Chapter 20
“SO, I talked to Maggie today,” Zach said as he dug his fork into the bowl of salad he and David were sharing.
David had been asleep when Zach came back with the bowl of salad, a platter of warmed-up pizza, and two bottles of water; Zach had set it all down on the dresser and pulled the comforter over David, sitting down at his drafting table to wait for his lover to wake up. A minute or two later, he had, blinking in confusion a moment before sitting up and giving Zach a sleepy smile. “Sorry,” he’d said. Zach had told him no problem, and now they were sitting with their legs folded under, Zach on top of the comforter and David underneath with it tucked around his waist, the pizza platter and bowl of salad balanced on the comforter between them, just as they had when they were kids and Zach stayed over with David for one of Annie’s absentee dinners.
David finished chewing his bite of pizza, then said, “Maggie? What about?”
“I asked if she could tutor me for my GED,” Zach replied. “She asked me a whole bunch of questions, and when we were done, she said she thought that with intensive study I might be able to get it by the end of the summer. Then I talked to Dad this afternoon and he’s going to talk to some of the professors he knows at UCo, and see if he can’t get some of them to tutor me this fall and winter, and then maybe I can apply at MIT for next fall. Depending on how the tutoring goes. Might not really be for another year or two, but I’ve kind of decided to do that, so the timing is flexible.”
David was staring at him, his pizza slice hanging limply from his fingers. “What? When did you decide all this, Zach?”
“I thought about what you said. And I thought, so what if I missed a couple years of high school? I’d already gotten the early admission thing from MIT. So it should mostly just be trying to remember what I knew, not so much learning things I didn’t, right? And I thought about you offering to tutor me in CAD, and if you’re still up for it, I’d like that. But I need stuff like biology and math, not to mention the usual core classes you gotta take, like literature and history and that. I thought Maggie’s really smart with that stuff, and better than you at the history and literature, so if she can give me some real intense tutoring then maybe I can test out of some of the classes, and Dad has a lot of friends at UCo that he thinks would be willing to take some time tutoring me too. Talking with Maggie made me think that maybe you’re right, I’m not so much stupid as I am undereducated, and that’s fixable. And my therapy yesterday and today were about fear and dealing with fear, and I realized in my afternoon session today that most of what I’m afraid of is people making judgments about me and if I don’t do anything to, to improve myself, then I deserve whatever judgments they make.”
Taking a bite of pizza, David chewed a moment, then said thoughtfully, “Whoa. Info dump. Let me take a minute to process, okay? Cuz this is, like, completely a new direction for you.”
“Yeah,” Zach said anxiously. “You don’t think it’s stupid, do you?”
“Hell, no,” David replied.
“Good. Because your opinion is important to me.” Zach sighed faintly.
David brushed his fingers across Zach’s hand. “I have a good opinion of you, Zach. I’ve always had a good opinion of you. Just the fact that you survived as well as you did all the horrible stuff that bastard did to you—that alone makes you a hero in my book. The rest is gravy.” He grinned. “Really good gravy, like Mom makes for breakfast, the kind with the fabulous sausage in it.” This time, he wriggled his eyebrows significantly. “Sausage and meatballs and gravy…”
“You’re a moron,” Zach said, laughing. “A sick, sick moron.”
“Seriously,” David said. “This is just awesome. Not only because I think you can do it, and do it well, but because it’s moving forward. You’re taking control of your life instead of letting that bastard keep ruling it from beyond the grave.” He took Zach’s hand in his. “Sometimes I wish you had been the one to kill Esteban, instead of Pritzger and his dudes. Just because you deserve to have that revenge on him. But really, I think that it’s better you didn’t. Because that would have… I don’t know, damaged you, you know? It would leave more scars on your soul than you have on your body. I can’t imagine how it would feel to kill someone, but it must be fucking awful, even if you hate the guy. Even if he tried to destroy you like he did. But sometimes I think you feel like by not killing him you left something undone. This, though, this is so good, because it’s you taking control again. You sort of killing Esteban, without actually killing him.” David studied Zach’s suddenly closed face. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to remind you of all that. But it’s good, see? You’re moving on.”
“Yeah,” Zach said expressionlessly. He put his half-eaten slice of pizza on the plate. “You want any more?”
