Note: this chapter contains mention of trauma, homophobia and abuse.

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"You've got someone here that wants to visit you."

Mackenzie's vacant staring at the same four walls is interrupted by the voice of a prison guard; his initial reaction is bewilderment, as he racks his brain in an attempt to figure out who could possibly wish to occupy his time. He furrows his brows at the guard in mild confusion, but nonetheless he rises from his mattress, following after him as they weave in and out of numerous corridors en route to the visitation room. Eventually, they arrive, so Mackenzie scans the room until his eyes fall on him.

"Levi?" he murmurs, astonished that Levi, of all people, should be the one to come and see him. He approaches the table that Levi is sat at, lowering himself down onto the chair opposite him. "Levi, what are you doing here? You were the last person I expected to see here today."

"I'm not playing games," Levi asserts, with a stern tone in his voice. "I came here today for answers. Answers for my own benefit. Because life is too short for me to continue on the way I have been, Mack. You have nothing to lose by being honest with me."

"What answers do you want?" Mackenzie presses, making the conscious effort not to present as hostile in any way. "What answers can I possibly give that you don't already know, huh?"

"I can think of plenty," Levi spits. "But we'll start off easy. Am I the first person you've done this to?"

"It's not really important, is it?" Mackenzie answers. "I don't see why it affects—"

"I said I'm not playing games," Levi cuts him off, his words tinged with agitation. "Am I the first person you've done this to?"

Mackenzie lets out a sigh, making no attempt to hide the lack of enthusiasm he has for answering the question. "You're the first person I threatened with a knife, if that's what you're asking."

"You know damn well what I'm asking," Levi retorts.

"Fine." Mackenzie drums his fingers against the wooden surface in front of him, already feeling uncomfortable with the exchange he is being forced into. "You're the first person I threatened with any kind of weapon. But I've told other guys I'd make their lives hell before. Obviously I just never followed through with it."

"So why was I so different?" Levi knits his eyebrows together, frustration building. "Why was I the lucky one to end up with a knife at my throat?"

"I-I don't know, okay? I don't know." Mackenzie daren't make eye contact with the man before him, out of guilt for the damage he has caused. "I've been rejected that many times, I was just so sick and tired of it. I don't know why people hate being around me so much."

"Well, being a stalker and threatening people's lives isn't exactly welcoming behaviour," Levi informs him, knowing full-well that he is stating the obvious. "I know about some of your past, as well. You dated George's ex-girlfriend back in the eighties too, didn't you?"

"I wouldn't even know who that is," Mackenzie admits. "Refresh my memory."

"Stephanie Carter. You made her life miserable. And she was only seventeen years old. You were twenty-two. You knew better," Levi reminds him, through gritted teeth. "You abused her. You manipulated her. You controlled her. And it took being with George for two years, to help her unlearn all the shit you put her through."

"Ah, Stephanie." Mackenzie seems to remember the name as soon as he hears it, entering a state of reminiscence. "She was gorgeous. Of course, as gorgeous as a gay guy can perceive a woman to be. She was stunning."

"So why did you treat her like dirt?" Levi interrogates. "If she was so gorgeous and stunning, as you put it, then why did you make her life hell?"

"My head was fucked up, Levi. Have I not made that relatively apparent by now?"

"But it doesn't make sense," Levi argues. "You went from woman to woman in your youth — even had kids with one of them — when you were actually gay. And you knew you were gay, too. It doesn't make sense why you'd string so many women along."

"My wife, Bronwyn, she left me when the kids were old enough to understand what was going on," Mackenzie confesses. "She poisoned those kids against me. They loved me, and I loved them. But she broke the bond I had with them."

"She probably didn't poison those kids against you though, did she?" Levi hits back. "She probably told them the truth about what a vile, manipulative man you are. Either that, or they managed to figure it out for themselves. If you could treat a vulnerable woman like Steph so poorly, then there was nothing stopping you from treating your wife and kids exactly the same."

"You don't know anything about my family," Mackenzie snipes. "And you've got it all wrong."

"I find that hard to believe." Levi decides to venture down an entirely different path of conversation, so he changes the subject. "But if you're gay — and you knew you were even back then — why did you only ever have straight relationships? Why did you never go to a man?"

"I couldn't." By now, Mackenzie's demeanour has weakened; the confidence and the borderline-arrogance has all but diminished, replaced with a fragility very much unlike his character.

"What do you mean, you couldn't?" Levi demands.

"You don't understand," Mackenzie answers. "My entire life was on the line until two decades or so ago."

"So talk me through it," Levi requests, trying with all his might to give Mackenzie the benefit of the doubt. "Explain it to me. Help me understand."

Mackenzie is apprehensive; for he has never told anybody about his past before. His eyes move up to meet Levi's; for a moment, he searches the green irises of the man sat opposite him, eventually evaluating that he has nothing to lose by telling him. "I think I just knew from the start that I was gay. I don't even remember when I really figured it out. I must have been pretty young. But I knew my parents were homophobic — they made absolutely no effort to hide it. So I grew up, scared. I knew I couldn't even tell my own parents about my sexuality, because I didn't know what they would do if they found out their oldest son was into guys.

"I had a brother ... Stuart. He was about nine years younger than me. My parents had expected to only have my older sister and I, but then they found out they were expecting him years after I was born. And of course, it's as cliché as it gets — they doted on Stuart. He was absolutely the golden child. He was the baby. But then, on the other hand, my sister was the only girl; and she was the oldest. I had a severe case of what you'd call "Middle Child Syndrome". I was extremely jealous of my siblings, because I was so-obviously the least favourite out of the three of us.

