Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2014 17:21:27 +0700
From: Robert Glass <robxglass@gmail.com>
Subject: Marc and Luke chapter 11

All right reserved. Any unauthorized use is prohibited. This is a
fiction. Any resemblance to people and/or events is coincidental. If
reading this deemed illegal to you, I implore you to stop. If it offends
you, please do not read on.

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CHAPTER 11: Just Old Scars


No, Luke's not dead.

I, on the other hand, am pretty much dead. My soul left me at the
aftermath. My brain shuts down when the cops were asking me questions as
the paramedics took Luke's limp body to the ambulance.  My heart shattered
when I tried to visit him but was refused by the hospital because I was his
nothing. I am indeed his nothing.

My soul hasn't returned until now.

He walks out of the hospital alone with his shaved head facing straight
ahead. I can clearly see that he has a cast wrapping his left forearm. I
can vaguely see that some of the scars on his face can never be deleted. He
walks carrying an eternal fatigue and full of fake confidence; his usual
swagger.

No one is picking him up. He has no friends, still. I don't know if he told
his family about this incident but knowing Luke, I'm willing to bet that he
didn't. What about his coworker? Maybe one or two came, or maybe his boss
sent flowers or fruit basket or something. I don't know. He's been in the
hospital for three weeks, for God's sake, somebody must have come, right?
What if no one did? What if nobody looked for him? Upon grander
observation, I don't recognize his clothes. I'm assuming that he bought it
at the hospital. Has nobody come and brought him his clothes? Was he alone
all this time? Am I the only one who misses him? Am I the only one who
cares if he gets out of the hospital at all?

He's cold in that lousy t-shirt in this autumn weather.

I'm fighting the longing to come to him. I just want to take him home, lay
him on his bed, let him sleep in a familiar environment, and give him a
company. I only wish for him to feel safe and protected. I want him to feel
at least that. I can't bear to see him suffer; not when we were together,
not now after I made him suffer.

I follow the bus he's taking. God! He's going back to that dude's
apartment! Isn't it a crime scene now?

I park farther than before. He already recognizes the car I'm driving. I
have to hide from him. Meeting him equals hurting him. I don't want to
inflict more harm in his life. He's had enough.

I stay hidden in the coffee shop across the street, a little to the right
from the apartment he's in. My table is perfect. It's one table away from
the window but I can still see inside the apartment from my vantage
point. I don't care if I have to stay here all day; I have to see it
through. It's not like the coffee shop isn't cozy anyway.

Twenty minutes or so later, he was out. He was wearing that old handsome
coat that looks too big now.  His handsome face is jaded. His right hand
carries a box and the other is limp. He sits at the top of the staircase
that leads to the door. He sighs, maybe. Even so, my heart breaks.

I receive a text: "Marc, you're a lousy stalker."

I look up from my phone to his direction, he's looking at me. I'm busted. I
shouldn't be so surprised.  Luke is almost clairvoyant.

The level of confidence that I carry with each step towards him is even
worse than his fake confidence.  What do I say to him? He definitely wants
to talk, I know that, but do I want to talk to him? Can I allow myself to?

"You've been following me since the last time we met," he speaks candidly.

"I have," I say.

"Obsessive."

He takes a cigarette and lights it. The first drag seems like a relief to
him. I know he had no chance for that shit while he was in the
hospital. He's savoring it now, and discharges me of the right to speak
while doing so. He has the control over this conversation, not me. I can't
speak even if I wanted to. There's so much to say to him. Soothing words of
assurance, for instance; that would be helpful if we weren't in this blurry
situation. An apology will also be valuable, again only if we weren't in
this blurry situation.

"His name is Chris," he says. That animal that beat him up? I knew
that. "He's in jail now."

"Good."

Again he let the silence linger. Luke turns his head and looks at me. The
way he looks at me made me feel... I don't know what I feel anymore.

"Happy birthday," he says to me. My 31st birthday was a week after the
incident.

"Happy birthday," I say to him. His 29th birthday was on the same week as
his graduation ceremony.

"Do you like my new look? I actually managed to get uglier." He smiles. The
healing scar on his left temple wrinkles as he did so; the long one above
his left ear does not. The burn mark on his right cheek is darker than his
skin color. There's a resilient cut on his lower lip that just refuses to
heal.

"You're always handsome," I say.

"You're just saying that because you have to," he replies.

