Who You Are to Me - 1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I stared, shocked – no, horrified – at the scene playing out before me. John, my John, glaring at me with passion blazing in his crystal blue eyes, his beautiful mouth red and kiss-swollen. His arms were wrapped around someone… another man. Another man who was staring back at me with a kind of dazed expression on his face.

“John?” My voice was barely more than a whisper. “John, what…?”

“Get out, Cameron,” he shouted. “Get out of here!”

I started backpedaling. I’d never seen that look in his eyes before. “I don’t under-“

“Get Out!”

I turned, fumbling with the door handle, and ran out of the room. Up the stairs, two at a time, until I reached our bedroom. Only it wasn’t anymore. It was theirs now, I was sure of it. I grabbed one of the large suitcases under the bed and yanked it out, tossing it on the bed and ripping the zip open. I turned to the large dresser that held my clothes…

It was empty. A quick scan of the other drawers proved the same. I raced to the walk-in closet that held our suits, his and mine, and threw the doors open. Empty as well. I forgot about the suitcase as I ran into the hallway. Where were my clothes?

The answer was at the foot of the stairway. In my haste, first to greet my lover after two week’s absence and then to escape his inexplicable anger, I’d run right past the set of designer luggage standing by the bottom stair, mute witness to the crumbling of my whole world.

I came back down slowly, my eyes never leaving the black leather cases. This was it, then. Kicked out. Part of me wanted to shut down while another part wanted to scream at the injustice of it all. Why? What had I done? What hadn’t I done? John… he knew what this would do to me. He was there the first time it happened – had held my splintered pieces together, whispering reassurances that he would help me through the pain. Who would help me now?

As I got to the bottom stair I heard someone clear their throat delicately. Randolph, John’s valet, stood immobile by the front door. I searched his eyes for something – anything – to tell me what was going on and got a cold, blank stare in return. Randolph and I had never been friendly, but this… standoffishness… This was new. I opened my mouth to speak and noticed a barely perceptible shake of the head.

I nodded, picked up the cases and headed for the front door. Randolph held it open for me. Outside in the drive was the car I’d only just roared up in, eager to greet my lover. I remembered barely checking to see if the door had closed when I ran up the front steps, I was in that much of a hurry.

I could take the car. It was mine – had been before John and I had… Best to leave that thought alone. I plodded down the stairs, opened the trunk and dropped the suitcases in haphazardly on top of the carryall and case I’d brought back with me. As I closed the lid, I looked back at the house. Randolph stood in the doorway, as though guarding against my possible intrusion. The idea brought a twist of pain to my already bludgeoned heart. I squared my shoulders, looked him in the eye and said, “Thank you for everything, Randolph. Take care.”

A fleeting look of surprise passed over his features and was gone. I nodded again, opened the car door and climbed inside. As I pulled away I glanced in the rearview mirror just in time to see John step outside and watch me go.

While I drove my mind whirled with images of what had happened. I’d only just gotten back from a conference in DC. Throughout the long drive (I was terrified of planes) all I could think of was how good it would be to be home again and what would be waiting for me when I got there. The reality was vastly different than what I’d pictured.

I drove mindlessly for a while and then finally realized I was an accident waiting to happen. Taking the next exit, I searched for a motel and pulled in to the first one I spotted.

The woman behind the desk was pleasant enough, I think. My mind wasn’t cataloguing things properly. I took the key she gave me and wandered off the find my room, oblivious to where I was headed. When I eventually returned to my senses, I found myself back in the parking lot, room key in hand, staring helplessly at the trunk of my car and wondering why it wouldn’t open. How could he do this to me? Why was he doing this to me?

The drunken carousing of a group of college-aged boys brought me up short. I was an expensively-dressed, not unattractive male in a seedier section of the city. Standing poleaxed in a parking lot was just asking for something dangerous to happen. I grabbed my suitcases, relocked the car and went to properly search for my room.

Once inside, I stopped to look around. Clean sheets, carpeting showing recent vacuum tracks. It was surprisingly well-kept for this section of town. I stripped off my suit, defiantly leaving it in a heap on the floor, and padded to the brightly-lit bathroom. The large mirror was clean, although it had a crack running diagonally across one corner, and the tub and tile gleamed whitely. The shower curtain had seen better days but it wasn’t mildewed and the towels, though clean, were a little threadbare and faded. I ran a hot bath and immersed myself in the steaming water.

I’d purposely left my shaving kit in the other room. Memories of the last time – ones I’d thought long gone – passed through my mind as I lay in the stinging hot bath. I knew when I felt like this the further I was away from sharp objects, the better. The water temperature gradually dropped to somewhere near bearable and I finally let the tears fall.

Long, gut-wrenching sobs later I wiped my face, the heat of the water sapping my strength. As tempting as it was to let it all ebb away, I pushed myself upright, pulled the plug and turned the shower on cold.

The shock stopped my lungs from functioning for a moment. I ducked my head under the spray and then climbed out, wishing for all the world that John was there, wrapping a towel around me and pressing me close to his body. Unbidden, an image of my lover – ex-lover – in the arms of a stranger entered my head. I shivered, but not from the shower.

I scrubbed myself down, using two of the inadequate towels, and made my way over to the bed, dropping wearily on the mattress. I couldn’t sleep, though. Not yet. First, I had to figure out what I was going to do.

I knew if I was going to preserve what was left of my dignity that I’d have to leave. At least, I’d have to leave the area we lived in. Pittsburgh wasn’t a small place, but still… even knowing that John was in the same state as I was and I couldn’t see him…

My mind ticked over, searching for clues, indicators that this was coming. I’d spoken to him on the phone before I left and he’d seemed fine. He said he was going to miss me terribly and that he couldn’t wait until I got back. I hadn’t been able to phone as often as I wanted to, but that wasn’t anything new. By the second week he’d sounded almost… distant… but when I asked, he’d said he was just preoccupied. Now that I thought about it, when I’d phoned yesterday morning, Randolph had answered. I’d been surprised at the time, but not overly concerned. It sometimes happened that way, although John usually waited for my call and then answered the phone himself – usually with raunchy suggestions. Not this time, though. Even though it was the middle of the afternoon when I’d phoned, Randolph said John was sleeping.

For the first time, I wondered if he’d been sleeping alone.

When we’d first started going out, John had told me of his insecurities. About how he thought it would look for a man in his late teens to be seeing a much older man. It had taken ages to convince him that I didn’t care how old he was – I loved his heart, his soul and his mind. It wasn’t as though he’d let his body go, either. He was still at least as fit as I was, and I visited the gym three times a week. In fact, after I moved in with him, that night so long ago when I found myself practically abandoned and homeless, he’d brought my spirits up by swimming circles around me in his private pool. I’d finally managed to assure him I wasn’t going to take off with someone closer to my own age and then I find him in the arms of someone who is just that.

And now I was practically abandoned and homeless again.

The depression and guilt assaulted me in a fresh wave and I collapsed against the pillow, bawling like a newborn baby. I curled up in a ball on the worn coverlet, still naked, and howled my anguish into flattened pillow underneath my head. When I was all cried out, I slept.