Blind Date

"Dex, wait. I want to be able to touch you back when something happens between us. Please."

I paused and nodded. I felt disappointed but also kind of ecstatic. He wanted me, at least physically. That was huge!

"Come up here." He motioned to the seat next to him on the couch.

As I stood back up from between his legs I started to feel really awkward. I'd practically thrown myself onto his cock, face first, at the first hint of his mutual desire. He must think I'm desperate or creepy, at the very least.

"I'm sorry. I can go." I didn't know what to do.

"Sit with me." He pointed to the seat next to him again.

I sat down, looking at my hands in my lap, feeling sheepish.

"Look at me Dexter." His voice was soft.

I turned my head and looked into those incredible golden eyes.

"I'm sorry I did that. I told you I wanted you and then I pulled the rug out from under you. I'm some kind of jerk for doing that."

I didn't have any words. I wanted to tell him I wanted him and it was alright. I wanted to apologize for who knows what. My head was spinning, between his actions and my own, I was totally confused and upset, mostly at myself.

"I'm confused." I admitted my deepest concern. What was this? Was he gay or straight or what? Did he want me or was that just a moment of weakness for a friend who was helping him in his time of need?

"God, I'm sorry." He blew out his breath and fell back into the couch cushions, his eyes squeezed shut.

"Me too."

He was clearly starting to regret everything that had passed between us this afternoon. He looked embarrassed and angry even with his eyes still closed.

I needed to get the fuck out of here. This went so wrong so fast. I stood and walked to the door as quickly as I could.

"Wait! Dex, don't leave! Please! Come back!" Eric was shoving all the stuff out of his way so he could get up, but he was too slow. I bolted.

I ran to my car and pulled away from the curb in record time. I checked the clock on the dash and tried to soothe myself with the thought that the girls would be home with him in less than an hour.

I cried as I drove home. I felt like I'd tried to take advantage of him somehow. I hadn't done anything at all, but I still felt like the bad guy. This was all my fault. Whatever "this" was. I cried harder.

My phone rang but I ignored it. There wasn't anyone I wanted to talk to right now. I didn't even want to see Delilah. She would tell me what an idiot I was for running away instead of just talking to him.

I drove right past my building and kept driving. Eventually I ended up at a park on the other side of the city where I sat in my car and stared into space.

What the actual fuck was wrong with me? I actually knew the answer. I was terrified of being hurt again. I acted like I was ready to love again but I didn't think I was actually capable of letting go of my fears.

I had had a good marriage and a pretty great, happy life but it was all a mirage. My heart and brain refused to let me believe someone could actually want me, let alone love me. If I was lovable, Sean would have loved me.

Close to an hour passed before I looked at my phone. I saw missed calls, voicemails, messages and texts. I assumed they were Eric and Delilah and by now, maybe even the twins.

I ignored all the notifications. I opened my frequent flyer app and bought a ticket to Philadelphia.

I had to contact Delilah. I had already blown our twin code by running away and not answering her calls. I opened the text conversation between us and found ten new messages.

They basically all said that she'd talked to Eric and she wanted to know what happened. Where was I? They got a bit angrier from there, but the idea was the same.

"I'm going to Philly. Tomorrow morning. I'm sorry, but I need to go alone."

"Please don't go back there. You don't need to, babe. Just come home."

"I'm coming home but this isn't open for discussion. I need to do this or I'll never be free."

"Please come home, Dex. I love you."

"I love you too, Delilah."

I didn't go home until it was very late. I knew she had to work in a few hours, so I'd see her before I left for Pennsylvania, but only for a short, controlled amount of time.

"Babe! What happened? Eric was crying, I couldn't tell what he was really saying." She squeezed me so tightly I couldn't breathe.

"I threw everything away again because Sean broke me. I have to stop this vicious cycle. I have to go see Hal."

"No, you don't. Please don't go back there."

"I do! He's the one that made us both incapable of having normal relationships. He's why I'm willing to jump at any scrap of love that gets thrown my way even though I know it's a fucking trap. And now I can't tell a trap from something real anymore, if I ever could. I have to see him now. See if he's still so scary when I'm not a little kid anymore. I have to start at the beginning. I have to!"

