34. “Devotion"He held me until the tears stopped ripping through my eyes and the sobs were few and far between. I expected him to take that moment and push me away again, to tell me to go, that this guilt-tripping wasn’t working and he hated me and he never wanted to see me again. But he didn’t. He hugged me for a few minutes longer, like I was the one who was going to tell him to leave.
After a while he spoke, “When I was little, maybe second grade, I don’t remember exactly...Anyway, there was this butterfly that landed in the front yard. Like, a real butterfly, not one of those little white ones that looks like a piece of paper..no, this was one with all the colors, yellow, blue, little bits of red. Well, I found something to catch it with and put it in a jar. Got a stick, some bits of grass, a flower...then put a little lid with sugar water in it. I remembered the holes at the top so it could breathe, I don’t think I really understood how or why butterflies needed to breathe, it’s just something I had done with the other things that I caught.” His fingers ran through my hair softly, lingering at the nape of my neck, forcing me to shiver and mold further into him. Felt his abdomen expand and contract with each long breath. Could dimly feel my name growing and shrinking with his every breath.
“I’d look at it every day, give it new sugar water, all that crap. Still, it would spend what seemed like hours flying around and beating itself against the lid. I’d watch it without really sympathizing to any degree. It was sort of a thing at that point.
“Finally my mom told me to let it go and I did. I don’t know if I expected it to look at me and remember anything about the time that it spent with me, but it just seemed sort of sad that it just flew away, it was like it had never even spent any time with me at all.
“But then there weren’t any more butterflies at all. The one I’d set free must have told them all to stay away.” he stopped and sighed, pulling away. I knelt in front of him and wiped away the crusted over trails of salt water that had settled on my face. “It’s like I have this touch that makes things leave.”
“Jay...”
“I thought...I thought you’d gone for good, I thought you hated me. Then you came back and..and all I could think was that you just wanted something out of me, that you just wanted me to fuck you, suck you, then you’d go. Because that’s what some of them would do, they wouldn’t talk to me for months then they’d show up and pretend to like me again, say they’d love to have a relationship, love to stay with me forever. But they were always gone by the morning.” He had been staring at the floor, his hands tugging in vain on the sleeves of his T-shirt, trying to make them go down farther I guess. Now he looked up at me. Brown was littered with little flecks of green that glinted in the shadows. “Bobby, I...I thought you’d turned into one of them.”
I had nothing to say. My stupidity had brought this down on us both. But... “I was stupid, I know I was, I know I am... It just...it seemed so much like when Shane left me.” Oh fuck, I shouldn’t have brought that up, now I’d be crying again and I didn’t even love her anymore. “I mean, she tried to pretend that she didn’t like other guys, that she didn’t want to leave, but... I just didn’t want to be in that situation again, where you’d pretend that you loved me and then tell me that you’d found someone better.”
Now came the point that I hated. I knew that I should go, I was just bringing up old wounds, old faults. He had already given me up for lost. I took one last look at him, at what cruelty I was capable of. And I was supposed to be the nice one. Could I trust my voice? “I...I guess I’ll leave then.” I whispered. Then I got up, suddenly aware of all the veins in my arms. There was a bit of light coming in from the hallway, the doorknob was cold in the palm of my hand. I almost stopped and looked at him again, but it was better not to.
I heard the unmistakable sound of flesh being torn asunder and instantly turned. The knife had ripped through his palm cleanly, a long ragged incision as he closed his hand over it and then pulled. When he saw that I was still there his whole face lit up and he threw himself at me, grabbing onto my waist and shoving his face against my stomach. “Please don’t go.” I could feel his blood soaking through my T-shirt.
“Jay, the last time you asked me to stay, in the morning you said you couldn’t trust me and told me to go.” His grip tightened. “I don’t want to go through that again.” Started to try and extricate myself.
“Bobby, please, just stay.” he was begging now, desperately staring up at me with eyes bloodshot from too many drugs and too much stress. “I don’t know if I could take you leaving forever. I was mad at you the last time, I didn’t want to admit that I really can’t function without you around.” He glanced down at his arms, the scabs that were just starting to heal over. “And I really can’t.” he almost screamed, getting hysterical. “You don’t even have to love me, just don’t leave me.”
I knelt down in front of him, staring into his eyes, hoping that even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to see anything in them that hadn’t been there before, I could see into his soul, know that he wasn’t on anything at this very moment, that he really wanted me to stay. “You won’t back out?”
He shook his head furiously, burying his face in my shoulder. “Please Bobby.” he choked out. “I won’t say anything more about Paige.”
I pulled his head away from me and put my head against his forehead. It felt so different...so much like I was touching something that had once been great but was now only mortal. He had changed so much because of what I had done. “I won’t leave.” I whispered.
Amir came by a little later with lots of bandages and a glass of water. Jay stared at him dully from his position on the floor. He had slowly progressed from leaning heavily on my shoulder to lying on the floor with his head in my lap. I met Amir’s eyes evenly. What he had done no longer seemed as bad when compared to what I had.“Come on Jay, let’s get you patched up for tomorrow, okay?” he said softly. He came further into the dark room. Jay stirred a bit, but didn’t relax the choke hold he had on my leg. Even when half insensate he was holding me to my promise. “Bobby?” Only surprise, no malice.
“Yeah Amir, I’m back.” I said softly. He nodded and gestured for me to help prop Jay against the wall. We worked silently and covered up every sign of his forays into self-mutilation.
“He’s been really fucked up without you...to some extent we all have.” he said.
“I’m only here for him. You guys have a drummer.” I said. He looked like he might say more, but thought better of it.
Somehow we both managed to get Jay into a cab to the hotel.
That night...I stayed in his hotel room but in the other bed. I didn’t want him thinking that I had taken advantage of him again. Amir told me that he was always really spacy after shows, the combination of lost blood and drugs didn’t help things. He was just lying on his side and trying to sleep. I faced the other way, towards the window, the air conditioning rattled throughout the night and kept me from sleeping. My apartment either didn’t have it or the super repaired things on time. I didn’t know or care.My mind was ripping me apart. On the one hand I wanted to have things be back to normal, well, actually my thoughts were more idyllic. We could trust each other, the scars would melt away, life would melt away in a steady stream of dark water. But there was another side, the side that said he was just going to wake up tomorrow morning and hate me. And that side was the one I was more inclined to listen to. The room suddenly got very cold. It no longer seemed reassuring to be able to hear him breathing.
Light seeped in under the almost gauze curtains with a floral pattern bordering on obscene street graffiti. I opened my eyes to slits and watched it spill over the floor in a water pattern. The air-conditioning made it waver back and forth and modulate through waves of varying heights. It was only interesting for about five seconds. I rolled over.
Then I heard the sound of someone on the other bed moving. Curled into a ball. Please please don’t kick me out right now. If he did...well, there was a freeway close by. But...I don’t even know if I would have done that. Would I just say, oh well, he’s someone I fucked once, let’s get on with the rest of my life. Wake up one morning, find out he’s dead, proceed with life as usual. No...however much I wanted to leave and just avoid all this I wanted Jay. I wanted Jay in my life, even if he hated me. I had tried to deny it, but this, this was truly what I wanted. Kept my eyes closed.
The bed dipped in front of me. This was it. I pulled my hands up to my face and tried to get ready for the inevitable punch. All I felt were feather-light touches on my jaw, his lips over my own. “I thought last night was just a dream.” he whispered, pulling my hands away gently and rubbing his nose against mine. “If it had been, I don’t know what I would have done.”
Almost totally obscured by the clunking were his next few words, “I love you Bobby.”