Aaron (17 page)

“Honey, you’ve been preoccupied since I picked you up from school. Did something happen in class?”

On the surface, her voice was pleasantly curious, but there was an underlying tension there. She was worried about him. Looking to his left and away from his mother, Aaron stared out the glass door leading to the weathered deck. A little boy and girl played in the back yard of the lot adjacent to theirs. They couldn’t have been more than five or six years old. The girl’s hair was in pigtails, and she wore a set of denim overall shorts while the boy was in a Superman T-shirt and red shorts. As Aaron watched, the boy slid about halfway down the slide and then jumped off, his arms out in front of him as if he were flying. He grabbed the girl’s hand as he hit the ground, and together they took off for the other side of the yard, laughing as they ran. It took a second, but then Aaron realized that he’d just witnessed Superman saving the girl. He wondered when the little boy would learn there was no Superman, and the girl was never safe.

Turning his eyes back to his mother, Aaron hoped the pain radiating through his chest wasn’t as apparent to her as it was to him. He couldn’t tell her that he’d laughed in class. It would give her hope, a hope he certainly did not feel and would not expect. He couldn’t tell her that he’d freaked out when Spencer tried to touch him, or how any of that made him feel, because he couldn’t take away her hope either. Without hope, they’d send him away. Right now, he just wanted to go upstairs and try like hell to do something about his homework. That would help him forget everything, at least for a while, and he wouldn’t dwell on what it meant.

“No, Mom, everything is fine. I’m going to go up and work on my homework.” His mother nodded, the worry lines deepening in her face. He could tell she was trying not to let on she was hurt he wouldn’t confide in her.

Of course he saw it; he always saw it.

It certainly wasn’t personal. If he was going to open up to anyone and talk about what was bothering him, it would definitely be his mother. He heard her soft sigh as he left the room. A few minutes later, Aaron walked into his room and flipped on the light. The grief started to overwhelm him as he stood quietly in the doorway. Any little trigger seemed to set him off lately: the laughter in class, the boy playing a superhero. Sometimes it was just a bleeding paper cut. How was he supposed to get through life like this?

Aaron decided to forego his homework tonight. The depression had left him drained, and he didn’t feel like taking any pills to make it better. The sun hadn’t quite set as he changed quickly into a long-sleeved T-shirt and sleep pants and then crawled into bed with what little energy he still had.

He was asleep within minutes.

T
HE sound of his heart thudded in his ears as he lay with his bare stomach on the cold, smooth concrete, the knee between his shoulder blades a constant reminder of his helplessness. The smell of grease, gasoline, and sweat hung heavy in the air, almost like a fog, penetrating and inescapable. Scalding, blinding pain all over his body tugged at his consciousness. Each place where they had hit him, cut him, or burned him pushed him closer to that sweet oblivion, that darkness in which he knew it would all stop.

He could hear Juliette crying beside him—soft, agonizing sobs that were at least marginally less painful to listen to than her screams. Her piercing screams of pain, anguish, and fear as she begged for them to stop, as she begged for her mother, had torn at his soul. He knew by the raw tenderness of his throat that he had made the same piteous cries, but he refused to allow his mind to remember why. He couldn’t stand the memory of the man’s breath on the back of his neck or his pleasured grunts in his ear.

Summoning all his last reserves of strength, he turned his head to the left, laying his right cheek against the cold dirty floor as his eyes found Juliette’s. The haunted, pleading look in her eyes suddenly made him feel ashamed. He closed his eyes briefly, trying to make it stop. They flew open again at the sound of Juliette’s horrifically interrupted scream. Her head was pulled back hard by her hair until her face was pointed toward the ceiling. The flash of metal, the spray of hot sticky blood was so quick Juliette’s panic-stricken voice was cut off mid-scream. He watched in horrified disbelief as the life drained from her warm brown eyes.

A sharp pain in his scalp caused him to fight. He knew he was next, and he thrashed and kicked, punched and screamed, trying anything he could to stop the coming horror.

He saw the knife coming, angled toward his throat.

His mother’s face swam across Aaron’s vision as he fought against the hands that held him down. The harder they held him, the harder he fought. He screamed and thrashed, and finally, they let go. His conscious mind started to take control of him, pulling him from the dream, and he saw his mother’s frightened face more clearly. Aaron tried to calm himself as her voice registered in his mind.

“Aaron, baby,please…. Please wake up.”

Aaron opened his eyes again and looked around, seeing that it was his father and brothers who had been holding him. As he stopped struggling, they pulled away, and he crawled up against the headboard of his bed, pulling himself into a tight ball.

“D…. Don’t…. T…. Touch….” He took a deep breath, trying to will his pulse to slow, to stop pounding in his head. “Please, don’t touch me,” Aaron finally pleaded quietly, and they all backed away to give him some room. He continued to rock slightly, his back against the headboard, his face on his knees. Their voices reached him as they spoke softly to each other, but he didn’t even try to understand what they were saying. After a few minutes, someone sat on the edge of the bed. Looking up, Aaron saw his mother holding out a small bathroom cup and a full glass of water. Everyone else must have gone back to bed, because now they were alone in the room.

