9.11 - 43. Chapter 43

September 14, 2001

Escorial

I let go of Jeff’s hand as I walked into the dining room, and because we were late, everyone else was already there, even though they weren’t seated. Aunt Claire was the first one to rush over to me. “Happy birthday,” she said, smiling. “I’m glad you are here to celebrate it.”

“I’m glad you’re here to celebrate it with me,” I said, and gave her a hug. Only this was different, because even when I went to let her go, she still clung on to me. That was completely out of character for her, as she tended to be like Darius, Grand, and Grandmaman, where she limited the degree that people could intrude upon her personal space. That gesture, the simple way she showed me how much she loved me, blew down all the shields I’d erected to deal with this. I found myself gripping her, maybe too tightly, and felt tears run down my face yet again.

She pulled away and smiled at me, pausing to wipe first my tears away, then hers. “I have always considered you to be as much my son as John is. This past six months I have not been there for you like I should have. That will not happen again.”

I swallowed hard, and felt tears flow again. I’d lost my mother, and I’d lost Hank, but she was here for me, a surrogate mother. I felt a lot less lonely than I had before. “Thanks,” was all I could manage to say.

My Uncle Ace and Aunt Cass gave me enthusiastic hugs, and Ace was emotional as usual. Courtney let me pick her up and hug her, which was pretty cute. Uncle Jack gave me a nice hug too, but he was less demonstrative. That didn’t surprise me, since I’d never been one of his favorite people anyway. It’s not that he didn’t like me; it’s just that we weren’t tight. Before, that never bothered me, but tonight, it kind of did. I blew that off and sat next to Darius who, having just completed the same family hugfest, just rolled his eyes at me. Jeff sat on the other side of me. John was across from me. He looked at Jeff and raised his eyebrows, which made me blush, and made him giggle. Marie was notably absent, but I figured that if I said anything, I’d look hypocritical, so I kept my mouth shut.

“You didn’t say hi to me,” Cody said, flirting with me. I got up, walked over to him, and sat in his lap.

“Hi,” I said, subtly grinding my ass into his groin so no one else could see. He chuckled at me. He gave me one of his kisses that were supposed to be friendly, but was way more intense than that. I walked back to my chair and sat down. “I already saw you, anyway.”

“When?” he asked.

“I stopped by Dad’s room on my way to dinner,” I said innocently. My father blushed so bad he was really red, while Darius, Jeff, John, and I were trying not to laugh our asses off. “Those doors do have locks, you know.” That even made Cody blush, and that finally pushed the four of us over the edge, from holding back a giggle to an audible chuckle.

“I’m aware of that,” Dad said, scowling at me, and that just brought us to a full-blown laugh. Dad smiled, trying to work his way out of his funk, but he was too down for a simple joke to have much of an effect. Frank and Ace gave me dirty looks, while I looked back at both of them boldly, daring them to say something. They didn’t.

“On Sunday night, I was thinking that perhaps we could share our experiences in New York,” Grand said, taking the floor. “It will be very painful, but I think it is important that everyone in this family understand what happened.” I said nothing, but just looked down. I didn’t want to think about it, I didn’t want to talk about it; I just wanted to wallow in denial.

“We’ll do our best,” Darius said, speaking up for us. I gave him a furtive look of thanks for that.

“Tonight, I am hoping we can focus on those at this table, and specifically on you,” Grand said, staring at me. “Happy birthday, Will,” he said, raising his glass. Everyone else did too, and drank to me, but I just sat there speechless.

Darius finally nudged me, jarring loose my words. “Thanks,” I said. “It’s not very happy, but I appreciate the sentiment.”

“You asked us to forego presents for you this year,” Grand stated. I nodded. We’d had that conversation in Virginia. I didn’t want anything, I didn’t need anything, and I didn’t really want a gift that might somehow remind me of all this shit. “We have used that money for an alternate purpose, which I will share with you on Sunday.” It was really bothering me, being the center of attention, and having everyone focus on me. I looked at my father, using my eyes to plead with him to save me from this nightmare.

He did. “You still have to have cake, but we’re going to bring Maddy in so you can share it with her,” he said.

