Devoted: Merritt's Story - Chapter 12

Here's chapter 12!  You can read it inline or download the attached PDF.  This chapter was originally planned for the first week of July, but since I bumped it up a week earlier, we won't have a new chapter next week.  Instead, chapter 13 will go up on July 13.

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Chapter 12

What just happened? What had he just done?

Merritt tore through the back streets of the North’s business district on his motorcycle, begging the whipping wind and rumbling engine to drown out his thoughts. When both failed, he opened the throttle, loading up more speed and shooting out into the distance under the glow of the sunset-simulating bulbs a hundred feet above.

It was nothing. Leaning an inch forward means nothing. If Belmont hadn’t stopped you, you would have stopped yourself. You didn’t sell out for a promotion. Why would you do it for reconciliation?

But Belmont hadn’t given him the chance to see if he would have followed through. And now he had no idea how things would have otherwise turned out.

He would have stopped himself. He needed to believe that he would have stopped himself.

This had been Merritt’s plan all along. He’d humbled himself willingly, in order to spoon-feed a bit of Belmont’s pride back to him. If he walked out of the building feeling knocked down and degraded, that meant he’d done his job. So why was he now tormented by the memory of it?

He was no stranger to humiliation. It was practically his life story dating back to his arrival at the Norwood Orphanage. The caretakers were the closest thing he had to parents, and he took their taunts and reprimands and even their beatings with a bowed head and a promise to do better next time. He couldn’t even picture what his life would have looked like if it didn’t involve people demeaning him and barking orders at him on a daily basis. When the beatings waned in his final years at the orphanage, joining the military under Colonel Harding felt like a return to normalcy.

But then something had changed. Mercury had looked into his eyes and used words like “potential” and “worth.” Archer had told him that he’d “earned his place” in an elite school. And Higgins had told him he had the aptitude for one of the highest-ranking positions in the North Sphere. These people—these elites—held out their hands to him and offered to build him up without first demanding to tear him down.

He was starting to get used to the smiles and the invitations and the approving pats on the arm. He’d enjoyed them too much. He’d let them go to his head, and he’d forgotten who he really was.

Maybe he hadn’t climbed as far as he’d thought.

“I don’t think you know how to do anything other than follow orders,” Belmont had sneered at him. “I don’t think you even want to do more than that.”

So what if he liked following orders? Was it so wrong to find gratification in a job well done? Belmont had spoken as if following orders wasn’t mandatory. He had no idea what it was like to be a soldier, to be defined by the quality of his obedience. Merritt had only tried to do what his sphere expected of him. He’d assumed Belmont had expected the same.

Besides, he was good at following orders. Back at the orphanage, his eagerness to please had eventually brought an end to the beatings at the hands of his caretakers. No matter how much Torrence had urged him to stand up for himself, he’d found it easier to do as ordered. Torrence had watched a caretaker sling a bowl of hot stew in Merritt’s face after he’d hesitated in the lunch line. When the woman had ordered Merritt to clean up the mess, Merritt had dropped to his knees without question, leaving behind three square feet of flooring that were just a bit less grimy than the rest.

Torrence had been so disgusted by his compliance that he’d said nothing throughout the meal. It wasn’t until lights out that Torrence had finally asked, “Why did you let her do that to you? Why did you even bother to clean up after?”

Merritt’s reply: “It wasn’t worth the fight.”

And that was the truth. Merritt didn’t have it in him to fight a losing battle with his caretakers every day, all to preserve some nebulous sense of personal pride he’d been told was important in the underground but had never been permitted to cultivate.

As far as Merritt had been concerned, the only battle worth fighting was with the bullies who shared his living quarters. With Merritt’s natural aptitude for hand-to-hand combat, and the early training to prepare him for entry into the military, the other kids rarely went after him. But scrawny, sickly Torrence was a frequent target. Merritt would never tell Torrence how many nights he’d spent on guard duty, warding off kids who wanted to beat Torrence up or yank off his tie or steal the prized pendant his mother had left him after her death.

Merritt had never wanted to be a fighter. He had a fighter’s body without a fighter’s heart, and he craved peace in a way that was impossible in the underground. Torrence, on the other hand, had a fighter’s heart without the body to match. His defiance only brought his bullies out in greater force, and Merritt couldn’t leave him unprotected.

So after having hot stew thrown in his face, he’d cleaned up without a word. And then that night, he’d threatened to snap the neck of an older boy who plotted to jump Torrence in the bathroom.

