A Stagnation of Love
Chapter 8
Part 10
Heero and I managed to escape his house and pile into the same car that he had picked me up in that one time without any further interruptions somehow and then we were off. It was awkward for awhile. I was still nervous about the whole thing and Heero was still incredibly embarrassed about whatever his mother had whispered to him, his blush not receding much even as we left Nausten. I really didn't know what to expect from this date with Heero. I didn't know how it was going to be any different from what we usually did, but it was obviously going to be and I found that a little bit off putting.
I found myself falling back on my one, single frame of reference: the dates that Trowa had taken me to. I knew that I shouldn't, that Heero was nothing like Trowa, he had proven that to me over and over, even boldly stating it himself a few times, so I shouldn't expect anything like that. But there was still a frightened and anxious part of my brain that was scared that this would end up being like on of those times. We would barely speak, he would act distant around me, trying to play up the illusion that we were only luke warm friends, but as soon as we were alone, he would try something, something that I wasn't comfortable with and would have to pretend that I was if I wanted to keep dating him.
The mere prospect that that was what my evening was going to be like with Heero horrified me. I didn't want to go through that again. For him, I would, but that doesn't mean that I was looking forward to it. Heero would never do that to me, I could tell myself, but that didn't soothe my fears. I hadn't thought that the shy boy that I had met when I had been thirteen would have treated me the way that he had, either. That's not at all fair, I know that. It wasn't like Trowa had magically changed his entire personality overnight and it had come as a huge shock that he put me at arm's length. A lot had changed in three years, things that I didn't even know about, and how could anyone remain the same after knowing that someone that they had loved had killed themselves because of you? It had changed the both of us, and I had been just as distant with him, just as cold and bitter. But did that really mean that I should have been ok with everything that he had done to me?
What would I do, I wondered, if Heero started to do those things? If he started to get bolder? If he started to pressure me for more? Not sex, I might not be well versed in dating practices, but even I knew that it was too soon for that. But touching, fondling, heavy petting, stuff that normal couples did but scared me just as much as sex did. I could tell myself that I could put up with it for him, but it wasn't just something that I could go along with just for his sake. If he didn't think that I was into it, into him, it would hurt him. It would disgust him, just like it had the day that I had had sex with Trowa and he had realized that I hadn't gotten hard.
What if Heero copped a feel on this date? What would be worse, the distance, the illusion, or him thinking that I would be ok with that? It just reminded me of all the reasons why I had thought that this was a bad idea. It wasn't fair to Heero. It was me leading another boy on again and I hated myself for it, for not being the person that he deserved. I could put up with anything for him, but how could I pretend to be into the other intimate stuff when just the thought of doing it still made my stomach squirm? I kept thinking that actually being attracted to Heero would make it easier, but in some ways, it just made it harder.
Liking him, finding him attractive and still feeling uncomfortable with intimacy just drove home to me what a freak I am. I wanted so badly to be normal. I wanted to want him, but this thing that's broken in me beyond repair won't let me. I shouldn't feel nervous about him wanting more, I should want that, too, but he had fallen for damaged merchandise. He just hasn't realized it yet. I couldn't stand my own thoughts and doubts and insecurities, worried that if I dwelled on them for too long, I would seriously start thinking about breaking up with Heero. Not that that would lead anywhere. As the universe had already made pretty clear to me, actually looking my boyfriend in the eye and telling him that I couldn't be with him, for reasons that I could never discuss with him, was impossible for me, but that didn't mean that I enjoyed where my thoughts were leading me to.
I switched the car radio on for a distraction and raised an eyebrow at him when classical music came through the speakers. Heero has a pretty eclectic taste in music, but classical was not something that he enjoyed. He liked pop, metal, and some latin music that he attributed to his mother's father's influence. Yet another thing on an abundant list that we didn't have in common. We met in the middle on rock music, but he mostly tolerated the other music that I liked, although he did admit that he liked some of the jazz music. Neither one of us have much of an interest in classical stuff. Don't get me wrong, some of it is really pretty to listen to, but most of it is kind of stuffy to me. I'd take a blues guitar over a symphony any day.
"Hey, it's my dad's car, not mine," he said defensively and reached over to change the station to something that we would both enjoy.
A song that we both loved came on and I felt myself relax a little. Just take things as they come, I reminded myself. I had no idea what was going to happen and I was just going to make myself insane about worrying over everything. Heero seemed to be settling down after his embarrassment as well and began to hum along as he left the back roads and got onto the highway. He had a nice voice to listen to and it reminded me a little of a large cat, purring. I couldn't carry a tune myself, even if it was just humming, so I was content to listen to him.
There was a bit of traffic on the high way at that hour, but it didn't take us too long to get to Nasket. The town reminded me a bit of Nausten; small and right on the coast, bordered by beaches with little else to see. Only Nasket was a bit bigger and seemed to do a bigger business in fishing and tourism. There seemed to be dozens of shops and restaurants along the wharf area that we were driving through, all of them advertising 'the freshest fish' and souvenirs, although a few of them looked closed down since it really wasn't tourist season.
We drove for a little while, leaving the cluttered shopping area for another street that was much more sparse. It looked like a kind of entertainment district. There were a couple of family friendly restaurants, an entire building advertising moon walks, an ice cream shop, an arcade, and the mini golf course where Heero parked the car. I saw with some relief that, while there were some other cars at the place, they were few. I didn't really know what to expect, but at least it wouldn't be crowded and I was hoping that, with the risk of being spotted at a minimum, Heero wouldn't feel the same need to be aloof around me that Trowa had.
I had heard of miniature golf before, but not in any kind of context that had given me much information about it beyond that it wasn't a real sport, bared little resemblance to real golf, and was more of a little kid thing. So I had worried that we might get some weird looks, a couple of teenaged boys going to a kid's event in the evening when it was already dark, but as we got out of the car, I saw that the place was well lit and while I did see a family with kids leaving through the parking lot, I also saw a group of kids our age going in, so I guessed that it wasn't so strange.
The mini golf course had some kind of jungle theme going for it, pictures of a parrot mascot everywhere and when we walked in, I could hear the kind of jungle sounds music you might find on a nature CD along with whales and crickets. Everything was brightly colored and cartoonish, from the posters advising participants of safety rules, to the signs for the bathrooms, and even the fake foliage planted here and there on the sides of the walkway. We got in line behind the teenagers that had come in before us to pay for the course and for a moment, I was paranoid that they might be from our school, but I didn't recognize any of them and from their familiarity with the person at the counter, they had to be local. I told myself to relax and stop freaking out over anything, but with my bad luck, it had seemed all too plausible that we might run into someone that knew us or even Zechs and his friends, I thought with horror. That would really be a great way to start the night off.
Of course, I pointed out to myself, even if that did happen, it didn't mean that anyone would think that our being there was strange. We were just two friends hanging out on a Saturday night. That was perfectly normal. And we were wearing our jackets, so very few people would be able to even tell that we were dressed up. Still, I didn't dare so much as think 'nothing bad is going to happen' to make myself feel better because that seemed like inviting trouble.
The teenagers finished chatting with the girl at the counter, who must have been their friend with their easy banter and it was our turn. She didn't bat an eye when Heero said it was just the two of us and he was told that it would be eight dollars each for the eighteen holes. I was shocked about that, dreading how much this date was going to cost him and expecting easily twice that. We were then informed with a bored inflection that we could choose what color our balls would be, I thought to tell them apart at first, but when I saw the almost ridiculous variety, like a pack of crayons, I realized that it was more out of the whimsy of the thing. Heero chose a blue violet color and I choose navy blue, the nicest color out of a mass of neons. We were then given our clubs and were allowed onto the course. The clubs were shockingly light, more like sticks than sporting equipment, and the same with the balls. I thought that it must be so the kids could handle them, but I saw behind the counter that there were smaller ones for children. As we stepped through the fence that separated the outer area to the inner courses, I was struck with amazement at the intricacy of how the place was laid out. There were little rivers and waterfalls running throughout the place and I could see various obstacles ranging from snake shaped ladders to caves to monkey windmills and hills. It was rather amusing and I could see the appeal that most kids would have with that kind of place.