“Awesome,” I said. I turned to Uncle Jack. “We need to have her lungs checked out.”

“Why?” he asked.

“I tried to keep her face covered as much as I could, but there was a lot of smoke,” I told him. And then I’d taken myself back to those towers, to the stairwell. My mind fought with itself to block that memory.

“I’ll set up something to get all of you checked out this week,” he said.

“I got you a present anyway,” Cody said, flirting with me, and thankfully taking us away from talking about what happened in New York.

“Save it,” I said. “I get my real present from you when I turn eighteen.” I said that in a slutty way, and got a giggle from Stef, and grins from the others. Except for Frank and Ace, of course.

“So where’s Marie?” Darius asked. I almost sighed with relief that he asked, then it dawned on me that he’d done it for me, just like I’d covered for him when Ella had come up in conversation before.

“She’s in the hospital,” Jack said. We all stared at him, truly shocked. Even John looked surprised.

“What is wrong with her?” Stef asked.

“I guess the non-medical way to describe it would be that she’s having a breakdown,” he said. Aunt Claire looked upset beneath her stoic exterior.

“Can we go see her?” Grandmaman asked.

“Visitation is very limited right now,” he said. “I’ll let you know when that changes.”

“Limited?” John asked.

Jack focused on him, but spoke to all of us. “They would prefer for her to be isolated from her friends and family for a few days.”

“That sounds like what happened with JJ,” Darius said. That was true, and they’d made a big exception to let me in to see him right after he’d been admitted.

Claire looked at Jack, and he nodded. “She was cutting herself like JJ did, although not as badly.”

“That’s too bad,” I heard myself say. That got some strange looks, although most everyone seemed surprised by my statement. That annoyed me again, and I was starting to realize that being in a big group like this was probably not a good thing for me. I resolved to just shut the fuck up, eat, and go through the motions.

We finished dinner and Grandmaman whispered something to the staff. Shortly after that, they brought Maddy up. “Hey there!” I said. “Come sit with me!” I figured that the one nice thing about it being my birthday was that I could use that as an excuse to hold her. She smiled when she saw me, and I sat her in my lap, even though she was squirming around like crazy, trying to get loose. She wanted to get down on her knees and crawl around. I bounced her on my lap and played with her, using her as an excuse to ignore everyone else. They brought in a big cake, with sixteen candles. Fifteen of the candles were grouped together on one side of the cake, while one candle was by itself on the other side of the cake.

Everyone sang to us, that stupid-ass happy birthday song, and then I made Maddy help me blow out my candles, even though she really didn’t do much, then I helped her blow out hers. When I held her close enough to the cake to do it, she smacked her hand down right onto the cake, then pulled it back quickly, flinging icing across the table so it hit John and Cody. They handled the cake assault good-naturedly. The nurse put Maddy in her high chair and tried to feed her a piece of cake, but I intervened and put the cake on her tray and let her completely maul it up. She had cake all over her, and had managed to fling some at other people, but it was pretty funny. Darius took pictures with his camera; I’d learned a long time ago that he liked having a camera so he could take the pictures, and not be in them.

But Maddy had finally had enough time being cooped up in her chair, so the nurse took her downstairs to play. Everyone seemed pretty relaxed after she left; babies had a way of taking your mind off a tense situation. Everyone but Cody, that is.

“I should be more involved in her life,” he said, in what seemed like a stream of consciousness. I didn’t know what that meant, or what that implied, so I said nothing.

“I talked to Mom’s lawyer,” Darius said. “She appointed me as her executor. In her will, she designated guardians for Maddy.”

“Can she do that?” Cody asked.

“Guardians can only be appointed by the court, but they usually honor the wishes of the parents,” Ace said.

“The first person she appointed was Hank,” Darius continued, as if Ace hadn’t spoken. No one said anything, because we were back at that abyss, staring into that hole of misery, thinking about losing Mom, Hank, and Robbie. “In case Hank couldn’t do it, she picked Grandmaman.”

“Me?” Grandmaman asked, surprised.

“She always appreciated how good you were with babies, and with Maddy,” I said reassuringly.

“That is quite a compliment,” Claire said. “One that is well-deserved.”

