Kayson Lang and Garrett Nash reach a relationship milestone: moving in together. To celebrate, they plan an evening of candles, wine, and intimacy, but Kayson worries traumatic flashbacks could interrupt or ruin the festivities. He has fought for years to heal from childhood sexual abuse, and Garrett has supported him. All Kayson wants for this night is to celebrate and, even better, get engaged to the love of his life.
Once Garrett lights candles and pours them a glass of wine, Kayson fights to stay grounded and work up the courage to propose. The past threatens him with intrusive thoughts, but Garrett is in his arms now. Can Kayson persevere, express what is in his heart, and ask Garrett to marry him?
Kayson found himself staring out the apartment windows at the front yard and its tulip poplars. Heat waves rose from the parking lot. The summer sun had cooked them all day as they’d moved, beating down on them until they were drenched in sweat. Now Kayson could unwind in the air conditioning, recover his strength, and then celebrate this milestone with Garrett.
The sway of green leaves in the summer breeze mesmerized Kayson in his exhaustion. This year with Garrett had been the best of his life. Kayson had suffered a traumatic upbringing, which had made it hard for him to trust people, and that had led to short relationships in high school and college. Now Kayson was out of graduate school and working as a counselor at a Halfway House, where he helped traumatized women and children with substance abuse recovery. Kayson knew he couldn’t work with men. Men had been the source of abuse in Kayson’s life, so much so that he wasn’t comfortable working with men older than he was. Only boys.
Kayson’s issues with men had made dating men more difficult.
But Garrett had entered his life and shown him not all men were endless founts of physical and sexual violence. When Kayson had finally opened up about his father’s violence and his grandfather’s sexual abuse, Garrett had listened with empathy and had offered insights that even Kayson’s therapist hadn’t suggested.
Everyone has wounds on their hearts, Garret had said. You’re not alone. I’ll stand at your side. And it might help you heal if you keep in mind that your grandfather’s molestation of you was impersonal. He enacted the abuse that your family has likely been perpetrating for five or six generations -- or more. He never even saw you. You got targeted simply because you were standing there.
Hearing it wasn’t personal, and knowing from his own master’s degree in psychology that it had to be true, had tied as the two things that had helped Kayson the most. I needed the man who loves me to say it. Love me, know me, and then tell me it’s not my fault.
Kayson glanced at his left ring finger. Can I propose to him? I don’t want my trauma to get in the way, not of our celebration and not of our growing relationship.
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