The Ardent Axiom

Evan announced that he was done eating by burping loudly in my direction and giving me a half-ass grin, as if to gloat about eating more than me.  For being so skinny the kid put down more slices than I could comfortably consume.  I admitted defeat in our unsolicited eating competition by pushing my plate away from me.  Victory was all his.

He got up and scurried about putting the remaining two slices of the large pizza into a gallon ziploc bag and placed it into the refrigerator.  The empty plates he rinsed off and put into the dishwasher and then he sat down next to me and reached for the remainder of his beer.

He sat there for a moment, both of us draped in silence.  He spun his bottle slowly, staring intently at the label, as if to decipher some sort of hidden message in its text.  In reality though, he wasn’t really seeing anything in front of him, he was only focused on everything inside of him.

I watched his face for the slightest of expressions, hoping to read something about what he was pondering.  Evan had freckles too, just like his brother, but they were smaller and more spaced out, fewer in number.  His hair was brown, on the darker side, his lips were thin and faded.  Little bits of hair grew on his chin, too sparse to actually be considered a goatee, but it was evident that he was hoping to grow one.

I wasn’t sure exactly how old he was, I couldn’t recall if Damien had ever told me.  I knew that he had recently graduated from high school, and that he was very free-spirited, but beyond that – the young man beside me was still very much an enigma.

Unlike Damien’s aqua colored eyes, Evan’s eyes were dark and deep, so dark brown they almost appeared black in the dimly lit kitchen we were sitting in.  I watched them as he studied the label on his beer, still lost in thought but trying to pretend like he was reading something fascinating on the label.  His hair was finally beginning to dry from the warmth put out by the oven as it began to slowly cool down.

His dark brown hair had begun to fall more naturally down to the front of his face.  His hair was longer than Damien’s, and actually was styled a lot like mine.  I smiled, remembering how Damien would brush his hand through my hair when he didn’t like the way it had settled.

I reached out with my hand and brushed Evan’s hair down toward his face, and as he looked up over at me, I asked, “What are you thinking about?”

He slid the bottle away from himself and released a loud sigh and ended it with… “Dad.”

“I see.”  I said, not knowing what else to ask or say.

“You know,” Evan started, “he promised me that one day we’d share my first beer like he did with Damien?”

“I’m sorry man.”  I responded, again not knowing what else to say.

“Fuck dude, he promised a lot of shit that never happened.”  Evan added.

“How old were you when he left?”  I asked, already knowing the answer.

“I was five when he left… without a reason and without a goodbye.  I never really got over it.”  He admitted.

“Damien never did either.”  I reassured him.

“What do you mean?”  Evan asked.

“During our camping trip, Damien brought up your dad and told me about how he just up and left all of you, he’s been carrying around a lot of anger about it.”  I told him.

“I used to be angry too, but these days I’m more disappointed than anything, maybe it’s because I didn’t spend as many years with him as Damien did.” Evan confessed.

Evan went back to tinkering with the beer bottle, which was now nearly empty.  He slid his finger tips along its side, picking at the edges of the label, trying to free it from the glass.  His hands were not as thick and muscular as Damien’s, they were thinner, longer, more nimble, much like the rest of him.  Aside from ego, there wasn’t much that was apparently similar between the two of them.

Again, I reached out to Evan with my hand and placed it over his own hands as he fidgeted with the bottle, bringing him back to the present moment.  He stopped and looked up at me as I felt the coldness of his hands in mine.  His iris’ were as dark as the night outside, large and deep, absorbing any light that dare go near them.  Unlike Damien’s that reflected all the light, Evan’s eyes swallowed it into their eerie depths refusing to let it go.  Hiding it down somewhere hidden, somewhere secret.

“You know, my mom used to say that you could learn a lot about a person by looking into their eyes.”  I told Evan as I removed my hand from his.

“Oh yeah?”  He inquired, “What do mine say?”

Evan swiveled on his bar stool towards me and leaned in close to my face, no more than two feet away.  From that closeness I could smell the soap he had used to shower with and the scent from his shampoo wafted into my face, he smelled of every teenage male I had ever encountered, a strongly scented mixture of woods and spice, with subtle hints of fruit.  Below his eyes his skin was lightly bruised, signs of a lack of sleep.  On his cheeks and across his nose the sparsely scattered and tiny freckles were more noticeable at this closer distance.

