Upon coming back home, James called out for Greg, but heard no reply, not even the tiniest of sounds. "Greg? Greg, we're home, where are you? Greg!" James called out.
"The cars were all out the front," Tyson pointed out.
"Yeah, I know. You two sit down with Shady and watch some television, I'm going to go find daddy," James chained the front door, "Greg?" he called out, checking in the basement, and then around the first floor of the house and outside the backyard, and couldn't find him. James felt a pit in his stomach forming as he ran upstairs, "Greg?" before hearing whimpers coming from the bathroom, only to find the door locked, "Greg!" James shouted pounding on the bathroom to no answer, as he raced into Rob's bedroom to grab the spare keys and opened the bathroom door to see a dismantled razor lying on the tiles and everything felt as though it shut down into slow motion, "Greg!" James screamed, running into the bathroom to see Greg sitting shirtless in his shorts in the bathtub with the razor blade pressed up against his wrist with his eyes squeezed shut, trying to mentally will himself to go ahead and just do it. "Greg, give me that!" James screamed, rushing to his side and pulling it from his hands as Greg broke down into tears, "have you hurt yourself?"
Greg shook his head; "the… the blood will go down the drain… most of the blood will go down the drain and it won't be such a mess; it won't be so traumatic to clean up… it won't take long if I do it right. A couple of minutes and then I'll pass out, about five minutes and I'll be dead; everything, all my misery, gone,"
"Greg, what the hell is going on?" James cried out, thinking and flashing back that the kids had begged him to stop quickly at the park, but he'd said no, and that it was becoming too late, and how differently if he'd followed that path of fate and where that the break from reality would've gone; his life would've branched off into some sort of hellfire that he could never have imagined. "Why would you try and kill yourself, Greg?"
"Everyone would be better off without me," Greg whispered, as James stared at him in shock and horror, instinctively shaking his head slightly, his jaw lax and mouth hanging open slightly. "My nightmares and flashbacks are only getting worse, James, I can't have the kids finding out what happened, what was done to me. They'd be so… disgusted to find that their father was a goddamn child prostitute pimped out by his own father! I'm a burden on you, waking you up constantly from my nightmares and panic attacks. I'm disgusting, a worthless excuse of a person. Dad and Henry were right when they used to tell me that I'm no more use in life than just a couple of worn-out warm holes for someone to stick their cock into- that that's all I'll ever be, no matter how much I try and run from that fact, it's always there,"
"Greg, no; just, just no, okay?" James whispered, "that's totally wrong. You're worth so much more to me than that, okay? You are my everything, Gregory. You always have been, and you always will,"
"Even my own uncle, even Rob, who I always idealised and thought that he saw me for who I am and loved me unconditionally, even if I was gay; he's been saying things that I never expected him to once the alcohol took away the screen of politeness. He's right, and I know that your family will never accept me either. Even my own mother abandoned me once she realised that she was now safe from my father," Greg whispered, "mom doesn't believe me, James, she doesn't believe what happened. She thinks that I'm just a liar and must be making it all up; if my own mother doesn't believe me, then who else would?"
James reached out and held Greg's hand as he looked him earnestly in the eyes; "I believe you, Greg, I believe you. I believe everything you've told me without any reservation whatsoever. Rob and Josie believed you, your therapist believes you, our friends, while they of course don't know any specifics, they believe you when you mentioned you had a bad childhood. Hell, even Lisa; for all the shit that she put us through- she believed you too, didn't she, Greg?"
"I guess," Greg mumbled.
"Okay, are you ready to get out of the bathtub? The kids are unattended downstairs, and I don't know how long they're going to last without trashing the house. But if we need to sit here for a little bit longer, then we will," James suggested with a weak smile, and Greg nodded, getting up, as James gathered up the blades on the floor. "You're staying by my side all night and until I think that you're safe, got it?" James pointed out, as he led Greg out of the bathroom, "sneak away and it'll be you on the 5150 this time; and believe me when I say that. I'm not kidding," patting Greg on the back as Greg sniffled.
The next morning, James called in sick to work, claiming vomiting and diarrhoea so he would get the next three days off work, no questions asked. "Diarrhoea? You went for the most embarrassing choice out there?" Greg joked.
"No; I went for the only three days off work without questions or needing a doctor's note choice," James responded, "and no, you can't write me a doctor's note, getting my husband to write me a doctor's note is going to seem a little bit suspicious, don't you think? Also, just to make sure that you're safe and fully watched all day; Ryan and Phil are coming over and spending the day here. No arguments, they're on their way here right now," and within the next hour, Phil had dropped Gracie and Tyson off at school and the four of them were sitting around the lounge room; "do you want to tell them what happened last night?" James pressed.
