Chapter 35 #2
If I didn’t know where to start, he certainly didn’t, so I guided him to the bed where we settled among the twisted sheets.
He had one pillow. Two more presided somewhere in the bedroom.
We didn’t make a move to get them because when I collapsed on the bed; I brought him on top of me.
Roys laid comfortably between my thighs, his head on my chest while my fingers ran through his hair.
Cuddling had never been my strong suit, either. I seemed to suck at a great deal of things. But he must have given me a passing score because Roys was more than content, as was I. One of his hands caught mine so our fingers could intertwine, and I couldn’t believe how that made my blood run hot.
“When did you start?” I asked.
“Fifteen. It was the only way I could make it through the days.”
“Too hungry, too cold, too miserable.”
“Yeah.” He squeezed my hand. “I started moira through work. High Risers loved dragging us up from the filth to serve them. I didn’t care, so long as I got a serving job at one of their clubs.
There were less than savory individuals at the establishment.
Synthetics were par for the course, and sex.
My life’s a blur between the ages of fifteen to twenty-two.
I was too fucking high. That’s all that mattered — the next fix. ”
“What changed at twenty-two?” I had a pretty good guess, but I wanted Roys to continue peeling back layer after layer until there was nothing between us.
“Dinah. We worked at the same club, took the same shit, and had a less than serious relationship. She got pregnant.” He glanced up at me, his eyes full of shame he didn’t deserve. “Do you know what an agency is?”
I shook my head. He looked away.
“Abortion was too expensive, and adoption only happened among the High Risers, which is where an agency came in for the likes of us. It’s an institute that pays our medical bills and then keeps children in a shit shelter with shit food and shit education, just enough to send them off at thirteen to do shit work.
They’d be expected to pay back everything they owed, plus interest.”
“In other words, they’d be owned by the agency until they died,” I finished for him.
“Exactly, so Dinah wanted to keep the baby. I thought she was fucking mad. He wouldn’t survive the pregnancy, except Dinah quit.
I still don’t know how she did it.” He laughed, a sorrowful, choked sound that brought on his trembling.
“I was never father material, but I didn’t want Dinah to be on her own, and an agency was out of the question.
The militia offered stability, to keep me off when I had proven that I couldn’t do it on my own and… ”
He swallowed hard when looking at the picture of him and Malwin at the bottom of the bed.
“And maybe it’d keep him safe from me. I’m not like Dinah.
She hasn’t touched moira since, doesn’t even drink or smoke, but me?
A couple of times she wouldn’t let me visit because she found out I was using again.
Running myself ragged made it easier to ignore the urges, and when incidents like this occurred, it was easy to… ”
“Keep things quiet?” I offered.
“Yeah. I try, but it never works because the urge to use never goes away, and the militia, as it turned out, isn’t exactly a place to go to get clean. But if I’m gone, at least Malwin can see his dad as hardworking rather than a disappointment.”
My thumb rubbed the back of his hand, trying to memorize every crease and pattern. “I don’t believe he could think that.”
“Ethin,” he said simply, sadly.
“Isn’t thinking all that proof that you care? You’re not perfect, but no one is, and he looked so sad that he couldn’t talk to you. He must adore you.”
Roys wore red better than anyone; from his neck to his ears, he shined. He didn’t blush often. In fact, outside of the bedroom, I typically made him red with anger. It was nice to rattle him in a way that left him speechless.
“I lied in the caves. I remember my parents and I love them.” I drew a long breath.
Roys kissed my chest, and it made my heart soar.
“The thought of having anyone I could lose, who would make me feel that terrible every morning when I woke alone — I don’t even want to think about it.
They were gone a lot, working. I didn’t understand then, but I do now, and it makes me love them all the more.
If Malwin learned of all you have done to keep him happy and safe, his admiration would only grow. ”
“I don’t know what to do when you speak so kindly to me.”
“You could kiss me.”
Laughing, he did exactly that. He tasted like home, felt like a future unfurling.
Roys cupped my cheek when he didn’t need to.
I wasn’t going anywhere, so taken by the way his lips moved effortlessly against mine.
We may have started ragged and broken, and we still were in so many ways, but those jagged edges have become places we could fit, where we could piece ourselves together bit by bit.
“Will you tell me more about them one day? And Maddy?” he asked.
My throat constricted. The mere idea of speaking those memories aloud made my bones ache. My grip on his hand must have been painful, but he didn’t let go. The truth rumbled in the base of my chest, a rotten seed that could do nothing more than poison the rest of me.
“I fear I have hit my emotional limit for the next decade or so,” I whispered, because I couldn’t. Not yet. Not now.
He smiled against my mouth, and nothing could have felt better. “I’m surprised you haven’t burst into flames already.”
“I am on the verge, so handle me gently.”
“Like precious cargo. To clarify, Dinah and I aren’t together. We try to support each other, that's all."
I feigned a nonchalant shrug. “Why would I care about that?”
“Just thought you should know.” He hummed and caught his foot around my ankle to playfully tug. “Stay for a little while?”
I answered by pulling him into my chest, where my heart sang the truth too loud to ignore; I loved him.
Fuck.