Above his eyes his brow was cleanly kept and superbly shaped, in fact I’m certain he must have gone somewhere to get his eyebrows waxed they were so well done.  Their arches perfectly set above his eyes, framing them like windows.  And into those windows I could see and feel their depth and the lack of light.  In them were a coldness, an aloneness, old pain and a new fear.

“If I asked you a question, would you be honest with me?”  I posed.

“Of course.”  He responded.

“Earlier, when I reached out and touched your hands, you trembled and I saw scars on your wrist.”  I said, pointing to his right wrist.

Evan pulled away from me and sat back on his bar stool.  He brought his arms closer to himself, as if to hide them from me.  I reached with both of my hands and touched his arms and kept them there for a second.  I could feel his whole body tremble again from the physical contact.

“Can I see them?”  I asked sincerely.

The tension in his arms released and he allowed me to lift them up so that I could turn them over.  On both wrists were scars a couple inches long, extending away from his hands.  Above his wrists on his forearms were smaller scars, each maybe half an inch at the most.  His left forearm had many more than his right, suggesting he was right handed.  I let go of his right arm, but kept his left arm in my right hand as I touched his scars with my left hand.  Though some of the scars were new, many of them were old.  He clearly had been cutting himself long before Damien fell into a coma.

“This is none of my business, but I want you to know that I have battled with depression and was even suicidal when I was your age.  I want you to know that if you’re willing to talk about how you’ve been feeling, I would be honored to listen.”  I said encouragingly.

Evan turned in his bar stool and slid his fingers into his hair, slumped over the bar and held his head in his hands.  He didn’t say anything for the longest time.  Damien had never mentioned anything to me about this, I wondered if he had known.  Did their mom know?  How couldn’t she have known?  Although, I only ever saw Evan wear long sleeve shirts at the hospital.  Maybe she really didn’t know?  Did anyone know?  If no one knew, why would he allow himself to be shirtless around me?

“After dad left when I was five, and Pa-pa died when I was sixteen, Damien was the closest thing I had to a male figure in my life.  He hadn’t transitioned until I was twelve, but he was always more like me than Claire.  He was always interested in doing boy stuff with me and never cared about girly things.  When he moved out for college I really didn’t feel like I had anyone to talk to about things.”  Evan confided in me.

He continued, “After Pa-pa died I had a really hard time coping with that loss, he was basically the only father I knew.  That’s when I started going to a lot of parties, I became really open to new experiences, and started using different substances.  Mostly to try to keep my mind off things.”

“Have you spoken with Damien about all of this, did he know?”  I asked.

“Honestly, no we haven’t really sat down and had conversations like this, not for a really long time.  Even before Pa-pa died, Damien kind of drifted away, he was spending a lot of time with that bitch, Megan, not sure if you know about her.”  Even responded.

I cringed at the mention of her name, Evan must have noticed as he smirked a little at my facial expression.

“Yeah, she pretty much took up all of his time, she would get mad when he would come out to the farm to see us.  She hated it out there.”  He added.

“She’s certainly not my favorite person, from what I’ve learned about her.”  I stated in agreement.

I continued, “I knew you smoked weed, but wasn’t aware that you tried other things?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve tried acid, molly, shrooms, pretty much any type of psychoactive or psychedelic drug you can name, I’ve probably tried it.”  He confessed.

“Did you know that Damien battled a drug addiction?”  I inquired.

“Yes, I was aware of it, I know that he was seeing a counselor for it.”  Answered Evan

“In some sense the two of you were trying to cope with things in your lives through similar methods.  His seems to have gone a little worse than yours as he was hooked on narcotics, but the two of you seem to have more in common the more I talk to you.”  I suggested.

Evan turned and leaned on the table again, resting his face in one hand, pondering what I had just told him.  He then looked over at me and asked, “Did he ever say if he had cut himself?”

“Um, he never mentioned it to me if he did, but I know that he went through a lot of psychological pain due to his gender dysphoria.  I can’t say I know what that feels like, but I certainly know how it feels to be different than most other people, to feel as though you don’t fit in, to feel like an outcast.”  I admitted.

“Do you think I’m a loser, a deadbeat, or lazy bum because of my lifestyle choices?”  Evan asked.

“No, I don’t think that about you, I find you incredibly interesting.”  I reassured him.

He laughed, “Is that code for weirdo?”

