Fuck Buddy (14 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

LIV

We stood in the small room with Luke’s father and two sisters. From what the police officer had said, Matthew was riding along a bike path when a woman swerved out of her lane of traffic, running over him from behind. He was crushed by the car, breaking both arms, fracturing his skull, and shattering his legs.

Although the doctors weren’t certain, there was little hope that he would ever walk again, let alone ride his bike. Bicycling was to Matthew what surfing was to Luke, and even though I was grateful he was alive, I felt terrible that something he loved as much as cycling would an activity he would never be able to enjoy again.

Still unconscious, and wrapped in bandages and casts from head-to-toe, what little portion of his face that was exposed was covered in cuts. There was no doubt he was lucky to be alive, but looking at him made it extremely difficult to find any good in what had happened.

I squeezed Luke’s hand as he talked quietly with his father.

“How are you? I haven’t seen you two in forever,” I whispered to his sisters.

“Fine, just been busy with work,” Sarah said. “Are you still doing the graphic artist stuff?”

I smiled and nodded. “Yeah.”

I shifted my focus to Mary.

“I’m good. Married. And we’re in San Clemente,” she said.

Mary and Sarah were a year apart in age, and were three and four years older than Luke, respectively. Growing up, it seemed they were a pair of independent children apart from Luke and Matthew. The boys and the girls were oddly separated in pairs, each group treated differently by the parents. The girls spent all of their time at home, and the boys rarely went home unless forced to do so – Matthew spending his time on his bicycle, and Luke at the beach.

As much time as Luke and I spent together as kids, most of it was at my parent’s house, and very rarely would we even go to his home. What little time we did spend there was generally for Luke to change clothes or get his surfboard.

An odd family that seemed to have no hatred toward one another, but certainly wasn’t close-knit by any means, they didn’t spend time together like most families. I spent more time with my parents, and they lived half a nation away.

Sad that an event like this had to bring everyone together, but grateful to see them all in one room, I stood and tried to smile as Luke asked questions about his brother’s future. As he finished talking to his father, he exchanged awkward glances with his sisters and then pulled me close.

“He said we’ll just have to wait and see,” he whispered.

I forced a slight smile. “For right now, we should just be thankful he’s alive.”

He reached for what little portion of Matthew’s fingers that extended beyond the end of the cast. As he gently cupped the palm of his hand around his brother’s, he turned toward me and nodded. “I know.”

The machine above Matthew’s bed beeped at a steady pace, making the otherwise silent room seem to be occupied by something alive and willing to communicate with the entire family. As Luke spoke softly to his unconscious brother, I lowered my head and began to pray.

“Oh wow,” I heard Mary gasp.

I turned around.

I hadn’t seen her in years, and although she was considerably older, her dark complexion and almost black eyes made her unmistakable. I knew there were hard feelings between Luke and his mother, and as soon as I recognized her I wondered just how well they would get along.

My answer was immediate.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Luke howled.

Sarah glanced toward Luke. “Luke!”

Luke pointed toward the door. “Get the fuck out!”

Her face seemed to fill with shame. She raised her hands slightly as if forming a buffer between them.

“Luke, I…” she began.

Luke’s father lowered his head. “Ruth, I don’t know that…”

Luke pulled his hand away from mine. Seeming almost overcome by emotion, he quickly stepped in front of her and placed his hands against her shoulders. She appeared on the verge of tears.

“Get the fuck out!” Luke demanded, pushing her toward the door slightly. “And don’t you fucking dare come back.”

She turned toward the door, paused, and walked out. Sarah and Mary followed, leaving Luke’s father behind.

“Luke, I had no idea,” his father said apologetically.

“Who the fuck told her?” Luke asked.

His father tilted his head toward the door. “I’m sure it was one of your sisters.”

“If she comes back in here,” Luke said. “I’ll call the fucking cops. She has no right.”

His father nodded. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t.”

As his father turned toward the door, I reached for Luke’s hand. As soon as my fingers touched his skin, he instinctively pulled away.

“Luke?”

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m just. She. Come on, let’s just go.”

“You want to leave?” I asked.

“I
need
to,” he responded.

I glanced at his brother, shifted my eyes back to Luke, and nodded. “Okay.”

The ride to my house was eerily quiet. After we parked the car, Luke walked inside, went to the couch, and sat quietly for several hours.

