Chapter Fifty-Three Letting Go: Part One Learning 4 страница

He opened his eyes, only to cast them away so soon, ashamed to admit such a horrible deed.

“But you didn’t molest me,” I argued, still not seeing a point for the broke blood vessels being the only things I could see. “You didn’t do anything I didn’t want. You’re not as bad as Keith.”

“True,” he agreed, setting up for another pause. “But it doesn’t matter what I did to you. It’s what you’re father thinks I did that counts.”
“Well, he was wrong. ”

“And he thought you were wrong,” Gerard came back at me, without skipping a beat. We locked eyes for a moment, the desperation to understand the severity, but also the necessity of the situation making both our lips tremble. I had only started to forgive my father before I had left. That had been before I saw the work he had done to Gerard. Now that I had touched it, tasted it, and imprinted it in my memory, my father’s actions left me feeling sick.

“Feelings are never wrong, Frank. They just are. Like us,” he added quickly to lighten the air in the room. “You can’t fight your feelings. You can’t fight your father. Because, essentially, you’re fighting the same thing. And ultimately, yourself.”

The last words rolled off his lips, hitting the air with twice the force my father had used over Gerard’s entire body. I laid there unresponsive for the longest time, Gerard’s voice cutting into me. “Do you understand?”

He never asked me this question, because most of the time if I didn’t right away, I would get it with time. But we didn’t have time right then, and it wasn’t about me or him that I had to deal with. It was me and my father, just using him as a medium. At first, I thought Gerard had been a casualty, a victim, but Gerard wasn’t apart of this war the way I thought he was. My dad was jealous, my dad was suspicious. He was using Gerard to get these feelings across, no matter how wrong they were. I was just as wrong for discounting them, for thinking he was lying to me when I was still doing it to him. He didn’t know the real truth about Gerard, and yet I still demanded respect from him. I couldn’t do that. It wasn’t fair. Yet, I couldn’t just come out and tell him about Gerard because we would get separated. We were going to get separated anyway, and my dad still didn’t know the truth. I thought of him at the hospital, before I had rushed over here. He was acting strange, acting like he knew more than he let on. Maybe his jealousy had come back, or maybe he really did know what was going on, not wanting to admit it because of how horrible it sounded. Even if what Gerard and I had was consensual, in his mind, I was having sex and in love with a forty-seven-year-old man. Maybe he would have felt different if it was a woman, but it was hard to tell. Regardless, I couldn’t expect him to treat me like an adult if I didn’t want to confess to the things I had done. I could tell him, I should, and I knew that. Maybe when Gerard was gone for good, in Paris and away from scrutiny I would. I would tell my father, because I really did have nothing left to lose then. He had been so honest with me during the car ride, telling me that he would turn himself in if I wanted him to. It was clear then and there that Gerard wasn’t pressing charges. It would be like fighting back, and weapons didn’t fight back. They were merely used.

My dad had still opened himself up and been honest, when I was still hiding, cowering in the jacket my secret lover had given me. I realized suddenly that the war still wasn’t over. The treaty we had signed together, of happiness and letting me go was void. Because I hadn’t been honest, it didn’t count anymore. What did count, and what I had to pick up begrudgingly was my forgiveness to my father. I was able to accept the fact that he had beaten Gerard and that was okay. It had been to teach me something, in a warped and twisted way. We could still build back up together; there was still time for us, but Gerard was different story.

I looked up at him, closing my mouth in realization, nodding my head.

“I get it.”

We were silent for a bit, his accuracy flooding through me. Fuck, how the hell did he know everything? He wasn’t even present for half the shit he was talking about and he had nailed it right on. This was about more than being predictable; Gerard just knew things.

“God. I don’t know how you’re always right.”

“I’m not,” he enunciated, hearing my outcry and making it personal. It was a little too personal almost, the way his voice dropped deep into his throat, trying to get me to understand the two simple words. Our gazes locked, his eyes begging me while I was merely perplexed.

