Determination (15 page)

“No… no…. You can’t…. He couldn’t…,” I spluttered as my stomach rolled, and Steven grabbed a plastic bin just in time for me to throw up. Hoarse, broken sobs followed, and I didn’t even try to stop them. My Brian, my beautiful Brian died trying to save me. I couldn’t stand the pain that caused. The self-hatred and loathing would come in time, but for then, I succumbed to the grief of losing the man I loved more than anything else in the world. My head pounded as I cried, and I welcomed it. I deserved the pain. I deserved so much worse. It should have been me lying there in a pool of blood, alone and scared after being shot like a dog.

“Please don’t cry. You’re only going to make yourself sick. Let’s just go upstairs,” Steven pleaded and seemed to be at a loss about how to deal with my reaction. It took a long time for me to calm down. Each time I thought the tears had stopped, I’d see Brian’s face in my mind and they’d start again. He watched me as I cried, and I wondered if he took joy from it. The idea that he enjoyed my pain allowed me to pull myself together, wipe off my face, and stand up. I pulled my arm from his grasp when he tried to help and let him lead me through the lobby to Determination

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the elevator. My legs were numb, and Steven kept his arm around my waist to steady me as we walked. His touch should have repulsed me, but I just didn’t care. My love lay dead on the floor of our apartment, and I felt like I’d died with him.

When we reached the apartment, Steven opened the door and pulled me through into his arms. The living room, the kitchen—nothing had changed. I could have been coming back from a shoot as if the last several weeks had never happened. Then, at least, Brian would still be alive. “Why don’t you go lay down for a while, Jay?” Steven suggested as he steered me toward the bedroom. I guessed that meant I didn’t have to sleep on the couch anymore, as I had when Brian and his friends had intervened. Not even bothering to take off my shoes, I crawled on top of the perfectly made bed and rested my head on the pillow as I stared at the wall. Steven lay down behind me, flush against my back, and wrapped his arm around my waist. I forced myself not to shiver in revulsion at his touch. Instead, I concentrated on the dead feeling making its way through me. The shock had turned into numbness, which I found soothing just then.

“I missed you so much, Jamie,” he said after a few minutes. “I know that you got scared after we fought that last time, and I’m so sorry I hurt you.” It surprised me how little he really understood me after living with me for so long. Either he was deliberately obtuse, or he had missed quite a few social lessons in his formative years. “Things are going to be different this time, baby. I promise. I’m going to do everything I can to make you happy. From now on, it’s just you and me. No more porn and no more photo shoots because I’m going to take really good care of you.” I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to. He’d made up his mind. Things would happen according to his plan, and I’d go along with it because I didn’t have anything to live for anyway.

Without Brian, I had nothing.

We stayed in bed for another hour as he whispered promise after promise in the growing darkness. After a while, he gave me two oxy he’d gotten from the dealer and went to order food. Since I no longer had any shame, I took them both with the water he’d brought from the bathroom sink and welcomed the fog of oblivion.

94

Jamie Mayfield

“JAMIE, you need to wake up, baby.” Steven’s voice sounded loud and frantic in my semiconscious state. “Come on, stand up.” He pulled on my arm, and I sat up on the edge of the bed. Bright sunlight filtered in through the curtains, and I realized the drugs had kept me out through the night and into the next day. As he pulled me to my feet, my brain kicked in a little better, and I understood that Steven was panicked.

“What?” I asked as he threw my shoes at me and opened the front door. “Go down the hall and around the corner until the cops come into the apartment. Then, go downstairs and across the street to the coffee shop. Take this.” He handed me a fifty and my wallet as he pushed me barefoot into the hall. I considered going straight to the elevator, waiting for the cops, and telling them everything. I even took a few steps in that direction before I remembered the police had never been able to hold Steven on anything. He’d been arrested for drugs, violence, and a host of other charges just in the few months we’d been together, but he always came back. If I talked against him, and he walked away from it, he was capable of anything. I’d watched him murder my best friend, and Alex could very well be the next person on his list if I didn’t do exactly what he wanted me to do.