“What if Isidore doesn’t want that responsibility?” Frank asked, getting a positively evil look from Grandmaman.

“It’s important for you to know that,” Darius said to Grandmaman quickly, to save Frank from her wrath. It was funny to watch him handle this whole thing: Darius clearly was enjoying being in charge. “If you don’t want to take on that job, she named Tiffany as your successor.”

“What about me?” Cody asked. “I’m her father.”

“You weren’t real involved in her life before, so Mom probably didn’t want to put the burden on you,” I said, trying to be nice about it, even though his attitude toward Maddy had really bugged me.

“Perhaps we can digest this, and decide what is to happen on Sunday,” Grandmaman said, to keep the conversation calm. I looked at all of them, and even though no one had asked me what I thought, Maddy was my sister, and I was determined to watch out for her interests.

“I think that’s a good idea,” I said, to let them all know I was involved in the decision. Everyone was wise enough to not argue with me about that. I got the feeling that we’d just seen the opening shots of a custody battle for Maddy, and while I was smart enough to know I wasn’t in a position to take on that responsibility, I felt I had the right to have a voice in the matter.

After dinner, Darius went off to talk to Ace, probably to try and get some legal advice. I was about to drag Jeff off to my room when Aunt Claire approached me. “Can we talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure,” I said, and turned to Jeff. “I’ll meet you in a few minutes.” He winked at me and nodded. Aunt Claire led me into Grand’s study, where I found Grand and Jack waiting for us.

I instinctively took a seat in a chair next to Grand, setting him up as my big defender against whatever they decided to throw at me. Then I chided myself for being unfair, since Aunt Claire had promised to be there for me. I just looked at them, waiting for them to speak. “We wanted to talk to you about Marie,” Jack said. He seemed really nervous.

“It doesn’t sound like she’s doing very well,” I said.

“She isn’t,” Jack said. “She’s gotten herself all wound up about these various situations, and with what happened to our family in New York, it just sent her over the edge.” It was possible that he was implying I was somehow involved in the nightmare Marie had created, but I chose to ignore that. I was so fucked up; I was probably reading him wrong.

“I remember how JJ was when he cut himself. It was really awful to see someone in that much pain. I hope she’s working her way through it.” I said that pretty stiffly, because I really didn’t want Marie to be hurt that badly, but at the same time, I was pretty pissed off at her.

Aunt Claire looked at Jack, who seemed confused as to how to go on, so she took over. “Marie is basically like JJ was, where she’s isolated from her friends and family until they can help her get back on an even keel.”

“They won’t even let you see her?” Grand asked, surprised.

“No,” Jack said, and sounded frustrated. That’s probably one of the few times his connections at the hospital hadn’t been enough for him to get his way.

“She’s asked to see you,” Aunt Claire said to me.

“Me?” I asked, completely shocked. I looked at Grand, and he was as surprised as I was.

She nodded. “We have no right to ask you to do this, to go see her. She has treated you horribly, and you’ve been through so much on your own.” She paused and looked away, and I could see her wiping a tear from her eye. “I wouldn’t have bothered you, but I am so worried about her.” She started crying then, and it was a really upsetting sight, to see this woman who was so strong, so refined, and so together, just lose it. Jack put his arm around her supportively.

“When do you want me to go talk to her?” I asked. Both Jack and Claire looked at me, totally surprised.

“After all she did to you, you’ll go see her?” Jack asked.

“She’s been a royal bitch, but she’s still my cousin,” I said to him simply. He smiled slightly at that.

“It’s really up to you as to when you go,” he said.

“Maybe while Dad is going to see the psychiatrist in the morning, I can go see Marie. We’re going to Santa Cruz after that,” I offered.

“That works great, since they’re in the same building,” Jack said. “Your father seemed better tonight.”

I looked at them all sternly, unwilling to mince words. “He’s not fine. He’s falling apart. Cody just found a way to take his mind off of things for a while.”

“Your father is very strong,” Claire said, trying to reassure me.

“No,” I said firmly. “Not now. He’s not strong at all. That’s why I’m going to drag him to that appointment tomorrow, and that’s why I’m going to make him spend a day or so surfing.”

“That is probably a good idea,” Grand said.

