Chapter 8: Blood and Bourbon
His father got up slowly. Dante stood frozen.
The backhand cracked across his cheekbone, a dry, sharp sound like a branch snapping. Dante didn’t flinch. He absorbed the shock, a numbness spreading from the point of impact as blood welled from his split lip. He locked eyes with Damon over their father’s shoulder; his brother’s subtle, frantic headshake screamed don’t fight back. The metallic taste filled Dante’s mouth as his father hissed, “Clean yourself up before you embarrass us further.”
He started to walk away, but Dante had lost all common sense. He didn’t care anymore. “No matter what I do, how hard I apply myself, I will never be good enough for you.”
His father turned, his words slurred by bourbon and contempt. “You’re right. You’ll never be good enough because you’re pathetic. A little bitch boy.” He stepped closer, the smell of him suffocating. “You fucked up mine and your mother’s marriage because you couldn’t shut the fuck up. Now she’s high all the time. I mean, really, what type of son snitches to their mother about their dad getting a little ass on the side? Lord knows your mother wasn’t putting out. But I guess when you’re a faggot, nigger-loving bitch, anything can happen.”
Dante lost it. He shoved his father, a blind, two-handed push to get that hateful face away from him. The left hook came faster than thought, a sickening crunch sidelining his vision. He was a heap on the carpet, the world tilting. His father was on top of him then, and every punch he landed was another nail in the coffin—a thick, final thud against his ribs, his shoulder, his jaw. Damon eventually pulled him off, a strained grunt of effort. Dante was a swollen, trembling mess.
“You know what, Dante? You’re right. You’ll never be good enough for me. Hell, for anyone.” His father stood over him, breathing hard. “You’re defective. Every time I see your face, I think, damn, why his brother, not him?”
The world funneled into a silent, high-pitched scream. Dante scrambled up, crying loud, ugly sobs that tore from a place he didn’t know he had. He ran upstairs, his body a symphony of new pain, and grabbed the cold, heavy weight of his dad’s gun from the nightstand drawer. He stuffed it into his jacket pocket and fled the house into the cooling night.
The engine of his car roared to life, a violent sound in the silent driveway. Dante had to keep wiping his eyes, the tears and blood smearing his knuckles as he sobbed loudly driving into the night. He sped through familiar streets gone alien, running red lights and thinking of anyway to end his pathetic existence sooner.
He finally got to his alcove up in the woods where he often went to clear his mind. The car lurched to a halt on the gravel turnout, the headlights cutting uselessly into the dense black of the trees. He killed the engine and the lights, plunging himself into a silence so complete it pressed against his eardrums.
He leaned his head on the cold steering wheel and sobbed, the gun a deadly weight digging into his ribs. The only thing on his mind was telling Dre that he loves him. He knew that Dre deserved that at least, before he pulled the trigger. His hand shook as he fumbled his phone from his pocket, the screen blinding in the dark.
After two rings, Dre picked up. “Tay? You okay, man?”
Dante tried to steady his voice but he heard through his pathetic attempt to sound strong. “I just wanted to call you to hear your voice, Dre.” He swallowed hard, the salt of his tears mixing with the copper blood on his lip. “I wanted to tell you thank you for always being here for me.”
Dre was still in the passenger seat, his dad’s car idling in their driveway as they rehashed a crucial third-down play. The dome light was on, and Mia and his mom had already gone inside.
The phone vibrated in his lap, Dante’s name flashing. “Tay? You okay, man?”
Marcus fell silent, seeing the stark concern etch his son’s face. “Everything ok?” he mouthed.
Dre shook his head no, his fingers fumbling as he connected the call to the car’s Bluetooth. Dante’s voice, shattered and wet, filled the cabin. “You know Dre, my dad’s right. I am pathetic. Worthless.” A ragged sob crackled through the speakers. “I told you I’d do nothing but drag you down. A worthless fag who can’t do anything right. I ruined my parents’ marriage. I should have died, not Alonte.”
The words, raw and incoherent between heaving cries, were a knife twisting in Dre’s chest. “I just wanted to tell you that I love you, Dante. I always have. I just wish I was good enough for you, but I can’t do this anymore. I’m so sorry, man—”
“Tay, listen to me, where are you?” Dre’s voice was fierce, cutting through the static of Dante’s sobs.
