My only friend, until recently.
Auggie had done this on his own just because he knew it would make me happy. A lump formed in my throat and I couldn’t breathe, but for the first time in my life I was choked by overabundance of happy emotions instead of negative ones.
Grabbing onto the front of Auggie’s shirt, I pulled him closer to kiss him, but it wasn’t enough to express the mess of feelings swarming through me. With a quick look around, I realized that, despite the nearby streetlamps, it was still pretty dark and there was no one anywhere near us. Throwing caution to the wind, and gathering up the scraps of my courage, I shifted on the bench and swung a leg over Auggie’s thighs until I was straddling his lap.
“What?” Auggie gasped even as his hands automatically settled on my waist to steady me.
I linked my hands behind his neck. “You can’t be that surprised. After doing so much for me, going to such lengths just to reuniteme with a friend that I miss. Of course, I’m going to want to repay you.”
I leaned in to kiss him again, but to my surprise, he grabbed my wrists and pushed me away.
“I don’t need repayment,” he said as he held me at arm’s length, even as I sat on his lap. “You don’t have to do anything for me. That’s not what this is about.”
The rejected kiss shocked me for a moment, but I wasn’t an idiot. As soon as I heard the word ‘repayment’ leave Auggie’s mouth, I knew that I’d said the wrong thing. Even to my own ears, as I thought back over my previous statement, I realized what it sounded like, and I couldn’t help laughing at myself.
“No, no, I don’t mean it like that,” I insisted, though I didn’t try to press forward or remove my wrists from his grip.
My forearms had been burned the worst in the fire, and the scaring left behind was particularly thick in that area. Auggie’s warm grip on the delicate, newly healed skin was surprisingly pleasant, like a weighted blanket chasing away the nightmare of old injuries.
Auggie eyed me warily. “I don’t need sex as any sort of exchange.”
The number of times I’d heard the exact opposite was… well, more than I wanted to think about. However, I wasn’t at all surprised by Auggie’s response. If I’d thought he would say anything else, I never would have felt comfortable enough to get so physically close to him in the first place, and I made sure to tell him so. Yet, despite my explanation, he still didn’t look assured and continued to maintain space between us.
“It’s not just because of how Detective Smith treated you,” he admitted. “Although, that alone would be bad enough. I’m concerned because, well…”
He bit his lip, a nervous gesture I would associate more with myself than him. It made him look younger than his years, and for a moment, I was reminded of a scolded child that had been caught stealing something he shouldn’t have.
A very large child whose lap could easily be used in place of a chair and whose hands could almost completely encircle my waist.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, equal parts worried and amused by his personality shift. “If you don’t want to do anything, that’s fine, but…”
“It’s not that,” he quickly cut me off, and the bright blush that spread over his cheeks was evident even on his dark complexion. “I, um, I told you that I managed to find records about Camp Green Hill, right?” He waited for me to nod before continuing. “What I didn’t tell you, is that those records contained more than just a list of everyone who attended the camp. It also had descriptions of the so-calledtherapythat they used. I feel like we really need to talk about that before we go any further.”
I crossed my arms and I wanted to scowl at him, but I could bring myself to turn such an unpleasant expression in his direction, so instead, I glared at the arm of the bench off to the side.
“What’s there to talk about? The so-calledtherapysessions that were basically just hours of guilt tripping? The physical abuse when they would knock us around or starve us to try and make us do what they wanted? Or maybe you’re talking aboutthe electroshock therapy where they would electrocute us while showing us porn so that we’d associate the material with pain, just like training a damn dog? Well, you don’t need to worry. None of it worked because that’s not how sexuality works. Conversion therapy is just a bunch of bullshit.”
My anger faded as quickly as it flared, and with an exhausted huff, I let my head drop onto his shoulder. I wasn’t truly mad at him. Auggie’s questions were valid, and I would be lying if I said I hadn’t worried about the same things in the past. I just hated that my time in that camp continued to plague me even years after I’d left it behind. It stuck to me like a shadow, but I wasn’t Peter Pan, who could lose his shadow so easily. My shadow clung to me with the sticky hands of a needy child, refusing to be ignored.
One of Auggie’s large hands petted the back of my head.
“You’re right. Sexuality doesn’t work that way. But that does mean you’re affected by what they did. Plus, after escaping from the camp, the majority of sexual experiences you had were under coercion by that detective. I just want to make sure I don’t accidentally hurt you because we rushed into things.”
“I get it,” I mumbled against his shoulder, too embarrassed to look up. “I really do. I’ve worried about the same thing before, but I promise, it’s different with you.”
The shoulder under my face still felt tense. Nothing I’d said so far had reassured Auggie. With a long sigh, I pushed myself out of my hiding place and faced him.
“Can I… admit something to you that might sound weird?” I asked. Unsurprisingly, Auggie automatically agreed. “Look. You are right. The conditioning that Camp Green Hill put methrough has made me jumpy about sex in the past, and Detective Smith certainly didn’t help. But—damn, I’m not sure how to say this in a way that isn’t problematic—the fact that you’re a person of color actually makes things a lot easier for me.”
It was almost comical to watch in real time as Auggie’s brain seemed to stall right in front of my eyes. I could practically see the wheels turning behind his eyes stutter for a moment as he struggled to process what I’d just said.
“That’s…” With slow, jerky movements the wheels started turning again. “Certainly a new one. I’ve never heard that before.”
He didn’t ask for an explanation, but he didn’t need to. I could tell he was still confused and launched into an explanation anyway.
“So, it turns out the bigots running a conversion camp are racist as well as homophobic. Go figure, right? During the electroshock therapy, they would show us explicit gay material they thought we would find arousing so that they could train us to hate it, but I guess it never occurred to them that people could be attracted to skin tones other than white. The material only featured white men. Plus, the fact that Detective Smith was also white didn’t help. So, basically, they only killed my attraction to white men. Literally every other race is still on the table.”
A tense moment of silence passed between us, with only the sound of the river for background noise. I waited for Auggie’s reaction, worried that he would be insulted, or maybe even think I was lying. Race and sexuality were both such sensitive issues, and when you tied them together, things could get ugly.