Flux - 16. Chapter 16

June 22, 2002

Malibu, CA

Brad

“I hope you know I was just doing my job, Mr. Schluter,” Barry said nervously. “If I don’t know the status of their relationship, I can’t help them out.”

“I understand that,” I said. “I think it would have been reasonable to just ask them the question in the first place.”

“You heard the first answer I got?” he asked me, to validate his strategy.

“I did,” I said. “But you had set yourself up as their adversary from the beginning, so it was unlikely they would have been honest with you.”

“I’ve done this for a long time,” he objected, trying to pull out the experience card.

“I’m not interested in dredging up the past, and that includes the past thirty minutes,” I said firmly. “I want us all to understand that going forward; we’re going to have open and honest communications, with no petty games, on all sides of this relationship.” I had learned over the years how to project power, and I knew that I was throwing it out hard.

“I understand,” Barry said, caving gracefully.

“And do you two?” I asked, Zach and Will in the same tone. It intimidated Zach, and had absolutely no effect on Will at all.

“Sure,” Zach said.

“I don’t appreciate people fucking with me,” Will said to Barry coldly. “But I get what you were doing. We’re cool this time.”

“Excellent,” Barry said.

I was feeling pretty confident, almost cocky, until Matt walked into the room. Our eyes met and I almost instinctively put my hand to my still-swollen nose, but fortunately I managed to avoid doing that. I was pissed at him for that, but I felt so guilty for hurting him, that I’d pretty much written off his assault. I hadn’t expected him to be here, and shot a nasty look at Will to let him know I was annoyed with him for not warning me. I put that aside and saw Matt’s expression, and noticed that the rage he’d had before was gone. He was looking at me cautiously, but not belligerently.

“This is my brother, Matt Carrswold,” Will said, introducing him to Barry. That surprised me, because I didn’t remember Will ever introducing Matt as his brother. They must have worked through their issues, at least for the most part.

“Nice to meet you,” Matt said to Barry, and shook his hand.

I looked at Matt and decided to risk his wrath. “I’ve been stuck in Connecticut for the past week. I’m going to throw some shorts on and go for a walk on the beach. Want to join me?”

He gave me an unpleasant look. “I’ll meet you back down here in fifteen minutes,” he said in a clipped way.

I turned to Will and Zach. “I’ll leave you guys to work things out. If you need me, call me,” I said, tapping the pocket where I carried my cell phone.

“Cool,” Will said. I went up the stairs to our bedroom. I hated being here. I hated being in this house, and I hated being in our room. I walked in and my mind whirled, as I thought of little vignettes in my life with Robbie. I grabbed some shorts and a polo shirt, ripped off my suit and threw my casual clothes on, put on my sandals, and I was out of the room in less than five minutes. I felt myself breathe a sigh of relief as I did. As I walked down the stairs I saw Will and Zach huddling with Barry, as if they were plotting out some master world-domination strategy. I avoided them and went out onto the patio.

Matt came out much sooner than he’d promised. I didn’t say anything; I just got up and led him down to the beach, and started walking. “I have things I need to say to you, but I don’t know how to say them,” I said honestly.

“Just say them. You probably can’t piss me off more than you have,” he said. He was probably wrong about that, but I wasn’t going to try and make him mad.

“I think I have to start this off with an apology,” I told him awkwardly. I sensed that it wasn’t sincere, and I flagellated myself for fucking up already. “I’m sorry that I hurt you so badly.”

“Why don’t you try this,” he snapped. “Why don’t you try being honest, and tell me that what you’re really sorry for is that you got caught.”

“I am sorry that I got caught,” I admitted.

“Because now you have to end it, end your beautiful, romantic relationship with Wade.” Man, he could throw some rage. I thought Will was bad.

“That’s exactly why I’m sorry,” I confessed, freaking him out. “Only our relationship wasn’t romantic.”

“This is the part where you tell me how you two were just really close friends who fucked, and it was good for you,” he said snidely.

“This is a lot easier than I thought,” I said to him, smiling slightly. “You’re saying all the things I was going to say.”

“I think it’s bullshit. I think you were totally into him. I see the way you two look at each other.”

“We complement each other really well,” I said. “But it’s not like that. It’s hard to describe.”

“Try me,” Matt said, not easing up at all.

I stopped and looked at him squarely. “He’s my best friend.”

“So be his friend,” I said. “Just don’t fuck him.”

“We’re trying,” I said, knowing I shouldn’t tell him this stuff, but I really didn’t think I had any other choice but to be completely honest. “We talk every other day on the phone, but it’s stunted. We’re trying to build a different connection, but the deal is that we’re both so defensive, we just push each other away.”

