Bonds of Attraction (Full Length Erotic Romance Novel) (15 page)

“He was a lot like me, you know? Rich kid.
Trust fund babies, that was us. Our friendship was one of those things that was
instant. When young kids meet, it often works like that. One minute, you’re
strangers, and the next, you’re best friends for life. With Kevin, it was like
that. On the first day of boarding school we met and we were as close as two
boys can get.”

Leon fell silent for a full two minutes,
studying the fire. I remained silent, not wanting to push him to continue.
Maybe it was enough to know that Kevin had been his best friend. Maybe it was
enough to explain his behavior now that he lost his best friend when he was
only sixteen.

I was about to rise and make some coffee for
us when Leon spoke again, stopping me dead in my tracks.

“He fell in love, that dumbass,” Leon said,
smiling now for the first time. “Her name was Cassandra. She was beautiful,
maybe the best looking girl we had ever seen. She was into Kevin immediately,
too. It was like Kevin was the best thing she had ever seen. For six months,
those two were inseparable.”

I turned myself to face Leon, my right side
now facing the fire. It warmed my skin and I reveled in the newfound warmth to
regions previously chilled by rainwater.

“I still saw Kevin, sure, but he was just so
wrapped up in this girl. It was cool at first. I mean, this girl was gorgeous
and she liked my buddy, so it was all good with me. Then it became kind of
annoying. She was always there, always hanging out. When I got to see Kevin
alone, he would always make comments like ‘Oh, Cassie would love this!’ or
‘Dude, Cassie said the funniest thing yesterday.’ It was always about her, and
I was too young to realize that it was pretty normal.”

I listened with fierce intensity, determined
to take every single word into my memory. I wanted his words to burn into my
memory like a film. If only I had a notebook right here. But I knew that if I
had a notebook and started writing, it might break the free-flow of thoughts
that Leon was letting me in on.

“I mean, this was a new girl who was his
first girlfriend. Of course he was obsessed! Who wouldn’t have been? But when
you’re sixteen, you’re not exactly aware of a whole lot above your waist,” Leon
said. A hint of humor was returning to his voice, emulating the Leon that I had
come to know in our unpleasant interactions. Yet his voice was still soft,
warm, and honest. This was a whole new side of the man who I had come to lust
after in my dreams and deplore in the real world.

“She was from a neighboring school. I’d go
with him to see her, and yeah, it was fun, but Kevin was only interested in
her. I met a lot of girls and got wrapped up in myself, so I didn’t see what
was coming down the pike. Cassie was losing interest. While Kevin grew more and
more attached, she was pulling away.”

Leon stopped talking again. His face turned
blank. A wrinkle cut slowly across his forehead as he struggled to remember his
story, as though it was too painful to remember.

“She broke it off with him on a Thursday
night. I remember it clearly because Kevin just didn’t show up to morning
classes on Friday. When I went to go look for him, he was just laying on his
bed, sulking. I tried everything to get him up, but eventually I just sat next
to him and watched movies all night with him. Saturday was the same. I was able
to convince him to come out to the dining hall, but he barely touched his food.
He only seemed to cheer up when I was able to buy a bottle of whiskey off a
senior who owed me a favor.

“We drank heavily on Saturday night, and
Kevin cried, a lot. He said he could never love again. She was the one for him;
she was perfect; and she was everything, all that kind of stuff. I reassured
him that he was handsome and rich; he’d be pushing the girls away soon enough,
but he didn’t listen. The booze had been a terrible idea and I had to calm him
down after we were pretty drunk so he wouldn’t get us caught. Eventually, he
fell asleep, fully clothed and tears wet on his face.”

Leon looked over to me and stared right into
my eyes.

“Can I have something to drink?” he asked.

I nodded my head. “Yes, of course. I can make
you tea or coffee if you’d like.”

“Tea would be wonderful,” Leon said flatly.

I rose silently and walked into the kitchen.
My clothes cooled immediately in the wake of the warm fire and I looked over at
it longingly as I poured water into the tea kettle. I put out two coffee mugs
with packets of green tea in them and poured just a little honey into both
mugs. I hurried back over to the fireplace, hoping that Leon would fall back
into his story.

Flames sent light dancing across Leon’s
furrowed brow. He looked worried, as though the memory itself was a dangerous
thing, poised to strike if roused. I wanted badly to lean over and rub his shoulder,
tell him everything was fine, and to continue. I resisted, knowing that I might
offend him or close him off. I waited patiently and soon enough, Leon
continued.

“Each day got worse. I started to feel pissed
off at him for so many reasons. I told myself he shouldn’t have let some random
girl get that close to him so she could hurt him like that. I felt like he
should get over it and stop being such a baby about it. There were a ton of
girls at that school anyway, and a lot of them were absolutely show-stopping
hot.

“But Kevin didn’t get any better. I didn’t
know what to do. He just sulked all day. When he went back to classes, even the
teachers yelling at him for skipping didn’t have any effect. It was like he was
shut off from the world. I had never seen anything like it. My anger soon fell
away and I was just kind of scared for the guy, but not scared enough, as it
turns out.”

Kevin Bowers was dead at sixteen. The thought
reverberated in my head when Leon spoke.

“Kevin died on a Friday morning. I was the
one who found his body.”

