Not Who You Thought (BxB Drama-Romance)

Out Of My Arms

Now

My mother screams when she finds us in the morning.

"Please," I say through chapped lips. "Be quiet."

The sunlight streaming through my window hurts my eyes. My arm is dead, static with pins and needles beneath the weight of Charlie. I can feel him stir slightly in my arms, then his body goes lax. He smells terrible, but I don't care.

"Lucas," her voice is frantic. "You need to let go of Charlie."

"No." I don't know why she doesn't understand. "I won't. I'm not going to fucking let go ever again."

I close my eyes, because if I close my eyes maybe she will leave. Instead of leaving, she comes to the side of the bed and gets on her knees. Her face is close to Charlie's, and she doesn't place a hand on his shoulder in the way she often does. She won't touch him; he's become evidence.

"Charlie," she murmurs. "What happened?"

"I want to shower," his voice cracks.

"Charlie, baby, you need to tell me who did this to you." She speaks to him like a child, the same voice she used to comfort me when I was eight and I skinned both my knees at once playing on a seesaw at the playground.

"Stop talking," I tell her. "You're too loud."

"I want to shower." There is a hitch in his voice. "I'm disgusting."

"I'm sorry," her voice soothes. "You can shower after you go to the hospital. They will help you shower there."

"Let him shower!" My eyes fly open to meet her terrified ones. "What's wrong with you?"

"Lucas," my mother's voice comes out carefully, her every word measured and concise. "I need you to let go of him. I need you to go into the kitchen and call the police, alright? I will stay here with him and find out what happened."

"Charlie." My fingers are still threaded through his hair from when I had been stroking his head while we fell asleep. "I'll be right back, I promise."

"Don't go," he pleads. "Don't stop holding me."

"Charlie," my mother tries again. "If you tell us what happened, Lucas can wait here with you."

I already know that she is going to call the police. They're going to take him away, and I won't see him again. I can't let him leave, because he's going to be all alone without me. From the very beginning we've been taking care of one another. Charlie helped me when we were children, and now I need to help him.

"My dad," he tries. "My dad..."

"Did he do this to you?" She asks with an urgency I've never heard her voice carry. "Charlie, did your father rape you?"

The word is huge and ugly. It's been spoken into my room, never to be taken back. It's both an accusation and an ending, like a guillotine slicing through fragile flesh.

At the hospital they're going to make him strip naked over a tarp that will collect any evidence that becomes dislodged when he removes his clothing. They're going to swab his legs, his mouth, and his rectum. They will take pictures of every inch of his skin and catalog it. They're going to remove the dirt underneath his nails to try and find dried skin to test in a lab. They're going to flip him over and touch him with gloved hands, while they ask him things that will make him break down. They're going to process him like a meat animal in a factory, skinning him of his clothing to reveal the truth.

The silence from him that follows her question speaks louder than any words he could say.

"Alright." She stands up. "I'll be right back."