“You want me to feel bad for you, because you have to break up with my boyfriend?”

“I don’t want you to feel bad for me, but if you lost your best friend, wouldn’t you feel pretty shitty?”

“I did lose my best friend, and I do feel shitty,” he said. “The only reason Wade is being nice to me is so I’ll tell him it’s OK for you two to keep on fucking.”

“That’s not why,” I told him.

“How would you know?” he demanded.

“Because I’ve been his confidante for the last six months,” I snapped, finally getting annoyed with him. “I watched him go through all kinds of hell, dealing with you being gone. You remember what happened at Christmas?”

“He told you about that?” he asked, stunned that I knew.

“He let that bug him until right after the New Year,” I said. “We went riding, and he told me about it, and I could tell how badly that had fucked him up.”

“I was just so desperate to connect with him,” he said sadly.

I could have been cruel, and told him how badly he had upset Wade, how after he had endured years of being molested by his father, being assaulted by Matt had really messed him up, but it wasn’t my place. “That’s when we started sleeping together.”

“You were just waiting for him to be vulnerable,” he spat. “You were preying on him.”

“That’s bullshit,” I said. “I was in worse shape than he was.”

He scowled at me. “And this way, you got to fuck him, make both of you feel better, and get back at me at the same time.”

“Yeah, that’s about it,” I said. “I was pissed off at you.”

“Because of Robbie,” he said.

“That, and because of what you did to Will,” I said. “I did to you what you did to Will. It seemed like a fair payback.”

“So this is all my fault. You’re just the blameless white knight who comes riding in to save the damsel in fucking distress,” he shouted.

“You keep acting like this is some easy, one-dimensional deal. There’s a bunch of shit that happened, that contributed to this. You’re responsible for some of it, Wade is responsible for some of it, but I think I’m responsible for most of it.”

“Alright, I’ll bite. Why are you the most responsible?”

“Because I’m the most fucked up,” I said. “I’m like this toxic person that is so hurt inside, I hurt all the people around me too.”

“Whatever,” he said, finally pissing me off.

“Look, you don’t have to go up to your room at night and look around, missing your partner. I know there’s a door there that leads to a room that we had all kinds of wild sex in, and has his picture plastered in the entrance. I look at his closet, still full of his clothes, because I can’t bring myself to go through them, but I’m too big of a control freak to let anyone else do it. His car is still in the garage, the same car I beat up. He’s everywhere. No matter where I go, no matter what I do, he’s there.” I paused, trying to stop, but I couldn’t. “I can’t even get laid, because every guy I’m with reminds me of him in some way or another. Either he has a characteristic that is similar to Robbie’s, or he just makes me feel guilty, like I’m cheating on Robbie.”

“But not Wade,” he said.

“Not Wade.”

“That’s why you wanted me out of the picture,” he accused. “You wanted me out of the picture so you could be with Wade.”

“I wanted you out of the picture because you remind me of Robbie,” I said, even though I didn’t mean to. “I’ve gotten beyond this, but back a few months ago, when I saw you, I just had this desire to cause you pain.”

“Dude that is fucked up!”

I nodded. “It is.” We walked along for a bit. “I don’t know how to make things OK with us.”

“I don’t even think you want to,” he said.

“Matt, I’m not where I was back then. I realize that I was fucked up. I realize that what I did was awful. If I don’t sound sincere, it’s because this realization has cost me my best friend.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I think that’s my question. What do you want from me?”

“I want you to get your shit together, so you’re not such an asshole,” he yelled. He stopped and looked at me, and there were tears in his eyes. He turned around and started to storm off. “I’m going back.”

I looked around, and started to totally freak out. I remembered this spot so well. This was the exact spot where I’d had my big confrontation with Robbie when he came down for spring break in 1985. Matt pivoted and started walking back toward the house, just like I had back then: just like I had when I’d been on the verge of completely breaking down. The guilt at what I’d done to Matt overwhelmed me, followed by another wave of sadness at missing Robbie. The next thing I knew, my head was spinning. I felt my legs give out, so I sort of collapsed into the sand in a clump, but I really didn’t feel the impact. And then I was in a time warp, flying back to 1985.

“How come you never told me that you still loved me?” I heard Robbie ask softly. And then I looked at him, a 22-year-old Robbie, talking to a 23-year-old me. It was like watching a movie.

“You know me. You know my pride. What was I going to do, make matters worse by throwing myself at your feet so you could just reject me even more? No, I figured that if that's how you felt I'd just go with it. It would be easier for you, and I thought it would be easier for me.” I watched my much younger self spit those words at him. “But no, you had to bring that fucking bitch home for Christmas. Fawn all over him. Make googly fucking eyes at each other. Then you’d sneak off and fuck; only you weren't even quiet. I had to hold a pillow over my head to block out the sound.”

