A Silence to Remember (manxman)

Chapter 11

2002

Josh

In the bathroom, I stared at my reflection, barely recognizing the man in the mirror. How many more times could I tell my coworkers I fell or walked into a door? I wasn't as clumsy as I made people believe I was.

I surpassed everyone's expectations.

Determined not to follow in my grandfather's, father's, and brothers' footsteps, I surpassed everyone's expectations, even my own. I earned both a Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in education from Gallaudet University, the only deaf university in the country. For the past two years, I worked at the New England School for the Deaf where I made a lot of friends. I was lucky I found something I loved. I mean, I truly loved my job.

So why did I fuck up my life and belittle myself by staying involved with a low-life narcissist?

Thirty year old Mario Russo, my live-in boyfriend and/or partner and reason for the black eye, preferred it if I had no friends, but he didn't have a say in everything. He couldn't be with me twenty-four hours a day. Work was my reprieve, my safe place.

For my twenty-first birthday five years ago, my dad bought me my first computer. The internet opened a whole new world for me. I stumbled upon chat rooms, a novelty back then. That's how I met Mario, a gay, deaf man from Boston. We chatted for six months before we met in person. At the time, I had my own place and was living on my own for the first time in my life. I wished I continued to live on my own because I was doing just fine without a boyfriend.

Mario's father was a CEO of a wealthy financial firm in Boston that had existed for decades. All of his life, Mario got whatever he wanted. I had no idea what kind of person he was until I moved in with him. His brownstone in the South Bay of Boston was breathtaking with the shiny marble kitchen countertops and cathedral ceilings.

Everything was perfect in the beginning. He lavished me with fancy dinners, gifts, and other romantic gestures, leading me to believe I'd found 'the one.' Without him, I wouldn't have been able to go on a wine tour in Napa Valley or a trip to Paris with our very own ASL and French interpreters. But I would have been just as happy with a romantic walk along the beach at sunset.

I confused love with lust. I was in lust with Mario, one of the reasons I moved in with him. I had only been in love once before.

Or was it just a little crush?

For an entire month back in the fall of 1993, I wrote Dominick dozens of letters, begging him for forgiveness. A part of me wished he'd strangled me. I deserved it. I called him a hypocrite when I was really the hypocrite. I'd fooled around with five different men by the time I saw Dominick grinding against that guy in the club. I was angry—and jealous—because he was in Provincetown with another man, yet he didn't have the balls to be with me. Not only that, I lived nearby in the neighboring town of Wellfleet. I was so pissed off. At the time, I said nothing to Dominick because I was with a man, a much older man. He was around thirty and had a thing for very young men. After I saw Dominick, I got loaded, taking whatever pill anyone gave me, and ended up in that man's bed where I lost my virginity. Not my proudest moment.

I never heard from Dominick again. It's not like I ever got over him, but I moved on. Does anyone ever really get over their first love?

Everything was great those first few months Mario and I lived together.

Or almost everything.

There were hundreds of red flags that should have sent me running, but I was blinded by good looks and sex. Maybe I feared I wouldn't find anyone else. At twenty-six, I worried that I'd never meet someone who was both deaf and gay, or someone who had a working knowledge of ASL. Hearing men had little patience for me, beyond sex.