Page 12 of His Country
A hand slapped him across the face, and he inhaled sharply. Had he been forgetting to breathe? Was that a thing? His chest hurt. He breathed deeply as spots peppered his vision. It was dark. No, his eyes were closed. Opening them was hard.
Another slap, and he jerked up, hand flinging out. Someone caught it and flipped him on his side.
“Vomit.”
“Fughouuu.”
“Cute.” Fingers probed his lips, pushing into his mouth. He fought them, elbow flying back. But he was sluggish. Trying to bite down on the fingers but they were too big, and he couldn’t get a strong enough bite.
“Do you not have a gag reflex? Jesus. You could be doing so much with—ah there you go.”
Aiden felt the digits press into his throat and then he was puking. Bile and moonshine poured past his teeth and splattered to the ground by his face. He heaved over and over again, face against the cold ground, gravel digging into his cheek, and hair soaked with sweat despite the chill.
“Were you trying to kill yourself?”
Maybe.“’m not very good at it.”
“No, you’re very good at it,” Ethan assured him, strong hands holding him up out of his own mess. “I’m just better at saving lives than you are at taking them.”
Chest heaving, he realized the twinge of pain was expanding. He reached under his soaked jacket to touch his chest.
“Yeah, jackass. CPR hurts.” Ethan slapped his hands away, sitting him up against what he was realizing was the barn. He probed his ribs. “Don’t think I broke any. Pity.”
Aiden wrinkled his nose, finally opening his eyes fully and breathing through spittle covered lips.
Ethan was kneeling beside him, face serious. He didn’t smell like smoke. He smelled like horses and cows, faintly of antiseptic. Maybe a little like vomit, but that might be himself he was smelling.
He caught Aiden’s eyes staring at him until his eyes cleared. “I found you unconscious in a horse stall. You weren’t breathing.”
Blinking, Aiden suddenly felt too close to Ethan. “Ok.”
“Ok?” Ethan laughed without any humor. He dropped down onto his ass, running a hand through his messy dark hair. He was wearing different clothes—joggers and a sweatshirt. Like he’d gone to bed and then come out looking for Aiden.
“Tell me what the hell is going on or I’m telling Frank you just tried to kill yourself.”
Aiden felt panic sluggishly begin to crawl up his spine. If Frank found out, he’d fire him. He didn’t want to deal with a messed-up farm hand. Didn’t want the liability. He’d kick Aiden out so fast he’d have nothing.
Ethan watched him like he knew exactly what he was doing.
“I wasn’t trying…I didn’t want to die. I just wanted to forget.”
Wanted to quiet the anxiety that had been buzzing under his skin for days. Settle back into his own skin for just a few minutes.
Silence. Ethan wasn’t letting him off the hook that easily.
Scrubbing his face, he raked his fingers through the thin stubble that was never enough to age up his baby face. God this wasn’t fair.
“What do you want to know? That Billy and Everett were once the most important people in my life? That they looked at each other like they were soulmates, and I was just…just the guy watching them? That I gave up everything for a farm doomed to fail? That leaving was the only thing I ever did for myself and itfucking hurt.It hurt so bad that I almost couldn’t do it. I stayed there, on the border between Texas and Oklahoma, for three days just staring. But I did it. I put one boot in front of the other and I left. I left, and I never wanted to think about it again until they showed up again and you just…fucking hell, why? Why did you show up?”
Ethan didn’t say anything. He still looked angry.
“Not good enough? Fine.” His lips were numb. That was the only explanation for the words pouring out unchecked. “I loved playing football. It was the only thing that got me off that damn farm, out of that house. But I stopped. I walked away because my family needed me. While everyone else fucked around, got drunk and laid, I watched the farm and my father crumble around me.”
Aiden waited for a response but still, nothing. A little curl of pettiness tugged at him and he gave into it. “Oh, ok. You really want to get into it. How about the fact that somewhere around the time I gave up football I realized I didn’t like girls? The all American, good ol’ boy farm raised on corn bread and Jesus, really, really liked thinking about dicks. But I was a coward and I-I thought no one would accept a gay boy.”
“But I was wrong,” he hissed. “Because Billy, brand new to town, no one knew him from Adam, but he walks in and proudly announces he is, in fact, a homosexual! And he was going to date the star quarterback.And you know what?No one gave a fuck.Not a single, solitary fuck. No, that was reserved for me. I had to hear about how I was going to hell. How I was going to drown in a lake of fire and brimstone—which doesn’t even make sense but hell if it didn’t scare the shit out of me anyway!”
Tears were streaming down his face, and he hated them so much he wanted to punch himself in the face. But his mouth was moving. It was vomiting up all the sickness he couldn’t get out before, all the hate and anger that festered inside him. The infection he didn’t treat becausehe was fine.