CJA + ALC

Chapter 14

"Hello, CJ." The greeting is simple, but those two words cause CJ to tense, his grip on my hand tightens. 

"Hello, Harold," CJ replies. His voice is formal and emotionless, his father visibly flinched at the tone. His eyes flicker between CJ and me before landing on our hands. 

"And who is this young gentleman?" He removes his gaze from our hands and looks up at CJ expectantly. CJ looks at me and furrows his eyebrows as if he just remembered that I'm here. 

"This is Ansel, he's my boyfriend," CJ says abruptly after a few moments of thought. 

"It's nice to meet you, I wish they were under certain circumstances." Harold moves his gaze to meet mine for the first time. I only nod, I don't feel like I have a place speaking in this moment, we're here to focus on CJ. "I'm glad that you came to see me, CJ. There's so much I need to apologize for." 

"I know," CJ's tone is sharp now, his dad falls silent. "I could have coped with you ignoring me, you and mom leaving to go to random, exotic places without me, leaving me to go to school and to take care of myself. I could have lived with that. But when mom started hitting me, and you just let it happen and then joined in." CJ lets go of my hand and moved forward toward the bed. "That was what really got to me. The fact that my parents thought me so disgusting and horrible that they could hit me and be okay with it." His voice is rising in anger. "Then mom started leaving less money, less for me to live off of. I had to ration money, find a job so that I could get enough food." 

"I know, and I'm sorry." 

"I'm sorry doesn't cut it. There's nothing that you can do to make up for what you did," CJ takes a deep breath and tries to calm himself. "I didn't come here to talk about the past. The past is done and there's nothing you can do to fix any of it. I came to show you how I am now. To show you that I rose above what you did to me, that I wasn't kept down by it. I'm happy and I've found a life that doesn't involve you. I didn't have to change at all to love my life." 

I can see his shoulders shaking and I move forward to wrap my arms around him. He turns his head to look at me, there are tears in his eyes and his skin is blotchy. I give him a small smile and he offers one back.  

"I know that I can't say or do anything to make it better, I know that I can't explain to you why I did what I did. But I need you to understand that I am sorry, that I wish I had been there to see you grow up to be the man you are now," Harold looks at CJ with a pleading expression.

"I acknowledge that you're sorry. But what you did to me is something that I can't forgive you for," CJ snaps. "Not now or at  any time in the future will I be able to forgive you." I remove my arms from his shoulders and move to stand next to him.

There's a long pause of silence, which is only broken by the gentle sobs coming from the bed. Harold's gray skin now has red splotches on his cheeks, and there are tracks of tears rolling down his face. 

"Goodbye, Harold. I wish you well." CJ nods at his dad and turns around. I follow him out of the room, neither of us look back at the room as we head toward the elevators. I rush forward to catch up to CJ and grab his hand. Once we reach the elevators CJ turns to look at me. 

There are tears in his eyes, making them look bigger than they normally are. CJ licks his lips and moves his eyes from my face to the floor, his shoulders are slumped as if the weight of the whole world has been set on him.

It breaks my heart to see him like this.  I wrap my arms around him and squeeze him, pouring all of my love for him into the embrace. "I love you," I whisper to him. "I love you so much."

"I love you too," his voice is raspy, you can tell he's been crying. "I'm sorry that I dragged you into this. You shouldn't have had to have seen that."

"I wanted to help you with this. This isn't something that anyone should have to go through alone." 

We stand in this embrace until the elevator arrives. When we pull apart I grab his hand. 

There are a few moments of silence until I break it. "We still have two days in Michigan, what do you want to do?"   

"I just want to stay in the hotel for maybe a day, we can go do something tomorrow. Maybe go to a museum or something." 

I nod and we walk out of the waiting room, the nurse that greeted us waves at us as we exit. 

X-X-X-X-X-X

Only four more chapters, I think.

Dunno, man.