“No, I’m good.”
“Okay.” He got up and picked up the platter and the bowl. “I’ll take these down on my way out.”
“Whoa—wait a minute,” David said, confused. “You’re leaving?”
“I probably should.”
“Why?”
Zach stared down at the dishes in his hands. “It’s late. You wanted to get up early to run.”
“Not that late, and yeah, I’m tired, and yeah, I do plan to get up early to run. But you don’t have to go. You could just stay over. We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to. But we could if you do.”
There was a long silence, then Zach said finally, “Okay. I’ll just bring this stuff downstairs. But I’ll come back.”
“That’s all I ask, dweeb,” David said affectionately. “That you come back.”
DAVID didn’t know.
Mechanically, Zach moved around the kitchen, putting away the leftover pizza and salad, washing and drying the dishes and putting them into the cabinets, leaving the kitchen as tidy as David had left his yesterday morning. He understood now why David had done so: the mindlessness of his task kept him from focusing on what was really bothering him.
Too soon, though, he was done; the kitchen couldn’t get any cleaner. Zach was left with nothing to do but as he promised, go back upstairs to David. Who didn’t know.
He didn’t know why it shocked him that David hadn’t been aware of the facts. David himself had told him weeks ago that he knew little about Zach’s experiences, and it wasn’t like it was common knowledge anyway. His parents knew, of course, and Dr. Barrett; he’d assumed that Annie was in the loop, too, since she and his mother kept no secrets from each other. But there was no reason for David to know. Except that he’d fallen back into the habit of believing that David knew everything about him. All-seeing, all-knowing David, who never let Zach pull anything over on him, always one step ahead of him in the game. Even when he’d told Zach how little he knew of Zach’s captivity, Zach hadn’t realized on the gut level that he really didn’t know anything about it. When Zach had told him about being Esteban’s whore, David hadn’t seemed as surprised as he was furious. Maybe that had fooled Zach subconsciously. Maybe that was why he was so shocked now at David’s innocence.
He folded the dishtowel neatly and set it on the granite countertop beside the sink. The worst thing about the situation was that he’d been working under the assumption that David knew, and accepted it. Everything he’d been building in the last few days, every dream he had that this might actually work out, that David loved him enough to look past the scars, the panic attacks, the nightmares, the erratic behavior: everything had been predicated on the belief that David already knew the worst about him.
He swallowed against a heart that was beating too fast. It was too late. He couldn’t let things change now. David was his and he was David’s, and it would kill him if David rejected him at this point. He’d put himself out there, his scars and his neuroses and his nutjob behavior, and left himself vulnerable to David; and the idea of David walking away, leaving him hanging out there without him, was a cold fire in his chest, a pounding ache in his head, and chill numbness in his hands. He caught his breath. Losing David wasn’t an option.
David can’t ever find out. The voice in Zach’s head was his own, but it was stark and cold, blasting through Zach’s mind like a bitter winter wind, leaving behind a stunning clarity. The tension leached out of his body; feeling came back into his hands, his head stopped aching. It was a decision made all unconsciously, instantaneously. David couldn’t ever know. No matter what, he could never let David know. He had to protect David from the truth. David, and this fragile new relationship they were building.
And it wouldn’t be lying, not quite. He just wouldn’t correct David’s suppositions about Esteban’s death. He’d have to make sure that his parents and Annie didn’t tell him, but if they hadn’t over the course of the last two years, they probably wouldn’t. And Annie had kept in close contact with David over those years. No, he’d confirm it with his folks, but he was pretty sure they wouldn’t tell David anyway. He took a long slow breath and let it out just as slowly. No. The subject would never come up, and he would never lie about it, and David would never know.
He went back upstairs quietly. David was asleep; Zach went and dug out a pair of relatively subdued plaid cotton pajama pants from the garish collection in David’s dresser, and changed out of his jeans and into the pajamas, then eased into the bed beside David, trying not to wake him. David’s eyes didn’t open, but as soon as Zach had settled, he’d turned into Zach’s arms, nuzzling unconsciously at Zach’s T-shirt-covered chest. Zach slid his arm under David’s neck and settled back into the pillows, letting David’s head rest on his shoulder, the weight and the warmth so natural, so comfortable, so comforting, that he drifted almost immediately to sleep.