I bet it has to do with his dad and his bullying.
The man who should’ve nurtured Zach is the one who’s made him wary of something so basic as reading.
How fucked up is that?
“Take a seat,” I whisper to him.
He does, albeit rigidly.
I sit on the chair beside his and slide the books close. “So, uh, I thought we should start with Art’s favorite story. And I want you to read it so we can see how far along you are.”
I can hear him grinding his teeth, but he doesn’t say a word.
Opening the book, I push it over to his side. For a few seconds, he doesn’t make any move to reach for it. And my eyes fill up with tears as I watch him sitting here, looking all angry and lost.
I’ve watched him grow up, see. I can very easily imagine him as a kid, doing the same thing in classes, in his room, with his tutors.
Maybe even in front of his dad.
Perhaps this was a bad idea. I don’t want to dredge up any bad memories for him. I just want him to feel good about himself.
I’m about to call this thing off when he grabs hold of the edge of the book like it’s an explosive object.
Then, he begins to read.
***
We’ve been working on his reading for an hour now.
I asked him to read a few pages so I can gauge the level of damage his dad has done to him.
Turns out, it’s a lot.
Because Zach isn’t bad. He isn’t bad at all.
Yes, he’s slow and he’s halting. He can’t do some of the bigger words. Not right away. It takes time for him to read them, compute them. I’ve had to help him a few times, put my finger under the word and enunciate the letters.
But it’s not something that’s so terrible that it should keep him from reading.
That’s the thing about bullying, isn’t it?
It isn’t confined to a single moment. No. Bullying has consequences. It creates ripples that span for years. Sometimes for an entire life.
They call you fat and so you stop eating. You watch what you eat until you die.
They call you a nerd and so you stop reading in public. You still look over your shoulder when you read on a park bench.
It destroys you, a vital part of you. It fucks with your mind, with your heart, with your soul even. It changes your beliefs, your lifestyle. It makes you anxious. It causes panic. It won’t let you sleep.
But then again, the bullied are powerful, aren’t they?
We’re resilient. We’re strong. We’re a motherfucking force.
Zach’s a motherfucking force – he can do whatever he wants. And I could throttle his dad for ever making him feel less. I could throttle myself for not seeing this sooner.
There’s a frown on his forehead and as I watch him, his right hand with the tattoo moving across the page, I blurt out, “When’d you get this tattoo?”
He stops reading and lifts his eyes.
He’s really, really been good ever since we started this. Not once did he make a casual comment or use sarcasm. I gave him a book and told him to read and he did.
“The first year I moved away.”
“What does it mean?”
A lip twitch. “I can cross the line.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah. But what line, exactly?”
“Line between normal and me.”
I feel a crack. Right in the middle of where my beating heart is.
“You’ve done it, Zach,” I tell him fiercely. “In fact, there wasn’t even a line. There’s nothing separating you from anyone. Not one thing. I think all those lessons you had? Those tutors? They were fucking amazing. You are fucking amazing. I’m not an expert, of course. My mom used to tutor a few kids, but I think if you practice enough and if we can get some help from a professional, you’re going to be golden. You could go to college. Can you believe it? You could be like a lawyer or a doctor or I don’t know, an engineer. You could do whatever you want. You could –”
He stands up from his seat, cutting off my words.
I don’t know when it happened but sometime during my whole speech, he took on a dark aura. His jaw became hard and his eyes are glittering, as they are trained on me.
Even though we’ve fooled around only twice, still I know what it means.
It means he’s turned on. Badly.
“Zach –”
Bending down, he swallows up my words with his mouth.
His kiss is ferocious, even more than it was yesterday, in his bed. His teeth are scraping and his tongue is viciously lapping across my mouth.
Finally, he rips away from me. He wipes off the navy blue lipstick from his lips and grates out the question, “Who are you?”
I almost go limp at the erotic aggression in his features. “Y-your prize.”