Microsoft Word - Talkers_Redemption_Lane.docx

Dedication

    For all of the Talkers of the world, who have been broken multiple
    times but then pull themselves up and keep going for no other
    reason than for the people they love. You are the definition of
    strength.

    Talker’s Redemption | Amy Lane
    3

    Darkness

    THE school shrink that Brian dragged Tate to see was really a nice
    man. Fifty-ish, graying, paunchy, with a balding head and a ponytail,
    Dr. Sutherland looked like he’d smoked plenty of weed in his
    misspent youth, and kept that happy, jovial buzz for the last thirty
    years.
    Tate found himself loathing the guy. He loathed his deep,
    gravelly voice. He loathed the man’s misshapen neutral-colored
    cardigan sweaters and slogan-bearing T-shirts underneath. He
    hated the brightly spangled tinsel that decorated his office for the
    holidays and at this moment, more than anything in the world
    besides his own skin, he hated the guy’s over-perceptive hazel
    eyes.
    “So, Tate….”
    “Could’ya call me Talker, Doc? I like Talker. You know, ’cause
    it’s not just a name, it’s like, a function, you know, like a noun and
    an adjective and a name and a….”
    Brian’s hand, always somewhere steady on his body during
    these sessions, tightened on his knee, and Talker subsided. He was
    talking too much. Blathering. Going on, because he was
    uncomfortable. Brian knew it, because Brian loved him, and took
    care of him, and listened to him, and knew all his most painful of
    painful things, and when Brian told him that he needed to focus, he
    listened.
    Whether he wanted to or not.
    Talker’s Redemption | Amy Lane
    4

    “Okay,” Dr. Sutherland said gently, ignoring the fact that he’d
    been calling Tate by his given name for nearly six months, since
    Brian had started dragging him there out of sheer, stinking worry.
    “Talker, this is the first time you’ve brought up the rape….”
    “Date,” Talker said tightly. “It was a date. A really shitty one.
    Don’t make it all about the drama, Doc.” Tate turned to his lover, and
    Brian shook his longish, sandy-blond hair out of his eyes so Talker
    could get some comfort from him. “Tell him, Brian. Tell him it’s not all
    about the drama.”
    To his surprise, Brian closed his eyes tightly, as though he
    were in his own pain. “It hurt you,” Brian said softly. “It hurt you so
    bad….”
    “But I’m all over that now!” Tate felt it before it happened, that
    sense of dislocation between where he was and where he wanted
    to be. They’d happened less since he and Brian had gotten
    together, but this subject—The Worst. Date. Ever—brought out the
    twitchiness in his shoulders and the sudden jumpiness in his chest.
    When his body jerked this time, Brian’s cornfield-sky eyes flew
    open, and his Adam’s apple bobbed convulsively. “Yeah,” he said
    hoarsely. “All over it. I feel you. All done.”
    Talker cringed from the bitterness in Brian’s voice. “Brian,” he
    said placatingly, knowing his voice was hurt, and not able to keep it
    to himself. He’d never been able to keep it to himself—not his heart,
    not his hurt, not anything. Until Brian had come along to be his
    friend, he’d been one big exposed nerve with nothing to keep him
    from running into shit. Once Brian had come out of the closet and
    into Tate’s arms, it had been like being cloaked in a suit of armor,
    covered in velvet. He’d been kept warm and safe, and nothing could
    hurt him.
    Except his memories.
    Talker’s Redemption | Amy Lane
    5

    Brian shook his head and looked away. “No worries, Tate,” he
    said tightly. “I’m sorry for getting snotty. I just….” He shot Talker a
    look that seemed hunted, and then looked at the shrink like he was
    the last best hope he had, and the guy had dropped him off the roof
    of a ten-story building. For a minute, Talker was afraid Brian would
    have to leave the room, and being locked in there by himself, with
    no one but his shrink, was one of his worst fears, and Brian knew it.
    Brian didn’t, though, ’cause he was solid. He closed his eyes
    hard, and when he opened them, they were shiny and red-rimmed.
    “You were hurt. And you didn’t… you were so tight in your hurt,
    there was so much shit you didn’t see. And I saw it all. And it hurt
    me. And it won’t stop hurting me until you talk honest, and you’re not
    doing that now.”
    Talker frowned and stroked the back of Brian’s hand. It was
    wide-palmed and capable, like Brian. Brian didn’t think