"You could say, I've felt rejected my entire life. And I knew that telling my family my sexuality would only make things far, far worse. And what can you do when you're a closeted gay guy living in a world where straight relationships are the only acceptable way of life? Well, you fake it 'til you make it. And that's exactly what I did. I met Stephanie when I was twenty-two. She was seventeen, like you said. She was my first proper girlfriend, and I'd never use it as an excuse for how I treated her, but I was awfully inexperienced. And being with a woman just didn't feel right. Like you said, I made that poor girl's life miserable for far longer than I should have. But I was scared — so, so scared.

"I know I shouldn't have tried to control her. I was awful. I told her where to go; I told her what to eat. I made nasty comments about her weight; and about the clothes she wore. I forced her to stick to strict curfews at night — but it wasn't because I didn't want her to go out. It was because I was scared something would happen to her if she was on her own in the dark too late. Everything I controlled about her ... was to fit my perception of an ideal woman. So that maybe I'd actually fall for her — almost trying to force myself into becoming straight. But of course, you and I both know that's never going to work. I wanted to be proud of my sexuality ... but my family made it impossible. My parents had fed their homophobia to my siblings, and they frowned on those who were gay, too.

"It got really bad in the eighties. After Steph and I had split up, I met Bronwyn. She never knew the truth about my sexuality either. Nobody did. I hid it for so long. We started a relationship. We eventually got married. And then, we had our two children. A daughter, Eden; and a son, Matthew. Eden was two years older than Matthew. They'll be twenty-six and twenty-four, now. But I'd created this entire life; this entire family based upon a lie. I was hiding the biggest part of my identity. And I couldn't tell a single soul about it. It was a lonely existence.

"Things escalated in around nineteen-eighty-six, when my younger brother Stuart went to hang out with some friends in Reading. He was about sixteen at the time. He was part of a homophobic attack that made headlines in Reading and here in London, too. He was arrested not long after the incident, and, well ... he was sentenced to a fair few years in prison. He should have been released around twenty years ago. Unfortunately, he never made it out. He was beaten up in prison, and killed. My family never got over the death. I struggled with it too, despite the sibling rivalry we'd shared as kids. He was still my baby brother. He was still taken too soon.

"Things got worse after that. I took my grief out on Bronwyn in the form of abuse — the same as I'd done with Steph. And I would shout at her and on the odd occasion, I even threw things at her. I was a vile, nasty man. I was not a good example of a husband or a father. But I was grieving. And it was a tough position to be in, seeing as he'd been killed because of his homophobia. My sister and my parents found out how I'd treated Bronwyn; and they picked up on how little I'd said in support of Stuart since the homophobic attack and since he died. They said they didn't believe I was stable, and they cut off contact with me because they didn't trust me. They didn't think I was safe. Perhaps they'd also somehow figured out I was gay, and disowned me. I don't know.

"Eventually, Bronwyn couldn't handle me anymore. I don't blame her for that. She took the kids and got custody through the courts. At first, I saw the kids on weekends ... then I'd be lucky to get a phone call. By the time Eden was eighteen and Matthew was sixteen, I didn't hear from them again. I think their mother had told them what I was truly like ... and they must have made their own decisions to cut contact with me. But regardless of what it was, I've been lonely ever since. Weirdly though, I've never felt more free in myself in terms of my sexuality. Because I have nobody in my life anymore, I can openly be me. That's why I started looking for meaningless flings with guys."

Deciding to avoid mentioning the homophobic attack in Reading, Levi questions a different aspect of what he's been told. "So you've had flings with men since you split with your wife?"

"Well ... it's not been as successful as I'd have liked," Mackenzie admits. "I didn't want anything long-term, because I was scared of wasting life on someone who'd leave like Bronwyn did. Some guys were up to sleeping with me. Others weren't. And when they weren't, I took it personally."

"Why take it so personally though?"

"Because I'd been rejected my entire life," Mackenzie points out. "By my parents; by my siblings; by my wife; by my kids. I didn't need complete strangers to be added to that list. Honestly, Levi, you were the first guy I saw that I ever felt different about. I'd never wanted long-term with anybody. Nothing past meaningless sex. But seeing you so happy; married with kids — what I once had — it made me yearn for it. And you're the only guy I genuinely enjoyed talking to about seemingly pointless things."

Levi maintains a poker face, as he observes Mackenzie's defeated body language. "You barely know me."

Mackenzie exhales through his nostrils, as a substitute for a sigh. "It felt like I knew you my whole life."

"Visitation time is over," the prison guard abruptly announces to the room of people.

"I have to go," Levi breathes, rising from his chair in preparation for leaving.

"I'm sorry." Mackenzie's eyes follow the movement of his victim, becoming watery with emotion. "If I could reverse what I did to you, I would. I never wanted to hurt you. You just made me realise what love actually felt like ... for the first time in my life."

Levi nods, acknowledging and understanding the words Mackenzie is saying to him. "Maybe one day, I'll find the strength to forgive you. But for now, I'm still healing. I truly, genuinely hope you grow and become a better man from all of this. Goodbye, Mack."

With no emotion visible in his face, Levi walks away from the visiting table — leaving Mackenzie alone, as he always has been.

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Chapter thirty-three! Any new opinions on Mackenzie? xx