The first course was incredibly simple, just a flat of what looked like green felt bordered by raised up bricks so no balls could fall in the water and the hole for the ball to go into. I supposed that the courses were done in order of difficulty, but even so, I found it daunting. I hadn't so much as watched a game of regular golf before and I was still terrified of making an ass of myself in front of Heero. For all of my thoughts that it might be better if this date failed and we went back to the way that things used to be between us, that wasn't what I really wanted.
Heero watching me at track had helped a little with my self-esteem, but I've never been great at handling embarrassment. You would think that, after all these years of dealing with it every day, I would be, but it still makes me feel physically ill every time it happens, and that's just in front of a bunch of classmates that I hate. If I embarrassed myself in front of the one person whose view of me I cared about, that would be devastating.
"I don't know how to play," I told him unnecessarily since he already knew that.
"It's not difficult," he said, "You're just tapping the ball with the club towards the hole. It's mostly all about aiming and hitting the ball with the right amount of force, especially on an easy course like this."
"I'm probably going to suck at it," I muttered and hated how whiny I felt.
"That's alright," he smiled at me, "This isn't about competition, it's just fun. And I really suck at it, too."
I sincerely doubted that he sucked at anything even remotely athletic and raised a dubious eyebrow at him, thinking he was just placating me so I wouldn't feel bad.
"Here, I'll go first so you can see how to do it," he offered.
He placed his ball on the front of the green, took his stance, and hit the ball. It went in an almost straight, perfect line to the hole and I thought for sure that he had nailed it, but he had hit it a little too hard and the ball bounced back out.
"Damn it," he muttered, "I always do that. See? I'm not that great at it, either."
I bit back a chuckle at his frustration, but I instantly felt better about my own inadequacies. I take it for granted sometimes that I'm not the only one who isn't good at some things, so used to being bullied about it, but what had made Heero good at baseball had made him bad at miniature golf. He was used to swinging a bat, not tempering himself. I went next, putting my blue ball down and trying to copy Heero's posture as best that I could.
"Hold on a sec," he said and suddenly, he was there right behind me, so close that I could almost feel his body heat through my jacket.
My heart leapt up into my throat as I felt him reach around and place his hands over mine. I nervously looked around us and even though there wasn't anyone that was close enough to us to see what Heero was doing, and even though he really wasn't doing anything that he wouldn't have done back when we had just been friends, I was torn between being excited to feel him touching me again and anxious that we were in a public place.
I almost laughed at myself. I had been so scared that Heero would act like Trowa had on this date, that he would shy away from me entirely around people, and I was the one freaking out over being seen. Could I be a bigger hypocrite? That it was Heero that I was worried about and not myself didn't make me any different from Trowa as far as I was concerned. The only thing that did was that I wasn't pushing Heero away or telling him not to get that close, half because I couldn't, I was frozen where I was, trying not to let him know how much his mere proximity effects me, and half because I just didn't want to. Even if I did, he might take it the wrong way and feel hurt.
"Like this," he told me in a soft tone and moved my fingers on the club to a position that he was more satisfied with.
He's just trying to help, I told myself, he doesn't mean anything by it. But when he let go of my hands and stepped back, his face was a little bit warm, not from embarrassment, but something else all together and I wondered if he had just used my shitty posture as an excuse to touch me.
"T-thanks," I stammered and took my shot, trying to ignore how hot my hands still felt.
By some kind of miracle, my ball traveled the few feet to the hole, fell in, and stayed in. Sure, it was a course designed so that any child could sink that shot, but I was still amazed that I had managed it while my boyfriend hadn't. Heero took his turn, getting his ball in the second time and marked our scores on the little sheet of paper that he had been given when he had paid. We moved slowly through the rest of the course, taking our time since there was no one behind us and the group of teenagers were far ahead. Neither of us was even a little bit competitive, and it was like Heero had said, this was just for fun.
We chatted as we played, marveling at some of the obstacles, and it soon became absolutely apparent to me that all my fears that going out on a date with Heero was going to be like dating Trowa were ridiculous. Heero wasn't distant at all, in fact it was the opposite. It seemed like he was taking any excuse to touch me and be affectionate. Not kissing or anything too forward, and nothing that would have made it obvious that we were together, but little things. Touching my hand as he walked past me, squeezing my shoulder, brushing his fingers against mine when he handed my ball back to me, just tiny moments of touch that made me feel hopelessly happy.
Because that was the point. I had never asked Trowa for open displays of affection. Even if I hadn't been gay and such displays would be like inviting an assault, I wasn't that kind of person. When it comes to intimacy, I'm too shy to be overly public about it. But all the same, all those moments when he had been so cold and distant to me, barely talking or even looking at me had hurt. It had made me doubt that he had feelings for me at all, even just friendly ones. It had made me feel like he was just putting up with me out of convenience, which had turned out to be true, but that doesn't mean that I wanted him to so blatantly shove that fact in my face over and over again.
Heero wasn't like that. He showed me, again and again, that we weren't just here as friends, that he liked my being there and wanted me there with each of those touches, but never in a way that made me feel uncomfortable or put either of us in danger. With Trowa as my only example, I hadn't even considered that there was some halfway point we could have reached, that we could have been both discreet and still do something as a couple together. It was more than just wonderful to me.
As for our playing itself, neither of us got much better after the first couple of holes. Heero hit the ball too hard more than half of the time and my aim was just horrible. We weren't ever going to be able to compete in professional mini golf, that was for sure, but it was entertaining and I found myself easily enjoying it, even if I sucked. Things got progressively harder around the seventh hole when those little brick barriers around the green went away and it became a struggle for both of us to keep our balls where they were supposed to go. It was only inevitable that one of us would miscalculate and lose our ball, and of course that person would end up being me.
"Shit," I swore as I hit my ball right off the green and into the little river at hole twelve while trying to get it up onto the snake ladder that led to the platform that the hole was on.
I was lucky, I suppose, that it had only gone into the river, which had barely any current let alone enough of one that would move the ball and not down one of the waterfalls or some other inaccessible place, but the ball was still too far away from us for me to fish it out with the club. I was starting to wonder if the cashier would give me a new one if I asked when Heero decided to take matters into his own hands.
"I'll get it," he said and started to untie his shoes.
"What?" I squawked unintelligently at him, thinking he was just joking until I saw him remove his socks and shoes and roll up his pants and sleeves so they wouldn't get wet, "Heero, it's fine, you can't-"
But he completely ignored me and stepped into the water. A bark of laughter escaped me at the ridiculousness of what he was doing, even as he shivered a little as he waded out into the little more than ankle high water. There he was, in expensive slacks, walking through icy cold, probably dirty, water just to get a damned golf ball for me. Half of me wanted to scream at him that he was an idiot while the other felt so warmed that he would do something like that for me, and all over a silly game.
"I can't believe you just did that," I said, but I was still laughing and Heero was looking triumphant as he fished my ball out and made his way back to me.
"Your ball, my good sir," he said with a cheeky grin, handing it to me.
"My hero," I said dryly, shaking my head at him, "That water must have been freezing."
"It wasn't that bad," he insisted, taking off his jacket to use it as a towel to dry off his feet before putting jacket, socks, and shoes back on.
"Says the one who can't stand the cold," I teased, not believing him one bit.
We continued on with our game and, thankfully, didn't have any more lost ball incidents, although Heero hit his right into a bush on hole sixteen. When Heero added up all of our points at the end, he told me that it was a tie and I tried to call his bluff, thinking about the statistical improbability of the whole thing and he was just catering to my ego, or lack of one. But when I demanded to see the score card, I saw with amazement that we really had tied through sheer luck. The scores themselves were not very flattering, but one of us wasn't so much as a single point off from the other. I wanted to keep my ball as a souvenir from the best date that I had ever been on. Maybe it was premature to think that before we had even gone out to dinner, but it was the best already, a far cry from any of the others that Trowa had taken me on.