“How can you say that?” I asked, sensing how deeply serious he was. He may not have always been right one hundred percent of the time, but fuck, he was closer than I could ever dream of being. He was one of the smartest people I knew and I strived to be him as much as I loved him. I saw that part of me emerge when I was with Jasmine. When I talked to her, I tried to make philosophical speeches and ramblings, not to impress but to be like him. To prove myself that I was getting smarter, that he was having an effect on me. He had more of an effect that just my own speech patterns though. He fucking consumed me; captivated me. It didn’t make sense why he looked so pained when I had complimented him. It was hard for me to take his compliments, but that had been different. I wasn’t as strong, or as right as him.

Gerard looked away for a second, pretending not to hear my question, or choosing not to answer. But I wasn’t done. I kept talking, trying to prove my point and maybe sound philosophical while I was at it. My hands even began to move like the artist’s, imitating him in a small way. I fanned out my fingers, as if to squash his doubt.

“You’ve had so many experiences, Gerard. You may not always be right, but you have so many things to draw and pull upon. You’ve done so many things, seen so many people…” He cut me off as my words started to become repetitious.

“It’s only because I’m older than you,” he insisted, voice flat and lifeless for the first time in a long time. “I really haven’t met that many people, or done that many things, Frank. It only looks that way to you.”

I thought about his point, but even if he had thirty years more experiences, I still thought he was the most experienced person I knew. More so than my father, who was the same age. It wasn’t just how many experiences he had had either, it was the way he took them and twisted them into something more, something beautiful. That was fucking astounding. I told him, trying to convey each separate meaning the way he did, but I was only greeted with a small snide laugh. I paused, my brows furrowed, but Gerard couldn’t see my perplexity. He was still looking off to the side, his fingers poised on his chin, laughing a little.

“I’m merely experienced at being inexperienced,” he informed me, explaining the laughter. I found myself ease up, laughing with him. I certainly knew that feeling. The laugh died down as soon as it started though, and I was left with the weak remnants of a smile on my face, Gerard’s head turned too far away from me, though my body was in place right next to his. I reached out and touched his face, running my hand along his jaw line, wanting him to look at me again.

“Gerard,” I called out to him, when all he did was close his eyes under my touch, biting his thumbnail in-between his tiny teeth. He didn’t responded back, but I could tell from the way his body flinched that he had heard me, and was probably listening more than he ever had before. Except… I didn’t really know what to say. There was something different about him then, something that I had just opened my eyes to. He was telling me he was wrong, the day before telling me he was full of shit. Wasn’t he supposed to be my teacher? He had been so far, and he had been fucking amazing. I had learned so much, and it was because of him that I was ready. I was still ready, even though I felt a little shaky in my own skin, knowing that I only had so much longer to be with him. But there was a sadness in his voice, not brought on by our upcoming departure. He was speaking about freedom and telling me these things, almost as if he had never practiced them before. But that didn’t make sense, that didn’t compute. Didn’t a teacher need to have knowledge about something before they taught it to someone? My questions were becoming too confusing, and way too plaguing. I had to open my mouth and set them free, praying something that made sense came out.

“Why do you keep me?”

He looked towards me, furrowing his brow as if I should have known the answer. I had asked the question before, so long ago when our relationship was still new. But I had forgotten the answer, beyond the pure need of me being there. I had to ask it again, and Gerard was ready to answer.

“Because you’re my dove.”

“But why do you need a dove?” I questioned again, probing more at it. “I mean, didn’t you already have one before you met me?”

I motioned with my arm out the bedroom door, not seeing or hearing his pet, but knowing she was around somewhere. She had come in at one point earlier in the day, only flying around the room while our eyes were closed in a kiss. I had only seen her wings, and the memory had slipped away from me just as fast as she came in the room.

“Vivian got me her to teach me about freedom,” Gerard answered solemnly. “She just showed up on my doorstep with one, proud smile on her face.” He smiled, remembering something specified. “I had always loved them, and always dreamed of owning one, one day. I had the jacket to quell that urge, until Vivian made it come back again.”

“Then why did you keep me, Gerard?”