"I'm going with you." Delilah was trying to save me again. She'd saved my life when I was six. She'd saved my life when I was twelve and again when I was fifteen, eighteen, and twenty seven.

"I need to save myself this time. I have to go alone."

"Please, don't." She was crying now, but she knew I was going to go regardless of her protests.

The next morning I was on the plane heading back east. I finally looked at my messages. I tried so hard to read Eric's words and the twins' texts, but I couldn't stop crying every time I tried. I could feel the pain I'd caused all of them and I couldn't stand it.

I got a car to take me to the nursing home where Hal was still living after all these years. The receptionist was shocked to hear whom I was here to see. He'd never had a visitor before. No surprise there.

As I walked down the long hallway towards my past, I braced myself for his acidic tongue and his cruel demeanor. I hadn't seen him in nearly thirteen years.

"Can I get some water?" The grizzled looking man in the hospital bed said when I walked into the room. He hadn't looked up at me. He must think I'm one of his caregivers.

I poured a cup of water and set it on the table over his lap on the bed.

"Thank you."

Did Hal just say thank you? I must be in the wrong room.

"Are you new? I thought you were Frankie."

"No, I'm not new. My name is Dexter."

"Hmmm.......I forget everything. I thought you were Frankie."

"Do you know who I am?"

"Dexter. You just said that."

"Do you remember me?"

"No, I thought you were Frankie."

It was Hal. He looked tiny and frail. All his hair was white and yellowed with age. He smelled faintly like urine. Or the bed did.

Just then a nurse came in and was startled to see someone in this room. "Can I help you?"

"I checked in at the front desk. I'm here to talk to Hal, but he doesn't seem to remember me. Are you Frankie?"

"No, I'm Darla. Frankie quit about five years ago. Henry only seems to remember him even though he worked here for just a few months."

"Is it dementia or Alzheimer's? What's wrong with him?"

"Who are you? I can't give out his medical information to you, sir."

"I'm his son, Dexter. We're estranged but I'm the one who signs all the checks you guys get for his care every month."

"Oh, well, yes, he has alcohol-related dementia. He's diabetic and has had numerous skin cancers removed."

"Typical. Everything that's wrong with him he brought upon himself." I said it more to myself, but Darla heard me.

"Yes, well, he seems to have had a rough go of it before he got here. You're his son? I didn't know he had a child."

"Children. He has two children. I have a twin sister." I looked at Hal again, who appeared to be listening to our conversation.

"I need to get back to work unless you need anything else."

"No, thanks. Actually yes, wait. He said thank you to me earlier. Is that normal for him?"

"To say thank you? Yes, he's a pretty evenly keeled old man. His dementia makes him get frustrated and upset sometimes, but he's still not too bad."

"He used to be violent and vicious and abusive. I didn't think he knew the words 'thank you'."

"I guess people can change." Darla parted with that.

"Can they?" I said it to Hal, who still looked engaged but he wasn't. He didn't answer. He barely moved.

"Delilah?"

"What did you say, Hal? Why did you say her name?"

"Syd? When's dinner?"

Sydney was my mom's name. She died when I was six. Hal had beaten me after her funeral for crying too much. Delilah had run across the field to get my cousin. It was the first time she saved my life. He would have killed me if she hadn't gone for help.

When I was twelve Hal brought home a toothless whore to fuck on the couch. She slapped Delilah and I attacked her. I clawed her face and bit her finger until I broke a bone in it. Hal tried to shoot me, but Delilah screamed and he fired wide.

That was the second time she saved my life. We had run away and hid at a friend's house for a few days until Hal was in a drunken stupor and we were able to sneak back in.

When I was fifteen, I tried to overdose on sleeping pills. I was struggling with being gay and Hal was extra cruel to me all the time. I just wanted out.

Delilah found me and made me vomit and drink some charcoal stuff they gave to dogs who ate human meds or poisons. She was volunteering at a vet clinic at the time and she'd seen it used, so she tried it on me. I survived thanks to, or regardless of her treatments.

At seventeen, we both left home for good. We rented a room from a school friend's parents until we graduated. I had my first a job at a salon and started running around with a bad group of kids right after graduation.

