Now
Author's note: trigger warning for not graphically detailed sexual assault and more detail on mental health/ptsd. For more clarification: Lucas's dream is him splicing together multiple memories to try and make sense of his past. The film he is watching doesn't actually exist (so no, he's never seen this) it's how his brain is processing his own forgotten memories.
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Later on I stand in my driveway with Charlie after we leave Allison's house. It's past nine, and the night sky is congested with rumbling clouds that threaten to spill rain. Normally I enjoy stormy nights, but tonight I have a strange anxiety about being home alone in this ominous weather.
"Stay over," I tell him. "Let's go make popcorn and watch a movie. Let's go listen to your music and look online at colleges in New York. Don't go home."
Charlie smiles, the makeup making him so beautiful that it's almost disconcerting. "I can't sleep over every night," he's standing only a foot away from me and it's too far. "I have to go home."
"I don't think you should wear that makeup to go home," I cringe at my own words.
He ignores me and looks up at the sky.
"Charlie," I say. "Come on, wash your face before you leave."
"It's okay Lucas," he murmurs to the storm above. "I have to be myself."
I feel as if there is a worm in my mind, chewing through the thin membrane of my brain. Every bite further opens a gap, trying to break through a dam in a river of memories forgotten.
"I need to ask you something," I say.
He turns his head and gives me a curt nod.
"Did we used to go to Sunday School together?" The wind picks up, tugging at my clothing and whipping my hair over my forehead. "Did I used to know you before I met you at baseball?"
His shoulders stiffen, and I see fear flash across his eyes. There's no secret Charlie can keep from me with his eyes which will always dispel the truth. He's defenseless with eyes like his.
"I did know you, didn't I?" I am thirsty for answers, my mind parched and scrambling for the answer that will flush away my questions. "Eleven or twelve years ago, when we were six."
"No," he says in a quiet voice I have heard before. It's the same soothing voice he uses whenever I'm worried about something and he's trying to comfort me. "You never knew me, Lucas. We met that one time at little league, then again at the party where we hooked up."
"I did go to Sunday School with you." An ugly desperation rears its head. "Don't lie to me."
"Believe me." He is weaving lies meant to alleviate my distress. "You would remember that place. You barely know the story of Jonah and the fish. I bet you've never been to church once in your whole life."
"No." I shake my head. "No, Charlie. My mom told me I went with you. It was before your dad went on trial for molesting that kid named Joshua who went to the Sunday School. Do you remember Joshua? Why don't I remember going to church with you?"
"She's wrong." He stares at his feet. "You're wrong, too. I barely remember Joshua, he doesn't live here anymore."
"Your dad..." I can barely speak. I'm scared. I'm weak. I'm remembering.
"Good boy."
"He was proven innocent," Charlie says to the ground. "We shouldn't be talking about this."
"What happened to us when we were kids?" I beg for an answer. "I always remember you with freckles. I thought you had freckles when you were nine, at little league. You didn't have freckles when you were nine, did you? You had them when you were six."
I can see his breath quickening, his chest heaving underneath the embroidered sweatshirt he's wearing. Stay Groovy, the sweatshirt says inside a circle of embroidered daisies. It took Charlie several hours to hand embroider those flowers. He had sat on the floor of my bedroom, his brow furrowed in concentration and his lips pressed firmly together while he created the daisies. When he was done he was incredibly proud; he begged me to let him embroider one of my t-shirts and when I relented spent another hour creating flowers for me.
"Don't worry," he says. "I always protected you."
The worm in my brain wriggles, bites harder than before. A memory of Charlie's hands, so small. A memory of his voice before it dropped with age, telling me to hide. A memory of plastic toy animals from a nativity set, scattered across a carpeted floor.
"Charlie, look at me. Please," I croak. "Don't go home, stay with me. You can be yourself here."
"I love you so much." He looks at me. "I'd rip my heart out for you."
"Then stay!" I burst. "He hits you! He molested someone! Rip your fucking heart out here, not at home where no one loves you like I do!"