“I kept you to teach me about freedom,” he answered, his eyes too wide and honest for me to bare. He reached forward and put his hand on the back of my neck, playing with my hair but not actually bringing me forward. He just wanted to look at me; touch me.

“But I thought you already knew about freedom?” I pestered again, figuring this was some kind of extended metaphor I was not getting just yet. But no, for once, this was as simple as it sounded.

“I thought I did,” Gerard answered with a sigh, taking his hand away and looking around the room. “I thought I was free before you. I thought I was happy before you.”

“You weren’t?”

“I was a lot of things before you,” he spoke after some silence, my hand finding his in that time. “But I don’t remember what they were. They seem minor compared to now.” He looked and gave me a weak smile. “I like this better now.”

Gerard kept looking at me, gazing at me intently, so hard I thought he was going to wrap his hand around my neck again and pull me forward in a kiss. He didn’t, but his motions were much more intimate. I thought he already knew about these things, about happiness and freedom, and that was why he was teaching me. He saw how weak I was, how much I needed to learn, and he took it on as his duty to show me, even in times where he could have been doing something else. He could have been working on his art, creating some wonderful masterpiece, but instead he worked on me. I never understood that, why he put so much time and effort into some person. And then it hit me, slowly and surely.

I was a masterpiece; a painting in itself. He was changing me, molding me, and making me into something brand new. I was a blank canvas when I came to him, ready to absorb all the paint he would slather on me. He kept going, adding layer upon layer, sometimes even shedding them just so I could turn out beautiful. And he was done now, ready to let me leave and display me on a wall for people to see. I was allowed to leave on my own and other people needed to see this beauty Gerard had single handedly created.

It made sense, but there was one small thing missing. Gerard had told me there was some art people could create without knowing what they were doing. They just painted, not caring what came out, but finding out more and more about themselves as they went along. And in the end, art would be created, and they would have much more than a painting. They would have knowledge about themselves too. I looked at Gerard, my mouth hanging open.

“Do you get it, Frank?”

I did get it, or I thought I did, but I didn’t want to believe it. The thought of it almost scared me, so much I didn’t want to vocalize it. So I didn’t. I stayed quiet, my eyes darting between Gerard’s the long silence giving him my answer.

“I’m just as clueless as you are,” he informed me, his words from the day before hitting me like a ton of bricks. “I am just full of shit, Frank. I’ve been saying things that sounded somewhat right and seeing how they are when they hit the air. I don’t know what’s right or wrong. I’m not some eternal force or being. I’m just an artist. I’m just myself.” He paused for a second, slight tinge of sadness. “And I didn’t even know who that was before you came here.”

There was a bittersweet quality to his words that were lost on me. I just kept thinking over and over again that I had put my trust in someone who didn’t know what they were doing. We were both clueless, and we threw each other together, seeing what would happen. I didn’t like the idea. It felt so chaotic, so messy, so clumsy. So unlike Gerard. But then again, maybe I didn’t know who that was anymore. I looked at him, my mouth still agape and blind to the beauty.

“I thought you were a teacher?” I questioned, frantic quality in my voice becoming apparent. Gerard saw this and wrapped his arm around me, trying to bring me forward. I moved stiffly, waiting to be calmed down.

“I am,” he assured me, conflicting with his prior words. “But you had to make me one.”

“Huh?”

He sighed, trying to find the right words. Or wrong words. Just suitable ones. Fuck. I didn’t even know how to describe his speech patterns anymore, or if I could believe them. He was full of shit, full of complete and utter shit. But I had believed it before, and it had gotten me where I was just then. Maybe it was shit still worth listening to.

“Frank,” he started, becoming overrun with memories, bombarded with the most recent and having to shovel through to the beginning, the very blue beginning, before he could continue. “Before you came, I had never had anyone pay as much attention to me. Sure, Vivian loved me and listened to my ramblings, but she would always brush them aside, poke fun at me or find a flaw in them. She always found a flaw, that woman. And she’s a damn good arguer too. But you,” he emphasized, redirecting the attention towards me. He paused for a moment, brushing the hair out of my eyes that had fallen down in over reaction. “You came to see me, and you ate up everything I said. You thought it was amazing, that I was smart.”