I was supposed to go to a party right after we'd turned eighteen but Delilah was adamant that I didn't go. I finally relented because she was screaming at me and was going get us kicked out of our rented room with her dramatics.

The girl I was supposed to ride with that night was drunk and crashed her car into a mom in a minivan, paralyzing the woman. The guy in the passenger seat that I was supposed to be sitting in was killed on impact.

I never doubted Delilah's intuition after that and less than a month later we left Philly and went to Sacramento. Life started looking up when we both got into college and tried to leave the pain of our childhood behind.

Two years later I met Sean and we fell in love. I think he really thought he loved me in the beginning. But it didn't last. We were already in trouble before we got married just two years into our relationship.

He cheated on me all the years we were married, but I didn't find out until he divorced me. He fucking divorced me! How fucking pathetic is that shit?

I credit Delilah for saving my life again during the divorce. I almost burnt Sean's retail building to the ground, but she intervened and prevented that. I'd be in jail right now if it wasn't for her.

Holy shit! I needed to fix this. I needed to stop making Delilah save me. I needed to stop blaming everyone and fix myself. But how?

I refocused on Hal and I realized the monster of my childhood, my whole life really, was gone. He was merely a husk and he couldn't hurt anyone anymore.

I stood and stepped right up to the edge of the bed. "Goodbye Hal. I'll never forget the abuse you heaped on me but I forgive you. I don't know what happened to you before mom died that made you into this person, but I forgive you anyway. You don't have any power over me anymore."

"I'm sorry Sydney." His eyes were unfocused and he seemed to be speaking to someone in the distant past.

"That's better than nothing." I said it out loud but I knew I was talking to myself.

I thought about driving by the old house but I didn't need to. I wanted to go home. I wanted to see my sister and I wanted to try to fix things with Eric. I had one more hurdle in my way to deal with first.

I landed in San Francisco and I got my car out of the parking garage. I drove to Sean's office and texted him from my car.

"I'm in the parking lot. I would like to speak to you for a minute, if you're available." I hit send.

"I'll be right out." And sure enough, he was walking across the lot towards my car just a minute later.

I rolled down the window as he approached from the passenger side. "Thanks for coming out."

"Can I get in?" He tried the door handle, which was still locked.

"No, this won't take that long. I just wanted to see your face when I told you I forgive you."

"You forgive me? You were so insistent that I was the one that needed to apologize to you. How the tides have turned." He smiled smugly as he was bent down to look into the car window.

"I finally realized your apology would be meaningless. You're unable to feel regret and I enabled that behavior for far too long. I'm ready to start a new life and I'm cleaning up my loose ends. I forgive you, Sean. Our story is finally over."

"What? You met some other fool that's willing to put up with your crazy emotions and......" I rolled up the window, cutting off his words. I pulled away and never looked back. For once his words didn't sting.

When Delilah got home from work in the morning, she found me on the couch looking through old photo albums. She burst into tears and flung herself into my arms.

We cried and talked for hours. We talked about stuff we'd shoved aside when we were little kids. We shared all our feelings, bonding like we had when we were all that was keeping each other alive all those terrible years.

Hours in, Delilah admitted that she thought she was aro/ace. She wasn't sure if our childhood had made her that way, but she didn't have any desire to have a sexual or romantic partner. She did want a life partner, just one that wasn't me.

"I know. Trust me, I'm looking for a life partner that isn't you either sis." We laughed through our tears.

"You need to talk to Eric. He's been devastated the last few days, babe." She brought up the subject I knew had been on her mind since I'd run away from him three days ago. She'd patiently held it in until now.

"How are his burns and stuff?" It was a lame attempt at asking about him.

"Honey, he doesn't care about his burns right now. He's scared and upset. He didn't tell me what happened exactly, he just keeps saying he gave you too many mixed signals."

"I'm just as guilty of that as he is. But I think I'm ready to deal with this. I've closed the door on Hal and our childhood. I've closed the door on Sean and my failed marriage. I'm ready to face my fears and accept that I'm someone worthy of love."

Delilah grabbed me around the neck and hugged me hard while we both cried. "Finally! Remember your own words when you feel weak. Or come to me and I'll remind you. You are so worthy of love, Dex."

"I'm going to call Eric from my room. I'll tell you about it later. I promise."

