Page 54 of Pages of My Heart

He shifts as much as he can without jostling Thomas, trying to get more comfortable.

It feels as if his head is filled with fog, memories coming and going like ghosts lost between worlds.

Thomas doesn’t know it yet, but he struggles to remember things sometimes, and often he can’t concentrate.

And it all stems from that moment. That one horrible mistake.

The thing he’s hiding and never wants to speak of.

His eyes have long since adjusted to the dark, and with the moonlight seeping in around the edges of the curtains he can just make out the alarm clock on the nightstand.

2:05 a.m.

He needs to move, the stillness making him agitated and frustrated. As carefully as possible, he tries to inch forward out of Thomas’s hold, his useless arm making it more difficult than it should be.

“Charlie?” Thomas mumbles, voice sleepy but still laced with concern.

Charlie halts, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Just need the bathroom,” he lies. “Go back to sleep.”

“I’ll help you.”

He exhales noisily, trying to contain his temper. “Don’t need help, I’m naked. I’ll be back soon.”

“Call for me if you need . . .” Thomas’s voice drifts off as sleep wins out.

Charlie stands, watching and waiting until he’s sure Thomas has returned to a deep sleep.

These days Charlie’s anger is always bubbling just under the surface of his skin, keeping his blood warm and his body on high alert.

Why did this war have to sully everything good in his life?

Why has something so perfect as his love for Thomas been tainted by something he never wanted to be a part of in the first place?

There were times in the past year when he wished he’d had the courage to shoot himself in the leg—before things got so bad—so he could have been sent home to Thomas earlier.

Now he’s damaged goods and Thomas remains flawless.

Charlie lightly strokes his fingers through Thomas’s thick hair.

What he wouldn’t give to go back to Bloomington. To before.

He grabs his pajama pants and walks to the sitting room, where he wrestles to get them on before moving through the kitchen and out the back door.

Their yard is small, but pretty, and he wanders around, trying to remember how tall the shrubs and young trees were before he left.

The night is warm, but the breeze is still cool on his bare chest. Not that he cares—he’s been too cold and too hot and too wet and too everything over the past year.

The moon is a sliver short of full and the sky is clear, the stars sparkling as if everything in the world is as it should be.

Charlie wonders if God knows the depths of evilness within men.

Perhaps everyone deserves a trip straight to hell.

He knows he does. But not Thomas. His sweetheart deserves better than that.

Charlie’s mind drifts to Johnson. He misses his friend.

“Hey, Billy, you made it up there, didn’t ya?” He tilts his face up to the heavens. “Yeah, ’course ya did.”

Charlie sits in the middle of the yard and lies on his back in the grass.

It’s cold and prickly, but the sky looks infinite, and he likes how it makes him feel insignificant.

“I never told ya this, but Red—my Red—the one I was always bendin’ your ear about .

. . well, his name is Tommy. Yep, ya heard that right.

Red is a man. I’m a homosexual. I always wondered if you still would’ve been my friend if you’d known the truth. ”

Charlie runs his good hand through the grass, the blades tickling his palm. It feels easier to admit things out here with only the moon and the stars and his dead friend to hear him.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you, Billy. I hope ya know that. Truth is . . . some days I wish I didn’t make it either.”

Day 4: Charlie

Thomas is cautiously moving in and out of him from behind as they lay on their sides in their bed.

They’ve made love every day since he’s been home, and every time Thomas has been just as gentle, too gentle, and yet Charlie cannot seem to bring himself to say anything.

He doesn’t want to be treated like a porcelain doll, fragile and frail.

Charlie wants to see Thomas explode with passion and take him urgently.

He wants to be handled roughly. He aches with the need to grip tightly with both his hands, digging his nails into Thomas’s flesh as his body is overpowered.

After the first two times face to face, Charlie couldn’t bear to keep looking at the constant worry in Thomas’s eyes.

It makes him want to scream bloody murder.

So now it’s lying on their sides like this, or Charlie flips over onto his stomach and Thomas lays across his back.

Kneeling on all fours is too hard because he can’t remain stable with only one working arm.

And there’s no way he’s getting on top again.

Just the thought of his arm hanging lifelessly at his side makes him recoil with disgust. It would be all Thomas would see, just his crippled arm on display like some sort of circus freak.

“Does it feel good, darling?”

The knot in his throat tightens. The knot that keeps his tears locked safely away. “Faster,” he manages to get out.

“Can you kiss me?”

Charlie tilts his head back and kisses Thomas, and it does feel good.

He sighs into Thomas’s mouth, panting and fighting against the emotions that try to scratch their way out.

The desire to feel pleasure is strong. He doesn’t think he deserves it, but he wants it.

He wants it so desperately. The more Thomas’s cock rubs against that place inside of him, the less resistance he has.

Thomas begins stroking him in time with his thrusts and Charlie wants. He wants to feel whole. Please.

Charlie thrusts his ass back, meeting Thomas in the middle, wanting it rough and hard. Maybe even painful. No more thinking, just release.

“Tommy, please, please . . .”

His mind shuts down as the first wave of his orgasm hits, and then he seems to float. Relief fills his body, but just like all the other times, the feeling is short lived. Thomas starts to come inside him and gums at his shoulder where normally he would bite.

Fuckin’ bite me! Charlie wants to scream. Let me feel the pain.

But the words remain unspoken.