For a Friend
The words made it more difficult and they didn’t ease the need to hold himself together. It was as though he was constantly telling himself that he had no right to cry in front of somebody else like this, over this situation. He felt too guilty to, and he was afraid that he would forget who or what this was actually about. “I don’t want to…” He said, but he cried out as his shoulders involuntarily started to shake. He’d felt cold with nerves, with the feelings, but now he was taken away by the current he’d been fighting against all this time. “God damnit.”
He buried his face in hands as he tried to stop doing this, but the tears kept coming and his jaw kept hurting. His emotions were running him over, and he was too tired to keep up with it. His legs couldn’t run forever. “Well…” He tried, swallowing as he looked back up. He was avoiding Tom’s gaze. He didn’t even want to feel his hand on his shoulder anymore. He just wanted to fall asleep and wake up tomorrow to live a day in a life that didn’t involve this– and never would. “Not my dad. I mean, yeah..”
He had to keep speaking though, didn’t he? He couldn’t leave it here because what had already been said wasn’t true. It didn’t end there. “He did use her, in a way. Like. he controlled her, but he didn’t…” He was losing it completely and there was nothing he could change about it. He’d have to let it happen. he’d have to drown in it until his lungs would be able to fill themselves with air again. “He didn’t rape her. It didn’t happen. He just let his friends do it, but that’s what she told me.. I just found her when she was bruised and passed out.. I thought he’d done it, but he was drunk and passed out on the couch when I came back, so I took her to Louis and booked us a flight and I hoped it would work out, but it was too late… It was way too fucking late.”
He was speaking too fast and his voice was too panicked, but he didn’t stop crying and he didn’t stop shaking. There was too much going on at once and he wanted it to stop. He wanted it quiet and slow, and fast-paced when he wanted it to be. Though not like this. Never like this. “I can’t do this, Tom. I can’t do it.”
Tom gave him the space he seemed to need while talking, while still leaving his hand pressed to Rémy’s shoulder, making patterns there to distract him from the pressure he’d be feeling against his head, eyes and lungs. Crying this hard physically hurt and he wanted Rémy to feel some form of relief. He hoped talking about this would help him feel that later, rather than the despair he was feeling now.
He grabbed hold of Rémy firmer when he started telling him how he couldn’t go on. He pulled his face against his neck, holding him tightly, moving his hand over Rémy’s back. “Shh,” he said, trying to calm Rémy down. “You’re doing great, okay? You’re telling me all these things you don’t talk about. That’s really brave.” He pressed a kiss to the top of Rémy’s head almost automatically. He knew how to comfort someone and he wasn’t going to hold back in that.
“You can stop talking if you can’t do it anymore, okay?” he asked, holding him close. “But please continue if you think you can. Then everything’s said and we can try to move on from this and figure out what to do next. Does that sound okay?”
