31. Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-one
Matt
I had heard the alarm.
I hadn’t been headed to Ace’s office, but I turned in that direction when I heard it. I had watched him rush out of his office and head straight toward the stairs. I couldn’t yell after him. I didn’t want to chase.
I followed the alarm to his computer.
And I watched as - as Jake - as he dragged Casey out of the pool.
Something had happened.
What had happened?
“Matt?”
My heart jolts in my chest, but my body is frozen, the air in my lungs nothing but icy shards.
It’s Ace. It’s Ace and he’s safe and I’m okay if he’s here, but my body doesn’t care.
“I don’t know what you saw, but Casey is okay. He’s alive. Jake said he breathed. He’s breathing. He’s going to be alright.”
The words are meant to soothe, but - but - but there were brown shoes and chocolate on my chin and I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t breathe - only, only, only 45 seconds - and - and Jake - Jake didn’t - he didn’t - but I did - I breathed - I -
He’s alive.
He breathed.
He’s breathing.
He’s going to be alright.
I want to tell Ace that I breathed too. I’m still breathing. I want to tell him that it doesn’t matter. I’m not alive. I’m not alright. Breathing didn’t save me.
Except there’s no air in my lungs to tell him, and even if there was, my voice is gone. All I can do is stare at him and gasp for air in a room full of it.
Will Casey be like me now? Will we haunt this place together? Or did Jake get to him in time?
Jake saved him.
Jake is a hero. That’s what he does. He saves people.
But Jake didn’t save me.
There’s that blank spot, a stretch of terrifying black space in my mind, the time between my last remembered breath and waking up gasping, but I know in my gut that Jake didn’t save me. He had just stood there, staring at me as I died. It wasn’t Jake I woke up to. It was Bryce.
I don’t know what happened.
I don’t know if I want to know what happened.
Only, only, only 45 seconds, Dr. Deacon had said.
Casey breathed, but so did I. It took me longer, I think, but I did it too. I breathed too.
Why is he alright when I’m not?
Why is he alive when I died?
Why is he talking when I can’t?
I fucking breathed, too.
Why am I the ghost?
I don’t want to be a ghost anymore.
It’s not fair.
It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair.
I breathed, I fucking breathed, it’s not fair -
“Shhh, shh, you’re okay. One second. Let me just - okay. Here. Come here.” Hands are on me, gentle as they guide me somewhere. I panic for a second, everything hazy, before remembering where I am.
Ace’s office. This is Ace. I’m safe with Ace.
I’m safe here. Especially when he helps me sit on the couch, as close to my hiding spot as he can get me without me cooperating.
I glance at my blanket pile in the corner, but it’s too far away.
So far. I’m dizzy and I can’t breathe and it’s too far and it’s not fair - it’s not fair, it’s not - and my throat - it’s my throat, it’s closed, I can’t breathe, there’s no air, only, only, only - and there are brown shoes and it hurts, god, it hurts, please, please, please-
My hands are pried away from my throat. It hurts - my throat hurts. Inside and out. Burns. It burns, burns, bur-
“And here.” He presses something into my hands.
Something so, so soft. “Can you feel that? Your bunny? He’s okay.
He’s here and safe and soft and blue and he has this little pink nose that’s fucking adorable, yeah?
You feel that?” He takes one of my hands, adjusting it until he’s rubbing the pad of my thumb over the stitching of silky pink thread.
“I had this bear once. It was this exact shade of pink, and the inside of its ears and the circles on his paws were, like, pastel quilting? I used to trace the stitches of that quilting, all the little geometric lines. Can you feel that? The stitching? Or what about this, hm?” My hand is pulled away, curled up, then something cool and smooth is placed in my palm.
He folds my thumb over it. “Galaxies, remember? Our favorite one.”
I rub little circles into the stone, trying to match my breathing to it. Because I can breathe. I’m doing it right now. It just doesn’t feel like it.
I’m so tired of it not feeling like it.
“Hey, shh. Just breathe, okay? Just breathe.”
There’s a sign for it. There’s a sign to explain - to tell him - to - to - the hands, both hands, drop the bunny, close the fingers around the stone, fists, two fists, pointer fingers out, tap, tap, I tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap-
“You can’t. That’s the sign for ‘can’t’, yeah? You can’t wha - oh. You can’t breathe? That it, Matt?”
I sob.
I can’t stop moving my hands. Can’t, can’t, can’t-
“You can’t breathe.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, everything burning, burning, burning.
I wait for him to do what everyone does - to tell me I can breathe, to tell me I’m breathing right now, to tell me it’s all in my head even though it isn’t.
He doesn’t.
Instead, he says, “How about I breathe for you for a while then? And you just focus on that.”
And he takes my hand, nice and gentle, and guides it to his chest. He’s in a sweater that’s… actually really wrinkled and has something stained on the collar, which is unlike him, but it’s soft, very soft, and his chest is solid beneath my hand.
His chest rises and falls.
Rises and falls.
Rises and falls.
“Plenty of oxygen here. It’s alright if you can’t feel it yet. I’ve got you. See? I’m breathing just fine. You take your time catching up.”
I stare at my hand on his chest, rising and falling with him. My head is clearing. It hurts, it always hurts after my lungs forget how to work, but it’s a different hurt. More of a tired aching. My eyes feel heavy with it. My whole body does.
“I’m gonna turn on some music, okay? I’ll be right-”
I scrunch my fingers, grabbing onto the fabric of his sweater without thinking. He freezes, his eyes going wide. They are very, very brown - but the edges are red.
