Gavan prepared for the worst, the key turned in the lock and he was braced and ready for whatever awaited him. The apartment wasn’t trashed. That was a good start. He took a few steps inside and spotted Val, sitting quietly on the sofa, reading. A few steps more and the apartment was quiet, too quiet.

“Hey.” Val glanced up from his book and smiled. “Back sooner then I thought.”

Gavan froze. “It’s so quiet, where’s Trist?” There was no music playing, no tv, no video games and no laughing, shouting, manic Trist, the place actually felt calm.

Val glanced down and nodded to the sofa. Gavan walked uneasily closer and followed Val’s eyes, only to find Trist curled up on his side, his head resting on a pillow that was set on Val’s legs, asleep. Not just asleep, soundly asleep, deeply asleep, his hair loose and floating around his face, a blanket pulled over his body.

“Oh my God, what did you give him?”
Val shook his head. “Nothing.” He set the book very carefully aside and soothed out some of the tangles of the dark hair. “Hang on.” It took moving carefully, but Val got himself out from under the pillow and lowered pillow and head back down onto the sofa. Trist didn’t even stir.

Gavan was still shaking his head as he carried his bag toward his bedroom. The bed was made, crisply, the way Trist made beds and again there was no chaos, no disorder, nothing was broken. “Okay so out with it.” He asked as soon as the door was shut behind him. “Trist never naps, he hates sleeping. What did you do, give him warm milk and rub his tummy?”

Val nearly blushed. “No, he just didn’t sleep well last night.” He’s woken up several times and found Trist alert and watching him. “So I started reading to him, he fell asleep. How was you weekend?”

“Fine until Wally got in on me about six months in the future and a year and God, I can’t ever look that far ahead, you know?” He saw Val nodding. “That doesn’t matter, tell me, how your weekend went? I’m shocked your still talking to me!”

“He’s not that bad.” Val shrugged, Gavan just stared at him. “What?”

“Buddy, you must be deprived of human contact or Trist really was on his best behavior.” He sat on the edge of the bed and patted a spot next to him. “Now, tell me everything.”

Val did blush, a little, but he sat down. He told Gavan the weekend but he didn’t tell him everything. Trist had been melancholy the whole day, not the almost bragging exuberance Val had expected from him after tripping them into bed. For his part, Val was trying not to think too hard about it but he found his mind wandering into lewd little corners at the smallest things, like how Trist’s mouth curled around the soup spoon at lunch.

“Wait, he took you to meet Eshe?”

“Yeah.”
“He likes you.”

“I’m used to being around people that see the world from different angles. That’s all it is.”

“No.” Gavan shook his head and mentally tallied up what he was seeing. Trist, sleeping peacefully like a babe on Val’s lap, Val now visibly more at ease, something had happened between the two. Just what it was, Gavan didn’t want to guess but it had been good for both of the men. “He likes you. I’m rarely invited to go see Eshe. Wow, and he told you about running away? That’s huge.”

“He didn’t make it feel that way.”

“Well it is, he never talks about that. I,” He glanced toward the living room and the sleeping man. “Look, I love Trist, dearly, more then my own brothers but he was way worse as a kid. Way worse. Until we were about eleven, we literally lived together. It was the only way he could function but when he’d flip out, I’d get blamed. I let him down, seeing me at Eshe’s reminds us both of that.”

“He didn’t say anything like that, just that it had been difficult for you too growing up and your parents separated the two of you which led him to living with your grandmother and he ran away.”

“Wow, okay, he really likes you.” Gavan narrowed his eyes. “Did you let him kiss you?”

“What?” Val squawked.

Gavan waved it off. “Doesn’t matter, sorry, not my concern, not my concern. Look, I’m not proud of it but I really resented Trist as a kid. By the time our parents separated us, I had an ulcer, a twelve year old with an ulcer. That summer, my folks broke our family’s ways and sent me away for a month to this summer camp in Canada. They talked about sending Trist to this camp for kids with emotional issues but they required all children be medicated and our Grandmother refused to have Trist on drugs, so he stayed home. I mean in a way, it’s totally my fault.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Yeah I was a kid too but it’s my job and well, there really needs to be two of me since Trist is like twice what he’s supposed to be. Anyway, his parents were frayed, and with me at camp, Trist just got worse and worse. He told me a couple of years ago what set him off but he’s never told anyone since.”

“I’m sorry?”

“He went nuts, totally stopped even trying to fight it. Most of the family thought he had snapped but really he just gave up. I sort of need to know why because if he does it again, it’s on my shoulders but he never wanted to tell me, not until recently. His parents are good people, they really are, it’s just, he’s not a normal kid.”