There was a long silence that hung over those
words. I was left speechless. Leon continued to look at the fire, the flames
crackling and popping the wood in the void after he stopped speaking. I
searched for something to say and my mind gave me nothing. What was there to
say after something like that?

Tears formed in Leon’s eyes, visible as they
reflected light from the blazing fire.

“I found my best friend hanging from the
fucking ceiling by his belt. He tied it to the ceiling fan and kicked out a
chair. He didn’t even leave a note. I suppose he didn’t have to,” Leon said,
his voice cracking as he spoke.

“It was my fault,” Leon said with a finality
that was surprising. There was not even a hint of doubt or longing to be
disproven.

“On the Thursday before he killed himself, we
had a falling out. A major falling out. I was scared; I didn’t know what to do
about my friend who seemed to be losing his mind over some stupid girl. I
yelled at him to stop. I yelled for him to be a fucking man and take some
responsibility. Who cared what she thought. I told him that she was never
coming back.”

Leon lowered his head in shame. He ran his
hands through his hair and lifted his head back up. Tears streaked his face.
His voice returned to normal as he continued on.

“Kevin must have believed me. God, sixteen
year-olds are fucking stupid. And I mean me, too. We didn’t know anything. All
I knew was my friend was bumming out over a girl and I wanted him to be his old
self again. If I had known! If I had even the slightest inclination that he
would do something like that I could have saved him. I should have saved him.”

Leon wiped his eyes harshly with the bottom
of his palms. I felt tears grow in my eyes as I listened to his story, his pain
becoming my pain. The tea kettle began to whistle behind us and I cursed it
silently in my head. I could not get up at this moment, this tender moment of
Leon’s confession.

“The tea is ready,” Leon said, smiling wanly
at me.

I nodded and reached out to touch his
shoulder. I rubbed gently, a consoling rub that said what I couldn’t think to
actually say. I got up quickly and ran over to the stove, removing the tea
kettle and pouring the boiling water over our tea bags so quickly that scalding
hot water splashed up and on my hands. I shook them out quickly, the burning
sensation quickly dissipating as I did so. Then I hurried back over to where
Leon sat before the fire and handed him a cup.

A moment of clarity dawned on me. I was
sitting with a client, the client naked and wrapped in a sheet, drinking tea
before a roaring fire in my own home. It felt surreal, but when Leon began to
speak again, my reservations quickly gave way to curiosity. I had to hear this
story. I wanted to hear this story. I needed to hear it.

I sat closer to Leon, my arm rubbing his
upper back. More than anything, I wanted to console him, make him feel that
everything was alright. I wanted to make up for the cruel words I had said to
him earlier in his office.

“Kevin had believed me, it’s as simple as
that. He knew that Cassie wasn’t coming back. I confirmed it and helped him end
his own life. She was everything to him, and with her gone, he killed himself.
I told my best friend the very thing that would push him over the edge.”

Leon drank his tea, pausing in thought.

“I found him in his room. He had been dead
for hours; I knew it immediately. Yet I tried to save him. I pulled him down
and tried to resuscitate him. At least, that’s what some of my other friends
told me afterwards. They heard me screaming his name over and over and rushed
to see what the problem was. When the medics showed up, they had to have me
restrained. I don’t remember any of that though. All I remember is Kevin
hanging there and how his face looked. I can never forget that.”

We sat in silence for a long time after that.
I got up and put some more logs on the fire and blew into it, stoking the fire.
The room was warm now, but sat in front of the fire, our faces growing hot from
the flames. I let tears fall down my face without shame and when I turned to
Leon, I saw he was silently crying.

The silence continued. Leon stared into the
fire, his face blank. I threw another log on the fire and watched the flames
grow as they consumed the fresh wood. I felt the urge to do something, to make
this all right, but I couldn’t think of anything to do or to say. It was as
though every time I searched for something to say, all my words fell short.

Time ceased to matter. It grew late until it
passed into morning. I didn’t bother to check the time; it didn’t matter. Leon
sat before the fire. My clothes were still soaking wet against my back yet dry
on the front. I sat a foot away from Leon in watching the fire eat away at the
logs and throw heat in our faces.

Leon leaned his head on his forearms, his
eyes closing finally. I almost hoped he had fallen asleep, but when he opened
his eyes, I saw they were fully alert. Sleep would provide Leon Christensen no
reprieve from his sufferings tonight.

I inched closer to him, not exactly knowing
why. He had fallen into his head again, the silence washing over the confession
that had pained him to make. My heart had warmed to this man; I couldn’t deny
that. Even my anger over his past transgressions against me dissolved
immediately after he confessed his greatest childhood sin. My impression of
Leon Christensen turned from misogynistic asshole into a wounded man.

I kept inching closer to Leon until our hips
were almost touching. The fire felt great against my skin, but my back was
still freezing. I wanted to turn myself around, but I resisted; I did not want
to be so close to Leon and face him eye to eye. Instead, I wrapped the
inadequately small towel around my back in a vain attempt at warming myself.

The fire crackled and popped before us.
Patters of rain danced against the roof in a steady drumbeat that sped up and
slowed down without any warning. When was the last time it had rained like this
in Beverly Hills? I thought.

I looked over to Leon. He maintained his
statuesque posture, staring into the fire, but now I saw his eyes. They carried
so much sorrow in them, so much pain. Kevin’s death weighed down this man every
day of his life, and this was the anniversary. It was a culmination of guilt
and loss that I could only begin to empathize with.