I uh... Fuck! Why can't I say something back? Why can't I refute his
self-deprecation? It's like I'm admitting that I've never meant it, like
letting him believe that I thought he was unattractive this whole time. I
feel like I'm hurting him even when I'm not doing anything; especially
because I'm not doing anything.

"I knew our relationship was going to end badly. I knew I was going to
sabotage it, somehow. I never thought that it would end up like this." He
changed the subject, just like that.

I shut my eyes and I take a deep breath. "You didn't sabotage anything," I
say.

"Really, Marc? Let's see. I basically begged you to leave me, a million
times. You gave me everything but I never gave back. What else? Oh yeah, I
stopped talking to you. I was pretty much a bitch. Like you said, our
relationship was one-sided."

He's right. I shouldn't be so surprised. Luke is almost clairvoyant. Luke
is always right.

"I'm always wrong," he says. "I never did anything right."

"It's not true, Luke. You did as best as you can. I know it was hard for
you to open up. You know your limitations. Don't be too hard on yourself
over this." I have to defend him. No one is on his side, not even himself.

"You're not my boyfriend, Marc. You can't tell me what to do anymore," he
says.

I get a little defensive. "I have never forced you to do anything."

"It's true. But I'm a slave to your wishes. I did it all, even when you
never asked me to. Well, except the talking part." He chuckles.

What is he saying? His tendency to jump past several steps in his mind map
is still with him. "I don't know what you're talking about." My statement
comes out of a genuine confusion.

"Well..." he pauses.

"Well?" I ask.

"Well, I hate working out, even when the doctor told me it's good for my
depression. I hate it so much; I feel exhausted and drained afterwards. But
I did it anyway because you like slimmer guys. I like my hair short but I
didn't cut mine because you like pulling on my hair.

"I did not enjoy the sex you enjoy, Marc. Fuck it, I didn't enjoy most of
the sex we did, even after I said that you had improved. Why do you think I
chose to do it doggy style? I didn't want you to see me not enjoying
it. And I wanted to top once in a while, but you only bottom for an
uber-dominant guy, and that's not me. So yeah, I can't possibly ask that,
can I?"

My chest hurts. He didn't enjoy it at all but he asked for it all the
time. "You didn't enjoy it at all," I verbalize my thought.

"I did, a little, but never enough." He laughs lightly again. Another drag
of the smoke. "I trained hard, you know. I bought a dildo about your size
and I fuck myself hard and rough in front of the mirror. I had to learn to
make the right face, the right sound. I learned how to keep my dick hard
with that thing fucking my ass. I made a research on what to say and how to
say it. I did it all."

He smiles with a phony pride. I died a little inside.

"Why did you do that?" I don't realize that my eyes are glassy.

He looks at me, at my aching eyes. He smiles and I suffer more. He offers a
thumb to dry my flowing tear. "I wanted to be enough. Just for once in my
life. Just for you."

My tears fall harder. "But you were enough, Luke." I reach for his hand; he
didn't reject it nor accept it.

"I wasn't," he says. "I wasn't sane enough for you. I wasn't submissive
enough. I didn't talk about my feelings enough. I wasn't thoughtful
enough. I simply wasn't enough."

"No..."

"It's okay, Marc. Don't cry. Please." He smiles at me. The reassuring tone
in his voice is a lie. "It's okay.  I'm okay. I'm used to it."

I open my mouth and he stops me.

"I am. I was never enough for anyone. I wasn't smart enough for my dad. I
wasn't manly enough for my brother. I wasn't helpful enough for my
mother. I wasn't fun enough for my friends. I wasn't happy enough for
Simon. Even now as an adult gay man, I'm still not enough. I'm not
attractive enough. I'm either too tall or not tall enough, too fat or not
fat enough, too hairy or not hairy enough. I'm not fashionable enough, I'm
not geeky enough, I'm not masculine enough, and I'm not feminine
enough. I've never been anything enough to anyone.

"I've been told so many times: 'stop complaining and do something'. That's
what I did. I changed myself, hoping you wouldn't notice. I didn't want you
to think that I made sacrifices because then you would ask me to stop. I
couldn't possibly stop... because I would definitely be even more
inadequate. I can't have that; I had to be the perfect man. I had to be
enough for you. Just you. Just one person."

"But you WERE enough for me!"

"I was not." He reaffirms. And he smiles. He smiles. He fucking smiles! He
knows how to hurt me. He knows that the most devastating image to me is him
smiling while hiding a boatload of sorrow. He's doing it right now and I
can see through it.

