Here We Are (boyxboy)

Here We Are part 9

I was moved from the ICU the next day, to a closet-sized room without a window.

I sighed and turned my head to Lucas, who hadn’t left my side for a moment. Mrs. T had been bringing him clothes and food.

“When do I get out of here?”

He kissed my fingers. “Tomorrow. Now quit whining and let’s go for a walk.”

I rolled my eyes. “You mean a hobble?” I’d been practicing walking on my crutches lately. Normally it wouldn’t be hard, but I’d had to figure out how to do it with minimal movement to my ribs. I’d gotten pretty good at it, actually.

Lucas carefully helped me sit up, then reached for my crutches where they were leaning against a chair. He tucked them under my arms and opened the door.

We meandered through the halls, smiling at the babies in maternity and sneaking cupcakes from the nurses’ station. When Lucas noticed me lagging and my forehead wrinkling from pain, he borrowed a wheelchair from a hallway and wheeled me all the way back to my room, despite my protests.

I must have been exhausted, because I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

                I woke up to a hand shaking my shoulder.

“Theo! Theo, wake up!”

I groaned. I wasn’t ready to wake up.

“Theo!” Finally I conceded and slowly opened my eyes. Lucas was leaning over me, Mrs. Thomason standing next to him. Both of them had oddly fierce expressions of happiness on their faces.

“What’s going on?”

Mrs. Thomason smiled. “They caught him,” she whispered. “They caught your dad. He’s at the county jail now.”

My breath hitched and my hands unconsciously clenched. My dad… he was in jail. Jail. Lucas placed his hand on my shoulder. “You won’t ever have to see him again,” he murmured.

“No,” I said, surprising myself. “No. I want to see him. I get out today, right? I want to see him today.”

Lucas and his mom exchanged a look. “But Theo, honey, don’t you think you should wait, give yourself some time to recover?” Mrs. Thomason soothed.

I shook my head. “No. I need to see him today.” My voice was flat and left no room for protest.

Finally Lucas nodded. “Okay, Theo. I’ll get Dr. Lewis.”

Before I knew it, we were in a taxi, speeding away from the hospital towards the jail. Mrs. Thomason took my hand.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Theo?” she asked softly. “It won’t be easy.”

I swallowed and nodded. “I have to.”

The driver pulled up at the jail, and Lucas helped me out of the cab as Mrs. T handed me my crutches. I tucked them under my arms and started up the steps. We walked through the doors and across the tile floor, the crutches clicking on every step.

Mrs. T spoke to the policeman at the desk for a few minutes, then he nodded and motioned for us to follow him down a hallway. He led us down hallway after white hallway before stopping at a large metal door. He held it open as we walked in.

Inside was a table, two chairs, and a long wall with a metal booth in the middle. The booth had a stool and a telephone, and a thick plastic window that showed an identical setup on the other side of the wall.

I sat down on the stool and laid my crutches on the floor next to me.  I had been shaking the whole ride here, but now I was calm. I knew what had to be said.

A few minutes passed, then a door on the other side of the window opened and my father, dressed in a beige jumpsuit and flanked by two beefy guards, stepped out and sat on the stool. The guards stepped back and crossed their arms, their eyes never leaving my dad.

I picked up the phone and he mirrored me, hate etched in every facet of his face. He opened his mouth to speak, but I held up a hand.

“Don’t. “ His mouth dropped.

“You hate me. You can’t stand the sight of me. I disgust you. I am nothing to you. Nothing but a worthless, skinny, failure of a son. But dad? You disgust me. I can’t stand the sight of you. I hate you. You are a worthless, dead-end, failure who will go nowhere in life.

You only ever wanted Daniel- I knew that. But what I didn’t know was that I would never be good enough. Even when you used me, used me as a replacement for mom, used me as a punching bag, even when you sucked every last bit of happiness and life out of me, that I would never be enough.  But now I realize that I don’t need you. You are no longer part of my life. You are not my dad anymore. Goodbye.”

                I hung up the phone, picked up my crutches, and walked out, feeling lighter than I had in years.

I held it together the whole ride home, and all the way up the stairs to Lucas’s room. But when I sat down on the bed, I lost it.

I screamed, I cried, I swore, I punched and hit and threw pillows.

Lucas stood by and watched it all until I collapsed on my side, tears streaming silently down my cheeks.

He walked over, lifted me up, and carried me to the bathroom He stood behind me, his arms wrapped around my waist to hold me up.

“Look in the mirror,” he whispered in my ear. I obeyed, staring at myself in the glass.

“What do you see?”

I swallowed. I saw a short, skinny, pale boy with dark hair. A broken, bruised, battered body. I looked at the reflection of my face. My lip was split, I had a bruise on my cheek, and a cut on my temple. But I was there.  I wasn’t just a ghost, occupying space that no one saw. I was… real. I was alive.

 “Me.”

Lucas gently wiped the tears away. “You aren’t invisible anymore.”

My lip trembled and I turned around, tilting my head up to look at Lucas.

“I love you,” I said fervently. “I love you.”

He bent his head and kissed me, hard, his hands cradling my head. His tongue swept over my lips, parting them open, then thrust his tongue inside. I locked my arms around his neck and he picked me up, carrying me back to his room and laying me as gently as he could on the bed, never breaking our kiss.

I slipped my hands inside his shirt, running them up his sculpted chest, and he broke away, panting.

“Are you sure?”

My eyes flickered over his face. “Yes. More sure than I’ve been of anything in my life.”

He bent his head back to mine with a groan, silencing me with a kiss.