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CHAPTER 28 - CONFRONTING PASTS, CONFIRMING PRESENTS AND SETTING UP FUTURES


ETHAN AND JUSTIN’S OLD APARTMENT, CALIFORNIA - A WEEK LATER


BRIAN


Justin is very quiet and has been distant over the last couple of days. I have been thinking we made a mistake by having each other in our appointments. The key to the door feels heavy in my hand, a bit like the feeling in the pit of my stomach. We’ve turned a corner, and not in a good way.


“Have they cleaned it up?” Justin whispers behind me. I feel like such an idiot, as I didn’t even think about that! 


“Stay here. I am sure they have, but let me check.” He nods and leans against the building wall. I am about to go in when I hear him hiccup. “Come on, Justin, let’s go back to the car for a minute, alright?” He nods tearfully. We’re in the back seat in seconds.


“Scared.” He mutters. “He skipped. Supposing…” We sit in silence taking in the impact of that. “Let’s just get it over and done with. It’s not going to get cleaner, is it?”


“No. That’s true, it’s not, but let me check first please?” 


“Together?”


“Together.” I reply, and get out. He takes a few steadying breaths before following me up the path. As I open the door, I inhale and exhale pretty quickly. “Clean. I smell fresh paint.” I tell him quietly. He sniffs, then heaves a sigh of relief. “Which room do you want to go into first?”


“Second bedroom.” His voice is so small. I gesture him ahead. He seems to be taking pigeon steps. When he opens the door, I hold my breath, but it is just the bed, a wardrobe, and a chest of drawers. “Glad they changed it. I couldn't bear to think that someone is using the thing that caused my first black eye.”


I go still. During our appointments, Daphne said we were both holding back and this wasn't helping. We were, in her words, circling the drain, and that shit had to stop. We are here for its arraignment. When Jewel said that there was still stuff of Justin’s at the apartment, we were surprised, figuring the landlord would’ve trashed it, but it turned out that once it had been released by the police, Jennifer paid the rent for a year then got the locks changed. When we asked her why, she said that even though he skipped, he also left some stuff, so she figured that Justin could have fun disposing of it!


“Can you remember when you realised?” He searches my face, then I get what Daphne meant when she said ‘it has to be you two. Not me, you two and you two alone’. “Brian?”


“Realised that he hated me?” He shakes his head and again I get it. “When I realised the power of fear he had?”


“Yeah.” I almost weep. When he wraps his arms around me, seems that he hasn’t been the only one emotionally distant. 


“Hold me…” He whimpers. “....please, hold me, I have missed you!”


“I thought you didn't want me anymore!” I sniff into his hair whilst holding him tight. “Who would want a coward like me?”


“How are you, of all people, a coward?!” He looks astonished. “You, as a child, fought back and got free. As an adult I had to be almost beaten to death to be that!”


“It’s a bit difficult to fight back when tied to a radiator.” I point out gently. “And as an adult, I am still not free of him!”


“Who? Jack? How aren’t you free?” He frowns.


“He can always come after me for assaulting him.”


“When you were a child. You were defending yourself! Besides, that big hulking brutal beast, as you called him, will not be dealing with a child, he will be dealing with all of this! And this ‘this’ is a grown man who is braver than he thinks, and stronger than he gives himself credit for.”


“As are you.” We say nothing for a while, then he looks up at me again. “What?”


“What are we?” 


“How do you mean?” Now I am frowning.


“You and me, what are we? Are we friends? Fuckbuddies? God, I hate that phrase, or what? I mean, we have just kinda fallen into this living together and having the bunnies because of how we met, but since our appointments, it’s like we don’t know how to be with each other anymore, and I hate it! I want to go back to where we were!”


“Oh, thank god!” I exclaim. “I was thinking the same, but didn't want to say anything in case it made it worse and you dump me quicker!” 


“Dump you?” He blinks a few times then starts to smile. “In order for me to dump you, you would have to be my…” He squeezes me hard.


“Boyfriend?” I squeeze him back.


“Yes and no.” He replies smiling wider.


“Yes, I am your boyfriend, and the no is to say you aren’t dumping me?”


