[Part one, part two, part three. As always, we owe the wonderful Will and all of his dialogue to @crash-bump-bring-the-whump.]
When Jim comes to pick him up in the morning, Ty almost runs. “Jim!” he says, and his face is bright, and he looks like he hasn’t really slept but he’s smiling so widely Jim can’t help but smile back, heart easing at the sight of him. Leaving him alone is always hard, even with a trusted friend, but seeing him be okay in the morning means so much.
“Jim I – last night, I held Will’s arm!”
For half a second Jim feels something like jealousy – and then the full meaning of Ty’s excitement catches up to him, and his eyes widen. “You – Ty, that’s amazing!” Ty laughs at that, and Will laughs too, but Jim doesn’t care to ask why, just says, “You, you felt safe? With Will?”
“Yeah! We went for a walk ‘cause we couldn’t sleep, and we were crossing roads, and I held his arm and he was really nice about it.”
Jim aches to hug his husband right now, he’s so proud, and Ty seems so proud of himself, and god, he can’t cry now, he really can’t. “Will,” he says, and his voice carries awe and he’s not ashamed of it. “Thank you, Will.”
Will looks very, very embarrassed at the gratitude.
“You – you can come over anytime, anything you need. You – I’m so proud of you, love. I’m so glad Will looked after you. I can’t believe you made a friend without me, I’m – I’m shocked, offended!”
Ty laughs again, seeing the joke for what it is – an attempt to stop Jim getting teary.
“You’re, both of you are amazing.” Jim’s head is spinning, his cheeks hurt from smiling. Ty trusts someone else enough to touch them, after so long. “Thank you, Will,” he says again, and thinking the same, Ty echoes him half a second behind.
“Aw, it was just the, the friend thing to do,” Will says, still blushing.
“Not everyone knows what to do,” Jim shoots back quickly, too used to cutting through deflection. “I sure don’t sometimes.”
“Yeah, that’s fair though, you’re learning, and you try, right?”
“He does,” Ty confirms happily.
“And you know I’m there for you guys, too, if you need anything, Jim. Your husband got tortured and that, that’s a lot to deal with.”
The words end, and suddenly, there is silence. Silence long and empty enough that Will’s embarrassed, happy smile slips, and then fades.
Ty, though – Jim’s heart is beating very loudly and he can’t seem to move but he can see Ty, in the corner of his eye, with a hand over his mouth like he said something wrong. Or like he said something, at three am, to a friend, that he hadn’t admitted to Jim.
Will seems to cotton on quick because, he’s saying, “I, I’m really, really sorry, okay, it, it sounds like we should sit down, and talk, because I – have fucked up.”
The words are processed and then forgotten as Jim’s brain seems caught on that one word like a scrap of cloth on broken glass. He looks at Ty, meeting wide, panicked eyes.
“Torture?” he mouths, his throat empty of air.
Ty is hyperventilating, he realises, with a distant kind of concern. Ty’s chest is heaving like he’s going to throw up oxygen. He can, faintly, under the heartbeat in his ears, hear the gasping, high-pitched breaths he’s yanking in.
“Ty,” Will says, a desperate edge to his voice, “Ty, remember how nice it was to talk? Uh – breathe with me, Ty. It felt less lonely, right? Having someone listen? You’re okay, Ty, it’s, it’s really hard to talk about, but you did it with me because we’d both been through stuff, right? And Jim loves you, he’s, he’s your husband, I’m sure he’d like to listen too, if you feel up for talking.”
A bitter little part of Jim wishes Will would shut up. Wishes he’d leave, and get out of the way, so Jim can focus and look after his husband and make things better and quieter and safer for him, because an extra person, even someone Ty trusted with the secrets of his trauma more than he had even trusted Jim – one person is more variables, more complications, more pressures on Ty.
Ty’s breathing has calmed, though. Will is good at this. He’s so, so fucking good at this.
“It’s scary to think about talking about it, isn’t it?” Will says, and his voice is slower, calming as Ty does. “You don’t wanna sound like you’re exaggerating, or making things up or, or whining?”
No, Jim realises with sudden clarity, that’s not what Ty’s scared of. He knows this.
He has to be calm, for Ty.
“You don’t want to upset me,” he says, only the faintest wobble in his voice. “But it’s okay, love. You can tell me when you’re ready. You don’t have to feel bad if – if it was easier to tell Will, if he gets it.” If he says it to Ty, he commits to making it true. Ty shouldn’t feel bad. Jim has ugly feelings sometimes and he sorts them out, in his own space. This is about Ty.
He looks so small and sad again now. His eyes are on the floor, his shoulders hunched in. He seems deeply uncomfortable standing in the middle of the room, where he’d bounced to when Jim came in.
“What do you want to do, love?” Jim prompts gently.
A small voice emerges. “Home.”
“Yeah, okay, we’ll go home. Anything you need to pack up? I’ll take you home.”
Ty nods, hurrying to the sofa, packing up his night bag and folding the blanket and Jim looks to Will, who is sagging like he’s just watched a friendship die.
“Hey, Will?” God help him, there’s something like a smile in his voice. “I’m still thankful, you know,” he says. “Really, thank you for looking after him. If he told you that stuff, you – he must have felt really safe. Thank you.”
The words don’t quite seem to penetrate. “Yeah, yeah, I just...” Jim knows there’s another apology coming. “I can’t even say how sorry I am, honestly. That was a huge breach of trust, I shouldn’t have assumed. Uh, take care of him.”
That sounds like a goodbye, and Ty is ready to go, but Jim says, “Will.”
Hesitantly, he reaches out. He glances at Ty, but Ty doesn’t indicate he should stop, so he touches Will’s arm gently. “You know this stuff?”
Will nods miserably.
“Then you know this happens. It could have happened anyway. You got him through the night, so thank you.”
“Yeah,” Ty adds.
“Still, I, I’m sorry, Ty. And I’m sorry too, Jim. That uh...isn’t the best way to find out.”
Jim is glad Will can’t see the wince he makes at the reminder of what he just learned.
“We’ll work it out,” he says, keeping his voice calm and warm. “Take care of yourself.”
“You too,” Will replies, sounding mournful, as though he fully expects never to hear from them again.
Jim smiles, as they make their way to the car, Ty holding his blanket and seeming tired, but steady. Someone else who understands Ty, who can help with him? Another trusted face for him to call on during bad days? That is precious, and Jim is grateful. Jealous, a little, that Will formed a connection so quickly when Jim fucked up over and over.
But grateful. And it says something not inconsiderable about Will, that Ty was able to make that connection willingly.
So, two weeks later, Will receives an invite for dinner.
And I realized that so many people—thousands every month—were reaching my site after Googling phrases such as "Am I pretty enough?" It was startling. At first I thought, Why are you asking the Internet? It's like asking a Magic 8 Ball! But that sparked something in me. I wanted to take action.
Jennifer Tress, author of You're Not Pretty Enough