“You are smart…”

“I know,” he nodded, repeating the phrase again in a hushed tone. “But I had never had anyone treat me that way. It made me pay attention. It changed me. It made me want to impress you more and more.” He chuckled, rolling his eyes at bit at his former actions. “It was why I wanted you to come back to my apartment. I wanted to talk to you, because I actually felt like I was talking to you. You were listening and not just disregarding everything as me just being Gerard, because you had no idea who that was. And as you came by more and more, neither did I.”

“What do you mean?” I asked after his eyes had cast down once again, his voice growing slightly sad. He perked up hearing me talk, hearing me express that interest he had thrived off of.

“I thought I knew myself before you came. But I really only knew my apartment,” he smiled painfully, looking around at the bleak walls. “I never left here, Frank. I thought all I wanted was on the inside and I didn’t need anything else. My dove was here, my art was here, I was here. Vivian came by every once in awhile and fed me. I was content, or so I thought. You came along, and started to change things. You wanted to know how to paint, and I was more than eager to teach you, because I craved the attention you gave me.”

Abruptly, I got a funny feeling in my stomach. The attention he talked about was the exact reason I kept going back to his place. I didn’t understand what I wanted with a forty-seven-year-old artist, but I knew I liked the attention. He actually talked to me, just like I apparently talked to him. We didn’t just talk, we conversed. I just didn’t know he had felt the same thing back.

“And so, I had to make myself become a teacher. It was something I had never done before, and I learned as I went, your ideas and voice guiding me. As we spent more and more time together, I began to realize that I was not the only teacher anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“ You, Frank,” he said, excited tone to his voice. He gripped me strong in his hands, trying to drill the idea into me. “You became a teacher too and I had a lot to learn.”

“But I never taught you anything,” I tried to argue, the new role I had apparently taken on scaring me. I didn’t know why I was scared. Perhaps it was fear of the unknown creeping its way into my system or the fact that my perfect images of everything that I had set out in my mind were being bashed to pieces. I didn’t know whether to feel happy or sad about it.

“You didn’t have to out right teach me, Frank, the way I did with you,” Gerard explained, using his hands to illustrate his point. “You just had to show up, you had to be yourself, and I learned more and more from that each day.”

Gerard was so happy as he talked, but I couldn’t fathom, or even reach that plane of emotion just yet. I didn’t get how he was saying that by being myself I had helped him. I wasn’t myself then. But according to him, neither was he. Could two selfless people find themselves together? Maybe our two halves, two broken shells could fit together and we could become whole, something we had both never really experienced, but thought we had. Gerard had proved to me that I was wrong; I wasn’t living before I came to see him. I could accept that, but was he really just as dead?

“You made me realize that I didn’t have everything I wanted inside my apartment,” he went on, rousing me out of my brief thought interlude. “I was still missing something.”

“What were you missing?”

“You,” he stated earnestly, looking at me with a strong gaze. His words took me by surprise, and I couldn’t say anything back to him. It was a good thing, because he kept going. “I started to realize, bit by bit, that not only did I need you to teach me, but I needed you as the person more and more. When I realized that I had fallen for you it was probably the scariest thing I had ever experienced.”

“Why?” I asked, though I should have known the answer.

“Look around us, Frank. Look what has happened.” He motioned with his arm to outside the room, outside the door, to the society that had already condemned us. To his body that was riddled with bruises from my father, who didn’t agree with something he didn’t understand or know for sure. Gerard was afraid to be with me for the very same reason I had been. He had the same feelings as me. He was a human just like me. In the past twenty four hours I had seen him bleed, bruise, and cry; emotions and physical manifestations I thought not possible by this man. I had thought he was so strong, so put together, when he was just a mess like I was. He was just as broken, and maybe even more. I thought that had been impossible, but he was learning off a seventeen-year-old, having them teach him the things he couldn’t do himself. It wasn’t a weakness per se, but it was something I had never come into contact with. We had both been learning off each other, and as much as it scared me, it made me feel good inside. Gerard was never an intimidating force or presented himself as better than I was. We had both put each other on a pedestal in our minds without even knowing it. Or maybe it was just me who had been clueless to it all. Gerard did his teaching purposefully, trying to give me something to work on, to look forward to and become myself. He pushed me forward, but he was still growing himself. He just didn’t want me to realize it, because it would have taken away from my own teaching strength. God, even the thought of it sounded weird and absurd in my head. I couldn’t teach Gerard. It just seemed impossible.

