Secrets Lies and Retribution
9
Aaron's tears continued to fall, trickling endlessly down his cheeks. Robert wanted to believe that they were a cleansing force, that they would help wash some of Aaron's pain away, but he new better than that. These tears were born out of an all consuming despair. Aaron didn't believe the nightmare would ever stop. The spectre that haunted him was either skulking in the background or taking centre stage just like now. The only way it would end, the only way Aaron would ever be free of the shadow it cast was to confront it, only then would it relinquish the hold it had over him.
Robert shifted over onto Aaron's bed, sitting as close to him as the tubes and wires attached to him would allow. Resting his hand against Aaron's cheek he gently caressed his tears away. Hoping he sounded more in control of his emotions than he felt he said softly, "Aaron, listen to me. What you just said about your dad, you can't keep it a secret any longer, it's killing you. You have to talk about it, to me if you can, but more importantly to someone who can help you..."
"What?" Aaron gazed questioningly up at Robert, what was he saying? With a sickening jolt he realised he had spoken his thoughts aloud. It was that stuff they had dripping into his arm, it was affecting his mind, spacing him out.
"What he did..."
"He hit me, and that's all he did!" Aaron insisted.
"No, that's not all..." Robert was struggling now, he was beginning to realise that he was out of his depth, and apart from that Aaron was so ill he shouldn't be getting worked up like this. Too late he realised he'd gone about this the wrong way, "We'll leave it for now, you have to rest..."
"No, I don't 'have to' do anything!" Aaron spat as panic rose in his chest, his secret might be out but he wasn't about to let it leave the room!
"Aaron please..." Robert paused looking to see who was now coming into the room. It was one of the nurses and she had a hospital porter with her.
"They're ready for you upstairs Aaron. We'll take you up and get you settled."
"No!" He wasn't going. He wanted out! In flight mode now he started to get out of bed, ignoring both the nurse's and Robert's pleas to stay put. Once on his feet Aaron started tugging at the drips and wires that were attached to him, shrugging off the two sets of hands trying to stop him. Next on his list was the nasal cannula feeding him a steady supply of oxygen, as he pulled that out and tossed it across the room he heard the nurse tell Robert that she was going to call the doctor. Well he couldn't physically stop him from leaving either.
Desperate now Robert got right in Aaron's face, "What are you doing, you won't even make it through the door!"
Determined to prove him wrong Aaron stepped around Robert on now trembling legs and started to look for his clothes.
"Mr Livesy!" Dr Yates' voice boomed from the doorway. "If you leave now then I can say with all certainty that you will die. I know that's not what you want so please. sit down and give some thought to what you're doing."
Aaron hadn't expected the doctor to say anything that would change his mind about leaving but just maybe he had. No, he didn't want to die, he just... he just wanted to get away from what scared him and right now that was the truth."
"Could you give us a little time alone." Robert beseeched the doctor, he was sure he could talk some sense into Aaron now, he was determined to.
Dr Yates nodded then gesturing at his watch said, "The sooner those drips are back in situ the better, they're the only things keeping him from an early grave."
Robert had been left in no doubt that time was of the essence right now, and as soon as the door had closed behind the doctor he took charge of the situation, steering Aaron over to his bed just like he had done the night before.
"You can't run from this any more Aaron. You have to face it head on and... you can talk to me. you can tell me anything, you know you can." At least he hoped Aaron could.
Blowing out a shaky breath Aaron nodded his head. Robert was probably the only person on earth he could tell, but where did he start? He wiped away a tear, one he promised would be the last he would shed because of his dad, "I'd almost convinced myself that it didn't happen. If you tell yourself something often enough you begin to believe it, you can almost change history." He'd more or less done that in his head, he had almost convinced himself that his dad wasn't such a bad guy, that he'd done his best for him. "Him coming back, seeing him again well, what's that they say about the scales falling from your eyes. They fell from mine that day and I saw him for the monster he was.
"He never... you know...he never touched me or made me touch him, there wasn't anything like that. I think it was a power thing, a form of control. It wasn't enough to have me cowering from his fists, he wanted to really show me who was boss...
"The first time he hit me, well that was the first time he... " He couldn't say the word, it stuck in his throat. "I'd broken the TV and he copped me a good-un right across the face. When I picked myself up I ran up to my room. I could hear him calling after me, telling me to get back downstairs, but I ignored him. That made him all the more angry. He followed me up, came into my room. I thought he was going to hit me again. He started undoing his belt and for a minute I thought he was going to use that on me but no.
"He held me down, pressed my face into a pillow when I started screaming. When he was... he told me that was the way bad boys were punished. When it was finally over he told me to stop crying, to man up. I couldn't though, it hurt... it hurt more than any beating he ever gave me.
"He's why I beat Paddy up that night! He was telling me it was ok to be gay but I knew it couldn't be. That I was only that way because of what my dad had done to me. See I'd always known that what he'd done was wrong, and I believed if that was wrong then me being with any man was too.
"I know now that I should have told someone but at the time I was too ashamed and I didn't think anyone would believe me. Not even Sandra knew what was going on and we lived under the same roof. The thing is, people like him, he's a charmer, he could talk his way out of anything. And I didn't want to get him into trouble, I had this I suppose warped idea that I owed him something, for sticking around, for not leaving me like my mum did. I could have run away at any time, I thought about it but I didn't have the balls. I could have fought back especially when I got older, I didn't. I let it happen."
"No. You were just a kid..."
"Yeah,"
"None of this was your fault!"
"No I know."
"No, I don't think you do." Robert knew Aaron was going to have to have professional help before he truly did believe that.
"He... there were..." Aaron heaved a fortifying sigh "four times in-all, and I know it would have happened again if I hadn't grown nearly as big as him. I think he realised he'd had his day, plus I was becoming an embarrassment. I was getting into trouble in school, getting brought home by the police. He didn't want his friends or neighbours to think he had a yob for a son, so he threw me out, washed his hands of me, and put as much distance as he could between him and his dirty little secret.
"And that's about it." There wasn't much else he could say. He wasn't feeling any better for the telling of it either.
Aaron's emotionless delivery of such shocking events worried Robert, he was an emotional person by nature but he was too in control here. He was still distancing himself from the truth, that had to stop, "What did he do to you?"
Aaron eyed Robert in disbelief, "I just told you."
"What did he do? Tell me what he did?" Robert pushed
"He hurt me."
"How Aaron, what did he do?"
"He... " he just couldn't get that awful word past his lips.
Forcing Aaron to make eye contact with him Robert asked again, "Aaron, what did he do to you?"
"He... he raped me."
After the words had come a heart-wrenching sob, then the tears had begun to flow. Robert wrapped Aaron in his arms and held him while he cried, his own tears falling freely as he made a silent promise to himself, 'One way or another Gordon Livesy was going to pay for what he'd done.'
tbc