“I don’t know if having us talk about what happened is going to be a good idea,” I told Grand. “I don’t know if I can do it, and I don’t know if Dad can handle it. Sunday may be too soon.” I felt a familiar emotion begin to roll over me: anger.

“Perhaps you are correct,” Grand said, sensing my mood.

“Maybe it will be cathartic,” Jack said.

“No, it won’t be,” I said. “There is no way that reliving that nightmare will ever make it better.” And then I remembered my mother’s expression as she’d made me promise to take care of Maddy when we were getting ready to go down the stairs, and the tears started to flow again. “Nothing will ever make that better.”

“That’s fine,” Aunt Claire said hastily. I stood up, turned to leave, but I just couldn’t stop myself from saying what I really wanted to say.

I turned back to them and zeroed in on my Uncle Jack. “I have some advice for you.”

“Advice?” he asked.

“About John.”

His eyes narrowed, and I guessed that if it would have just been the two of us, he’d have told me to fuck off, but since it wasn’t, he just said, “What?”

“I spent most of my summer fighting with my father about what I do with my own body. Don’t make the same mistake he did. No dude is going to listen to you try to tell him what he can or can’t do with his dick. He won’t, I won’t, and you wouldn’t have either.” They stared at me, pretty shocked at the issue I’d raised, and that I’d been so blunt about it.

I expected Uncle Jack to really lay into me, but instead he smiled. “That’s good advice. Hard to remember that far back.” The way he handled it, the way he was so pleasant, just dissipated my anger.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Sometimes I just get really angry and things don’t come out right. I promise I won’t do that with Marie.”

“I’m sure you’ll do just fine,” Grand said. I nodded to all of them, and left, fleeing to my room, where I found Jeff waiting for me in my bed. I pulled off my clothes and joined him, letting his body sooth my pain. I cried, drawing strength from him, and then he made love to me, and for a brief period of time, things were alright. It was like he was my life preserver. I hoped that Cody was doing the same thing for my father.

September 15, 2001

“I’m doing better now,” Dad said as we drove to the hospital. “I don’t need to see this guy.”

“You won’t always have a dick up your ass to make you feel better,” I said.

“Who says I won’t?” he joked. He was right. He was doing better.

“You’re going,” I said firmly. “It gives you something to do while I go see Marie.”

“Fine,” he said, caving to the obvious. He knew he’d been a mess, and he knew he needed some help with his moods. The driver deposited us at the familiar building, the same one that they’d taken JJ to. I tried not to let that bother me.

“Do I need to go with you, or will you get yourself there?” I asked, treating him like he was seven years old.

“I’m fine,” he grumbled. “I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

“You better have a prescription,” I warned, then smiled. I turned and walked in the other direction.

The same nurse was guarding access to the floor that had been there when I’d come to see JJ. “I’m here to see Marie Hobart.”

“She isn’t receiving visitors,” she said in her smarmy way, just as she’d done last time.

“I’m allowed to see her,” I said firmly. “Will Schluter,” I added, so she’d have my name.

“Let me check,” she said, and acted as if she wanted me to sit down, but I stood there while she made her phone call. “Someone will be right with you,” she said.

“Thanks,” I responded, and walked over to the window and looked out at the green trees and brown landscape of the hills. That would change in a few months, when we started to get rain.

“Good to see you, Will,” I heard a familiar voice say. It was Casey Bridgeport, the same guy who had treated JJ. He was in his late twenties, and very attractive. I shook his hand and held it a little longer while I flirted with my eyes. He rolled his eyes at me. “Come on back.” He led me to his office and gestured for me to have a seat.

“Why does she want to see me?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, and seemed frustrated by it. “She won’t open up to me about things, and she is pretty much refusing to do anything unless she gets to see you.”

“She hates me,” I said.

“Maybe,” he mused. “In any event, there are no sharp objects in her room, so you should be safe. Do you want us to monitor you?”

“Monitor?”

“Have someone watch you, or put you in a room with two-way glass,” he explained.

“No, if I’m going to meet with her, I want to do it privately,” I emphasized. The last thing I needed was a bunch of psychiatrists spying on me.