"Stop yelling!" Charlie's face is pale in the lights from my front porch as he shouts. He tells me to stop yelling, yet here he is screaming at me in a way I've never seen him do before. "Nothing is wrong! Nothing happened to us! You're fine, Lucas!" His face screws up. "I made sure you were okay. Look, you're normal. You never ended up like me or Joshua."
"Who carved that word into your arm, huh?" I demand. "Was it him?"
"No, it was me."
"No, that's not true." I shake my head. "You couldn't have done that to yourself."
"I did it last year at conversion therapy," his voice is haggard. "They sent me home because I tried to kill myself. I'm not lying about that, I was too ashamed to tell you. "
Faggot.
"Don't go," I repeat. "I don't want to be alone. Something is wrong, and I don't know what. Let's run away together. You're happy when you're with me."
"I'm sorry." He's turning away. "I'll come over tomorrow, I promise."
The problem with Charlie is that he always leaves.
Inside my own home, I ghost from room to room. I am afraid to sleep, afraid of closing my eyes and succumbing to darkness. I try to draw instead, but my drawings become twisted. They are of hands desperately reaching out to no avail, a storm sweeping over the countryside, Charlie's blemished arms and his mouth twisting into a grimace.
In the bathroom mirror my face looks different than usual, and I forget how old I am. I am almost eighteen, eagerly awaiting the birthday that signifies my adulthood. I am twelve, seeing Charlie play in the marching band. I am nine, watching Charlie run around the baseball field. I am six, and I am hiding from something monstrous. I am born squealing and red-faced, thrust into the arms of a young mother and a father who never intended to have me.
It does not take me long to conclude that I have gone crazy. I am having a mental breakdown, and I have no idea how to stop it. I try to call Charlie several times and then eventually my sister, but neither of them answer.
I finally end up laying on my back in my bed, staring at the ceiling as I try to calm myself. I'm fine, Charlie is fine, Joshua was never molested and he was only moved away because his parents wanted to live somewhere else.
As hard as I try to evade sleep, I eventually fall into it.
In my dream I am in Cayden's basement, sitting on the couch. The world around me ripples, tinted by shifting colors. Yellow, red, green, purple, blue. I'm tripping on mushrooms, tripping on my own distorted memories.
"Watch the TV," Cayden goads me. "Go on, I know you want to."
"No."' My throat is dry, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. "I don't want to watch."
"You need to." He points a finger, my eyes following to where he gestures. "Look," he says. "See? You always knew, Lucas. It's all right there."
On the screen Charlie undresses slowly. He folds his clothing and lays them on a scarlet couch, then lays down on his back once he's wearing only underwear. The room he's in confuses me; there's stained glass windows and children's toys scattered across the floor. The glass casts square shadows of color over his pale skin, and over the bookshelf of religious books in the corner of the room. On the wall there are posters; childish caricatures of Noah's ark and Jesus with his disciples.
There's a man approaching but his head is cut off by the way the camera is angled. He walks until he's standing over Charlie, who shrinks underneath the presence above him. The man starts to unzip his fly, I can tell by the sound the zipper makes and the way his arms move.
"Where's your friend?" The man's voice is gruff.
"He went home," Charlie says in a voice that is years younger than his body. He looks like the person I know, yet his voice is over a decade younger. "His mommy picked him up."
Cayden starts to laugh.
"Stop," I say. "Stop laughing, this isn't funny."
"You're there," Cayden informs me. "In the closet. Charlie shoved you in there with all the Sunday School supplies. He hid you away when his dad wasn't watching."
"No," I whisper.
"Now he's lying to his own father." Cayden shakes his head. "Damn shame."
"No, I'm not there!" I can't stop watching, my head stuck no matter how hard I try to swivel my head away. I wasn't there! I swear I wasn't."
"I'm tired," Charlie says.
"I know," the man says in a voice I know is meant to be used when speaking to a child. His octave is low and comforting. "You can take a nap when we go home."
