Take Me

Chapter Twenty

♔ Chapter Twenty ♔    

I ended up in the nurse's office. The walls were that horrid, perfect white that I hated, so pristine that nothing could ever be flawed or marked or blemished. Everything had a place and was right where it supposed to be. I hated it.

I was lying down on an examination table, and reached to get up. My mum's hand found mine, grasping onto it for dear life.

"My son's been raped!" I heard her cry. I'd never felt so utterly embarrassed in my whole entire life.

"I have not!" I got up from the table, wincing away the pain I felt.

"What are you doing? You need to stay down, I've called an ambulance. Who did it, son? Who took away your sweet virginity?"

"I lost my virginity a while ago, and this," I paused to gesture at myself, "was not rape."

"It was consensual?!" She gasped, her hands covering her mouth in shock. "Son, there's being a little kinky, then there's the extreme - this is extreme! You're hurt! Who did it? Who was he?"

I folded my arms, raising my eyebrows at her. "He?"

"Oh don't play games anymore, son." She raised her eyebrows too, but more in the motherly way. "I know it was a boy. You're gay, and yes, I know, and no, I'm not ashamed, and this is not the time - what's his name? I'll end him."

"We're forgetting this ever happened, because I'm not giving you any names," I insisted, standing my ground. I heard her sigh gruffly, covering her forehead with her hand in frustration and depression and agitation. She just didn't understand.

"Son, you annoy me so much sometimes," she admitted, folding her legs all prim and proper while sitting on a chair.

"Because I'm not Luke, your precious golden boy?" I spat at her, wrangling her hand from mine. She dropped her other hand from her forehead and looked up at me, her eyes a mix of things.

Agitation, annoyance, love/hate, dismay, disgust, shame. But above all of that, her eyes told me it was true. The fact that she didn't reach out to me again, to touch me again, told me it was true. The fact that she didn't even say a word after that made it really sink in. Maybe she didn't know it, or maybe she just didn't know that I knew, but either way, I couldn't stop myself.

"Look at you," I began, "you're not even denying it. We all know it's true. I'll never be him, I'm just the cruel carbon copy left behind to remind you of everything you've lost. And you don't think I know it was all my fault? Don't say it wasn't, because it fucking was." I was pulling at my own hair, rambling, turning back and forth. I didn't even want to look at her. She disgusted me, but I doubted not as much as I disgusted her.

"Son," she started, but I never gave her the opportunity to finish.

"No, shut the fuck up!" I screamed at her, tears spitting down my face. I wiped them away furiously, but they kept pouring out anyway. "It was my fault, all my fucking fault, because I fucking pushed him!"

My hand clasped over my mouth, my whole body standing still. I couldn't believe myself, what I'd just told her. Now she knew the truth, the whole truth. She knew everything.

I couldn't take my eyes off of her, but at the same time, all I wanted was to turn and run away. She knew I'd killed her favourite son, I knew that'd be the end of everything between us. She had the reason to put me away, to drug me up, to get rid of me. I just handed that to her on a silver platter, and why wouldn't she use it? She couldn't want me anymore, not after this. Not after finding out what I'd done.

Maybe that was why I liked it rough with Isaac, why I didn't want to be treated the way Darby or Bobby treated me. I didn't deserve the kind of happiness that either of them could give me, I only deserved what Isaac could give me. Maybe he did love me, in some twisted way, but he hurts me, and I let him because I think I deserve it. And I do, I deserve it. So I let him, time and time again.

I watched her closely, my eyes flicking to every move of her body, reading every little action, every minuscule expression. My own mother, sitting there, expressionless. She rose from her chair to stand beside me, and for a moment, I thought I saw her smile softly, in pity or in love or whatever else.

But I was wrong. Horribly wrong.

I felt her hand hit my cheek, flat and hard. The sound spread across the room. Then she did it again, this time, her other hand, the other cheek. I let her slap my face, whipping it back. Her fist suddenly hit my nose. The blood poured down my face with ease, and it felt good, standing there, letting her, letting the blood wash down my face.

"You horrid, evil little boy!" she screamed, her face red and bursting to its brims with anger, with absolute, unbridled rage, all directed at me. I felt her kick me in the leg, dropping me to my knees. She grabbed me by the neck and squeezed hard, her nails digging into the skin so deep, her fingers wrangling me so hard that I couldn't breathe.

Her hand pressed harder, tossing me backwards so that I landed hard on my bottom. I called out in pain, but she didn't even throw me a passing glance. She turned away, dropping down onto her knees, whimpering, sobbing, heartbroken.

"Mum," I pleaded with her. She shook her teary-eyed head, looking up to face me. Her eyes were red with crying, probably just like mine.

"No, Tom, just tell me why you did it," she asked. "Why did you push him?"

I couldn't tell her the real reason. Knowing how Luke felt about me, how he kissed me, that would destroy whatever image she had of her favourite child. She'd be even more disgusted at me for letting him, or for rejecting him. She'd end up hating the both of us. It was okay for her to hate me, but it wasn't okay for her to hate Luke. I couldn't let it happen, and I had the power to stop it, so I lied.

I wiped at my eyes, hiding the tears. I felt my whole body stiffen, growing colder. It was hard, knowing what I needed to do, but I guess it had to be done. Besides, it's not like I'd actually be far from lying. I did kill him, I didn't deserve my mother's love, I didn't deserve her pity.

"What do you want me to say?" I sniffed, staring back at her. She seemed so destroyed in that moment, so completely broken down, like everything had been slowly stripped off of her until all that was left was a rotting, crying carcass.

"Do you want me to tell you that it was all just an accident? Because it wasn't. He was just there, in the water, and so was I, and I knew that in one little push, I'd be free of him forever. I was sick of being in his shadow, being the one everyone forgets about. It was all about Luke, even after he's been dead so long, it's still always about Luke. So I pushed him, and now he's dead. Now there's no Luke, there's only me. There's only Tom. I won, and he lost."

I blocked out everything I wanted to feel, any kind of emotion or feeling, because that always seemed to fuck me up. I knew I couldn't tell her the truth, but I couldn't lie and tell her that it wasn't my fault, because it was. And exaggerating the truth like I just did, I suppose that was some silly kind of self-sabotage, revenge against myself, for doing what I'd done to Luke on that beach.

Now that she knew, she'd punish me. I needed to be punished. Maybe that way, the guilt would finally leave me, Luke would finally leave me. Or maybe he'd find some kind of peace, and I'd be comforted knowing that he was okay. But I'd always feel the same, there was no cure for how I felt. Beaten, broken, guilty, horrid, disgusting.

I watched her carefully, after that, and she watched me, too. She looked at me differently, after that. It wasn't her usual look of pity or frustration or regret, it was something I should have anticipated. Fear. My own mother, staring over at me, her eyes terrified at her own child. Mortified.

In a hurry, she clawed herself to her feet and rushed from the room, thumping her shoulder into the doorway of the nurse's office. The door hung open, and I just sat there on the floor, nose bleeding, worn down and shivering. I'd never felt more empty, more heartless in my entire life.

But better she hated me than Luke, right?