Without comment, Aaron took the cup and dropped the pills into his palm. Two pills this time. He must have really scared her. After popping the pills into his mouth, he washed them down with the water and lay back down in his bed. Her hand shook as his mother covered him up with the blankets, being exceedingly careful not to touch her son. She murmured soft platitudes to him: “It’s all right now” or “Try to rest,” maybe even an “It’s all over.” He didn’t much care what they were. The sound of her voice was soothing, and he suspected they were as much for her comfort as they were for his. As he watched, she turned off his bedroom light, her soft sniffle barely audible even in the stillness of the room. Then she left, closing the door behind her.

He tried to muster up some measure of guilt for scaring her so badly, but the room became fuzzy and blurred as the tranquilizers began to take hold of him.

Chapter Ten

 

D
R. MAYER started class, and Spencer glanced at the empty seat next to

him before settling his attention on his interpreter. The way Aaron had jerked away from him the day before had hurt. Did he really think Spencer would hurt him? Spencer thought they’d gotten along really well as they talked about the project. Maybe it was reflex, something he couldn’t control. But then, why did he look so fucking sad when they started talking? He had no idea what he’d done to screw things up already, but he was determined to make it up. Logging into his chat client, he saw that Aaron’s status was offline. So instead, he pulled out his cell phone.

SPENCER: Hey, you want me to take notes for you today? Nothing.

With a sigh, he dropped the phone back into his pocket and took very good notes so he could copy them for Aaron. Maybe when he reached out to touch Aaron it reminded him of the quad. He never did apologize for that. Damn it. He didn’t want to do it over text message.

SPENCER: Are you around?
SPENCER: Want to talk later about the project? I had some ideas.

By the time class ended, he’d sent half a dozen texts to Aaron with no response. He fucking wished he could call Aaron, even if neither of them liked to talk, but of course he wouldn’t be able to hear. Instead, he was forced to just pack up his stuff and hope Aaron came back to class.

He found it wasn’t just the project he worried about.
“What did he do before he jerked away? Had he said anything?” Henry Thomas asked his son as they sat across from each other at D’Margio’s. They’d decided neither of them really wanted to cook. Spencer was still upset about Aaron’s outburst the day before, and Henry seemed more than happy to talk about it. It was an opportunity to talk to his dad, and he refused to pass it up.

“No., We. Were. Just. Talking. About. The. Project.. Then. He. Got. Quiet.. He. Looked. Sick.. I. Asked. Him. If. He. Was. Okay., And. He. Jerked. Back..Wait…. I. Reached. Out. To. Touch.. He. Just…. He. Looked. Like. He. Needed. A. Friend.” Spencer took a drink of his water to quench his suddenly dry throat.

Henry picked up his glass of wine and took a small sip as he watched his son. “Maybe it had to do with being touched. A lot of victims of violent crime do not like to be touched, especially rape victims,” he added as an afterthought.

“Oh. God.. You. Do. Not. Think…,” Spencer started and set his glass down. Revulsion rolled through him as he thought about someone hurting Aaron like that. It had to be something else. Maybe he’d been hit by a car or his high school exploded. Grasping at straws, he tried to think of anything else that might cause the kind of fear he saw in Aaron’s eyes.

“I don’t think anything. I haven’t even met the guy.”
“Maybe. You. Should..”

“What?” Spencer’s father asked, his voice heavy with skepticism, but Spencer was already sitting up straighter in his seat.

Dad, this guy needs help. You are one of the best trauma psychologists in the country. Whatever has happened to him, maybe you can help.
Spencer signed quickly, excitement making his movements more pronounced. It seemed so easy, so natural for his father to treat Aaron. Maybe it would help his father too.

Spencer, I am no longer a practicing psychologist. If his trauma is as severe as you describe, he is probably already in therapy,
Henry reasoned as their food arrived at the table.

“Would you like Parmesan cheese, sir?” It was lucky Spencer caught the question to his father, because when the server turned to him, he was standing at Spencer’s shoulder in the crowded restaurant, and Spencer couldn’t get a good look at his face. The server asked his father if they needed anything else and then wandered away to help another table that had flagged him down.

No, but you still have your license. Can I just bring him over to do homework so you can meet him?
Spencer knew his father. He wouldn’t turn Aaron away once he’d seen the pain in Aaron’s eyes. The alcoholism hadn’t affected his deep-seated need to help people.

What is his name?

“Aaron. Downing.,” Spencer said rather than spelling out the name. His father’s brow furrowed, but he didn’t comment for a long moment. He wondered if maybe his dad knew Aaron’s parents or something.

You can bring him over because I want to meet your friends
, his father insisted, but Spencer could see the light in his eyes.
A challenge.

H
ARSH, bright rays of light filtered through his half-open curtains and caused the incessant throbbing of his head to escalate into a full-blown pounding as Aaron finally started to wake. He moaned and rolled onto his back, a wave of nausea washing over him. Taking a few deep breaths, trying not to vomit, he brought one hand to his face, noticing as he did so it felt like lifting lead. Shielding his eyes against the bright light, he looked over at his bedside clock and was shocked to find it was nearly five in the evening.

As he shifted to his side and let his legs fall over the edge of the bed, it felt like someone had turned the gravity in his room way up. Everything was dull and heavy. He sat up slowly, feeling a rush of light-headedness as he stayed perched precariously on the side of the bed. Putting his head in his hands, he tried to fight the vertigo and nausea as he continued breathing deeply, staying as still as possible. He thought back, trying to remember what the hell happened.
Had he drank last night?
Aaron did drink sometimes, stealing whiskey or tequila from his parents’ liquor cabinet when things got too hard. They still kept his pills in their medicine

Aaron