His father, Marcus, didn’t speak a word. He just threw the car into drive and peeled out of the driveway, the tires screeching. Dre already had Dante’s location pulsing on his phone screen.
The old sedan’s engine screamed as Marcus pushed it harder than Dre had ever heard, trees blurring into a dark wall outside his window. Dre hated hearing Tay like this; it was breaking him. The choked sobs, the hollow resignation—it almost sounded like a suicide speech.
Fuckkkk, Dre thought. Not Tay, not like this. He needed him. He loved him, was in love with him. He didn’t give a fuck if his dad heard; guess this was his closet door opening. Then Dre took a deep breath and started to talk into the car’s silence, his voice low and urgent, directed at the speaker. “Tay, you listen to me right now, you hear me? You are not pathetic. You are the strongest person I know.”
“He’s right about everything, Dre,” Dante whispered, the connection crackling with static. “I ruin things.”
“Your dad is a drunk, miserable bastard who’s wrong about the whole world,” Dre said, glancing at his father’s grim profile. Marcus’s hands were tight on the wheel, his jaw set. “You didn’t ruin shit. You were a kid trying to protect your mom. That took guts he’ll never have.”
“I’ve got his gun, Dre.” The admission was so quiet, so final.
The words punched the air from Dre’s lungs. Marcus’s foot pressed the accelerator harder. “Where are you, son?” Marcus’s voice was calm, commanding, cutting into the call. “Just tell us where you are. We’re almost there.”
“My spot,” Dante murmured, the words slurred. “The clearing.”
“We know it, Tay. Just stay on the phone with me,” Dre pleaded, his own fear making his voice rough. “Talk to me. Tell me about last night. In your room.” He was scrambling, fishing for any memory to anchor him. “Tell me what you drew in your sketchbook before I got there.”
“I… I don’t remember,” Dante’s voice slurred, thick and distant through the phone’s speaker. The gravel crunched violently under their tires as Marcus swung the car into the overlook, its high beams slicing through the darkness to trap Dante’s silhouette against the driver’s side window.
He was just sitting there, head bowed. “Dre, I know what you’re trying to do, to distract, but the world would be so much better off without me, which is why I have to do this.” The car hadn’t even fully stopped before Dre was tearing his door open and stumbling out into the cold night air.
Dre felt like his entire world was starting to implode. “Fuck, Tay, remember I was drowning with you. You are not alone. I’m here, always will be. I love you, Dante, I have for years.” He was running now, feet skidding on loose stones, his voice breaking. “Fuck, I’m in love with you. There are days I’ve felt how you feel right now, and the only thing that pulled me from the darkness was seeing your face, hearing your voice. You’re my best friend and I need you, Dante.”
He reached the car, yanking the door open to find Dante clutching the cold, dark metal in his lap. “The world needs you even though you can’t see that right now. I promise to stick around even through all the bullshit. Please just hang on a little bit longer, ok, because… because if you do,” Dre said, getting choked up, his hands hovering, afraid to touch, “I promise that one day when we’re married, you’re in the NFL, and I’m somewhere doing street art, that I’ll always be your life raft to pull you up before you go under. Please just stay.”
Slowly, Dante’s swollen, blood-crusted face tilted up from the gun, his eyes pools of black despair finding Dre’s frantic, pleading gaze in the stark white headlights. A single, ragged sob hitched in his chest. Marcus appeared silently beside Dre, his own hand outstretched, palm up, over the car’s seat towards the weapon.
Marcus’s hand moved slowly, a steady anchor in the chaos. His fingers closed over the cool, oiled metal of the barrel, gently prying it from Dante’s limp grasp. He engaged the safety with a soft click and cleared the chamber, the solitary bullet glinting in his palm before he pocketed it.
Dre slid into the passenger seat, the old upholstery creaking under his weight. He didn’t say anything, just put a tentative hand on Dante’s shuddering back, feeling each fractured breath. The silence in the car was fragile, thick with everything that had almost happened.