We both laughed at his interpretation and then I responded, “No, not at all, I think there are different kinds of people in this world and different people make different choices.  Some people are interested in being disciplined and having a structured, orderly lifestyle, while others are more chaotic and free-spirited.  I think you are certainly the latter.”

He smiled with a huge grin, “You know even though I have guy friends, none of them have ever really tried to talk to me about this stuff.  I know some of them have seen my scars before, but they just don’t ask about it.”

“Sometimes people don’t know how to ask, especially if they have never experienced something like it for themselves.  I’m sure some of them wanted to say something, but they just couldn’t find the words.”  I told him.

“I guess I can understand that, I’ve never been very good at expressing my emotions, not verbally anyway.  How do you feel about turning in for the night?”  He asked yawning.

“Yeah that sounds like a good idea.”  I agreed.

Evan got up from the stool and stretched, throwing his arms out wide and standing up on the toes of his feet, he staggered to the doorway into the living room, motioning for me to follow.  As he passed through the doorway he flipped a couple switches and the lights behind us turned off as the lights to a staircase ahead of us turned on.

He turned and said, “Currently our spare bedroom has been turned into a storage space, so the two options for sleeping are the couch in the living room or my bed.”

“Oh I could never kick you out of your own bed, I will take the couch.”  I stated, gesturing towards the living room.

“Hahaha,” Evan laughed, “I didn’t say anything about me sleeping on the couch.”

“Haha, oh you were joking, sorry it’s late I didn’t get that very quickly there.”  I conceded.

“Nah, it wasn’t a joke dude.”  Evan countered.

“Wait, what?”  I responded thoroughly confused.

“I’m trying to say that if you want to sleep in my room you can, honestly I wouldn’t mind the company.  It would be nice to not feel alone for once.”  Evan confessed.

“Oh, um, okay I guess that would alright.”  I said hesitantly, still not completely sure what he meant.  I honestly couldn’t tell if this was that child-like behavior of his or if this was him suggesting something kind of sketchy.  As we headed upstairs to his room, I kept telling myself that nothing sexual could happen, I tried to convince myself that’s not at all what this is, I’m in love with his brother, he knows I am, I mean Evan’s attractive, but I’m not about that, for fuck’s sake Damien is in a coma in the hospital, but Evan is a 19 year old young man – why else would he want another man to sleep in bed with him?

Upon arriving in his room I was immediately disappointed to see that he did not have bunk beds, but relieved to see the one bed he did have was at least big enough we both could lay in it and never come into physical contact.  The next thing I noticed was how messy his room was.  Magazines, clothes, and other random objects were thrown about the room, but I was immensely grateful his room didn’t stink – it actually smelled of lavender and vanilla.  On all of his walls were posters of cliche hippie culture, peace symbols, pot leafs, and a very large poster of a Rastafarian lion with dreadlocks in his mane with beads on the ends colored in red, yellow, and green, it had on large aviator sunglasses and a blunt sticking out of its mouth.

I immediately remembered that Damien said Evan had a similar tattoo on his butt, and I blushed when I realized I was looking at his butt as I thought about it.  I shook my head, the voice in my mind kept telling me that I should not be in here, I’m going to have to sleep downstairs, I can’t be in that tie-dye bed with him, this is too weird.  I looked up across the room and saw a poster that read, “Go With The Flow,” I read another one, “All We Need Is Love,” and third one that said, “Why Be Rude When You Could Be Nude.”

I panicked, what if he sleeps in the nude!?!?  I looked over towards the door and wondered if I should make my move.  I was startled by Evan’s voice saying, “Here you might want to use this tonight.”

Terrified it might be a condom or a sex toy, I looked back to see what Evan was trying to hand me.  With fear on my face I turned, but I was relieved to see a toothbrush.

“Nothing better than having fresh breath.”  He noted.

Wait, why?  I pondered.  Was it because he wanted to make out with me?  My head was flooded with images of him trying to kiss me on the lips and give me tongue.  I could feel myself starting to sweat from nervousness, I quickly asked where the bathroom was, he pointed across the room – he had his own personal bathroom.

I made haste and closed the door behind me.  I started to feel sick as I convinced myself he wanted to do dirty things with me.  I turned on the faucet and splashed water on my face to calm myself down.  I took a few deep breaths and talked myself down from my ridiculous thoughts.  I turned to the toilet to take a piss.  Just as I started there was a knock at the door and I jumped, nearly splashing piss on the floor.

“Dude, if you take a shower – and honestly you probably should, you might want some fresh clothes to put on.  This stuff should fit you.  I will leave it right by the door.”  Evan announced.

