Page 43 of A Series of Rooms
Liam was careful with his approach, as if sensing how precarious a line he was walking. “You don’t say much about your home life,” he said.
“My parents,” Jonah began, then had to stop to swallow around a lump in his throat. “It’s not easy to talk about.”
“You don’t have to,” Liam said softly.
Jonah knew that. Liam had made it clear countless times before, never pushing, never pressuring, always letting things drop when Jonah clammed up. He thought that was exactly why he felt the resistance falling away now.
“They caught me with a boy from my soccer team,” he said, laying the words bare before he could second-guess them. “It was my senior year, months away from graduation. And it was... It was just a kiss.” He swallowed, breaking off into a whisper. “We were just kissing.”
He closed his eyes, and he could picture it so clearly: the back of his father’s hand across his cheek, his mother’s streaked mascara, a folded brochure slid across the table to him.It’s areally great program, Jonah. These people can really help you. Don’t worry about the cost, it’s already taken care of. No, Jonah, it isn’t up for debate.
“My father never shied away from corporal punishment,” he said. “‘Spare the rod, spoil the child,’ and all that. But when he hit me that time, I felt the difference. I knew it was personal. He wasn’t hitting me to correct my behavior; he hitme because he hated the person I had just shown him that I was.”
Jonah glanced up to find Liam watching him with such intense horror that he had to look away.
“They didn’t even look at me for a week,” he continued. “They didn’t speak to me. My mom cried all the time. I could tell my siblings were scared. I don’t think they understood what was going on. I felt like I had destroyed my whole family.
“They came to me a couple weeks later with an ultimatum. Our pastor was sitting at the kitchen table with some packet about a camp forboys like me. The church was willing to help foot the bill. I was turning eighteen in a few weeks. I told them they couldn’t force me to go.” He swallowed. “They told me it was that or nothing. It was the condition I had to meet to live under their roof, to have access to any of my college savings. But I couldn’t...”
Jonah resented the burn of oncoming tears. He had promised himself a long time ago he wouldn’t shed any more tears for his parents.
“Do you know how many times I’ve wondered what would have happened if I’d just stayed and stuck it out?” Jonah asked, turning back to Liam, who seemed to be holding back tears of his own. “A few months of enduring their bullshit camp, and I could have built a different life. I could have lied, I could have been smart about it. But they had me cornered, and I was so angry, and I was so sure I was doing the right thing by running away. I had a couplethousand saved up from summer jobs, and I thought it would be enough... I didn’t know...”
“How could you have known?” Liam whispered.
“I couldn’t have,” Jonah agreed. “I was just some sheltered kid from the country, out on the streets with no one to turn to. Of course I fell blindly to the first person who showed me sympathy.”
Liam went still beside him. “Was that—? I mean, the man who...?”
“No,” Jonah said. “There was someone else, before.” His bravery withered as he approached this gap in his history, but he pushed forward. “His name was Dominic. I had only been in Chicago a couple of months when we met. I thought...” He took a deep breath and watched it mist around him on the exhale. “He was the first person I ever thought I loved.”
“How did you meet?” He could tell Liam wanted to ask more but was choosing wisely.
“He was on a smoke break at the time I happened to be getting mugged.” Jonah offered him a wry smile. “I’d already blown through my savings by that point and was sleeping on the streets when I couldn’t get a bed at a shelter. He found me that night and took me in. It was just supposed to be long enough to get me cleaned up, but it turned into weeks. He kept asking me to stay, and I did.”
Sometimes it was hard to believe that time in his life existed at all, that it wasn’t some strange dream. Looking back, the details were already fickle in his memory. Had it been four roommates or five? What color were the sheets onDominic’s mattress on the floor? Was it cigarette smoke or marijuana that always left the shared bathroom slightly hazy? Had he ever really loved Jonah at all?
“Things got intense between us,” Jonah continued. “I had never had that kind of freedom before. I was still so angry at everything behind me, and he was so nice to me when he didn’t have to be, so I gave everything to that relationship. It was all I had. If he offered me a drink, I took it. Drugs, whatever. I wanted him to keep wanting me.” He squeezed the swing’s chains, letting the rigid metal bite into his palms. “When he told me I could have sex for money, it wasn’t something I had ever really thought about. But it was hard to say no when he had done so much for me, and I had no way of paying him back. So I did it. And kept doing it.”
“Was he taking the money?” Liam asked.
“No,” Jonah said quickly, too defensive. “It wasn’t like that. Most of the money went toward rent and food, which was fair since I was staying with him. I got caught, though,” Jonah said. “I wasn’t being careful enough, I guess, because I was arrested. I don’t...” He stopped and looked up at Liam. “I still don’t want to get into the details. It’s not that I don’t trust you. I just—”
“Jonah, it’s okay.” Almost hesitantly, Liam uncurled one hand from his swing and held it out between them. Jonah took it, squeezing tightly.
“Dominic is the one who introduced me to the person I work for now,” he said before he could back down. “It got me out of a bad situation and put me in a worse one, but Ihave to believe that Dominic thought he was doing the right thing at the time. I guess I’ll never know for sure.” At Liam’s questioning look, he said, “By the time I was released, he was gone. His phone was deactivated. His room at the apartment was cleared out. It was as if he’d never existed.”
“It sounds like a guilty conscience,” Liam said with more heat than Jonah expected.
“I know,” Jonah said. “But I still want to believe some part of it was real for him.”
Liam nodded again, though not without some hesitation that time. “It makes more sense, now,” he said after another lapse in silence. “Having the context of why you’re so against going to the police. I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t know,” Jonah said.
“You know this doesn’t make me feel differently about you, right? The knowing?” Liam said.
Jonah pushed his toes into the asphalt, knocking his swing against Liam’s. “I think that speaks more to your character than mine.”