"Luke, please, stop."

"I have to tell you this, Marc. I'm sorry I didn't open up so much when we
were together. But you deserve an explanation, especially after what I put
you through."

What HE put me through? What about what I put him through? He stares me
down, commanding me to shut the fuck up and listen. I shut the fuck up.

"I'm sorry I didn't talk much about my feelings. I'm not the best at that;
actually, I'm not the best at talking at all. I never know when to talk or
what to say. It seems like I can only either bore or offend people. That's
why I have no friends." He laughs lightly.

"It's not funny," I say with my weakest voice yet, more to myself than to
him.

"I did it to a friend, once, a co-worker. He was such a great guy; fun,
sweet, kind. I was pretty much in love with him even though I was aware
that he was straight. I was kind of a downer back then, I was tired of
acting happy. He saw it. One day he asked me if I was okay. I jumped right
in to that trap. I told him a lot and too much that night. He was great; he
listened. I felt better after. So I wanted it again and he promised that we
will. I wanted to talk to him because it was liberating to finally able to
talk about these feelings to someone. That day never came.

"The truth is, I lost all my ability to trust because of that guy. He let
me cut myself open, I scrambled my insides in front of him, and he just
watched me do it. He should've stopped me. He shouldn't have let me take it
too far. Then again, it was my fault. I should've known my own limit. I
came on too strong and I understand if he was a little freaked out and
perhaps sick of me complaining. Or at least I should have thought that he
had his own problems.

"Look at me now. I'm making excuses for him." He laughs again. Luke doesn't
even know when to laugh or what to laugh at.

I am not laughing. I'm too busy ridding the snot off my face. He pulls the
sobbing mess that I am into his warm embrace. How can he be calmer than I
am?

"Come to think about it, I have always been so selfish. With him, with
Simon, with you; with everyone, really. I only think about myself; about
what I should've done and what I should've been. It never occurred to me
that people have problems of their own too. All I think about was what I
wanted for myself."

"What... what do you want?" I can't believe I asked that. Then again, he
never told me, I never knew what he wanted.

"To be enough. And love, actually. I want love... but it's
impossible. Love...is a myth to me; at least unconditional love is. I
learned that as I grew up. I had to buy love, with good deeds and shit. I
only get love if I was straight, or if I give away my homework, or if I was
the happy fun guy. That's the reason I changed for you. I knew you loved me
more when I changed to fit you. I didn't mind, because in the end I got
what I wanted. I got you to love me, and care about me."

I cry like a baby. How come his speech hurts me more than it hurts him?
"No, Luke, I love you no matter what."

"Is that the reason I found you fucking another guy?" he asks. His face
changes to that of guilt. "I'm sorry. It was uncalled for."

"You have every right to say that. You can be angry to me, Luke, just as
long as you stop hurting. I can't see you hurt anymore."

He sighs. "I'm fine, it's not a big deal," he says. There he goes,
dismissing his pain again.

He pulls me closer before he continues.

"I'm sorry I freaked out when you asked me to live with you. I was stunned,
and scared. It was too good to be true. You promised me happiness and I
wanted to fall into it so badly, but it scared me to death. I wasn't sure
if I could commit to all the change that I made. So I ran away, and I
pushed you away. I was so fucking stupid! I mean, we loved each other. I
was happier with you than I had ever been before.  After all the things I
modified about myself, why couldn't I change that last part fast enough? I
was so close to be perfect for you. So close."

"I'm so sorry," I say, desperately wanting him to stop. "I'm so sorry I
fucked up."

"You didn't fuck up," he says. "I should've called you and told you that I
haven't given up on us and asked you to wait for me. But I didn't. You
must've gotten the idea. You were right to think that I dumped you. It's
rational. At the end of the day it's clear that I wasn't... healthy
enough. You loved me and I loved you, just what I wanted. But I fucked it
up, as always. I'm always wrong." He smiles. He smiles. He fucking smiles!

I cry. I cry like Luke did when I found him in his apartment, like when we
were on that rooftop, like when I scolded him for not getting help for his
depression. He's in the abyss not even asking for help and I'm in a
submarine that can only go so deep. What a fool I have been, thinking I
could save him. All I did was adding to his damage.

Switch metaphors: I'm the man with scalpel.


___

No, this is not the end. I know I said that I have 11 chapters to this
story, turns out a single plot adjustment leads to a new chapter. Come back
in 5 days for the ending. And, man, this chapter is so difficult to write.