“Do you remember the first time we had sex, Frank?” he asked me, stirring me from my thoughts.

I looked up at him with a wide mouth. Of course I fucking remembered that. It was one of the best nights of my life, which I felt was ending and beginning at the same time in some twisted form of rebirth and reincarnation. I nodded my head, not conveying as much enthusiasm as I would have liked.

“And I told you that I kept you coming back to my apartment, despite the fact that I knew we could get in so much trouble for our actions, because some things were too good to pass up?”

The question was long winded, even for Gerard who seemed to pant at the end breathlessly. I nodded, and he went on, explaining in as much pain-staking detail as it required.

“That was because I realized how much I needed to learn from you, and keep learning from you. And though it scared me, I knew we needed to learn like this.” He gripped my shoulder, running his hand down my back and showing me the teaching method we needed; each other. We needed the other person’s body, we needed to be naked and together, inside each other in order for it all to sink in. We had to be something physical, because our whole lives we had lacked that specific aspect. Gerard may have had many lovers or whatever before me, but it wasn’t the same. They weren’t broken in the same way we were, and fit together. We needed to be naked to see where the pieces went, so we could learn together without giving it a second thought.

“It was the best decision I’ve ever made, despite the many bumps and bruises. You’ve taught me so much,” he added, leaning in closer to kiss me. It was a quick peck, and I didn’t move into it, still processing information.

“But what did I teach you?” I questioned, my mind running frantic. I knew what he had taught me, I could list all of them off, in order and what lesson number they were. He was organized and thorough. I had just shown up. What lesson was there in that? I certainly couldn’t extract anything.

Gerard took a deep breath, running his hand through his hair, parting our close body to give himself a chance to think. Apparently, there were a lot of thoughts to pick from to find the lessons he needed to share.

“How to stay young,” he answered, laughing at his answer in spite of himself. “I’m really old, Frank. All I did before was stay in bed and drink. Maybe, I’d occasionally get up and do some painting. Vivian or my brother would come over and it was the only time I had human contact. People had to come to me, I never came to them. But you made me want to come to them. You made me want to get outside and draw kids at the park.”

His words immediately drew up the image of us on the bench together, him drawing the sad little boy, Billy. I thought he did that all the time. I didn’t have much time to reflect, his voice hitting my ears again.

“You made me get up and get ready though. You made me want to get dressed teach you something new, just to see your eyes light up. And then later, you made me want to get undressed and teach you something. You only get that with youth and you gave mine back to me.”

I was amazed at the words spilling from his mouth like liquid, though we essentially had none in our bodies. We were still dehydrated, my mouth feeling like sandpaper, but my head ache gone. We had not gotten up off his bed for any type of drink, and our tongues were becoming dead weights in our mouths, but that didn’t matter. We didn’t want to get up and drink, and it was certainly the farthest thought from my mind.

“I was never supposed to teach you naked, however,” he countered his thoughts, separating our bodies so we could both view the flesh that gathered in between us. “But that was a lesson in itself.”

“On what?”

“Taking risks for the things you believe in,” he answered bridging the gap between our bodies.

“And what do you believe in?”

“Us,” he answered, rubbing his hands up and down my back, making my skin flush under the touch. We were quiet for a bit, but I could hear the gears inside his head shifting and working together, making more conclusions pop from his mouth.

“I used to watch you sleep sometimes,” he said off guard, randomly stirring me again. He looked at me, a little timid for his actions. I felt myself smile inside, because I did the same thing whenever I could. His sleeping patterns were much more erratic than mine and he probably got way more viewings than I could have ever hoped for. I somehow doubted we shared the same types of thoughts as we watched the other slumber, and soon he began to voice those thoughts, so different from my own.

