RUSH: Prologue

TW: Domestic Violence, Emotional Manipulation, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Racism, Self-injurious behavior, & Sexism.

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-Bennett-

Sometimes, I wondered if there was ever a time when I hadn't cared so much about others' opinions of me: either the subtle ones I'd heard through hushed whispers... or the harsher ones that I'd fabricated within my own mind. If there was a way to appease the vicious hounding of my own worries as they nipped at my heels, it felt beyond my reach. Every misstep became another bitter resentment to hold over my head.

But no amount of deep breaths quelled that tightness resting painfully in my chest. The dreadful feeling had long ago established roots, tangling itself along my ribs and threatening to collapse my lungs. It was a numbing kind of ache that traveled through in surges, sparking with it a heavy dose of irrational restlessness.

More than anything, I longed for the peace of hearing something unpleasant and allowing it to rush through me without it tearing me apart.

Like I used to.

Such worries had been lot more manageable when I was youthfully naive.

It'd been less painful when the most contentious part of my day was making sure I had both shoes on right before stepping out the door. I would grip the straps of my backpack rather tightly as I tuned out the sound of yelling and bitter rage, lest my brain be foggy during class. It was better to leave early... to avoid strays from my father.

But even then, there had always been an inkling of worry fermenting in the back of my consciousness, a devoted reminder for every single mistake. It had always come down to whether I was agreeable enough... presentable enough. A good boy.

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Dad was great at reminding me when I was wrong. Hell, he'd been invested in reminding me even when I wasn't—just as well—and the sharpness in his bitter tone was solely for his own satisfaction.

Don't talk back, he'd remind me whenever I let my panicked, defensive voice rise above his. Don't act like that; that's not how men walk... that's not how men talk. What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you a f*ggot or something?

Don't stand like that.

Don't cling to your mother so much.

Don't put that shit on; boys don't wear gay shit like that. Who the fuck bought you that? It was your mother, wasn't it? That stupid b*tch.

Stop crying. Men don't fucking cry. You always do this.

You ruined my life.

You know that, don't you? That you ruined my life?

And I did know, for better or worse. How couldn't I?

It was all I thought about sometimes. That I ruined my parents' lives by being born into the cold, hollow shell of a family that was already falling apart. My existence was what kept Dad from leaving after Kacey finally fled out-of-state and went no-contact, as he'd often remind me when it was just the two of us. I trapped him in the hell he'd created for us, so he liked to make sure it ached when we burned. It was all my fault... in the end. It had to be.

I needed to make it up to him. I owed him as much.

So, in exchange, I was good at listening. I kept my head down most of the time, even when I was boiling with rage. That was my one redeeming quality, as he liked to put it. I knew how to shut the fuck up. I knew my place. I rarely broke down.

I despised my father's words, but there was a sick sense of satisfaction every time he seemed even remotely proud. Because that meant fleeting quietude, for as long as I could hold his pride. What else could I do... but take the bits of warmth while they were enough?

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Still, and despite every fiber in my body, I did cry a lot... whenever I could find a secluded corner of silence. I cried a lot throughout high school, because it was freedom and hell. I would bawl my eyes out every time I was left alone with my thoughts, feeling myself disappointing him a bit further with every new discovery I made about myself.

It was ironic, really, that his words of disapproval always cut deeper than any strike. The bruises would always fade after a week or so, but his words continued to swirl around in my mind long after he'd said them.

High school was a time of bittersweet revelations. It didn't take long to realize I was gay. And It took even less time to realize that being gay was not something that I could just ignore forever; the way I felt about the lanky kid that sat next to me in Geometry was not going to disappear just because I kept trying to find something unpleasant about his face.

It was hard to even look at him.

He was always so kind. But more than that, he smiled at me warmly... as if I deserved it. It was the kind of smile that felt genuine and cozy like sun-dried sheets. We must've exchanged a handful of words the entire school year, at most, but that was enough for me. I felt greedy already.

Tenth grade P.E. showed me that I had wandering eyes and a guilt complex. Summer break had brought with it puberty and all its chaotic vices. It awakened me to a certain allure present in the way that firm, defined muscles settled and shifted through movement.

And how intense muscular bodies looked as they glistened under the warm rays of the sun, drops of sweat forming and trailing across glowing skin. How ethereal it looked when the skin was toned and hard as it flexed, smooth flesh leading to sharp curves. How sexy it was when they didn't—as some of my peers joked about the girls in our class sometimes—take up so much space...

...the way I did.

I was always taking too much space back then. I was young and horny and gay and fat and taking up so much fucking space that it was suffocating, greedily choking on ragged breaths of "stolen oxygen" anytime we had to run a mile lap. My stomach bulged and my thighs rubbed against each other as I walked and the fat across my arms pooled under my armpits and that was all too much. I'd tug at my shirt by instrict and pile on jackets, anything to hide away.

The older I became, the harsher the comments became... and the louder they resonated through my cranium, floating about so carelessly while they minced my brain matter to mush.

I couldn't even remember a time before I felt that way about myself; my father had always cared so much about that sort of thing, pointing all the forms of deviance present within my body often enough that even his stare alone was nauseating.

Somehow, he'd always find a new flaw. The comments would usually precede a suggestion to join him at the gym, although I refused to spend any more time with him than strictly necessary.

Why would I want to go somewhere so full of intimidating adults, where the people towered over me and the rooms were lined with mirrors from wall to wall? I hated mirrors enough already, either avoiding them like the plague or staring right at my own reflection until it distorted into something ugly that I could no longer recognize. Until it felt like nothing I'd ever known.