“I hurt you so bad. God, it must have been horrible. I'm so, so sorry. I really am. I, I just don't know what to say,” he said, with tears running down his cheeks. “Are you still in love with me?”

“Jesus fucking Christ Robbie. What are you trying to do, rip all the scabs off? You know what, you tell me how you feel, and we'll just go with that OK? Why don't you expose some of your soul instead of probing into mine with a knife?”

And that’s where I had reached the basket case point. I had turned around and started heading back, just like Matt had done. The vision faded, but the pain didn’t. The pain from that event and from an entire relationship of always worrying that what had happened then would happen again. He’d gone off and found someone else, Neil, and he’d fallen in love with him. He’d blown me off for Neil, just like he’d blown me off for Carson, and just like he’d blown me off for Alex Danvers. He’d cheated on me with Neil, just like he’d cheated on me with Gary Englin, back in high school. I felt sheer rage, rage approaching hatred, as I remembered that pain.

“Are you alright?” I heard Matt say. It sounded like he was miles away; his voice was faint and hollow. “Brad?”

But I wasn’t with him; I was stuck in purgatory, reliving the hell that Robbie had put me through. And here I was, alone and miserable, because he’d done the same fucking thing to me that he did then. He’d run off without even thinking about me, heading back up those fucking stairs. He left me here; only this time, there was no reconciliation. There was no way for him to make this better. He left me a wounded mess, and all I was doing now was going through life hurting myself, and other people.

Then I thought about the scene from my life I’d just witnessed, and I remembered how badly he’d felt when he finally got it. How sorry he’d been. I remembered how he’d held me, and told me that he loved me. I remembered making up with him then, and I remembered making up with him after our split over Gary Englin. I remembered how he’d been there for me as I’d battled against Omega, and how he’d sealed our reunion after the nightmare with Carson by marrying me. He’d thought that up all by himself, and then he’d planned the wedding without me knowing about it until a few days before it happened. And I remembered our last phone conversation when he was in the tower. How he told me that he loved me, and he told me that he’d miss me, and he told me to take care of myself. How he told me that I was the one love of his life. How all those other guys who had caused me so much pain were really irrelevant, in the greater scheme of our relationship.

I sat there in the sand, my sanity slowly returning, as I went on my last roller coaster ride with Robbie. He’d taken me to the very depths of despair, leading me into the abyss, and then, just like he’d done in the past, he’d pulled me out of it. I heard him apologizing to me for going back up those stairs and leaving me behind. I heard him telling me that he was sorry for all the pain I was enduring because he wasn’t there. I heard him begging me to forgive him for forcing me to go on with my life alone, without him. I heard him say all these things, even though he’d never said them, because I knew that he would have. I knew him so well. I knew that’s exactly what he would have said. And just like I’d done in the past, I forgave him. I gave him absolution for doing this to me.

I felt something sting my face sharply: it was a hand, slapping me. I opened my eyes and there was Matt, staring at me, looking worried. “Dude, what the fuck happened to you?” I looked up and blinked at him. I tried to make words, I tried to speak, but I couldn’t. “Are you alright?”

I looked at him, in a daze, and held out my hand, asking him to help me up, which he did. “I’m sorry,” I said to him, although for which transgression I wasn’t sure, and neither was he.

“What happened to you?”

“I just had a flashback,” I managed to say. “Let’s go back.” We started walking back, at a much slower pace than before.

“A flashback?” Matt asked, and then he looked around, and freaked out himself. “This is the place where you and Robbie worked things out when you were in college.”

“How did you know that?” I’d asked that in an accusatory way, almost wondering if he’d figured out some way to read my mind, or worrying that I’d played that whole scene out by actually speaking the words.

“Robbie told me about it, right after I met him. We went for a walk on the beach, and when we got here, he stopped, and told me this is where you guys turned your relationship around and got back together again.”

“He did?”

Matt nodded. “He told me how tight you two were in high school, and how that freaked him out so badly that he went to a different college than you did.”

I stared at him, amazed. “He purposely went to a different school to get away from me?” Robbie had never told me that.

He smiled softly. “He said his feelings for you were so strong, they scared him. He was pretty pissed off at himself when he talked about it. He said he was too young and stupid to realize how awesome that was back then.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said, digesting this new piece of the puzzle that was Robbie Hayes.

“So what just happened to you? Dude, you’re freaking me out,” Matt said.

