J. Salsbury - Fighting to Forget

This isn’t Rex.

His eyes are cold, dead like the glimpses I’ve seen before, but this is different. He’s looking at me like I’m a stranger, an unwelcome visitor who’s here to steal everything he cares about.

Isn’t that exactly what I am?

A small voice in my head says I’m worse. I’m the enemy. I broke into Rex’s life, and like a thief, I robbed his peace to covet as my own. My palms sweat and I break out in teeth-chattering chills.

He’s right. I’m no worse than my parents.

“Get out.” His voice is low and menacing.

I scoot backwards until my back hits the glass. “I’m not leaving you like this.”

“I said get out!” His shout echoes off the tiled walls.

He jumps up, and I take the few seconds to check his naked body for other wounds. His chest is scratched up along with his inner thighs, but it seems as if his arms and neck got the worst. He snags a towel off the rack and wraps it around his body. The white immediately turns pink in places from his blood, but he doesn’t seem concerned.

He stares me down and I scramble on the wet floor to stand. “I promise I’ll leave if you give me five minutes to explain.”

He stalks toward me, arms flexed, fists balled tight. “I don’t want to hear a thing you have to say. Ever.”

He leaves the bathroom, and I follow him into the part of his condo with a bed. He reaches into a drawer and pulls out a pair of pajama pants, sliding them on.

Ignoring me, he manages to completely avoid my existence.

I swallow and stand tall, a little cold and very confused. What happened in the shower? He let me hold him and sing to him, but now he wants me to leave?

I can’t. I’m too weak to live without him, not strong enough to let him go.

And even though he says he doesn’t care what I have to say, he’s going to fucking hear it before I get my ass dragged out of here in handcuffs.

“Five minutes. Can you give me that?”

His eyes work back and forth between mine, but he doesn’t say anything.

“My parents were hideous people. You think I’m just as bad as them, but I didn’t know what they were doing until after you left.” I take a step closer and he spears me with a glare. “The box. Our secret. Do you remember?”

Recognition flashes through his turbulent aqua stare.

“I found the box. Once I realized the”—I shake my head, even now unable to speak the words—“abuse, I confronted my parents, Rex. I buried the box in my backyard so they couldn’t destroy it, and then I threatened to go to the cops with what I knew.” A shiver of terror races up my spine, remembering my parents’ idea of punishment. To this day I have no idea how long I was locked in that closet with nothing but a bucket and a box of cereal. “They spooked, locked me up in a closet and ran. Mexico or Canada, I have no idea. They just . . . left.”

His eyebrows drop low, and I can’t tell if it’s concern or distrust he’s feeling.

Either way, he’s quiet and listening. “It was dark and silent for so long, and then one day I heard noises like my house was being ransacked. Men, a few of them, were yelling back and forth, tossing furniture, looking for something. And then they found it. They found me.”

“Who?” His voice shakes with apprehension or emotion; it’s impossible to read.

“The man responsible for your abuse. The man my parents worked for.” I swallow hard, so scared to finally offload the secret I’ve been lugging around since that summer day that changed my life. My eyes burn and fill with tears, and my chest cramps to hold back the punishing blow. But we’ve come this far, and I have nothing else to lose.

“Rex, it was your father.”

Rex

Impossible. She’s lying. She has to be. Everything about her is a lie: her black hair, fake eyes, and made-up stories about finding peace.

She’s not my Gia.

She’s a con artist.

I want her the hell out of my life. “Fuck you.”

She winces. “Rex, listen to what I’m saying.” Her eyes are wide, perfecting her dramatic performance. “Your biological father—”

“Get out of my house.” My teeth grind until they ache, eyes burn with barely concealed rage.

She shakes her head and drops her chin. “You don’t believe me.”

“Why would I? You’ve lied about everything since the day we met.” I move toward her, ready to shake her or throw her ass out.

She jumps but doesn’t waver from her firm stance before me. “I know things have been hard for—”

“You think you know what I’ve been through? Because you read a few fucking scraps of paper?”

“No, if you’d let me—”

“You’ve done enough.” The fingers of the past slide up my back and circle my neck. My lungs constrict, stomach lurches. I rip my hands through my hair. “I can feel them.” Hands everywhere. Groping. “I can smell them . . . on my skin . . . in the air. I’ll never be free of this.” I can’t breathe. Get them off. Leave me alone.

I throw my fist. Glass shatters. The burn of torn flesh bites into my knuckles. I’m panting, fighting for breath past the flooding memories. The mirror above my dresser lies in a shimmering pile.

I brace my weight against my dresser and drop my head. Dried blood on my arms, fresh blood on my fists. I’m not that boy anymore. I’m not.

“Rex.” She sniffles through her whispered call.

I ball my fists to keep my hands off her. I can’t hit a woman. I won’t.

My head tilts and I spear her with a glare. “Get. Out!”

She crosses her arms at her chest, curls into herself, and shivers as tears stream down her face. The T-shirt I wore to her house is draped over her body, wet and clinging. Dark hair is plastered to her neck and shoulders.

She’s so different from the little girl of my memories. I’ll never see her as anything else but the hand that brought me through hell, the hand that kept me company but never pulled me from the flames.

