A Broken Kind of Life (34 page)

Unfortunately, Spencer had cabin fever and needed to get out of the house, at least for a little while.

“Where?” Aaron asked, looking adorable to Spencer in his oversized gray hoodie. Spencer’s heart broke at the panic radiating in Aaron’s blue eyes, and he smoothed a hand down Aaron’s back. Spencer wanted their destination to be a surprise, so rather than answer, he touched Aaron’s face gently, as if his boyfriend were made of paper, fragile but beautiful. He wanted it to make Aaron feel special and wanted. Aaron stood on tiptoe and covered Spencer’s mouth with his own in a tender kiss. Aaron’s skin was cool, as if he’d already been outside, but his lips were warm when they molded against Spencer’s again and again.

Spencer closed his eyes, shutting out the world, leaving only Aaron. In that moment, he was the sum total of Spencer’s world. It took an effort to open them again when Aaron pulled away just enough to gaze up into Spencer’s face.

“You have to tell me where we are going. I can’t… I can’t deal with it, Please.” Aaron said, his eyes boring into Spencer’s with the intensity of his embarrassed stare.

Spencer traced his fingers along Aaron’s cheek and refrained from sighing. They based their entire relationship on compromise. Keeping his surprise just didn’t outweigh Aaron’s peace of mind.

“It. Is. Okay. I. Packed. Some. Stuff. To. Go. Ice. Skating. At. The. Lake. Behind. My. House. We. Can. Get. Skates. At. That. Sporting. Goods. Place. On. Calumet. I. Do. Not. Know. How. To. Skate. But. I. Want. To. Learn.” Spencer couldn’t keep the hope in his heart from spilling out through his words.

“Don’t you want to finish coding the Facebook app?” Aaron tried to distract him. It nearly worked too. They’d been going over the Facebook specs for week, trying to figure out how to build a companion app on the social networking site, opening up their user base exponentially. They’d finally gotten through their block in the code just a few days before. Spencer loved watching the smile break over Aaron’s face when he figured it out. The light in his eyes, normally hidden by clouds of pain, shone through and lit up his whole face. It warmed Spencer’s soul. Incidentally, that was also the first time they ever tried jacking each other off. Call it euphoria from the technology discovery or just Aaron’s rare buoyant mood, but they’d ended up in Spencer’s bed in the middle of the afternoon. Aaron needed to stop before either of them had come, but it took them another step forward.

Baby steps—measuring your sex life in tiny increments frustrated him, no doubt, but Aaron was important—more important than getting off. His hand worked just fine for that.

“You. Will. Have. A. Scarf. Over. Your. Face. No. One. Will. See. Your. Scar.” Spencer tried to convince Aaron to give them a shot at normalcy for the afternoon.

“I’ll be just like everyone else,” Aaron said slowly and Spencer nodded, unable to let go of the hope. “I know you’re sick of being trapped in the house with me. I’ll try for you.”

“Not. For. Me. For. Us.”

Spencer’s smile spread wide across his face, mirrored after a short delay on Aaron’s face. Aaron had started to have more good days than bad. It made Spencer grateful that today seemed to be a good day, because Aaron’s bad days scared him. He would take good days where he could.

“We. Will. Take. It. Slow.”

“You shouldn’t have to take everything slow because of me. Maybe you should be with a guy you can take out in public, or show off to your friends, or have sex with.” Aaron’s face flushed with his rapid admission, but he didn’t look away. They’d had the argument so many times before. Spencer understood what he sacrificed to be with Aaron, but he also loved what he gained. Aaron wouldn’t magically get better. It would take hard work and a lot of tears, but Aaron understood him in a way Spencer had never known.

“You. See. Me. That. Is. All. I. Have. Ever. Wanted. Everything. Else. We. Will. Figure. Out. I. Want. To. Be. With. You.” Spencer placed a small, chaste kiss on Aaron’s lips and saw Michelle nod out of the corner of his eye. He’d forgotten she was there. Spencer entwined his fingers with Aaron’s and led him toward the front door.

“The. South. Side. Of. The. Lake. Away. From. The. Houses. Is. Pretty. Quiet,” Spencer told Aaron as they pulled out of Aaron’s driveway. He was very careful as he came out onto the main road, because he’d learned not to scare Aaron by hitting the brakes hard. Spencer relearned how to drive by being more careful with his speed, how close he followed someone, anything that might make Aaron nervous. Sometimes, all of the allowances he made frustrated Spencer, but when Aaron kissed him, the soft meeting of their mouths reminded him why.