The last hole, however, was actually a tube that collected all of the balls so no one could steal any. So Heero let me keep the scorecard instead. I didn't tell him about that 'best date' stuff, or that I wanted a souvenir from my time with him even though I'm not much for material possessions or sentimentality with all the things that I've lost in my life thanks to my father's rampages, but I think Heero guessed it from how disappointed I was to learn that I couldn't retrieve my ball. The scorecard would end up going right into the drawer in the bedside table in the guest room because I didn't want to risk it getting destroyed.
It was actually a nice night out for once, not too chilly or windy and not a single cloud in the sky, no moon, but a ton of stars, so we decided to leave the car and walk the few blocks to the restaurant. Just as promised, it was this little Italian place named Prima's that was right on the water front, complete with an area for outside dining that overlooked the beach. I felt mournful when I saw it that, while warmer than it had been the previous month, it was still far too cold to eat out there. All of the tables and chairs were empty, but the restaurant still had the string of lights that framed the place on and I imagined that it was a popular spot for couples during the spring and summer.
Prima's wasn't as fancy as some places, I supposed, but it was easily the nicest restaurant that I had ever eaten at, given that the second nicest was Charlie's, which was little more than a family burger joint. It wasn't the sort of place that you needed reservations to and it was affordable, but it was beautiful inside, all the tables covered in white, satin cloths with a low lit lantern hanging above or, for some of the tables, a lit candle. The music was as low as the lighting instead of blaring like in some places, the singing soft and sweet, although I couldn't make out the words, just the sound of the voice and violins. There was even a fireplace by the bar that was lit. I could smell the sweet, intoxicating aromas of garlic, tomatoes, and a thousand different kinds of herbs and spices, my stomach almost cannibalizing itself as I remembered that I hadn't eaten since early that morning.
I took off my coat the second that we got inside, but still felt incredibly underdressed and like I was the very last person that belonged there. As we approached the front of the restaurant so we could be seated, I had to remind myself a thousand times that it was ok, I wasn't wearing one of my ratty t-shirts, my hair was clean, and I certainly didn't smell. I had bathed, my clothes were decent, and I was with Heero. If I was out of my league, that was alright because he did belong there and he wouldn't let me make an ass of myself.
We followed the hostess to the doubles section of the restaurant, but when she tried to seat us at one of the booths, Heero asked for a table. I nearly protested when she brought us to one of the candle lit tables, having thought that those were reserved for couples, but Heero just thanked her and if she thought that it was strange, she didn't say. Maybe it was just because there weren't many people there or she thought that he just liked where the table was, right next to the window where we could look out onto the ocean and the clear, night sky. She gave us the menus, took our drink orders, Heero asking for a non-alcoholic red wine and myself a raspberry, Italian cream soda, and then went away.
I slung my jacket around the back of my chair and looked around the area that we were seated in. To my ultimate relief, I saw that there was no on in our section beyond a young couple in their twenties that were so engrossed with each other, Heero and I could have started making out right there and they wouldn't have so much as blinked. I could see the outdoor eating area from where we were and how calm the ocean was that night, how easy it was to see the stars' reflections on the black water.
"This place is beautiful," I remarked.
"Yeah, it is," Heero agreed, but he was looking at me and not outside at the window, which made me blush even though I knew that it didn't mean anything, "It's too bad that Nausten doesn't have a place like this."
"Yeah we do," I pointed out, "There's a ton of nice restaurants in the north shopping district."
"Yeah, I know, Relena took me to a few of them," he said and I could just barely detect a bit of bitterness in his voice as he reminisced on his ex, "And they're nice, but they're also ridiculously expensive and stuffy, and few of them have a view like this. I didn't want to take you to any of them."
I looked away from him, feeling embarrassed. I didn't feel any resentment towards him, because I knew that it was the truth. Someone like me could never go to some five star restaurant and expect to be served, I would stick out like a raccoon at a pedigree dog show. I didn't even own a tie and the last thing that I would have wanted was for Heero to be ashamed of me. I probably wouldn't be let through the door anyway. Those types of places' dress code don't accept jeans and a sweater.
"Not like that!" Heero said desperately and when I looked back up at him, he looked panicked that he might have hurt my feelings, "I just mean that I know how uncomfortable you would be in a place like that and I didn't want that. I wanted you to relax and have a nice time, not feel self-conscious and like you didn't belong. Besides, if I had taken you, you would have been disrespected and then I would have had to punch someone and that would have made for a really shitty first date," he managed to win a shocked, little burst of laughter out of me and smiled, "I like this place a lot better anyway. The view is nicer, the staff isn't snotty, and I like the food a lot more.
"I... I never really enjoyed any of the dates that I went on with Relena," he confessed awkwardly, "It wasn't just that I didn't really like her or that I had to pretend to be in love with her or even her personality. She just had all these impossibly high expectations. I couldn't blame her for it, her family is filthy rich and she's just used to certain things. My family might be able to afford nice things, but we're practically destitute compared to how the Darlians live. I could afford to take her out to fancy restaurants and things like that, but it made me feel weird. It was never anything that I was used to. My parents can afford it, but we never go out to those kinds of places or go to lavish events. Before I started dating Relena, we went to a high class restaurant once and that was when my father got his psychiatry award. I'm much more comfortable in a laid back place like this and I thought that you would be, too."
"I am, too," I confessed, not telling him that this place was nicer than any other place that I had been to, "I wouldn't even know how to act in a place like that."
"You shouldn't have to," he insisted, "I wanted us to have a nice, companionable meal together, not be judged for our clothes and behavior."
"Didn't you ever take her any place that you wanted to go?" I asked.
"A couple of times," I was told, "But she never seemed to enjoy herself that much if we went to a baseball game or a restaurant that I liked. Even if the food was great or it was something that I really enjoyed, she would have a complaint about everything and make me regret taking her. So I just stopped and let her choose what we did and where we went. It was easier that way and she thought that I was just being romantic by insisting that she pick. I..." he moved his hand across the table to where mine was and brushed his fingers lightly against mine, a subtle gesture that was both discreet and intimate.
"... I've always been more comfortable with you," he admitted very shyly, "Not just because we're both gay, but... you aren't pushy or demanding. It didn't matter to you where we went or what we did and that's what a date should be about. Not the event, but doing it together. Relena never understood that. I feel like I can be myself around you because you actually like who I really am, not just because I'm good at baseball or that I'm attractive. I don't have to be confident or jump through hoops when we're together. Everything just comes naturally and I think that's the most important thing. Not passion or the fact that I would do anything for you, but that it seems so easy. We could be watching a movie at my house and I would be just as happy as I am right now."
I felt a dark blush overcome me as he spoke. He was happy... I had actually made him happy. He had told me that he loved me, that he thought that I was beautiful and strong, but he had never said those things to me before, that he could be himself around me. I realized that it was the same for me. When I was with him, even during something like this where I felt so awkward and off balance, I still didn't feel any pressure to build a wall around myself, to hide myself away from him. I've spent my life hiding from everyone, trying to protect my heart and pretending that I'm not as vulnerable as I really am, but Heero is the only person that I've really been open with.
Even with Quatre, I hid a lot from him. Heero knows more about me than anyone else, and he accepts all of those things. He was right, I realized, that the most important thing wasn't that we were crazy for each other, but that we meshed so well. We didn't need pretenses or to pretend for each other. Maybe a large part of that was that we were friends before we were boyfriends, but I think it's more than that. Maybe we really are just that compatible or maybe it's our personalities, but we understand each other without half trying.