“Thanks!”  I managed to get out while awkwardly urinating.

I washed my hands and brushed my teeth, grabbed the clothes from outside the door, closed it and locked it, and jumped in the shower.  Evan was right, I needed to shower as I was starting to smell a bit unpleasant.  I could hear a noise outside the bathroom as Evan continued to clean up his room.  I kept telling myself that I had been irrational and that all of this was just him feeling lonely and afraid about Damien’s health.  Since I was involved with his brother, he probably just felt like being close to me would be like being close to Damien.

I climbed out of the shower, grabbed a towel from the cabinet shelf and dried myself off.  As I sorted through the clothes I realized there was a pair of underwear.

“Yo, who’s underwear is this?”  I shouted to Evan.

“Mine!”  He shouted back.

Oh hell no, I can’t wear his underwear, I thought, that’s so weird.  “Why?!?!”  I shouted, wondering why he was giving me his underwear to put on.

“Well, unless you want to put on your dirty ass undies or go commando, I figured you’d need them!”  He reasonably shouted back.

Damn it, he was right.  I quickly slid his underwear on, trying not to imagine his junk rubbing all around in them as they snugly fit against my body.  This was going to be a long night, I told myself, as I slid his basketball shorts on over the underwear.  I slid the shirt on and noticed the sleeves had been cut off.  I took my clothes and wadded them up as I walked out of the bathroom.

“Here, you can put your clothes in this.”  Evan said as he handed me a plastic grocery bag.  “Do you like the shirt and shorts?”  He asked.

“Yeah, I guess, why?”  I answered, scared to ask for further details.

“They belonged to Damien.”  He replied.

My heart sank, but I was emotionally touched by the gesture.  I reached up with my hand and touched the shirt, immediately feeling closer to Damien.

Evan noticed, and smiled at me, “Yeah dude, he left some of his old clothes with us when he moved out and I couldn’t really bring myself to throw all of it away, so I kept some.  Glad it fits you.”

“Thanks man.”  I told Evan, returning the smile.  I tied the bag closed and tossed it to one side of the room.

“Alright, ready for bed?”  Evan asked.

“Yeah man, sure thing.”  I answered hesitantly.

“Well, hope you don’t mind, but I prefer to sleep on the side closest to the door.”  Evan instructed.

“Okay, no problem.”  I conceded and climbed into the bed first.  I slid to one side and faced the other end of the room, facing away from Evan.  The lights went out and I could feel Evan climbing into bed.  I closed my eyes and hoped I wouldn’t feel him touch me.

Several minutes passed and nothing happened.  I waited a while and checked my phone, it had been over thirty-minutes and other than tossing and turning, nothing happened.  I concluded that I had overthought the whole thing and freaked myself out over nothing.  I closed my eyes and allowed myself to fall asleep.

I awoke to an intense feeling of warmth on my back and the slow cycle of warm air on the back of my neck.  Once my bearings were collected on what was going on, I realized that Evan had scooted over to my side of the bed and was nearly on top of me as I laid stomach down on my side of the bed.  His right leg was in between mine, his right arm thrown over top of me and resting at my side.

At this realization I froze in uncertainty, not knowing what to do.  He was clearly asleep and I had no idea for how long we had been in bed like this.  I reached for my phone and turned the screen on, it read 4:20 AM.  We had been asleep for only a couple hours.  I put the phone back down and considered if I should push him off me or slide out of bed and maybe go sleep on the couch.

As I laid there, the warmth of Evan’s body made me not want to get out of bed and into the cold.  While I could do without his breath hitting me in the back of the neck, it was tolerable.  I decided not to disturb him and tried to focus on the fact that he was lonely, afraid, and that he had been through a lot of emotional suffering.  Cuddling with him was harmless.  The warmth emanating from him and the slow steady breaths he was taking, coaxed me back into my sleep and I drifted off again.

I awoke again sometime later, though I didn’t reach for my phone to check the time.  The loss of warmth became apparent to me and I realized that Evan wasn’t there.  I rolled over to see where he had moved to and realized he was sitting up in bed.  I sat up next to him and reached out to touch him on the shoulder.

“Hey, you okay?”  I asked with the utmost sincerity.

“I don’t know.”  he responded in a strange tone.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”  I said, pressuring him to explain.