"Not particularly," Greg muttered, "but I don't think I've got much of a choice, do I?" Phil and Ryan looked at Greg inquisitively, who sighed and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Last night, I, uh, locked myself in the bathroom and dismantled a razor, got into the bathtub and was lying there with the blade pressed against my pulse, trying to get up the courage to drag it deeply and slice the entire way down the artery of my forearm, and then for everything to fade out to black as I fell asleep within a couple of minutes, and be dead within five minutes or so. I made sure to lock the bathroom door so that it'd be James who found me, and not one of the kids. That was when James found me, a few seconds before I finally got up the courage to slice open the artery and for it to all be over," Greg admitted.
Phil and Ryan's faces both fell in disbelief and shock; to them Greg had always seemed as the more mentally stable out of him and James, "why… why would you do such a thing, Greg? Why would you want to kill yourself?" Ryan gasped.
"I've realised lately how incredibly, truly, and utterly alone I am in this world… I know I've just gotten married, and I have you guys as friends, but I'm still… I am trying to deal with things that happened before I knew any of you, things from when I was young that nobody believed me or wanted to help or save me. Not even my own mother believes me," Greg whispered.
"What? What happened Greg?" Phil whispered, and Greg sighed shakily.
"Jesus Christ," Greg growled, suddenly feeling overwhelmed and boxed in by having three other men sitting around him, "I was abused as a kid, okay? And sometimes I get sad or stressed, right? There's nothing more interesting to know about it," to which James shot him an irritated look, "okay, so the abuse was pretty bad, but the important thing is that I survived, right? You guys don't need to be here,"
"Barely. For fuck's sake, Greg, you know the kids were pestering me to take them to the park last night while we were walking the dog? And I nearly did! You know the pure panic I felt when I couldn't find you around the house and then found the bathroom door locked? Only to break in to see you lying in the bath in your fucking underwear with a razor blade pressed up against your wrist? In fact, you do know what that was like, because we've been in opposite situations, don't you remember? When you, Lisa and I were sleeping in that tiny, cold double bed in that rotten, creaky, haunted mansion filled with your purely evil relatives that we had to all sleep in a bed together so that we'd be safe, you remember being there, don't you? You had a night terror, and it was because Lisa couldn't wake me up that she discovered I'd had an overdose? You remember that, because I damn well do! And you and Lisa had to give me Narcan and mouth to mouth so I wouldn't certainly die? I spent three days locked up in the psych ward under a 5150 in Aberdeen, you remember that? You remember how traumatised and angry you were, and scared, and rightfully so! Well, that's how I'm feeling now!" James snapped, "you barely survived your abuse by the way, given the fact that you still have fully fledged night terrors and panic attacks constantly!"
"You get night terrors often? Like proper, full on night terrors?" Phil frowned, and Greg looked at him wide eyed, knowing his medical training was kicking in, "there's only a couple of reasons an adult is going to get night terrors…"
"Yep; and he has no history of head injury or anything similar to that," James muttered, as Greg shot him a look that could have James dead and buried.
Phil put his hand on Greg's upper arm, getting his attention, "Greg, what happened to you? We're not going to judge, we just want to be able to help you,"
Greg shrugged his hand off, "you've figured out what's happened, Phil, it's just too embarrassing and shocking to say out loud, right? But, let me go get you your prize," Greg stood up and started to go to walk in the direction towards the kitchen.
"Sit down!" James snapped, pulling Greg back down by the sleeve of his sweater; "this isn't the time for jokes! We're worried about you, Greg! And I know that makes you uncomfortable, but frankly, right now; I don't really care about that. Greg, talk to me!" James' tone took on a much more pleading, heartbreaking note to it.
Greg sighed deeply and slouched back on the couch, "fine," he pouted, "you manipulative bitches," as he rolled his eyes. "So, I was raped, constantly by my dad and my uncle, and they sex trafficked and sold me out for twelve years of my childhood, I couldn't even sleep at night because there was always one of them creeping into my bedroom every night. There was child pornography of me filmed that is probably swimming around somewhere on the dark web. At least twice a week my father would throw these 'parties' with his buddies or whoever paid; and let them repeatedly do whatever they liked to me while he jerked off and filmed it- or got involved himself. It wasn't until I was about fifteen that I was able to be strong enough to put a stop to it myself," he responded impassively, fiddling with one of James' hair ties around his wrist.
"Wait, so if it finished when you were fifteen, and lasted for twelve years, then when it started that means you would've been… three?" Ryan asked in horror, eyes wide.
"Hey look; the Asian can do math! Yep, three years old is the earliest memory I have of my father raping, as in penetrating, me with his penis. But hey, it's also my earliest memory from my childhood as a whole, so who knows how long it was going on?" Greg snapped, leaning back on the couch, and resting one of his feet on the couch while petulantly fiddling with the hair tie on his wrist.
"I think I'm going to be sick," Phil looked pale, in shock at hearing what had happened, "I'll be right back," as he stood up shakily and headed upstairs.
"Told you this was a bad idea, James," Greg growled as Phil was returning to the lounge room, "now I'm just the freak to even more people. The weak, screwed up one. See, I'm so sickening that I make people throw up!"
"You're not sickening Greg, what those people did to you; that's what's sickening," Ryan tried to comfort him.