"Me, too," I told him with a soft smile, hooking my middle finger around his, "I'm happy no matter what we do, but I'm glad you took me out tonight. I've never gotten to do these things before and I'm glad that I got to do them with you."
We both fell silent and quickly removed our hands from on top of the table to resting on our laps as we saw our waitress approach us with our drinks. I took a tentative sip of mine, which turned out to be sweet, but not overly so. We were asked what we would like to order and I took the time while Heero was ordering to glance at the menu, which was actually quite extensive. Heero decided on a shrimp linguini dish while I eventually settled for lamb in a garlic marinara sauce because I had never had lamb before and this seemed like a night for firsts.
"So, you're having fun tonight?" Heero asked me when the server had left with our menus, taking a small sip from his wine.
"Yes, thank you so much for taking me," I said to him, "and for putting up with my pussy footing over the whole thing. I'm having a great time."
"Hey, it's no problem," he assured me, "I was really nervous, too. I didn't want you to feel pressured or to have a terrible time tonight."
"So, did your parents take you to mini golf and those kinds of places a lot as a kid?" I asked him.
"Yeah, there were a ton of places like them where we used to live," he told me with a great deal of fondness in his tone, "Not just mini golf, but a lot of tourist attractions, zoos, play parks, all sorts of places. My dad would take me out every weekend to some place, sometimes just the two of us. Even now that I'm older, we still try to go out and do things together once in awhile."
"That sounds nice," I smiled, but I wasn't all that surprised.
Mr. Yuy seemed like the kind of dad that would spend time with his son not out of some kind of parental obligation, but because he genuinely liked being with him. Heero opened his mouth to say something, but whatever it was, he looked incredibly uncomfortable and quickly closed his mouth again.
"I'm not made of glass, you know," I said and it didn't take a genius to figure out that whatever he had been about to say, he had stopped because he had worried that it might offend me or that he was being rude, "You can ask me whatever you want. If it isn't something that I'm comfortable with answering, then I won't, but you don't need to hold back just because you're worried it might upset me."
"Alright," he conceded, "Did you ever do anything like that with your parents?"
Even though I had assured him that he could ask me anything, I immediately wished that I hadn't, and I felt somewhat annoyed, almost bitter, that he had asked that question. But that wasn't his fault. I just didn't want to think about my childhood. Not so much the beatings and verbal abuse and how both of my parents had treated me like shit, like a parasite that they were forced to take care of. No, those things are easy to remember. It's everything else. It's just easier, you know? To remember the bad times, because things are still bad. It's easier to remember how my father had hit me and told me that I was nothing because it makes it easier to deal with my loathing for him. But the other things... the good things, the times when he had been nice to me were so much more complicated. I didn't want to remember how much I did, and still do, love him, how I had looked up to him, how I had loved spending time with him, no matter what we did.
It's harder to remember how those feelings had diminished, how he had almost snuffed them out with his violence and callousness. But not entirely. Because that's the worse part. For all of my father's attempts, there are still parts of me that care about him and feel happy when he does a nice thing for me or gives me some of his time. When I feel that love for him, it's so much harder to accept, not only my anger at him or even all of the ways that his treatment of me has changed me, but how he can do those things to me. How he can beat me bloody and force himself on me without ever acknowledging what he's doing, like he's sleepwalking.
"My mother wouldn't," I told him, deciding to answer the question, even if it hurt me, "Sometimes she would come with us when we would go out someplace, but only a couple of times. She was always so busy with work. When I was little, she would always just be too tired, but when I got older, she never wanted to be around me or my father. Even when we did go out, it wasn't any place like this. My dad would take me on car rides or walks on the beach. Sometimes we would sit on the hill by the train yard with a packed lunch and watch the trains come and go. Even back then, we didn't have much money, so we couldn't go to many places. But I was happy, you know, just that he wanted to spend some time with me."
I swallowed roughly, feeling this sudden pain in my chest as I suddenly realized just how much I missed my childhood. How much I missed those times with my father. Not only that, I suddenly wished, with all of my heart, that he would go back to the way that he was. Things weren't so bad back then. He didn't hit so hard, didn't drink so hard, didn't hate me so much. Back then, it had actually seemed like he was trying to be a father. He actually seemed like he cared about trying. Then, little by little, that person died and everything that was bad in him got so much worse.
"I'm sorry," Heero apologized, looking like absolute shit, "I didn't mean to make you upset."
I shook my head and took another sip of my drink, trying to keep it together.
"It's fine. They're good memories," I insisted, "I like remembering them."
"You did get out of Nausten once in awhile when you were a kid?" he asked me.
"Nope," I said, "Until my previous boyfriend came along, I had never left town before."
Heero's blue eyes went wide with surprise.
"Seriously?" he gaped, "Jeez. Well, we have to fix that, get you out of there more so you can see what it's like. Nausten is just one, tiny town, there are so many great things to see not all that far away from us. Nausten isn't the entire world, you know."
I almost felt he was scolding me and I didn't blame him. There really wasn't any good excuse for me staying in my home town all the time. I could say that I never had the time or the money, but that was a lie. It was partially because it was kind of comforting, never leaving the place that I've always known, even just to take a jog or the bus to the next town over, but the other was just thinking 'what's the point?'
"Sometimes it feels like it is," I murmured, looking downcast into my cheerfully red and white drink, "Sometimes it feels like Nausten stretches out forever, it just changes it's name sometimes. All the people and the places are exactly the same, so it doesn't matter if I go out and explore, if I move away or go some place far away from there. It's all the same shit in the end."
"It really isn't," Heero protested, "Duo, you don't know because you've been stuck there for all of your life, but not every town is like Nausten, and not every person is like the assholes that treat us like shit. There's so much to see and do, so many people that are completely different. People that are like us."
I supposed that that was true. After all, if everyone was like Relena and Zechs and my father, then I never would have met Heero or his parents. But they seemed so rare, and it seemed so impossible that I would ever meet anyone else like them, just more bullies.
"You'll understand when you go off to college next year," he promised, "There are places in the world that are better, places where you'll be accepted, you just have to find them and not give up."
"Yeah," I murmured, neither confirming or denying anything and busying myself with buttering a piece of bread that our server had left at the table so Heero wouldn't catch on to my dejected tone.
I couldn't tell him about my plans for the future. I didn't dare. Heero is a dyed in the wool optimist. He always believes that I can do all these things... that I'm better than I really am and there will always be a part of me that never wants to prove him wrong. How could I possibly tell him that I have no intention of going to college after high school? That I had every intention of starting work and getting an apartment, and even just going to a trade school if I could ever afford it was as close to a dream as I've gotten in years? He would flip his shit and try to convince me that I was college material and when I tell him that my potential is only a part of it, that money is the other issue, he would get that sad look on his face that devastates me every time, that look where he just wants to fix everything and he knows that he can't.
Still, I wondered just how much of that future came from me being completely logical and realistic, and how much I've used my belief that every other place would just be more of the same shit anyway as an excuse to stay. No point even trying to see what my options were for a further education, I would just get turned down, and even if I did, what did it matter? I would fail and just get bullied and harassed anywhere else. At least I knew Nausten. It was shit that I understood and knew how to survive. But in reality, was I just scared of failure? Am I just a tiny fish in an equally tiny pond, too frightened to see what things are like in the big, scary ocean? Am I nothing more than a carbon copy of my father, deciding to stay in this dead end, to complain and struggle and wither and die instead of trying something different?
"I'm sorry," I blurted out, flushing and looking down at my silverware, "I'm really boring. I've never gone anywhere or done anything even remotely interesting for my entire life. If it weren't for my ex, I never even would have left my home town until now."
Him telling me that he enjoyed dating me much more than he had Relena had done wonders for my self-esteem, but there was still a part of me that would always wonder if I could ever hope to measure up to her, to be the person that Heero really wanted. Every time he would compliment me, it was hard for me to take. I wasn't just ordinary or unremarkable, I'm boring and completely uninteresting. Heero could entertain me for hours about what it had been like to live in Florida, be a mvp, all the things that he had done as a kid that I had never done, but I had nothing. I had lived my life in an isolated bubble, this grey miasma of nothing and I couldn't think of anything about me that would keep him interested in me.