“What happened?”

Gavan sighed, he’d never trusted anyone with what Trist had told him. It was clear Trist really cared for Val and Val was a therapist, he’d obviously done some good just in a few days. It suddenly became okay to tell someone else and maybe find some absolution for his own childhood mistakes.

“Trist came across his mother, sitting in her bedroom, sobbing while on the phone. He could feel her grief and had gone to her to comfort her, he’s actually a really caring person when he’s not wigged out. Only he stopped when he heard she was on the phone and he overheard her telling one of our aunts that she couldn’t take it anymore. He overheard his own mother saying she’d wished he’d never been born, that some days, she wished he’d just go away. That it would be easier on them all if he just vanished and how much easier everything would be without him.” He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I mean that sounds awful.”

“It’s a natural reaction to a special needs situation, it’s human.”

“Yeah and she never intended him to hear her say it. I still don’t know if she knows he did but it had awful results on him. He literally stopped caring, stopped trying to be normal. Apparently it got really bad, there was talk of committing him and my parents refused to bring me home early. Which I guess is a good thing because I would have hated Trist if they had.”

“So they took him to live with your grandmother?”

“Well, not really, not right away. Trist flipped out, I’m told he was screaming and fighting and breaking things for hours and finally his father got a hold of him. He was only trying to restrain him, Trist just freaks out when he’s restrained, he can’t stand it, so it’s always a last resort. It made him worse, he was hitting at his dad, and well, his father just snapped. Started hitting him back, meant to just smack him but one hit led to another and he couldn’t stop.” Gavan shook his head. “He’s a good man, he’s been guilty over it ever since, still is, can’t even look Trist in the eyes not that Trist sees them too often.”

“But it happens which is why respite care for fulltime caregivers is so needed. No one should be pushed to that point.”
“But Trist isn’t schizophrenic, respite care isn’t so easy to arrange for him and he was twelve. Anyway, it sent him to the hospital, his dad had broken his arm, his jaw, split his scalp open so he needed stitches. That’s my fault, I should have been there.”

“You were just a child yourself.”

Gavan shook his head. “Thing is, when our grandmother refused to let Trist go home and moved him in with her, I was glad. I was so totally grateful. I actually got to enjoy going to school because Trist dropped out. I needed that time, I mean I don’t think I could have stopped resenting him otherwise. It’s not his fault either but it was just so much easier to avoid him.”

“He said that it was a fight between him and his grandmother that made him run away.”

“Oh the two of them are awful. Both so stubborn, she’s trying to do what’s right and pass to him what’s worked for all the generations before him but he doesn’t work like them. And Trist, he never gives an inch, never compromises who he is for anyone. She wanted him to go back to school, Trist always got good marks but it was because he’d see the answers not because he knew them. And school was like going to a morgue for him, filled with so many emotions and futures and voices. It was like being drowned for him and she didn’t understand. That’s what they fought over that made him run.”

“School?”

Gavan nodded. “Yup. I’m sure it was more to it, but that’s what started it. Trist just didn’t care anymore. I mean, he knew running away would make staying focused so much more difficult but he did it, I couldn’t have, I’ve never be so brave. It was when they told me he’d run off and had no idea where that it really hit me that I loved him. I was really scared for him. Eshe finding him was more then just getting him off the streets, it gave him distance too. Suddenly he was in a place that drew others like him and he wasn’t alone and he didn’t have to listen to the whole, this is how it’s always been done speeches. It let me come over and get to know him, slowly, and him me and Eshe never got upset at his fits. This will sound odd, but Trist found a father figure in Eshe’s father’s spirit. It was a turning point for him, that place is where his adult life started. I can’t stress the importance of it enough to you and he took you there, shared you with Eshe.” He was shaking his head and wished he knew what had happened over the weekend. “Amazing.”

“Still, you’ll need to check the cut on his foot. He says it’s fine but it was pretty deep.” That was a safe topic, one he could speak on without blushing.

“I’ll keep an eye on it. I can’t thank you enough Val, I really can’t. Even with the fight, well, I feel so much better.”

“Good. Glad I could help. Well, I should go, I’m sure you’ll want time to unpack and relax.”

“You don’t have to, stay.”

Val shook his head. There was too much to think about, too much to avoid thinking about and now that Gavan was back he wanted to be alone. “Thanks but it’s okay. Some things were said about my sister’s death, from Trist and Eshe, I want to make some phone calls this afternoon.” He paused in the bedroom doorway. “I’m glad you had a good weekend and tell Trist…” tell Trist what? “Tell him I enjoyed spending time with him and both of you, don’t be strangers.”