So, instead of trying to find justice for my Brian, I let him down again by turning around and hiding as I was told.

The elevator doors were loud in the otherwise silent hallway. I couldn’t see the police officers, and their shoes made no noise on the carpeting as they walked toward the apartment. Only low voices gave away their presence.

“You see how fast that doorman got on the phone? I bet he already knows we’re here,” a husky, quiet voice said. I could tell it was a man, but I couldn’t get any other ideas about the speaker from it.

“He’s a person of interest for right now, but he’s been arrested so many times, I’m sure he knows the drill.” Another voice, slightly higher, replied. That voice sounded older, kind of like Leo’s voice. A sharp pang went through me at the thought of Leo. I wondered if he knew about Brian yet. He had to. Mike, Alex, and Emilio probably all Determination

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knew by then. My heart ached, and I wondered how they’d told Richard and Carolyn.

A loud knocking brought me out of my thoughts, and I held my breath while I waited for Steven to answer. I reached down and started to put on my shoes because I wanted to be able to hit the elevator as soon as they went in.

“Can I help you?” Steven’s voice sounded calm as he talked to the officers. In fact, he sounded almost bored. I heard the rustling of clothing, and then the lower-voiced cop spoke.

“My name is Detective Neilson, and this is my partner, Detective Roberts. We’re investigating a shooting in the area. Would you mind if we came in to speak with you?” I closed my eyes and balled my hands into fists as I waited for his response.

“I’d be happy to help if I can. Please, come in,” Steven announced, and I heard more movement. The door closed, so I peeked around the corner to make sure everyone had gone into the apartment.

When I was satisfied they were gone, I crept to the elevator. The apartment door didn’t open, and no one stopped me as I made my way to the lobby.

The coffee shop across the street where Steven had told me to go was deserted. I crawled into a booth in the back and waited. After a few minutes, a middle-aged waitress with hot-pink earrings and a vacant expression asked me what I wanted. Without giving it too much thought, I asked for a soda. I didn’t want anything to eat, but I knew I needed to order something if I wanted to wait for Steven. He hadn’t given me any keys, so I was stuck there until he came to get me.

It took nearly forty-five minutes, during which time I had to order a lunch special so that the waitress would stop giving me looks. I ate maybe a quarter of the sandwich and a few chips before I pushed it away. Restless and irritable, I didn’t want the rest of the sandwich. I just wanted whatever was going on upstairs to be over. If they were going to arrest him, or if they were going to let him get away with murder, I couldn’t stand the wait. Steven finally strolled in, and his smug smile told me everything I needed to know.

He dropped down into the booth across from me and grabbed a menu, totally at ease with the world.

96

Jamie Mayfield

ONE part of Steven’s promise that first night turned out to be true. He made a real effort to make life with him different since he’d brought me back. During those first few weeks, he never hit me or threw things at me. He never even raised his voice. He sighed a lot, so I could tell my lack of enthusiasm or involvement in our relationship frustrated him, but he didn’t show it with violence. Steven had also not pressed me for sex, which surprised me, though I was sure it wouldn’t be too much longer before he forced the issue. Since I didn’t work, he supported me, and I’m sure he figured sex went with the whole domestic-life package.

One of my worst days with Steven came about three days after Brian’s death when I realized they would probably have some kind of service for him. I begged Steven to let me call Alex to find out the details, but he simply unplugged the house phones and took them to his office in the basement. Alex probably hated me anyway. I’d gotten Brian killed out of a selfish need to get high. Mike must feel vindicated.

I had been the worst choice Brian had made in his life.

The police had returned twice since the day Steven had pushed me out into the hall barefoot and told me to hide. Each time, he made sure the police never saw me, but I couldn’t tell if he hid me from them, or if he hid them from me. He certainly didn’t trust me to speak with them, so he made sure they couldn’t find me. To ensure they didn’t come up when he was working, he left strict instructions with the desk to let them up only when he was home and to call him if they showed up. They always came in the evenings, however, so he never had to worry. For me, each day melded into the next with terrifying slowness.

