All I could do was hold him and remind him he was here. That he was safe. That Adrian didn’t own him anymore.
* * *
I saw it: Eli looked down at the photo Adrian had just sent him and let out a quiet sigh. It was from an awards dinner. They were both dressed in tuxedos, smiling for the camera like they were the perfect couple, but I could tell Eli’s smile was forced. I could see the terror in his eyes, the way his shoulders were stiff and sitting high.
Then he told me what happened after the photo was taken. Every single detail. He left nothing out. Once he finished, I broke alongside him, because the weight of his words felt like lead in my chest. No one should ever have to survive what he did.
He’d spent part of the evening talking to the man beside him: just conversation while they waited for dinner. The man was friendly, married, and worked in healthcare too. It meant nothing; it was just polite conversation. But to Adrian, it was far more than that.
After dinner, Adrian told Eli to meet him in the men’s bathroom. Eli didn’t argue. He didn’t question it. He just followed his instructions, because that was what survival had become: moving before fear had time to fully form.
The bathroom was empty when he got there: cold tile and harsh lights. The kind of silence that doesn’t feel quiet, just waits.
He had stood near the sink, using it to hold himself up. He was just standing there as if, if he stayed still enough, nothing would happen to him.
But his body already knew.
His stomach was tight, pulled in hard as something had already started closing in on him. His throat kept drying out no matter how many times he swallowed. His heartbeat wasn’t steady anymore; it was too loud, too fast, like it didn’t belong inside him.
Minutes passed.
One. Two. Five.
Each one stretching wider than the last.
At ten minutes, his fingers had started to shake. He had curled them into his palms, forcing them still, pressing nails into skin until they bled.
At twelve, he had started watching the door more than the mirror.
At fifteen, he had stopped pretending he was okay. His panic just about crippled him.
Because there was no “okay” left in him anymore. Only waiting.
Waiting for the footsteps.
Waiting for the door to open.
Waiting for Adrian to come in and decide what he was guilty of this time.
He said he could feel it in his body: the way fear turned physical, forcing him to rush to the toilet and vomit. The way his muscles tightened, already bracing for an impact that had yet to arrive. His mind had tried to explain it away, tried to build excuses to find something he had done wrong that could justify what he knew was coming. That was easier than the truth.
And the truth was terror.
When the door finally pushed open, Eli flinched so hard he collapsed to the floor. And Adrian had walked in like nothing was wrong. He had looked at Eli on the floor and lifted him as if Eli wasn’t already dying in slow motion.
That was the worst part of it: the waiting.
Being forced to stand there alone for so long, his own mind turned on him. Long enough for his body to start punishing him before a single blow ever landed. He had already gone so far inside himself just trying to survive before the physical pain even started.
The first punch came without warning. His “crime” was talking to another man.
There were no raised voices, no warning, just impact, as if the decision had already been made long before Eli even understood he was being punished.
When they got home, Adrian beat him so badly he couldn’t get out of bed for a week.
A week of pain that didn’t stop when the bruises stopped changing color. A week of stillness that wasn’t rest, just recovery from being broken down too far to function.
* * *