Marcus walked back to his own car but stopped. He turned and reached through Dante’s open window, wrapping him into a firm, secure hug that seemed to hold all his broken pieces together. He whispered, his voice a low rumble meant only for Dante’s ear, “You’ll always be my son no matter what. We love you.” He paused, his grip tightening just for a second. “I also know that you love Dre, more than just a friend, and that’s okay Dante. It’s okay.”
He pulled back, his eyes glistening in the dashboard light. “I’ll be sitting in the car,” he said softly, leaving them alone. He had heard his son’s raw confession over the phone, still connected to the car’s speakers when he ran out. He would wait for Dre to feel comfortable enough to tell him himself.
Inside Dante’s car, the only sound was Dante’s ragged, slowing breaths. He leaned his head against the steering wheel, his face hidden. Dre kept his hand on his back, a constant, warm pressure. “He knows,” Dante finally mumbled, the words muffled by his own arm.
“He knows,” Dante finally mumbled, the words muffled by his own arm. He lifted his head, the raw, split skin of his lip stinging in the night air. “Your dad. He knows about… about us.”
Dre’s hand stilled on his back. The headlights from Marcus’s car bled into their dark cabin, outlining the shock on his face. “Knows what?” he whispered, but the question was soft, already knowing the answer.
“He heard. On the phone, in the car. Everything I said.” Dante’s breath hitched, a broken sound. “And what you said back.”
A long silence stretched, filled only by the faint tick of the cooling engine. Dre’s mind raced, replaying his own desperate words of love confessing over the bluetooth speakers. He swallowed, a new kind of vulnerability cracking open beneath the relief of finding Dante alive. “Okay,” he said, the word simple and solid. “Okay. So he knows.”
He shifted, turning fully to face Dante in the shadowed seat. The awful, purple swelling around Dante’s eye was already deepening. “Look at me.” Dre waited until Dante’s wrecked gaze met his. “I’m not scared of that. Are you?”
Dante stared at him, the question hanging in the shared space between their ragged breaths. He slowly, painfully, shook his head no. A single, clear tear cut through the grime and blood on his cheek.
“Good.” Dre’s thumb brushed it away, his touch feather-light. “Then that’s all that matters tonight.” He glanced toward his father’s car, a silhouette of patient safety. “We should go. Let’s let him take us home.”
“I can’t go back there,” Dante said, the panic immediate and physical, his body recoiling.
“Not your home,” Dre said softly, his voice firm. “Ours. You’re staying with us.” He opened his door, the dome light flooding in, and offered his hand. “Come on.”
Dante’s hand was cold and trembling when he took Dre’s. He let himself be led from his own car like a sleepwalker, each step a small surrender. Marcus had the back door of his sedan already open, a silent, welcoming cave.
The interior smelled faintly of lemon cleaner and old leather. Dre guided him into the back seat, his touch achingly gentle on Dante’s battered arm. “It’s okay,” Dre whispered, the words meant only for him as he slid in beside him.
Marcus didn’t look back as he started the engine, but his eyes found Dante’s in the rearview. “Seatbelt, son.” The quiet command was a tether to the normal world. Dre reached across Dante’s body, the click of the buckle loud in the quiet car.
The ride was a numb, dark blur of passing streetlights. Dante leaned his throbbing head against the cool window, the vibrations a dull constant against his temple. Dre kept his hand resting lightly on Dante’s thigh, a warm, steadying weight.
When they pulled into the familiar driveway, the front porch light was a dazzling halo. The sight of it made Dante flinch back into the shadows of the seat. Dre squeezed his leg. “Hey. We’re here.”
He helped Dante out, one arm sliding firmly around his waist to bear his unsteady weight. Marcus came around the car, his expression softening as he took in the full, horrific picture of Dante’s face in the yellow light. “Let’s get you inside,” he said, his voice gruff with feeling.
Dre tightened his grip, steering Dante past the threshold. “Man, I already know Ma is going to go ham when she sees your face,” he murmured, his lips close to Dante’s ear. “But you need to get cleaned up, Tay.”
They moved slowly up the walk, a three-legged unit. The front door swung open before they reached it, spilling warm light and the smell of vanilla candles onto the porch. Jackson stood there, her smile of welcome dying the instant she saw them.
Her hands flew to her mouth. “Oh, my Lord. Dante?” The horror in her voice was a physical thing.