Each one I survived brought me that much closer to death. In death, maybe I could escape the suffocating guilt that drowned me during my waking hours. The nights were no better. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Brian’s bloody body and his wide, accusing eyes. I watched the shock and pain distort his perfect face into a terrifying mask.

After a while, I stopped sleeping. I spent mornings and evenings drinking coffee and wandering listlessly through the apartment. I cooked, I cleaned, and I did laundry. Anything I found to keep my time Determination

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occupied so I could stay awake, I did. At night, when we lay side by side in Steven’s king-size bed, I simply stared at the wall and tried hard not to think of Brian. Sometimes, I read while he slept, but when the light bothered him, he made me turn it off. The lack of sleep, in combination with the drugs he fed me, made me feel disconnected from my life. It reminded me of those old movies where an alien took over someone’s body. I felt like someone had taken over mine, and I spent my days going through the motions.

One of my few jobs was to put together a grocery list. I sat on the couch, listlessly staring at the notebook paper, which Steven would then use to place an order with an online service that delivered the groceries. It had been weeks since I’d left the apartment. I made the list, but only to have something to do. Caught in limbo between life and death, I never stepped out of line. I never even thought about calling Alex or Leo at the boardinghouse anymore to see how they were coping without Brian, because I couldn’t risk Steven’s anger with any of us. Brian found out the hard way what happened when you made him angry.

I listed the ingredients for several Mexican dishes on a piece of paper and pulled myself off the couch to go see if we actually had any of the things we needed. I didn’t much care either way, but it gave me something to do. Pulling each of the cabinet doors open, one at a time, I found a few of the spices I’d need, but little else. As I put the cumin back on the shelf, it slipped from my fingers and crashed to the floor.

When I had lived with Steven before, that kind of mistake would have terrified me, but I couldn’t muster any sort of response. Instead, I just grabbed the broom and dustpan so I could sweep up the broken container and spilled spice.

The methodical cleaning reminded me of the night I’d spent scrubbing the floor on my hands and knees, my stomach burning with more pain than I’d ever felt in my life. Hatred flared in my heart, and while I knew it wasn’t productive, I let it fester there. In that moment, I really couldn’t decide whom I hated more—Steven or myself.

Once I deposited the debris from the broken bottle into the garbage, I put the broom back into the small closet and threw the dustpan behind it. I heard a dull thud as a box near the bottom of the closet fell over. I sighed and picked it up, noticing a fine white powder 98

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that trickled from an open corner near the top. I swept the little bit of pooled rat poison into the dustpan and dumped it into the garbage can.

The consistency of the powder reminded me of coke. As I dropped the dustpan, I felt a detached fascination with the comparison. In the last John Marshall novel I’d read, the lawyer had paid someone to lace a witness’s coke to kill him so he couldn’t testify against the lawyer’s client. I stared at the box in my hand. It would be the perfect way to stop the pain. If I mixed the poison with my coke the next time he fed me drugs, then it would be over. Steven would finally have no more power over me. No one would have any power over me. I could be free. As I took a moment to think about what it would be like, I wondered what Steven would do. He could go after one of my friends, but that wasn’t likely, not if I were gone. More realistically, he’d probably find another boy and go on about his life. Steven would find him while he was at his most vulnerable and then ruin his life.

Anger snaked its way up into my chest, and I knew I couldn’t let that happen either. I couldn’t let him destroy someone else just to save myself. The answer was simple, and I felt no fear as I carried the box into the bedroom, hoping Steven hadn’t moved his personal stash of coke.

WHEN Steven came home about half an hour later, I met him at the door with a smile. He smiled back and tentatively wrapped a beefy arm around my waist. When I didn’t back away, he nuzzled my neck gently.

“That’s a nice welcome home,” he murmured against my skin. I wrapped my arms around his neck and waited until he kissed lightly up my cheek before I turned to kiss him. Nausea rose up in the pit of my stomach as his lips closed over mine and he moaned into my mouth. I fought it back because it would all be over very soon.

“I thought maybe we could do some blow and spend the night in bed,” I whispered and ran my hands up his chest to unbutton his work shirt. “I missed you.”