“You snore, you know,” he jabbed at me lightly. I placed my hands over my face in embarrassment, not realizing the small, apparently almost noiseless habit. In a matter of moments after we had shared a brief laugh, his tone turned far more serious.

“I’d watch you a lot of the time. I loved how peaceful you looked, the way your chest rose and fell in succession with those light snores. But it was when I watched you that I couldn’t believe what was happening.” His eyes became wide, his voice taking on a vast quality, filling the room with little sound. “I kept thinking that there was a seventeen-year-old boy in my bed. That I had touched him, fucked him, and wanted to be with him, and just how absurd and downright illegal that all was.”

His fingers traced over me, sending chills along with this words.

“I considered so many times just telling you to never come back, because the thought of what was going on scared me so fucking much. I thought of getting out of bed, getting dressed and just leaving the apartment for awhile, hoping you would get the hint.” He paused, saddened by the concept coming to his head. “It suddenly didn’t matter how much I liked you and was learning off of you. The situation was too strange and bizarre, and I wasn’t sure if it was worth the risk.”

“What made you change your mind?” I asked, my throat feeling thick. I tried to swallow, but it got stuck halfway down. Just hearing him mention leaving me like that, how close we had been to that fate, made my stomach churn and boil.

A smile suddenly sprouted on his face all of a sudden and he took a deep invigorating breath as he locked eyes with me. “You woke up.”

The statement was simple, but as Gerard continued to describe the act of waking, it appeared to me a miracle itself. “Your eyes would start to flutter, and then they’d open completely. You saw me, and your eyes, though still clouded with sleep, would light up. You were so happy to see me.” Gerard voice raised, his eyes displaying the same quality he must have seen on me nearly every morning. “And that was how I knew all the risks we were taking were worth it. You were happy to see me and it was the greatest thing I had ever experienced.”

He looked down at me, his eyes brimming with the salty discharge I had hated before. It wasn’t spilling forth yet, but it didn’t matter. His hands moved on my back, pulling me into a hug. And this time, I let it happen, giving myself into him fully. Our lips met again, and though our kisses were rendered weak from our emotion, it was okay. I felt okay with all the things going on around me. I was okay with being a teacher, because in a way, I never had to do a single thing. Gerard may have used me as a way to learn, but I didn’t have to do anything. And in a way, neither did he. We fed off each other, learning simultaneously. It was so fucking beautiful when I kept thinking about it and I could understand the small dosage of wetness hitting Gerard’s face. I probably would have cried myself but I had nothing left. Gerard and I did everything together, whether we realized it or not. When we had sex we physically became one person, moving in and out of each other in unison, panting and feeling the same things, but there was so much more to it in real life. We were a missing piece to the other’s puzzle, and we somehow found it within our connection. I had possessed a lot of teachers in my life, their faces and wire-framed glasses still a fresh memory in my mind. I was still in high school, though I had not gone in awhile. The teachers there, however, just threw the information at you, giving you paltry exercises and text readings. It was frivolous and in the end, they never taught you much of anything because most of the time I didn’t want to learn. I wanted to learn with Gerard. I never realized it until then the exact reason why – I had never had an interest in art before. I didn’t have an interest in anything, really, and yet I came back, every single day even when my clothing, hands, and mind were stained. It was because of the way he taught me, getting inside my head and making me think. It was astounding, even more because I had been doing the exact same thing to him, without knowing it. That, I was convinced, was the best form of learning.

This aspect of my teaching also made my stomach quell down a bit with nervous anxiety. I was not being a child with Gerard. I was not taking and taking and taking with nothing in return. I had been giving him what he had wanted but never found his entire life. All this time, I had been grateful for him finding me. I never thought that he was just as grateful for my face appearing next to him every morning as I was with him. Those mornings of waking up together were soon going to fade, but we were still learning our lessons and I didn’t know how long it would take us to finish, if we ever did.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14