They pulled into the nearly empty Sportmart parking lot a few minutes later, and Aaron wrapped his scarf more tightly around his face. It wasn’t really that cold, but it gave him an excuse to hide his face. Spencer put a hand on his arm.

“I. Will. Get. Them. What. Size. Do. You. Wear?”

Aaron opened his mouth to protest, but Spencer made a “hurry up” gesture. With a sigh that ruffled the front of his hair, Aaron held up ten fingers and then deflated back against the passenger seat. The relief showed plainly on his tired face.

“You. Okay?” Spencer asked, dropping a hand to Aaron’s leg while his other rested on the door handle. Aaron nodded, and Spencer climbed out of the car with the determination not to take a long time in the store. The automatic doors opened onto a vacant store, and Spencer searched the overhead signs. To his left, a guy in a smock spoke, but was too far away for Spencer to make out what he said. Finally on the third hanging board, Spencer found a listing for skates and, ignoring the clerk who had started waving to get his attention, headed for the aisle. In his peripheral vision, he saw the employee follow. The man caught up by the time he’d reached the section he needed.

“Can I help you?”

Spencer stopped, unable to avoid the man who had blocked the aisle. The guy, maybe in his early thirties, looked like an over-the-hill skate park reject. Long, out of control black hair—dyed if his light brown eyebrows were any indication—tats down his arms, and four earrings in his right ear rounded out the image. His clothes were at least two sizes too big and held up by a skull-covered belt. The black combat boots he wore would have fit in better at a rave than a store.

“Ice. Skates,” Spencer spat, trying to use as few words as possible to convey what he wanted. The fewer words he used, the less embarrassment they would both feel.

“Oh sure, buddy, no problem,” the guy said and turned, midsentence, leading the way to skates Spencer would have found on his own. The store carried maybe half a dozen different kinds. Since Spencer didn’t know a thing about skates, he ignored the salesman all together and started looking for the sizes he and Aaron needed.

Rather than taking the hint, however, the sales guy began taking boxes out of Spencer’s hands and setting them aside. Spencer snatched back the last two boxes and glared at him.

“What. The. Hell. Dude?” Spencer asked right into the guy’s face.

“You’re not listening. I said those are competition skates. You don’t look like a figure skater. If you’re just doing casual skating, you want these….” His expression grew more exasperated with each word, and it appeared to Spencer that he only kept from rolling his eyes for the sake of corporate policy.

Spencer’s cheeks flamed as his temper rose, not at the guy, but at himself. Had he just paid attention rather than having to do everything himself, he could have avoided the confrontation. He couldn’t even count the number of times his father chided him for never asking for help. The deep breath he took calmed the anger and frustration to a tolerable level before he answered, “Sorry. Thanks,” and dug through the boxes for a ten and twelve. It took another minute for him to ask, slowly, where to find thick socks in case the skates didn’t quite fit. His anger had nearly subsided when he returned to the car, to Aaron.

“I could have gone in with you,” Aaron told him as he fastened his seat belt, and realized he’d been mumbling about the clerk.

“I. Just. Need. To. Learn. To. Ask. For. Help,” Spencer admitted, and to his surprise, Aaron laughed. For a moment, Spencer longed to hear it, but then set the thought aside.

“Don’t you tell me that all the time?”

Spencer smirked at Aaron’s question, chagrined. He did tell Aaron quite often that it was okay to ask for help. Instead of answering, he leaned over and kissed Aaron lightly.

It took less than fifteen minutes to get back to his subdivision, but rather than turning up the street which led to his house, Spencer continued on to a much smaller side street, one that was barely a street at all. Overhung with low, snow-covered branches, it looked more like a winter tunnel than a road. The world shifted around them in crisp hues of white on white outside their windows. The small parking area at the end of the road contained exactly one car, which sat idling in the lot with billows of steam rising from the exhaust. Aaron’s leg tensed under Spencer’s fingers as they approached, but the car backed smoothly from its spot and the cheery teenage girls inside waved and giggled at them as they passed.

When he parked, Aaron climbed out of the car and looked around, his shoulders relaxed, and the stillness of the snow seemed to calm him. The lake was more of a large pond, and since the temperature had been below zero for the last week, Spencer figured it to be pretty well frozen to the bottom, but he checked the battery on his cell phone just in case.