"You're far from boring," he scoffed, "And you don't need to have a ton of interesting stories or be a thrill a minute for me to like you and want to be around you. Relena and her family have gone on cruises all over the world and I found her and the things that she would talk about to be about as exciting as watching paint dry. Who you are is a lot more interesting to me than any place you've gone, Duo."
I felt incredibly pleased at that, shy from his praise, but I managed a shy, happy smile, realizing that he wasn't just giving me a line, but he really felt that way. I opened my mouth to tell him that, to let him know how much I loved him for being the only person in my entire life to actually tell me something like that, that the person that I am actually matters to him, that he didn't want me to change, that I wasn't just a flat bit of nothing to him, something inadequate and trivial, but then our waitress came back with our food, interrupting our conversation. It didn't matter, I realized. Heero knew.
The food was delicious, by the way, and it made the food that I had had at Charlie's years ago seem like something out of a greasy spoon. The lamb and sauce was incredibly rich. I can't say that I prefer lamb over beef after trying it, but it was definitely something that I wished I could have more often. Even the vegetables, of which there were practically a mountain of them, were amazingly fresh and tasted great mixed with the sauce. We divided our dishes in half and let the other taste ours and Heero's was just as incredible, especially the shrimp, another thing that I had never had before. He let me try some of his wine, too, and I had to admit that it complimented what we had chosen, but I preferred what I was drinking.
We talked only a little as we ate, too focused on our meals, and the things that we talked about were pretty banal and safe. Our food, the restaurant's chosen decor, if I was interested in cross-country or not. It might not have been anything important, but it was companionable and I enjoyed it more than I could ever say, just eating dinner with him and talking, great food and watching his blue eyes from across the table. Even though it was getting late, when our server came back with dessert menus, we ordered a slice of cheesecake and tiramisu to split between us, which turned out to be just as delicious as everything else that we had eaten.
"Did you want to get your mother anything to go? A piece of cake or something?" Heero asked me when we had finished with our desserts.
I felt briefly amused that he had asked if I wanted to bring my mother anything and not my father, but also warmed that he knew that much about me, that I would feel compelled to gift her with something nice.
"If you don't mind?" I asked him.
"Of course not," he smiled.
When our server came back to collect our dessert dishes, he ordered a slice of tiramisu to go, as well as our bill. When she delivered both, I demanded to see how much it was, but the cheeky asshole refused. Just glancing at it, writing down a tip amount and putting his credit card in the folder for her to collect.
"Jerk," I muttered at him when she walked away, but he just grinned in triumph at me.
"I don't see how it makes any difference how much it cost," he logically pointed out, "since even if you had money, I wouldn't let you pay for it. That would just be bad manners."
I rolled my eyes at him. I wanted to say that I wanted to go dutch with him, which seemed only fair, but we both knew that I didn't have the means no matter what it had cost, and I was sure that it hadn't been cheap. When his credit card was returned to him, we grabbed our coats and left, full and content.
"Thank you," I said, fidgeting with the bottom of my sweater as we walked through the parking lot, "For paying and getting me to do this. I had a great time tonight."
"I'm glad," he smiled softly in that way that always makes my heart flutter.
When we got to the car, he lightly grabbed my arm to keep me from walking to the passenger side. He took the take out container holding the cake and placed it on the trunk of the car, out of harm's way, and took both of my hands in his. In that single moment, with his warm hands holding mine, I didn't worry about anyone seeing us and thinking it strange that two teenaged boys were holding hands.
"So tell me..." he said in a low and very nervous voice that I was only used to hearing from him when he was asking something serious of me, something that he thought I was going to say no to, "... do I stand a chance?"
My breath caught in my throat at his question. That was right, I reminded myself. This wasn't just our first date. This was the trial run that he had proposed because I had been too chicken shit about just flat out agreeing to a relationship. Now that date was coming to a close and he still didn't know where he stood with me. Just because I had admitted to having a good time with him, it didn't mean that I was agreeing to continue seeing him. There he was again, I thought, giving me an out. Not pushing me or assuming things like Trowa had, but gently leading me along carefully because he was just as worried about me as he was about his own feelings.
I could so very easily tell him no, I realized. I had been agonizing over this for days, wondering over and over again what I should do, if it might be safer for both of us to just call it quits. And there he was, giving me the means to do so. We could go back to being friends and sure, it would be awkward and painful for awhile, but we might get over it, at least in appearances. I wouldn't have to be so scared anymore of failure, or worse. But do you want to know something really weird? Even though I had been feeling so terrified for all of those days and hours and minutes leading up to this date... in that parking lot with him, looking into his pained and anxious eyes, I didn't feel that fear. It had fled, if only for a little while, and all I felt was love for him. I looked down at the ground, too nervous myself to look at him anymore, the warmth of his skin like a brand on my hands.
"You're the only one who ever has," I murmured very shyly, my heart racing in my chest as I admitted that.
Heero let go of my hands and I quickly looked back at him, worried that I might have said something wrong, but there was this intense expression on his face that made me breathless all over again. It was passion and love and wonderment, like he couldn't believe that I was real. I felt his hand on my left arm and he turned to see if anyone was watching us, but he had parked far from the entrance of the restaurant and there was no one else but us in parking lot. Even if there was, it was fairly dark where we were, so I didn't feel any anxiety at all when he leaned in close and kissed me.
It was like that first kiss all over again. Deep, sensual, intimate, and amazing, his mouth exploring my own like it was something fascinating that he couldn't get enough of. His lips were insistent without crossing that stupid line in my head that always made my fear rear up when Trowa went too far without being anything placating or calming. His kiss swept me up and built up this heat in me that I can't really explain, making me want things that I don't even know what they are. But even through it all, he didn't touch me or feel me up or try anything more than that kiss, somehow understanding, when Trowa never had, how to push me without breaking me.
The kiss lasted mere minutes, but just like before, it felt like so much longer than that and when we parted, my lips felt swollen and warm again. He smiled at me and gave me one last kiss on the lips, a brief, chaste one and squeezed my arm a little. We got into the car together, but he didn't put the key in the ignition just yet. He reached over and held my hand in his and for a moment, this terrifying second in time, I flashed to the time that Trowa had held my hand like that, only to lead it into his pants, forcing me to hold his cock. It was like all those moments when I remember my father forcing himself on me, how I can feel everything that had happened like it was happening right then, how I can smell his breath and feel that terror. I could feel the fear that I had felt back then when I had realized that Trowa had wanted me to touch him, and I could even feel his penis in my hand, warm and soft and strange.
In the entirety of that second, I didn't once think that Heero would do something like that, something so violating, not him. But my heart still pounded with fear and I felt that worry that things were going to get out of control and take a turn into territory that I couldn't handle, a place where Heero would do something that was probably normal for couples, but would make him resent me because I couldn't deal with it like a normal human being. Then he raised my hand to his lips and lightly kissed my knuckles.
"Thank you," he said to me with a soft smile on his lips.
"For what?" I asked in confusion, feeling incredibly guilty for my horrible thoughts.
"For what you said," he told me, "and for giving us a chance."
I shrugged awkwardly.
"There's nothing to thank me for," I murmured, blushing a little, "You know that I like you. I never should have strung you along to begin with."
"Yes there is," he insisted, "I knew from the start that, just because you like me, that's no guarantee that you would agree to a relationship. You've been hurt before, pretty badly I think, and I don't want you to worry that that might happen again. I don't want to be another bad memory."
"You could never be that," I assured him and I knew that it was the truth.
Even if our relationship ended because I had fucked everything up, and even if he grew to hate me, he would never be like Trowa. I had too many good memories of him for that to ever happen.