When he didn’t respond, I reached for my phone to light the room a little so that I could see him better.  As I directed the phone’s light at him, I noticed that he had something in his hands.  I wiped at my eyes so that I could focus more clearly and then I realized what I was looking at.  He was sitting up in bed with a pair of box cutters, the tool with razor blades typically used for cutting up cardboard boxes.  I then realized that he had made a couple small cuts on his arm.

“Evan, stop!” I proclaimed and reached for the box cutter.

“I can’t.”  He said tearfully.

“What do you mean you can’t?”  I asked, as I pulled them from his hands.

“It’s the only way I can get it out of me.”  He cried.

“Get what out of you?”  I asked earnestly.

“The hurt.”  He muttered as he wiped the tears from his face.

“Oh god, Evan…” I said trying to figure out what to do next, “Let’s do something about your arm first, and then I need you to talk to me about what you are feeling.”

He crawled over to his night stand and opened a drawer and pulled out a first aid kit.  He opened it up and took out some sort of cream and two bandages.

“Let me see them.”  I demanded, wanting to see how deep they were.  I continued, “Here, let me take care of it.”  I took his arm in my hand and held it to my phone’s light.  The cuts didn’t look deep, but there was blood so I pulled gauze from the kit and dabbed at them.  He began to cry again.

“You hate me, don’t you?”  He asked, barely getting the words out.

“No, I absolutely don’t hate you, the exact opposite of that.  But I am concerned, I’m upset that you are hurting and you feel alone in your pain.  I am right here Evan, and I am not going anywhere.”  I said, ensuring that I would not abandon him.

He began to cry more heavily as I continued to care for his arm, “I need to flush these with something to make sure they don’t get infected.”

He handed me a small bottle of rubbing alcohol, and when I looked at him for reassurance that this is what he wanted to use, I proceeded to douse it on his cuts.  He flinched and gritted his teeth, making a hissing sound as he drew breath in at the sudden burn.  I dabbed at them a little more and applied bandages.

I put the kit back together and handed it to him to put away into his night stand.  I moved around in the bed so that I was facing him directly and slid myself closer to him, our legs interlocking so he had no choice but to face me directly.

“Promise me you won’t do that again tonight?”  I begged, despite knowing that promises don’t equate much from someone who is facing a mental health crisis.

He sat there in the dimly lit room, his face shifted downward at the bed space between our bodies.  I reached up with my right hand and lifted his chin up slowly so that our eyes could meet.  His were soaked in tears and shame, and as I wiped them away from his face he sniffled and tried to clear his throat.

“Okay.”  Was all he could get out.

I gently pushed him back towards his pillow and he readjusted himself under the covers and turned to his side facing his end of the bed.  I turned and hid the box cutters and dropped the gauze to the floor on my side of the bed.  I then got back under the covers and slid all the way over to his side.  I pressed myself up against him and put my arm over top of him and rested my hand on the bed at the other side.

Leaning in, I asked, “Is this better or worse for you?”

“Better.”  He responded.

I laid my head on the pillow right behind him, lightheartedly apologizing if my breathing on him was annoying, but he didn’t say a thing in response so I assumed it wasn’t an issue for him.  I reached up with my left hand and brushed his hair up and away from his eyes.  I brought it down closer to his chest, as I did so I brushed past his right arm.  I felt along the underside and could feel all of the little scars from past cuts.  Though they were not as numerous as the scars on his now bandaged left arm, I contemplated how each of those experiences probably played out.

Him probably in his bedroom, feeling absolutely alone – even if he wasn’t the only person home.  Feeling like he didn’t belong, feeling as though he deserved it because he was an outcast, different, feeling as though no one truly cared about him.  Not everyone cuts for the same reason, but I suspected he did so because it was the only way he knew how to let out the pain he was feeling.

I pulled him in closer to me and I could feel the heat between us increasing.  I touched his hands to see if they were still as cold as they were down in the kitchen earlier that night, but this time they were warm, something I deemed a positive.  As I lifted my hand away to return to the mattress, he retrieved it and took it in his, interlocking our fingers.

I smiled and wanted to laugh out loud as I thought about how incredibly gay this would look to someone who walked in on us at that moment.  But I held my laughter in because the last thing he needed right now was another reason to feel self-conscious or like a freak.  He was certainly way more emotional and sensitive than his brother, but for some people that’s the type of personality they look for and definitely not something he should feel ashamed of.  As I drifted off into sleep, I wondered what Damien would say about it.

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