In the military, he’d submitted to Colonel Harding’s abuse, saving his energy for the real battles fought across sphere borders. But what excuse did he have with Belmont? The view from between Belmont’s legs had its appeal, but it didn’t account for Merritt’s willingness to let Belmont humiliate him. Mercury had told him to make nice, but Mercury had also told him to prove his worth. Might there have been a more dignified way to resolve their conflict? Did Merritt, with his years of experience playing the part of a spineless pushover, jump too quickly into the old, comfortable role?

Perhaps he was being too generous with himself, thinking of it as merely a role. Maybe “spineless pushover” was his true nature, hidden under a façade of bravery.

As he turned a corner into a shopping district, he lowered his speed and veered off into a random parking lot. He wanted to see Torrence. It had been too long, and he ached for the comfort of his friend’s presence.

He pulled out his phone and hit speed dial.

Torrence answered on the fifth ring. “Hey. What?”

Torrence’s tone was oddly abrupt. “Did I catch you at a bad time?” Merritt asked.

“No. I just got off work. Did an extra shift.”

“Then you haven’t eaten yet, right? Do you want to get dinner?”

“Why?”

Strange question. Torrence almost sounded confrontational, as if he suspected Merritt to have ulterior motives. His tone of distrust had a surprising sting, leaving Merritt stumbling for words. “Because. Dinner.” Unable to read Torrence’s resulting silence, he rushed onward. “You have to eat anyway, right? And I haven’t seen you in months. How about that pizza place on the border, a mile down from Yackley’s?”

After another moment of silence, Torrence said, “All right. I’ll meet you there.”

Merritt arrived at the restaurant five minutes later and reserved a booth. Nervously, he sat waiting at the table, nursing a glass of water that had already begun to sweat. Nearly fifteen minutes passed before Torrence arrived.

The sight of him was startling. His dress shirt hung loosely from the bony squares of his shoulders, his blue tie slack and wrinkled. Only for a moment, he met Merritt’s gaze through red-rimmed eyes.

What in the world had happened in the past few months? Merritt wanted to jump out of his seat and dash across the room and examine Torrence as if he were an ally soldier wounded in battle. Only the strange, reclusive energy emanating from Torrence kept him at bay.

Merritt tried to meet Torrence’s eyes again, but Torrence dropped his gaze as he eased himself into the booth seat. His hands trembled, and his lips were drawn tight. He looked like he was waiting out a lecture from his boss instead of meeting an old friend for pizza.

“Hey,” Merritt said, acting natural.

Torrence glanced up at him with shifty eyes, saying nothing.

Merritt wanted to ask Torrence if he was okay, but that was the type of question that always annoyed Torrence. Instead, he tried as subtly as possible to examine his friend. His automatic assumption was that Torrence had gotten hooked on some sort of drug during the time that they’d fallen out of touch with each other. It wouldn’t have been surprising. With the perpetual angst that always seemed to plague him and no alternate remedies, he often indulged in the North’s brand of chemical therapy.

It would be hard to blame a blue-tie for succumbing to the lure of North Sphere drugs, considering how they permeated everything in their sphere from food and drink to lotions and air fresheners. Merritt was the odd man out, abstaining only because he believed that indulging in drugs would compromise his ability to serve his King to the best of his ability as a perpetual duty soldier. Torrence had no such reason to abstain. The North’s most common drugs were pretty benign, and both Merritt and Torrence had always steered clear of the riskier stuff. What had changed in the past months?

Whatever it was, it clearly wasn’t something Torrence wanted to share with Merritt. A year or two ago, Merritt would have thought Torrence hid nothing from him.

“Do you want to go for real cheese on the pizza this time instead of the lab-grown stuff?” Merritt asked, hoping a superficial question would put his friend at ease.

Torrence didn’t lower his guard. “I can’t afford real cheese.”

“This is my treat.”

“Making good money now?” Torrence asked.

Merritt hesitated, alarmed at the bite in Torrence’s tone. “I can’t usually afford cheese either, but I got a few bonuses recently, and I wanted to see you, so I figured I’d… buy some cheese for my friend.” He offered a clumsy smile.

Torrence tilted his head with one eyebrow raised, and at last, Merritt spotted a fleeting flicker of warmth in his glance.

“What else do you want on it?” Merritt asked. “Green pepper paste? Fish flakes?”

Torrence shook his head as if overwhelmed by the pressure of having to make a decision. “You pick.”

“Green pepper paste, fish flakes, mushrooms.” His grin widened. “Three toppings and real cheese. We’re eating like royalty tonight!”

Torrence snorted and shook his head, a tiny smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.

