In the Absence of Monsters Page 24

  “Ethan?” Lexi’s voice called as she opened my door. I had been so engrossed in what I was doing; I hadn’t even heard her knock. When she saw I wasn’t asleep, she came to stand behind me, her hand went to my hair, and she played with it affectionately. “Are you ready for dinner?” I closed my eyes and leaned into her touch.

  “That’s a beautiful journal, I’m glad it’s working out for you.” We had gone with a simple leather bound journal with smooth, lined pages, and a plain Mont Blanc pen. Marking my page, I closed the book, and set it on the side table with the pen on top before I looked up at Lexi. Smiling, I took her other hand.

  “Yes, I’m starving, actually. Should I come down now?” I asked, and she looked startled. I hadn’t gone down to dinner since I’d been here. For weeks either Connor or Jayden had brought a tray up for me, and I had remained in my room. Companionship hadn’t been something I had desired, or needed. That night, however, I wanted to be around Jayden and Lexi, as opening up the wounds of my past had left me feeling vulnerable and alone and I knew that their presence would calm that feeling. While they would no doubt ask how the writing was going, they would never ask about the content. Lexi knew that I would share with them what I felt comfortable, but that the rest would stay hidden away.

  “Uhm, in about half an hour?” she replied, although it had come out as a question. I smiled at her, and she sat down in my lap with her arms wound around my neck. She rested her head on my shoulder, and I kissed the top of her head as I wrapped my arms around her waist. We sat like that for nearly twenty minutes, and even though we didn’t speak, I could feel her love and acceptance in her touch. She was glad that I was finally trying to find Ethan Hughes, Jr. I had thought that he had died when Ethan Bryant had been born, but I was wrong.

  Ethan Bryant isn’t a real person; he is a fictional character that I made up with to deal with the nightmare that was my life.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Journal Entry: The Monster

  Last night I had a dream, no doubt brought on by opening up and writing about that dark place in my head where the monster lives. In the dream, Jayden and I were in the playroom. At least intellectually, I knew it was Jayden, but he felt like a young boy. As we stood there, I was reminded of youth and innocence.

  Without warning, I pushed him over one of the tables and drove myself into him. Unlike the real Jayden, who had taken my assault the day Lexi left with quiet acceptance, the boy-Jayden cried out, begging for his mother. He pleaded with me to stop, to not hurt him. His words were those that I had used with my own attacker in the same pitifully weak voice of a boy in pain.

  I woke up, drenched in sweat and shaking. Moving quickly, I made it to the bathroom just in time, kneeling before the toilet I became violently ill. I had violated that boy with no more mercy or compassion than I had been shown.

  No – it had been a dream.

  But I had violated Jayden in a similar manner. I remember that day so vividly. It had been the day that I had looked into the mirror to see the monster behind my own eyes. I had still been reeling from the night before. I’d finally had a somewhat normal sexual experience with a woman and felt absolutely nothing from it. I had a physical release, but everything else was just…numb. It may have been then that I realized that my attraction for Lexi lay in her submission, not in that she was Lexi, or because she had a beautiful body. I thought that I had been in love with her. From all of the talks she and I’d had about “normal relationships” and “romantic love,” I thought it described the image I got when I thought about her. She was my closest friend, she had opened something inside me that I thought was gone forever – my ability to get close to another person. I couldn’t remember ever having had a friend before, and that felt like what she had described as love.

  Then she left. She had left me with another man, a man that I was desperately attracted to despite all of my efforts to the contrary. I just felt that pull whenever he was in the room, hell, whenever I thought about him. I don’t know if it was because he was Jayden, or because of his submission, or because he was a man. That thought sickened and scared me. If I was gay, had my attacker known that? Could he see it? Did he think I wanted what he did to me? Or… possibly even worse… did he make me gay? I have never voiced this to anyone, or even contemplated it too closely because I don’t want to know. At eight, I was too young to be thinking about my sexuality, so I had no frame of reference prior to my abduction. But really, here in the confines of my journal, maybe I should ask. What makes someone gay? Are they born that way? Does something in their environment make them that way? When did my sexual identity form?

  I had flown with breakneck speed through the Seattle traffic, and then again through the airport to tell Lexi that I figured out what she was talking about, at least in part. I wanted to convince myself that I loved her because if I loved her then I must be attracted to women. The alternative had been too horrifying to me to even contemplate. Now, it seems, I need to think about it. It’s a large part of my identity. How can I know who I am if I don’t answer that basic fundamental question?

  When I got back from the airport, I felt lost, hopeless. I walked upstairs, intending to go to my bedroom but found myself in the playroom instead. Pulling Lexi’s wrist cuff from my pocket, I sat on the floor and replayed the events from the last few days in my mind. Then, Jayden came in and sat beside me. I knew he was trying to comfort me and I resented him for it. I didn’t want to be comforted, particularly by him. The rage in me just continued to build until the need to dominate him, to show him who was in control, was paramount. I hurt and degraded him, and I hated myself for being excited by it. I knew it stemmed from the need to make him hurt like I was hurting, but it had been wrong.

  Now all I can see is the boy-Jayden from my dream begging me to stop.

