Why the Straight One? - Chapter 47: Chapter 47

"What's wrong with you? That has to have been one of the easiest translations yet. I thought you were supposed to be the smart one." The slightest ting of aggression laced the last sentence that fell from Raymond's taunting lips.
We had just finished our lessons for the day, and had been told to wait in the study room for a very rare meeting with our father. Since I knew my grades were slipping, I was extremely on edge. Raymond knew this too, and there was just the slightest bit of expectancy in the way he sat. Like he was waiting for me to be on the receiving end of our father's disapproval.
"Guess I'm not." I mumbled, hoping he would leave me alone.
"But the question is, why are you doing so terribly all of a sudden?" The question might have been thought of as caring in an older brother, if it wasn't for the fact that he was just being nosy and liked the feeling of not being the one in trouble.
"Trouble in paradise?" He raised his eyebrows suggestively at me, and I glared at him, trying to keep my anger under control. It had been three months since Jonathan's birthday, and I was finding it harder and harder to control things like my anger as my mind became more and more clouded with my shameful secret.
I hoped if I didn't answer that he would let it drop. But this was Raymond we are talking about, and he didn't know how to let something go.
"Everyone knows you haven't talked to Jonathan in months. What's happened? Did you two lovers quarrel?" I felt my breaths become more uneven, my anger that always seemed to be simmering just under the surface, leaping at the slightest opportunity of a fight.
"Shut up. We aren't lovers, and you know it. I wouldn't be another man's lover for the world."
"Aww, you don't mean that. I saw the way you used to follow him around and stare after him. You like guys, and that's a fact."
Guilt bubbled up inside of me at the reminder of Jonathan. I couldn't count the times I wanted to let him know how sorry I was for the way I acted. But as time went by, the guilt was starting to fade. Maybe I shouldn't have yelled at him, but what i said was true. At least, I was convincing myself of that.
"I didn't follow him around. Gays are disgusting and I'm not gay." Something flashed in Raymond's eyes, and now his tone was no longer teasing. He sounded about as angry as I was.
"And homophobic too! Poor Jonathan, now I see what happened."
"Shut up! Jonathan has nothing to do with this!"
"Oh really now? Then why are you so angry when I talk about him?"
"Because I'm sick and tired of you insinuating things. I'm not fucking gay! And yes, Jonathan and I did argue. He's gay and I want nothing to do with him. I made that very clear to him, and I'll spell it out if I have to to get it through your thick skull."
I was standing now, uncontrolled anger fueling my words. I was angry at how life had fucked me over. Angry that I couldn't go a day without thinking about him. Angry that Raymond would think I was anything like Jasper. Jasper was into men, therefore, being into men was disgusting.
"Why you little—" He stood quickly, anger controlled enough to stop himself from saying anything he might have to answer for later. "I bet you did make it clear to him. I'd hate to think of how that conversation went down. Jonathan shouldn't have had to deal with someone so bitter and hateful."
"He deserves everything I said to him. The way you're acting you'd think you were a faggot too!"
I spat out the word with as much hatred as I could muster, hoping to hide behind it. But I had gone too far, and Raymond finally had enough of fighting with mere words. His right hand flashed in front of me for a moment before catching my directly under my chin.
I staggered backwards, but kept my footing. I gave back as good as I got for a few moments, at last able to let out some of the pent up anger inside of me. But the two years that separated us, and my lack of appetite and sleep for the last few months betrayed me. I only got in a few blows before I was flat on my back.
Raymond threw himself on top of me to, continuing the fight. My body froze, mind shifting. Suddenly it was Jasper on top of me and I cried out in panic, willing myself to get out from under him, but unable to do it. It was like my body was completely cut off from my brain, frozen in survival mode. Raymond must have sensed that something was wrong, probably thinking he had taken the fight to far. He wasn't punching me, and I thought I heard him say my name.
"What's the hell is going on here? Raymond, get off your brother! Thomas, get off the ground!"
My father's voice boomed from somewhere above me, but I was too lost in my terror to make any sense off what he said. I couldn't breath. Couldn't think past the panic. Then someone was kneeling beside me, the gentle pressure on my cheek slowly bringing back my awareness. I felt the hot tears down the side of my face. Felt the blood trickling down my cheek from the cut on my lip. And with a gasp, I was completely back in reality.
My father knelt beside me, worry deepening the wrinkles in his forehead.
"Son, are you alright?" Raymond was hovering behind him, worry and anger confusing his features. There was a cut above his eye, but besides that he looked fine.
I wondered vaguely what I must look like. I shied away from my father's hand, still shaken from whatever had just come over me. The need to be alone, to be somewhere where I could feel safe was almost overpowering. I wanted to run as far away from the situation as I could.
Wen I stood, and everyone realized that I was, in fact, just fine, my father's anger replaced his worry.
"Raymond, go to your room. Thomas, compose yourself, then come with me. I won't have my sons fighting and then crying about it. We will talk in my study."
Disapproval rolled off him in waves, and I dropped my head in shame. Raymond pushed past me, the momentary worry that he had taken the fight too far completely gone.
"Nice move, asshole, but you should have known it wouldn't work. Dad hates crying even worse than fighting."
He gave me one last, hate filled glare, before slamming the door shut behind him. I dropped back into my seat, letting my head drop into my hands. Tears and blood mingled on my fingertips, and I cursed my weakness. Crying in front of not only Raymond but my father as well.