"You could never hurt me like he did," I said.
"I won't," he promised me, without even knowing exactly what it was that had happened and I didn't elaborate.
I wanted so badly to put Trowa and everything that he had said and done during our short relationship as far behind me as possible so I could move on with Heero, so I could stop comparing the two of them and remembering how everything went to shit, but I don't think that it's that simple. The only things that I really knew about relationships, I had learned from Trowa, my parents, and seeing Heero with Relena, and only one of those was a homosexual relationship. I could tell myself that my dating Heero was completely different, but it was those differences that kept blindsiding me.
Every time Heero did something that Trowa never had, or did it better, or didn't do something, it amazed me and put me off balance. Because I had to wonder what was different between the two of them. Was it simply because of their personalities? Was it because Heero lacked the bitterness of our shared history? Or was it simply because he actually loved me? The weird thing was, as much as Trowa had hurt me, he hadn't hurt me as much as he could have if I had truly loved him. But Heero could. That was the thing, wasn't it? Heero wouldn't hurt me like that, but he could, and he could do it quite seriously without even half trying.
That was all I could think about through the entire drive back to Heero's house, what a dangerous thing I was doing by dating him. I've survived for so long by closing off my heart, and there I was, daring the risk of opening it up. But what choice do I have? It isn't a choice at all, because that's what he does to me. He makes me vulnerable. Every moment that I'm with him, he drags me down deeper. He makes me feel things that I never thought that I would ever feel. He makes me weak. And there's a warning bell going off in my head, screaming at me that I can't do this, I can't live with this weakness. Because if he hurts me, if he takes all of this away from me, it'll rip me to shreds.
Normally, these kinds of thoughts would make me run and hide so fast, no one on Earth could hope to find me. All I've done for my entire life is build walls up around me to keep everyone out. And it's done me pretty well, really. Without those walls, dealing with Relena, Zechs, my father, Quatre's death, Trowa's betrayals, and how my mother used to be would be impossible. I'd never find the ability to get out of bed every day, Pepper or not. No, without those walls, I probably would have killed myself long before Quatre had.
But that night, sitting next to Heero in the car as he hummed along to a song that I didn't know on the radio, I wondered if that was really how I wanted to live the rest of my life. This... self-defense mechanism of mine had helped me, yes, but it had also damaged me. I've been protected, but until Heero came into my life, I wasn't happy. Even my friendship with Quatre paled in comparison to this. Knowing what this feels like, being with him, thinking about how things used to be is stifling.
I had hardened my heart and turned into someone capable of moving on past all the pain and bullying, but it wasn't just the hurt. I haven't let anything into my heart for the last four years. Not pain, but not happiness, either. No joy, no growth, nothing at all. I put my heart into stasis and the only thing that's grown in there is the same hate and anger and bitterness that's been there since I watched my best friend kill himself. Nothing else. I had tried to move on, tried to make something for myself. I had told myself that not killing myself, taking in my cat, going to school every day, these were signs that I was putting the past behind me. But that's the biggest lie there is. Until I met Heero, I hadn't moved on from anything. I had just rotted in it.
Before we became friends... before he moved here, was there a single day that I hadn't obsessed over the past? Quatre's death, my depression, the bullying, the abuse... it was all that I ever really thought about for so long. I had pushed away the mere possibility of ever letting anyone else in. Dating Trowa had only solidified my belief that it was the right thing to do. 'See?' my heart had told me towards the end of our fucked up relationship, 'This is what happens when try to be around someone, try to let them be a part of your life. They just kill you.'
I haven't even moved on from him. Not really. I broke up with him, but I never spoke to him again. I've barely even seen him in the halls at school. I just broke it off and evicted him from my life, but I never moved on from what he had done. I had just accepted the fact that I would never be truly happy, that no one could make me feel that way again after Quatre. But maybe I'm the one who is incapable of making myself happy and not other people. Maybe Relena helped to isolate me from everyone, but I had done it just as much as she had. If I had never met Heero, I would still be that way.
Compared to that loneliness, that nothing, was being vulnerable really so bad? I had thought about it as opening my fragile heart to hurt, but wasn't I also opening it up to everything else, all the things that I've denied myself? Love, friendship, happiness... If I had to live a life of never being hurt, but without those things, was that what I wanted? If you had asked me four years ago, I would have said yes. Quatre's death had fucked me up more than I can ever express on these pages. And it had hurt me because of how close that I had been to him, so it had only seemed natural to never be close to anyone again, so if they left, it wouldn't matter.
But at the same time, I had tried to kill myself because I had accepted the idea that I would never find happiness again. Now I had and it was scaring me. Didn't that just make me a huge hypocrite? I can't have it both ways, I know that. Heero makes me happy and he can hurt me like no one else ever has. I can either live with that or I could go back to the way things were before and I think that that scares me more than the possibility of me getting hurt. I think that trying to live like that now, after finding out what love feels like, would kill me more than anything Heero could possibly do to me. If I can feel like this... feel loved, then maybe... maybe being vulnerable isn't such a terrible thing.
My head was swimming and I didn't even know how I felt about things by the time we got there. I tried to hide it as Heero pulled the car into the drive way and parked instead of pulling into the garage and turned to me.
"We'll just pop in, grab the food, and then I'll drive you home... unless you've changed your mind and want to stay for the night?" he asked, looking a bit hopeful.
I would have done just about anything to get that desperate look off of his face, but I shook my head.
"I would love to," I admitted, "but I should go home. If my dad has anymore chores for me to do, I want to get them done before work tomorrow. And if I go home soon, I can get dinner ready for my mother before she gets home from work. But I can come over Monday, if that's alright. It'll be early in the morning, though."
"That's fine," he said, "At least I'll know you're there and we can have breakfast together."
'At least I'll know you're there,' seemed like such an odd comment to make at first before I realized that what he had really meant was 'at least I'll know you'll be safe.' I felt annoyed at that for a second, defensive, but I knew that I had absolutely no right to be. I couldn't blame Heero for feeling relief knowing that I would be at his house, and not where my father could hurt me, and could only imagine the stress that he went through every time he knew that I was home.
His house was mostly dark when we walked in, only a few table lamps lit and I imagined that his parents had either gone out themselves or had retired for the night. It seemed a bit early to be going to sleep on a Saturday night, but maybe they had something to do in the morning or were just watching television in their bedroom. Kanuck was immediately there at the door and danced around us when we walked in, but didn't bark. Heero and I walked into the kitchen where I found a small gold mine of food waiting for me; lasagna and some kind of casserole as well as a couple of plastic bags filled with canned soup, pasta, rice, vegetables, and boxed meals that were both nutritious and quick to make. Not so much that my father would find it suspicious if the food appeared after I had gone grocery shopping, but certainly more than I had asked for.
"I hope you don't mind us being presumptuous," Justin's deep voice came from the kitchen doorway.
He was standing there, studying me like he was trying to figure out how I was taking the gift of food, or maybe it was for something else that I didn't see.
"Not at all," I insisted, "I asked, but... this is so much..."
"It's just what we had in the pantry," he assured me, "We weren't planning on using any of it until we need to go shopping. Mariela wanted to do more, but I didn't want to get you into trouble."
"Thank you very much," I said whole heartedly, "My mother will be relieved. Now we won't have as much strain on our budget this much."
"I'm glad," he smiled softly at me before looking at his son, "Did you two have a nice time tonight?"
For some bizarre reason, Heero blushed darkly and looked embarrassed, not meeting his father's gaze which suddenly seemed very piercing, somewhere between suspicion and accusation, and he just nodded.
"It was a lot of fun," I said for him, "I didn't think mini golf would be that entertaining, and the food was amazing."
Justin was back to studying me for a moment, but he seemed almost... relieved. But that had to just be my imagination.
"Good," he said and then turned to Heero once again, "Take Kanuck out to do his business before you drive Duo home, then I want to talk to you when you get back."
