Page 59 of King of Liars
The way he’d saidexiled, it was clear he was mocking King’s use of the word. Aiden was still early enough in all this that he found the dynamic of the knights comical, whereas for me, it felt as though it were a part of my being…my very soul.
King knew it, and it was why he knew he could hurt me by kicking me out.
“The other night, when I cut loose on Sy,” Aiden said, “that was nearly too much for me. I know I mentioned it with you some, but it did something to me.” He bit his bottom lip, seeming to struggle with some darkness within himself. “Ryan, there’s this thing that happened to me. It’s always there, in the back of my mind, but when we play with Sy—the terrible stuff he needs us to do—it stirs up all the pain and hurt…”
Whatever he was referring to weighed on him. Tore at his fucking soul.
“What is it?” I asked as his eyes filled with tears.
He quieted, then opened his mouth as if to say something, but closed it just as quickly.
I reached out and ran the back of my hand against his cheek. “Talk to me, Aiden. Unload your pain on me. I’m not in the best place myself, but if it’s strength you need, take what’s left of mine.”
A chuckle pushed past his lips, but his chin quivered as the tears fell free from his eyes, leaving me wondering what tortured my Aiden.
“Th-there was this kid named Stevie,” he finally managed to force out, clearly under great strain. “Me and my buddy used to hang out with him, and one day, he wanted us to tag-team him in a bedroom at this party we were at with some of the kids from school. We were horny kids, and we had fun with him. Problem was, I didn’t realize it at the time, but someone else saw us…and told some guys at school. They followed me home one day a few weeks later, through the woods…and…”
“Did they hurt you?” I pressed.
He nodded, and I imagined those assholes chasing him through the woods, kicking the shit out of him the way my dad might have done with me.
I waited for Aiden to tell me, but he didn’t, so I decided to help him. “They beat you up?”
He nodded again. “There were some punches and hits, but that wasn’t the worst of it. They held me down…took turns on me. Like the way I’d done with Stevie, but it wasn’t fun, and I kept screaming and fighting until I was crying too hard to do much else. And they kept calling me names…calling me their pretty little faggot.”
The moment I heard the name he’d requested I call him, I was mortified. “Oh my God, Aiden.” I hooked an arm around him and pulled him close. A tear landed on my shoulder.
I wanted to insert myself into the dark memory haunting him and kick those kids’ asses. Fuck them for hurting my Aiden. Fuck them to hell.
“I’m so sorry I hurt you,” I told him, wishing I’d never caved to his request. “I’m so sorry if I said something that stirred such a disturbing memory.”
“In some way, it felt good. When you called me that, it was like I was reclaiming something that’d been taken from me. To face it, but on my own terms. The moments with Sy are the same way. Like I’m getting those assholes back somehow. It’s fucked up. I know that now…always known it. There’s a part of it that feels like it’s healing me, but then it feels like it’s hurting me so much more. It was hard to see that in myself, but tonight I saw you going through it too. And really, if it hadn’t been for you, I’m not sure I could have stuck around after what I’d done to him.”
As I pulled away, Aiden batted at his eyes with the back of his hand.
“I’m so sorry for everything you went through,” I told him. “And I’m sorry I couldn’t have been there that day. You deserved someone to help you. To be saved from those monsters.”
“I still see them and hear them. They’re always in my mind. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to make them go away.”
“Hey.” I took his chin between my thumb and forefinger. “I appreciate you sharing that with me, and now that you did, you don’t have to do this on your own. And if anything, it helps me realize that even if I would have had a hard time quitting Sy for myself, I won’t now that I know what it was doing to you.”
Tears continued slipping down his cheeks. “We need help. What we have for Sy isn’t healthyorright. It’s some kind of addiction. Like he fucking hijacked our brains, turned our minds against ourselves.”
“In a way, we both knew it, and we fell right for it. And if he called me right now, I know I’d struggle with it all over again.”
“It’s not any of my business…but is that true?” Aiden asked.
“That I’d go back to him?”
“No, sorry. Not what I meant. That you love him?”
It was a valid question, given what Aiden had heard King accusing me of. But he didn’t know the truth. Not yet.
“I…thought I did at one time. I wrote that in my journal before you even joined us. That’s not why I was exiled tonight. No. If King were trying to find that on me, he would have gotten me a long time ago. But that’s not the rule I breached.”
It was my turn for a confession.
“Wait, what? What rule did you break, then?”