Spencer’s father had never taken him skating on this, or any other lake. While they’d gone to the park, or playgrounds in his youth, they never did anything his father would have to actively participate in. He simply sat on the sidelines reading while Spencer tried his best to play with the other kids. At first, when he was very young, his deafness wasn’t an issue to other kids. They accepted him as a little different and played anyway. When he got to school, however, he started to learn to like spending time alone. Aaron gave him the chance to play again.

“You. Okay?” Spencer asked as Aaron stood almost as still as the frozen air around them. After grabbing the bags from the trunk, he took Aaron’s hand and led him to the picnic tables along the side of the lake.

“What’s in the other bag?” Aaron asked as Spencer unpacked their skates.

“A. Bunch. Of. Muffins. And. A. Thermos. Of. Hot. Chocolate.” He dropped the skates and socks onto the bench and wrapped his arms around Aaron. “I. Like. This. Already.”

“I like it too.” Aaron pressed his lips to Spencer’s, sharing leisurely kisses like they had all the time in the world to spend at the lake. Spencer liked the warmth and security of Aaron’s arms as they held him, his hand rubbing lightly up and down Spencer’s back. The kisses were soothing, and loving, and just… sweet, but Spencer couldn’t stop his body from turning them into something more intimate as he rubbed against Aaron’s growing bulge.

“Sorry,” Spencer said immediately and tried to discreetly adjust himself in his jeans. The fear in Aaron’s face tightened Spencer’s heart. They’d talked about sex, somewhat awkwardly, after sessions with his father. Aaron had admitted he had no idea if he’d ever be able to have a normal sexual relationship. In fact, he’d only been able to jerk off a couple of times without freaking out. The thought of getting naked with someone, even someone he trusted, paralyzed him. So, they never forced the issue, choosing instead to celebrate small steps he took to gain his life back.

“Don’t be sorry. You should be allowed to kiss your boyfriend without him freaking out,” Aaron said. A strange look, one of almost pure pain, passed over his face before he spoke again. “In fact, I hope you still do that online chat thing, so that you can have at least some kind of sex while you’re stuck with me.” He looked away, and Spencer couldn’t tell if he’d said anything else, but it didn’t matter.

“I. Do. Not. Do. That. Any. More. Not. Since. You. And. I. Kissed. That. First. Time, And. I. Had. Everything. I. Wanted. Right. In. Front. Of. Me. Talking. About. Sex. With. Other. Guys. Was. Meaningless. Then.”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to give you what you want.”

He hated the pain in Aaron’s eyes. So many times he wished he could take it all away. Maybe his dad was right, and Aaron might never get any better. Spencer would never trade what he had with Aaron for a meaningless sexual relationship with someone else.

“I. Told. You. Before. Aaron. All. I. Want. Is. You.”

Aaron pulled away and for a minute, Spencer watched, wondering if Aaron would go back to the car. Instead, he just looked at Spencer.

“What?” Spencer finally asked when the silence had gone on too long.

“I’ve been looking up signs on the Internet to go along with the ones you and your dad have been teaching me. There’s one I want to show you,” he said, and pulled off his gloves. His face flushed, and Spencer couldn’t imagine what sign he could have found that would make him blush like that.

“It. Means. A. Lot. That. You. Wanted. To. Learn. I. Would. Love. To. See.”

Aaron held up his right hand, tucking the ring and middle fingers toward his palm, while his thumb, pinky, and forefinger stayed out. All the air seemed to leave Spencer’s chest in a whoosh, and he saw nothing on Aaron’s face in that instant except light and love… and hope, with no trace of the usual fear.

“Oh,” Spencer said on an exhale, not sure he could trust himself to speak. Aaron’s smile faltered and Spencer took his hand and held it over his own heart.

“I. Love. You. Too. Aaron. So. Much.”

A
SURVIVOR
of the ex-gay residential institution The Sunshine Center, fictional author Jamie Mayfield went on to find his voice in novels. Always a great lover of books, Jamie found his passion as he began to pursue a liberal arts degree in creative writing. An avid reader, he’s a fan of gay romance, suspense, and horror—though not all in the same novel.

Jamie lives in San Diego with his fictional husband, Brian. He writes YA fiction as a way to let kids know that they have an entire LGBT family all around them. Above all, he wants them to know that they are not alone. It does get better.