Fear of Falling(52)

But I was five. And my 5-year-old intentions did not win out over my curiosity.

I let go of the edge. And I nearly drowned, finding just a slice of that peace at the bottom of the swimming pool.

I don’t remember being pulled to the surface. I have no clue how long I was submerged. But when I finally regained consciousness, vomiting on the concrete as oxygen tried to combat the water in my lungs, I stupidly fought for my life. I battled for every breath, thinking that my life had to be better than the alternative.

I feared death when all along I should have feared life.





I sat on my bed cross-legged, dozens of tiny stars tickling my bare feet, as I put them back in the jar one by one. I had counted them over and over again since I broke down at Dive Thursday night. I could feel the cracks in my mask broadening into large fissures, splitting to reveal the little girl hidden underneath. The one that was so scared that it crippled her. The one that was afraid of someone finding out just how damaged and unlovable she really was.

“Knock, knock.”

I looked up to find Dom standing in my doorframe, smiling his usual boyish grin full of mischief. I was one of the few people who ever got to experience this smile. It was him. Unmasked, free and real. It wasn’t laced with pain or deceit. There was no anger in it.

“Hey you. What are you doing up so early on a Saturday morning? I thought you had a date,” I said, scooping the stars in my hand to hide them away. Of course, Dom had seen them before, but this was a personal process for me. It was something I could never share with anyone. No one would fully understand why I needed to count every single one.

Dom flopped back onto my bed, folding his hands behind his head. “Yeah. But I sent her home last night. Felt like sleeping alone.”

I detected the affliction in his voice, prompting me to abandon my task. “Nightmare?”

“Yeah.”

“Same as always?”

He nodded. “Yup.”

I let my hand cup his cheek, hoping my warmth would soothe him. “Wanna talk about it?”

“Nope.”

I wasn’t offended. I knew he would decline; he always did. If I had to battle that caliber of pain and anger daily, I’d want to keep it bottled up too.

Dominic divulged his level of fucked-up-ness to me soon after we met. He was a known man-whore on our campus, and once we had established that we liked being around each other, he tried to sleep with me. I turned him down, and it wounded him. Deeply. He cared for me, and he thought that sex signified affection, both friendly and romantic.

“It’s just… you’re my best friend, Kam,” he said to me, betrayal written on his handsome face after my rejection. “I love you more than anything else in this world. And this is the only way I know how to show how much you mean to me.”

“Dom, do you love me like that? Like more than a friend?” I asked, grasping his hand. It was our thing. Dom needed constant affection, and I only found it acceptable with him.

“Well…no. I mean, I know I love you, but honestly, no. Not like that.”

“Then you don’t want to sleep with me.”

Genuine confusion flashed across his features. “I don’t get it.”

I knew something dark and ugly had happened to Dom, but that moment solidified it for me. I would never, ever leave him. He was a smart, witty man, but emotionally, he was an infant. He honestly had no idea that sex and love were two totally different things.

Then he broke down and told me what happened to him, his inhibitions numbed after sharing a few bottles of wine. I cried for him. And when my sobs had grown out of control, stealing my breath, I wanted to vomit from the sheer repulsion of his account. My beautiful, dear friend deserved every one of those anguished tears.

“I didn’t understand, Kam,” he cried, his face buried in my neck as I held him tight. “He was my uncle, and he said he loved me. He said that if I loved him that I would show it. That I would be a good boy and show him my love. And when he invited his friends to come over and… and… fuck! When he let his friends fucking rape me over and over, he said it was because he loved me so much that he had to share it. He had to share his love for his nephew by letting them fuck me!”

He went on to tell me how it continued for years and didn’t stop until Dominic was hospitalized for severe damage to his rectum. His uncle had been his caretaker since a car crash claimed the lives of Dom’s parents when he was just a toddler. The police investigated and arrested all the sick-fucks involved, including his uncle, the only family that Dom had ever known.

After his body had healed, Dom was sent to live with a relative in North Carolina when he was 14. The relative, a distant older cousin, was a stranger to him and only took him in out of obligation. She never helped him heal emotionally from the trauma or cared enough to get him help. So Dom coped in the only way he knew how—with sex. He slept with any girl that would have him, desperately trying to prove to himself that he was straight, that he hated everything his uncle had done to him. But he couldn’t deny that he still loved him. He was the only parent he had ever known. The conflicting feelings, the abuse, it fucked with everything he thought he knew about love and sex, right or wrong.