Chapter Eight #2
It hadn’t always been this way between them.
Once, his father and Andrew and Dove had been an infallible trio, the three of them all each other had in the world after their mother had walked out.
The twins had been a mistake—though no one said that out loud—an accident between a French boy studying abroad in Australia for his final year of university and a Sydney girl who realized raising babies was not her thing.
His father’s parents had been rich, the kind of rich that when they died, they left their estranged son a small fortune that took him from living in a dank apartment and feeding his eleven-year-old twins tinned spaghetti to driving a BMW and becoming an internationally respected investor.
Lately, his father didn’t seem to have time to remember he had kids.
Andrew didn’t know why he’d called his father. What did he even want? His father to suggest he change schools, transfer home to Australia? Dragging Dove away from Wickwood would be a special sort of selfish.
“Yeah, that would be good,” Andrew managed to say.
“Great.” His father acted like he was on a business call, not talking to his son. “And classes are going okay? You’re sleeping? Eating? Did you talk to the school counselor?”
Andrew, who wasn’t doing any of those things, said, “Yup.”
“Good job, son. Talk soon. Love you.” Rote words. His father had ended the call almost before he finished saying them.
Andrew let himself into his dorm room and dumped his books on the floor, wanting to throw his phone or bite his tongue till it bled or—
“Thomas?”
He lay starfished on his bed in gym shorts, shirt off, his curls stuck to still-glistening cheeks. It didn’t look like a lazy afternoon nap. He was so out of it that he didn’t even twitch at Andrew’s entrance.
He looked softer when he slept, sweet almost. But he’d been crying.
The urge to go to him nearly ended Andrew right there. Thomas was so, so not okay. But he was the one cutting Andrew out. They’d barely been in the same room for two weeks.
“You could sleep at night instead of sneaking out to the forest, you know,” Andrew said since he wouldn’t be heard. “Aren’t you meant to be at soccer practice right now? Or a study group? Instead of, you know, studying Dove all the time.”
Thomas really had the most perfect back, freckles pattering all the way down his spine. But all Andrew could focus on was that deep, wine-colored scar on his shoulder. The missing parents who put it there.
Andrew loosened his tie and opened his wardrobe to look for a soft sweater since uniforms weren’t required after classes ended.
“For the record, I don’t think you killed anyone.
You would’ve been caught by now. You suck at planning.
” Andrew tossed his shirt into the hamper, proud that he sounded factual and unemotional.
He was using his voice, buffing off the rust. “The real question is, why are you hiding what really happened? You’re protecting someone.
You hate your parents too much to cover for them, so you must be protecting—”
“You.”
Andrew spun around, smacking his head on the wardrobe door so hard he yelped.
Thomas stretched out on his bed like a sun-warmed cat. He must’ve scrubbed his face with the sheets, because his cheeks looked reddened now, not damp. Maybe Andrew had imagined the tear tracks.
He watched Andrew with half-lidded eyes, his voice smoky with sleep. “Thanks for analyzing my success rate of being a murderer.”
They were talking again. Andrew’s heartbeat skipped. “What do you mean protecting ‘me’?”
“By not talking to you.” He groaned as he rolled off the bed and snatched up a Wickwood sweatshirt. “You’re safer not talking to me.”
“That’s bullshit,” Andrew said, strangely calm. “As if we both don’t know what it is to deal with rumors.”
Thomas rubbed a palm against his eye and flinched.
That was when Andrew noticed the blisters all over Thomas’s hands. Cuts riddled his legs, too. From running in the dark forest?
“I’ll say sorry,” Andrew said. “I’ll say whatever you want.”
Thomas made a derisive sound. “I just listened to you say I’m too stupid to get away with murder. Maybe stop talking.”
Desperation had Andrew by the throat, and he should have stayed obediently quiet, but he couldn’t. “Anyone could be a monster. In the right circumstances. Motivated by the right thing. To protect someone else or to … to protect yourself. Is it that wrong to fight for yourself if no one else will?”
Thomas went for the door. He had no shoes on, and his hair looked electrified, eyes unfocused. “I need some space.” He sounded tired, no malice left.
“Self-defense isn’t murder.” Andrew knew he was babbling, but he didn’t want him to leave. “N-not that you did anything. But I don’t see why you’re so upset when they abused you—”
“They don’t abuse me. Accidents happen.”
“Oh sure, accidents happen again and again and leave scars.”
Thomas cast him a sour look.
“I would do something terrible if I had to protect someone,” Andrew said, desperately wishing he could shut up. “I’d do anything for Dove. Or … or you.”
But Thomas didn’t answer, he only slammed the door behind him.
Andrew punched the door. Just once. Every bone in his fingers screamed and he had to shake out his hand and pace their small room to calm down.
His heart raced with pure panicked adrenaline.
He was losing Thomas, watching him slip between his fingers and sink into the earth.
Roots would grow over his face and dirt would fill his mouth and he’d be lost forever.
Andrew snatched his notebook and wrote out the story he’d been stewing over for days. He ripped out the page, and the ragged edges matched his ragged breathing.
He tacked it to the window so that the next time Thomas opened it to sneak out, he’d have to read it.
The story meant nothing, just another vignette, but maybe Thomas would draw it and that would be like talking again. Not that Thomas even had a sketchbook around anymore. Drawing was the reason he breathed, the thing he craved whenever a pencil was snatched from his fingertips.
Something was eating Thomas alive if it distracted him from his art.