So, it wasn't until a cruel teenage boy in my class treated me the same way he did, off-handedly complaining about how I couldn't join his team because I'd weigh them down, that I finally begged my father to let me go work out with him.

I mournfully focused on the smugness with which he agreed that it was finally time I stopped hiding behind my mother, who'd somehow always found an excuse to keep him from dragging me there against my will. I willingly left with him that afternoon, riding in the backseat of his red pickup truck. She tried to complain, surprisingly, but there was nothing she could say.

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My mother was never outspoken enough, but I never expected her to be. I hadn't even realized she was supposed to be, at first. I tried to focus on the warmth of the food she'd made for us after my father was done sparking arguments for the day... when he'd finally settled on the couch and had dozed off to the chaotic roaring of the football game blasting on the television.

She'd serve it quietly, with glistening eyes filled with unshed tears, and we'd both sit in the dimly lit kitchen as she quietly indulged me in seconds and thirds because it was the only way she knew how to express her love without having to use her trembling voice. Her cooking would warm me to my core for those few hours before I was hungry again. It was genuine elation, even if ephemeral.

It was the only way I knew how to feel comforted by her... just as well.

Still, we did talk occasionally, even if it was usually about nothing. She even tried to teach me a bit of Spanish at one point, after I expressed interest. We would sit in that dimly lit kitchen, huddled around the wooden table, and she would softly repeat basic words back tome.

The table was la mesa. The chair was la silla. The moon was la luna. Ella es mi madre y me quiere mucho. I took in the words and ingrained them into the back of my mind. It felt natural, even if it was rather confusing how all verbs had associated genders and, therefore, pronouns. There were so many exceptions, so many accents and tildes. It meant a lot of thinking... processing, but it was fun.

After a few weeks of practicing words, I started to wonder if we'd ever go to visit her family, who she'd left behind when she fell in love with my father and came to live with him. America had felt like the better choice, even if there hadn't really been a choice to be made.

I couldn't help but wonder how my mother's family in Peru would react. If they'd be impressed and happy to know we understood them... even if in fragments. Maybe we could stay there for some time, while my father took care of the house back here. Perhaps it was entirely wishful thinking, but it made perfect sense to my young mind.

That all quickly came to a halt when my father barged in one night and accused her of looking for a way to "talk shit" about him without him knowing. Because, as he put it through aggravated hollers, we despised him and were trying to find a new way to disrespect him in his house.

After that, we continued to huddle by the dimly lit kitchen table while we ate, but it was mostly to listen to the calmness of our breathing as we ate. Learning Spanish never came up again, even if I'd sometimes hear her speaking it in a hushed tone whenever her mother called. She'd excuse herself and head into the kitchen, making sure to close the door before she answered the call.

I tried not to blame her, even though I still did sometimes. She had her own demons to deal with, after all. One of them lay beside her every night, wasted and bitter and unhappy. The others were deeply embedded in her own consciousness, swirling around her mind, and drowning out her senses out from time to time.

Because she also cared too much, even if she rarely admitted it.

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I already knew I cared too much about what men thought of me by the time I first stepped foot in the gym, shyly walking behind my father who was tall, burly, and manly in every way I wasn't. I'd spent so long caring about what he thought, so it was only natural for it to escalate from there.

The realization surged through my system the first time I saw a stranger lifting weights and felt myself getting uncomfortably hard at the mere sight, the shameful boner pressing against my briefs as I tried to cover it with trembling hands. That was the kind of man my father would be proud of. That was the kind of man I needed to become, not lust after.

My heart raced at the thoughts that swirled around my head, decent and indecent alike. I stood there in disbelief until my dad wrapped a rough hand around the back of my neck and guided me towards one of the strange machines, grumbling under his breath about how I wasn't paying attention.

"Why now?" my father had asked me that first day, beyond ecstatic about my change of heart. I'd always been good at listening, at being pushed around, but not about stepping into his territory. Never about this. "Did you finally realize how fat you've gotten?"

I blinked up at him.

He stared back smugly, expectantly.

There had been so much disgust in his tone, but I tried not to focus on it. It was easier to pretend that he was just joking. The mean, dry laugh he let out also played into that...

I didn't want to give him a proper explanation, despite his curiosity. I might have faked a weak smile when he suggested I had a crush on some girl at school and desperately wanted to impress her. That wasn't enough to satisfy his curiosity, but he did pat my back in some semblance of approval. It was a bit too rough, but it was also new in a way that didn't make my stomach twist into knots.

I didn't know how to put it into the words... that I wanted the rude boy in P.E. class to stop looking at me like I was gross. That I'd rather if he looked at me with the same intensity that I yearned for boys like him. I could never really admit to that, though—not without betraying my father's pride.

So, I forced a smile and released a forced, sheepish smile when he asked again, incessant as ever. "Yeah, she's pretty."

Perhaps it was how the rush of adrenaline pumped through my veins as we worked out, or the foreign way that my father smiled with the faintest glint of pride as we walked out of the gym that day. Or even how he let me ride in the front with him as he drove us back in his ugly pickup truck that I'd always despised.

Whatever it was, I never wanted that calmness to fade away. I knew it was superficial at best, and I felt ashamed for how warm I felt inside at the foreign casualness with which we talked during that short drive, but I was so sick and tired of the loneliness that came with being cold.

I refused to eat dinner when we got home. My mother frowned at me with hurt in her eyes, but I shrugged her off and headed up to my room after grabbing a few granola bars from the pantry.

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A/N: Thank you for reading. Welcome to RUSH, the first installment in The Rapture Series! Please consider voting and commenting; I appreciate it immensely.