  There was a knock at my door, and I called for whoever it was to come in as I got unsteadily to my feet and moved to the sink. I washed my tear-stained face, then took a deep, steadying breath as I dried it with a hand towel. Turning around, I found Jayden watching me. Our eyes met and he sighed.

  “It looks like the writing is going well today,” he said, no doubt seeing my bloodshot eyes. Then, as I noticed that he must have seen the journal, where I was much farther than yesterday, I nodded.

  “Lexi asked me to come up and see what you wanted for lunch,” he stated. When I looked away out the window, he put his hand on my cheek and brought my gaze back to him. “But we are going out instead.” My eyes widened and I began to shake my head. I didn’t want to be around other people, especially after the dream I’d had. I didn’t even feel human. How could I go into public and have a civilized conversation?

  “We will wait for you downstairs. There is this great place I want to take you.” With that, he strolled out of the room. After everything that he and Lexi had done for me, trying to save me from myself, I felt I had no choice but to clean up and follow. I had to trust in Jayden, and I found that it was easier than I would have expected.

  “No, this one is on me,” I said, smiling. Jayden had been right, of course, I’d needed to get out. The three of us were telling jokes and laughing, and I felt better than I had in weeks. They had made sure that we were fairly isolated in the restaurant so that I felt more comfortable, and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel like people were staring at me. I smacked Jayden’s hand as I took the check, and when I handed it back to the server with my card, my eye caught a caramel-haired woman a few tables over. Her hazel eyes were captivating as they locked with mine, both of us apparently reluctant to look away. The spell was broken a moment later when our server returned. I signed the slip quickly and nearly bolted for the door. Even though I heard Lexi and Jayden call out from behind me, I didn’t slow until I got outside and the steel bands around my chest started to loosen. The panic that was threatening to engulf me just moments ago began to lessen marginally. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been fast enough, and I felt a hand on my arm. I closed my eyes, an
d took a deep breath. Opening them again, I turned around to see the hazel-eyed woman.

  “Ethan?” she asked softly, and I looked down at her. She smiled up at me sadly. “Ethan,” she said again, but this time in an almost reverent whisper. Just then, Jayden and Lexi came through the front door. Jayden, noting her hand on my arm, came and put himself between us. He turned to go, and pulled me along with him.

  “Ethan Hughes,” the woman said in a stern voice and I stopped.

  “Darlin’, you must be mistaken, his name is Bryant. We’re from out of state,” Jayden said coolly, once again standing between us. This time, Lexi joined him while I stood frozen.

  “No, darlin’,” she said emphasizing the endearment, “I think I know my own son.” Then she turned to me. “E.J., how long have you been in Chicago?” My heart got stuck in my throat, she hadn’t called me E.J. in so long, not since before… The nickname E.J. had always been a joke in our family. Dad was the big E.S. – Ethan Senior, and I was little Ethan Junior, E.J. I blinked back tears that threatened to consume me. That name was from an entirely different lifetime to me. In that lifetime, I had been happy and safe.

  “A while,” I finally replied quietly.

  Looking as though I’d slapped her, she sniffed once or twice and then nodded. “And these are your friends?”

  “Yes. Mom, this is Jayden Carter,” I indicated Jayden to my left. “This is Alexis Morgan…Lexi.” Then I looked at each of my shell-shocked friends and finally regaining some composure, introduced her, “This is my mother, Charity Hughes.” Lexi recovered first and shook my mother’s hand.

  “It’s very nice to meet you,” she told my mother with a warm smile. My mother nodded back and looked back to me as Jayden stepped forward and apologized. Waving him off, my mother took my hand.

  “How long are you going to be in town?” she asked, feigning a calm I knew she did not feel. It had to be killing her that we were in the same town and I hadn’t even called. I had a feeling that she thought I was going to run from her, to leave like I had when I was eighteen. In retrospect, I felt bad about leaving, but she didn’t need to see me floundering, and I needed to get away.

  “I don’t know yet,” I admitted. “I left my position at the hospital and am staying with Jayden and Lexi until I figure out what I want to do.” I didn’t want to get into the reasoning behind the change, and thankfully she didn’t push.

  “Please, Ethan,” she said suddenly, sounding like she was desperate not to let me leave, “Come to brunch on Sunday?” I paled so quickly, I could feel the blood drain from my face. “Bring your friends with you. They seem very nice… and protective.”

  “I… I don’t know if I can do that,” I stammered, beginning to panic. At brunch, I would be surrounded by my parents’ friends, people that had known me before my life went to hell. They were the people that knew all of my sordid secrets.

  “Please E.J., nearly everyone is out of town this weekend, it will be very small. I… I haven’t seen you in so long,” she nearly begged, still holding onto my hand. I looked up to Jayden and Lexi for support, but this was ultimately my decision. I took a deep breath.

  “Okay, Mom,” I answered, not meeting her eye.