It felt so good, seeing that smile. Merritt almost felt the urge to reach across the table and grab Torrence’s hand. It wasn’t something he’d ever dare to do anymore, knowing that it would make Torrence uncomfortable, but he still allowed himself to fantasize.

Torrence had been the one to introduce Merritt to himself—fumbling under the covers together at the Norwood Orphanage, discovering pleasures and sensations for the first time. There had been a year during their adolescence where they occasionally held hands in public, even hugged in public a few times, but then Torrence had abruptly shunned his affections. For reasons Torrence never put to words, he’d decided he didn’t want that kind of relationship with Merritt. The songs he strummed on his guitar took a turn. He started singing about longing and lust, about sharing another body’s warmth, about furtive kisses in the night—all with female pronouns. He dragged Merritt to dance clubs with him, leaving him on the sidelines while he danced with girls.

That pain took years for Merritt to swallow. He watched Torrence go off on his own, sharing himself with women, but he couldn’t summon the will to branch off the way Torrence did. He had the bad habit of clinging to things that he knew were long gone, and he refused to let himself wonder how much longer it would take for Torrence to discard him completely.

But every so often when he’d spend time with Torrence, a random sound or smell would trigger a memory of one of their nights together, and Torrence would shoot Merritt a knowing smile. The acknowledgment alone was enough to momentarily soothe the ache.

Things got easier after a few years in the military, his attention shifting to his King. He’d decided to take the extra tests and sign up as a perpetual duty soldier, willfully allowing the designation to overrun his life. Perpetual duty meant always being ready to defend his sphere, and it required him to be infinitely more disciplined than any soldier who only had to perform in training and battle.

Once his new role was official, it became easier to give Torrence his distance. Merritt would no longer allow his feelings to distract him when his every waking hour was dedicated to improving his skills, protecting his sphere, and serving his King.  Mercury was even more unattainable than Torrence, but servitude was a salve in its own right. It was the only way he knew to make himself indispensable to another person.

The waiter arrived to take their order, and Torrence’s smile took on an artificial tightness. By the time the waiter left, the smile faded entirely.

“How’s work?” Merritt asked, trying to fill the silence. “Are you still at the clinic?”

“Yeah. And it’s the same as always. I serve coffee and shred top secret documents and scrub floors and get spat on.”

“They spit on you?” This was news to Merritt.

“I said it’s the same as always.”

Merritt racked his brain for anything he could say to make Torrence feel better. He found no solution, but he couldn’t rid himself of the need to offer a fix. “At least you’re doing important work, though.”

“How is scrubbing floors at a medical office ‘important work’?”

“Well, I mean… The work needs to be done, and they need you to do it. If they need you, you’re important to them.”

Torrence’s already steely expression turned even colder. “They need someone. It’s only coincidence that I’m that person.”

“But if you’re doing it well, they’ll eventually recognize it.”

“No one ever ‘eventually’ recognizes anything,” Torrence scoffed.

“It’s like it was at the orphanage,” Merritt said, fiddling with his silverware. “The caretakers used to beat the shit out of me, but once I stopped fighting and started doing what they said, they left me alone.”

With a cutting laugh under his breath, Torrence said, “Yeah, but then they started beating the rest of us twice as hard.”

A fork slipped from between Merritt’s fingers, clanging as it landed on the knife below. “What do you mean?”

“You never noticed?” Torrence asked, eyes narrowed. “I lost track of how many times I got caned and smacked because I didn’t wash the dishes as good as you did, because I couldn’t bow my head and say ‘sorry’ the way you did, because I didn’t kiss ass like you did. Once you gave in and started groveling to them, they started expecting that same thing out of the rest of us.”

Merritt clenched his teeth so hard his jaw ached. “I… I didn’t know that.”

“I told you a million times. I told you to stop doing everything they told you to do.”

Merritt had only given in so he could focus his attention on protecting Torrence. Of course he’d still somehow managed to fail. He always failed with Torrence. “I thought I was helping you.”

“How the fuck did you think that would help me?”

“I don’t know.” Merritt shook his head, lowering his gaze to the white tablecloth. He felt like he’d been hollowed out in the span of thirty seconds.

Torrence crossed his arms over his chest, hunching in his seat.

Despite the tension lingering between them, there was something endearing about Torrence’s surly frown. It almost felt like they were back at the orphanage cafeteria at ten years old. Attempting a good-natured smile, Merritt said, “Well, at least we both survived, right? Neither of us got carried off by the boogeyman in the middle of the night.”

Torrence rolled his eyes, and Merritt couldn’t tell whether or not he’d done it humorously.

After another minute of silence, during which Merritt continued to idly organize his silverware, Torrence suddenly gestured toward the table. “What’s that?” he asked with furrowed brows.