“This has happened to me, once before. When you turned and walked off, you did just what I’d done back in 1985, when Robbie and I were walking on the beach, trying to figure out if we could or should be together,” I explained. “It triggered a flashback. It was pretty trippy. It was like I was watching a movie of Robbie and me, having that conversation.”

“Holy shit! That must have been intense!” I nodded. “You just lay there, not moving anything but your face. Your expressions were pretty wild. You went back and forth to what seemed like sadness, anger, and happiness.”

I felt a little dizzy, and staggered a bit. He reached out and put his arm around me to steady me. It was a very thoughtful gesture, especially when I considered how badly I had hurt him. “Thanks,” I said, smiling at him. “I just need to get back and sit down.”

“We’re almost there,” he said, even though we were still a ways off.

“I relived that whole deal with him and Neil, and got all pissed off at him all over again. Then I remembered the other guys, especially Carson, and that made me even angrier.”

“Can’t blame you for that,” he said supportively.

“Then I remembered how sorry he’d been after it was over and how he’d tried to do things to make it better. I remembered our wedding. I remembered our last conversation.” Both of us teared up when I mentioned that, and I squeezed Matt’s shoulder to try and prop him up.

“No wonder you were making those weird faces.”

“Weird?” I asked, pretending to be offended.

“They were weird in a hot way,” he said with a smile, making me chuckle.

“It was really strange after that. I got mad at him for leaving me behind, and leaving me here alone. I was pissed off all over again. But it was like I could hear his voice, speaking to me, telling me he was sorry for that. It was the same old pattern. He fucked up and hurt me, and then he said he was sorry.”

“He’s gone,” Matt said to me. “He can’t hurt you anymore. He can’t apologize anymore.”

“I know,” I said. “I had our last fight subconsciously.” We both laughed at that. We got back to the house and sat on the stairs that led up to the deck. “Our last fight, with the same pattern. He said he was sorry for the last time. And I did something that I haven’t been able to do until now. I forgave him.”

His left hand reached out and gently took my right hand, squeezing slightly, in an affectionate way. “Just like you forgave him, I’ll forgive you.”

I turned and looked at him, and then I hugged him, grabbing onto him and squeezing him a little too tightly. He yelped, reminding me he still had pain from his bruised ribs, causing me to abruptly end our embrace. “Sorry,” I said.

“You just have to be gentle,” he joked. “You can be rough later.”

I smiled and hugged him for a very long time, only I did it much more gently. “Thanks,” I said.

June 22, 2002

Malibu, CA

Will

I watched Matt and Dad leave the room, hoping this walk would help them work things out, and then turned back to Barry to hear exactly what Zach and I were going to have to do to be together while he played football.

“You can’t be gay and make it in the NFL. It’s not happening,” Barry said. “You can be in the closet and make it, but the more famous you are, the more secret your closet has to be.”

“I know that,” Zach said, and it was impossible to miss the bitterness in his voice.

“There are a couple of different ways to play this out,” Barry said. “Are you religious?”

“No,” Zach said. “Why?”

“That’s a good disguise for a closet case. You claim you’re very religious, and then you date women, but it’s more like going out with a friend. You tell her you can’t be intimate until you’re married, because that’s what the Bible says. That gets you off the hook so you don’t have to have sex. The only downside is that you have to live that lifestyle. You have to go to church, you have to thank Jesus anytime something good happens to you, and you have to be careful that you don’t slip up and fuck the girl.”

“I don’t know if I can do that,” Zach said. I wondered which of those things he couldn’t do.

“Do you like to have sex with women?” Barry asked. I felt my brows furrowing, even though I tried to stop them.

“Yeah,” he said. “But I like sex with Will better.” That got him a smile from me, and a chuckle from Barry.

“If you’re not going to be a holy roller, then you’re probably going to have to fuck some women,” he said. “You can either find one girl and have a relationship, or you can be a man-whore and fuck a lot of them.”

“I’ve tried the relationship thing, but I end up just leading women on,” he said. “I can probably pull that off, though.” This was the side of Zach that was scary: the side where he was ruthless when he wanted something. He would trample some poor girl’s heart, just so she could cover for him.

Barry nodded, and changed the topic slightly. “You’re not on the radar screen yet. People are watching you, but not as closely as they will be when you go to college. That means you can be a little more flexible with the rules. Just know that as time goes on, and as you’re more successful, the rules get tighter too.”

“Rules?” I asked.

He nodded. “Rule number one. Absolutely no physical displays of affection between you two. No PDA.”

“Not even a hug?” I asked.

“Nope. You can greet each other, hand to hand. That means a handshake, a fist bump, a high five, or something like that,” he insisted. “Not even a friendly arm around the shoulder.”

