21 #3
“Yeah, because when you comfort me, we hug it out,” I threw right back.
“You help and lay it out for me. I’m doing the same.
We’re real with each other. People are worried and you stink.
I get why you’re out here, but—Taylor just smacked me upside the head that we’re all drowning and we can’t let people worry over shit they don’t need to. ”
“They don’t need to,” he whispered, and sounded hurt.
I turned and shoved his shoulder. “I’m worried. I worried for you that day. I’m here worried. I meant not even reading your aunt’s texts and letting people know you’re alive. Going wherever this is. You didn’t want to be fussed over. Fair. But you’re a target now too.”
“Why are you mad at me?” he asked, studying me.
I opened my mouth to tell him that I wasn’t, but I realized that I was.
Except I wasn’t.
“I’m not mad at you, just mad because I think I’m about to make a mistake,” I admitted. “There’s no right answer here and I can’t…” I gestured to him, disheveled, in desperate need of a shower, hair hanging in his face, and shirt hanging open in December.
In a place that it shouldn’t be open in December.
I was mad because I knew what I was going to do and I was pretty sure it was going to blow up in my face.
“I don’t know how to help you besides give you something that is a gift and a curse,” I admitted as I knelt next to him, sitting on my feet. I took the bottle away and stared into his eyes. “Be real with me for one second, okay?” I waited until he nodded. “How bad?”
I swallowed loudly when I saw everything Link was feeling fill his eyes all at once, swarm around us even like a storm.
Then it was gone and he was looking back out at the water, closed down again.
“Enough with the riddles. Tell Aunt Marilyn I’m fine. I’ve always known my parents didn’t really want a kid,” he mumbled. “I know I’m out of a job. Whatever. My best friend is dead. I’ll grieve and move on. I’ll figure it out. Leave me alone.”
“I can’t any more than you could me if you found me like this, Link,” I told him honestly. “But I think the only person who can help you can’t currently hear.”
He frowned but then snorted. “Yeah, Loki. Funny. Are you going to tell me that you can…” He blinked out at the lake and slowly looked at me. “No.”
I swallowed loudly. “It’s temporary. That’s why Wyatt was missing. He was spending all his time with Quinn.”
“Tell me.”
“I can’t tell you everything. I’ll be punished if I do,” I whispered. “It’s temporary, Link, you have to remember that. It’s one time and it lasted a week for them, but you’re drowning too deep and I don’t know how to help you.”
He didn’t say anything for several minutes, just leaving me there staring at my hands on my lap. “Please? If it doesn’t hurt you, please let me talk to Loki? I’ve wanted that so bad for so long and—I’ll take a week. One time a week. Fuck, that’s amazing.”
“It broke Wyatt to lose. I don’t know if it will hurt you worse in the end,” I rasped. “And I don’t have a lot. That’s why I was mad. I’m sorry. I was being selfish.”
He turned to me and covered my hands with his larger one. “Will you still be my friend at the end? Keep our deal and check on me?”
“Of course.”
“Then I’ll make it, Bev. I knew you guys would be there when I came back. I just… Please?”
The way his voice cracked on that please did me in. I reached over to my bag and pulled out the apple. The confusion on his face was almost amusing if it wasn’t such a serious situation.
“I don’t know how long it will last,” I reminded him. “We don’t know anything. It did something different for me than Wyatt and we’ve only eaten two.”
“I’m going to have questions later,” he murmured as he took it.
“I probably can’t answer them.”
He didn’t say anything for several moments. “I’m sorry you carry that. I’m sorry how lonely that makes you feel. Some of us push because we want to help you carry it, not because we think we’re owed the answers.”
“I need reminders of that,” I admitted. “All I see is the entitlement.”
“Fair.” He bit into the apple. “Thanks for coming to save me.”
“It’s what we do.” I stood and gave Loki a kiss. “Take care of him.” I swallowed loudly and looked back at Link. “Enjoy it. Text your aunt.” I wrinkled my nose again. “And shower. Seriously.”
He threw down a circle with a chuckle. “I’ll text you both.”
And then I was gone, hoping I’d done the right thing and trusted the right person. That the apple was a life preserver I’d just thrown him and not a weight I’d tied around both of our ankles.
Let something be a gift only, just this once.
The End
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