“What’s what?”

Torrence pointed toward Merritt’s cutlery. Merritt had crossed his knife and fork in a right angle at the upper left corner of his plate, with his spoon face down on the right.

“Oh,” Merritt said with a sheepish laugh. He scratched the back of his head. “I’ve been learning elite etiquette.”

“How?” Torrence asked. “They don’t just teach that stuff in books.”

“I… uh….” Merritt wasn’t sure how to phrase his answer without sounding cryptic, and without betraying Archer’s demand for confidentiality. “Remember Archer, the woman I met at that elite party we went to together? She needed a professional favor, and she offered me a favor in return. So I asked her to teach me elite etiquette.”

Torrence gave an incredulous tilt of the head. Merritt expected him to ask what kind of favor Archer would have needed in the first place, but instead, Torrence asked, “Why would you ask for that, of all things?”

Merritt hesitated to admit that he’d asked because he’d hoped to be spending more time in elite circles and wanted a chance to fit in. He knew how a militant ace like Torrence would react to that statement. “I don’t know. I thought it might come in handy someday.”

“People in the office have been talking about her lately. She’s one of the most powerful people in her field. She could have probably given you something a lot more useful than elite etiquette lessons.”

“I guess, maybe. But I didn’t really know how big a favor I could ask. She said maybe she could help me network with people she knew, or maybe she could bump a friend or family member to the front of the line for medical care, but none of that seemed like something I’d—”

“She said she’d bump your friend to the front of the waiting list? At a North Sphere hospital?”

“I assumed she meant a North Sphere hospital. That’s where she has influence.”

“She said she could get one of your friends immediate medical care, and you asked her to teach you elite etiquette instead?”

“I didn’t have any—”

I didn’t have any friends who needed immediate medical care. Those were the words that dried up in Merritt’s mouth as Torrence’s red-rimmed eyes met his. The sunken cheeks and bony shoulders Merritt had previously dismissed as the result of drugs now held his focus, denying him any attempt to turn his gaze away.

A rush of frigid ice spread through his chest. Through shallow breaths, he gasped, “Torrence, are you okay?”

“I would’ve been,” Torrence said, tight-lipped. “If I’d gotten into a hospital a year ago.”

“What does that mean?” Merritt demanded. “What do you have? Are… are you…?”

“I’ll probably live another five years. It’ll be a shitty five years, but that’s the best I can hope for as an ace.”

Merritt shook his head in disbelief. It couldn’t be true. Why wouldn’t Torrence have told him earlier? “What do you have?”

“Why do you need to know?”

“Because I need to know what I can do,” Merritt said urgently.

“You can’t do anything,” Torrence said. “It’s too late to do anything.”

“There has to be something!”

“I said it’s too late.”

Merritt’s muscles went slack, and he fell back into his seat. Despondently, he fixed his gaze on the table linen. Even if he wanted to say something—even if he thought there was anything he could say to Torrence—he felt too weak to summon his voice.

He heard the sound of clothing shifting on the cushioned seat across from him, and he realized Torrence was sliding out of the booth. Snapping to attention, he asked, “Where are you going?”

Saying nothing, Torrence rose to his feet.

Without thinking, Merritt stumbled out behind him and grabbed his hand. “At least stay and eat,” he pleaded, stifling his shock at the feeling of Torrence’s frail, bony hand in his.

His voice barely a rumble, Torrence said, “I’m not really hungry.”

“You need to eat something. You don’t even have to stay and eat with me if you don’t want to. Just wait for it to come out, and you can take it home in a box.”

Torrence met Merritt’s eyes, and Merritt flinched. He’d been prepared for anger, maybe sadness—but he wasn’t ready for the vacant hopelessness that confronted him. “I just want to go home. I’m tired.”

“I can drive by your place and drop off the food when it’s done.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Then I’m stupid. I’m doing it. You don’t even have to open the door for me. I’ll just ring your bell and leave it.”

“I don’t care what you do,” Torrence said. “I just have to go.”

Crushed, Merritt let his grip go slack and allowed Torrence’s hand to slide out. Torrence turned his hollow gaze on Merritt one last time before heading for the exit.

Merritt waited until Torrence was out of the restaurant before he sat down again, taking a listless sip from his water and staring blankly at Torrence’s empty seat.

He felt like he was barely more than a cadaver propped up for display—present in body, but drained dry of the color he’d had only moments before, sapped of the spirit Torrence had once breathed into him.

Neatly, precisely, he reorganized his silverware to match Torrence’s untouched place setting.

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