Nonverbal - Aria Grace Page 0,7
His gaze on me was unflinching, even when I spoke directly to him. No matter what was said around him, he just stared and chewed, quickly finishing his food before being excused to go outside to play on his swing.
As soon as I was able to leave the table, I went to the backyard to check out the custom swing Mr. Brenner had built for Liam.
It was impressive, to say the least.
The A-frame structure stood twenty-five feet in the air and was braced to the side of the house at the top and across both arms to make sure it didn’t leave the ground. I would have thought that was excessive, but after seeing the speed and momentum Liam created by pumping his legs forward and back, I wasn’t sure the entire thing would stay upright.
Liam had to weigh at least 150 pounds, and when he pushed his long body in each direction, the chains were almost perpendicular to the ground. My heartbeat sped up as I watched him fly through the air, higher than I’d ever witnessed someone go on a swing set before.
As the caretaker-in-charge, I felt like I should do something, but I wasn’t sure what. I wanted to stop him before he got hurt, but then Mr. Brenner sidled up beside me. He didn’t seem concerned at all, so I tried to absorb some of his calm.
“Is he safe? It looks like he’s gonna flip out of that thing.” I cringed as Liam’s body whipped past me, blowing a gust of wind across my cheeks.
“He’s fine. It’s one of his only outlets for getting out…tension.”
I turned to Mr. Brenner, confused. “Is he tense? Is that because of me?”
“Oh no, son. Not at all.” He patted my shoulder then crossed his arms over his chest. “But Liam doesn’t have a lot of the same physical outlets most of us do. He can’t hit the gym or go for a run or… Well, the other things most men his age would do. Since he was about fourteen years old, being on this swing has been his only consistent exercise to really work up a sweat and exhaust himself.”
I wasn’t quite following. “But couldn’t he go to a gym or ride a bike? He seems coordinated enough.”
Mr. Brenner nodded. “He is…and he does. Occasionally, he’ll go on a bike ride with me or Avery, but he doesn’t like to leave the house. We can rarely get him in the car, and after a block or two of being out in the neighborhood, he starts to panic and we have to turn around.”
I pondered that for a moment before Liam started to make grunting sounds. It was clear he was exerting quite a bit of energy to maintain the grueling pace he had set on the swing.
The sounds were almost…sexual. I couldn’t help the comment that slipped out under my breath. “He really gets into it, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah.” Mr. Brenner didn’t seem bothered by my words. “And we do worry he’s going to overdo it and fall off at some point. He’s more…aggressive now than he was when he was younger. But it’s always provided the physical release he needs.”
The way Mr. Brenner said release piqued my curiosity. I gave him a side glance, questioning him with my eyes.
He shrugged and looked past his yard to the tree line beyond. “When he was going through puberty, he would occasionally…ejaculate on the swing. He didn’t seem to understand it, and we didn’t know how to explain to him what was happening, so we just ignored it when it happened.”
“Does that still happen?” I was ashamed for being a little turned on by the idea. Just because Liam was a fully-grown adult didn’t mean he understood things in the same way an adult would.
Mr. Brenner shook his head and shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “Not for a while. And I think that’s part of his frustration. His body is telling him he needs to push himself to an extreme, but he doesn’t know how.”
I wanted to ask Mr. Brenner why he didn’t just explain it to his son. This seemed like the kind of talk any other father would have with his son. But it didn’t feel like my place to judge his parenting style in that way. I merely stood there beside him with my hands in my pockets and watched Liam until he finally slowed down and came to a stop on the ground in front of us.
A little voice