Page 64 of Cheater and the Saint
The smell of coffee in the air helped me focus on something else, and I breathed in the aroma, letting it calm my mind.
Arms slowly came around me from behind, and feeling Leo holding me, I sharply sucked in a shaky breath, trying my hardest not to fucking cry in front of him. He didn’t say anything at first.
He just held me, his front to my back and his head resting on the top of my shoulder.
After the night when he’d taken me to the club, he knew all about my panic attacks, but it warmed my heart that he also knew how to deal with me during them.
“Just breathe, babe,” he said before inhaling. I inhaled, too, and then exhaled when he did. He breathed with me that way for several minutes, and when the attack passed, I turned in his arms. His brown eyes were filled with warmth, and somehow, that warmth reached into me, too, taking away the chill from the memory. “Better?”
I nodded and buried my face in the crease of his neck.
“Do you wanna talk about what brought it on?” he asked, pressing his cheek against the top of my head.
“The party tonight,” I answered, wrapping my arms around his torso. It was mostly the truth. Thinking of it had led to the memory of Chase. “I haven’t had much luck with parties.”
“Why? What’s up?”
“Nothing,” I said upon reflex.
“No. Don’t give me that shit. I just saw you have a damn panic attack in our kitchen.” Leo took hold of my chin and tilted my face back up to his. “Tell me, Saint.”
There was the moment when I’d normally shut down. Or change the subject. Dodge his question as usual. But I was finding it hard to do that anymore. He meant a lot to me. I’d only known him for like two months, but my heart felt like I’d known him my whole life.
“We need coffee before this conversation,” I said, stepping out of his hold and going over to the cabinet to get our cups down. I filled mine before pouring some in his, leaving room for him to add his sugar and creamer. Once we were at the table, I said, “I told you before that I was bullied a lot in school. Mostly it was being shoved against my locker, being tripped in the hall, or hearing people say shitty things.”
“Those bastards,” Leo said.
“The incident that really messed me up, though, was when I got invited to some popular guy’s party junior year. His parents were loaded and were out of town for the weekend, so he invited the whole junior and senior class.” I paused, staring at my cup. Steam wafted from the top, and I lifted it to my lips before sipping it. “I’d never been invited to a party before.”
It was easy enough telling Leo the beginning part of the story: me standing in the crowded house, Chase approaching me with a drink and asking me to play pool, and us walking to the game room.
Leo nodded as I talked, and realization sparked in his eyes at the mention of pool, and I knew he understood he was finally going to get an answer as to why I behaved the way I had when we’d went out.
The difficult part began when I described how Chase came onto me during the game; the soft touches on the arm, the longing, lust-filled gazes.
“Oh, man,” Leo said, rubbing his cheek and casting a worried stare at me. “The guy was playing you, wasn’t he?”
If onlyI’dbeen able to see the obvious so clearly. Back then, though, I’d been naïve. The bullying I’d suffered up until that point had been minimal, and I’d written it off as guys giving another guy a hard time to make themselves feel better or showing off in front of their friends.
I never considered the idea that Chase had an ulterior motive, but Leo had spotted it from a mile away.
“Yes. He was.” The corners of my eyes stung as more tears tried to surface, but I blinked them back. “See… I’d just come out a little before that party. My mom showed me nothing but love and support, and she’d even thrown me a coming out party. No joke.” I smiled at the memory of her bringing home a big rainbow cake the day after I told her, and how we’d eaten it together while watchingThe Golden Girls. “I was foolish to think I’d get that same support from school.”
Leo’s expression changed. His eyes darkened, and he looked away. I remembered the day he’d stormed out of our dorm when I asked him why he’d ever hid who he was. He had a painful past of his own.
Sparing him the graphic details, I gave a brief summary of what happened that night. It was not only sparing him, but me as well, for I didn’t want to relive them again.
“Chase wanted to have sex, so we went upstairs,” I explained, feeling my face heat and the tops of my ears tingle. “What I still don’t understand is that he actually kissed me, Leo. Likereallykissed me. But anyway, we went into a room and made out on the bed before he said he’d be right back. I asked him where he was going, and he said to get a condom because he didn’t have one on him. He wanted me to be naked when he came back into the room, so I stripped down.”
Leo stared at me, and as the shadows danced in his dark eyes, I knew he suspected what happened.
“I was an idiot,” I whispered as the humiliation from that night returned. “I was on the bed, naked and waiting for him, when he and his friends busted into the room with their phones out and taking pictures of me. When I tried to hide under the blanket, Chase tugged it off me and laughed.”
“As if I’d ever want you, fag,” Chase spat at me. “I know you’ve had a freaky little crush on me, but that shit ends now. Say hello to the camera.”
Chase and his friends had then sent the photos to the rest of their friends, and before too long, it’d spread around the school like wildfire. The bullying got so bad that I begged Mom to let me drop out of school. She talked to the principal on countless occasions, demanding for the bullies to be punished, but the principal had said,“Well, kids will be kids. Your son shouldn’t have been at a party and let himself get so intoxicated that he took off his clothes. You’re lucky he hasn’t been suspended for it.”
I had to quit the swim team, and I wasn’t allowed to go to prom that year—not as if I wanted to go anyway.
