One Shots 3.0 [boyxboy]

Constellations

It started when I was six.

My dad would come home smelling of cheap alcohol and let himself into my room, sit on the edge of my bed, and slur nonsense at me while he touched me. At first I was so terrified that I would freeze up, my whole body would stiffen and I'd lay there, unmoving, long after he'd left and passed out in his room, or on the couch, or the bathroom floor; but after a while when I came to expect it I remember staring through the window at the stars, repeating the names of constellations and galaxies and trying to get out of my body.

I didn't have anybody else. My mom died an hour after I was born; or, as my dad would tell it, I killed her. I was a shy kid, never spoke up in class, fell right through the cracks of an education system that should have noticed that something was going on.

My dad had a friend from college who lived a couple provinces away, which is the only reason, I think, that they were still friends; nobody who saw my dad regularly wanted much of anything to do with a nasty drunk and his temper. Once every couple of years he and his family would come to town around the holidays and once we even went to stay with them. My dad's friend, Charlie, had a wife, Anita, and a son who was less than a year older than me called Micah.

I think Micah always thought I was kind of weird; he was a boisterous, outgoing kid with a thousand hobbies and interests, all of which were enthusiastically indulged by his parents. He played sports and musical instruments, he read half a dozen books a week, he had any toy or gadget he ever wanted. Conversely, I was quiet and shy, straining against my own anxiety to be liked by him but barely managing to speak or engage when he tried to play with me.

That changed when I was seven.

Micah's family came to town for their bi-annual visit a couple of weeks before Christmas, but this time was different. They usually stayed in a hotel in town but this year, for whatever reason, Charlie and Anita set up in our guest room and Micah was to bunk in with me.

As you can imagine, this simultaneously relaxed and terrified me. Part of me was hopeful that because there were other people in the house, I would get a couple of weeks off from the abuse. But part of me was worried that he would just do to both of us what he had been doing to me for almost a year now, and I felt scared and angry and ashamed and weirdly protective of this other kid.

For the first few nights everything was fine. Micah, though it was clear he did think I was weird, was fun to have around and always made an effort to play with me even though it must have seemed from the outside like I was unreceptive, and there was something comforting about having a warm body next to me all night. I started to relax, thinking my dad was smart enough not to try anything while Micah was there, and his parents were in the next room.

But I didn't reckon on him popping out to the store for toilet paper late one night just before the rest of us went to bed, and not coming home until five hours later, long after midnight, smelling of that cheap alcohol.

I woke up immediately as soon as my bedroom door creeped open, the light from the hallway slicing the room in half and blinding me. Micah, facing the other way, stirred slightly but didn't wake.

My dad stumbled into the room and sat on the bed like he always did, his hand reaching out to grasp my hip and he began to pull down my pyjama pants.

I had never, ever said anything before. Not the first time, and not anytime since. But this time, aware of Micah sleeping inches away, feeling shame and humiliation and terror creep like a hot itch over my entire body, I whispered, 'Please.'

It didn't matter. He didn't hear me, or was too drunk to notice, and soon I was pressed into the bed on my tummy, turning my head to look through the window like I always did.