You Don’t See Me - 8. Chapter 8

“There were two boys. Hunter and Michael.”

Michael

He sat on his sofa—more accurately, Ford’s sofa—and watched the late night news but hadn’t been able to catch onto a single event. It all whirled past his eyes, but nothing registered inside his brain, which had, in some sense, shut down since learning the news of his brother. Brother—the word spun around in his head as he tried to orient himself around it. What did it mean to have a brother? Now he knew.

Michael’s biological mother was a drug addict and alcoholic. She tried to be good throughout her pregnancy with him, and was able to remain relatively sober once the main source of bad influence, aka his biological father, was out of sight and out of mind, aka in prison. His father had been a bum all his life, as far as Michael knew. He couldn’t remember it of course, having never met the man, he could only go off of what he’d been told. He wasn’t horrifically abusive to his mother, not in the way Michael saw on TV at times. He was just stupid—the years of drug and alcohol abuse having eaten away at his brain. Eventually he was given a prison sentence for exposing himself to an underage girl at a public park, and there, he met his demise through a plastic toothbrush sharpened into a shiv, as it turned out there was a code of ethics even amongst criminals.

When Michael was born, he was a healthy baby. But his father’s death sent his mother back into a spiral, and after numerous visits from CPS, Michael was taken into the system and eventually put up for adoption. He ended up with a kind Christian family who already had two kids. His life had been relatively nice, although he always felt a bit like an outsider. His parents had been upfront with him about the adoption. And when he turned 18 the adoption agency passed on a letter from his biological mother, with her address and phone number, in case he wanted to meet her. Curiosity got the best of him, and he reached out. He had heard about people reuniting with their families, maybe it would be an amazing, life changing experience. Maybe he’d gain a second mother. Disappointment was an understatement to describe what he felt when the meeting finally took place.

His biological mother was sober, at last. But like many recovering addicts, she didn’t miraculously become better. She just traded in one addiction for another. Jesus portraits and religious paintings covered the walls like a collage, while little statuettes littered her shelves and any furniture with a clean surface. She rambled on incoherently, and quoted bible verses where possible, while petting Michael and telling him what a polite young man he grew into. No thanks to you, he wanted to interject, but he didn’t want to be a reason for her relapse. After an appropriate period of time, he released himself from her clutch and walked towards the front door as fast as he could, promising her he’d come back to visit, but knowing he never would. He ran outside and cried from shame and relief, then ran back home, thanking God for his adoptive parents all the way.

For the next year she continued to obsessively call and send letters and cards, and cheap little knick knacks that made his stomach turn. She didn’t know anything about him, and he would never give her the chance to learn. Finally, when he told her he was gay, the calls stopped. She told him he had to get right with God, or she wouldn’t be able to continue being in his life. He sighed with relief.

He went to college and started taking writing and acting classes. He would become an actor, and then he’d write his own screenplays. He took a bartending job at a local gay bar in Miami—a job which he was terrible at—and one night a man walked in. Not any man, the most handsome man he’d ever seen. An instant, crazy, undeniable attraction. A stop-you-in-your-tracks moment. And the wildest part of it all was that it was reciprocated. He went back to the man’s hotel room that night, and they did things Michael had only dreamt and fantasized of doing up until then. But in the early hours of the morning, reality hit. The handsome man didn’t live in Miami, he was here on business. Michael’s world came crashing down. Would he be back? Yes, he said. For Michael, he would. And so a quick romance began. Michael had told him all about his dreams and aspirations, and eventually Ford brought him into this beautiful loft one day and cheerfully exclaimed, “It’s yours!” But it wasn’t his, not really. It wasn’t in his name, and he could be kicked out of here at a moment’s notice. And it came with rules, many rules. But the most important one, “no men”. No men of any kind. No men of any kind ever. Not allowed, you’re mine, Ford said. Michael thought it was sweet then, but now he saw Ford for who he truly was, and strangely enough, he loved him even more for it.

Love, yes, despite all the deception, and there was a lot of it. The faint white line on his wedding finger for example, contrasting with the rest of his tan skin. When Michael noticed it for the first time, his heart stopped. But he didn’t say anything. If he waited, maybe everything would solve itself. Who was Ford married to? Who did he love? Questions he couldn’t get answers too, so he started writing. He started writing their story, the way he imagined it. His marriage was terrible, unhappy, that’s why he was stepping out. His husband was insufferable, rich, and spoiled, living in a million dollar house but never content, never happy. At first, Michael detested him. Then, midway through the story, he felt himself turn into him. Both their strings being pulled by one man. But Michael wouldn’t give him up—he couldn’t. He finished the screenplay and sent it off, he wanted to see what Ford would say about it. If he’d be able to recognize Michael’s writing. He didn’t anticipate that the man would never see the screenplay, of course. And he didn’t realize what it all revealed about the things he already knew, but wasn’t yet aware of.

But now as he sat on the couch, he began laughing, because it all made sense. The loop, the random crossing of two things which are the same. He laughed to himself manically. There it was, the harsh truth. Hunter, that was his brother’s name the PI had said. “There were two boys. Hunter and Michael,” he said. Hunter was born six years before Michael. The baby was born addicted to heroin, and underwent a period of withdrawal. But because of the state’s laws at the time, keeping the baby with the mother was a priority, so after the doctors and nurses helped save the child, he was given back into the hands of the woman who claimed she would get clean and sober and start attending AA meetings. The baby turned into a toddler, and the toddler began to display signs of attachment issues, or so the social worker noted during one of her many visits. Eventually, when he turned up at the hospital with a broken arm and severely underweight, he was taken into the foster system. But by then, he was already a difficult child, and everyone wanted pristine babies—clean slates they would mold into something they could be proud of. So he bounced from foster home to foster home until he completely disappeared off the grid at 15, most likely finding himself living on the street.

Michael would never have known or suspected, if it wasn’t for his biological mother falling off the wagon once again and leaving him a drunken birthday voicemail. Except it wasn’t his birthday, and his name wasn’t Hunter. He had reached out to the PI right after that, knowing something was off. Knowing there was something he was missing about his biological family. And then, once he was told he had a brother, somehow, Michael knew the truth right away. It all clicked into place, and he didn’t need a detective to tell him any more. But now that it was confirmed, he wasn’t sure how he felt. His stomach seized in a spasm, and he took a deep breath. Hunter, that was his brother’s name.