Page 99 of The Cartographer

Without another word, I’m bounding down the elegant stairs and out into the night.

*

A fully dressedand thoroughly annoyed Julian answers the door. I don’t blame him. I’d be irritated if someone were banging loudly and mercilessly at my door at one o’clock in the morning too, especially if he’d already started tormenting Allie. Which I damn well would have. He’s a fucking moron if he hasn’t.

Julian’s head rocks back on the spindle of his neck when he recognizes me. “Walter, what are you doing here?”

“I—” Here we go again. Get it together. “Might I speak with Hart for a moment?”

“Allie?” A mixture of sweet satisfaction and pungent bile mix in the back of my throat. I’ve succeeded in making Allie so comfortable in his skin he’s willing to let his new partner call him as his friends do. A privilege I was never afforded and that Julian clearly doesn’t see as remarkable. Oblivious man, who I want to take by his perfectly starched collar and shake hard, make him understand what a lucky fucking bastard he is. “Of course, he’s right here.”

It’s only a minute and some soft words and shuffling before Allie is at the threshold, fully dressed and wary as hell.

“What do you want?”

“To talk to you. Please.”

“I thought there was nothing more to say. That we were done. You’ve broken me in and handed me off. That’s what I got when you ditched me in public three weeks ago. What else is there to discuss?”

Though he’s trying to hide it by flattening his affect, I can still see it. The same Allie I always see no matter what context we’re in, no matter what role he’s shrugged on like a second skin. I’ve hurt him, and he doesn’t want me to know.

“I was wrong.” Those words don’t often escape my mouth. Hardly ever. They do now, because I was. “And I’m sorry to have done it in a public place. I thought it would make things easier. Or maybe harder, and then you’d hate me, which would in turn make it easier and…never mind. That was a dick move, and I am so, so sorry. I don’t want this to be over. I don’t want you to be with Julian, even if he’s a good match for you. For the first time in…” Not quite ever, but when’s the last time I allowed myself to want something and to admit it? “…a long time, I want something. Someone, to be more specific. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I want you.”

He frowns, pain and confusion creasing his features. “So this was a test? To hand me off to a friend of yours? To see what I’d do? If I’d do whatever you told me to? Make me wait weeks before you let me in on your game? Because I’ve got to tell you, that is fucked up.”

“No. I had every intention of watching you and Julian walk off into the sunset together. I’m sorry if you thought this was a trick or hurdle to jump through. I swear on my mother’s life it wasn’t. I’m not used to…wanting. It’s made me a bit—”Disconcerted? Flustered? Uneasy?“—of a disaster.”

My admission seems to break something inside of him, and he looks more willing to listen, not as poised to run at the earliest opportunity.

“These past eight months I’ve been with you have been some of the best and worst of my life. Best because, well, I genuinely enjoy spending time with you, even when you have your clothes on, but also you’re the best fuck I’ve ever had. Not to mention, the way you submit to me is a dream. The worst because wanting is an unfamiliar feeling. I’ve never felt as though that was something I was allowed.

“As much as my parents loved me, and my mom continues to, they still made me feel like a freak. Like I wasn’t quite human. Do you know what it’s like to have people you love tell you you’re not human and to believe it?”

His face is locked in a compassionate grimace, probably trying to imagine what it was like for me as a kid, what it’s still like for me now.

“I’ve always been aware I’m not like everyone else. My mother treated me as though I was delicate and fragile. My father convinced me I was a superhero with all the detachment and responsibility that entails. Everyone else treated me as if I was an aberration and I didn’t belong. You get told these things enough and…” I shrug helplessly. If I met someone today who’s like me? I’d try to correct all the mistakes anyone ever made with me.You are human. You are loved. You need to do things others don’t to keep yourself safe, but above that, you have no responsibilities, no allegiances. You are perfect precisely the way you are.I’d believe it with every bit of me. About them. Myself? Those insidious voices—some cruel, some well-meaning but ultimately misguided—still echo loud in my head. “It was a choice I could make. Monster or god, troll or deity. Is it any wonder I wanted to be on top of a mountain instead of under a bridge?”

Considering how young I was when I made it, I’m not sure how much of a choice it really was. Maybe some people would criticize my parents, tell them they should’ve done better. They had no information to work with, though, so they did the best they could, protected and nurtured me in the best way they knew how. I’m intensely grateful to people who make me feel exceptional for reasons that have nothing to do with my superpower.

Maybe that’s why I’m so devoted to the kink community. Not only do they not value me for it, it’s actively of no use to them whatsoever. It can’t be what they want me for, so I’ve had to prove my worth some other way. I have. I’d like to say beyond my wildest imagination, but frankly my imagination is damn good and I’m too cocky to imagine I’d fail. Creature comforts and success have always been a given, not a possibility.

Perhaps that’s part of why I have such a fondness for India, as well. She’s never given a shit I can’t feel pain. Has always treated me the same as anyone else. I had to earn her hard-fought regard by other means. As I hope I have with Allie. Though I’d like to think that, if it came down to it, he’d let me fight in his place because he’s my responsibility and I’d do anything for him, including give my life. It’s not as though it would hurt; it wouldn’t be that kind of sacrifice. I’d like to think I’d make it even if it were.

Waiting for his response is the longest minute of my life, and while I can’t claim to compare it accurately to pain, this…discomposure has got to be close. It’s certainly unpleasant. Will he understand the choice I felt I had to make?

Finally, he speaks, and the soft sound of his voice eases some of my distress. “No. In your shoes, I’d like to think I would’ve done the same thing. You understand the world is more complicated than that, though, right?”

There’s a note of almost pleading in his voice, and it makes me want to reach out and comfort him, take him in my arms and assure him everything’s all right. It’s not that big of a deal, and I’m used to it. Have moved on. The truth is, I’ve spent my whole life building up this levy, holding back the crushing waves of dread that I’m a monster, that I’m unnatural and unworthy because that’s what all those children with their schoolyard taunts told me. Even adults…they couldn’t fathom me and they weren’t good at hiding it.

Allie’s given me all of his worries and concerns, allowed me to help soothe some of them, and though it scares the ever-loving hell out of me, I want to share that kind of intimacy with him. So I give the man I love, who is standing before me, all of my suffering, the only kind of hurt I’m allowed to feel. I let him see my genuine expression of anguish. Not the ones I practiced in mirrors when I was a kid, but this heartfelt, wrenching twist of my features. I don’t give him comfort because that’s how I’ve covered my own terror and doubts for my entire life. I am petrified.

He doesn’t reach for me either, and I want, more than anything, to feel his skin against mine again, to avail myself of his strength and passion, his raw intellect and, fuck yes, his lovely submission.

“Sometimes you get to be a little selfish. This isn’t some superhero movie where the villain is going to destroy everyone you love. It’s real life, and you’re allowed to ask for the things you want. And I want to apologize for what I said. It just… You. You hurt me, and I wanted to hurt you back the only way I knew how. I knew how badly it would hurt you because you do feel so much. I didn’t mean it, and I shouldn’t have said it. I’m sorry, and I hope you can forgive me.”

I let the unfamiliar tears pool at the corners of my eyes, though I can’t stomach letting them spill over. Such a gift—this simple admission from someone I admire, trust, and respect that I am, in fact, human. Worthy of having desires and allowed to make the mundane attempt to fulfill them. It takes all of those other unkind and lying voices that have told me otherwise over the years, and maybe doesn’t silence them—not yet—but overrides them.

I let the riot of emotion coursing through me make my voice hoarse and desperate so when I say these next words, he’ll know I mean it. With everything I am, with everything I have.

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