I felt he may need time to think, so I left him alone and started dinner. When he refused to eat, I began to wonder. When he refused sex I wondered even more.

But it was when he pulled his knees to his chest and began humming while rocking back and forth that I became worried.

And, from there, things only got worse.

Much worse.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

LUKE

I finished the glass of bourbon and poured another two-ounce shot. With slight reluctance, I walked into the living room and sat down. As I sipped the whisky from the glass, I stared down at the baseboard and began to recite a portion of my childhood I had spent a lifetime attempting to forget.

“When we’re kids, we’ve got this expectation of our parents protecting us. It doesn’t matter if it’s the bumping noises in the night or the toy in our closet that somehow casts a shadow that makes it look like an eight-foot tall monster. Whatever we’re incapable of conquering, we’ve got this impression that our parents are not only able – but willing – to save us from the clutch of what it is that might harm us.”

Out of my peripheral, saw Liv nod. I took a shallow sip and lowered the glass.

“Well,” I said. “That isn’t always the case. Or at least it wasn’t at my house.”

I raised the glass to my mouth, paused, and inhaled the aroma of the whisky. As my mouth began to salivate, I took another sip.

“I don’t really remember it, but I do. It’s hard to explain. I remember the guilt. Fuck. I was filled with guilt for so long. And then? After the guilt?”

I turned to face her. I don’t really know what I expected her to do or say, but regardless, she sat at the end of the couch with her hands in her lap and stared back at me stone-faced.

I smiled a complacent smile, satisfied she was providing exactly what I needed to continue.

I shifted my eyes back to the baseboard. “After the guilt, I got angry. Every time it happened, I got mad. You know the funny thing?”

I took another short drink and winced at the taste. The question was rhetorical, and she knew it. I didn’t need confirmation or an answer to continue, I only needed guts. This was a story I yearned to tell, but seemed rather reluctant to do so now that the time had come. If I could somehow find the courage to share it with someone, Liv would be that person.

I gazed blankly at the floor. “I wasn’t mad at her. I was angry with myself. Somehow, at least at first, I told myself whatever she was doing was my fault. She said she did it to make me more focused. To make me have a better understanding of life. Life isn’t easy. That’s what she told me.
Life isn’t easy
.”

I finished what little whisky remained and let the glass dangle from between my thumb and forefinger as I continued.

“So, she’d make me get my homework and study. And while I studied, she’d…you know…she’d uhhm...”

I glanced in her direction.

I needed her to tell me it was okay.

She reached for my hand. I forced a smile and returned the gesture, taking her hand in mine.

As we did so many times on the way home from school, we held hands. It was comforting. I sat for a long moment and somehow converted Liv’s energy to my own. As the warmth of her hand transferred to the surface of my palm, I found the nerve to continue.

“So, every night, or at least I think it was every night, she’d make me study my homework. And while I did, she’d uhhm...”

I fought against my tightening throat and swallowed. It wasn’t easy to continue, but I knew I needed to.

“She’d touch me. Then, I’d uhhm…you know…I’d lose uhhm…I’d lose focus.”

I took a glance in her direction and quickly shifted my focus to the floor. “That’s what I was trying to say. I’d lose focus. And when I did, she’d scream at me. She told me when I reached a point that I didn’t lose focus, we’d stop.”

Her hand was shaking.

I turned toward her.

A tear escaped her eye and slowly worked its way down along her cheek. I hadn’t realized it until I saw hers, but as I sat and watched it diminish as it rolled past the corner of her mouth, it came to me that I was crying as well.

I reached up and wiped my cheeks with the side of my finger.

She did the same.

“I don’t really know when, but I finally reached a point when I was able to focus. You know, I graduated with honors, but I didn’t go to college. Everyone wanted to know why. In hindsight, I think I was scared. You know, even though she had been gone for some time, it was still really tough for me to convince myself it was over. I was sure if for whatever reason I couldn’t get good grades, she’d reappear and it’d all start over again.”

I raised the glass to my lips and tipped the bottom up. After realizing it was empty, I lowered it into my lap and sighed.

“I was a pretty strong kid. You know, nobody knew anything. But Matt?”

I shook my head. “I was twelve at the time. I think I may have even told myself it didn’t happen. You know, that it was all some kind of crazy dream or something. I think, to tell you the truth, I told myself it was what I deserved – or maybe what I needed. I remember thinking my good grades were a result of her persistence or whatever. But Matt?”

