Hate to Love
an excerpt

He watched me through his protective lenses, beady eyes judging me; I could feel the heat of anger in my chest. "Did you intend to kill yourself, Vince?"

"I don't know. Don't you? Isn't it your job to know? Why don't you f*cking tell me, because I don't have a f*cking CLUE!"

***

I shrugged, and began to trace the arm of the chair with my finger. “Does it really matter?”
“Do you think it does?”
“Oh, stop it with all this psychological mind bull-cr*p!” I snarled, snapping my head round to face him. “Stop trying to screw with my head.”
He looked at me very closely then, scanned my every inch, then spoke in a slow, soft voice. “Do you ever notice,” He began. “You only get angry when someone tries to make you think about something to don't want to?”
“Yeah, well maybe that's understandable.”
“Maybe.”

***

Blood coated him everywhere, shiny and wet, crusting in his hair and around his nostrils and swollen bruised eyes. His bottom lip was split and puffy, starting to blacken. His nose was too far to the right, malformed looking. His right arm was bent behind him at an impossible angle. He was beyond recognition. I only realized it was Tom by the blood caked knots of black hair.
The worst part was he was still conscious; his left hand was twitching, and his empty grey eyes flickering wildly.
I could taste vomit in the back of my throat.
“Kick him.”
What my father said didn't sink in at first. I looked up at him with my wet face, mouth agape. He looked down at me and nodded, then repeated, “Kick him. Punish him.”

***
He had his drink and placed the bottle into my hand, then pulled himself up to face me. His watery eyes looked into mine. His lips were twitched up at the corners, as if in a nervous smile, my question poised eagerly on them. He brought his face towards me, and breathed into my ear, his soft strands of hair tickling my cheek. “Would you kiss me?”

***

I cried. Tears I didn't even know existed began to ravage from my aching eyes, and everything, every pain, every emotion, everything that had made me want to slit my damn wrists open and expose my ever vulnerability to the world, formed a thick clot in my throat. I coughed, gagged, chocked, but it wouldn't go. I could feel my sins in my stomach, all I had done wrong trying to make its way to the surface, struggling and dueling in my stomach. I burped a vomit-tasting belch, and still it didn't go. The tears wouldn't stop.
I threw my face into my hands, buried it deep into them, feeling the deep pain in my wrists but ignoring it – no, cherishing it, enjoying it, absorbing it, the twisted, cruel, ironic pain. I began to rock, to sway, to cradle myself in he chair, without even realizing I was doing it.
“How did you hurt her, Vince?”
Dr Reeds' voice forcing its way through the pain, making me think about it, not letting me focus on my physical hurt, but making me think about what I'd done, what I am.
But I admitted it. I whispered it, my sin, my secret, my sinful love, my wrongness, whispered it into my hands. I told them why they'd gripped Liza so angrily when she'd tried to make me sleep with her. Told them why they'd never touched her with the affection she deserved. Told them so much in so little words.
“What was that, Vince?”
“I'm gay.” I whispered so quietly, moving my hands away from my mouth but over my eyes.
“I'm gay.” I said louder, ensuring Dr Reeds could hear, yet the words sounded so awful I had to cover my ears to avoid their sick ringing.
“I'm gay.”