Page 36 of The Past in the Present

Elliot sighed. “It wasn’t a conscious choice,” he said, his voice flat.

“I know, but?—”

“Seth,” he interrupted me, his tone slightly annoyed. “You reacted—you didn’t choose. Do I like that you were afraid of me? No, of course I fucking don’t. But given the circumstances, I understand that it was instinctive. And that you didn’t do it to hurt me.”

I stared out the passenger window, not wanting him to see the tears on my face, embarrassed and disgusted with myself. I’d been an emotional mess for the last week, and I hated it. It felt childish and weak, and it made me feel like I’d somehowregressed back into the terrified little boy that I’d been when I’d lived here.

I didn’t want to feel the thick, nauseating knot of fear in my stomach that I’d had every day of my childhood—or, at least, every day that I could remember. Fear of my father’s displeasure, of his anger, of his disappointment.

He wasn’t violent with us as kids, not in the way that you might expect. He wasn’t one of those rural farmers who drank too much and lost their tempers, leaving bruises across the faces of their wives and children. He wasn’t the kind of abusive man who inflicted torture by leaving cigarette burns or contusions where they wouldn’t be visible under clothes, either.

No. Bartholomew Mays was the sort of man who inflicted punishment through deprivation. Fasting and prayers on your knees on the cold, hard flags that formed the basement floor. He demanded days without food and self-inflicted pain—bruised knees, aching palms, scraped elbows. That isn’t to say that corporeal punishment was lacking in our house—but it was the belt across your back and thighs that was allowed by law. Not to the point of bleeding, rarely to the point when bruises would discolor the skin.

Even more rarely, he would wash his hands of us—literally, in fact, ritually taking water and a cloth and washing his hands as he stood, lecturing us about our sins and the depravities of our flesh—leaving us to the darkness or to the more capable hands of another member of the Community who had the stomach, or perhaps the desire, to cross the line between corporeal punishment and physical abuse.

I hated that he could still affect me, even though I’d spent more years away from his house than I had in it. Even though I’d built a career. Even though I had Elliot.

For now.

Elliot might not want to stay with me after this. And I couldn’t blame him. My father was a murderer. Maybe whatever made him violent was in me, too. And maybe Elliot wouldn’t want to be around that…

Ofcoursehe wouldn’t want to be around that. His father had been a murder victim. Why the hell would he want to stay withme?

I spent the rest of the drive trying to figure out the logistics of getting another cheap apartment, of moving out of the house, changing my address, having to tell my coworkers and my twin and Hart—who was going to absolutelykillme…

The car stopped in the Howard Johnson parking lot, and I forced myself to get out, trying to hold it together.

Because I loved Elliot Crane.

But there was no way after all this that he would still love me.

He followed me up the stairs in silence, and it felt like my legs were made of lead. Achy lead.

I walked into our room, Elliot right behind me. I heard the door click shut, but I didn’t know if I could face him, so I kept moving. Except there wasn’t very far for me to go.

“Seth.”

I stopped by the end of the bed, beside the desk with its weirdly ergonomic chair.

“Can I touch you?” he asked me, softly, and the fact that he felt he had to ask broke open my chest. Weirdly, it was like I’d run out of tears, and my eyes remained dry, even though I’d lost the ability to speak or even breathe.

So I just nodded.

A warm palm settled on my lower back. Then Elliot walked around to my side, his hand sliding to my hip. With his other hand, he reached out and pulled my other arm away from my chest, then drew me into a hug.

I tried to resist for a half-second, but I wanted him to hold me too much, and I essentially collapsed into his arms. He pulled me closer, sitting on the bed behind him and drawing me with him, cradling my head and shoulders against his chest.

The tears did come, then.

He held me for several minutes, rocking gently. “Baby, I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours, but it’s not right.”

“I-if you d-don’t know, then h-how d-do you know?” I wasn’t terribly coherent, but it was the best I could manage.

“Are you thinking how much I love you?”

I shook my head against his chest.

“Are you thinking that I’m going to be here with you for all of this, as long as it takes, however hard or ugly it is, no matter what?”

---