I sat in my room and stared at my phone. I had Eric's contact pulled up, I just needed to hit the "call" button. I finally touched the screen and hit the speaker while it rang twice.

"Hello, Dex? Are you okay? Oh my god, I'm so sorry!"

"Hey Eric, yeah it's me and I'm alright. I'm the one who's sorry, I'm the one who freaked out and ran away."

"No, it's my fault. I'm such an idiot."

"No, please don't say that." I blew out my breath I'd been holding. "I want to talk to you in person. Can I come over?"

"Yes, please come over Dex. I need to see you, too."

"Are the girls there?"

"Yes, they just got home from school. They'll be so happy to see you."

"I can't wait to see them too, but I want to talk to you one on one first. Can I come over later, after they've gone to bed or something?"

"Yeah, of course. I'll text you once they've turned in. Can I tell them you're back home and doing okay?"

"Yes, please. I'm going to text them myself as well."

"Great. I'll talk to you later then?" Eric sounded so hopeful, it nearly made me lose it.

"Yes, I'll see you later."

Around eleven that night Eric texted me to come over. The door would be unlocked and he said he couldn't wait to see me.

I drove over and let myself in. I didn't remember ever being this nervous. I needed to salvage this relationship, even if it wasn't going anywhere.

I loved Carrie and Paulette as if they were my sisters or my own kids. I loved Eric, even if I could only be his friend. I wanted the fairytale, but I wouldn't leave here without a friendship, at the very least. I was going to fix this.

I found Eric on the couch, the lights dim and a nature show on the TV, the volume low.

"Hi." I felt so nervous, it practically squeaked out.

He turned to look at me. I noticed his bump was gone and the black eye was starting to turn yellows and greens. I looked at his hands which now had smaller bandages, including individually wrapped fingers on his left hand.

"You're looking better. How are your hands feeling?"

"My hands are doing good. I won't need further wound care on my left, so that's a relief. Come sit down Dex." He finished the pleasantries and now he was clearly ready to talk.

I walked around the coffee table and sat on the couch, a full space between us. I didn't want to make any kind of assumption. I had no idea what he was thinking after I ran away and disappeared for several days.

He'd had time to think, just like I had. Considering all that I'd been through, and how much I felt ready to change, I had to realize he could be in a totally different headspace by now too. Especially since I'd acted like a psycho the last time he'd seen me.

I found a good place to start and told him about my trip to Philadelphia. I told him about going to see Sean. I explained that I never wanted to act the way I had several days ago ever again and I was going to fix myself. I planned to see a therapist.

I steered totally clear of "us" and my feelings about him. I needed to sort out the rest before I tackled that subject. I also kind of wanted him to bring it up.

He listened intently as I told him my whole story. He asked a few questions along the way to understand better, but he was really supportive and attentive. I couldn't help but remember why I was so infatuated with this perfect gentleman.

I found it surprisingly easy to look right into his sparkly amber eyes and open myself up bare. He reached out his right hand to me and I took it while I continued to tell him about my past.

After I finished he started to tell me about his past. I started to understand him in new, deeper ways and it all made me love and want him more. He'd been through a lot in his lifetime as well.

He'd grown up in rural Minnesota. He was an outcast throughout his entire schooling, with one friend until high school and then his only friend had moved away.

He'd been surprised when the twins mother had shown interest in him and while he wasn't really into her, he was starved for attention from anyone that wasn't negative.

That attention led him to being a teenage father of twins. He and their mom were never together and they weren't even on friendly terms by the time the girls were born.

He'd fought her in court for joint custody but he lost because of his age and lack of familial support. He stayed around anyway, hoping for any contact he could get.

He'd been in a few short, failed relationships with women. He'd had cravings for men and had found several sexual encounters with guys in Minnesota. But small town living meant rumors that ended up causing him to get even less opportunities to be around his girls.

It created an even bigger shame spiral and nearly two years went by without any contact with his children. He finally decided to leave it all behind and he moved to the gayest place he could think of, San Francisco.

He thought if he was going to figure out if he was gay or not, he'd need to be somewhere that it was accepted and no one knew him. He couldn't see his babies anyway, so it didn't matter it was so far away. It was better that it was far away.