“Hiroku, this is the withdrawal talking, not you. Have I ever let you take anything without me? Why do you think that is? Because I promised I’d take care of you. Do you know how many people die of drug overdoses every day?”
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to will this nightmare away, but when I opened my eyes, Seth was still there, the devil in my bed tempting me with every pleasure imaginable.
“Go away,” I snarled at him.
Seth glanced down at my closed fist where he’d placed the baggie. I squeezed it tighter as though preparing to fight him if he tried to take it away from me.
“I love you, Hiroku,” Seth whispered in my ear. “And only you. I hope you remember that.”
He left through the window where he must have snuck in. I should have locked it. He’d beat me again. I could still do this, I told myself, but with the drugs in my hand, sobriety sounded like an absolutely terrible idea.
When my mom checked on me the next morning, she couldn’t believe how quickly I’d recovered. “Must be the medicine,” she said.
I couldn’t look her in the eye for the rest of the day.
There were some truly remarkable moments over the next couple of months, like my seventeenth birthday when Seth picked me up from school at lunchtime and took me to McKinney Falls. We jumped off the cliffs even though the water was frigid and ate a marvelous picnic Seth had packed, then found a secluded spot in the meadow and fucked like rabbits. Afterward, we got high and watched the stars come out while dreaming about our future.
And there were some truly terrible moments when we’d be at a party, and Seth would invent some scenario where I was flirting with another guy and then make me pay for it later on. He’d always feel bad after he hit me, so in that way, I preferred the physical abuse to anything else because there was undeniable proof of his wrongdoing. It wasn’t squishy like the other stuff, which for me was even harder to endure and made it easier for him to gaslight me or make me believe I’d provoked him enough to deserve his wrath.
But still, I stuck with him.
Petty Crime recorded “Queen of Hearts,” and their producer set to editing and packaging up their debut album. I took photos of the band for their promo materials, and Seth had me sign a legitimate contract to shoot the “Queen of Hearts” video, which included a ten-thousand-dollar budget, all of which would go to me, the director, to be spent on props and equipment and whatnot, with whatever was left over being my cut. I couldn’t believe the band and their indie record label were trusting a seventeen-year-old kid with secondhand equipment and not much experience to shoot a ten-thousand-dollar video, but Seth’s confidence in my abilities had always been enough for the both of us.
Then a couple of days later Seth hit me because someone asked for my phone number. This time it happened in front of Petty Crime and their following during a party in Red River, which was another first for Seth.
“I’m fucking done,” I told Seth later that night. We were at his apartment, and I was icing my face. I was waiting until it was late enough to return home while trying to think up a plausible excuse to tell my mother as to why I had yet another black eye. I couldn’t use a fight at school this time. Besides, she’d warned me if it happened again, she’d be seeing the principal about it.
“You signed a contract,” Seth argued as if that meant I was forever bound to him. He was pacing the living room, having already made his litany of excuses and apologies. I was so fucking tired of it all; I just wanted it to be over.
“I don’t care. I can’t take this anymore. You’re a fucking maniac. I should press charges against you.”
Seth glanced over and shot me a fearful look as if I might actually follow through with that threat. I wouldn’t though. Contrary to his belief, I didn’t want to see him suffer.
“You can’t do that to me, Hiroku,” Seth said plaintively.
I didn’t know if he meant literally or figuratively. “I’ll tell my parents what’s been going on. They’ll put me on lockdown, get a restraining order. I’ll never see you again.” I’d do whatever I had to, to avoid telling my parents anything about the two of us because the shame wasn’t worth it, but I did fantasize about the idea. Only, it scared me too because without Seth, who was I?
“Please don’t talk like that,” Seth begged, his eyes wet and remorseful. “Tell me what I can do to convince you to stay.” He spoke like we were negotiating the price of a used car and not his increasingly erratic and violent behavior.
“It doesn’t matter. You won’t follow through.” That was the cold, sobering truth. Seth loved to make deals, but he rarely stuck to his word if it didn’t suit him.
“I will. I swear to God, Hiroku.”
He sat down in front of me, leaned forward and knocked his knees against mine. He told me then about his mother’s ex-boyfriend who used to hit him and how he’d sworn he’d never do that to someone else, but now he had, and he was so, so sorry.
“I don’twant to be this way,” he told me. “I hate myself for treating you this way. I need your help, Hiroku. Tell me what you want, and I’ll do it.”
I should have left him, once and for all, but I loved him. I loved the moments of connection between us and the times when he could be so tender and loving. I loved the artist in him and the way he encouraged me in my own art and self-expression. I loved the person he had the potential to be if only he could unload all of that toxic baggage. If he were all bad, it would be so much easier for me to leave him, but he always gave me just enough to keep me coming back for more.
“You can start by not hitting me,” I told him. “Or getting insanely jealous every time I talk to another person.”
“You’re right,” he said and nodded contritely. “I just get so scared you’re going to leave me.”
“Hitting and berating me don’t exactly make me want to stay, Seth.”
He nodded again. It seemed ridiculous that I even had to say it.
“What else?” he asked eagerly. The difference this time was that Seth was acknowledging that this thing between us had gone completely off the rails, and he needed me to steer us back on course.
