Use Me (Caldwell Brothers)

After the course was finished, I holed up in the apartment and buried myself in research about adopted children, and then the foster care program, the one Gregory was raised in.

His biological mother gave him up. The only thing he knew was that he was born in Detroit General Hospital, in Michigan. At sixteen, when his adopted mother was killed, he was then taken away from his father, due to abuse and neglect, and placed inside the foster care system, where he bounced around from home to home, until he met me and was no longer angry.

Gregory wanted to know who his biological mother was. He dreamed we would live here one day. He said, for years he felt like Detroit was his true home. We were supposed to visit and make that decision together. The decision was already made. I would have gone anywhere with him.

He was the love of my life.

It has been nearly a week since I let myself think about Gregory’s and my love. Since I allowed myself to let the pain settle back in. I came here for him, for me, for the ability to close the book of our love, giving him and I finality.

I wrote his story, the story of a boy given away. Now it was my time to let him go.

It was an awful feeling, but something I needed to do for myself.

Melanie always begged me to slow down, to live again, and not in research and writing, but in hope and love. I knew this push of writing fiction wasn’t just about the books and sales. It was about me living again. I never in a million years would have propositioned a man who I didn’t know without Melanie pushing me. Without life pushing me.

When Michelangelo Mazzini comes back out to sit across from me, I don’t look up. The emotions, the feelings, the truths told to him today, of him and of me, suddenly seem to leave me feeling more of the old me than the Tatum after Gregory.

We eat silently, looking at each other every so often. He is trying to figure me out, and I am doing the same.

When I try to pay, he gives me a look, one that says I am overstepping. I’m not. I basically forced him to come with me, so it should be my treat. Regardless, I don’t argue, not this time.

If I allow myself a moment to think about it in the way I should, like he is Jonathon and I am Annie, it kind of feels nice.

We walk toward the hotel, his hands shoved into his pockets, hood up, shoulders slumped a bit, looking down at the sidewalk; and me looking out of the corner of my eye at him, catching him doing the same.

I notice he stands taller, eyes narrowing slightly, jaw tightening, and his lips grow straighter as we approach people. His presence grows bigger, if that can even be possible, and he becomes more intimidating. When we are alone, though, he seems to relax, probably for the first time since our very awkward meetings—plural. I have never had such a strange beginning with anyone.

“Are we okay?” I ask him as we grow closer to the hotel, knowing I need to say something to keep this illusion going.

He gives me a questioning look.

“Are you still willing to be my muse?”

After a few moments, he nods. “You drop the past, you can use me.”

I know the smile shining inside of me is bright. I allow it to heat me, making me feel good about being here. I hope that, in the process of writing fiction, using Michelangelo, he will see what I have learned as it should be—his reality. I’m drawn to him and want him to find the light he is, the good he is inside.

He stops in front of a store and looks through the window. “Wanna stop in here.”

“Okay,” I say. “Should I go?”

He pulls his hand out of his pocket and takes one of mine. “No, come with me.”

My hand feels tiny in his. Even though we have shared intimate moments, this... this hand holding feels like something more.

He doesn’t let go once inside the little shop as he walks to the window where he peers over the foot-tall barrier.

I look to see what it is that caught his intense stare. It’s a book.

He reaches over and grabs it from the display, and the woman behind the counter says, “That’s for display.”

“I need it,” he replies.

When she looks up from her own book and sees him, her mouth gapes slightly and she nods.

“Are there anymore?” I ask, knowing that a man like Angelo isn’t one for shopping or being told he can’t have something he clearly wants.

She continues looking at Michelangelo as she nods. “Shelf... Shelf in the back.”