  “Thank you,” she said, and leaned forward very slowly, as if not to startle me, and kissed me on the cheek. “Come around noon, and we can talk for a while, just the two of us, before anyone arrives. If you don’t feel comfortable, you can leave whenever you want. Okay?” I nodded, resigned to the fact that I would be going back to my boyhood home, and seeing my father again. Therapeutic or not, I really didn’t want to engage every ghost from my past in the same week, but perhaps in the long run it was easier than prolonging the inevitable.

  Her face clouded over, and she looked pensive, like she was struggling with some deep seated emotion. Finally, her face cleared and she suddenly looked determined. “I love you, Ethan,” she said, opening her arms to me, just like when I had been a boy. Slowly, I stepped forward and hugged her. While it felt nice, warm and comforting in the way only a mother’s hug can be, it didn’t feel exactly the same as it had when I was a child. My mother’s love was like a repressed memory. Turning my head, I kissed her lightly on the cheek.

  “I love you too, Mom.” I whispered into her hair.

  Journal Entry: Facing my Demons

  Why had I agreed to go to brunch at my parents’ house? Why? I don’t like people. Even my parents aren’t all that fond of me. Last, but certainly not least, I’ll be shoe-horned back into Ethan Hughes. I haven’t been Ethan Hughes in so long; I don’t even know who he is anymore. I can’t concentrate, and I’m starting to panic at the thought of backyard brunch with the canapés, the false kindness, and the frenzied rush to leave so you can talk behind other peoples’ backs. And I know exactly what they’ll be talking about after this luncheon.

  The freak they thought themselves all rid of.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Journal Entry: The Birth of Ethan Bryant

  As my eighteenth birthday approached, I found myself feeling increasingly agitated. Fights with my parents became more frequent and generally ended with me in my room like a caged animal, and my mother in tears. The situation in our house was deteriorating rapidly, and I knew that I had to get out. I applied to colleges as far away as I could find – not to escape my parents, but to get away from the stigma of being ‘little Ethan Hughes’. I was accepted at several schools on the East Coast, but it wasn’t until I got the acceptance package from the school in Washington State that I felt any measure of hope and I wondered if being that far from the hustle and bustle of Chicago would allow me to escape recognition. I doubted it, but I could always hope.

  When I informed my parents of my decision, my mother was understandably upset; she felt like she was losing me all over again. If she’d had her wish, I would have gone to the University of Chicago and lived at home. My father, however, took an unexpected, but welcomed, approach. Taking me into his office to talk, he told me that he was proud of my resilience and my strength. He was proud that I wanted to be a doctor, that I was “using my experience to help people.” Then he said something that really caught my attention and pulled up a site on his computer, showing me my investment portfolio that I didn’t even know existed. I was too young to discuss it before my abduction, and since I had returned, things had been so tense that it had just never been mentioned. I couldn’t help but openly gape at the numbers.

  He explained that when his parents had passed away they left me, their only grandchild, a significant trust for me to inherit when I turned eighteen. My parents also held a separate college account for me. They had started it shortly after I was born and had continually added to it, even after I had been abducted and since my return, hoping that I would come home normal enough to go to college. I was pleased by their faith in me. The college account alone would ensure that I could be financially independent throughout college and medical school, able to attend class without working, reducing the stress that would be put on me.

  I graduated and turned eighteen without much fanfare. With no friends, there was no reason for a party. My parents bought me a car as my graduation gift, and I fell in love with it at once. My father had wanted something flashy while my mother wanted something safe. They compromised on a small, but well equipped, beautiful black Audi. It was sleek and elegant – and it was mine. We spent that last afternoon together loading it up for my long drive to my new life. Of course, they had offered to drive me, fly me, or even walk with me to Washington – but I felt that this first step toward my independence should be taken alone.

  It took several days of prearranged hotels, and prearranged calls with my mother, to get to Washington State. During that time, I alternated between being scared and being excited, torn between having a shot at a new life, away from the horrors of my past, and nervous about what I might find when I arrived. Would the other students recognize my name? Would they question me? Would they shun me? What if my new roommate kne
w? Would he want to sleep in the same room with a guy that had been with another man? Would my history freak him out? How could I live with him if it did? But, I didn’t want to live alone in an apartment off campus. As much as I hated being around people, they were like a safety blanket that I could wrap myself in. If I was alone, he would find me, he would come into my room.

  Then, the solution hit me—I would change my name. I didn’t know what I would change it to, or how to go about doing it, but that was the solution. Maybe they would look at me and see that I was familiar for some reason, but without the name to connect it – I could be free. I called my father and explained my epiphany. Surprisingly, he agreed with me and emailed me the contact information of our family attorney, who could handle the paperwork. Pulling over, I called the attorney and he took me through the process, assuring me that when I reached Washington, he would fly out and accompany me to the local courthouse to file the paperwork. I felt…relieved, light-hearted as I reached the Washington border. All I had to do was decide on a name.

  There were names all around me, but nothing that felt right. I was going to have to be this person, this name – I wanted it to be something that I could live with. Finally, I gave up on the big advertisements. I didn’t want to go with a more popular name, it would raise questions. I started looking at street signs.

  Lake St. – Ethan Lake?

  Birch Ave. – Ethan Birch?

  Clark St. – Ethan Clark?

  Bryant Dr. – Ethan Bryant?