Sweet Dreams…I’ll never have them 4

Chapter 4

Sunday? September 26th.

I cannot believe it and my brain is going right back into overload. I’m being kissed by a guy and I’m liking it….naked in the bath and…I can’t, I can’t like this can’t …can I…

I push Alex away, the size of him I’d never move him so he’s being a good…I’m so fucking scared. He stares at me oddly for a second, a slight nod? I don’t get him so much its giving me a headache.

He leaves the bathroom and I pull the shower curtain acrossed the tub enclosure. It’s all clean, and the water is hot and I can’t help but break down and cry again. I was kissed by Alex again and I liked it. I was kissed by a boy, again and I liked it. I’m hearing and feeling all that bullshit, all that fag hating stuff and racist stuff in my head, I’m not like that.
I’m not like that.
I’m not like that.
I’m not like that.
There’s about nine more times I chant that to myself, hitting the tiles inside the bath enclosure. It hurts, it hurts my hand and my ribs but I’m clearing my head. Pain cuts through the bullshit, pain makes you real.

I slowly start to just be.
When you come from were I’m from it so easier said than done.
How do you find anywhere to balance inside your head when the things you’re feeling are things you’ve been raised and taught to hate all of your life?
Even just being is hard; trying keeping yourself together when you’re taking your first bath in…I don’t remember ever taking a bath before.
It’s hard not to cry just because I’m feeling heat and warmth soaking into my body and I swear I’m going into shock because of it. Hot, water, a real bath, soap that isn’t dollar store crap…I’ve never head of Shea butter before but it feels good, it smells really good. I wash my hair with Alex’s Pert and slowly get out of the tub. I…I…Jesus, I left a film…Okay it’s mostly dead skin but I’ve never soaked before…I’m shivering and kind of feeling…sick that I left that.
I take a few towels and start drying off, lower lip shaking looking at my…mess. It’s like this…evidence I’m fucking white trash.
Alex’s knock makes me jump with a squeak.
“Hunter…”
“Y...yeah…”
“I’ve got some things can I pass them in?”
“Yeah…I mean...please.”
Alex passes a laundry basket in that’s got…sweats and stuff in it. And underpants, Ladies underpants that aren’t the panties that are mine. These look expensive and are in a fancy container rather than the packages of cheap stuff that I’ve been used to…there’s lotion and girls stuff like deodorant and stuff.

“Alex?”
“Yeah, Hunter is everything okay?”
“Did you have all of this stuff?”
“Uhm, no its Aprils stuff but she’ll never miss it.”
“April?”
“My Step-mother.”
“Oh…”
“I just thought that with uhm the way you dress that this stuff’d be okay.”
“Oh…uhm…yeah..?”
“Okay Supper’s nearly done.”

I mean I could argue the point, but he had undressed me and yeah half of my clothes were girls stuff. I bought some because of my Goth look and the gend-bend stuff that goes with it but some because there are some girl’s clothes that are warm, like the leggings and stuff.
And some of it was just because all I had was hand me downs from mom. Even if the step-shit Cliff’s stuff fit me, I wouldn’t wear it, I think…but it never came up. There was no money past the drugs and stuff, they barely ate. Mom buying clothes for me…yeah right. With mom all I was, was her reason for getting a welfare check. I’ll be sixteen in a few weeks and that’s when things’d change with the welfare people, I wouldn’t need to live at home…no check no reason to keep around me anymore.

Could I get the check now? Maybe? I don’t know but I’d be evicted before then and shelters…group homes and stuff…homeless, used…I’d be on the edge of that right now if it wasn’t for Alex.

I slide the satiny slithery, soft panties on, gooseflesh that has little to do with my being right out of the bath forms on my legs. That kind of bite your lower lip nice. I shouldn’t like this. I shouldn’t. But like I just said, biting my lower lip nice.

I look in the mirror as I’m drying off. Skinny, I look more like my mom than my dad I think. He’s just a blur to me now. I don’t even have any pictures of him. I just stare for awhile, trying to see the person, that girl in the painting. I sort of see it but how come I can’t see the beauty that I see in the picture in the mirror. I guess because it’s not there.

I avoid the mirror from that point; just kind of going there hurts. I look through the stuff and there’s track pants or sweat pants of some kind there, again not his probably hers. But the sweatshirt is his; it’s for the Fairview Lions and is white and blue. It’s literally miles to big on my and if I wanted to I could probably slip out of the neck of the thing. As it is it hangs down a good four or six inches past my butt, the sleeves are six inches too long on my arms and it keeps sliding off of one shoulder.