Kanuck looked up at his owner and wuffed softly as if in agreement that he needed to go.
"Alright," he murmured and hurriedly led his dog out of the kitchen to the backyard, taking some plastic bags with him to clean up after his pet.
"He isn't in trouble, is he?" I asked and then bit my tongue as punishment for asking something that was not any of my business.
To my relief, Mr. Yuy chuckled.
"No, nothing like that, just a talk. I really am glad that you two had fun tonight. You should go out and do things together more often," he said.
"I hope to," I confessed, "It's been months since I've gone out and really done anything."
His expression turned sad at that and he dug around in his pocket for something, trying to hand it to me when he found it. I saw with horror that it was a fifty dollar bill.
"Here, Mariela and I wanted you to have this," he said.
"I can't possibly-" I began to protest.
"I know that you hate handouts, but I want you to take it," he said very insistently, "and I want you to hide it from your father. You can do whatever you like with it, but I would like for you to hang on to it in case you ever run into this situation again where you need money for food and don't have any."
I felt a bit embarrassed at that and if anyone else had said that to me, I would have wondered if it was a subtle insult towards my family's financial situation, but he didn't mean it like that. I knew that he and Heero's mother were just worried about me and this would make them a little bit less worried.
"It's too much," I murmured and hated how whiny I felt.
He snorted.
"If I thought that you would accept it, I would give you a lot more than that. But if your father would have thrown a fit over some food, I won't get you into trouble by helping you with your family's finances, either. Just... please, Duo, the next time you're in trouble like that, take care of yourself. Even if it means using this money or coming over here for some food, don't ever be too embarrassed to just ask for something that you need, and don't skip meals, either. It isn't good for you and it bothers us a lot that you're willing to put up with that. You should be coming to us because you're having trouble, not just because you want to do something nice for your mother. So please, take the money, it will make all of us feel better."
I reached out a little, then retracted my hand like I thought that the money was going to bite me before finally grabbing it and putting it in my pocket.
"Thank you," I murmured shyly, unable to look at him.
"No, thank you," he said, giving my shoulder a brief squeeze.
Heero came back in with his dog right then, who was hyper after being outside, and I was grateful for the distraction from my embarrassing conversation.
"Ready to go?" he asked me.
"Yup," I confirmed, gathering up the food.
"Good night, Duo," Mr. Yuy called as Heero rushed me back out the door.
"Good night, sir," I called back.
Even though he shot me a very concerned look over it, I managed to convince Heero to drop me off a block away from my house instead of right in front of it. I could only imagine what he was thinking, but it was probably fairly close to the truth, that I didn't want my father to see the car, or that I wanted to make sure that my father didn't see me. Both were pretty much true. My father thought that I was still at work, and if he was home and saw me, he would flip out. I could probably come up with some pretty lie about getting out of work early and that the food was just leftovers from a party so long as he didn't get a good look at the food itself. If I didn't have things that needed to be refrigerated, I might have even taken a walk around for a few hours until I could go home. But what I couldn't lie my way past, either to my father or to my neighbors, was being dropped off in what was probably a hundred-thousand dollar car.
But in the end, I shouldn't have worried. It was a Saturday night, after all, and while that didn't make it a sure thing, my father's own shitty, rust bucket of a car was missing from the driveway. This only made me feel wary instead of relieved, though, because it meant that if he did come home that morning, he was going to be as drunk as a skunk. More than that, I had had a nice day. I mean, a really nice day, if you didn't look too closely at my panic attack earlier that morning. But everything else had been amazing, and at the ripe age of seventeen, life has taught me not to trust nice days. Sooner or later, the shit comes back and typically, the nicer the days, the worse the bad ones after it.
My mother wasn't back from her shift yet, so I let myself into the dark house and went about putting the food away, hiding a lot of it in the basement pantry where my father wouldn't find it until he went down there to get something and hiding the lasagna in the back of the fridge, and began to heat up the casserole (it turned out to be chicken) in the oven. I begged the gods of the universe and luck and anything else that I could think of that if my father came home hungry, he would be too drunk to ask where the dinner had come from and would just eat it without complaint.
That done, I brought my homework downstairs and laid it out on the kitchen table, then started to do whatever housework that I could find. I had gotten all of my chores done for the day, but I didn't want there to be a single thing that my father could think of for me to do the next day, not even a fleck of dust for him to complain about. I vacuumed the entire downstairs and my bedroom before my mother came in. She looked like she had just come off of a three day shift instead of a single and when I told her that I had dinner all ready for her, she didn't ask me how I could have possibly strung something together when we didn't have so much as a grain of rice in the house, but looked at me like I was an angel sent to her from God Himself.
She ate some of the casserole as I washed the counters in the kitchen before sitting down with her. We talked about our days, how miserable hers was, although she tried not to make it sound that way, and what I had done since escaping the house that morning. My version was severely abridged. I told her about doing well during track practice and going out to dinner with Heero, but little else. If she realized that I wasn't telling her everything, she didn't mention it. She was more interested in my athletic activities anyway than where I had gone for dinner.
"Let me know when your meets are and I'll try to go to one," she insisted, her grey eyes brighter than they had been for a long time and I realized with this fuzzy feeling in my chest that she actually did want to go and not just out of a sense of obligation.
"You don't need to do that, Mom," I told her, "I know how busy you are and it's not that big of a deal."
"Of course it is," she said, "and I want to."
She finished eating and went straight to bed after I insisted that she let me do her dishes. When that was done and the bedroom door was closed, I sat down at the table to do a little homework. I wanted to get at least something done before my father came home and thought that I had at least an hour before I could go hide up in my room. The kitchen with it's tiny windows, overhead lights, and the smell of hot food was a much more welcoming place to work than the dark and musty attic.
Despite telling myself to be careful of my time and try to keep an ear out for my father's car, I quickly became swallowed up in my Creative Writing homework. We had to write a short story of not more than twenty pages using the themes that the class had picked out, which had been 'falling', 'flying', and 'dolphins' thanks to the boys wanting to write disaster stories and the girls wanting to write something more fantastical. One of the only classes that I was actually excited about, I had been working on what I was going to write in my head since Friday. I had eventually decided on telling the story of a small swift that suddenly finds itself falling out of the air and through the ocean, not knowing if it is going to drown or what it will find when it eventually stops falling.
As I began to write, even just the first few lines, I fell into that weird place in my head that I think all people that write recreationally have. It's this... gaping cavern full of words and emotions and ideas that just drag you under if you dare to wander too far in. Which is of course exactly what happened to me. Before much time had passed at all, I found that the first eight pages were already done and the swift was nearing the end of it's descent.
It took me awhile to figure out when I wanted to reveal the reason for it's falling, that it's last tail feather had been stolen by a larger gull, and how it was going to end. I'll admit that I tend to write rather... pessimistic stories. Shocking, I know. I won't say that I always kill off my characters, because I often don't, but I tend to end things with finality and few happy endings. When this idea had entered my head on Friday, I had thought of ending it rather simply with the swift merely drowning or being eaten by some aquatic predator, perhaps becoming trapped in a trench since that seemed like the only likely outcome of such a story.
But that night, I didn't think about the bird's predicament, about the loss of it's feather or the feeling of sinking into blackness even as I was describing it on paper. I thought about Heero, about the feeling of his lips against mine, his hand on my arm, and the sight of his blue eyes from across the table, the flame of the candle reflected in them. That blue, I thought, would be the same blue as the ocean that the swift was falling through, only becoming darker the deeper that it went. Suddenly, the ending that I had already started to craft in the last pages of my notebook seemed incredibly wrong, almost like a betrayal, if a writer can really betray his own creations.