“We can do that,” he agreed, which was mildly surprising. Then again, they hadn’t really made an issue out of me being alone with JJ. “This may be intense, especially after what you’ve already been through.” Here was the sympathy I was going to be pelted with on Monday at school.

“I’m fine,” I said abruptly. He gave me a knowing look, which was irritating. This dude was good at reading me.

“I’d like to talk to you after you meet with her.”

“Alright,” I agreed. He led me back to her room, knocked, and then went in. Marie was sitting in bed, and looked good. She was wearing some hospital garb, but her hair was done up like she normally did it. Our eyes met, and only then could I see the pain coming through. Casey didn’t say anything; he just shut the door behind him.

I stood there by the door, not knowing whether to approach her, to just have a seat, or what to do. “I didn’t think you’d come see me.” Her tone was sad.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because I’ve been such a bitch to you, and because you have so many other things to deal with now besides me,” she said. She was looking down as she said it, but looked up when she was done, letting me see how sincere she was.

I nodded, to agree that both of those things were true, but to offset my coldness, I went over and sat on the bed next to her. “Is this OK?”

“Yes,” she said, and gave me a slight smile.

“You usually dress better than this,” I teased, to break the ice.

“Stef would probably have Donna Karan hospital gowns,” she said, making me chuckle.

“So why did you want to see me?” I asked.

“These fucking shrinks want to dive into my brain and try to figure out what’s wrong with me,” she said bitterly. “I know what’s wrong with me. I need to make some things right.”

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked.

“I’m in love,” she said.

“You’re in love?” I asked her, and chuckled, but she didn’t laugh with me. “Dude, most people don’t get all psycho and cut themselves if they’re in love.”

“Some people do,” she said somberly.

“So why are you unhappy? Shit, Noah seems to love you. He worships the ground you walk on. You like that,” I joked, trying to get her to laugh. She gave me a quick smile, but it faded pretty fast.

“I’m not in love with Noah,” she said. I blinked at her. “I care about him, I like him, but I’m not in love with him.”

“Help me out here,” I said, totally confused. “You’re not in love with Noah, but he’s your boyfriend. So who are you in love with?”

She looked at me, her eyes drilling into mine. “You.”

I felt my mouth fall open, as the whole thing just shocked the shit out of me. I stared at her for a few seconds, saying nothing, while she just watched me. I kind of expected her to freak out or run away based on my stunned reaction, but she didn’t. That told me a lot about how sincere she was. “Me?” I finally asked, totally confused.

“Yes,” she said, and looked away.

“So you loved me, and that’s why you tried to hurt me?” I asked.

“Why not? You hurt me,” she said petulantly.

“I did not mean to hurt you,” I said firmly. “I had no idea you had feelings for me. Shit, we’re cousins. This isn’t Alabama.” Once again, my joke didn’t work.

“So. You can have sex with John, you can love John, and he’s your cousin,” she said, making a good point.

“Yeah, Darius called us all on the double standard in our family between gay sex and hetero sex,” I said, remembering his diatribe. “But we could never be together.”

“I thought you said us being cousins didn’t matter?” she asked, misinterpreting my statement.

“It doesn’t. But you don’t have a dick, and that’s kind of an important thing to me.” I smiled when I said that, and actually got a small grin from her.

“You’ve had sex with girls before.”

“I had sex with one girl, and it was nice. Some guys are pretty much straight, but in the right setting, with the right amount of booze, they can hook up with another dude. That’s how I am with girls.”

“That almost makes it harder,” she said. I got that. If her dream was for us to be together, having me be totally gay made that hopeless.

“When John and I were in Paris last year, I was totally in love with him, and convinced that I’d found my lifelong soul mate,” I told her. “Only he’s pretty much straight. We mess around, but it’s just fun. Kind of like intense wrestling.” She chuckled a bit and shook her head. “That’s all it’s ever going to be. And I’m fine with that. He’s probably my best friend, or one of them, and every once in a while I get to show him that with my body.”

An orderly popped his head in the room. “Did you need anything?” he asked. He was clearly just checking up on us, and that pissed me off.

“Dr. Bridgeport promised me that we could have some time together, and that we wouldn’t be interrupted,” I said, probably much too rudely. “Can you make sure that happens?”

