Page 45 of Tell Me Lies: Manlove Edition

He has no welcome mat. No fake plant. No place where he might put his spare key. There’s a smaller window off the porch. Not curtained like the bay window, and there’s Laur.

As soon as I see him, I know I should not be seeing him. He’s so unguarded, so cozy and relaxed. Fluffy red bathrobe, hair wet from a recent shower, a sturdy metal cane, and glasses thick as Coke bottles. The book in his hands is a pastel-covered, Achieve Your Best Self Through Kale and Zen guide.

Oh, and he’s missing his fucking eye. There’s a concave darkness not terribly hidden by a drooping eyelid. He looks like some twisted Halloween version of a 1950’s father.

Run away.

My hand is already on the doorknob. But rather than rattling, the knob turns.

Oh, hell! How did a man this paranoid not lock his door?

“Laur, hey, it’s me?”

“Chard?” He sounds genuinely surprised, then swears. “Fuck!”

He rises and stumbles, trying to get to another room. But I’ve already entered the living room. The book is nowhere to be seen, and he’s halfway to the hallway, his left hand balled into a fist to hide his absent eye.

“I didn’t know you wore a contact.” It’s weird to catch him off-guard and I cover by acting confident, leaning in the arch between the kitchen and the living room, smirking as he flounders toward his bedroom.

Which he stops doing immediately. He lowers his hand, embarrassed to be caught hiding. “What the fuck are you doing here? Get out of my house!”

“Before you say something mean, I’m sorry I surprised you.” I hold up my hands the way you do when greeting a frightened dog. “I just didn’t have your phone number or any way to reach you.”

“Yeah? Because I never gave you a way to reach me. It was a mistake bringing you here.”

When I don’t answer—because how do you answer that?—his good eye swivels away from me and toward his bedroom.

“If you’re not comfortable, I don’t mind if you—”

“I’m plenty comfortable in my own house,” Laur says. “What I’m not comfortable with is you just showing up. Out of fucking nowhere.”

“Out of nowhere? Really?” I resist. “We’ve been a thing for over six months, Laur. I wanted to see you.”

“You piece of shit.”

His aggression startles me because I meant, I wanted to have a conversation, to have you tell me to my face why you determined not to be part of my life.

Then I realize what he heard was, “I wanted to surprise you and see your broken legs, your eyeless head, you ugly freak.”

When I’m at my low, I’m apathetic, dead inside, helpless. When he’s at his lowest—

He hovers nearer to it than I do. He’s triggered by the slightest cringe from a stranger at the bank, a gawking child in the supermarket, the way a beautiful stranger in a bar hits on him. The depths of his self-loathing come when he feels less than human. And right now, without his glass eye, without his gloves, without the accessories that cover his brokenness, he feels his shame. And he feels it as rage.

I say lamely, “I didn’t think this through.”

“You sure fucking didn’t.” Laur points at the door. “Now get the fuck out.”

If I do, I’ll never come back. “Laur, if you’re gonna abandon me, I have a right to—”

“You have no rights,” he scoffs. “Not here. Not with me.”

I stare helplessly, my mouth opening, but no words coming out.

He rages nearer. “You think you can just walk up to me and offer sex like you’re God’s damned gift to humanity. Well, guess what, buddy? I don’t think you are. I’ve seen plenty of men as built and goddamn pretty as you get blown to fuckin’ bits or torn up with barbed wire. Fuck. I’ve been the one placing the bombs and pulling the wire. You see a body different when you know how to take it apart. Your beauty isn’t worth shit to me.”

His single eye glowers wide, his fists clenched, like he wants to use them.

When I don’t immediately crumble, it makes him furious. “So, what else you got, Chard? Your balanced mental state? Your attentive and loyal personality?”

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