RHO

 

The things Adam just told me, left me speechless.

“She said that?” I couldn’t keep my voice down. “What kind of mother says that to her teenage son?”

“It just came as such a huge shock,” he confessed. “It took me some time to come to terms with the fact that she was indeed talking about my father.”

“Anyway, what happened then?”

“I realized that until that moment I’d been living a lie. The man I couldn’t stop fantasizing about raped my mother and left me inside her and then he abandoned her when she was still pregnant with me. My mother tried to get an abortion, but it would have been a late term and no doctor would agree to it. She might not make it out alive and Sergei didn’t want her to come to any harm, at least not the aborted pregnancy kind. I guess he convinced to have me instead. Even though it was the last thing she wanted.

‘My father had wrongly assumed that my mother got rid of me so when he found out that the kid was still alive, he tried to buy off her silence. In return for never having to connect with the child, he was willing to pay a large sum of money. My mother was always depressed. We were living a life of squalor. Sergei did what he could but who could resist the charm of a ton of money to sign on the dotted line and say that my father wasn’t my father, and he no longer was. My mother and Sergei stopped me from having any claim to the man who was my blood.”

I didn’t get the world sometimes. The more I listened, the more I was glad he was with me. I couldn’t stand anything happening to him. He had suffered enough. “Did your mother ever stop being angry at you?”

He smiled morosely. “That wasn’t anger,” he said. “The one thing I realized that day was that looking at me was enough to make my mother hate me. I guess I’d been so blind before. I didn’t realize the source of her unhappiness was me. Every time she saw me, she could only see him. I’m sure she tried to love me.”

“Didn’t she have some kind of motherly instinct?”

“That’s what I used to ask myself. Until I realized that there’s no such thing as a motherly instinct. Parents kill their children all the time. Most people get appalled and talk about it, but the truth is people who are capable of loving are the ones who can, who have this ability. You can’t love someone just because you give birth to them.”

“How’d you deal with Sergei?”

“That night my mother tried to kill herself again. I rushed her to the hospital and she survived but the drugs she took, severely damaged her brain. After being in a coma for weeks, they finally had to pull the plug. For whatever it’s worth, Sergei didn’t try to touch me again. I also realized that he loved my mother. He just didn’t know what to do with her meltdowns and outbursts. People are complicated, Rho. Nothing is ever that simple.”

“So, how’d you end up running from Sergei?”

“The day they pulled the plug on my mother, I packed my bags and left. I got a friend to help and I took a plane ride to California. I wanted to leave it all behind. But no matter where I was I could never truly live. I could never escape the fact that if it wasn’t for me, my mother would still be alive. For three years, I was on my own taking every job I could find and I pretended that my feelings didn’t exist. I made friends with this one guy and mostly hung out with him on the beach surfing or watching him pine over every woman who happened to be in his vicinity. Even the ones that weren’t that hot. That friendship led me to a stupid crime standing watch for him outside a clothing store. Somehow, I was so sure of his criminal prowess. I really believed he would get away with it. He was the only friend I had, the only person who cared about me. How could I not help him? Anyway, that story is for another day.”

“You never felt the need to be with a guy?”

“I ignored the men who eyed me, I ignored gay bars. I told myself that if I didn’t fall in love, I’d be safe. I felt like I didn’t deserve to be happy, Rho.”

“What changed your mind?”

He looked ashamed to admit it. “You.”

“Me!”

“You saved me, Rho. I felt things for you I’d never felt before. You forced me to dream again.”

“I’m a mess, Adam.”

“So am I, my history is way more fucked up than you’ll ever be.”

I looked straight at him. “How are you not the most vicious and vengeful person on the planet?”

“Who knows if I hadn’t met you that day, I might have been.” 

He put an arm around me and took me in a hug. “For the record, you don’t have the eyes of a rapist,” I said. “You have the eyes of a god.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“Never mind,” I ran my hand over his hair. “Was your father really a murderer?”

“Mom never gave me details, but once Sergei said everyone was afraid of… him.”

“Just because some legal document says he’s not your father, doesn’t mean shit. You still have his blood coursing through your veins.”  

“So, I’m supposed to be proud of my rapist, murderous father?”

“No, but you can acknowledge it,” I said. “Adam, I know what it’s like, not knowing where you belong. I never even knew my parents. I don’t even know if they are alive or dead, I don’t have a clue who they are. At least you were with your mother. At least you knew your Dad. I have no way of knowing him, and I don’t care anymore. I spent a long time, trying to act like it didn’t matter but I don’t any more. I know it matters and it hurts. That no one wants you enough to come looking for you. It hurts they can’t be there when you’re in trouble. When you give a fake name at school because your real name doesn’t exist. Someone tossed me in the trash like last night’s takeout, do you think that’s the kind of people who are going to come looking for me?”

“That’s horrible!”

“We were the unwanted children of the dead, Adam. People with dead souls don’t look for lost children. They’re too busy being dead. I see your pain. I’ve felt it all my life. When an unwanted wants to live, the world doesn’t make it easy. They want to kill your power to dream, to want happiness. But you can’t let that stop you. You can’t let them win. We deserve this happiness, and more. We have to forgive ourselves for our fathers’ misdeeds. We have to stop punishing ourselves for their crimes. Because otherwise, it was all for nothing.”

When I tried to run my hand over his head again, I realized Adam was already sleeping. I sat there, unmoving, for a long time. Was I truly the person that should be talking about hope? I couldn’t even commit to him enough to say that I loved him. But he had to have known, right? He can’t be that clueless! He’s a lot smarter than me in most respects. I knew he loved me like no one else. I was certain of his attraction, but it was more than that. It was the way he seemed unaware of his beauty. Like it didn’t matter at all. There was so much narcissism in the world, it was refreshing to see someone so oblivious.

He looked peaceful in his sleep. The same peace that his past and his demons wanted to take away. I wasn’t going to let that happen. He had to know that he wasn’t a whore, that he wasn’t a rapist, or a murderer either.

Love is a two-way street. You can’t leave someone hanging forever, they will move on and get hurt. They will find someone else. But Adam wouldn’t do that. Not my Aeneas.