“Sure,” he said, abashed, then left.

“Now who’s the fucking bitch?” Marie asked, joking with me.

“Sometimes,” I said, smiling at her. “So when did this happen?”

“I think it was the New Year’s party we had,” she said. “You really were amazing.”

“Thanks,” I said, blushing.

“You patched things up with a dude who could have killed you, made out with him and outed him at the same time, then backed off and let him hook up with his best friend even after he led you on. You handled your father like a champ,” she said with admiration.

“Almost as well as you handled Grand and Stef,” I said, chuckling as I remembered how she’d taken the wind out of their sails.

“I know you’re gay, and I know it would never work,” she said seriously. “That’s why it was so hard to deal with. And I couldn’t tell you, because then you’d think I was a freak.”

“You’re telling me now, and I don’t think you’re a freak. To be honest, it’s pretty flattering,” I told her.

“Flattering?” she asked me, clearly not believing me.

“Yeah. You fell in love with me despite all the taboos that come with it. You’re fucking brilliant, and smoking hot. Shit, why wouldn’t I be flattered?” I asked.

“You think I’m hot?” she mused, acting like I didn’t believe her. I instinctively knew she needed more than just words, so I turned to face her and leaned in, closing my eyes as I felt our lips touch.

And then it was like we were two people in the middle of the ocean, floundering around, desperately reaching out for something and someone to save us. My hands were exploring her body, while hers were on my head, her nails massaging my scalp as she ran her fingers through my hair, pulling me to her like she wanted to suck me in. In no time at all I had my pants down, condom on, her pants off, and I was playing with her pussy, making sure she was ready for me, but it didn’t take much effort to get her dripping wet. And then I was in her, gently making love to her, feeling her envelop me just like Raine had last year. And just like last time, it was really nice, felt really good, but I found myself locked in mid-fuck, where I couldn’t push myself to achieve an orgasm just by being with her. Only that didn’t really seem to matter to her. She went nuts, really letting herself go, and making sure she held my mouth onto hers so her moans and screams were muffled. I broke off our kiss because I needed to breathe, to pant, and as I did, I nibbled on her ear, and it was just like John’s. That reminded me of him, and of how into it he had been when I’d worked his ass over with my tongue.

Thinking of John sent me over the edge. “Gonna cum!” I growled into her ear, and then clamped my mouth down onto hers so I could muffle my screams this time. I finished my orgasm, and then felt all kinds of guilt, mostly at having to think about John to get off while fucking his sister. Only she must have just been starting her own, and she grabbed onto my hips and thrust up at me, keeping her own climax going. I gamely tried to help her along, even as I felt my dick getting limp inside her. When she was done, or seemed to be, I pulled out, and we hastily got our clothes back on, and got ourselves together.

We sat there silently, both of us freaking out over what we’d just done. There was all kinds of tension between us, and I was worried that I’d just made things worse. “I’ll be right back,” I said, and went into the bathroom to flush the condom and wash my hands. I came back and sat on the bed next to her, our backs resting against the headboard.

“We probably shouldn’t have done that,” she said morosely.

“You’re probably right,” I agreed. “Look, things have been fucked up between us for a while now. I miss you, and I need your friendship. Don’t let this fuck that up.” I was practically begging her by the time I was done.

“It’s fine, Will,” she said calmly, sounding so much like her mother. “I just need some time to work through all of this.”

“Just so you know, if I were straight, you’d be at the top of my list of girls I’d want to be with, even if it meant I had to fight our whole family to do it,” I told her.

She gave me a small smile. “Thanks. I’m pissed off at myself for fucking up my life so badly over a fantasy that can’t happen.”

“Your life isn’t really all that fucked up,” I said. “You’ll get out of here, and people will think that you just weren’t in school because of what happened to our family.” I felt myself get somber at that. My mood was swinging again.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

“Not good,” I admitted. “I don’t want to depress you with all the shit we dealt with.”

“Dude, I’m already depressed, so bad I’m in the fucking hospital,” she said. “If you make it worse, they’ll just give me more drugs.”

I chuckled at that, then told her about New York, from the time we got there, from my fight with my father to my escape down the stairwell, and to our trip to Goodwell. She held me while I cried, and stroked my back gently to support me.

