Don't Read in the Closet: Volume Four (47 page)

They belonged to Aaron Talbot. We had been best friends for almost

ten years. We met in Sunday School in Kindergarten. Our Moms were

the teachers. Since then we had been enrolled in God’s Light Bible

School together. The school was small enough that we had been in the

same class every year until tenth grade.

It was during the summer after tenth that everything changed.

Aaron and I had always done everything together. We went to church

together. We played soccer together. We got braces together. We aced

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history, and failed math together. So, of course, we were together on

my 16th birthday.

We were getting ready to go to this soccer camp put on by college

coaches that was sure to get us scholarships so we could go to college

together. We had our whole lives planned out ahead of us. We had

two more years of high school. Then we would spend four years

playing soccer in college. After that we would get teaching jobs at the

same high school and coach together. We would have houses near

each other and raise our kids together. At 16, it was so real we could

taste it.

But we would never get to that soccer camp that would kick

everything off. That day everything changed. Aaron had been acting

funny for a couple of weeks. I figured he would get around to telling

me what was wrong when he was ready. He never could keep

anything from me. That afternoon, I was trying cheer him up by telling

stupid jokes and stories while I was packing. He seemed to be getting

quieter all afternoon and I could tell he was really nervous about

something.

Finally, I had had enough. I stuffed my cleats into my bag and

zipped it up, intending to pry whatever was wrong out of Aaron. I

turned around to go across the room where he was sitting and ran

smack dab into him. Our foreheads cracked and I saw stars for a few

seconds. By the time I could see again, I realized Aaron hadn’t moved

away. He was staring into my eyes. He looked terrified and

determined. I’m sure I just looked confused.

Before I knew what was going on, he grabbed me by the ears,

pulled me to him and kissed me. Now, growing up like we had, in the

church, the thought that I would ever be kissed by a boy had never

crossed my mind. I had never really wanted to kiss any of the girls I

had met but I figured I was young yet. I probably wouldn’t meet the

girl I was going to marry until I was in college. Then I would find a

girl I wanted to kiss. So I was feeling a fair amount of shock when

Aaron kissed me.

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At first, it was just weird. His lips were a little damp and kind of

warm and they just pressed against mine. But I could feel him holding

onto the sides of my head for dear life. Then he titled my head, slipped

his tongue out of his mouth, and licked my lips. It felt like fireworks

had exploded inside of me. My skin got tight and tingly. I thought my

heart might burst out of my chest. Any thoughts I might have been

having about this being wrong or weird or awkward flew straight out

of my brain as I opened my mouth to let his tongue in.

When I started kissing back, he released his death grip on my

head and slid his arms around my back, pulling me against him. I

melted into him and in that moment it seemed that there was nowhere

more right for us to be. I don’t know how long we stood there, melted

into each other and kissing like our lives depended on it. But, like I

have since learned, all good things are eventually ripped away from

you.

We were so into this wonderful new amazing experience that we

didn’t hear my mom coming up the stairs. She did the typical mom

“knock and open before waiting for a response” and it was the

crashing of the tray carrying cookies and lemonade to floor that broke

us apart.

I was too shocked and aroused to really process anything that had

happened in the last few minutes, but Aaron had shoved me away and

looked like he was about to crumple into the floor crying. My mom

shook it off the quickest. She grabbed Aaron’s arm and started

dragging him out of my room all the while screaming for my Dad.

She finally got to the front door and threw him out on the stoop.

He fell in a heap on the ground. Her eyes looked murderous as she

finally began to yell at him, “AARON JOSEPH TALBOT, WHAT ARE

YOU THINKING, CORRUPTING MY BOY LIKE THAT? YOU

DISGUSTING LITTLE FAG GET OUT OF HERE AND NEVER

COME BACK. I WON’T HAVE YOU LEADING JAY INTO HELL

WITH YOU.”

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Then she slammed the door on him. The last time I ever saw

Aaron he had tears streaming down his face and looked so broken

that just looking at him made my heart ache. My chest felt like

someone had punched a hole in my ribcage. I had matching streams

of tears flowing down my cheeks.

My mom turned on me, then, “Go to your room, mister. There

won’t be any dinner tonight and we will be talking about this

tomorrow. Don’t even think you are going to soccer camp anymore.”

I stumbled and ran up the stairs to my room as quickly as I could.

I wanted to call Aaron and make sure he was okay but I didn’t think I

could get away with that without my mom finding out. I curled in a

ball on my bed and cried until I fell asleep.

