s friend really was.

* * * * *

I’m not sure how many days I sat on my hidden sliver of beach in the blistering sun, the cooler loaded with Coronas by my side. Endless days, starting early in the morning after endless, restless nights, sitting on my blanket, watching the waves as they broke against the shore. Just me, my beer, my cooler, and my blanket.

Those days were endless, unvaried, and hot. I saw no one, would talk to no one, at least at first. That’s what I wanted.

I was in hiding, if not from my family, then from myself, though my attempt was in vain. I couldn’t escape, though I tried. How I tried.

The shock of what happened, how things finally came to an end, pushed me into a rage so deep and violent, I scared myself. Knew if I didn’t take myself away, I would do something I would regret -- if I lived to tell about it.

It was the end, it was my choice, yet the way it ultimately happened was so beyond my control as to be a shock to me. A deep, serrated shock that cut my heart in two.

We talked, of course, after it happened. For a long time, when I assured Nicholas everything was fine between us, I wished him well, hoped he would find the success he wanted so badly for himself. I told him I had no real right to be surprised, that this was what I wanted, too.

He believed me.

I guess he wanted so badly to believe I would be happy that he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, hear the desperation in my voice, the silent scream lacing my words together, the wild, frantic beating of my heart.

After all we’d been through together, to have us drift apart like we did, and have it end like we did ...

And it was all my fault. My fault, my fault, my fault.

Nicholas, if you ever read this -- and I don’t think you will because I think, once done, I am going to burn this computer so you can’t. Start a bonfire on a beach, maybe that sliver of beach where I spent so many endless days, and put the computer in it. The whole thing, and let it melt and explode and do whatever computers do in a hot flame. There’s no reason for you to see this, I don’t think. I could just erase it, but they say even erased files can be retrieved again, and I don’t think you will want to see this, see the proof of my deterioration.

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That’s what’s happening to me, I think. Even as our love for each other is growing stronger, I feel less and less real. Something’s happening inside me, a tiger in a cage, red and angry and furious, trying to burst out through these flimsy walls of string. Guitar string, I think. Guitar string can’t hold the tiger inside me for very long, I don’t think.

I should be used to feeling crazy. I have for most of my adult life, after all, as I’ve watched everything I helped Nicholas build split apart and coalesce into a new shape -- a shape that surrounded Nicholas, and alienated me.

He never needed me. The tape lied, of course, the tape that held so much power over Nicholas Kilmain’s life, and he never knew it. It lied. And I believed it. He doesn’t need me, never did. Hear lies long enough and you start to believe them, but I guess we both know that, don’t we?

I’m sorry, baby, for not ever telling you about the tape. If I had, what happened after the endless days on the beach would never have taken place. But I didn’t say a word, still locked into my adolescent belief that only I, Brandon Ashwood, had the power to keep the evil that wanted to swallow you at bay.

What a fool I am. Stupid dickhead.

Wintertime. That winter after we finally broke apart was particularly cold, but the months passed, January, February, March, and on and on, in a Corona-induced haze. I barely remember anything about those months. My mom would come check on me, bring me food -- most of which rotted or ended up in the trash because I couldn’t eat. My grief was so real, so tangible and yet untouchable, that even Mom was helpless to chase it all away.

I spent all my time staring at waves, remembering the past, reliving all we’d done, Nicholas and I. The good stuff, the good feelings, the hopes and dreams. By lunchtime I’d be so wasted I’d pass out. Sleep through the lunch hour. Would wake up, hot and sand-covered, throw myself in the ocean and pray that I’d drown, but even totally wasted my stupid survival instincts would kick in and I’d drag myself back to the beach. I was too good a swimmer to let myself drown.

I started to entertain other ways to die.

Car crash? No, too painful. Plane crash -- no way, the long fall down would terrify me too much. Drug overdose was a good possibility. Maybe even a gun, but that would make my mother cry, I think. Could drink myself to death -- that seemed the most logical way to go, especially for me.

I spent a lot of money on limes and Corona, half-believing I could die by sitting in the sun and drinking beer and that would be a great way to go. Very fitting. But I guess even that didn’t work.

Jenn would come by, usually in the evenings after she got off work, try to talk some sense into me. But I grew angry with her, cut her off, cut her out until she stopped talking to me. She’d still come, though; she never reneged on her promise to me to always be there for 434

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me. But for weeks we barely said a word to each other. Finally, she simply moved into my beach house, dragging her stuff in from her car by herself while I stared at her.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked her as she deposited groceries on my counter.

“You won’t take care of yourself, so I’m going to do it.”

“Fuck you, Jenn. I can take care of myself,” I mumbled. I sat on the couch, wearing nothing but my swim trunks, which was all I wore by then, a Corona in one hand, a lime in the other. I blinked, held my Corona out, and tried to squeeze the lime into my beer. I frowned at it, squeezed the lime some more, but nothing would come out ...

Because I’d forgotten to cut it into slices.

It took me a good five minutes to realize the problem, all the while with Jenn watching me. Waiting. Tears running down her cheeks.

I’m sorry, Jenn.

I know I broke her heart during those months, but she stayed with me anyway. She was all I had. Jon never came by; he was so mad at me. Adam was off doing his own things.

My mom would call me, and that was all I’d let her do; I refused to see her. And my dad --

well, I refused to see him, too, the censure in his eyes, the triumph and the satisfaction. He’d been right about Nicholas -- I could see it in his eyes; even though his drop-out loser fucking fag son was a millionaire, my dad celebrated my defeat.

