Page 126 of Rules to Love By

Tris materialized beside him. “We knew it was bad.”

But seeing it made everything real. “He really did this.”

“He really did everything,” Tris agreed.

“Sometimes I thought—I mean…” Marcus curled a lip. “I convinced myself it had to be in my head. Iris would have kicked him out, right? If he was this bad?”

“No.” Tris rubbed his arm. “You didn’t imagine it. Just that Iris, well… She had some blind spots.”

“What do you mean?”

“She saw good in people, Marcus. Even if she didn’t often show it. But sometimes that blinded her to the not-so-good. Like me. She should have fired me. Johnathan wasn’t wrong about that.”

“He was,” Marcus said, stubborn.

“How often did I show up late? Or so… whatever, she had to send me upstairs to get cleaned up before I could work? Or even just sleep? How many times did I not show up at all? Most of the time, because I was so filthy, I didn’t dare show my face.”

“She loved you.”

“I know. That’s why she gave me beyond my fair share of chances.” He swallowed hard and blinked. “She never gave up on me.”

“And she never gave up on Johnathan.” Marcus slumped. “And this is how he repaid her.”

“That’s who she was,” Tris said.

“And this is who he is.”

“Come on.” Tris turned back towards the kitchen. “Help me look around.”

Marcus’s feet didn’t move, like he was cemented to the spot. “This is bigger than me, Tris.”

Eli wrapped an arm around his shoulder, leaning so his face was close to Marcus’s cheek and his breath blew warm across his skin. “Breathe.”

Marcus did, a deep almost gasp that stuck in his throat and blocked his words.

“It’s not bigger than all of us,” Eli promised him, lips brushing the words over the rising goose bumps.

Marcus nodded.

“Breathe,” Eli said again.

This time, Marcus managed a shallow but controlled intake of air.

“Good.” Eli pressed his forehead to Marcus’s temple. “Again.”

For a few minutes, they stood like that, Eli issuing single-word orders, Marcus latching onto each one for the lifeline it was.

Everything else faded to the background. The mess, the other people, the panic and the overwhelm all went away, replaced by Eli’s warmth and steady, reassuring voice in his ear.

When he could breathe normally again, without the need for someone whispering the instructions into his body to make it happen, he squared his shoulders. “I’m good.”

“Sure?” Eli asked, giving him a minute barrier of space between them.

Marcus nodded.

“I’m right here,” Eli said. “If you need me.”

As if it was the final piece to the process of being a real human, the promise bolstered Marcus and he could stand without hunching his spine or wishing he could close his eyes and be elsewhere. Like the underpinning of Iris’s rules all his life, just knowing the support was there made it so he didn’t need it, and he nodded.

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