The next day I woke up to my mom rubbing my head saying,

“Don’t worry honey. He won’t be able to hurt you anymore. He won’t

ever come back and do those evil things to you. I know he was your

best friend, but he obviously didn’t care for you.” She kept crooning

these thought to me over and over again. I just wanted to die. I was

never going to see Aaron again. I didn’t care if he wanted to kiss me

every day. I just wanted my best friend back. Finally the phone rang

and she got up to answer it.

A little while later I heard my mom and dad arguing downstairs so

I snuck out on the landing the listen,

“…serves that little Talbot boy right, trying to corrupt innocent

boys. Justice has been served by him killing himself. The devil just

took back his own…”

I couldn’t listen anymore. It felt like the world I knew was

crumbling around me. All that I knew to be true had turned out to be

false. The eyes I had seen the world through had been blind. As I sat

there with my soul crumbling around, all I could think was that Aaron

is gone, forever. I felt a wall of numbness erect itself within me. It was

an act of survival. If I had allowed myself to feel it all, I would have

bled my soul out and I would not have survived the loss of it. My wall

saved me. My wall gave me strength. My wall kept me standing.

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In that moment I knew I couldn’t stay there. I had to leave. I took

the bag of clothes I had packed for soccer camp, emptied my piggy

bank into my wallet and swung out my window, down the tree and out

of my backyard.

Since then, no one has ever breached my walls and no one will.

****

Chicken and Liver but little Fluffy doesn’t like anything with chicken

in it does she? No she does not. No no no.” She kept baby talking to

the cat in one of those purse carrier things.

I just wanted to scream at her, WE CLOSED TEN MINUTES

AGO, PICK A DIFFERENT FOOD OR GO SOMEWHERE ELSE!

But she was one of the biggest donors to the shop’s Pet Charity Fund

so I smiled and listened as she picked up every can of cat food, twice,

finally settling on seafood medley.

Finally she was gone and I sped through closing and counting the

deposit. I really wanted to get home while my beautiful stranger was

out with his kittens. “Tomorrow” was six days ago, but today was

going to be the day. I grabbed one of those sticks with ribbons

hanging off the ends that cats go ape-shit over and stuffed it in my

bag. Voila, ice breaker.

I unlocked my door and threw my mail on the counter, rushing to

the back window to see if he was still there. I was shocked by what I

saw. It looked like a water main or something had broken and was

spraying water into the courtyard. At first I was distracted because my

beautiful stranger was soaking wet and wading through the deepening

water in the courtyard. His shirt outlined his chest so I could see every

ridge of muscle. Streams of water flowed over his tattoos. It took me a

second to wonder
why
he was wading through the flooded courtyard

until I saw him reach over grab what looked like an orange dish rag

from the water and wrap it in his shirt. Then, I realized he was trying

to save his kittens.

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I spun and grabbed some towels off the stack of laundry

inhabiting my couch and ran downstairs to help him. By the time I had

splashed across the courtyard, it looked like he had all four of them in

a laundry basket, huddling together and looking terrified. He began

wading back towards the stairs of his building.

I was about to call out and see if he needed any help when he

slipped on something he couldn’t see under the now six inches of

water filling the courtyard. If he hadn’t been carrying the laundry

basket of kittens he could have swung his arms out for balance and

been fine. But he tried so hard not to drop the kittens that there was no

hope for him. I got there just in time to grab the basket before it

toppled into the water.

I ran and sat the basket at the top of the stairs and hurried back to

make sure my beautiful stranger was alright. He looked a little dazed,

and was trying to get up. As he put his weight on his left foot, his

whole leg buckled underneath him. I offered him my arm and helped

him over to the steps as well.

He looked around frantically until he saw the basket and that there

were four kittens still alive and, if not well, at least not drowning, in it.

Then he looked at me. All of the sudden I got nervous again.

“Hi, my name is Charles. I saw you trying to save them and I

wanted to help. Are you ok? Do you need me to call an ambulance?

Can you make it up the stairs? I own a pet store so I can help with the

kittens if you want. I…”

I stopped talking because he was just staring at me and I realized I

had gone into babble mode. I could feel the heat of my blush spread

across my face. God, I was so embarrassed. I took a deep breath and

tried again.

“What’s your name?”

“Job” he rumbled out. That voice sent shivers all through me. But

wait, Job? Wasn’t Job that guy in the Bible who God took everything

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away from and killed his family just because of some bet with Satan.

What kind of parent would name their child Job?

“Really, Job, that’s odd…” I clamped my mouth shut and shook

my head. “Never mind. If you can stay here for second, I can run your

kittens up to your apartment and then come and help you.”

He looked like he really wanted to say no but glancing around he

saw no one else who could help him and was smart enough to realize

he couldn’t do it himself. He dug into his pockets and pulled out a key