The Fuck Up

viii.

I was sitting on my couch, staring at the television blankly. I didn’t know how long I’d been sitting there since Harley deposited me there and disappeared in my bedroom. I heard him riffling around, and I normally would have told him to stay the hell away from my stuff, but I felt broken.

He came back into the room softly, padding light steps with his feet so as not to startle me. He was wearing his clothes now; the ones we’d discarded so carelessly the night before. “Reed,” he called gently. He held up the bundle in his hands. “I brought some of your clothes for you.”

I didn’t even acknowledge him, and that made him sigh slightly. He came over to kneel in front of me. I felt his eyes on the side of my face, but not even those intense orbs of his could snap me out of this state of mine. He sighed again before slowly dressing me, lifting my limbs through holes and straightening out wrinkles.

Why was his touch always so fucking gentle?

He inhaled as he got up from his position, plopping down on the couch next to me with an inhale, jostling me. He paused for just a second before slipping his left palm against my right one and linking our fingers. My eyes snapped down to look at our joined hands, as if they were a foreign entity. I don’t think I’d ever held hands with anyone other than my family before then. I should’ve been fighting him. I should’ve been pushing him away, but I was just too damn tired.

After pouring out everything in front of Harley, I felt lost. I’d never bared myself to someone so much, and now he had this. He’d seen the reason I was the way I was, and I couldn’t take that back. We both knew that I was a fuck up for neglecting my brother when he needed me most; I’d put him to the side when I should’ve put him first. And now that I knew I was in the same sexuality boat as he was, I felt like even more of a failure because I should’ve been the person who understood him most.

“I’m not going to turn on you, Reed,” Harley whispered. I was still staring dully at our hands. “Your brother didn’t deserve to hurt as much as he did, but it wasn’t your fault.”

We both knew he was lying.

“You’re hurting, too, Reed,” he continued. “You’re hurting and you’re not healthy. You say people like me destroy people like you, but you’ve actually been destroying yourself. I’m not going to go away and I’m not going to abandon you like you think I am, because I care.”

Shut up, I thought. My inner voice was so small that I almost didn’t hear it. Just shut up. Please.

“I want to help you. I don’t want you to feel alone anymore.”

Why? Why did he care? I was mean. I was cold. I was violent and graphic and rude and insulting and a fuck up.

But I couldn’t ask him anything and I couldn’t push him away either.

I didn’t fight him when he shifted position and pulled me between his legs, resting my back against his chest and holding me in his arms.

Why was he so warm?

His lips swept over my hair, my temple, my cheek, my neck, placing soft, slow kisses on my skin at a pace my pulse tried to match.

“Let me take care of you,” he murmured quietly as his lips brushed behind my ear.

I was helpless to him. He already had me trying to keep up with him even if I thought I didn’t want to.

“Whatever,” I finally muttered, my voice cracking. My voice was almost inaudible and you wouldn’t think he’d hear it but he did.

“You won’t push me away anymore?” he tried to confirm, and I looked down at our hands as he joined them again.

His skin was so soft and so clean; the exact opposite of mine. My hands had seen every different form of an alcohol bottle there could be and were tainted by the dark side of too much liquor. I shrugged lightly in response to his question. It was like I was a baby all over again; a lost soul in need of a guide; a clean slate for anyone to taint. In this case, Harley was the guide I’d latched onto.

Harley was the tainter.

I didn’t believe him when he said he wasn’t going to abandon me, because he would. He didn’t think he would but I knew he would. No matter what, no matter when, no matter how…everyone leaves you.

But despite knowing that, for the next few weeks I followed Harley around like a lost puppy. He stayed at my place, helping me get dressed in the mornings and driving me to work, picking me up when I finished. He found my antidepressants and he wouldn’t let me take them until I let him meet my shrink, who I hadn’t gone to for months.

The two became buddy-buddy apparently, pushing me to visit her more regularly and to take my medication when I was actually supposed to.

Unlike my usual self, I was quiet through all of this. I barely spoke and I let Harley talk for me. At night when I couldn’t sleep, he’d just know somehow that I needed him (even when I didn’t realize I did). He’d hold me silently and we’d just lie there all night.

It was two months before I started to return to some semblance of normal. I hadn’t felt much emotion in the past months, but this sparked the first bit of annoyance in me in a while.

I’d been trying to get a plate from my cupboard (Harley had restocked my kitchen with new utensils and actual food because he claimed “it was only natural”) and Harley being the fucking giant he was placed the plates higher than I could reach.

The plate I wanted ended up slipping from its perch and dropping onto the damn floor, breaking.

“Shit!” I exclaimed loudly at the same time Harley called out my name in panic.

He walked in to see me on my knees trying to clean up the broken fragments, muttering things like, “fucking Harley, fucking plates,” under my breath.

He was astonished. “You swore,” he breathed, causing me to look up at him.

I just stared at him, my hands hovering over the glass.

He let out a short laugh of disbelief and amazement before grinning widely, effectively creeping me the fuck out.

Stop grinning like that, you shit. The irritated words were on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t say them.

Harley then shooed me out of the kitchen and told me he would take care of the glass. The way he babied me sparked more annoyance, but I didn’t comment.

For the next few weeks I started to become irritated more often, swearing more and barking rude words to Harley more frequently. The idiot grinned every time I did.

To say my coworkers were displeased at my return to normalcy would be an understatement. The shitwads had enjoyed my two months of silence, believing that I’d finally left them alone in peace. But when I came back, I came back full force, shocking them and irritating them more than ever.

You’d think that after returning to myself that I’d finally be able to dispose of Harley and forget he ever existed in the same world as I did. But for whatever unknown reason, I didn’t.

When he kissed me I wrinkled my nose, but I didn’t push him away. When he held my hand I didn’t snap at him. When he touched me I barely made a fuss.

Not just my mind, but my body had accepted him far too much to fight him. I never made any first moves, but I didn’t refute his.

A month after I’d snapped out of my weird baby phase, Harley shocked the shit out of me with an unexpected declaration.

“I want to meet your family.”