“Hmmm.” He sighs, sliding his hand under my top. The heat of his hand on my back warms me inside and out. When I reciprocate, he sighs the same sigh he does just before he goes to sleep on me, or is holding one of the bunnies. “Do you want to…”


“No. I don’t want to…”


“No, not that room. God no!” He blenches. “No, I mean do you want to see my studio? You would be the first.” 


“Wait, what?” I tip his head up. “How come?”


“I shared a studio and was moving, had just finished furnishing it and signed the lease a couple of days before...before he tried to kill me.”


“Yes, I would love that, but what are you going to do with this? You’ve still got it for at least six months.” He looks around the bedroom, leads me to the front door, and slams the door shut behind us. “Good answer.” I grin.


JUSTIN’S STUDIO - TWO HOURS LATER


JUSTIN


Brian is moving from picture to picture, perusing them carefully, then smiling at me. “So, this guy, you going to call him back?” 


“What guy?” I hand him the glass of Barolo, which he insisted we get when I told him that it was a fully equipped studio, with a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom, so if I wanted to paint during the night I could.


“Actually, no I will do it, since I am going to be sponsoring it…”


“You were serious?!” I gasp. “I thought you were…” He stops me with a kiss, it feels so good! 


“I didn‘t drop three grand on a picture just to show how big my dick is!” He laughs, then takes a sip. “So…”


“Marius Duke. And these were the paintings I was going to get him to select from.” I take his glass before pulling him into the small office. “Take a seat…” He sits and snickers. “What?” He raises an eyebrow. “I like neatness! I can't have scattered, it messes with my equilibrium! You're just as bad!”


“No I am not! I don't believe I have measured the equidistance so that my laptop is slap dab in the middle of my desk…”


“Moving on!” I assert.


“And you were, even if you didn’t realise it, you were leaving him.” He watches for a reaction. “Think about it, this is a one bedroom apartment. Not a studio, an apartment. You may have used the large, light, and airy lounge and reception to say it is a studio in your mind, but…”


“Wow.” I breathe. When I sit down on the sofa, he joins me, taking my hand. “In the last three months prior to the attack, he was going out more and more, but it bothered me less and less. But what did bother me was sitting there, being unable to do anything that gave me joy. When we first moved in together, it was our place, then slowly but surely it became his. I used to paint in the small bedroom, then one day Jewel came over and said I had my own little studio. I remember the look on his face, he was really annoyed. And then it began: coughing, sniffing, and, finally, a ‘rash’, which had to be from the paints as he never had this before…”


“Was that the first time he hit you?” Brian pulls me closer to him. “Want the wine in here?” 


“Yes, but no to the hit and yes to the wine.” He is back in seconds. “What I mean is that he didn't hit me, he tripped me up and I hit the drawers.”


“Was it always like that? Would he use something to cause an injury?” I think for a few seconds then nod. “When did you hit back?” He grins.


“How did you know that?! About a month before. Brian, how?”


“Because that’s what I did. Before I clobbered him I kicked him in the nuts. It was an accident, but he was so stunned that he just hobbled off and left me alone for a while.”


Again a dose of reality hits me. “It was his playing hand. He tried to shut the drawer on my hand, but did it to himself and broke a finger…” I drain my glass, then his. “...it was always going to happen, wasn’t it? He was always going to try and…”


“Fuck my life.” Brian growls, then pours us some more wine, but neither of us drink. “You may be right, but by the end of the week, it gets to know how wrong it was to even think of touching my boyfriend like that!” 


“And when we go home, your ‘it’ gets to know how I feel about him too.”


“What do you mean? Before you answer that, can we go to bed, just to sleep? I don’t know about you, but…” I leap like a gazelle, making him chuckle. “...I take it you've not been sleeping too well either?”


“No.” I tow him to the bedroom. Whilst we undress each other in silence, we are smiling. “So, what I mean is that we are going to go and see Jack Kinney…” He goes still. “...so he knows if he comes at you, who he is dealing with.”


“And who’s that?” He asks as he lifts the blankets and waits for me to settle on his chest. 


“Us. He is dealing with us.” I reply before he turns on his side and tucks me under his chin.

Chapter End Notes:

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