I look for something to clean out the tub with and find some of that scrubbing bubbles spray stuff and give the shower and tub a good going over until I’ve got it clean again.

Yeah, I’m procrastinating.
I slowly take the basket and the dirty/wet towels out with me.
I look around trying to find Alex.
He’s got some sort of machine and he’s making fresh? Orange juice? It’s coming out frothy looking and weird. Then again I’ve never had fresh squeezed or juiced OJ before so maybe it looks like this.
He’s into it actually getting this rhythm going and it takes awhile before he notices me.
I can’t help but notice him.
He’s over six and a half feet tall; he must be close to three hundred pounds of rippling muscles. His shirt’s off so yeah I mean rippling, I can see his abs really defined and he’s not even flexing. In fact all he is wearing is these really loose around the legs black track pants, they’re fastened strangely at the waist tight but not. He fills them out so, so… incredibly…dammit.
I close my eyes.
I’m fighting tears, my throats hurts from it clenching up like it is.
I’m not going to cry.
I’m not gay.
Crying doesn’t help anything.
I’m not gay.
I’m not going to cry.
I’m not gay.
I’m not some faggot!
I’m not gay…please…please… make it stop.
“Coffee…”
He’s got this quiet voice, soothing.
“Yes please I’d love a cup.”

Coffee, yes coffee. I’ll freely admit it I’m a coffee junkie, it’s one of the few things that’s kept me going over the years. I’ll drink it anyway but there are…were…will be days where the sugar and cream in it was the largest part of my diet because they were free.

I open my eyes when he sets the weird pot? With a plunger in front of me on a tray with a bowl of sugar cubes and a carton of cream. He sets down a large white ceramic bowl mug and he then moves the pitcher of juice over too. I watch as he dumps the stuff from the juicer basket into a kitchen bowl full of batter then gives it a stir then puts in his fridge…holy shit, it’s full of food.

Of course Mr. Perfect life, Mr. Rich boy wouldn’t know what it’s like to starve, to have nothing, and when you get that finger hold on your life some asshole like Cliff smiles at you and takes what’s yours as he steps on your fingers.

I’m hurt by the sight of a full fridge. I’m hurt by the sheer fact of him having all of this.
Why?
Why did he get to have this life and not me?
Why does Alex get to be normal and not a freak like me?
It makes me angry.
Alex…
Fucking Alex...

He takes out a platter with piled high scrambled eggs on it, toast and bacon and sets it between us and get’s us out some plates, knives, forks and spoons and stuff as he takes out a few bottles of jam and stuff out of his fridge. There’s no table instead we’re eating at this island-counter thing and we don’t really talk.

He’s so fucking quiet it’s eerie.
But then I remember the shit I’ve said.
I remember that look in him on the bus.

The first time we ran into me on the bus there was this kind of sparkle there in him in his eyes. It wasn’t something I’ve ever been used to seeing in people. Then he confused me, he scared me, his world scared me and I had to open up my fucking mouth and say all that shit…It’s like I didn’t just hurt him or broke something in him it’s still broken…

He’s not looking or saying anything really like he’s scared.
Him scared, of what?
What the hell does he have to be scared of?
He’s still hurt by what I said and did…but he still came for me.
Why?
He’s hugged me once, held me lots, he’s seen me lose my mind and have a nervous breakdown.
He says he doesn’t know why he’s helping me.
He’s kissed me…more than once.
He drew her.
She’s not even really a she in that drawing but she is and she looks like me and…I’ve never had such a visceral reaction to anything in my life…I still don’t get it.

I’m lost in these thoughts and if he’s thinking the same kind of stuff it’s no wonder we’re eating in quiet silence. He hides his face behind his hair a lot. He keeps it long; he has it hanging loose right now. His eyes are brown but there’s this amber or almost golden color in there too.

I’m noticing stuff about Alex I shouldn’t. Just like that guy at the porn shop only I’m not all freaky turned on and sitting here with a boner. No if there’s a feeling it’s more on the inside. I so don’t understand it…I just, fucking hate not getting things. The caffeine is sweet, it does wonders nearly instantly.

The coffee is excellent. “The coffee’s good.”
“Thanks, it’s Kona, Pea bean French roasted.”
“That’s?”
“I got it from work; it’s a really good bean from Hawaii.”
“Oh, and the perc’s neat.”
“It’s something they call a French press, no one was using it in the house so I adopted it.”
“You do that a lot?”
“April thinks the kitchen in the house is where the house keepers live and the caterers gather.”
“You don’t sound like her biggest fan?”
He shrugs “I didn’t marry her. He did.”
Alex said He not Dad, which says something. What I’m not sure but apparently he and his parents don’t get along. He doesn’t get that things could be so much worse…he’s had it easy.

