2011
His body looked like a map. He could tell you what each bruise meant, when it had happened, where it had happened, what he'd supposedly done wrong. After the first few times it didn't really hurt any more, or maybe he had simply learned to switch off the pain, to make himself numb to what was going on. He could tell when it was going to happen now, he could look at Brendan's face and see the light disappear from his eyes. He became a different person, it wasn't him doing it, it was someone else. At least that's what Steven told himself, how he justified Brendan's behaviour. There were two parts to Brendan and if he wanted the good parts,, then he had to take the other side. The side who looked at Steven as he was a stranger, who spoke to him as if he barely knew who he was, who hit him where no one else could see the bruises. But the good side of Brendan, the side that could take Steven's breath away in an instant, who knew how to touch him, who kissed him like no one had before, who looked at him as if no one else mattered, who was flirtatious and hot and sexy as fuck and who was right now curled up asleep beside him. If Steven wanted all that, then were the bruises really such a high price to pay?
He thought that I was asleep, but I wasn't. I haven't slept properly since I was six years old. I knew he was awake because he breathed differently when he was sleeping. Most people don't notice small things like that, but then most people aren't like me. Steven was wide awake, while I laid next to him pretending to be asleep. Pretending. That was something else I'd been doing for as long as I could remember. If I let people see the real me, the me that I knew existed beneath the Brendan Brady character I showed to the world they would be terrified. If they thought that Brendan was scary, well the real me that was even worse. The only one who came close to seeing him was Steven. I opened my eyes and let my fingers trail gently over the tattoo on his hip. Just above I could see one of his many bruises. Sometimes it was difficult to see where one bruise ended and another began. I knew that it was I who hurt him like this. I knew that there was a world of difference between giving someone a slap and the kind of bruises that Steven had. Yet, there was something inside me that I didn't know how to fix, wasn't even sure I wanted to fix. I knew when the anger was going to take over and there wasn't anything I could do about it. At least that's what I told myself. The simple fact was hurting Steven was the only way I knew how to hurt myself. Every time I beat him I was hitting myself, every time I looked at him as if he were nothing it was my own reflection I saw gazing back, and every time I told him he disgusted me it was my father's voice I heard in the back of my head. Even though on some level I knew that, none of it helped Steven. This was the longest amount of time apart from Eileen that I had been with someone. I didn't do relationships yet I kept on coming back to Steven time and again. I let my lips brush softly over his most recent bruise. Would I stop hurting him? Did I want to stop? Could I stop?