Page 42 of Ky
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Chris
“I don’t know what you want, Chris,” Ky said as he flopped down on the bed, his back to me and his head automatically hung down.
It was hard not to look at how his defined shoulder muscles flexed around the armholes of his tank. As much as I wanted to touch him, I got the sense that it was best if I held back. This up and down, back and forth thing with him was starting to really give me whiplash, but for some reason, I couldn’t help but keep holding on.
“I’m not good at this talking shit,” he said with a sigh in his tone. It was almost as if he was regretful for that. “I can talk about cars and the weather no problem but all this shit that’s going on in my head is just stuck there.”
“Okay,” I replied with a shrug. I wasn’t going to force him to talk and I knew no matter what I said he wasn’t going to open up if he didn’t really want to. So I let him go through whatever process he was going through and stayed there to listen to it all.
“Did you hear any of that?” he asked and I got the feeling he wasn’t talking about what he’d just said.
“Yeah, I walked in sometime around the time she said she became pregnantagain. I’m assuming that…”
“She got pregnant at fifteen and lost the baby.” He let out a forced breath and I could tell that all of this was hard for him.
I knew his struggle right then. He wanted to break down but at the same time, he felt like he needed to be strong for everyone around him, especially Ingram.
“I left her, Chris. Walked away and didn’t look back. I wasn’t there to protect her. Fuck! This is all my fault.”
His body was vibrating. I didn’t even think about how he’d react, I just moved, my body sliding across the bed and wrapping around his. I hugged him from behind. In all honesty, I didn’t expect anything out of it, but then his body sagged into me instantly. His hand was suddenly covering mine and he didn’t hesitate to slip his fingers into the spaces between mine.
“This is not on you, Ky. You can’t undo the past, but what you can do is try for the future,” I said into his ear in a soft, calming tone. “You can’t fix this but you can make it better. And I believe that you are, simply by being here for her.”
“It’s bad. I didn’t expect it to be that horrible,” he said, then he was opening up like a man starved for salvation.
He told me everything she’d told him. I understood his rage an anger because as calm as I normally was, I felt it too. I wanted to kill. I tried my hardest to not let it show because that wasn’t what Ky needed right now. And in truth, Ingram didn’t need it either.
His body fell limp as soon as he was done. It was as if I was holding him up. Maybe in some way, I’d helped to ease his burdens and suddenly I wanted nothing but to be that person for him.
“Come here,” I said as I moved to relax back on the bed. He came willingly, spreading out beside me and looking up at the ceiling. “Tell me what happened. What sent you running?”
I waited for him to deny it, to brush it off and walk out of the room. The air became too thick to breathe as the seconds ticked on in silence. We weren’t touching, but I could almost feel the tension pulling at his muscles. Without looking at me, his hand sought out mine and he tangled our fingers together again.
“I was seventeen. We weren’t encouraged to have friendships. We were supposed to be nice and respectful to everyone, but there was never time to, like, hang out. But I had a friend, he was a year younger than me. He—Brighton, was an outsider like me, brought in by his parents when he was eight. He knew how different it was there and though I couldn’t remember much from my life before, we kind of became friends because we both understood.”
I turned my head and watched him as he spoke. It maybe wasn’t the best thing to do because I got the sense that Ky couldn’t take my eyes on him as he told me his story. But I was at the point that I was ready and willing to push past his barriers. I was there for him and he needed to know that he had all of me right now.
“I saw him as a friend and he saw me as the same,” he said and I got the feeling like he felt like he needed to make that statement, like it might have had more meaning woven in between each word. “One night, Fathe—the leader called everyone out of their homes. We all gathered around in the town center area and waited for him to speak. It was when I saw two men holding Brighton down that I knew something horribly wrong was about to happen. He went on about how the outside filth had been brought in by Brighton. That it was threatening to taint all of us and that ‘something had to be done in order to stop the spread of this evil,’ if you can believe that.”
“Oh,” I said and it was like a light went off in my head. I had a feeling I knew where this was going and it suddenly clicked why Ky had made that statement.
“Brighton had a crush on a guy and I guess he’d tried to tell him but it didn’t go over so well. The guy ran and toldFather.” He said the word through gritted teeth. “I stood there frozen in shock because I just didn’t understand why he would do this to his ‘people’ and how he could have been so cold to a kid. A fucking kid, Chris. I knew deep inside of me that this was all wrong but I felt like I couldn’t do anything about it. Brighton was my friend, and I didn’t give a shit about what anyone had to say about him. He was funny and smart. He made me laugh. Hell, he made that place bearable. Do you get me?”
“Yeah. I think I get it. So, you were taught that it was wrong?”
“Yes. One ofFather’sthings was you couldn’t be homosexual because then you couldn’t grow the following. That was what we were called, ‘the following,’ orhisfollowing at times. In his mind, there it was all about adding and growing his word. He said it was the evils of the outside world that weren’t supposed to happen inside of those gates. It was so messed up.”
His head turned and he looked into my eyes. There was a deep sadness there and I wanted more than anything to take that away for him.
“Being gay, giving into those thoughts and urges, he saw it as a direct attack against him and his word. He blamed it on the fact that Brighton had beenout theretoo long before coming to be ‘saved’ and that his impressionable mind had already been tainted before he’d reached the front gates. He said there was nothing he could do for him.”
“Wait. But I’m confused. He took his parents in and yours too, right? They weren’t born there and had been so-called tainted for much longer, right?” I asked trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. I wasn’t sure why, the man sounded crazy and I knew that there was probably no good explanation to any of his ways.
“Adults came to him to be saved,” Ky said then let out a long sigh as—I assumed—he tried to think of the words to explain it. “It was their choice to seek out the light and therefore they were open to receiving the change. Children born on the outside and brought in were seen as people he had to break-in, if you will. They didn’t have the choice, and though he welcomed them in because of their parents, he never fully accepted them.”
His fingers twitched in mine and then his grip became almost crushing. I didn’t say anything and I didn’t even try to ease the pain. I held him firmly, my thumb stroking back and forth over his warm skin.
