Oh, really?
“Why did you leave?” I asked when I caught up to him. He hadn’t responded so I prompted him again. “Brandon, why did you leave?”
“Because!” he snapped.
“Because isn’t a reason, pup.”
“I was scared, alright! Happy?”
“Brandon.”
I tried to calm down because it was driving me crazy not to touch him right now. I badly wanted to, but I worried that might set him off. As we turned a corner, I inhaled his freshly showered scent. He didn’t smell like he usually did, but I could tell it was some sort of ‘one scent fits all’ hotel soap. I’d grown used to a specific scent of products that Brandon usually used. While he didn’t smell like my pup, he was still mine and close to me.
“I was scared, and I ran to safety,” he explained.
“No, Brandon. You ranfromit,” I corrected his statement. “I was available for you to talk to me and tell me what upset you at the party,” I reminded him as he slowed down, and we came to a stop in front of a door.
His eyebrows were furrowed, and his nostrils flared as he exhaled. I imagined that heart of his was pounding hard.
“What happened that made you feel like you were in danger and needed to run from me?”
I stood close to him as he retrieved the room key from his wallet. Part of me worried that he might try to slip into the room and slam the door on me. I had to be ready to push my way inside if necessary.
“You’re a psychologist. He—” Brandon dropped the plastic room key and bent to pick it up.
He?
The assholes?
Someone else?
“They had psychology backgrounds. They knew how to make me do things and fuck me up,” Brandon said as he pushed the door open. “You’re the same as he was.”
Brandon got the room door opened and walked inside. He didn’t try to prevent me from coming inside as I walked in behind him. He tossed his key and wallet on the table, walked further inside, and then leaned his back against the corner of a wall that separated the sitting room and bedroom. With his arms folded across his chest, he stared at me.
“So now you’ve put me in the same bucket as the people who tortured you? People who kept you in a cage. People who didn’t want to hear anything you had to say and pierced your mouth closed. People who drugged you and waterboarded you. People who starved you,” I said as I walked inside further and leaned against the back of a beige twill chair.
“I’m sorry!” Brandon scrubbed his hand over his face before speaking again. “I meant that I was afraid you would be like he was.” I could see he was relenting as he tried to vocalize and work through the mess and noise going on in his head.
“You were afraid that I would turn on you, like he did? Brandon, I refuse to be lumped with a group of individuals who believe human trafficking is an acceptable hobby.”
It was time Brandon knew I didn’t believe anything less than sinister had happened between this ‘friend’ of his that took him to a party. Up to this point I had kept my opinion to myself on exactly what happened. Saying the phrase ‘human trafficking’ caused Brandon to plummet into a meltdown. His chest heaved, and his hands clutched his head with a handful of hair sticking out between his fingers.
“You guys all get inside my head! You guys learn about me, find some fucking weak spot, and then you attack it! You guys get me to believe things and do things.” He looked down and took a breath to gather his thoughts. “I don’t want to find out that our bond is fake,” he admitted.
His words grabbed my heart. He thrived on our relationship; he needed it.
“As you did with him, with your friend.” I didn’t pose it as a question. I wanted him to understand that I had a better understanding of what most likely had occurred than he had given me credit for.
When Brandon looked up, his eyes were glossy. He let go of his hair and nodded.
“I’m afraid you’ll leave me or get rid of me too.”
“Brandon, are you afraid that I’m going to sell you?”
It was as though that one question caused Brandon to lose control of his emotions. Tears ran from his eyes and disappeared under his chin.
“I know it’s not a rational thing that I should be afraid of,” he apologized.