Before joining my father, I cleaned my face up as best as I could. The tears and blood were gone, but the shame remained. My hands trembled as I knocked on the sturdy wood of his study door.
"Enter." His voice was brisk and authoritative, the kind of voice that must be obeyed. I entered as quietly as possible, hoping somehow to appease him. If only been in his study on rare occasions, none of them very pleasant.
I took my seat in the straight backed, wooden chair opposite him, and looked down at my hands. The desk that separated us felt like a distance I could never cross. I wished then that I could tell him everything, perhaps stay his anger, but I doubted he would even believe me.
"Thomas, what am I going to do with you?" The quiet disappointment was worse than anger, and I felt myself draw inward instinctively.
"I don't know, sir." He sighed, and I chanced a look up at him. He ran a hand across his weary face, looking down at me with a look that only added to my feeling of insignificance. I was merely another problem weighing heavy on his over-taxed shoulders.
"Who started that fight?"
"Me, I suppose." I kept my eyes trained on my hands, ashamed enough of the word I said to take the blame for the fight.
"You suppose?" There was an edge to his voice now.
"No, I know. It was me, sir."
"You may have started it, but you don't appear to have gotten the best of it." I met his eyes and felt some of my nervousness fade at the affection I saw there.
"Did he really hurt you that badly?"
"No. I don't know what happened to me."
"Thomas, look at me." I looked up at him, and willed myself to hold his gaze. "What's going on with you? It's not just this. Your grades..." He looked down at several papers on his desk. "Your grades are dropping. Your mother says that you aren't eating, and Elliot told me the other day that he doesn't think you are sleeping very well. How he knows is beyond me." He chuckled, but quickly returned to his previous mood.
"Whatever it is, you can talk to me. I know u don't have time for you very often but—"
"Very often? I can't remember the last time we talked. I'm sorry, but I...there's nothing to talk about."
His face hardened, and I wished I hadn't raised my voice. My father wasn't the one to lose my temper with.
"There's nothing to talk about, or you won't tell me about anything?"
"I...it's nothing, father." He stared at me long and hard.
"Then I expect to see your grades return to where they were before all this. And I never want to hear that you were fighting with any of your brothers again." The dismissal was unveiled, and I stood, starting to walk towards the door.
"And don't let me see you crying for no reason ever again."
—————-
He stood in my room, looking out of place in somewhere so comfortable and homelike. Our eyes met, and his slid to the floor. His eyes, just as unfathomable and unreadable as I remembered them. The same eyes that even after five years, I had lost no affection for.
"Why are you here?" It wasn't hostile, it had been too long for that.
"I—Thomas, I have to talk to you." I had forgotten the sound of his voice. It used to move me, stir emotions that I didn't quite understand. Now as I watched him pull at his hands in agitation, I felt only a dull ache at the loss of his friendship and the years we had been apart.
"I didn't...when we talked last..." He stopped for a moment, lost in the memories that haunted us both.
"Fuck. I don't know how to say this." With these words, his eyes came up to meet mine, and my heart clenched at the tears that shone from his eyes.
"I'm so sorry. You could have told me, Thomas." He whispered the last words, but that didn't affect the impact those quiet words had on me. I stepped back, shame and anger coursing through me.
"How?" The world was forced out through my clenched teeth, hands in fists at my sides. How had he of all people found out?
"This morning...dad was..." He sighed, running a hand across his tired face. "Boasting about this kid he is fucking. He's barely eighteen and according to my dad, is fine with it, even though I know my dad is forcing it, so there's nothing I can say." The burden of his father's actions that he would forever pay the price for, weighed heavy on his shoulders.
"Then he...he said something about you."  A dull ache started in my head, bile rose in my throat. I could only handle so much. If everyone started to know...
"I didn't believe him at first. It was too absurd, but then he...elaborated. Finally telling me that it was the night before my birthday." I closed my eyes, head dropping in shame. He knew.
"So," The word was harsh, full of emotions I couldn't contain. "Now you know. What did you come here for? To laugh at my shame?" He stiffened, his arms jerking forward as if to hug me, but they fell back at his side.
If I had been taught not to show any weakness, he had long since shown any real emotions. With Jasper as his father, it was no wonder.
"No. Never, Thomas. I'm here to apologize. I'm so fucking sorry, Thomas."
"You're sorry? It wasn't you. And I'm the one who-"
"It wasn't me, but I...I should have realized that you were acting so different than normal. I was hurt, and I couldn't see past that for so long. I left you alone, Thomas. All this time, without a friend."
He stepped closer now, and it was taking everything in me not to breakdown and sob out the whole story to him. To finally be free of this suffocating secret. But we were both princes here, trained a little to well.
The embrace was awkward, hesitant. Him, unused to displays of affection, and I unused to being the one comforted.
"It's too late for us, isn't it?" His voice was barely above a whisper, but I heard it just the same. I nodded. Too many years had past over my affections for him, too many things coming between us.
"He's fucked up everything in my life. Everything, Thomas."'
Something held me back from showing my emotions in words or by the tears that I held back, but as I gripped onto the back of his shirt, desperately hoping for something to hold onto in all the pain and confusion, I think he understood.
It was the closest I ever got to telling anyone about it, the only time either of us mentioned what his father had done to me. Sometimes I wondered what would have happened between us if one of us had just spoken sooner. Sometimes I imagined what life would have been like with him.