Amazingly, I heard from Nicholas now and again, about once a month. He was doing great. He was excited about his new music, writing songs and loving his new home in San Francisco. He got a new dog. “Hey, listen to this, Brandon. What do you think of this?” and he’d sing some for me. And “Hey, my friends and I are driving up the coast to Seattle. ROAD

TRIP! Me and, oh, yeah, Lee and your brother -- did you know he was here? Visiting me? He and Amanda ... no, you didn’t know?”

And “I miss you, Brandon, you okay? Really?”

He missed me. Maybe a minute or two on odd days he did. It was nice to think that, but I didn’t really believe. “Yeah,” I’d lie, protecting him even then. I didn’t want him to be sad just because I was. “Just fine, enjoying playing all day. You know me, I love being on the beach.”

“As long as you’re happy, Brandon.”

“I’m happy, Nick. I’m so fucking happy, I could die of happiness right now.” My brother, Amanda, Lee ... with Nicholas. ROAD TRIP! No, I hadn’t known; why would I know? I never saw Jon anymore by then, and it hurt, hurt so bad. I love Jon so much, but Nicholas needed him more than me. I don’t need anyone, right? Loner, that’s what and who I am, have to be, so they won’t hurt you. They can’t hurt you. I won’t let them. I’ve got to make sure they don’t, got to protect you, keep you safe ...

I am alone. That’s how it has to be.

A Red-Tainted Silence

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I got tired of sitting on the beach. My skin had browned so deeply and my hair bleached out so much and grown so long, I wore it in a ponytail. I barely resembled the man I’d been half a year before.

One night, I stood in the bathroom, just staring at myself, realizing my quest to kill myself by drowning in Corona wasn’t working. Part of that was Jenn’s fault. Slowly, she’d managed to make me eat again. I started to put on weight under her determined care, stopped drinking so much. But the demons still rested on my shoulders, teased me with their relentless chattering, dug their little claws into my skin and gleefully hung on. I could not be rid of them.

The first time I did it, I remember with such clarity.

And Jenn was there to witness it.

“What are you doing, Bean?” she asked that night when she came in after work. She stared at me, but I wouldn’t look her in the eye.

“Nothing. Going out.”

“Where?”

I stuffed my wallet in my pocket. My wallet with a few extra condoms tucked inside.

I’d bought them on a whim earlier in the day, realizing I was hungry -- hungry for sex. I wanted to fuck. Long and hard, some nameless, faceless stranger who didn’t look like Nicholas.

No blue eyes allowed.

When I bought them, I’d stared at those condoms for so long the salesclerk finally asked me if I was okay. No, lady, can’t you see I’m not okay? The man I love is half a world away, and I’m standing in a drugstore with a hard-on, and I want to fuck, but I have to buy condoms, and I hate condoms. Nicholas knows that.

I bought the condoms. Two boxes.

I used them up within a week.

That first time, that first night, I’m amazed someone would let me approach them, much less fuck them. I’d found a gay bar, Illusions, that was far enough away that I hoped no one would recognize me, but close enough that I thought I could get home even wasted, if I had to. There was no question that I wouldn’t be bringing any tricks home -- even in the state I was in, I wouldn’t do that to Jenn.

It was easy. Walk into the bar, case the joint, grab a beer at the bar ... and minutes later, seconds even, a shirtless blond with the chest of a teenager sidled up to me, looked up into my eyes, and his own brown eyes widened.

“Brandon Ashwood?”

I looked down at him, at the worship in his eyes, and said, “Want to fuck?”

“You’re Brandon --”

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I reached out, touched the boy’s face, put a finger on his lips. “Shh ... don’t say a word.” He smiled at me and nodded, and ten minutes later we were in a hotel and I was making that boy scream in ecstasy.

He was the first. Not the last. Not by a long shot.

Word got out, of course, though I never once said my name or acknowledged who I was. Long-haired, bearded, tan, and, after that first night, always dressed in black leather and shirtless, I was the Brian Kinney of Illusions. The guy everyone wanted, and I took them all.

I fucked so much and so many men over the course of the next five months, I thought about buying condoms by the case.

But I didn’t always use them.

Like I said before, my angels had to have been working overtime. I barebacked, did it raw more and more often, my hate of condoms matching the hate I had of myself. And I always topped, always -- no one fucked Brandon Ashwood. The only man allowed to do that was Nicholas Kilmain, and he didn’t want me anymore.

That was my life. I hated it, hated myself, hated Nicholas ...

No, no, no, not Nicholas. Sorry, baby, I didn’t hate you. I could never hate you; please believe me. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I love you.

I’ll never stop loving you.

So when he called, that last time, long after all the furor had died down, long after his solo album came out, and he’d written all those new songs, some all by himself, I was so fucking proud of him. They delayed the release of the CD, and he was so upset by that. And he called me and stormed his frustrations over thousands of miles to my welcoming heart, and said, “I’m coming to see you. I need you.”

And I said no. I told him NO! Oh, God, NO! NO, don’t come, they’ll know ...

But he came anyway. Found me at my parents’ house, where I went to visit them for Jon’s birthday even though he didn’t want me there, didn’t want to see me or talk to me.

Adam was there, too, and he talked to me. But Nicholas came -- oh, my God, he came, and he called the house and said, “Come get me at the airport.” And I did. Oh, God forgive me, I did.

* * * * *

A hand thumped my computer closed. I looked up, shocked, but the tears had clouded my eyes so badly I couldn’t tell if it was Jon or Lee until he spoke.

“Enough, Nicholas.” Jon.

I tried to open the computer. “I’ve got to keep reading.” A Red-Tainted Silence

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“No.”

“But --”

A tissue was stuffed into my hand. I wiped my eyes with it and looked up, saw Jon’s eyes were as red as mine. “Please, Jon.”