I don’t want him to go. I don’t need music tonight. I just need this. Right here. This is working. He’s breathing for me and my lungs accept it and in this one little moment, I don’t feel like a ghost.
I don’t feel like a ghost at all.
I gently tug at his sweater, not toward me, but down - like I want him to sit harder or something. I don’t know the sign for ‘stay’, so I just try to say it with my face.
“You… don’t want music?” he asks, not upset, not even really confused, just making sure.
I let go of his sweater to tap his chest instead. That might make him think I’m talking about the breathing, though, so I shift my hand up to carefully touch his throat. He swallows hard. The lump there bobs beneath my fingertips.
He hasn’t been shaving.
“You want me to talk?” he asks, and his voice is a whisper now.
Even softened like it is, it’s a good sound. Warm and rumbling and safe. I don’t know when it happened, but the sound of him has become the underlying melody of all my safest moments.
I nod and sign, Please.
He smiles, and it’s blue, the deepest blue. “I’ll talk as long as you need me to, okay? Here, get comfortable. Want a blanket? This one is nice and fuzzy. Alright. Buckle up. Metaphorically, of course. Because I never told you about soy candles.”
Ace goes quiet at some point. I’m half-asleep, eyelids heavy, everything warm and safe and calm.
I stayed on track with the soy candles, and his fashion plan for Travis, and a tangent about multiple universes, but I eventually start to drift.
His words continued flowing in a steady, soothing stream, even as they trailed away from me, not letting my mind grasp them.
The quiet doesn’t even fully register until it’s interrupted by his voice.
He’s at his desk now, turned away from me.
There’s a phone pressed to his ear, his words spoken too softly for me to make them out.
I don’t strain to hear them. Just because he’s welcomed me into his space doesn’t mean he wants me eavesdropping.
It would feel especially violating, too, since he probably thinks I’m still asleep.
Whatever the conversation is about has his shoulders curling in, though. Then his head hangs. The lights are dimmed, but I have a feeling if they were at their brightest, I’d find his knuckles white where he grips his phone.
The thing about Ace is that he doesn’t get upset.
I’ve noticed that about him. He’s always calm and collected.
When Maison and Travis fight, when Maison and Carter fight, when Bryce tests them - he’s always steady.
The two times I’ve seen him anywhere close to upset was when our dinner was on fire and after Travis barged into the office.
Both times, he was more worried than anything.
Sure, sometimes he’s quieter and sometimes he’s bouncing off the walls, but he’s always happy.
Ace isn’t happy today, but that could be looked over. Whatever the story is with Casey, it’s obviously upsetting. It would probably be strange if he was his bubbly self after all of that. I don’t even think it’s been more than a few hours.
Except, as I play the past few days over, I find myself thinking maybe Ace hasn’t been happy for a while.
When was the last time he played music other than the blues? The last time he drank anything but those energy drinks? The last time I got an excited ramble?
He was wearing that sweater yesterday. He doesn’t do that.
Regardless of how hard he works, he always smells clean and wears clothes that are too nice for how often he just sits in his office.
He hates messy things. When he tried chopping wood while the operatives were gone, his jacket had gotten all full of dust and dried leaves.
I thought he was going to melt into the floor in dismay.
He’d smiled and laughed, though. Between his complaints and disgruntled looks, he smiled and laughed.
When was the last time I saw that bright smile?
When was the last time I heard that booming laugh?
Ace is wearing a sweater two days in a row, with a stain on the collar and wrinkles along his torso. He hasn’t shaved. His bottom lip is chapped. His eyes are red-rimmed.
I let my eyes wander, taking in the waste bin that’s filled with empty cans that match his energy drinks and… is that a broken computer monitor stuffed under his desk?
Ace isn’t bright or warm. He’s the wrong kind of blue. Is it that he’s been overworking? Is it something personal?
Is it me?
Is he sick of me?
He suddenly laughs, but it’s hollow and… something else. I can’t think of the word. It’d be on my feelings chart, probably, but I don’t want to dig my notebook out to look. I just know that it’s wrong. It’s not Ace at all.
Neither is his frustrated, “Fuck off,” or, after a stretch of silence, the broken, “Really?”
He seems to shrink in on himself as he listens. His left leg is bouncing now, the vibrations of it working up his body and transferring to his desk where his elbow rests.
Then he says, “But you don’t usually do that anymore.”
I sit up, purposely making noise as I do. It feels wrong to not let him know I can hear him now that I’m able to make out words.
He jerks around, pulling his hand away from his ear for a second before putting it back. His eyes stay on me as he says, “I have to go. Just… be safe, yeah?”
His voice is so much softer now.
He closes his eyes for a second before he says, even softer, almost too quiet to hear, “And Keaton? Just… thank you.” He ducks his head and rubs at his eyes. “I know. You too.”
Ace ends the call, placing his phone on the desk with his head still hanging.
I watch as he rubs at his eyes again. As he rolls his shoulders.
As he takes a deep breath, adjusts in the chair, and looks up to give me a smile so convincing, I almost believe it.
“Morning, sunshine. Or - well, evening, actually. Let me get the lights.”
I watch him walk over to the light panel. I don’t know if he’s aware that I can see a sliver of his expression from this angle, but I can. The smile is gone. Then I blink and he’s turning around with it back in place like it never went away.
Ace isn’t happy. He isn’t okay. I don’t know how long it’s been going on or why it took so long for me to notice, but now that I have, I need to do something about it.
He’s helped me so much. He gives me a place to hide and a soft place to rest and the blues.
He’s given me everything I’ve needed, even when I didn’t know I needed it.
I just have to figure out what he needs.
Then, no matter what it takes, I’m going to give it to him.