"Okay." Charlie's body is twitching from anxiety. There spasms in his arms, his calves, and his hands. I've felt these tremors in his muscles before; I had to rub his back until they went away.
As the man's hands come to his hips, he lifts them so that his underwear can be slid off his legs. I've seen him do this countless times for me. His legs butterfly beneath him, his arms thrown up over his head so that he's sprawled out in the way that always makes my own breath quicken. He does this for me sometimes, his body languid and limbs moving fluid. Charlie knows what he's doing; he knows how to angle his body in the way people want to see it.
Because someone taught him how.
"Good boy," the man says. "Good boy. Do what I showed you how to do."
"How can someone who's never been kissed before be this sexually experienced?" Cayden nudges me in the ribs. Don't you ask yourself that all the time?"
"Turn it off!" There's a terrible taste in my mouth; all the acid from my stomach being regurgitated. "I don't remember. I don't remember..."
"You do," Cayden says. "You're remembering right now."
"Turn over," the man says.
"I'm hurting," Charlie pleads. "I'm still hurting."
"Turn over." Now, the man is hissing between his teeth. "I'm going to punish you when we get home if you don't obey me."
Charlie flips silently, his cheek pressed against the couch cushion. The man's hand finds the back of his head, pressing his face into the cushion as Charlie's breath begins to become fitful. I can tell he's crying by the way his shoulders shake, the way his hands are clutching at empty air in an attempt to grasp onto anything.
"You're listening from the closet," Cayden says accusingly. "You're six years old. You should have told someone, Lucas. You're the worst boyfriend in the world. You're fucking selfish."
I turn to Cayden to deny his accusations, but the basement and him have faded away. I'm sitting in complete darkness, except for a thin crack of light coming from beneath the door. I'm engulfed by the darkness, and terrified of what's happening outside of the safety the dark offers me. I'm in the closet, all alone. I am six, and my mother has forgotten to pick me up again.
The smell of pencil shavings and paper fills my nostrils; a scent so strong I think I'm going to sneeze. I can't sneeze; Charlie told me to hide and be quiet. He said I would be alright if I was quiet. He took my hand and led me to this closet. If I go out of the closet or make noise something bad will happen to me, and he's letting it happen to him instead.
I pull my knees up to my chest, tucking my forehead against my knee caps. I cover my ears, trying to block out the muffled sounds. I don't understand what's happening, yet I know it's wrong from the way Charlie is crying out in pain into the cushion.
I need to wake up, I need to wake up, I need to wake up, I need to wake up—
My awakening is rude. I come crashing back into consciousness, my chest heaving violently and my eyes flying open. The sheets are twisted around my ankles, evidence that I've been thrashing in my sleep. My head throbs, my chest hurts, and my body feels heavy.
I'm not alone; I can tell by the way one side of the bed tilts down with someone else's weight. Someone came into my bedroom while I slept. I cautiously sit up to see who it is, my lungs restricted from air by the terror that clenches within my chest. I look at him laying on the end of my bed, folded over onto his side. All he has become is a limp form in the dark, a body discarded.
He's wearing one of my big t-shirts I let him take home a few weeks ago, and cotton shorts. His exposed limbs are the color of snow, and his body is too still. There's no movement, no twitching, no tremble as he lays on my bed and stains my blankets a color they should never be. Everything is still except the racing of my heart and the screaming in my brain.
My mouth forms his name, yet no sounds come through my lips.
Charlie.
Dead?
No.
Not dead.
Ripped in two.
Lacerated.
"You were right," he says quietly. "I shouldn't have gone home tonight."
I crawl over to him. I can smell the blood before I see it, the scent acrid and metallic, drying chalky on the insides of his legs. Slowly I lower myself down beside him, drawing him to fit against my body. We lay curled into one another, where one body ends another beginning.
"I'm tired," he whimpers into my chest. "I'm hurting."
"I know." I gently comb my fingers through his hair. "I know, Charlie. Let's go to sleep."
We're both such good boys.
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