Chapter Eleven #2
It was like Thomas had been holding himself together with string and Scotch tape, and now he’d crumpled. The walls he’d put up had been punched through and he didn’t have the energy to rebuild.
All day he hovered around Andrew, stood too close to him, found every excuse to touch him with anxious fingers. It felt like he’d crawl inside Andrew’s shirt if he could, sew himself inside Andrew’s skin.
Usually Andrew was the one who lay in shattered pieces needing to be put together, so this reversal at least felt fair. He owed it to Thomas.
Because Thomas, beautiful and harrowed and magical, was falling apart.
They sat in calculus when it happened. Andrew had opened his textbook before he noticed Thomas gripping his desk so hard his knuckles had gone white. He hadn’t brought a single pencil or notebook into class. He stared straight ahead, his eyes blank as his breathing grew faster and faster.
Panic attack.
Andrew’s heartbeat skipped in sympathy, and he leaned over his desk. “Thomas.”
Professor Clemens strode in, calling out an enthusiastic greeting.
He was white and much younger than their previous teacher and always wore dashing three-piece suits with thick glasses and a charming smile.
On day one of school, everyone decided he was hot.
On day two, they rearranged their opinion: They all hated him.
Clemens demanded perfection. Perfect work, perfect focus, perfect attitudes, perfect respect toward him.
Anything less, he mocked. He singled out students with jibes that burned like acid, made people do their work on the whiteboard and ridiculed them the entire time, and cheerfully gave out Fs if anyone so much as spoke back.
It was the power, Andrew knew. Some people could get drunk on it.
“Good morning, students,” Clemens said, bright and energetic.
He slid off his tweed jacket and rolled his shirtsleeves.
“We have a lot to do today, so I’m glad to see everyone in their seats.
That pop quiz last week was fun, right? Warm congratulations to Mr. Emerson and Miss Obara for full marks.
Mr. Murphy got three out of twenty-five, which none of us are surprised about.
Miss Sato didn’t show her work, so I’ll assume she cheated and mark accordingly.
” His smile grew wider as students shrank.
“Ah, Mr. Rye, who loves to nap in my class. Today’s question is for you.
” He picked up a whiteboard marker and wrote fast across the board.
Does Thomas Rye Know How to Read?
A few nervous titters rippled through the class.
Andrew’s throat knotted so hard he couldn’t swallow. The only reason he didn’t get singled out was because Dove did his homework.
Thomas didn’t even notice he was today’s target. He stared at his desk, each breath low and ragged, still coming too fast.
Clemens tapped the marker on the board. “Judging from your mark of a big fat zero, I’d say the answer to this problem is: No. But we show our work in class, don’t we, Mr. Rye? Come to the front and redo question four.”
Thomas didn’t move.
Clemens had his back to the class, writing briskly across the whiteboard. “Pens out, everyone. Let’s play a game. Slowest to find the answer to this problem is next at the whiteboard.”
The class buckled down to work without a sound.
“Wake up, Mr. Rye, or you’ll be spending the whole class up front with me.”
Andrew leaned over and tried to pry Thomas’s fingers off his desk. “Hey. You have to slow your breathing.”
“I c-can’t.” His lips hardly moved. “I can’t … I can’t…”
Thomas was in pain. Nothing else mattered.
Andrew shoved out of his desk, his chair clattering. Half the class turned to stare.
Andrew framed Thomas’s face with his hands to focus his attention. “Look at me.”
“This is calculus, not drama, boys,” Clemens said in a mocking singsong voice.
Andrew whirled, his cheeks flaming and a go to hell stuck in his throat. “He needs some air.”
Clemens flicked Thomas a mocking once-over. “Sure. Why not. Why don’t we all just skip class today because we don’t feel like working? Who cares about grades? Who cares about college?”
Andrew yanked Thomas from his desk and towed him out of the room. He moved like a puppet, strings cut and tangled around Andrew’s fists.
Clemens opened the door for them. “You’re asking for a failing mark, both of you. Once you’ve finished your little break, head over to the principal’s office and let the secretary know you skipped for fun. Theatrics don’t work on me.”
The classroom door shut behind them.
In the hall, the world felt still and gray. The air tasted of dust motes and paper, of the muffled weight of being alone.
Thomas started to sink to the floor, but Andrew took fistfuls of his shirt and shoved him against the wall. Hard. Thomas flinched, but he was still hyperventilating.
“Stop it.” Andrew pressed against him and dug his fingers into Thomas’s collarbone.
“I’m dying.” Thomas’s mouth trembled.
“It’s a panic attack. I have a thousand of them a day, but you can’t. You’re the strong one.”
Thomas’s whimper came low in his throat, raw and fissured. “I can’t keep doing this. Not every night. I can’t, I can’t—”
“You’re not alone anymore, all right? I swear it.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
“What if it’s your sketchbook?” Andrew said. “It could be cursed. You have to stop drawing.”
“I did stop. The only thing I’ve drawn in ages is a stupid fruit bowl for art class. But I-I have to pass art. It’s my one thing. Wickwood will expel me if I fail every class. I’ll lose you, I’ll lose—”
Andrew didn’t want to hear him say Dove, didn’t want that reminder of who Thomas truly wanted to comfort him in this moment.
“You won’t lose me,” Andrew said fiercely.
Thomas’s tie had come undone, his blazer abandoned, old paint staining his cuffs. He looked a mess, mussy and unhinged. When Andrew let go, Thomas slid down the wall and sat there while Andrew stood over him, his legs a protective wall around Thomas’s crumpled body.
“Maybe it’s the pens you use?” Andrew’s mind powered into a frenzied whirl. “Or you’ve bled onto the drawings. And the blood, like, maybe it invoked something.”
“I didn’t.” Thomas played with the cuff of Andrew’s trousers. “I don’t even think while I draw sometimes. I’ll listen to music and draw random shit. It doesn’t mean anything. I just like monsters. Well, I used to.”
Back when their teeth were paper, not bone.
Andrew pressed his knuckles to the wall. “Let’s destroy your sketchbook in the forest tonight.”
“You’re not coming.”
“I’m coming,” Andrew said.
Thomas didn’t argue again. He wiped at his face with the back of his hand and let out a shaky breath.
His breathing evened out, but he made no move to get up. Andrew didn’t care, not while they still touched. He craved Thomas’s affection, with an intensity that left him dizzy. If he never had more, he had this.
It was almost worth being ripped apart by monsters.