I smile scornfully. “Just without all the bells and whistles. I guess he didn’t like the idea of sending me off somewhere. For someone who hated my guts, he sure liked keeping me around. I guess he just figured he could...do it himself. Save money, maybe, I don’t know. I don’t even know why he cared. He already barely tolerated me.”

“Waylon...”

I huff and look down at my lap. I whisper, “It’s not like it’s rocket science, right? Just take one potentially pleasurable stimulus—say, you know, like hairy gross men from the ‘70s, and young guys screaming as their virgin assholes were ripped open, because that’s apparently something an eleven-year-old kid would be into—and combine that with something unpleasant enough times, like my dad’s fists and witty running commentary, and voila! You’re a changed man.”

He doesn’t say anything right away, then—

“Did he molest you?” he rushes out tightly.

I snap my head up and make a face. “What? No. No, never. Not like you’re thinking. He just”—I search his face with a frown—“made me watch really awful amateur porn while he whispered sweet nothings in my ear.” I tip my hand back and forth. “And by sweet, I mean—”

“Got it.”

I purse my mouth. Then, “I tried to block it out. I was young and naive—maybe more sheltered than most kids—but I wasn’t stupid. I knew there was something...wrong with what he was saying. What he was doing to me.” I gulp and look back down at the ground. “He only ever did this when he was really, really drunk, and it was only that summer. Yeah, he still called me a fag and whatnot for years, but...that part never happened again, at least.”

Will mutters a string of curses.

“His voice...” I go on quietly. “It’s just so fucking loud in my head sometimes. Like he’s right there. Standing over my shoulder, holding my head in place while he tells me how disgusting I am. Perverted. Hurting me if I-I accidentally got hard—”

Will leans forward, cupping my cheeks in his hands with a feather-light touch that is so fucking contradictory to the phantom sensation of my dad’s touch, that it has tears prickling my eyes.

He lifts my face up to look at him head-on.

“You’re not disgusting,” he tells me simply. “There’s not a disgusting or wrong bone in your body.”

I suck in my top lip. “I want to believe that.”

He smiles sadly. “Can I ask you something?”

I give a little nod.

His thumbs smooth over my cheeks, right over where my dimples would be if I was smiling. “Are you gay?”

I stiffen. “I—”

“It’s okay,” he says fiercely. “Whatever you are or aren’t. I was just curious where your head’s at with all this.”