"How about 'you better get used to this, boy, because all you're ever going to be good for in your life is a couple of warm holes and all you'll ever achieve in life is to maybe one day become a male prostitute on the side of the road, because that's all you'll ever be good for is sucking cock and taking it up the ass'? Well, guess what dad, I'm a bottom now, so I guess he was half right, because its usually James on his knees for me," Greg muttered, keeping his focus on the hair tie and his voice impassive to prevent himself from breaking down, while James covered his mouth and rolled his eyes in awkwardness.
Charlie walked into the room, having no idea what was going on around her, and tapped Greg on his shoulder, who rolled his head around and looked at her, "daddy, up," she reached up and Greg lifted her up and sat her down on his stomach.
"You're a great father, Greg, despite everything you went through," Ryan pointed out, "you went through all that crap, and suffered so much at the hands of your father, uncle, and other men; but you managed to put all of it aside and be a healthy, active father who would never treat his children the same,"
"Of course I wouldn't, because I know how it feels. And I'm not like that, in any way," Greg whispered.
"How did you find out, James?" Ryan asked.
"Uh, I found out when Greg had a massive meltdown the first time we ever slept together, which was… interesting," James mumbled, "that was a horrifying night, I thought he might've been having an absence seizure at first; he was just so… out of it. But nope, flashbacks, and I laid in bed; ensuring I was fully clothed so nothing more set him off; like being held lying down next to a naked man and he went into further details a couple of days later," James admitted.
The door knocked, and James stood up to answer it; "Blythe, hello, how are you?" he asked, shocked to see her, "you're not in Toledo? I thought you were moving there?"
"I'm looking at some houses later on, I heard what happened with Rob, I just wanted to check that Gregory was okay," she added.
"I'm fine, mom," Greg mumbled on the couch and Blythe walked over and saw Charlie sitting on Greg's stomach as he lounged across the couch, and reached down to grab onto Charlie, who gripped Greg's shirt in her hands and screamed when Blythe tried to lift her.
"Come on Charlie, I'm your grandmother, don't behave like this to me; you want to be naughty then I'll send you to stay with your grandfather in Aberdeen and he'll sort you out. You'll return back a good girl then," Blythe muttered, and Ryan and Phil's mouths and eyes opened wide. Greg turned and looked at his mother in such a venomous way that Ryan immediately grabbed Charlie before Greg would begin acting purely on instinct, and turned and launched himself, his leg seeming to not be any issue under his adrenaline.
"You dare touch my fucking kids again, and I'll fucking kill you," Greg's lips curled up, baring his teeth as he shoved his mother against the wall, placing himself between Charlie and Blythe. "You dare touch Charlie, or Tyson, or me, or James, or my friends, or Gracie and threaten those kids with being sent to South Dakota again and I'll fucking kill you and bury you in the backyard, got it?"
Blythe looked at Greg in horror and slapped him across the face, which just caused his stare of hatred and fury to intensify, his nostrils flaring, James stepped in and separated the two of them, "maybe it's best you leave, Blythe. It's been a very stressful week; and I don't see this conversation going well for anyone here,"
"Look Greg, just because your father and Henry had to be heavy handed with you… it was because you were a badly behaved child with a lot of problems before they started sorting you out. You were just as unruly as Charlie and Tyson are. A bit of tough love never hurt anyone, look at who you became; you became a world-renowned doctor who saved countless lives. If they hadn't stepped in, you'd probably be a drug dealing sociopath. Which is exactly where your kids will be going and ending up if you keep being such a permissive and weak parent who lets your kids walk all over you," Blythe added.
"Jesus Christ, this is just getting worse and worse," Ryan put his head in his hand, "look lady, you need to go,"
"You know what? Everyone else knows! Why not tell you too? You know what dad and Henry's 'tough love' and 'heavy handedness was with me?" Greg grabbed a pair of headphones and put them over Charlie's head to prevent her from hearing the next words. "They raped me, mom, all the time. Every single fucking day. They sold me to strangers and filmed it while dad would be jerking off watching me get gang raped! So, yeah, I don't want my fucking kids or anyone else for that matter to go through that. I was three fucking years old when he started! When he raped me the first time, I remember every part of that. I was the same age as Charlie! I should've been enjoying things she likes, building sandcastles, playing in the park, playing with my toys! Not stuffing my underwear with toilet paper every night after they'd rape me because I would be bleeding to protect you! It hurt so much! Why didn't you protect me, mom? Why didn't you save me? I am your son!" Greg was screaming by the end with tears pouring down his face.
"Don't be stupid, Greg, your father and Henry aren't paedophiles. They'd never hurt a child like that! You need to stop telling people those things, they'd never do such things! I know they weren't perfect, but you had a great childhood, Greg. I always looked out for you," Blythe snapped, and Greg stormed off down the stairs and came back with a letter, "read this. You might want to wait until you're alone. Then we can talk,"
"You need to leave, now please Blythe," James suggested.
"What is this?" Blythe asked.
"It's my suicide note to you," Greg answered flatly.