He stops spraying and turns around to look at me.
“What did you say?”
“I said that it’s too bad no one’s ever told you that.”
“I heard what you said. I’m asking what you meant by that?”
“Maybe if someone reminded you that those habits aren’t good for your throat, you’d find another way to cope.”
“What do you know about my pain?” he retorts, almost accusatory.
“I can see that you’re in a lot of it, and I don’t wish that kind of life on anyone.”
He hesitates to speak for a moment, so I decide to fill the silence with my story. If I expect him to share his pain, I probably need to be willing to do the same. There’s something safe about telling my story to someone who is only in my life for a finite amount of time.
“You’re right about my time in foster care, by the way. I suppose its kind of like an open wound that I continue to treat, but it never quite heals.”
Bronx busies himself with misting his plant, much like I’m doing with the cake, but cautiously asks me the question almost no one ever does, “What happened?”
“I’d lived in four foster homes by the time I was thirteen but thought I’d finally found my forever home in the fifth. The Benedicts were a nice couple, nicer than most, and I was grateful that they were willing to take me in and that I’d still be able to stay in my current school. That doesn’t usually happen for kids who were my fourteen like me, but the state was doing a big foster care ad campaign and the Benedicts saw in me the little girl they never had.
“Unfortunately, their son Jake was a sociopath and a secret drunk. I’m not sure why. I never saw either of the Benedicts lay a hand on him or be mean to him, but he targeted me from the moment I stepped foot in that house. The Benedicts never saw any of it and I never told. It started with verbal abuse, sometimes physical, but when I turned sixteen, it morphed into something more. It became sexual. And the worst of it was always after he had been drinking.”
Bronx sprays harder now, basically saturating the plant with water.
“What did he do?” he asks gruffly.
“Exactly what you’re thinking,” I say sadly.
He stops spraying and turns around.
“Is he in jail?”
“I showered before the rape kit. They didn’t have enough evidence.”
“Is he still breathing?”
I’ve thought about the ways I’d like for Jake to die a thousand times over the years. None of them were violent enough.
“I don’t know and I rather not talk about it anymore,” I say, biting back the tears as I cut the large bar of dark chocolate for the cake into smaller pieces.
“I don’t like to talk about my shit either,” Bronx says after a moment of silence. “Talking about what happened to my throat with my parents, my brothers, my therapist, and the doctors only kept what happened front and center when all I wanted to do was forget.”
“If you rather not talk about it, I completely understand. I just didn’t want to keep staring or trying not to stare at your scar and not bring it up. We’re going to be stuck together for a few more days and it would have been weird.”
“Do you think it’s ugly?”
I’m surprised by his question; I guess because I assumed a man like Bronx wouldn’t care what anyone thinks.
“Your scar?”
“Yeah.”
He keeps spraying the plant and avoiding any eye contact with me. This is the first time since we’ve met that I’ve seen him appear vulnerable. The scar on his neck is literally his walking wound and I can see now that the subject makes him very uncomfortable, but how can I ignore the pain that he seems to be living in on a daily basis?
“You’re a very attractive man, Bronx. A scar on your neck doesn’t change that.”
He stops spraying the palm but still has his back to me. I’m fascinated by the tattoo design on his back. You don’t see too many guys with trees as body art. It looks like some sort of oak or maple tree, full of leaves in various fall shades of red and gold, and with some sort of liquid running down its bark. The liquid almost looks like sap… or maybe blood. I’m not sure because the liquid is shaded in black ink, no color.