“We already do that, for the most part,” Zach said.

“Rule number two: You can’t go to Zach’s games alone, and you can’t sit close to the bench.” Since he’d directed that to me, I nodded. “You need to look like just another interested family member.”

“I can do that,” I said. I would just go with Frank. He never missed Zach’s games.

“You two need to develop more masculine activities, to give you something to do together instead of sucking dick,” he said, lightening things up a bit. We chuckled.

“Like what?” Zach asked.

“Is there a sport you could do that isn’t football?”

I nodded and smiled, while Zach shook his head. “No way,” he said to me.

“Guess who’s going to learn how to surf,” I teased.

“That’s an excellent choice. Two other good options are skiing, and golf. Those three give you a good cover so you can go away for a vacation. It’s not Zach and Will going off for a romantic weekend in Hawaii, it’s Zach and Will going to Hawaii to catch some kick-ass waves.”

“Fine,” Zach said. “If I have to learn how to surf, you have to learn how to ski. And we can both pick up golfing.”

“I can do that,” I said, “if we snowboard instead of ski.”

“Deal,” he said. “What else?”

“It would be good if there was at least one other guy who went with you when you went on these excursions. And the number of people that go should be odd. That way it’s never a couple’s deal.” I was pretty impressed with how well he’d thought this out.

“We can try to do that,” Zach said.

“Is that important if we have a private place to go to?” I asked. I told him about Escorial, and about my house in Hawaii.

“Could someone take a picture of you with a long photo lens?” he asked.

“Not at Escorial, but probably in Hawaii,” I said.

“That’s the litmus test. This summer, it’s probably not a huge deal. Zach has camp for most of July and August, so he’ll be doing that. I’d recommend that if you two want to be together, he takes the occasional weekend and goes to Escorial,” Barry said.

“We’re going to London and Paris with Will’s grandfather,” Zach said.

Barry frowned. “That may not look good.”

“He’s a professor at Stanford, and he’s hiring me as an intern to help him with some research,” Zach explained.

“Different deal entirely,” Barry said grinning. “Go for it.”

“So basically we have to make sure we’re just buds when we’re not behind closed doors?” I summarized.

“That’s a good way to think about it. Remember my line about the camera. If a camera with a zoom lens could take a picture, you’re in a place where you can’t be intimate.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard,” Zach said hopefully, as he looked at me.

“I can work with that,” I agreed.

“Are you two exclusive?” he asked.

I waited for Zach to answer. “We haven’t been.”

“Here’s what we need, just to shore things up.” He turned to Zach. “We need you to either get a girlfriend, or fuck at least one different chick every other month. That number goes up to one or two a month in college. At the same time, you don’t fuck around with any other guys. If you hook up with another dude at a party or something, that’s really high-risk. That will actually out you faster than a long-term relationship with Will.” He watched our reactions to that, but we were both pretty stoic. “If you do decide to mess around with another dude, it should be someone that you know, and can trust.”

“In other words, someone he could have a relationship with, just like he does with me,” I said, trying not to sound bitchy about it, but failing miserably.

“Even if I did that, it wouldn’t be like we are,” Zach said to me earnestly. I gave him a weak smile to show him I could live with it. Or at least I thought I could live with it.

Barry turned his attention to me. “It would be useful if you had a relationship with another guy. Someone who we could point to and say he was your boyfriend. And it has to be someone that Zach gets along with, so you guys can all be seen together. People will think that if Zach’s hanging out with you and your boyfriend, you two aren’t messing around.” I watched Zach turn green with jealousy, and I felt sorry for him.

“I’ll see what I can do about that,” I said, even though I had no clue how I would handle that.

“We can probably make it through this next year, Zach’s senior year, without you having one other guy you’re with, but when he gets to college, it would be helpful. If you can’t do it, we can try and explain away your time together.”

“So these rules aren’t deal killers?” I asked.

“Some are, some aren’t. Your relationships with other people aren’t going to ruin Zach, but they just give us plausible deniability. It muddies up the water. So if someone decides to start spreading innuendoes that you and Zach are a couple, there’s his girlfriend and your boyfriend to basically prove that’s not true. If you don’t have a boyfriend, but he has a girlfriend, it’s not as good, but it’s not deadly. If you don’t have a boyfriend, and he’s out banging all kinds of chicks, that still works, but again, it’s not as strong as you both being in a relationship with other people.”

I got what Zach had been talking about before, when he was worried that I’d get sick of these rules and just bail on him. Our eyes locked onto each other, and I could see he was worried about just that. I gave him a gentle smile, to tell him we could work through this. He was worth it.