"I'm sick, Andy." Nick blurts it as though compelled by some great, long-term pressure within.
Andy's eyes widen. "What do you mean?"
Nick's head drops forward to his chest. "Oh, Andy, Andy, Andy...don't you see it? Don't you see how sick I am?"
Andy leans over Nick and places his head on his. "I know you haven't been yourself in months. You're exhausted. Worn down. But whatever's behind it...I need to know so I can help you."
"You can't help me with this..."
"I beg your goddamn pardon." Andy gives his brother a rough shake. "Don't you dare underestimate me. Now, talk. Talk to me. Spill. No more stalling."
"I...I have..." Nick's face collapses before he can say more, his mouth drawing down in a rictus of grief."
Andy sinks to his knees and strokes his brother's tear-streaked face. "You have...what? Tell me, Nicky." He feels a tear dribble down his own cheek but doesn't react.
"I have...I have feelings for guys, Andy! I ALWAYS HAVE!!!" Nick dissolves into sobs so powerful that they wrack his whole body.
Andy's face registers incredulity, but no hint of revilement.
Nick is hyperventilating now. "I'm sorry...I'm so sorry...that's why I packed the bag. And I've been looking at apartments. I think...I think I found one." Mixed tears and mucus are cascading down his face. He flinches as Andy stands up, moves behind him and takes his head firmly in both hands.
"Easy. Relax. I'm not gonna hurt you."
Nick is trembling severely. "You've got the right, Andy. I've been keeping this a secret for so long and in retrospect--it must make you feel so--disgusted."
Andy can believe what he's hearing now even less than the primary revelation.
"I can't stay here. Whatever you feel about it, I can't stay here. I have to go. Even Nancy says it's best."
Andy is trembling himself now, as much as Nick, who looks cringingly up at him. "Aren't you gonna say anything? Or are you just done with me?"
The blood is boiling inside Andy from rage...not sparked by what his brother just told him, but from his foregone conclusion that Andy would want nothing to do with him because of it. He suddenly pulls Nick to his feet so that they are eye to eye. Nick yelps. Andy's eyes, the color of winter pond ice, burn into his and his voice is low and menacing as he says with finality, "You're not going anywhere."
Nick's face melts in anguish. "I don't want to, but Andy, there's no other way!"
Andy thrusts him against the kitchen wall, pressing his body against him. No other way? No. There is just no way, period. No way he will let his little brother go anywhere. Not now. Not ever. His protective instincts, at their fiery peak, are audible in his next words, spoken in the same growl. "You're staying." He grabs Nick's chin hard enough to hurt, his emotions so intense that he does not register the subsequent cry of pain and fear, followed by a whimper of shame.
"Andy...I just wet myself. Please forgive me. I couldn't help it..."
So, they are back to that. Nick's bed wetting had lasted into adolescence. He has spoken of children at the clinic who frequently do it. Is he bringing home their symptoms? Andy's arms are now savagely around Nick, pressing him tight against his own body like steel bands, possessive and protective at once. Nick suddenly tenses even more and begins to twitch and wriggle, as though trying to escape.
"Relax." Andy's tone means high-stakes business. "You're staying like this until I decide otherwise."
"Don't make me more ashamed, please! You'll get it on you!"
"I'm not letting go, Nick!"
All at once, Nick relaxes so much that Andy is afraid he will tumble to the floor. His grip on his brother momentarily relaxes to get a better hold, and that is when Nick is able to break away and run madly for the bathroom, hands clutched to his groin.
During all of Nick's absence, Andy does not move. But when the door softly opens, he can barely keep himself from dashing to hold his brother again. He has stripped off his wet pajama bottoms and t-shirt and has only a white towel swathed loosely around his hips. His head hangs, his embarrassment still at high ebb. Then, Andy's self-control evaporates, and he is upon his brother, pulling him so close that his breath leaves in a gasp.
"Andy, please!"
"Shut. Up. I have to do this."
Nick rolls his head back and forth helplessly. "That's not...what I'm worried about. Remember...you could never understand why I wouldn't take my clothes off in front of you after. After a certain age. You never cared what I saw, but I wouldn't show any flesh I didn't have to. One day, you came in while I was in the shower. I reached for my towel, and you grabbed it. I hid myself in the stall and we fought for the towel. I was like a wildcat, determined to keep myself hidden. You kept laughing and asking why I was so funny about not showing my body. Finally, you shook your head and walked out. Andy...I didn't want you to see that I was. I was aroused. It just happened again while you were holding me, after I had the accident...and it's still happening now. Oh, I'm so twisted. So sick."
Andy feels only profound compassion for his brother, no disgust or judgement. And something else...because of how he looks in nothing but the towel. Not wishing to prolong Nick's discomfort, he releases him, and he slides down the wall, hiccupping and gasping. He turns his head away. The towel drifts half-off, barely covering his pelvic region. Andy cannot believe what he is thinking--and feeling--at the sight.
Nick resumes speaking in a thick, wavering voice. "Andy. I know it hurts your feelings to see me scared of you. And I know now you won't hurt me. But do you remember that other time, about four months after Mom and Dad. You were still adjusting. To being my guardian and carrying your whole new load of responsibilities. You started drinking. I don't know how you got it, but you got it. I went to a movie one night with friends. Then we stopped at the arcade and ate out. I forgot to tell you we were gonna do that. When I came home, almost two hours later, you sort of stumbled out of the living room. I could smell the liquor on you, in the house. You had a look in your eyes that I'll never forget. You had that same look just now when you ran at me."
Andy sinks his head into his hands, long black hair obscuring him further.
Nick's voice is now quaking more with anxiety and pain. "You lunged at me, grabbed me. You took off your belt--that motorcycle belt--yanked down my pants and threw me across your lap at the foot of the stairs there. You whipped me so hard I had to crawl away. Mom and Dad never believed in corporal punishment. It's always made me wonder why you..."
Andy does remember. All too clearly does he remember how he had, for some arcane reason, snapped under the deluge of stress and grief he was weathering, and taken it out on the one person he had always sworn to love and protect. Nick's look of terror as Andy had closed in is like a framed still from a horror movie hidden away in the rarely visited attic of his past. Yes, he had been drunk, but he had also swallowed a few pills from a shady cohort intent on "chilling him out a little after all the shit" he'd been through. Drink alone would never have made him lay a hand on Nick. And after that nightmare, Andy had sworn off drugs of any kind, prescribed or not.
Nick's voice is a little steadier now and highlighted by love. "I forgive you, Andy. I forgave you long ago. But ever since, I've been...careful. I couldn't look at you quite the same. A trust issue. You were my loving, protective big brother and guardian, but I had seen firsthand how you could turn on a dime--even against me. I knew you had a temper but. I never expected that. You'd always been moody. Scorpios are. And I was careful not to...set you off. That's why I was so terrified to share what I have with you." Nick is breaking down again.
Andy leans over as though stabbed in the gut. The feeling is the same. How could he have put a frightened little boy--his own brother--through such a thing? He wanted to fling himself out the front door and tear up the earth, to bay at the heavens for not striking him dead first.
"I swore that I'd come totally clean with you." Nick is choking out the words between sobs. "And I will. See, Andy, the thing is...I liked it."
Andy freezes, then his blood commences boiling again. Hotter. Dear God and the angels...what damage had he done to this man? As though hoping further explanation will quell his dreadful, already rising foreknowledge, he almost barks, "What do you mean?"
