FIRE AND ICE: BOOK II: CHAPTER 5: THE FACTS OF LIFE EXPOSED Part 5

DREW:

He hasn’t said a word since I sent off the recordings. He’s just sitting there in the red chair, not saying or doing anything. The thing that’s freaking me out is I can’t figure out what he’s upset at. Is it Deb? Or was it my actions during and after the call that pissed him off? Maybe he’s just taking the time to process, but that usually involves a lot of queening as only Em can do, and bucket loads of tears. It has me in a quandary, because like Brian, I’m a fixer. But I can’t fix what’s wrong if I don’t truly know what’s broken. I know that while those particular chairs are occupied, we’re not supposed to have any type of communication until the other is ready, but Em’s silence is killing me with every tick of the clock in the corner. Emmett is the most expressive man I know, and for him to not say anything… for him to not DO anything is incredibly disconcerting.

My cell phone rings, and oddly I’m grateful for the break in the lull of nothingness this villa has suddenly become. My relief is short-lived as the one person on the phone is the one I do NOT want to speak to. “What the hell do you want?”

“Well obviously I want to speak to Emmett,” comes the fingernails-on-a-blackboard whine, mixed with a hint of ‘duh’. “He’s not answering his phone, so can you put him on?”

“Emmett is unavailable right now.”

“Well get him! This is important! Whatever he’s doing with you is NOT!”

“You don’t get to call my fucking phone and think you can order me around, Twerp!”

“I just called to speak to MY friend! Why are you so threatened by that?!”

I laugh for the first time all day, but it’s laced with bitterness and abject hatred for this intrusive little man. “The day I become threatened by you in any way, shape, form, or fashion is the day I go to the doctor and request a fucking sex change. YOU are nothing to be scared of, Michael, and I think it’s time you realize that. But I can’t help you; that’s what your therapist is for, so I suggest you make an appointment with him as soon as possible so that you can begin to tell facts from your own fucking FICTION! Don’t call my phone anymore, and definitely don’t call Emmett’s, unless you want me to search high and low on this island to find you and make you swallow the goddamn things!” I hang up the phone, fuming at the nerve of the damn punk.

No doubt his mother assured him that she’d handle everything by getting everyone back into their respective places within the scope of his life. She probably expressed outrage and blew all the smoke up his nonexistent ass she could to make him feel like he was right to call her, even though his words and actions were so clearly wrong. In the Novotny Nuisance World of Grand Delusions, neither of them are anything short of perfect, with a side of too much pride for no damn good reason. I wish I could knock the fuckboy bullshit out of their brains to either short-circuit their inherent evilness, or perform a complete rewire where they actually have some fucking sense!

Well won’t both of them be a bit surprised when their plan doesn’t work the way they believe it will. Not one of the men I sent that recording to can live in ignorance or denial anymore. The blinders about their toxic friendship and the faux-parenting of Deb had to be ripped off; because quite simply, if any of us had told them Debra Novotny said any of this, we wouldn’t have been believed. Our collective concerns for our men would have been brushed off again as they have been so many times before. But this time, they heard her venom with their own ears and now KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that these were the plays crafted according to the Novotny rulebook of Thou Shall NOTs to keep those considered their minions in line:

-Nothing and noone comes before Michael

-Nothing and noone is to go against Debbie’s wishes

-Nothing and noone can expect her love and loyalty without paying the ultimate price, which includes but is not limited to sacrificing their own happiness for her and her ridiculous grown infant

-Nothing and noone is allowed to have any hopes, dreams, and aspirations which don’t include them. They don’t matter to her at all if Brian, Ted, Emmett, and yes even Ben, can’t drag milksop Michael along instead of just leaving the whiny weasel behind.

The need for growth, success, maturity, and relationships built on love, honor, trust, strength and intellect is an abomination in Deb’s book if it means that the minions are no longer under the proverbial clubbed foot she’s placed on them through years of conditioning and a heavy dose of mother-guilt. Just because Michael is her god, does NOT mean that he must be, or in some major ways continue to remain, everyone else’s! And if those facts alone are why Emmett is pissed at me, then so fucking be it! I love him- and if I’m honest, the others, who I consider my brothers- too damn much to let them continue to throw away the best things that have ever happened to them.

Their helpmates, myself included, are willing to lay everything on the line for them all, even at the expense of ourselves. Justin’s done it for Brian one too many times, beginning with Kip Thomas and through all the other bullshit that comes with being the partner of Brian Kinney. I have the feeling that Blake will end up having to do the same if he doesn’t tell Ted the truth about Sean at long last. Drug dealers will try to get you, but if that doesn’t work, they always, ALWAYS go after the things they believe are keeping you from doing what they want you to do. In this case that would be Ted, since they don’t know about Diane yet.

Ben, at one time was willing to literally lay down and die for Michael, putting his own health at risk so that Michael could keep the fucking shop running. He was working so much that he was missing doctors appointments, overlooking the fact that he had fucking pneumonia, and that his meds had stopped working. Until one day he said that he was thinking about stopping the treatments altogether to let nature wreak havoc on his body, since the insurance payout would equal three million dollars. Thank fuck after Justin, Blake, and I laid into him, he’d gotten out of the pea-brained notion that he’d be better off dead so that Michael would be taken care of financially for the rest of his miserable life! And Em… I would give anything, be anything, do anything to be what he needs me to be, if only he would let me. And right now, he won’t!

“Thank you,” I hear the whisper from behind me. I look over to the red chairs and notice that they are empty. I turn around quickly to see the silent tears sliding down Em’s face. And somehow I feel relieved about that. “Thank you,” he says again, stronger this time.

“For what? I...”

“Protected me.” He smiles that watery smile I have come to love before growing serious again. “I couldn’t have dealt with Michael right now. I just feel too…”

“Raw?”

“Exposed.”

“What do you mean?”

“I… Deb… well what she said regarding Michael and my… supplier pimp. She wasn’t wrong. But nor was she right, either.”

“Is that what’s been bothering you?”

“Yeah. It’s not everyday that you find out that your lover was an escort and ex-Meth user.”

“You mean even before Ted…?” I never would have guessed that when Emmett said that he understood Ted and Blake in ways that I couldn’t imagine, this would have been what he was talking about.”

He drops his eyes to the floor before closing them. I can feel the shame of his past weighing down heavily on this shoulders. He looks up at me again, and says, “I think you should call Duke, Drewsie. This is one of the talks I will need the formalness of a session to get through.”

I hold him as he cries, not hesitating in dialing the number that is fast becoming our lifeline.