Sadness whips through me. “I want you to turn around and walk the hell out of my life. I never want to see your face again.”

Her tears fall faster, but she faces off with a stubborn lift of her chin. “We meant something to each other once.”

“No. Gia meant something to me, but she’s dead, replaced by this”—I roam my eyes from her face to her feet and back in disgust—“lying, selfish bitch.”

She folds from the verbal blow, grips her stomach, and a sob rips from her throat.

“Forget you knew me.” I push off from the dresser and head back to the bathroom. “I’ll sure as shit forget I knew you.”

When my bare feet hit the tiled bathroom floor, I hear her whisper, “I don’t want to forget.” I slam the door behind me, hoping like hell she gets the fuck out so I never have to see her again.

~*~

Mac

I’m overcome with the urge to run. I struggle to take a full breath as the enormity of what’s happened sinks in.

He’s leaving me again.

My heart cramps so badly I grip at my chest. I can’t breathe, think, move, but everything in me begs for escape from the devastation. I need to put distance between me and the only person who’s ever been able to hurt me, the only person who’s owned my heart so completely I’m not sure it’ll survive without him.

Rex is right. Gia is dead. She died the day vengeance took over. Mac was born from necessity and kept alive by hope. I scrub my hands through my hair. God, what did I think would happen when he found out? I was in too far, expected too much.

All I wanted to do was make up for letting him down by telling him everything I know, gift him the answers to his questions, fill in the blanks of his past.

But instead, I did it again. Being a part of his life is what turned him into this: bloody, crying, broken.

I move through his condo like a ghost, not feeling my feet or aware of my body at all. The ride home is a blur of headlights and street signs as my thoughts are left behind with Rex. By the time I pull into my garage, I know what I have to do. I move through my house on autopilot, and within a few hours, I’m showered and dressed in warm, comfortable clothes.

Peace washes over me as I pull up my bed covers and place the pillows in a tidy row at the top. Rex ripped open old wounds, exposed his fears, and gave me everything he had to give. I relive the tender moments, our bodies bared and pressed together, giving, taking, loving. Tears burn my eyes as I force myself to leave the memories here. There’s no place for them where I’m going.

I pack the metal box full of his writings and the bear. His bag still sits in my chair across the room. With no use for it, I slide the rusted metal container in with his belongings and zip it up. I gave him back as much of his past as he’d allow, and what he chooses to do with it is up to him.

Adrenaline should be racing through my veins with what I’m about to do, the unknown as scary as it is liberating. And yet, I feel nothing. I shove as much as I can fit into a backpack and scratch out a quick note to Trix with a check for next month’s rent.

My entire life has been about seeking redemption, giving Rex everything I had, all the information about his past so that he could put to rest his questions. I failed.

It’s time to move on.

Maybe he’ll forget; time will heal the damage I’ve caused. His happiness means more to me than my own, and if he can find that without me in his life, I can die at peace with my demons, finally released from a lifetime of guilt.

I throw my leg over my bike and fire up the engine.

Without looking back, I take to the open road with nothing to keep my company but my thoughts and the growl of the engine. Leaving my past behind me, I say goodbye to Las Vegas forever.

Rex

“I don’t know, Rex. Are you sure it’s a good idea to fight tonight?” Darren studies me, looking for something he doesn’t seem to find.

After Mac left, or after I kicked her out, I called Darren, leaving message after message. Finally at five a.m. he called me back. I’ve been sitting on his living room couch for two hours, going over all the memories that are still flooding in. He’s listened, comforted, and sat silently with me.

For years, we’ve dissected my dreams, lack of memory, and compulsions. This is the kind of breakthrough he always hoped for. Too bad the triumph in psychology feels like being eaten alive from the inside out.

I’m drained, but I can’t sleep. I’m not hungry. I feel nothing. Numb all over and distant. Like an out of body experience I’m watching from someone else’s perspective.

“I have to fight. Can’t let down the UFL.” My words sound robotic. “They’re all I’ve got.”

He nods. “You’ve had an unimaginable few days, making breakthroughs only to . . .” He shakes his head then rubs his eyes. “Fuck, I’m sorry.” Clearing the emotion from his throat, he sniffs and meets my eyes. “You’ve got me too.”

Yeah, and as much as I know those words are heartfelt, they’re white noise in my ears. I can’t pull up a reaction to them.

“I better go.” I push up from the couch and move to the door like a vapor, there in one aspect, completely gone in another, a body with no life.

He tells me to call if I need anything and that I should meet him at the office tomorrow. I don’t know why. He’s heard all that I know. The past is back; my memories are released from the mental vault I’d had them stored.

Now what?

Can healing ever be found for a boy who was abandoned by his mother and given as a sex toy to adult men only to end up in a group home with not a single person to call family?

Not even close to being ready to answer that question, I move through the day as I should. Back at my condo, I clean up the broken glass and straighten my room. Order is dependable. Cleanliness on the outside covers the dirt that infiltrates my insides.

A hot shower later and I’m staring at a full cup of protein shake. I have to put something in my stomach, or I’ll get destroyed in the fight. My camp needs this win. They depend on me. I pinch my eyes closed and open my throat, throwing back a healthy gulp. My stomach revolts against the intrusion and I gag. I force myself to finish it and pray that it stays down.