With a little growl of frustration, I violently crossed out what I had written on the tenth and beginning of the eleventh page and started to write something else. I didn't want to write something fatalistic for once. I wanted the swift to reach the bottom of the ocean and come out on the other side of the world, not drown in some black, icy crevice. I became so involved in crafting this ending that I never heard the guttural noise that my father's car always makes, or even the sound of him opening and then slamming with a bit too much force the car door closed. So when I heard the door directly behind me open, I froze right where I sat, shocked at the mental vortex that I had become trapped in for the last couple of hours.
The hair on the back of my neck prickled as I listened to my father taking his shoes and jacket off in the hall. My back stiffened when I heard him stride over to where I was, my guts turning to ice and my right hand shaking a little. I waited for the blow, waited for the screaming, for the feeling of his unwanted breath ghosting over my skin and curled my hand into a fist so he wouldn't be able to see my weakness. Not that it mattered. He would just need to look at my face to see how frightened I was. He didn't stop, though. He walked right past me to the fridge, like I didn't even exist.
His face was a common picture to me. His hair was messy, his cheeks red, and his eyes were glazed with heavy alcoholism. Exactly how much was hard to tell and I felt a momentary burst of anger knowing that he had been driving around like that. I pushed it down, reminding myself of how dangerous those feelings were. I wondered if it was at all possible to sneak upstairs without him seeing me, but if he saw me trying to leave, he would think that I was only leaving because he was there. Of course that was completely the truth, but it might set him off. It was best not to risk it.
"There's some dinner on the stove," I told him as he opened the fridge, looking for something.
Maybe if I was as quiet and nice as possible, he would eat his food and leave me alone.
"I know that," he sneered at me, looking at me with such raw contempt, I thought for a moment that he might spit at me, which certainly would not be a first, "I'm not blind, you idiot."
He dug out a can of beer, popped the lid, and took a lengthy sip, all the while not taking his eyes off of me like I was this disgusting maggot he had found crawling on the floor, debating how best to squash me. Silly me, I thought to myself in just as equal disgust to his, I had thought actually thought that he had gone to the fridge for something to eat.
I looked away from him and down at my notebook, not wanting him to see that disgust or to think that my staring at him was some kind of challenge that he needed to take care of. He made this small, mocking snort that was obviously meant for me and placed his can of beer on the table so he could grab a plate from the cabinet. I breathed in relief as I realized that he meant to take some of the food after all and would no doubt take it into the living room to eat and watch something on the television, away from me. I would just need to ignore him and wait it out and maybe I would be able to get out there in peace.
I tried to focus back on my writing while also keeping a sense of awareness to what my father was doing, but I had no expectations that I was going to write anything more that night. It would be impossible now with him there. My father is the worst kind of writer's block there is. When he's around, any kind of creativity that I can muster just... shrivels up and dries out. Instead, I read over what I had written for anything that I wanted to change or correct. As I got back to the ending where the swift found itself emerging on the surface of the water, seeing a sky that it never thought that it would see again, I smiled.
Heero would like this story, I realized. I had seen enough of the kinds of books that he read and the movies that he watched to get a feel of the kinds of stories that he enjoyed and he would like this one. But if I had killed the swift, he probably wouldn't have liked it that much. He could appreciate a sad ending as well as anyone else, but he preferred the more hopeful ones. Was that the reason why I had re-written it, I wondered, because he wouldn't have liked it? No, I thought, it was more than that. This ending just felt right to me.
But I still thought about him reading it and getting that look on his face that he gets when he's enjoying something. I was too shy to ask him to read it, but I knew that he would. He was always trying to read my shit, and always disappointed that I wouldn't, too nervous that it would be embarrassing. That made me feel stupidly happy, thinking about him reading anything that I had written and liking it. Maybe, sometime in the future, I might actually gain the backbone to show him one of my short stories.
Of course, now that I was thinking about him, I couldn't help but remember our date again. Being with him, talking with him, kissing him... I had never thought that I would get to feel anything that... wonderful in my entire life. I felt incredibly happy just with those memories, of remembering how right it had all been. Suddenly, the thought that I could have chickened out on the whole thing seemed like the worst betrayal possible. He had asked me if he stood a chance with me and I knew that, no matter how scared I had been, the answer would always be yes. I wanted to go on more dates with him, I wanted to feel these things again. I wanted to be with him for every second of every day for the rest of my life. I wanted to spend the rest of my time kissing him and holding hands with him and listening to the sound of his voice.
I was somewhat aware that my thoughts had put a probably stupid smile on my face. That insipid kind of smile that only people stupidly in love with someone and are thinking about them can have. Some people even call it 'dreamy' for some reason. In the coarse of only a couple of minutes while my father was dishing out the casserole onto a plate and grabbing his beer, I had somehow managed to forget what over a decade of lessons had taught me, that I was not in a safe place. I might have been aware of my thoughts and dumb expression, but I wasn't aware that my father had suddenly walked around behind me or when his leg, with the kind of lightning quickness that always shocks me when he's at that level of drunkenness, lashed out and hooked itself on the leg of the chair that I was sitting on.
All I was aware of was that one moment I was sitting and the next I was falling, like gravity had shifted on me without any kind of warning at all. I slammed my head into the linoleum floor and felt my breath rush out of my lungs, my back and head screaming in pain at the unexpected abuse. I looked up into the hateful, enraged face of my father as he looked right back down at me and I thought about him spitting on me again.
"Just what is there in your shitty, miserable life for you to smile about, huh?!" he snarled at me.
He slammed his foot into the side of my cheek, forcing my head to the side, and kept it there with a good deal of weight, grinding my face like Pat would grind out a cigarette butt. I was frightened that he wouldn't let up, that he would bear down even more and actually break something, but I let him do it, hoping that he would see that I wasn't fighting back and would leave me alone. Miraculously, he did, lifting his foot off of me.
"Fucking useless piece of garbage," I heard him grumble, then he was gone into the living room.
I didn't take a single breath until I heard his weight settling in his chair and the television being turned on. I slowly rolled to my side and sat up, my head swimming, but not concussed at least. I winced as the swimming melted away into a sharp throbbing and felt at the back of my head. My fingers came away slightly bloody from falling on the floor, but I was otherwise unhurt from that lovely little encounter. Minus the pain in my ass and back. I chuckled lowly as I sat there on the kitchen floor and it took me a good couple of minutes to realize what I was finding funny.
Then it hit me. Normally in this sort of situation, when my father laid in to me and reminded me of my, as he said 'shitty life', I would feel depressed and despondent. My father's anger would bleed into me, replacing any good thing that I had been feeling. But I didn't feel that way at that moment. I didn't feel angry or sad or upset at what he had done or said. That happiness that had gotten me into the trouble in the first place was still there. Not even my father could take it away from me.
End part 10
Author's Note: This part took waaaaay too long to finish, but I had a few spells of depression again that knocked the wind out of my sails a couple of days. I have another job interview to go to tomorrow, so I'm feeling a little better. I've also been moody lately about the state of my novel. My girlfriend is always so busy, so even though she offered to draw my cover, I can't rely on her. My choices are basically to pay someone to make it for me (what I would like to do) or to make one of my own using a free to use or stock photo (what I can afford but have no experience doing). I have no clue at all what to do about it, but if I get this job tomorrow, I might start scouting around for someone to commission. While stock photos are cheap, I don't trust them. Thank you to everyone's words about the job that I hate. I actually ended up quitting because, not only was the work terrible, but the pay ended up being awful, too. They were commission based and if you didn't make any sales, you would get 400 dollars a week. While that sounds really great, they also wanted us six days a week, ten hours a day minimum, not including the hour drive to get to the office. For those of you who don't like math, that's like 6.33 an hour if you don't make commission, so it just wasn't worth it to me.
ftailfairytailftail: I won't give anything away, so I'll just say that Duo and Heero are stuck with the bullying at school for awhile longer, unfortunately
Fred Freeloader: Heero's point of view will be the epilogue of this story, so yeah, at the very end. The main story is meant to only be told through Duo's journal entries, the epilogue is mostly Heero trying to clear up some things that Duo didn't witness or went over his head.