I leave it alone. The last thing I need is to get caught up in some Dawson’s creek family BS.

The food was great, better than great, the eggs tasted really good, better than I’m used to. The bacon was okay, well alright, I don’t get to eat stuff like this often so it’s all good. Except for the juice, it tasted funny and Alex puts cottage cheese on his toast with his jam. Okay so I’ve never even seen the icky looking stuff before let alone taste it. I know I won’t like it just by the look of it. It’s slimy.

Alex had made more than enough and he takes away the dirty dishes and he puts them into the sink and he begins to wash the dishes. It’s awkward just sitting here in the quiet just doing nothing. I get up and go over to where he’s at. “Here, I’ll wash you can dry or whatever since you know where everything goes.” Alex just slides sideways without a sound and starts to dry the dishes off and stack them away. It feels so strange to be doing this with anyone. Mom never did, her idea of washing a dish was to let the mold eat it or to let the stuff dry on until it just gives up and falls off. Cliff…Cliff had me doing the dishes as soon as I could stand on something to reach the sink. He’d hit me if I didn’t, he’d hit me if the water was scalding hot and I cried, he hit me if I broke a dish.

I can’t help it when just thinking about it makes my hands shake, I break a saucer by dropping it. Alex turns, I flinch away. He gives me that look again I don’t know and he kneels down and picks up the pieces, he just dumps them in the trash can. The one for the glass, he recycles. I go back to washing and still looking for that hit to come at me out of the blue…and I wait and I wait.

I just wish he’d hit me instead of making me wait for it and keeping me scared of when it’s going to happen. How messed up is that? I want to be hit…like being a cutter isn’t bad enough…Alex moves! I flinch again. He slips in behind me. “Hunter, here…you’re shaking.” Then his torso is against my back and his arms come around me and he helps me wash the dishes. It’s four hands working together in this strange unison dance and he’ll take a dirty dish with one hand and put it in the water, hold it as I wash it off, we take turns rinsing and racking them to dry.

It’s so rhythmic and soothing to me, it’s this strange partnership, this two people as a team thing. I find myself leaning against Alex by the end of it. This feels so good, he’s so warm and muscled…It’s not a sex thing either this…whatever this is…It’…romantic?

I’m not even sure of exactly when I stopped shaking but my eyelids are drooping from the heat, the food and the way I just can’t help but too there’s Alex feeling so good, so different and so safe compared to anything I’ve ever known. And me still recovering from the beating the Step-shit gave me is still keeping me on the edge of exhaustion.

Alex’s hands settle onto my shoulders and he steers me away from the sink. “Here.” And he guides me out of the kitchen to his couch and sits me down and pulls my legs off the floor. I’m blinking at him and he…just gives me that look, that quiet and just off look..like there’s whole conversations in there. He just quietly pick a comforter at the end of the couch and covers me with it. Another look…”I’ll finish up, please get some rest.” He moves off into the kitchen again. For a few minutes It’s hard to breathe, it’s Alex…and I want to cry but I don’t get why? My fatigue and warmth lull me to sleep regardless hearing Alex putting away the dishes.

My dreams aren’t dreams but they’re these nightmares of being home. Of Cliffs hands holding my hands over the electric stove element, holding my foot and using his lighter. Mum telling me “Here baby yum.” when I was like three?, four? And me not knowing as she put her cigarette out in my mouth…I remember her giggles about that. The step-shit’s torturing me and him always saying. “Wadda I give a fuck for? The little shits not mine.”
No I met his sisters kids, her lovely little Nazi freaks. He was proud of them, he loved them. He bought them things and he loved them. They were little sociopaths but he loved them. I tried to be like them. I’m just not built like that. It all come together that first Christmas when I was four after dad got gunned down.

It was cold, there were cracks in my bedroom window. Cliff had beat me for…? I actually don’t remember why but…yeah mom took her first Overdose and I kept trying to wake her up on the couch and started crying because I thought she was dead. I remember ornament glass in me because he threw me into the last Christmas tree we ever had.
I can remember looking up at my bedroom window frosted over and white from the streetlamp behind it. I thought I was looking at something like that heaven place. I remember being able to see my breath as I was pulling slivers of that glass out of me.
I remember looking up at that window.
“Daddy…I’m sorry, I’ll be good…Please daddy, I doan like it here, I hate it here, I wanna be wif you….I miss you daddy, I miss you…Please daddy can I die too?”