“You intended to kill him? Ari, baby, that’s going too far.”
“I didn’t plan to kill him. He didn’t give me a choice.”
I sat at the edge of the bed beside him. “You always have a choice, Ari.”
He shook his head stubbornly. “No, not for this one.”
“Ari, if we’re going to be together, you have to show to me that you’re capable of making informed choices. Otherwise, this relationship will never work.”
Ari threw the sheet from his body and rushed to his feet. He was a small ball of fire and energy, his eyes flashing in anger.
“He cornered me, and I gave him a choice. I told him to let me go, but he wouldn’t. He insisted he needed to fuck me in the back seat of your car, and he made it clear it was going to happen with or without my consent. I did not consent! Harlan didn’t consent.”
I frowned. “What does Harlan have to do with this? He died years ago.” The boy had been Ari's friend back in high school until he committed suicide and shocked everyone who knew him.
“And do you know why he died?” His eyes flashed with unshed tears. “He died because Rich decided years ago that he no longer wanted just a BJ from me. He wanted more. I avoided him as much as I could. I was supposed to be there at Harlan’s house when it happened. It was me he wanted when he stopped by, but I’d been cooking for you that night, so I was late. Rich decided that he didn’t care after all which one of us he got. So he didn’t give Harlan a choice. Rich forced him.
“You didn’t see him the way I did after it happened. He didn’t want to report it, didn’t want to go to the hospital because he was ashamed. I thought I handled it. I thought I helped him to clean up and feel better. I should never have left him. I should have stayed with him. But I left, and he killed himself. Because of Rich, he killed himself, and Rich didn’t deserve to live for what he did. Harlan was my friend, and I disappointed him, and he would still be alive if not for Rich!”
Ari burst into tears, his shoulders shaking. At first, the thought occurred to me that he was faking it, but there was no way he could have turned on those gut-wrenching sobs on a whim. This pain came from his soul. A pain he’d bottled up for a very long time.
I wanted to be angry with him. I wanted to send him to his room and even ask him to stay the hell away from me. But this was Ari. My Ari. No one got him the way I did. No one else accepted him the way I did.
How could I see his pain and ignore it? I couldn’t. I pulled his slender body into my arms and hugged him to me, patting his naked back.
“I-I f-found him,” he said, choked up. “I’d left m-m-my sketchbook and I turned back for it. And I f-f-found him. He was already dead, so I r-ran back home, and I-I didn’t tell anyone ever why he killed himself. I should have told someone.”