Secrets that Kill (boyxboy)

Mother May I

Nate didn't move. Not an inch. He vaguely registered the fact that he'd stopped breathing. No. Fucking. Way. He couldn't have heard him right.

"Erik, what did-"

"I killed my mother." Erik repeated, his voice completely monotone and numbed out.

His brain was rejecting the idea that Erik had just presented it with. Erik couldn't be a murderer. Not his Erik.

"I don't-" Nate cleared his throat, trying not to let the panic seep into his voice. "I don't understand."

"No. I suppose you wouldn't, would you. There's no going back. Not from here. Which means there's only one thing to do...fill in the missing pieces." Erik stood, slowly walking over to the dresser and kneeling down, running his hand along the empty drawer where Nate had seen the book.

"A few weeks ago, when you came here, you saw the black book?"

Nate nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

"It was a photo album, of my family. That was, of course, before....I once had a father, and a mother, and a brother. For seven years, I grew up as a normal child would. I had been blessed with loving parents, and an equally protective older brother. My mother, she was a lively, persistent woman, and a devout Christian, the type that think they can change the world and set out to make it a better place one person at a time."

Nate couldn't help but note the peculiar fondness he spoke of his mother with. It didn't make sense. He had just admitted to killing her, yet here he was, speaking of her like this. Nate hadn't detected a hint of regret in his voice when he'd spoken of what he'd done.

" As an English teacher, half her heart was in teaching, and the other half was with my father. And my father...he was a respectable doctor. He provided for us as any good father would, though we barely ever saw him with how busy he was ..."

Erik paused, standing up and turning to face Nate. He kept the distance he'd covered between them, though, almost as if he was expecting that in a few minutes, Nate would want it.

"One day, however, my mother returned home from work early to find my father in bed with someone else...a boy that couldn't have been more than ten years older than I was at the time. He'd been charged with administering psychological care to the boy....needless to say, it devastated my mother."

Nate could tell by the little details he added here and there that Erik was telling the truth, that he was genuine, but the look in his eyes told him he'd detached himself completely from the story. It was almost as if he was narrating it, as if it was someone else's story that had no emotional bearing on him, no connection to him whatsoever.

"My father and her had been together since they were old enough to walk. They'd been a couple for....over 25 years when it happened. Not only had he cheated on her with someone else, but with a male, an underage boy. The next day, my mother woke up and my father was gone. No note. No explanation, though, at that point one really wasn't necessary. We all knew he was running from the truth of what he had done...what he'd been doing. We came to find out that this wasn't the first time he'd engaged in such activities with underage boys he'd been charged with treating."

There was no missing the look of disgust on Erik's face. Nate didn't need to ask to know he more than despised his father for what he'd done to him and his mother.

"After that, my mother was never the same again. I think it was too much for her to take, the reality that her husband, the only man she'd ever loved, was not only gay, but also a pedophile. She blamed herself for what had happened to the boys. As a teacher, she'd had made it her goal in life to help and protect children. It was...beyond her comprehension that she had married a pedophile, and that he had been having sex with underage boys while maintaining a seemingly normal life with her...