“That’s awful,” she said at the end. “You should probably be in here with me.”

“Probably,” I agreed, then told her about our therapy sessions, and how we’d handled it, and how badly my father was doing. When I was done, and finished crying, there was another pause in our conversation.

“Sleeping with you was pretty weird, but you were really good,” she said, propping up my ego.

“Thanks,” I said. “How would you know? How many guys have you been with?”

“Two, now,” she said. “You and Noah.”

“You don’t like having sex with Noah?” I asked, sensing that she didn’t.

“It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s that it feels wrong. He loves me, but I don’t love him, so it’s good, but I know I’m just leading him on,” she said.

“I can see that,” I said, worried that I’d just done the same thing.

“It’s weird, but now that we did that, it’s just not as big of a deal,” she said.

“Wait a minute,” I said, joking. “You sleep with me, and then you don’t love me anymore?”

“Good thing you’re gay,” she said, giving me shit, and making me laugh.

“So that’s why you told Erik about Kyle and me,” I concluded, shifting back to our issues. “You were mad at me, and hurt, and wanted to get back at me.”

“That’s part of it, but Erik really is a sweet guy, and I really was upset about how you two were messing with him,” she said.

“I agree with you,” I said, kind of surprising her. “Erik and I decided that we both would have been a lot happier if he and I had hooked up at New Year’s instead of him and Kyle.”

“Most definitely,” she said. “I’m really sorry about that, and about all the shit I did to you.”

“Did you know that Kyle was trying to convince Erik to fuck me and give me warts?” I asked.

She looked at me, horrified. “What?”

“Erik told me that’s what Kyle was setting him up to do. Told him to go fuck me and see why he was cheating on Erik. Told him that since I gave him those things, he didn’t have to worry about protecting me from them,” I said bitterly.

“Will, I believed him when Kyle told me he got them from you. But I swear I didn’t know they were trying to give you a fucking disease.” I knew she was telling the truth. I nodded. We sat there in silence, digesting things. “I lost it when I thought you weren’t going to make it out of that building.”

“I figured you’d be relieved to be rid of me,” I said bitterly, then remembered she was pretty wounded.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’d treated you so badly, and I realized that if you’d died, you’d think that, you’d think I’d be relieved. What an awful thing to do.” She started crying then, so I pulled her to me so her head was on my chest and just comforted her.

“Well, I made it, and here we are. How long you planning to be in here?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I need to get my shit together so I don’t lose it like this again.”

“It actually was easy for me to understand some of the shit you were dealing with, you know, with your parents,” I said, remembering my own battles with my father.

“The more pissed off they got, the more restrictions they put on me, and the more I rebelled,” she said, and seemed to really understand the pattern.

“I’m trying to learn to let the anger go so I make better decisions,” I said. “I’m not doing real well, but I’m trying.”

“Me too,” she agreed.

“So are you going to be OK?”

“You know, I’ve had this all bottled in, and now that I told you how I felt, and told you I was sorry, and fucked your brains out, I’m thinking we’re good,” she said casually.

I laughed. “That usually works. For the record, all you had to do was say that you were sorry.”

“Yeah, but the sex was fun,” she said, making me laugh. Then she got serious. “I know you felt it. There was no big spark there. It’s like it made things obvious; we’re just friends, and we always will be.”

“We will,” I said. The orderly interrupted us again, to tell us that our time was up, so I gave her one last kiss, and walked out of her room, feeling pretty weird, pretty guilty, but strangely happy. This thing with Marie, this battle, had really consumed more of my soul than I’d been willing to admit. Being cool with her again was like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders.

I went to Casey Bridgeport’s office and found him waiting for me. “How did it go?” he asked.

“Really well,” I said. “She told me she was in love with me, and that’s why she was so freaked out.”

“She was in love with you?” he asked, shocked.

“Why is that so hard to believe?” I asked, then smiled. “Hell, you think I’m hot.”

“But I’m not in love with you,” he said.

“Maybe that’s because you don’t know me well enough,” I flirted.

“I know you well enough,” he said, shaking his head. “Thanks for meeting with her Will. I’m going to go see if it helped.”