I clenched my jaw and shook my head. “I was twelve. I went to get my surfboard. You know, he was eight. Maybe he was nine, I don’t know. And she was…”

I stood from the couch and realized she was still holding my hand in hers. I don’t know where I was going, but wherever it was, Liv changed my mind. Without speaking, she pulled against my hand slightly and convinced me to sit down.

I inhaled a deep breath and exhaled until I was satisfied I was ready. “Her uuhm. Her head was in his lap.”

Saying it frustrated me. I clenched my teeth and inhaled a long breath through my nose. “I lost it. I remember beating her until Matt ran out and got dad. He talked to each one of us after that. I think I may have blamed him a little bit, too. But it didn’t last for long. It was all her.”

“She was an evil bitch.”

She pulled me into her, cupped her hand against my cheek, and guided my head onto her chest.

As I sat snuggled up against her, I relaxed to a point of weakness. I later realized it was exactly what I had been needing to allow myself to truly recover. For the few seconds that followed, however, I was embarrassed.

Until she joined me.

And, in each other’s arms, we sat and cried until we were both incapable of shedding another tear.

CHAPTER TWENTY

LIV

Being kicked in the gut. That’s all I could think of that would explain what I felt after Luke described what happened with his mother. I knew one day something would come along in life and knock me to my knees, but I had no idea it would be Luke revealing details of his mother’s abuse of him as a child that did it.

Luke was in pain; therefore, I was in pain. I had been awake for most of the night, certain the aching in my soul would become a permanent part of my being. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t make the images in my mind go away. Halfway through the sleepless night I decided I didn’t want to know what happened to him. I wanted him to take it back. I wanted the thoughts, the ideas, the images, and the lingering sickening feeling to all go away. When we woke the next day, the morning we shared was awkward – I didn’t know what to say, and apparently he had already said all he was capable of. He eventually left, seeking his comfort at the beach. I, in turn, called my office and explained I was far too sick to come in to work.

No one on this earth could ever convince me what his mother did was done with the belief that it was constructive. She was a sickening woman committing a sickening act for sickening reasons of self-gratification. I wanted her to be in jail or dead and as much as I knew I should feel terrible for wishing that upon another person, I didn’t. I hated her and I hated what she did to Luke and Matthew.

He assured me in the beginning that he would turn me into a ball of babbling flesh, and he did. For the majority of that morning after he was gone, I sat on my bed rolled into an emotional ball. I stared at the walls wondering just how – and if – we would ever completely recover. I didn’t necessarily agree with the way I felt, but I felt that way nonetheless. Luke’s sexual hang-ups began to make sense. His misaligned desires, the demands he barked while he choked me, even his fear of being in a relationship – it all became crystal clear. I felt helpless because I couldn’t fix everything.

Frantically, I went through the house cleaning. Somehow convinced cleaning my home would clean up the mess, I scrubbed every inch of it until it was as sanitary as a hospital. I vacuumed the carpets until all of the lines from the vacuum’s path were perfectly aligned. Then, I scrubbed the floors until the entire house smelled like Pine-sol. The sinks, the shower, the tub, the crumbs underneath the couch cushions. All spotless.

Like a woman possessed by cleaning demons I frantically searched for any remaining imperfections. I felt something was still out of place.

And I realized it wasn’t my home that was dirty.

It was me.

I felt dirty, and it was the kind of dirty that couldn’t be washed away. The memories of my friendship with Luke as a child had always been carefree and innocent. We held hands, swung in swings, and chased each other along the beach. As adults we continued all of those things.

We never stopped acting like we did when we were kids.

A week prior I believed two innocent childhood friends who lived innocent lives developed into two innocent adults who had similar sexual tastes. The sex was kinky, wild, and on the cusp of violent, but because the desires were derived innocently, I was convinced there was nothing wrong with us or the sexual acts.

After learning what happened to Luke, I no longer felt that we were innocent. I felt like the sex was a product of his mother’s sexual abuse.

I wanted to find his mother. I wanted to find her and hurt her as much as she hurt my Luke. I felt a need to tell her that I knew what she had done, and that she was an evil woman who would be dealt with on judgement day.

But I didn’t.

Instead, I prayed. I prayed for Luke to find a way to forgive her and for me to accept that I couldn’t change a thing.