40. Ghost Story #2
Lev wrapped his arms around him. “I’m so sorry. I never meant to scare you, or hurt you. I hate that anyone has.” He pulled back, eyes darkening until they looked like the ocean at night. “Are you alright?”
Asher still quivered, but nodded. “How are you so good at this?”
“Silas.”
Fuck. “Do you mean he had panic attacks? Or…” Had Silas been hurt the way Asher had?
“Yes. On the nights before we’d be parted.”
“Parted how?” Asher shivered.
Lev frowned. “Come, let’s get you under the covers first.”
Asher must not have been able to conceal his disappointment because Lev added, “I intend to answer. You’re cold and I want to hold you if you wish. Unless…” Ginger brows darted together. “Would you rather sleep alone?”
“I’m not going to be able to sleep at all.” Asher pulled off his hoodie, taking his shirt with it.
Lev turned his back. “Why ever not?”
Asher threw his sweatpants at Lev. “You don’t need to look away. Just because I freaked out for a second doesn’t mean I don’t want you to see me naked again. Or fuck me again.”
Lev’s hair bobbed as he nodded. “Right. Well. It would be okay if that wasn’t true.” Lev still kept his back to Asher as he ditched his own sweater and tee.
Now it was Asher’s turn to look away from Lev and his strong back, muscles flexing and shifting as he untied black lounge pants that made his ass look amazing—honestly, any item of clothing from riding pants to pajamas made his ass look amazing.
Lev lay down beside him, flat on his back a respectful distance away. Asher didn’t wait to be invited. He settled himself against Lev’s side. Lev’s chest rose and fell on a sigh, his arm tightened around Asher, and his lips grazed Asher’s forehead.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Lev asked.
“I’m still waiting for an answer to my question.”
“Your question? Oh. Silas, right.”
Asher wasn’t convinced that Lev had forgotten.
“Silas and I were too close. Codependent, really. He only stayed at Lichenmoor over the summer and winter holidays, and was always so reluctant to leave. Not that I blamed him. Anorexia made him smaller than the others, and boys can be such little twats.”
“Do you wish you’d gone to school with him?”
Asher had read all about Lev’s upbringing sequestered away at Lichenmoor so he could focus on art.
A teacher prepared him for university, but his primary education had been an erratic schedule of lessons given by the greatest creative thinkers of his father’s time from artists to writers to scientists and mathematicians.
“I don’t know.” Lev huffed, shifting his gaze to the ceiling like a sullen teenager. “Father was adamant that my study in art was paramount. Not to mention, even if Father had approved, Silas’s mum would have forbidden it. So Silas had to face the world alone, while I stayed at Lichenmoor.”
“Was it lonely?”
“For me?” He shook his head. “But for Silas, very much so. He’d have attacks not unlike your own. I’d always felt so helpless and heartbroken to watch him suffer. The first time it happened I was terrified something was medically wrong and went to get Wendell.”
Asher had been terrified too. He’d thought he was dying and called 9-1-1. The resulting commotion of an ambulance had humiliated him more, especially when he’d returned with the diagnosis that it was all in his head.
Maybe that’s what panic attacks were. When someone was dealt a lethal blow—an emotional one—the brain became confused and thought it was dying.
Steady rainfall filled the space Lev left behind as he trailed off into silence.
“I wonder…” Lev said and drifted into an even longer beat of silence.
“You wonder what?” Asher prodded, wanting to hear all of Lev’s thoughts before he filtered them for his consumption.
“Sorry. I don’t want you to misunderstand or think I’m trying to force you into Silas’s role. I want you for you. I don’t want Silas. Understood?”
“Oh my God, yes!” Asher said with sardonic exasperation. “Stop holding me in suspense.”
Lev chuckled. “It’s not that scandalous. You’ll be disappointed. Silas and I used to have this way of working through his attacks. I’d draw on his skin to help him focus only on the present, and only on me, carving out a place where the past and future couldn’t haunt or hurt him.”
“How did you know what to do? You were a kid, right?”
“Wendell had loads of books on psychology. He’d believed that one could never write well without understanding the human condition.
A character’s wounds and how they’re healed, neglected, or coped with guide all of their future thoughts and actions.
Wendell taught me many things, and I think that lesson was the most important, because it taught me empathy.
Forgiveness. Even for those who’ve hurt me. ”
“It doesn’t seem like you give yourself that same empathy in return.”
“Some sins are too great to be forgiven, even if their origin can be understood. What Ben did to you, for example. Or what I did to Silas. I could forgive myself for failing Father, but never Silas.”
“Lev…” How had Lev failed Silas? Wait. “Did you hurt Silas the way Ben hurt me?”
“No, Blakely. Never that.” Lev turned onto his side and met Asher’s eyes. “You believe me, don’t you?”
His answer came to him quickly. No contemplation required. “I do.”
“Would you like to try it?” He cleared his throat. “Erm, my version of grounding, that is. I think I could benefit from thinking of only now and only you, as well. The past is rather loud right now.”
“Sure.” How could he deny Lev what comfort he could give? And he would give anything to have Lev draw on him.
“Do you trust me?”
“I do.” He shouldn’t, but he did.