Page 5 of Loving Trent
As I maneuver through the motel’s parking lot, my headset alerts me to an incoming call. “Answer,” I say, and the call connects.
“Did you find anything useful?” The deep, southern voice asks in place of a greeting.
“Not yet, but the house was a mess. There are papers everywhere, so I’m going to go back tomorrow and keep digging. There has to be some evidence of who these assholes really are and where they relocated to.”
I shut the bike off, but don’t dismount. “You know if you let me?—”
“I know if I let you type away at that keyboard of yours, I will have the information I’m searching for quicker, but like I said before. This is something I have to do myself. Letting you find the address to Camp Arrow was enough. If I keep running into dead ends, I’ll call you, but right now, I’m doing this alone.” I try to keep my tone light and easy, but the uncontrollable need to have my pound of flesh and do this myself is hard to keep contained.
“I get it. Just know that I’m in this with you a hundred percent. I don’t need to know your story to understand the need to do it all yourself. Call me tomorrow.”
The call goes dead, and I finally dismount. I grab the bag strapped to my bike and head toward the front door. The night clerk greets me with a smile, but I’m not in the mood for small talk. I hand over my credit card, take the key card, and head toward my room. Once I’m safe behind the locked door, the feeling of being unclean hits me out of nowhere.
It’s not a surprise that after being back at Camp Arrow, I would feel like this. Hell, even thinking about that place has me wanting to take a bath in a vat of acid. Pulling out my phone, I check online and sigh when I find a pizza place still open that delivers. With my order for a simple cheese pizza made, I strip out of my clothes and head for the shower. Normally, I don’t allow myself to look in the mirror, but today, I stop in front of the single floating sink and stare at my reflection.
I finally grew into my body around the age of seventeen when my uncle took me to the gym for the first time. The firsthit of adrenaline to my system after pushing my body to the brink became addictive. I found that while I was lifting weights, punching a bag, and doing anything else I could think of, the demons from my past were silent. I started putting on weight in muscle mass and filling out. I let my light brown—almost golden—hair grow out over the years and always keep a little stubble on my face. My dark brown eyes are cold-looking, or so I’ve been told. I don’t hate how I look, at least not my face, but below my neck… Looking at my chest, abdomen, and legs… I hate everything about those areas.
I have six small scars across my abdomen that I put there with the glass, and one on my chest. Every time I see or feel them, they remind me how low I sunk back then. How desperate I was for an escape, even if it meant leaving this world behind.
Then there are the other scars I carry.
The one from a gunshot wound that I have no memory of receiving. The doctors were able to get the bullet out, but it was nothing but a dead end for the police. The worst of them comes from the belt buckle and the hot fireplace poker they pressed into my skin, but none of those makes me feel dirtier than the one on my right shoulder.
My left hand raises, and my fingers lightly dance across the faint scar in the shape of a set of teeth. It was left by none other than Sandy during one of her many assaults. She bit me so hard that Tom was afraid I would need stitches, and took it out on her. I’ll never forget the sounds I heard that night as I hid in the corner. I was only fourteen then, but I pressed myself into the corner of the nightmare room and covered my ears. I knew what Tom was doing to her because she was pleading just like I had not even moments before. I didn’t feel gratification that she was being hurt like me. Instead, for the first time, I wanted to comfort her and save her like I begged someone to save me, but I couldn’t move.
Sighing loudly, I turn away from the mirror, turn the hot water on full blast while only turning the cold on a little, then step inside the hottest shower I can stand. No matter how often I’ve scrubbed my body to the point of almost ripping my skin off, I never feel truly clean. When my skin is red and the water temperature has dropped, I step out of the shower, suddenly starving.
“Thank God,” I sigh as a soft knock comes from the door, and the smell of food hits my nose. I quickly throw on a shirt and a pair of pants. Thankfully, most of my scars are hidden without having to wear long sleeves, but I will never be able to wear shorts again. I open the door and find the nice young man who checked me in, holding my pizza. I paid for it online and tipped the driver. But I open my wallet and pull out a ten-dollar bill for his trouble of bringing it to me.
“Thanks for bringing this up,” I say, taking the pizza and handing him the money.
“N… no problem.” His cheeks turn a nice shade of pink as he refuses to make eye contact with me.
He isn’t the first person to react this way to me, and I’m sure he isn’t going to be the last. Over the years since I’ve bulked up, there have been individuals who I don’t scare off with my brooding asshole persona. But I’ve never once acted on any hint of attraction from anyone. Male or female. The latter is because they just don’t do it for me, and the former is because fear consumes me when I think of letting someone in. With a nod toward the clerk, I close the door and settle onto the bed, pulling out a couple of files from the desk drawer I didn’t get to and open the box. I also pull out my laptop and FaceTime the only person I’ve ever let behind my brick walls surrounding my heart.
Maria Telvondy answers on the second ring. Her beautiful face–I might not sexually like women, but I still appreciate how beautiful they are–fills the screen. Her pink-dyed hair is pulledinto a bun messily on top of her head, and her blue eyes are the color of a clear summer day. “Hey, how is the best guy I know?” She asks, offering me her megawatt smile.
Maria and I met when I was a lost and scared teenager. It was before I learned how to mask who I really was. She is the only other living soul besides me who knows everything about my sordid past. She found me sitting outside our school, under the bleachers, with a needle pressed against the crook of my elbow, when we were sixteen. It was the first time I had met her, and she rushed over, snatched the needle from my hand, threw it to the ground, and jumped up and down on it. All I could do was sit there in shock as I watched her destroy the heroin I used my last bit of money on. She then sat down beside me, her chest rising and falling rapidly, tears in her eyes, and wrapped her arms around me.
I let her hold me as I broke down in her arms. My lips became loose, and I laid everything out there for her. I don’t know what made me do it, but I’m glad I did. She walked me home, helped me tell my uncle that I was addicted to drugs, and with their combined help, I was able to get clean. She became my angel, and I will never be able to repay her.
“Tired but good,” I say, shoving a piece of tomatoey, cheesy goodness in my mouth. The moan that slips out of my lips rivals the ones I’m sure porn stars make.
“How was it going back?”
I swallow before speaking, “Not as bad as I thought. I still haven’t found anything Tom’s real identity or where they went after. But I’m going back tomorrow to keep looking. There has to be something there.”
“You’ll find it. I have faith in you,” she says, and her words do what they usually do. They warm me up from the inside out. “Uncle Joey called me today. Said he hadn’t heard from you in a couple of days. What’s going on there?”
“Nothing. Just haven’t been in the right headspace to talk to him lately.” I sigh and drop the slice of pizza that doesn’t taste as good anymore. While my relationship with him is one that I cherish and has been full of nothing but love and acceptance, I still haven’t been able to tell him the truth. It’s been ten years, and still, he doesn’t know the real me.
“You know you are eventually going to have to tell him. He isn’t going to judge you or think less of you. That man loves you as if you’re his son. Sure, he will be hurt that you haven’t told him before, but he will get over that.” Her words aid the guilt crawling inside me, tearing me up as it moves.
I peek at the screen and find nothing but love and understanding in her blue eyes. She’s right, and deep down, I know it. Uncle Joey won’t care that I’m attracted to guys, but he will be hurt that I kept what happened to me a secret. I just can’t get over that fear that keeps nagging at me. That just maybe Tom and Sandy were right that no one would love that side of me.
Just as she usually does, Maria sees where my mind has gone. “Hey!” When I finally find the courage to look up again, she says, “I love you. You aren’t unlovable, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. Those assholes took so much from you, don’t continue letting them take even more.”
Four
